A Tiny Homestead

The Green Korner

Today I'm talking with Monica at The Green Korner. You can also follow on Facebook.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast thanks Chelsea Green Publishing for their support.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Monica at The Green Korner. Good morning, Monica. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good. And where are you located again? In Houston, Texas. Okay. I didn't catch any accent. I...
00:29I could have guessed if there was an accent, but you don't have one. Oh, no. That's because I'm Costa Rican. My family moved into the States 50 years ago. However, I was born in Costa Rica and my parents brought me to the States when I was one year old. Okay, that makes sense. So I have been living in both countries since then. Okay. So you're in Texas. Cool. Yes. All right. So tell me about yourself and the green corner. Yes.
00:57Like I said, I was brought into the States when I was 12 months. My great grandparents, they used to have tobacco farms. And my grandparents, they used to raise cattle and obviously they used to grow their own food. However, I was not really raised into that environment. And that was way before my time. Just a normal person. You know, I'm a community health worker.
01:26And then we have the pandemic. And I was bored, quite honestly. I was like, oh my gosh, what am I supposed to do now? And I saw, it was a video, I believe it was on YouTube, about growing pineapples from the store. I'm like, yeah, right.
01:47little that I knew that was going to be the beginning. I'm like, hmm, let me, you know, just get some pineapples. I started like growing, experimenting. Then I went with bunching onions and name it. So my dining room became a lab. And I'm like, hmm, okay, I'm liking this. So let me just start doing it outside in my backyard. And within a few weeks, I'm like,
02:17convert my home into an urban homestead. So I redesigned my entire backyard. It's no longer a backyard. It's a mini urban farm. Every single inch, it's a racemate.
02:35That's how The Green Korner came to life. Yeah, I was gonna say, is that why it's called The Green Korner? That is why it's called The Green Korner because in the early stages, I bought me a green house from Walmart. And it was a mess. I didn't know what I was doing. I was barely learning. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this corner is so green. Because I was upset because then I had ants beneath.
03:04And I'm like, Green Corner, ooh, I like this name. That's how Green Korner, you know, the name that's where it came from. And then it was with a K because it's very distinctive. It's not like, you know, normal Green Corner. It's a very unique project and that's where the name came from. That's a great story. So.
03:32I ask everybody this, are you using what you're doing to support the green corner or are you just doing this for you? No, I'm not doing it for me. Actually my vision is to touch as many lives as possible. I want to set an example that if I did it, you can do it. You don't have to have a agricultural degree. You don't have to.
04:02know much. You can learn on your own and go from there because at the end of the day I believe growing our own food, that's what the future is. Yeah. And I feel like if you can read and you can read directions, anybody can grow produce. Anybody. Oh, absolutely. I watch infinite YouTube videos.
04:28books, now I'm attending gardening classes in my community, which are free. I mean, the resources are there if you look for them. So my goal is to be another resource to people. Absolutely. And I'm going to do a shameless plug because you gave me a perfect opportunity to do it. My sponsor is Chelsea Green Publishing, and they have so many books about
04:56just getting started and about growing things and homesteading and all the things that people want to read about. So if you want to go see Chelsea Green Publishing's list of books, it's ChelseaGreen.com. Thank you for giving me an opening, Monica. I appreciate it. You're welcome, Mary. You're the first person that I've actually been able to work that in with. So pineapples, I need to know more about pineapples. How did you...
05:25How did you do that? Pineapples, you cut the crown, you put them in water, roots will start developing and then you transfer them into soil and after two years, you will get a pineapple, mind you, it has to be an organic pineapple. It has to be an organic pineapple. Now, carrots, please, those videos are not true. You cannot grow carrots from scraps.
05:55I experimented with all of these hacks that they have. But to me that was the doorway into really learning how to grow food in a hundred percent organic way. I think that's the next step for anyone that will want to grow food. The purpose of it is to stay away from chemicals. And there's a way to work.
06:25with Mother Earth. She gives us everything. All we have to do is just learn to combine herbs with vegetables. It's that simple. Yes, and Mother Nature sometimes takes things away. We had a whole ton of rain this spring and our cucumber plants are a mess because they got light really early. And there's nothing we can do about it.
06:52It's just the way it went this year and we're so sad about the whole garden. And it's okay, you know, it happens. We had three summers of fantastic produce growing and this is the fourth summer and it has been a total wash. Oh, I'm so super excited. That's heartbreaking. Well, I'm not having good luck with cucumbers this season either. Actually, I'm fixing to plant some more.
07:21and see what happens because the heat, it's overwhelming here now. Yeah, it's I have never seen this type of heat before. So it's plants are struggling a little bit, but it's OK. We, you know, we move on and we keep on working with new crops. Now I'm experimenting with cassava. Oh, OK. Yes. So, you know, just this is just about to go with the flow, go with nature. Climate changes, crop changes.
07:52Yes, exactly. I had a lady call me this morning and she was like, is this Mary? And I said, it is. And she said, I talked to you last summer about cucumbers and you had the most beautiful cucumbers. She said, you guys haven't eaten this year? And I was like, no, I'm so sorry. And I said, check back with me in two weeks. We might buy some miracle, have some. And she was like, I will do that. And I'm thinking there's no way we're gonna have cucumbers, but I'm hoping. Just crossing your fingers, right?
08:20Yeah, we have some in our greenhouse that are blooming and there's little tiny cucumbers out there, but I don't think it's going to make the amount that she would like to buy. So we're doing what we can. So back to the pineapple thing real quick. What kind of soil do they like? And I know they like it to be hot, right? They like it to be hot and they like it to be very acid. Okay. Oh, she did not like it when I used to fertilize them.
08:49Oh my gosh, that was funny. I had like 10 or 15 growing at the same time and I did a fertilize half and the other half I didn't because that's another thing. I built the green corner for the soil not to be fertilized every single season. We need to...
09:15learn from Mother Nature and understand how she works and just imitate her. I mean, she doesn't fertilize anything, right? So, on the experimental stage, I learned pineapples do not like fertilizers. Huh, okay. At least mine. That was my experience, of course. Yeah, and is it only one pineapple per plant? It's just one pineapple per plant, yes.
09:43and do the plants take up a lot of room? They grow so beautiful. I mean, you can use them as ornamental plants. Okay. They're gorgeous, yes. You have to transfer them from, if you're doing it on container gardening, you have to transfer them to bigger pots as they grow and grow and grow and grow. I don't grow them anymore, just because now my main focus
10:12It's on herbs and other types of crops, non-fruits. So I stopped doing pineapples. Yeah, I just, I didn't know anything about growing pineapples because we're not going to grow pineapples in Minnesota. I don't think it's gonna, I don't think it would work. We could maybe, maybe do it in the heated greenhouse, but I don't know that it would be, I don't know that the return on investment would be worth doing it.
10:39No, maybe just as a small hobby experiment, but that's about it. Yes, not as mass production, no. No. No, and where are pineapples usually grown? I mean, the ones we buy in the store, where are they grown? They grow in the tropics. Yeah. They're tropical and subtropical. So mostly that I'm aware of, the ones that we get in the United States are from Central America and Mexico.
11:09That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to say it and sound stupid this morning. Okay, so are you donating produce to the food shelves? Are you selling produce? What are you doing with what you're growing? Yes. Well, the focus of the Green Corner is not really to sell produce. It is more a community project slash I created.
11:38and infused basil flower Himalayan salt for culinary purposes. So that's the product for the Green Corner. It's the basil flower infused Himalayan salt. It's already on Amazon. Wow. Yes, that's the first product from the Green Corner into the market.
12:06And, but not, it's not selling produce. If anything, I'm trying to grow more food just to be able to go to the community centers and give this produce to, you know, to the ones in need. But for now, it's being mainly family members and friends. Fantastic. Share the wealth, it's a good thing to do. Oh, absolutely, yes ma'am. The...
12:35The infused salt, that must smell amazing while you're making it. Oh my gosh, you have no idea. It's so satisfying and everything is by hand. We don't use machines. Everything is by hand. So you get the pleasure because it's delightful. Uh-huh. We grow basil every year and we grew a bunch in the greenhouse this year because again, the garden was pretty much a loss.
13:03And I was drying basil a week or so ago in the oven. I was just like, oh my God, I love this time of year. I love it. Right. Yes. I'm blessed to have this type of weather in Houston, Texas, because I have it almost 12 months. Yeah, we will. We will because we have the heated greenhouse. So we're going to continue to grow basil all winter this year. I'm so, so excited about this. We're going to grow herbs. We're going to grow.
13:32leafy greens, we're going to try growing carrots and raise beds and beets and radishes and see how it goes. Yum! And maybe be able to sell locally grown produce in January in Minnesota. That would be amazing. I would be so tickled to be able to do that because it's like, it seemed impossible when we first moved here four years ago that we would be able to grow anything in the wintertime outside.
14:00And technically it's not outside, it's in a greenhouse. And I applied for a grant for building a heated greenhouse and we got it and it's built and we just have to put the insulation in and get a wood stove and some IBC containers to put water in. We use the wood stove to heat the water. The water's gonna radiate the heat out in the greenhouse and it should be about 60 degrees all winter long in there. Beautiful. Uh-huh, I'm so excited. I cannot wait to get this done.
14:31Oh wow, I'm so happy for you. Thank you and me too. This is, we really wanted to do this. We've talked about it for years and just didn't know how to make it happen. And then there was a grant that I saw and I was like, I'm gonna apply for that grant. I'm gonna say we wanna use that money to make a heated greenhouse in Minnesota. And the grant people said, yes, here, take our money and do that, please.
14:58Nice, why not? And this is the thing, you know, you have to really look for the resources. They're there. You just have to go to the grinding and you will find them. And it is grinding. I can't tell you how many hours I put in about six months ago, looking through different grants for.
15:19women business owners because I'm the owner of our business, a tiny homestead LLC, because it's better if a woman is an owner if you're looking for grants. That's right. And I spent hours combing the internet for legitimate grant offers that we would be right for. And I only found maybe four in the entire hours that I spent digging. So it is work. It's time. But it pays back.
15:49It does. So it's worth it. It's worth it. Yup. It absolutely is. And the best place to start is with any of the local to you extension service offices because they might know. And the other thing that I found is that the small business administration offices that are local to wherever you live, they have people who are specifically in charge of helping you find grants.
16:19Yes, yes, they do that. That's my next step for the Green Corner because so far I have self-funded everything. So now it's time to expand even more. Oh, absolutely, because you have to. When you're a new business starting out, you can't self-fund it forever. You will go broke.
16:48If you go quick and just having a regular full-time class, your site business is not going to do it for much longer if you want your business to thrive and if you want to really serve the community. Yeah, you'll burn out if you don't have resources to fall back on. Absolutely. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful thing to do, but it's real work.
17:15Oh, it sure is, it sure is. And I just can't wait to have people, homeowners, or even people that they live in apartments, downhouses, to come back and tell me, thank you. Thank you, you know, like now we are eating from our own hands, this is amazing. And I do picture a world where every...
17:41home will have their own garden and flourishing and you know having this biodiversity that needs our help. Absolutely, yes. And I don't want to sound panicky or anything, but I was looking at Facebook and stuff this morning because I do that trying to find more people to interview because Facebook is great for feeding me people to talk to. And there was a link to an article about this monkey pox thing that's going on right now.
18:11And I don't know if it's true. I'm not going to say it's true, but it might be the next pandemic. And I'm like, I am not ready for another pandemic. No. I heard that last year. Uh-huh. So, so it might be, I feel like it might be smart for us all to consider that COVID was not.
18:38was not a unicorn that there are other things that might come down the pike that we might want to prepare for. Absolutely. And like I said, I don't want to be alarmist because I don't like that. Don't panic. Everything's okay. But if you have the wherewithal and the means to maybe start thinking about what you would need if the supply chain shut down again and maybe start planning for that ahead of time.
19:06it might be a little less difficult. Oh, yes, absolutely. If anything, if anything, COVID gave us the tool. Exactly what you just said, you start planning, you start learning, you start implementing. So whatever comes our way, you will be prepared. Yep. And you will be able to sleep at night knowing that your family's well-fed.
19:34Yes, absolutely. And I, I hate being the person who's going to be heard saying there's this thing that might be coming down the pike. Get ready, because I don't want to be the, the person that's crying wolf because I don't, I don't want to be that person. You know? Yes. Yes. And, and I don't think, I don't think you are at all or any of us that are foreseen future events.
20:04because at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with taking precautions. It's just like, you know, saving everybody. Now, if you have to say for in case of an emergency, well, everybody, it will be good if everybody start working towards learning how to grow what they like the most, just in case there's nothing wrong with that. If anything, that will that will give people satisfaction. For sure. My daughter.
20:33just moved to Florida over the winter and she had been living in California. And California is now having the little earthquakes. And I can't lie, I'm real happy she's not still in California. And I'm real concerned that there's going to be a big earthquake in California sooner than anybody knows. And I'm so thankful that she's not there anymore. The one that just happened in Los Angeles, she lived in LA.
21:03So she's now in Florida and I understand that Florida gets hit with with hurricanes. But I feel like maybe a hurricane might be more survivable than an earthquake right where you are. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I I lived under both conditions. Costa Rica, we get a lot of earthquakes and I lived in Florida for two years and yes, hurricanes piece of cake.
21:32If you compare them to an earthquake, obviously. Yeah. When she moved to California, she was like, you guys should come visit me in California. And I was like, sweetie, no, no, I'm not coming to California. I'm sorry. And she was like, but, and I like, no, no, you can come visit us in Minnesota where we get blizzards and we get downpours, but we don't get hurricanes and typically don't get earthquakes. Yeah.
22:02So, yeah, I saw the 4.5 earthquake news come through on LA the other day and I was like, oh, thank God she's not in LA right now. I would be crying, you know? Yeah. So, but there are things you can do to prepare for everything and you can't know everything to prepare for. So it's a double-edged sword. You do what you can. And
22:30Sometimes even that isn't enough, but at least you feel like you've done what you could exactly Exactly, and and it puts you in a track of Thinking out of the box Yeah, we uh, we don't have a lot of herbs growing this year either and I had dried a whole lot of thyme and basil and rosemary
22:56And I don't even know what else last summer when the garden was doing really well. And my son brought in some basil from what is growing out there a couple days ago. And he was like, do you want to dry this? And I said, I do. And I looked in my pantry and I have bags of dried basil from last summer. And I was like, thank God I did that last year because we're not going to have a lot to dry this year. So even in...
23:24Even in a situation where there's not something big and scary coming down the pike immediately, I still am prepared for this winter for herbs because I did the thing last summer. That's right. And that's how our great grandparents or grandparents, they used to do it. When they would stop, why they would stop, you know? So I think it's time to bring that back into our real life.
23:51Yeah, and I'm not gonna lie, basil you buy from the store in the little plastic containers that's dried is not nearly as potent as basil you grow. Of course not. No, not at all. It doesn't even compare. No, it does not. It does not. Yes. The show of life, it's long.
24:20You know, so stores, I'm pretty sure they don't control that as tight as other products. So, yes, they lose their flavor really fast. Yeah, and herbs are easy. I mean, I'm not... If you have a black thumb, which I don't believe anybody actually has a black thumb, I think they just don't have the information to work with to not kill their plants.
24:50If you want to start small, herbs are the best thing ever. Thyme grows like a weed. Basil grows really well. Rosemary does really well almost all over the United States. And it's simple to process. You literally just cut whatever you wanna use for the leaves off the plant. Just cut the stems. And then you put it on a cookie sheet and you roast it in your oven.
25:19at the lowest temperature possible for about an hour, and then you check them. And if the leaves are crinkly, when you squish them between your fingers, they are dry enough to go in canning jars or Ziploc bags. You put them in a dark cabinet, you label the jar or the bags, you know what it is. And it's good for like two or three years. It's the simplest thing ever. That's it. Or even if you don't wanna use your oven, if you are so concerned about your electricity bill,
25:49just hang them in a dark place. Yes, but you really got to check them. I've done that and I've had a couple mold on me. So, oh, really? Yep. Oh, no. Yeah, I never had mold in mine. Well, your climate is different than ours, too. Yes. Well, of course, that that also depends on.
26:13the room that you're going to put them in. But I know there's some people because they have asked me this question. Oh, I don't want to use my oven. You know, I don't want to .. I'm like, okay, just hang them in there. Yes, you're right. They need air circulation. Dark air circulation. If you have those conditions, you don't need your oven. Yeah. And our oven is a propane gas oven. So I'm not too worried about the electricity. Oh, nice.
26:41And propane gas is really efficient. I had no idea. It is. I love it. Yeah, so that's how we do it. We also have a food dehydrator that you plug in the wall. And if we're swamped in stuff, we need to get dried. We'll use that. But usually we just use the oven because it's fairly quick. Oh yes, yes, yes. I'm telling you, we have all the tools we need. We just have to use them.
27:08Yeah, I just wanted to explain how we do it because I haven't really gotten too deep into the process of how to dry herbs on the podcast. And my mom actually asked me about it yesterday morning because she has basil she needs to harvest. And she said, I'm sure you've explained this to me before, but tell me again. And I was like, it's super simple. Here's what you do. She was like, thank you so much. And I was like, you are so welcome. I'm going to talk about this on the podcast sometime this week.
27:38No, that's awesome. Well, it's kind of like me. When I was learning how to infuse rosemary into olive oil, because I love rosemary with olive oil. Yes. Yes. I had to go back to my information several times because each time I will forget. It happens. It happens.
28:06I'm with your mom. Yeah, and the thing is if you don't do it every year you will forget. That's right. I mean, I've made I've made French onion soup for years once it gets cold and every fall I have to get my recipe out and read through it again to remind myself of the steps. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely Yes, so it's not a sin to forget things. It's fine
28:34As long as you have you haven't written down somewhere. Exactly. And as you get older, your brain gets full. You know how, you know how you have to clear the cache on your computer and defrag your computer once in a while? The same thing with the brain. It's the same thing with the brain. Yes. And I don't know any way to defrag or clear the cache in my brain because my brain just soaks up everything. So I figure by the time I'm 75, I'm going to be like, I have
29:02dig way back to find the thing I want in my brain. Right, yes, and that's when writing, making lists, making notes, it becomes your best friend. Yeah, absolutely. And we're all human. We all make mistakes. We all have great successes. We all forget things sometimes. Sometimes we're talking along and use the wrong word even though the brain said use this word, the other word came out of your mouth. Yes.
29:30Isn't that amazing how it happens? Uh-huh. I've done it on the podcast and I'm like, I meant to say something else. That was stupid. And then I listened to it back and I'm like, well, nobody else knew what word I was digging for so it's fine. That's right. But either way, you are doing a fantastic thing at the green corner. I'm very excited for you. How long have you been doing it? It has been a almost four years project.
30:00Yep, you said COVID, so it must have been four years. Yes, and the basil flower infused salts, we just launched it last month. Okay, cool. How's it going? It's going good. It's going slow, which that was forecasted. I'm not surprised at all, but I'm loving every single step of the way. Okay, and the Himalayan salt with the basil flowers, you said? Yes.
30:29Yes. Is that that's for cooking with? That is for cooking. You can use it as garnishing or you can use it like in your recipes. In our website, we give recipes on our weekly newsletter at the corner.com. So people will know how to use it if they need an idea as well. Yes. Okay. I have a crazy question.
30:58Himalayan salt is good in a bathtub, right? Like you're gonna take a bath. Yes, some people use it for a bathtub. However, Himalayan salt is very beneficial for cooking. Okay, yeah, I just didn't know if maybe you could use the basil Himalayan salt in your bath if you wanted to have a basil bath. Not the one from the green corner. However, I believe you put Himalayan salt in.
31:28basil, fresh basil, would be amazing. An amazing pot. I think it would smell amazing, yes. Right? It would be great, yeah. I didn't know. I didn't know if you could do that, because there's so many herbs and salts that get used for personal care, body care, that I didn't know if it was a double dip in kind of thing.
31:49Oh no, I wish. I wish Mary it was, but this particular item is not. Okay, good to know. Well, maybe you could develop one of those too in your spare time. You just gave me a wonderful idea. Thank you so much. You're welcome. All right, Monica, I've loved talking with you. You sound so full of joy and happiness and your voice is beautiful. Oh, thank you, Mary. I had a wonderful time and I hope it will not be the last.
32:18I hope not too. You're going to have to hit me up when you develop something new and talk about that too. I sure will. All right. Thank you, Monica. Have a great day. Thank you, Mary. You too. Bye.
 

Beck's Farma

Today I'm talking with Brandon at Beck's Farma. You can also follow on Facebook.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. As a special bonus for A Tiny Homestead listeners, receive 35% off your total order from Chelsea Green by using discount code CGP35 at check-out!*
*This offer cannot be combined with other discounts. For US residents only. 
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Brandon at Beck's Farma. Good morning, Brandon, how are you? Good morning, Mary, how are you? I'm great. Where are you located? Well.
00:26The farm is located in Sauk Center, Minnesota, and I have a sister company that is called Chey En-Alise Canna Bakery, where I sell the oils for my farm in freshly baked pastries located in Minneapolis at 6001 Windale. Okay. Where is Sauk Center? What's the nearest city to Sauk Center? So Sauk Center is about an hour and a half west of Minneapolis and St. Paul on 94.
00:56St. Cloud in Alexandria, so about 20 minutes from LA. Okay, cool, thank you. All right, tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, that's a long story, so I'm not sure where to begin. I was raised in Minnesota, and I ended up traveling the world for about 16 years, living in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America.
01:24And as I began to get older, I realized that I wanted to also have family in my life. And so I made the decision to return to Minnesota. And I kind of came up with the idea that if I was farming, I would be able to spend my summers with family in Minnesota and continue traveling over the winter months. And so I returned to some family land in Sauk Center, Minnesota, and I planted a vineyard in a hop yard.
01:54and started that dream for about two years. And in 2019, the farm bill legalized hemp, allowing people to grow and to harvest CBD. And that seemed like a good decision for me because the hop yard and the vineyard would take three to five years to develop where with the hemp products, I would be able to
02:23begin to harvest that fall. I was also really interested in the medicinal benefits as an alternative medicine from CBD and cannabis. I saved my money, quit my job, planted the field in 2019 and had a successful year growing, harvested that fall. The drying process in harvesting takes about two weeks.
02:52to three months of CBD in the CBD farming. It's a long process, the drawn in and curing before the processing. And so right around the time that was all done, the pandemic had happened. I had gone into growing to be a wholesaler to supply kind of the brick and
03:20who were selling oils and things like that. And I had had some contracts around the state set up, but when things started to kind of move in 2020, everything stopped moving for me. And so I had to decide what I was going to do with this crop that I'd grown in 2019. And my decision was to have the oil processed and...
03:49found my own CBD company and began selling products online. And so that was how Bex Pharma started. And I think there was a lot said there, so I'll give you a chance to, and everyone a chance to kind of catch up or ask questions. Uh-huh. Okay. So you pivoted just like a lot of people pivoted in 2020, which is great. I'm glad you had the wherewithal and the opportunity to do that.
04:19I have questions. I have so many questions because I don't use CBD at all, never have. And so I am like the dumbest person when it comes to hemp, marijuana, any of it. So my first question is, is a hemp plant different from a marijuana plant? Are they the same thing or are they different? So scientifically, they're the same plant. They're both cannabis sativa.
04:48Legally, they're different because of the contain. So basically hemp is defined as less than 0.3% of delta-9-THC.
05:13cannabinoid that is found in the cannabis plant and is what is traditionally used when you think of somebody getting high. While the two plants are the same, marijuana is more to get you high and CBD or not CBD but hemp, well that's rich in a cannabinoid called CBD.
05:43properties because it wasn't until very recently a schedule one drug. It was really difficult for scientists to do clinical research with it because of the restrictions and the costs. But there have been a few studies and those are kind of the only things that I'll talk about as far as making claims for the efficacy of CBD, but there is a
06:13a lot of benefits that are out there that are just kind of spoken or common knowledge. So things that I won't go over that people seem to really be benefiting from. So CBD was first discovered when it was found that it was able to stop seizures in children with certain types of epilepsy.
06:41And that's kind of when it first really got recognition that, wow, this is actually, you know, really going in and doing something major within the human body. And since then, it's been found that it's an anti-inflammatory. I'm trying to think now of what is actually specifically cited in science.
07:07So it's an anti-inflammatory. It's shown to lower blood pressure and keep it low. It's been shown in higher doses of 150 to 300 milligrams to help reduce anxiety, to help with people to get better sleep, like with insomnia.
07:29And I can get more scientific about something called the endocannabinoid system, but I'll give you another chance to ask questions here if you'd like, because it is a lot of information. It is. And when I looked at your Facebook page and your website, I was like, this is going to be a very sciencey discussion. But my other question that isn't quite as sciencey, we can come back to what you were just saying.
07:54Yeah. Do you grow your crop outside or do you have it in like a greenhouse? So I'm an outdoor grower. I plant the field by hand doing about 10,000 lunches in a single day. And the reason that I do it in a single day is because I know that the next day I'll be unable to walk for about the next week or so. And so I just get out there and get it in and see what comes up.
08:24kind of let nature take its course and suppress the weeds. Okay, so does it grow like a weed? I mean, that sounds really funny, no pun intended. Does it grow really easily? Well, that depends. So to create some further confusion, so we have marijuana, we have hemp, and then we have hemp that's grown for fiber. And so the hemp that's planted for fiber does grow kind of like a weed, but that's because it's really broadcast.
08:53into the field, just throwing millions of seeds together like grass as close as you can. When they grow together that way, like they would in nature, just dropping their seeds and having a field of hemp or marijuana, then they do grow like a weed because they grow very tall, they grow very fast, and they're very good at creating a canopy and taking out everything around them. But when you're growing for CBD, you have to put
09:22space between the plants so that they have room to breathe so that mold and mildew doesn't grow in the field and In these spaces, which is generally between three to six feet. I usually go around four or five between plants um a lot of weeds come in and So very early in the growing season a lot of those weeds actually outgrow The hemp plants and so it's pretty difficult. You're almost out there
09:49on your hands and knees pulling away the weeds trying to find your plants for a while and really getting after it. It's pretty labor intensive. The plants, they have three phases. They have their seedling stage which takes about a month. They're really, really small and really delicate at this time in that first month or so.
10:19what is called the vegetation stage. And the plants themselves are photosensitive, meaning that they respond really greatly to the sun. And they will continue growing as long as there's more than 14 hours of daylight. And typically that's closer to 16 hours or so. But if you were to keep the light on them for 16 hours, they would grow indefinitely into trees, you know, and get really, really big. But.
10:48the vegetation stage is also, it's faster than when they're seedlings, but it takes some time. So really about knee high by the 4th of July is pretty good. And as you get later into the year, when the sun is less than 14 hours, that's when they hit this really big growth spurt. And however big they are in the field at that time, in about September or so, they're
11:18they'll usually double their size in that last month or two of the growing season. And at that point, it's pretty easy. Then you're able to just watch it grow. And it's more like a weed to give a very long answer to the question. No, that's great because I know nothing about this. And because this is a Tiny Homestead podcast, I'm very interested in how different plants do what they do. So does it like...
11:47Do the plants appreciate like a loamy soil or do they like sandy soil? Well yeah they don't like wet feet and so but loamy to sandy is good you know as long as it drains and I find that it does the best on a hillside you know where they get a lot of water you know a lot of nutrients running down them but then they get to dry out fast.
12:17Did the rain hurt you this spring? No, not this year, but there has been, the funniest thing, so I decided to start farming. Well, Minnesota got its worst droughts in the history year after year after year. And in the middle of those was some really big weather events. I think we had a derecho where a hurricane actually came all the way to Minnesota.
12:46And that left about a four foot trough in my field, like right down the middle of it. There was just a river and, um, and the field had, you know, standing, not standing water, but at one point the water was about probably two to three feet high. Um, because, because it was so dry and then we ended up with so much rain so fast. And um, and I kind of felt, you know, some of the times in the spring out there plowing the field, almost like I had a sense of what it felt like to be in the dust bowl.
13:17you know, I'm on about a 32 horsepower John Deere with a small tiller on the back to work up about seven acres. And it was so dusty on some of those days. I think probably you could have seen me from space. Yeah. The weather affects everybody who grows produce. It doesn't matter what you're producing. If you're growing a plant, the weather is going to affect you. Okay. So that helps out a lot.
13:47is when the law went into effect, I think it was last summer about marijuana being legal in Minnesota, and I know there's a whole bunch of little nitpicky things that go with that. Did you dance a jig or were you just like, okay, cool? Well, that's a very interesting question. So legalization occurred in Minnesota for adult use of marijuana.
14:17And under the current laws, that means that adults can possess, I think, up to four pounds of marijuana, they can have a certain amount of plants growing at home and they can gift up to one ounce between each other. But the sale of marijuana is still prohibited. So it's still under prohibition and it really meant that there have been no changes as of yet.
14:46in the cannabis industry. There are some Indian reservations, I believe four, that have opened dispensaries under their jurisdiction. And so currently in the state, there are four dispensaries, but for the rest of the industry, there's none. So it didn't really change anything for you yet? Not yet.
15:14This is where it gets kind of interesting. So the, the state has, um, just started a new office called the office of cannabis management, and they're currently writing the rules for, for how the sale is going to occur and in the future. And at this point, I believe the start date of, um, where it's going to be legally bought and sold is going to be sometime mid
15:442025. So we're still looking at almost another year. Now, when that does occur, and when the new rules do come out, which it's kind of hard to speculate what they'll be, there's only going to be 150 people given a license to sell within the state of Minnesota. And of those 150 people, 75 will be from a social equity program.
16:14Currently, there are 3,400 registered sellers for low potency cannabis in Minnesota. Of those 3,400, 150 will be chosen and it's a lottery. It won't be based really on anything beyond the lottery. You have to qualify for the lottery, but beyond that, it's going to be completely random.
16:44Now there are 3,400 other companies as of now, but I know that a lot of them are putting in multiple applications, just kind of founding companies that really don't exist and throwing their name in the hat. So the real number is probably going to be closer to 5 or 10,000 applying for basically 75 spaces. Not including the social equity.
17:13program. And so it's going to be kind of interesting who gets it. And just quickly at the end, that's simply because if the 150 people that are chosen, if they don't have a supply to keep up with the demand in our state, they will kind of come into it with a shortage. So hopefully, at least one of the names will be able to supply the demand.
17:42Sure. Yeah. I hadn't even thought of that. Even if you don't, even if you don't get picked, you can still, you can still supply somebody who does get chosen. Yes. Is that what you're saying? No, no, I'm saying so, so if I was chosen, for example, it would be my responsibility then to supply one 150th of the state's cannabis. Okay. And I could probably only supply, you know, 100 or 200 people a week. And, and so
18:11So they're just, depending on who's chosen, there may not be any supply. You know, so it'll be legal. It'll be legal to buy and sell. But if the, if someone like me was the only one in control, we would only have, uh, you know, a supply for a few, a few hundred people a week. Yeah. I misunderstood what you were saying. I got it. Thank you. Um, okay. So when this, this hit the news last year.
18:40My husband and I were chatting about it because neither one of us smoke marijuana. We don't use any of it because we just don't. And I said, I feel like our government might be putting the cart before the horse on this because I'm not seeing a whole lot of what the rules are. And my husband said, I don't think they know what the rules are yet. And this was when it first came out, you know, when we first heard about it. And so...
19:05I think that this is a very progressive move. I don't think it's a bad move. I just think that maybe there should have been more things thought about before it was passed. Does that make sense to you? It makes perfect sense. And I think that your interpretation, both you and your husband was exactly right. And I think most of the people at the Capitol would probably agree except for the one or two that actually drafted the bill that went through. But with that said,
19:35They're doing a really good job of trying to keep up with what's has happened and, and not taking it back. You know, they're, they're trying to go forward and, um, the office of cannabis management, they took over August 1st of, of this year and they, they weren't supposed to do that. Uh, the, the department of health had the cannabis control under the medical marijuana program, along with, I believe the department of agriculture until August.
20:04But they opened their office about a year in advance to help kind of straighten things out and really try to get a hold on what's going on. And since they've been in control, it does seem to be working a lot better. And then I would also add there that legalization isn't something new. And I am a little bit surprised that the lawmakers don't look to other states like
20:33you know, California or Colorado or Oregon that have been doing this for years. And I think it would be pretty easy to borrow, you know, some tricks from their playbooks and, and see what has worked and what doesn't work and, and all the information's there to really have kind of a really seamless interchange from prohibition to legalization.
21:00And so it would be interesting to see if they do adopt some of those practices that are already working across America. I forget how many states now, but I think over half. So is the Office of whatever it was you just said, are they actually consulting with the growers to learn something about this or not?
21:31It's hard for me to speak on their behalf. I know that I've spoken to some staff there that I've known since 2019 as a, as a hemp grower and they're very knowledgeable and they've been pushing this forward since Minnesota's hemp pilot program in 2016, which was three hours, three years before the, the farm bill. So there are a few people that really do know what's going on at the.
21:59at the top end of it. And I think that a lot of the criticism that is coming from the public and what's being seen is that there's a lot of confusion across agencies within the government and that there is a lot of education that's happening now to bring a lot of people up to speed. But I think that there are a few people at the top that are steering the shift in the right direction.
22:29And they are very much, we were just given 122 pages of the rules, a draft of the rules for 2025 and asked by the office of cannabis management to review them and post suggestions. So they're really very open to discussions on figuring out how to make it work within the industry.
22:58And so hopefully, hopefully enough great minds are working together now to have kindness transition. Good. That's what I was worried about when this all came through. I was like, I really hope the people at the top who may not understand all the ins and outs of this talk to the people who are actually growing the plants and have, you know, expertise in what they're doing so that we've got two
23:25two ends of the spectrum coming together to make it work? Absolutely. And there's obviously going to be things that go wrong and probably some things that are really frustrating and obvious. But I believe that, you know, over the course of the next few years that things will will get ironed out pretty smoothly. Sure, of course. I mean...
23:53You gotta get in there and experience the thing before you can know what's working and what isn't. So it's like any other thing that you're growing. Okay, so I'm gonna shift back to actual growing the plants and harvesting the plants subject again, because I can't stay on one track today. When you harvest the plants, are you harvesting the...
24:18the part that you use for the CBD by hand or do you do it with a machine or how do you harvest your crop? Well, so there's kind of two harvests and I do that myself because there's male and female cannabis plants. So the female are the ones that growers and users want to target because that's the one that grows the flower.
24:44that people use to either smoke or extract for CBD or THC or the other cannabinoids. There's ways to ensure that you get only females. Like you can buy specialized seeds or you can buy clones, but it ends up costing about a dollar per plant. So my strategy is to pay about three cents a seed and just put so many seeds that I can afford to take out about half of the field mid-summer.
25:14And so about midsummer, when the sun starts to change, the plants will start to show which sex they are. And at that point, the first harvest kind of begins and the male plants are called from the field. And kind of, you know, I burn them and destroy them. And there's not really a good argument for another use for them other than feed. You know, I think it might make good feed. But
25:42but it's currently restricted under FDA laws. So to the second harvest of the year, in about October, November, if you're really lucky, they're a really, really hardy plant. You know, so they actually kind of love the cold. And I've seen my field go to temperatures as low as about, I want to say, you know, 19 degrees at night and come back the next day and live.
26:12And so, so when all the leaves are gone, when all the grass is brown, uh, the field is still green and it looks like a lot of evergreens out there. Basically it looks like a Christmas tree farm. And, um, and so at that point of the year, I'm really kind of watching two things. Uh, the weather, you know, at a certain point, the weather will ultimately destroy them and so you really have to watch that. But in Minnesota, because it's a short growing season,
26:40The plants don't get a chance to fully mature. And so I'm really trying to push my harvest date as far back as I can. And, um, a lot of the testing will begin in the field, you know, so I'll, I'll start taking random samples to see how close I am to the potency of the plant that I, I want to have and, um, and I'll, I'll base a lot of risks and, um, decisions on that, you know, if, if I'm going to have bad weather, but the CBD content is low. Uh,
27:10maybe I'll take a risk and let it grow for another week. And, but if it's high enough, I'll go ahead and harvest. Which brings me to the answer to that question is that the entire plant is harvested. And so I'll go out with, you know, sometimes a machete is a good way to do it. And basically just kind of hack the field down by the stocks, just row by row by row, and then gather them into a trailer.
27:40and bring those up to the drying facility where they're actually hung one by one upside down to dry. And at that point, start to introduce climate control with a lot of fans, dehumidifiers, checking the relative humidity, and really making sure that air is moving through those and that no mold or anything is coming. And that process, you know,
28:08It takes several months if you do it right, the kind of drying and curing process. So the work almost really begins after the harvest. So yeah, we take the whole plant. And when that's dry, and when it's ready, then we do something called bucking the plant. And so we'll go in to the, well, I'll go in to where the plants are drying.
28:37and take them down one by one and basically grab them by the root and put my other hand kind of in a circle around each stem and just buck off all of the flower and the cannabinoid-rich material into a totes. And at that point, it's ready for processing. So this is labor-intensive for you and you are absolutely a farmer.
29:06That's not a whole lot different than the threshing process with wheat. Yeah, I think my grandfather said the most important thing a farmer can put into their field is their feet. And I found that to be very true. I think there's not a day from May until pretty much December that I'm not out walking amongst these plants, whether they're in the field or hanging.
29:36the drive. It's a very much everyday job. Okay, so we're almost at 30 minutes but I have two more things. One is about do you love what you do and the other one is about do you save any of the seed to grow again or can you not do that? I absolutely love the industry. You know it's really rewarding. I have a couple of other companies like I said.
30:06But this one, really to see the changes that brings about people. You know, I've had customers who have called and told me that they used to be a potter in ceramics and that their arthritis had become too bad to be at the wheel anymore. And that after using my product, they're able to go back and actually continue doing what they love and get this quality of life back.
30:35Um, I've seen, uh, dogs that when I've arrived to a house of someone that were unable to get up from the yard to, uh, to do, you know, to greet you coming in the gates or anything, and, um, after about a week of, uh, taking the oil. So it works for animals to, um, you know, arrive to that same house and had the dog jump up and come to the gate, jumping at it with the tail wagging.
31:03And, and so to actually see these kinds of transformations in people and animals and to realize that what I'm doing, all this work in the field and in the drying and in the legal processes, that at the end of the day, it's really helping a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. Um, and so.
31:26With the seeds, I have experimented a little bit with regrowing, but you have to be very careful because if my plants go above the 0.3% level of THC that's defined as hemp, I have to destroy my crop. When I'm just taking a seed from one of my plants and putting it back in the field, I'm not certain about what that potency is going to be because I've never seen those genetics perform.
31:55So it would be kind of playing roulette with the season. And so I generally source my seeds. OK. And then I have one more question, because I just thought of it. You know how when you go to buy tomato seed plants, there's like a whole bunch of different varieties of tomato plants? Are there a whole lot of different varieties of hemp plants or not? Yeah. There's.
32:24Each one has its own specific profile. And so I would think of it more of like a racehorse, right? Where you're really looking at the pedigree and choosing it for very specific qualities. So there's two forms of cannabis. One is an indica, the other is a sativa. And the indica tends to make people more kind of tired and lazy.
32:53tends to be kind of more of an uplifting high. And so there's kind of a divide when you start to look for genetics, whether you want that up energy high or kind of that low relaxing high. And so you kind of start your search from there. And then you start to look at other characteristics of the plant, like what is the final counts on the THC and the CBD content, and you're looking at what climates they grow, you know, how much they yield.
33:22But I would say that it's probably more specialized than any other plant in the world as far as engineering. You know, people are constant. There's no two seeds that are the same. And people are really feverishly working to create new strains. So it's really interesting. That was what I was trying to find the word, strains. Yes, thank you. Yeah. Okay.
33:48Well, Brandon, like I said, I figured this was going to be a very sciencey discussion and it has been. And I'm really, really glad that you took the time to talk to me about all this because I have been so curious since the law got changed in Minnesota last year and I've been trying to find someone to interview and you're it? Yeah. I hope it wasn't too sciencey. No, no, it's fine. I can be interesting too.
34:14No, no, I think science is really interesting. And I have talked with three or four different people in the last six months about goat genetics and that's very sciencey too. And that was really interesting. So I'm all for science. I'm all for just the general discussion of what you grow and how do you grow it. But I like science. Science is fun. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, Brandon. I really appreciate it. And what do you mind?
34:42I also have, I've opened the first Canna Bakery in Minnesota and I thought that I might mention that as well. Well, I have the chance. Yes, if you have time, I have time. Yeah, I have all the time in the world, but I know the podcast is probably limited. So in January of this year, I began the licensing processes and working with the Office of Management and the Minneapolis Health Department and founded Minnesota's first Canna Bakery.
35:12And it is what it sounds like, but it's probably a new word to everyone because I believe I may have invented it, at least in the state. So we have a bakery that serves scones, muffins, cookies, shortbread, and other pastries and items, including my CBD oil for my field. And it's the first in the state. And
35:41It was finally, all the licensing went through in about July. And so we've been open about six weeks at 6001 Lyndale Avenue in south Minneapolis. And, uh, and I'm really excited about that project because currently in the market, there's a lot of drinks and there's a lot of gummies and there's not a lot else that's been explored. You know, there's this huge industry, but everybody's selling the same two items. And, um, and now.
36:10Minnesota has a Canna bakery. That's awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. You sound very excited about this. Well, I am. It's, it's, um, it's kind of a continuation of the project that I'd started in 2019. So when the, when the pandemic came, I really got, you know, it took a lot of years to kind of recover from that. And, um, but I continued growing and continued having kind of the surplus of cannabinoids and, and now. You know, here we are.
36:41five years since 2019 that I'm able to actually kind of go back and chase that dream again within the cannabis industry. So it is very exciting. And to be the first at something is also very exciting. Oh, absolutely. And I feel like the sky's the limit for you because things are changing in this field. I hope so. Yeah. All right. So was that all you needed to say? Yeah. I thought I should mention it at least. It's Minnesota State.
37:10history. So yeah, depending on how you look at it. Well, it's the first. So I'd mention it. Blow your own horn whenever you can in a public venue if you're trying to get the word out. All right, Brandon. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Have a great day. You too. Bye-bye.
 

Civic Garden Center

Today I'm talking with Sam at the Civic Garden Center. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Sam at Civic Garden Center. How are you, Sam? I'm good, Mary. How are you doing? I'm great. I'm so curious to find out about your organization and a little bit about you, so tell me about yourself.
00:30Yeah, the Civic Garden Center is an organization that's been around for a long time. My role at the Civic Garden Center is the conservation program manager. So our organization as a whole, as I said, we've been around for a while. We were founded in 1942 coming out of the big green gardens movement. So we were teaching people how to grow food at home so that they could send more industrial agriculture overseas for the war effort.
00:57And we've basically been teaching people how to garden ever since. So our mission is building community through gardening, education, and environmental stewardship. And we really focus primarily on working in urban neighborhoods within the greater Cincinnati area. Food access on issues surrounding conservation on youth education. So we have a pretty wide ranging scope of work. And our.
01:27The primary focus is the education piece. So we really try to make sure that we're spending as much time as possible training people, teaching people how to garden, how to be self-sufficient, so they can then take those practices back to their home garden, back to a public garden or another community space. And so through that work, you know, we really...
01:51We try our best to encourage people to get outside and get their hands dirty. And we try to be that resource to come back to so they can keep kind of going down their journey of learning how to, you know, vegetable garden, learning how to work with native plants, whatever kind of their passion or interest may be. We try to be their kind of educational resource for folks in the Cincinnati area. And then within...
02:15Our organization, my role specifically is focused on our conservation program. So for us, our conservation efforts are really focused on invasive species removal and establishing native habitats. So we work both with private landowners and homeowners, as well as public spaces and the Cincinnati Parks Department to try to kind of...
02:44our conservation efforts. And so I have the fortune of running our native plant population programming on site where we grow about 4,000 native plants a year and a couple hundred native trees on top of that. So we'll work to educate homeowners through classes to grow native plants. We organize a couple of plant festivals throughout the year where people can come and buy plants from us and we provide some education along with that.
03:14And then finally, I work with folks on doing species removal, primarily in public land. So at the Instant Sandy Parks, we train volunteers on how to do that removal and how to identify plants and how to work with volunteers so they can lead their own kind of neighborhood efforts doing this work. You have a Native Plant Festival coming up, right? We do. We do. We have our Native Plant Festival. It's the first Saturday after Labor Day.
03:44here in Cincinnati. It's a really, really fun event. It's one that has been, it's only in its second year right now, but it's been growing really quickly in popularity for us. And we grow plants for that festival and then we also invite other local native plant nurseries to come and sell plants and to really try to get the word out both about the importance of native plants and just try to provide space for the community of people to gather and celebrate native plants.
04:15Yeah, can you tell me about the importance of native plants? Because I know, but my listeners might not. Yeah, of course. I love to love to talk about this topic. So when it comes to native plants, you know, the importance that we really focus on is first and foremost, the ecological importance. You know, the plants are simply the plants that are indigenous to North America. So they're the plants that naturally evolved and adapted.
04:42for our climates, our soils, all of the conditions that we have here in North America. And through that process, they developed pretty tight-knit relationships with specific organisms, oftentimes insects or other wildlife in the ecosystem. And so I think the simplest way to talk about native plants are, native plants are food and habitat for our local wildlife. So without our native plants...
05:12Many of the insects, many of the birds that we all love simply wouldn't have the food or the nesting resources or some other crucial piece of habitat that allows them to survive. So native plants play a really important ecological role as the base, the trophic level, that base food source for so many organisms. And without them, many of our organisms here in North America simply wouldn't be able to complete their life cycles.
05:41And the other thing I'll add about native plants is they also provide some really great functional aspects for humans when it comes to us thinking about our gardens, especially as we're thinking about climate change. Native plants have the ability to really, because they're so well adapted for our climates, withstand a lot of these shifts that we're seeing in our climate. So native plants are really well adapted to different, you know, rain events, maybe longer periods of drought.
06:11Some of the diseases and insect pests that are common in our areas as those periods where there may be larger populations A lot of our native plants have tools to deal with those a little bit better than a lot of the non-native Ornamental plants that people often end up buying at the big box stores or other nurseries Yes, exactly. Um, the other thing about native plants is that they are beneficial to humans in that they are
06:40Some of them are edible and some of them are medicinal for humans too. So native plants are great. I'm a big fan. Absolutely. The medicinal and edible piece is something I think we really cannot ignore. I think oftentimes when people think about food sources in the landscape, you know, they think about their tomatoes or their cucumbers, or some of these vegetables that, you know, were kind of introduced to North America, but there's so many food sources when it comes to.
07:08Our native plants, our indigenous cultures here in North America showed us that they can fully survive on the plants that are already here. And there are so many medicinal and edible uses for native plants. So you can start to integrate those into your yard, not only to attract the interesting birds but to give yourself some food or some medicine right in your own backyard. Yes, that's my favorite part. We have wild black raspberries that grow on our tree line.
07:37They are a bi-yearly. Once every two years, they produce really nice berries. And so when we moved here and discovered we have black raspberries in our tree lime, we were very excited. And they are native plants. So that's just an example of a native plant. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It can just be a raspberry. Absolutely, yeah. I love being able to go on a hike and just snack as you go. If you stumble across some.
08:04black raspberries or something along those lines. I know here in Southwest Ohio, our pawpaws are starting to ripen. It's an awesome native fruit and one that I really enjoy this time of year. It has a lot of good nutrition benefits for people. And you can simply walk out to the woods or walk out to your garden where you might have a pawpaw tree this time of year and just pick them up off the ground and have a snack right there.
08:31Yep, an important safety tip. If you don't know what you're looking at, don't eat it. Make sure you can identify the thing as safe to eat before you eat it. Absolutely. And we also always encourage people that when they are going out and doing something like foraging, that you're really conscientious of what you're taking, especially if you're taking from a public space. Some public spaces don't allow foraging, and we want to be respectful of that. Some public spaces...
09:00Maybe you need a permit because there are so many people out there in the world. You know, we want to also make sure that we are leaving food for wildlife and for other organisms. So you definitely want to be conscientious when you're out foraging and snacking on some of these native fruits that we don't take the entire population. We want to make sure we're leaving, you know, seeds behind and other resources for other wildlife. Yes. You know how they say moderation in all things? Consideration in all things as well.
09:29Absolutely. Yep. All right. Well, that's all amazing information. And I stumbled on you guys on Facebook. So how many people do you think benefit from what you're doing? I mean, do you have numbers of people who take your classes? Like, can you quantify? That's a hard question. Yeah, we I would say it's a very large, it's a large number of people. I mean, we have
09:59hundreds of people who are coming to take our classes kind of throughout the year. We generally have different classes through the seasons depending on kind of what's available growing season-wise. So throughout the winter and into the spring is really heavy on vegetable gardening and focusing on growing food at home. You know, we do a few native plant classes that time of year, but usually those pick up as we get a little more into the growing season.
10:29We do a lot of classes for people that might be kind of related to food or self-sufficiency. So like recently we did a mushroom growing class. I know we've done backyard chicken classes. And it's always interesting because within the different buckets of education, we have kind of different people with passions. And so we attract a lot of different people, you know, to the different classes. Some of them are absolutely dead set on.
10:58coming to every vegetable garden class that we offer. Some of them may come to a bunch of different classes throughout the year. And the other thing that we do is that we kind of act as a community resource. So we have different community gardens here in Cincinnati who can come to us and ask for volunteer help or ask for help sourcing seeds or plants for their garden. Maybe they need help kind of working through some sort of ordinance from the city that they got.
11:28Anything like that we try to work with our community. So throughout the year it's really hard for us to keep track of all the touch points we have with people. But that's our kind of approach is this open door policy where anyone can come and ask us some questions or come and get some advice. And we try to make sure that we're as supportive as possible. And if we don't know the answer, we'll happily connect you with another great organization or person that we know locally who might. That's amazing.
11:57the services you guys are providing are invaluable. I don't know that we have anything like what you're doing here in the way that you're doing it, but Minnesota has extension services through the University of Minnesota, and they handle a lot of what you're talking about. Does the Ohio University have extension services? Yeah, yes, Ohio has their extension office through
12:24through Ohio State and so they do have a local branch and they provide a lot of really valuable resources. Oftentimes we find that they're just limited resource-wise so that they, while they provide tons of resources, a lot of good information for our region, they oftentimes aren't able to provide the same kinds of hands-on kind of engagement that we can provide. And so...
12:53Throughout the year, we oftentimes work closely with the Extension Office and some of the resources that we're providing. We'll use their resources in our education. So we do have those resources here. Fortunately, we do also have other organizations that can provide some more hands-on assistance or maybe can get people out in the field a little more easily than our Extension agents can because they're just pulled in so many different directions.
13:22Oftentimes they're a little bit limited in how much time, especially one-on-one, they can spend with a community member or somebody here in urban Cincinnati. Awesome. So I have a crazy question. I'm not a mom to small children anymore, but I was at one point in time. And one of the things that would keep me from going to things is that I couldn't bring the kids if they were under, I don't know, 10 years old.
13:51babies with them when they when they come to a class or is that not okay? Yeah, we try to be as family friendly as possible. You know, we if we are doing something more workshop style where it's a little bit more hands on, you know, we'll let people know ahead of time but we are really try to encourage people to bring their families to make it as accessible as possible. I know that especially nowadays with how insane child care costs are.
14:18A lot of times people are pretty limited and so we do encourage people to bring their kids. You know, we do have a couple of programs specifically for the kids here on site as well throughout the year. We do a lot of work with Cincinnati Public Schools and trying to educate different youth and different age groups. But here on site, you know, we do have a couple of programs for homeschoolers or, you know, if people do want to bring their kids to a class. We happily encourage that.
14:48definitely for us all about the community and if you know there's barriers for people to come that involves you know bringing their kids, we don't want that to stop someone from coming to a class or an event. Yes, and the sooner you get little ones hooked on growing plants, they're going to do it for the rest of their lives because it's really fun. Oh my gosh, yeah. Little kids when they get out in the garden and you get them hunting for pollinators or digging through the compost and finding worms.
15:17their faces light up in a way that, you know, adults just don't have that kind of, you know, euphoria with those kinds of activities anymore. And so the little kids are definitely some of the most fun to work with. And I think some of the most inspiring for sure. Yeah, they see everything so differently. It's a different lens because it's completely new to them. They're not jaded yet.
15:43Yeah, I think it's always a fun perspective to have the little kids out in the garden and see what they're noticing. They oftentimes do pick up on things that you wouldn't expect or maybe they ask you a question that seems really simple, but you're like, oh, people don't generally ask me, you know, why a flower is this color or something along those lines. And so it is always, always interesting and more thought provoking than you might think working with the little ones.
16:08Yeah, having raised four kids, they will ask you things that you never thought they would ask you. It's very funny. I can remember the kids being in the back seat of the car when we would go places and invariably one of them would pop up with something and I would have to really think as to whether I knew the answer. And if I didn't know the answer, I was very honest with them and I was like, I don't know guys we're going to have to look it up. Yeah.
16:34often get stumped by our little ones in the garden as well when we do have those interactions. Yeah. So on the opposite end of the spectrum, how old is the oldest person that has come to your stuff? We do have a lot of folks who are retired who come and volunteer with us. So I'm talking to you on a Wednesday morning and we actually have...
17:02Wednesday morning volunteer, they call themselves the dirt crew. And they've been many of them volunteering here for 10, 20, even 30 years. Um, and that group is, uh, mostly retired individuals who come and just spend the morning working in the garden. You know, they'll hang out and have lunch afterwards, or sometimes they'll plan a tour of a nearby garden. Um, so it was really great sense of community here. And I think the.
17:28especially as folks are getting a little bit older, they have that chance to connect with some of their, a little more time and connect with the resources they have here locally and can get out in the garden. I know we also historically have worked oftentimes with garden clubs and sometimes some of those groups can be a bit older, but it may just depend on the group. And so, it really ranges. I'd say we work with all age levels for sure.
17:57And, you know, we try our best to attract those young homeowners or some of those younger individuals, you know, just for them depends on how much time they have. But I do think coming out of the pandemic and, you know, people really being focused on where their food's coming from or trying to figure out how to better grow their own food or plant some native plants, you know, we've seen some really great interest in the classes.
18:25So you said Cincinnati, Ohio, right? Yes, correct. Yeah, and Cincinnati is a big city, yes? Yes, we're a pretty good sized city. It's actually within the metropolitan area. As you go up to Dayton, there's quite a few people around. Okay, so I'm assuming that Cincinnati has food desert areas, just like every other big city. Yes. So I'm...
18:53I'm trying to get to do you guys, I don't know, help support the local food shelves or stuff like that too, besides just having community gardens? Yeah, we do. You know, within our programming, we do have a physical garden space. A lot of our work happens out in the community, but we do work. We do have an eight acre park that we co-manage with, San Sandy Parks.
19:22That is our home base and our place to create demonstration gardens, have field trips, things like that. And one of the demonstration gardens we have here on site is a vegetable garden, which is managed by volunteers. And that garden explicitly does support, you know, all the food from that garden goes to local food pantries. So I think last year they were in the 800 to 1,000 pounds of produce that they produced in that garden.
19:52throughout the year. And then within the kind of broader Cincinnati community, we definitely are a city that struggles with food deserts. And like many other cities of our size, as we're trying to figure out what those answers are, it's not always straightforward. And so we do provide whatever education and resources we can to some of those income, lower income communities where food access might be an issue.
20:19And a lot of what we do is again, working kind of through our community garden model. And while traditionally community gardens entail somebody having a personal plot where they grow food for themselves. They do have, you know, we do have community gardens that have different approaches. So some gardens are pantry gardens. Some gardens maybe are growing and kind of doing their own.
20:46food giveaway within the neighborhood, or it's a come and pick what you want as you want kind of model. So really within the neighborhood, it's up to the community and up to those who are organizing the garden to figure out how they want their garden to function. And then we do our best to help them understand what that would take. So we have a comprehensive training program that is our community garden development training, the 12 week program where somebody can come and learn.
21:15not only what it takes to grow a vegetable from start to finish throughout a season, but understand how to engage their community, how to grapple with some of those questions like food security within the neighborhood, how do you find resources and grant funding and volunteer support for the garden. So it's really comprehensive and we do our best to try to provide those resources within those different neighborhoods. And so.
21:43As people come to us with ideas, we will definitely go out of our way to support in places where food access is especially an issue. That's amazing. Okay. The reason I asked about the food pantries or food shelves is not even 20 years ago, a lot of the food shelves did not necessarily have fresh produce to give away. And if they did, it wasn't very good quality.
22:11And I think as people have become more aware that produce is really important for your body, it's really important to eat good fresh produce, other places have become aware, like us here, we grow a farm to market garden and we donate food to the local food shelf because people need produce, they need that. It's part of what makes them go.
22:40you know, makes them functional human beings. And so I'm always excited when I hear that an organization like yours or a local grower or whoever is supplying good nutritional local food to the food shelves and the food pantries because just because you're not rich doesn't mean you can't eat well. Yeah, it's something that I think is increasingly part of that conversation, but I agree, I think it's something that still
23:09gets oftentimes overlooked. It's definitely not a simple thing, as we're trying to include this food access, building a community garden and trying to really support a community in a way that helps really grapple with that issue of food access is not simple. That takes a pretty big scale and a lot of work. So, oftentimes we don't think of community gardens as being the solution to a food desert.
23:39Unfortunately, just not that simple. But I think kind of what you're touching on is this idea of how can we educate more people, how can we help people provide access to some of that fresh local food. And that's where I think the community garden model really does help bridge that gap. It does provide a space right in the neighborhood where kids can come and see.
24:03where some of the produce on the shelves comes from, make sure that they understand that carrots come from the ground or that tomatoes come off of the plants. Just making those connections is really kind of step one. And then from there, you know, we can start to build in some education around, you know, what, how do we integrate these foods into our kind of habits in the kitchen. We do classes throughout the summer in different community gardens. So we'll go to
24:32gardens and we want to make sure that we're doing, you know, the actions kind of in the physical garden space that we're not just in a classroom talking about these things. And one of the things that our urban agriculture coordinator, Kimesha, has done through that program is also include cooking classes. So she will put together recipes and share those recipes and they will harvest things from the garden and that night cook them up right there in the garden and make sure that
25:02some of these veggies that maybe people didn't grow up eating, things like an eggplant that can be a little bit finicky, maybe if you're starting out with it, to figure out what to do with it in the kitchen, that people understand how to use it, how to grow it, how they can benefit from a health perspective from those different foods. So we try to be holistic in how we approach it, but I do think having the gardens in the neighborhood and having a place for somebody to try a fresh tomato,
25:31really does change their whole perspective on the benefits of some of those fresh local vegetables. Definitely. Your organization sounds like a very, very big umbrella with a bunch of stuff underneath it. How do you guys keep this organized? Because you can't be a one-man show. You must have a bunch of people. Yeah. We are absolutely an organization with a...
26:00Big umbrella, as you said, you know, we generally have one, maybe two staff people dedicated to a lot of our kind of program focus areas. We're only a staff of 10 people, so we try to cover as much ground as we can. And for us, it really does rely on two things. One is volunteers. We simply could not do a fraction of the work that we do without volunteers. We have volunteers who are here every single week who are...
26:29really dedicated to the mission who are helping us figure out just how to operate on a day-to-day basis. And then we have volunteers who are joining us on a one-off basis or maybe a couple times a year. And so the volunteers are absolutely crucial and definitely make our big projects much more feasible. Things like our upcoming Native Plant Festival simply would not happen without them. And then the other piece for us to make sure that our reach is kind of as broad.
26:58as it can be, is to really focus on the education. We are not an organization that owns lots of land. We do not go and manage a lot of different properties. We really try to make sure that we are the place to come and learn how to do it and then send people out to do it in their neighborhood. We don't have the capacity to oversee a lot of different projects at once. You know, there's...
27:24handful of community gardens and a couple of conservation projects where we are overseeing the work on a monthly basis. But generally we try to make sure that we are just an educator and not a land manager. So you're planting the ideas and encouraging the ideas and supporting the ideas with the people outside of you do the actual gardening work.
27:50Yeah, oftentimes, I mean, we, I will say our staff is still out there getting our hands dirty on a very regular basis. You know, we do have a full-time horticulturist that's working here on the grounds, but our general model is to teach people the way. Maybe we have a couple of spaces that we are more involved in where we use them as kind of demonstration spaces. But we are absolutely trying to inspire others to start their own projects.
28:19and trying to really hopefully provide the training and knowledge for somebody to organize and lead a project on their own in their community. That's great. So if anyone in your area of Ohio wants more information or wants to help, wants to volunteer, what's your website and can they find that information there? Yeah. The website is civi
28:48And we are, as I said, located here in Cincinnati. We're in a very urban part of Cincinnati. We're in the neighborhood of Avondale. So around the edge of UC, the University of Cincinnati's campus and Cincinnati Children's Hospital is very close to us. So we're in a very urban corridor and we do have business hours during the week so people can simply stop in and learn how to get involved or see our grounds and see what's going on.
29:17Starting with the website I think is a really good first touch point. And then from there, we don't have a really kind of onboarding or formal onboarding system for volunteers or anything like that. We really have a model of sign up for a class or sign up for a volunteer event. So up and from there, our staff is usually pretty happy to talk your ear off about all the different opportunities and all the different projects we have going on and how you might get involved.
29:45Okay, and tell me again when the Native Plant Festival is, just so if anybody missed it at the beginning. Yeah, the Native Plant Festival is on September 7th, and it's going to be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. And as I mentioned, it's going to have plants that we grew from seed here, a bunch of other local native plant nurseries, educational talks, music, food trucks, and so they're trying to make it so people can come and learn a little bit.
30:14buy some plants and get a beautiful day in the garden. And have some fun, yeah. All right, Sam, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're there, so thank you so much for your time today, I appreciate it. Thank you, this was great. All right, have a great rest of your day. You too. Bye.
 

Ever Green Burial Company

Today I'm talking with Joel at the Ever Green Burial Company. A little bit of cemetery history, a little bit of psychology, a lot about burial practices and their impact on the environment.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Joel at Evergreen Burial Company, and this is a hyper local episode. Joel is maybe eight miles from me. Good morning Joel, how are you?
00:28Good morning. I'm doing well. Thank you Good. Um, I'm so excited to talk to you about what this this thing is Because it seems kind of weird to be talking about natural burial practices, but it is Environmentally friendly it is a sustainable practice and that fits with the homesteading genre I guess so tell me about yourself and what you do so well
00:57First of all, thank you a ton for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of this stuff. So, I have been in the funeral industry for it's 27 years now, and I have no idea where the time has gone. And it's taken me a long time to get to where I'm at, but I love what I do. So, my main job is that I work for a, for lack of a better term, it's like a funeral home marketing company. So, we're based out of Mankato. The name of the company is Laker Planning.
01:26We work with funeral homes throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, kind of the upper Midwest. I do a lot of speaking, public speaking, and doing programs with funeral homes to talk about funeral and cremation options and the benefits of pre-planning funerals. And then another big part of what we do is talk about medical assistance rules and regulations, and that's kind of the boring stuff. But that's my main job. And the last,
01:56couple of years I've been working with, it's called Traverse Cemetery is the original name. Green Lawn Cemetery is what it's referred to a lot and if you actually Google it or look it up on MapQuest, you have to type Green Lawn to get the name of it. So it's a little cemetery just outside of St. Peter off of County Road 20, about a mile north of town. I've driven by this cemetery.
02:24a number of times on my way to do seminars. And one day, about two years ago, I swung in there, got out and started walking around. And it just, I don't know how to explain it. I was just drawn to the place and I thought I've got to be able to do something with this. And this would be a perfect cemetery to allow for green burials or natural burials. And I had no idea who to contact. There were
02:54some numbers on a little old sign outside the cemetery. So I started with that. Anyway, long story short, I got ahold of the president of the board. It's run by a board of directors and his name is Robert Meyer and started talking to Robert about allowing for green burials and what the cemetery has been doing in the past and come to find out that it had been closed for many, many years.
03:23This is about everything that I've read on this and looked up and can find, and I can't find anything to tell me different, although I have a hard time believing it. It's the second oldest cemetery in the state. A lot of these burials go back to about, you know, like the mid 1800s. There's only about 160 burials, I think, in the cemetery, and it sits on about 10 acres of land.
03:50So, with talking to Robert, I was so lucky that he is open to the idea of green burial. And we talked on and off for two years before this actually happened. I originally wanted to buy the cemetery, but it was important to him to keep the board in place. Up until this year, the board had, you know, they met once a year.
04:14All that they've done really for upkeep out there is mow the cemetery three or four times a year and that's about it. So he was anxious to have somebody who was interested in it because as he's getting older, he was wondering who was going to care for the cemetery, you know, someday when he's gone. So the timing was right. He was open to the idea of green burials or natural burials.
04:38It's something that being in the funeral industry for as long as I have, I've wanted to do something with it, but I didn't really know where to start. This idea isn't for everybody. I know that, but I talked to enough people and enough groups of people to know that there's interest in it, and the funeral industry is doing really nothing to address that. That's not really their fault. Funeral industry has always been.
05:07really slow to change and adapt to what consumers are wanting. So to be able to do something like this right in St. Peter, I'm just extremely grateful that I had the opportunity and that it worked. So what I did over last winter, I worked with ISG out of Mankato. I didn't want to go off the old maps from the 1800s. So we identified a couple areas in the cemetery that were pretty much wide open and I had them replot it.
05:36and get me some new up-to-date maps and lay out new grave spaces. So that's what I kind of worked on over the winter and then April 1st it was ready to go and so we opened it up and we are now open to allow for greener natural burials. Awesome. I'm so excited. So I have a couple things that I want to share and then I have so many questions. Okay.
06:05When I was little growing up in Steep Falls, Maine, I finally got old enough to ride my bike to the library, which was two miles away. I would think I was 12. And to get to the library, you had to drive out of my little block avenue and you had to drive a mile to the fire barn. Between my home and the fire barn was a creek and up the hill from the creek was a little family.
06:35Graveyard cemetery, whatever you want to call it like from the old old old days That's so cool. I was so I was so curious and so smitten with this little tiny Plot that I would stop by there at least once every three or four times Well, that I went to the library because it was up in the woods It was above the creek you hear the creek babbling or the brook as I was told those are called in Minnesota It's a creek in Maine. It's a brook
07:05And the birds would be singing and the light would come through the trees. That dappled sunlight, which is a very peaceful, lovely stop between the library and home. And that was where my love of cemeteries began. And I have been accused of being morbid because I, if there's a cemetery, I want to stop and check it out. And it's mostly for the history, but it's also because as I say, and it sounds really
07:33Dead people don't talk. I really, really like quiet. I like nature sounds. And the world is so noisy that cemeteries are a great place to just stop in and breathe, take a minute and just relax. And I feel like that's probably not very nice, the people that are no longer breathing, but it's a thing. I really do love cemeteries. So when we moved from Jordan,
08:03down to Lasur four years ago, I lost my two favorite cemeteries up there, the one by the Catholic Church and the Spirit Hill one, I think is the name of it. And so I was like, where's the nearest old cemetery? And we took 20 down to St. Peter and saw the cemetery on the left-hand side of the road. And I was like, oh, it's a new cemetery. I'm so excited. And then I found out the history of it. And it's beautiful. It's up a hillside. It has tons of old oak trees. It's gorgeous.
08:32So when I saw your evergreen burial company thing come through my Facebook feed, I was like, I have to find out more. So that's why you and I are talking because I am a big fan of the piece that you find in cemeteries. So my questions are, I would really like you to explain what this green burial thing is to begin with, if you could. Yeah, absolutely, I can do that. I love your story.
09:01And you are absolutely right. There is something so peaceful about a cemetery. And they're quiet, like you said. The spring was really nice out there because the water was high. The little creek that runs on the north side of it, you could hear water running most days. It's just, they are a nice, serene, and relaxing place to be. And you're surrounded by nature out there too, which I just love. So.
09:31So green burial or natural burial, you can call it either one. The main thing with a green burial is that differs a green cemetery from a modern or normal cemeteries that we have in town is that we wouldn't use any type of a vault or a grave liner. So essentially that's a container made out of concrete that the caskets placed into. And most cemeteries require those
10:00It's a maintenance issue for them. They don't want to go back and refill graves. They support the weight of the earth and keep the ground from sinking. And so that's why they're usually required for a casketed burial. So with a natural burial, we don't want to bury concrete in the ground. So the body is usually placed in a biodegradable casket. That could be a wicker basket. It could be a casket made out of just plain wood that's going to decompose over time and go back into the earth.
10:29A lot of times somebody can be buried in a burial shroud, which is a cloth that the body is wrapped in, or even a simple sheet or a favorite blanket. So the body doesn't need any type of a casket if a family doesn't want that. So the body's placed directly into the ground. And then as a body decomposes and fertilizes the ground,
10:55you know that grounds going to sink so we just have to go back and refill the grave with dirt to keep the ground level over time but if you know that ahead of time it's not such a big deal I at least to me it's not so the absence of that outer burial container or a vault is probably the biggest thing also with natural burials we would have like out at Traverse I have very few rules and regulations out there but one of them is
11:23that if embalming is to be done, we would use non-toxic embalming fluids. They make formaldehyde-free embalming fluids. So I would have that as a requirement so that we're not putting harmful chemicals into the ground. And of course, no vaults, no outer burial containers, no concrete is being buried. And then just that the casket or the sheet.
11:49shroud or the sheet or blanket is made out of cotton or some type of organic material so that it's going to decompose with the body. And then as far as other people in the cemetery goes, you know, I don't want to do a whole lot of mulling out there, which is a really hard thing for me because, you know, I've been brought up living in town that, you know, you keep your lawn looking nice and...
12:13So for me to let that go has been a challenge. But what I've decided to do instead of mowing is that I've mowed paths out there and keep the grass long in the other areas.
12:25Yes, and it looks amazing. I haven't actually been up there in a while, but the photos that you took make it look very pretty. So am I correct? I've read a bunch on this particular cemetery. There are burials for Civil War soldiers there. Is that right? Yeah, correct. There's kind of a section that would be in like the southwest corner of the cemetery.
12:51where there are Civil War soldiers that are buried there. Some are actually buried there. Some it's questionable if they're buried there or not, but a marker has been placed out there because they were from this area. When they died, there's just question whether their bodies ever made it back to St. Peter for the burial. But yeah, we do have a section of them out there. That is awesome. And so. Yeah.
13:19So has anyone actually been buried since you opened this up for new burials? Not since April 1st. I am still waiting to have my first burial. Okay. I've pulled some graves, you know, for people planning ahead, but I have not had an actual burial yet. So I'm excited for that. Okay. But at the same time, I don't wish that upon anyone. I was going to say that's good that no one's died, but it's a business.
13:49Um, okay. What else can I ask you? I was so excited to talk to you and now I'm drawing a blank. Um, also cremated remains. Yeah. So you can go ahead. Yes. So it were, I'm sorry, I jumped in. Were you going to ask if we can bury cremated remains out there at the cemetery? Yeah, absolutely. Cremated remains can be buried at the cemetery. That's not a problem. It's not.
14:19Cremation isn't necessarily a green form of final disposition. Just because of the resources we use to cremate a body, the amount of pollutants that go back into the environment when a person is cremated, but it's still an option that a lot of people are going towards. And so if somebody has cremated remains and they want them buried in the cemetery, that's perfectly fine, they can do that. We're just not gonna use.
14:48an urn that's going to decompose. It's got to be in some type of an urn that's going to go back into the earth.
14:55Okay, so is this cemetery now completely a green burial situation? Yeah, that's a great question. So what I normally talk about in like when I'm doing a program just on green burials is I talk about some different definitions or different categories of cemeteries. And so the Green Burial Council
15:21They're a pretty good resource for some of this and they've defined, you know, three different types of burial grounds, a hybrid burial ground, natural burial ground and conservation burial grounds. So a hybrid burial ground, and I'm just going to be real brief in explaining these. But a hybrid burial ground is kind of like our normal cemetery that is going to offer green burial within that cemetery. So there's other cemeteries in St. Peter. There's two other ones in St. Peter that will allow for green burials. And in
15:50in the cemetery. One of them is a resurrection cemetery that's kind of like first Lutheran cemetery and the other one is wood lawn which is past what Wing Kings, it's hobbers used to be their Wing Kings at dirt road, I can't think of the name of it, but they'll allow for it too. But the majority of their burials out there are all traditional burials with a casket and a concrete outer barrel container.
16:18But if somebody wants natural burial in one of those two cemeteries, they'll offer it. So those would be considered like a hybrid burial ground. And then the next category are the natural burial grounds. So natural burial grounds are like a true green cemetery where there is not concrete buried in the cemetery. So no vaults. Caskets have to be biodegradable.
16:46can be allowed in these, but again, if embalming is gonna be used, they're gonna ask that it be formaldehyde-free embalming fluids. And these cemeteries and natural burial grounds have a more naturalistic appearance to them. So they look maybe more like a park or a field or a wood lot. They don't look like a traditional cemetery with the headstones or the markers, rows and rows and rows of them. So.
17:16I always consider that Traverse would be more like a natural burial grounds. I can't verify it completely, but my guess is going back to the 1800s, these were all pretty much natural burials out there. There weren't concrete vaults being used at that time. There might have been some embalming to get the soldiers back, the Civil War soldiers back, but the majority of the people that are buried out there, embalming didn't really
17:45become popular in our country until the Civil War. And the reason that embalming started was in order to get the soldiers back to their hometowns for burial. Up until then embalming wasn't really used. So I think, you know, Travis was more of a natural burial grounds, kinda it would fall into that category rather than even a hybrid, but it's somewhere in between those two. If that kinda makes sense.
18:13Yeah, tell me about the conservation one you mentioned. Yeah. So the conservation one is going to be just like a natural burial ground, but the biggest thing that's going to differentiate a conservation burial ground is that the ownership of the land has to be tied to some type of a conservation organization. Um, so those we maybe only have, I think the last I checked, we maybe had like three of those in the entire United States right now.
18:43Okay. All right. And then the other thing that I read, I think on one of your Facebook posts, or maybe the flyers that are posted on your Facebook page about it is the natural stone for a marker. When you say natural stone, does that mean that it can't be engraved or does it just need to be a natural stone? So going back to when I said I have very few regulations out there
19:12Markers and monuments are one thing that I haven't defined yet. And I'm hoping that over time, um, that kind of just works itself out because I have a really hard time telling a family that they can't mark a grave in the way that they want to. So if somebody wants to use a flat marker or something like that and have engraving, I'm okay with that. That's not going to be an issue for me. Um, and I think the folks that want to have natural burial, you know,
19:42I don't think we're going to be putting up big thousands of dollars in granite headstones that are going to make it look like a regular cemetery. So, ideally what I'd really like to use is some type of cassoda stone that can be engraved on that's native to this area. We can get it easy and any marker or monument company can help us with the lettering on that. So, that would be ideal.
20:10I don't have a problem if somebody wants to plant a tree in an open area to mark a grave or use a field stone maybe that they have and use that instead that's going to look more like a big rock with engraving on it. So I'm pretty open to that and I'm really excited to see what people come up with for ideas to mark these graves. So I've kind of left that open and not put a whole lot of requirements around that. That's great.
20:39This is a, it's not a new idea, but it's, it's going to take a while for people to really embrace it. I feel like so leaving, leaving some imagination to the process is probably not a terrible thing. Um, also, also this green burial thing. I don't have a really good way to describe it or whatever. Evergreen, the green burial situation is less expensive than a.
21:07quote unquote traditional burial as from what I'm seeing too. So that helps. Yeah, absolutely. So green burials in general, you know, when we look at like a traditional funeral with a casket and a vault and a service at our church or at the funeral home. So I'm talking about for traditional funerals, you know, on average in Minnesota, that's averaging around $15,000 and up. With a green burial,
21:35We're not doing embalming. We're buying a minimal type container to contain the body. We can still have a service with it, but we're looking at costs that are gonna be a lot closer to the five to $10,000 range. And when I say 10,000, that's really stretching it. Every funeral home on their general price list is gonna have an option for direct burial or immediate burial. And what that would include usually is the funeral home's charges,
22:03their basic services for their funeral home and staff. Cost for the removal of the body from wherever the person dies. We wouldn't have embalming in most cases with that, with a direct or an immediate burial, and then transportation to the cemetery for a graveside service. You know, and that's gonna be a lot closer to that $5,000 mark. And then if somebody wants to add in a funeral service after that, you know, maybe the body's not present for that.
22:33because burial would take place in those first 72 hours. In the state of Minnesota, they say that if final disposition, so burial or cremation, takes place in 72 hours, the funeral home is not required to do the embalming. So usually the burial happens first. And then if somebody wants to have some type of a service or a lunch or whatever, they can do that afterwards as well.
22:58But I always encourage people when I'm talking about this, you know, if you're talking to a funeral home, ask them for a direct burial option or immediate burial option, because they're all gonna have it on their price list. And start there, and then you can work your way and add to that as your family needs to. Yes, and on that note, if you can get some of this stuff planned ahead of time, like in a will or in wishes for your family to know,
23:27It's a good thing because if someone dies unexpectedly, it's really difficult to think through what you want to do and to get everybody on board with the decisions for the deceased. My husband's mother passed away back four or five years ago and we knew that she was ill and we knew that she was going to die.
23:55but she had told us that she had set up a plan that the paperwork was in her file cabinet through one of the crematory companies in Minnesota. Come to find out that was not the case. So I don't wanna be a downer, death is a difficult thing to talk about, but if you are a smart human being and you don't want your family to have to be making major decisions when they're grieving
24:25panicked or just not sure what to do, have your plans on paper or in a file in the computer somewhere and people know where to find it because it's really hard to make decisions when you're grieving. You are absolutely correct. And that's one of the things that we talked about on my regular job in my seminars, just that the help that that's going to give a family someday. People don't always realize everything that goes into planning.
24:55a funeral or a cremation, even a simple cremation service. You know, there's a death certificate that has to be filed and there is information that if we're doing it for ourselves, it'll take us like three minutes to fill it out. We know that information off the top of our heads, but I don't have a clue what my mom and dad's social security numbers are, you know, and we need that for a death certificate. You know, that's just one of the little things. And then you get into planning what type of service you want and the questions that a funeral director is gonna ask a family in order to
25:24try to help them through that process, it can get to be overwhelming. Especially if a family hasn't slept much, they're sad, they're grieving, and now they're forced to plan a funeral and answer all these questions. It's gonna happen in about a week's time. Yeah, and shock is a real thing. You know when people say, oh she's in shock? Shock is a real thing. It's the way that your body deals with
25:54and it makes you go numb most of the time. And numb does not work very well when people are asking you questions. No, it doesn't. And you see that all the time. And people don't make the best decisions when they're stressed, when they're shut down. And you said it perfectly, that's just the body's natural way of protecting itself. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't even all that close to my mother-in-law.
26:23And I was still kind of shocky when she died. And I was like, why am I feeling this way? I wasn't even close with her. But it's that someone is no longer with us thing that, that happens to your brain. It's just weird. And there's so much fear and anxiety around death. And clearly I don't want to die tomorrow. I would like to live to be 99 at least. I'm 54 now.
26:51But things happen and people get real weird about talking about death. And I feel like we spend all this time planning for babies births and the joy of bringing new life into the world. But death is the opposite end of that and I think that people's lives should be celebrated once they've lived them. Absolutely and it's a hard thing to talk about because
27:22especially in our culture, we don't, we hide so much of what the death, even when the death occurs with our current funeral practices, whether that be cremation or burial or whatever, but we hide a lot of the fact that the death has even occurred because we don't want to think about it. And to try to think about that ahead of time is a really difficult thing for people to do. And everybody has some different beliefs around it and their spirituality might be a little bit different on what they believe.
27:52But the fact of the matter is, is that it's something that is inevitable. Um, and most people don't want to plan for it because they don't want to talk about it. They don't want to feel those hard feelings. Yep. Cause it sucks, but it's important to make it easier on the people who are left behind. Okay. So, um, the cemetery itself, the Traverse one or whatever it's called. Um,
28:17is 10 acres and there's only like 160 or 170 plots that are used right now? Yeah, that's correct. So there's a lot of wide open space. Maybe about three to four acres is kind of the woods surrounding the cemetery. On the original maps, that was all back in the 1800s. Those are all plotted for graves back through the woods. And I think the woods kind of developed and grew up through there.
28:46We're not using all of that back in the woods. Eventually, if this is something that a lot of people are interested in, um, I would look at, you know, allowing for burials back there. It's beautiful back there in the woods. And I'd like to have walking paths back there someday too. But for the time being, we have so much area that we're able to use, um, just in the open parts of the cemetery. And it's kind of a nice mix because if somebody wants to be buried out in the front side of the cemetery.
29:15It's all open and it's sunny and that's where the grass is really grown. Um, and, but if somebody wants to be back kind of in the trees, it's not so choked out with trees that you can't have burial back there. It's actually really beautiful. You've seen it. It's beautiful back in there. There's a lot of shade. Um, natural light does come through. Um, a couple that bought the first graves out there, they bought it up on the hill in the trees and if you're out there, um,
29:43in the evening as the sun is going down it comes right through to that area it's absolutely gorgeous. Yeah I mean the location is is gorgeous there's no question when when I first went there it was a morning I think it was 10 a.m and it was sunny and it was probably May so it wasn't hot yet and the mosquitoes hadn't shown up yet thank god.
30:07And I drove up in there, parked in that little circle, read the stone, read the little plaque. I was like, oh my God, this is great. I finally found the cemetery I get to hang out at here. And that sounds really weird, but it's true. Um, and it is, it's really pretty. It's very peaceful. It is a lovely spot. Whoever chose that spot for the cemetery did a great thing. Now the, I could rave for days. I'm not going to do that.
30:36The reason that this is relevant to the podcast, because I feel like you're going to be like, why is she talking about this? Is that green burials are better for the earth than the quote unquote traditional burials. And I think it's funny that we call the traditional burials traditional burials because I feel like the green ones are actually from way back, they should be called the traditional burials, but that's not how we're doing this. So the
31:05you're not putting cement into the ground. And that takes up room, which means the grave is bigger than it needs to be. The bright shiny lacquer on caskets, I don't know if that ruins the soil, but I bet it doesn't help it. And this is just kinder to the ground that the person is being put in.
31:32Yeah, exactly. It's, um, yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So it, the main goal with any green burial is that we're not using anything that's going to be harmful to the environment and we're going to try to do everything that we can, to be as kind to the, to nature as, as possible. Um, do you want me to read you some stats that I've got for traditional burials? What we're bearing every year?
32:03All right, so I got this off of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's website, and I've seen these a number of other places too, but every single year, 827,000 gallons of embalming fluid or formaldehyde, 2,700 tons of copper or bronze or precious metals and casket, 30 million board feet of lumber, 1.6 million tons of concrete and 14,000 tons of steel are buried in the United States.
32:32every single year from traditional casketed burials. To put that kind of in a more local level, this comes from Mark Harris. He wrote a book in 2007, it's titled Grave Matters. And he took the typical 10 acre cemetery, so that's about the same size as Traverse. But it would contain enough casket wood to construct more than 40 homes, 900 plus tons of casket steel and another 20,000 tons of concrete vault, in vault.
33:01Um, and then on top of that enough embalming fluid to fill the equivalent of like a backyard swimming pool. And then not only that, but the, all the pesticides, weed killers, the moment to keep that net that cemetery looking, you know, unnaturally green. So, um, we try to get away from all of that when it comes to natural burials and keep things as Nate, as natural as we can and as harmless to the environment as we can do.
33:32Yep, that's a lot of big numbers right there. That's not great. The other thing that I wanted to touch on is funerals are for the living. The person that has died does not care. They're gone. They are off to their next adventure. They don't care. And so when we think about funerals, we're thinking about it through our perception of what they are.
34:01not what the person that died's perception would be because they don't have one anymore. Correct. And so it's, it's up, it's up to us to decide how we want to react to the death of someone we love or maybe someone we don't love. Who knows? It could be somebody you don't love that you have to handle this for. And really.
34:27If you're basing it off of what the person who has died would want, you can't do that. They're not here anymore. So my take on funerals is that I don't attend any. I don't go to funerals because the person that died, if it's someone I loved, they already know that. They knew that. Yeah.
34:51Yeah, and I'm not gonna be help. I'm not gonna be help at a funeral because the minute somebody cries I will be crying too, even if there's no reason for me to cry. So I don't I don't go to funerals It is not my thing Yeah Yeah, it's a little bit different for everybody, you know And everybody processes that a death of a loved one or like you say a non loved one You know in just in different ways and so People need different things Mm-hmm in it
35:20It's interesting because we see so much of that in the funeral industry. People that don't want to, don't do any pre-planning ahead of time, sometimes the family members feel burdened having to make all these decisions themselves with no direction of what their mom and dad maybe would have wanted. And others, even if mom and dad made the funeral plans, they might not like that.
35:49you know, and they might want to do something a little bit different. So your point is correct that funerals are for the living. And I do believe that they should, that the survivor should have some say in what they need to start that healing process after a death has occurred. And that'll look a little bit different for everybody.
36:11Yeah. When my grandpa died, my mom's dead, I was at that funeral and I had just had a baby like eight, nine weeks before. So my emotions were all over the place. Yeah. And some of the family members kept coming up to my mom and they were just sobbing. My grandfather was well loved and my mom had to comfort them. And I walked away from that funeral just
36:41pissed off as all hell that my mom had to comfort these people. And my dad was like, why are you so mad? And I said, I said, because it's not mom's job to come to them. It was her dad. And he said to me, honey, he said, everybody deals with death differently. Yeah. And it still bothers me. Who knew?
37:05And I said, well, that's not fair. And he said, well, it's not fair that your grandfather's dead either. And I was like, well, yes, I know. And he said, your mom's strong. She handled it. She's fine. I was like, yeah, but I still hate everything about it. And he was like, you can hate everything about it. That's fine. So yeah, everyone deals with their feelings differently and sometimes inappropriately.
37:32And you got to deal with that too. I'm sure you've had that happen. Oh yeah. Yep. Absolutely. There's been some crazy things that have happened at the funeral homes without the doubt. Yeah. Yeah, I bet. And the other thing that I wanted to point out is that you are not a unicorn. There are green burial companies all over the United States. There's not a ton of them, but I know there's at least one in Maine right now. And they are kind of picky.
38:01they do want to make sure that it's only natural stone. And I'm not even sure whether you can have it engraved and same practices, a shroud or a, a non-treated wood box or whatever. There are other places available. So this is not just St. Peter, Minnesota. There are other places that do this. Absolutely there are. And it's fun to see that and to see what they're doing.
38:28I've learned a ton in the research that I've done on this. Even before starting this cemetery, my whole idea on green burials came up because the company that I worked for, we needed a new seminar option. And one of the choices was green burials. And I said, hey, I'll take that on. I'd like to do that, learn more about it. And so I put together this presentation on green burials and it's evolved over the last three years. But.
38:58They're just doing research on different states, what they're doing, what their laws allow them to do. So they're out there, but like you said, they're kind of few and far between. But what's kind of exciting about this is that, you said earlier that the way we, this natural burial should be considered traditional burial because that's how we always used to do funerals. Funerals used to be held in the homes.
39:28Families participated in the death. Graves were dug usually by the family members. And there was no embalming. There was no fancy casket. There's no fancy headstone. They were all very environmentally friendly. That was only about 150 years ago. So this isn't a new idea. That millennial generation is a generation that really carries the torch on this. They're very environmentally,
39:59environmentally conscious. They're very green. They're concerned about the environment. But it's interesting because the baby boomer generation kind of rekindled or originated this idea of green funerals and green burials. And that baby boomer generation, you know, they were kind of our nation's first green generation. They helped with organizing Earth Day and things like that. So as you see that
40:28aging and that's kind of the groups that I'm talking to when I'm doing seminars. They're the ones who are really looking for this as an option. Yeah. And the Baby Boomers may have reinstated this idea, but I think the Gen X parents that me, I'm a Gen X parent. Yeah, I am too. I think that we instilled in our kids.
40:54the idea that you don't have to accept the status quo. You are free to ask questions and educate yourself. Absolutely, and isn't it fun to see them doing that and not thinking that they have to follow along with what society tells them that they should do? Oh my God, I think I created monsters with my four. They would be like, how does this work? And I would say, I don't know, let's go find out. And if-
41:22they were old enough to read, I would be like, there's a library at your school. I'm sure they have books. And then when they're old enough to go to the library library, I was like, there's a library down the street. Go research all you want until you can't feed your brain anymore. And not all parents do that, but my parents did it for me. They had the encyclopedia of Britannica in book form on the shelf at the end of the hallway by my bedroom door. And if I had a question and my dad didn't want to answer it or didn't have time,
41:52He would be like, we bought that whole set of books that has all the answers possible in this moment for you. Go read it. And I did the same thing for my kids. And the internet has made it so much easier for you to say, I don't know, go look it up. With the caveat that you might wanna make sure you know the search terms they're using to look up whatever they're looking up. Absolutely. So I think that we are in a time of
42:21questioning everything and that's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful that we have so much information at our fingertips. I love the time that I live in. So I have one more thing for you and then I'm gonna cut you loose. If someone, you're in the funeral industry so you probably know the answer to this. If someone dies of natural causes,
42:49It is clear that they died of natural causes. Maybe they had cancer, they're in a hospice, and they die. Or for some reason, someone dies in their sleep. Do you have to have, I don't know how to ask this correctly, do you have to have the medical examiner involved? Or can you just call and be like, yep, so-and-so passed away from cancer, that was killing them.
43:17They are now no longer with us. And then can you just wrap the body and take it to the cemetery and have the funeral? Does there have to be all this bureaucratic red tape involved all the time? Yeah, kind of. So all right, so you asked a bunch of questions in there. Let me start kind of at the beginning. That's good, though.
43:44Let me start at the beginning and I'll kind of walk through it. Okay? So if somebody dies of natural causes, so maybe they're in a nursing home or a hospital. That's going to be the easy one. They're in a nursing home or a hospital. The hospital is going to get a hold of the funeral home. The funeral home can go out and make the removal. Now, I know I'm not addressing your later questions about the family doing that on their own. I'll get there.
44:13If somebody dies at home, if they are on a hospice list and on hospice, the medical examiner is not going to have to come out. If they die at home and let's just say that they had a heart attack or didn't wake up in the morning, the medical examiner is going to have to be called. Depending on the county and where you live, sometimes they'll come out. Sometimes they'll actually take the body and do an autopsy.
44:42A lot of times though, they'll just certify that the death has occurred and the funeral home can make the removal from the place of death. Now as far as a family doing that, a licensed funeral director or recently in Minnesota laws just passed where we can have transfer care specialist make a removal from the place of death.
45:09but they have to be, they have to go through some different classes, they have to be certified to be a transfer care specialist. So either that person or a funeral director are the only people that can remove a body from where the death has occurred. So you are in Minnesota right now, you're still gonna need a funeral home involved in some way, shape or form. The other thing you need the funeral home for is that a death certificate has to be filed in Minnesota. So.
45:36Currently in Minnesota, what's done is that the funeral home generates that death certificate. They get the information to the doctor and the doctor signs off on the death certificate and lists the cause of death. And then it's filed with our county. So we need a funeral director for that.
45:59A family can transport a body after that with a burial transit permit that would be given to them by the funeral home. So if all a family wants to do is have a funeral home, you know, make the removal from the place of death, generate the death certificate and get that filed with our county, and then the family picks the body up from the funeral home and brings it out to the cemetery, they can do that. But...
46:25I guess they can't really do that because technically in Minnesota, we still need a licensed funeral director at that graveside service for a, uh, full body burial for cremator remains. We don't need a funeral director there, but for, um, a body burial, a funeral director would have to be at that cemetery for the burial. So we need a funeral director in a funeral home for a few of those items.
46:50Okay, I don't mean to be a pain in the butt, but why? Why does a funeral director have to be at at? What you just said? Director have to be involved in that. Um, essentially I don't have a great answer for that. Um, what I can tell is that We don't want the state of minnesota probably doesn't want somebody dying at home and not having that death recorded Um and certified. No, that's that's not
47:19That's not what I meant. I wasn't talking about that part. At the actual funeral at the graveside, a funeral director has to be there? Yeah, they have to be there. Why? They have to be at the graveside service. Just to ensure that that body made it into the ground is the best answer I can give you. Okay, that makes sense. Mary, I would say we live in very untrusting times. And so to let people...
47:49have free rein with that, you know, we're not there yet. I'm not saying that I agree with the law and that I don't question it, but that's the current situation in Minnesota that a funeral director has to be at the graveside service for a body burial. Okay, that's fine. I just didn't know if there was a specific reason why, and I'm always wondering why on everything because this is just who I am. Thank you, because why do you know?
48:17If you don't want a funeral home involved, you know, you don't necessarily need them there. But funeral directors aren't bad people, you know, they're there to help. Sometimes they get a bad rap. Most of them, their hearts are in the right place. Oh, yes, absolutely. One of our friends, Joe Wagner up in Jordan has the Wagner Funeral Home, I think is what it's called.
48:45And we're friends with him because he sells wonderful apples and we buy tons of apples for him in the fall. And he is so excited to answer questions like I'm asking you. But he's not doing green burials and you were the one who was doing that. So that's why I'm talking to you. Joe will talk my ear off if I asked him to be on the podcast. I probably never will because he would talk for hours. He's a great guy. I like him a lot.
49:14Okay, so I think I've asked you all the questions I probably should ask because we're coming up on 50 minutes and I try to keep this to 30 minutes. So Joel, I really, really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. This was great. Thank you at Ton Mary for asking me to do this. I really appreciate it. Yeah, have a great day. You too. Thank you.
 

Little Strawberry Patch Homestead

Today I'm talking with Nicole at Little Strawberry Patch Homestead.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Nicole at Little Strawberry Patch Farm or something. She's gonna say it for me. Say it, Nicole. What's your voice again? Little Strawberry Patch Homestead.
00:27Homestead, yes, I'm so sorry. I have talked to so many people lately and they all end their names in farm or farms or homestead or farmstead. I'm like, which is it? All right, Nicole, you're in New Jersey on a small lot. Tell me all about yourself and what you do. I was born and raised in South Jersey. We are still in South Jersey. We're a little further up in South Jersey. We're in Cumberland County.
00:56We recently moved here in 21. We have three, three children, three wild children, nine, five and four. And we live on a very small homestead. Basically it's very tiny. It's only 0.40 acres. Okay. And your house and maybe a garage is on that 0.40 acres? There is a, there is a house and a garage. Yep.
01:25been there done that except we did it on a tenth of an acre so it can be done. It really can and that's crazy. Yeah. A little aside, I was born in New Jersey and my parents moved to Maine when I was six months old so I have no working memory of being in New Jersey but it was at Fort Dix Air Force Base. Oh yeah, that's like an hour and an hour or so from here. Yeah. So I'm...
01:53I'm not a native Maynard because I wasn't born in Maine, but I might as well be and I'm actually not even there anymore. I'm in Minnesota. So I was a I was a almost native Maynard until I was 21 or 22. And I will never be a native Minnesotan because that's not how it's played out here. I am I'm going to be away and away from person for a long time. Oh my gosh, that's funny.
02:21Yep. So I never got the Jersey accent. I got the main accent. And then I got it. So I definitely have the Jersey accent majority of the time. It's not as heavy as I thought it was going to be. I was like, oh, she's going to sound like a Jersey girl. And then you started talking about Philadelphia and that's my husband. Okay. All right. Okay. So I just wanted to throw that in there because I think it's interesting. So what are you doing on your
02:50your little bitty homestead. So we initially had started out when we moved in. I obviously had to have chickens because who doesn't have to have chickens, right? And initially that was just supposed to be like a little fun hobby thing for me. And then I was like, you know, we can get more chickens because that's how it works. You start adding chickens with chicken math.
03:13And then I was like, well, we can start giving to the neighbors. Like I'd rather give it to them than them go to the grocery store. And this is when the grocery prices for eggs were through the roof. So it was like, yeah, we need to get more chickens. So we've slowly been adding chickens. We only have 10. But we're doing that for eggs. Mostly we have a rooster we might keep. So hopefully we'll have some chicks too. And then maybe we could do meat. I'm not positive.
03:43quail currently that we just got that we're doing for meat and for eggs. And hopefully we can do offspring with them too. We're doing silver fox rabbits, which we just started this year and we've built them like an outdoor enclosure. We're now going to do a secondary enclosure for them, which is going to be like double what they have. And then we're going to move our pet rabbits outside and we'll use those for.
04:12meat for our dogs, which is what we've currently been doing with them. And then if anybody wants pets, because they're adorable, they're an option too, if they would like them. And then we also just recently got dogs, which are my new favorite. We had our chicken hatch, two duck eggs, and then we have a duck that's now sitting on like a whole clutch. But we now have four, five, six ducks, adult ducks, and then we have two babies.
04:42So like overall, we're just like flourishing in the animals and we're starting to now add in like garden stuff. We have fig trees, like two massive ones that everyone loves, animals included. And my husband just recently, we just recently tilled way in the back. So we have corn going and stuff like that. Peas. And then we tried to do strawberries, but they got decimated for some reason this year by bugs.
05:09So I just let the chickens have their way with that patch. Well I'm sure the chickens are thrilled because they love strawberries. Did I see on your Facebook page that you call the ducks water chickens? Oh my god, the baby ducklings, yes. Because the chicken hatched them. Okay because I thought that was very cute because I call the calves out in the fields that we see when we're driving around.
05:36I call them grass puppies all the time because they look like little dogs out there running in the grass. That's adorable. So I was like water chickens. I love that. I have to add that to my, my lexicon of terms that are stupid and silly. Um, okay. So, so are you trying to do this to make what you're doing make money? Are you just doing it because you love it and to support your, your hobby?
06:01I loved it initially. So initially we started, like I said, chickens and we wanted to do rabbits and it was more so for me and I had to sell that to my husband because he's like, I don't really want to do this. But now he's like all for it loves the rabbits. That's like his therapy animal apparently. So we really started just to kind of share with our neighbors that we have, we have three neighbors that are real close that they share like from their gardens. So we share like what we have to give them with eggs and such so far.
06:31it started that way. And then I was like, you know, we really should start doing like me. So let's do some quail and then we'll see what we can do from there. And then it obviously the rabbits too. So the hope is that we can have our children understand where the food comes from, because my daughter has no idea besides the grocery store, which is such a crazy thing to me. And then the hope is also to potentially put money back into
07:01I don't know how much I could do here overall, but I would like to do something to make some kind of payback for what we have going on because it is going to eventually be a lot. If that makes sense. Oh yeah. Yep. Because you got to keep them fed. Yeah. And like honestly, if we could do it properly, I think it would be great. Like I'd really like to start pickling like the quail eggs because that seems like a big way to sell those.
07:29There's like a lot of different things I'd like to do. Like with the rabbits, you can dehydrate the ears for dog treats. Like there's several things that I think I could do and I just have to nail them down. Yep. Exactly. Um, so is New Jersey like super regulatory on this kind of stuff or are they pretty? Oh, yes. Yeah, very. So.
07:54that's kind of where I'm dancing in the line too because I'm not really supposed to have chickens I can have ducks which is crazy to me because this is the egg capital of New Jersey apparently. So I'm pushing the line with the chickens a little bit but I have the ducks and they're fine, the quail are fine, the rabbits are fine it seems. With the quail it seems like if you want to sell the eggs or like the animals over like state lines you have to get a permit which does not seem too difficult.
08:24So that is something I'm going to look into as well. But again, planning slowly because I feel like I'm going to stress myself out. Yeah. So, is there any plan to in the future maybe move to more land or are you not interested in that? Oh no, I'm 100% interested in that. Definitely like there's land behind us, but the guy wants to sell.
08:52all of it like spanned across wide. And we only want the spot behind us, obviously. But definitely that's what I would like to do. We would like to not be in New Jersey. We are not positive where we would like to move, but eventually that is the plan is to get more land. And then that would be more sustainable even further. Okay, yeah. We...
09:19We had a similar situation to yours where we had a tenth of an acre lot in a small town, about half an hour from where we are now. And it ended up that we had the chance, opportunity, good fortune to move in 2020 to a 3.1 acre property with a house and a huge pole barn on it. And we never in a million years thought we would actually be able to do this at all. And so just so you know, it is possible.
09:49You just got to have faith and you got to watch for those opportunities. Oh yeah, I know. I'm always looking. Yep. I am always looking because I'm like, there's plenty of space here. Like we can make it work. Like I'd really like the permaculture idea where everything is just there and like the animals are living in everything. But it's like you also have the kids. So it's like you need things for them to play with still. So it's like that's not like ideal right now here. So it's definitely something I really would want down the line.
10:19Yeah, and then I have a question about New Jersey. I have driven through New Jersey on a road trip at one point in time. And my memory and perception of New Jersey is that people are packed in like sardines. Yes. So before we moved here, we lived in basically like Kate Marriott exits here almost.
10:45there was no, like I wanted chickens there, but there was no way that would be so cruel, even to have them free range. It was like a tiny run almost. And then we moved up here and it's been like crazy, like because it's huge feeling compared to what I came from. But up here, it's a lot more, um, what's the word? Rural. So there's space between the neighbors.
11:09There's definitely still neighbors, but there's a decent space on each side, which I did not have before. And then we have just to span back and front. But definitely there is a lot of areas in New Jersey where there's either all farmland or it's packed like sardines, like you said. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask is if there's any actual open space in New Jersey, because I never was in an area where I saw that. So
11:34it's kind of split up in Cumberland County and then like Lawster and stuff like that, which is like the town or the next county over. And then you have to go up like towards the city, like New York towards that way. And there's a lot of that way as well. Okay. Yeah. I have driven the long way across New York from Minnesota to Maine, and, and it is beautiful. My God. New York in the areas that you're just driving for hours and hours is just stunning.
12:04I can only imagine. Yeah, it's beautiful. We talked about not staying in Minnesota when we were looking for the next place four and a half years ago. And it turned out that Minnesota is fairly affordable and fairly, or was, inexpensive compared to a lot of the states that I would have liked to have moved to. So we ended up staying in Minnesota.
12:32But New York, upstate New York was one of the things we considered. Maine obviously is one of the places we considered because I grew up there. Um, Wisconsin even we thought about because those are all areas with really pretty geography. So we ended up staying in a very pretty area in Minnesota, but we definitely flirted with not staying, if that makes sense. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So I understand that you're like, we're not sure we want to stay in New Jersey because...
13:01why if you don't have to if you want to try something else? Definitely if you don't have to, I would love to go anywhere, anywhere else with like expansive land. Like I like my neighbors, I love them, but sometimes I want to walk outside and them not be there, you know? And that sounds so wrong, but it's like I'm longing for that and I think I'll get that eventually. So I'm just hoping we're getting there. Yeah, when we moved here...
13:28Our neighbors, our closest neighbors are a quarter mile away. And it's, it's a big dream. Yeah. It's a big cornfield, which was a soybean field when we moved in. It's a cornfield now around us. And I had a moment like three years ago, one morning when I got up and it was still dark out and I looked outside and I was like, dude, we are, we are not anywhere near if something goes wrong.
13:55You know, if I, if something was wrong and I yelled for help, nobody's going to hear me. And I had that moment of, oh my God, what did we do? And then like two days later, we had to go back up to the town that we used to live in and all the houses are right next to each other and it's noisy and all you can smell is car exhaust and dirt, not soil, dirt. And I was like, I don't care if I call for help and nobody can hear me. Because if I have to die, I want to die there where it's beautiful. Right?
14:25It makes so much sense. Yup. And I don't intend on dying, but I think you get what I'm saying. I do. I really do. I know exactly what you mean. Anytime I have to go back down to exit zero area, it's like, oh my God, I don't know how I lived here for so long. And like, so much tree cover, like so... Oh God, gloomy, I guess. Mm-hmm. Yup.
14:51And honestly, the town that we lived in before was great for raising kids because almost everything was within a mile walking distance for the kids. So raising kids in that town was fabulous. But now the kids are all grown and doing their own things. And I was like, I'm going to lose my mind if I have to live here for the rest of my life. I know. We don't live there anymore. And it's nice that you're a quarter of a mile away.
15:20Yes, just far enough away that when the donkey at the neighbor's place northwest of us braids, it's adorable. Oh my gosh, that is adorable. And when their cow is low, it's a beautiful sound. And I think they might've just gotten a horse. I swear I heard a horse do that blow that they do through their nose and neigh the other day. I was like, did they get a horse? Oh my God.
15:48So yeah, it's really fun. And I'm not saying this to rub it in your face. None of this is like, ha ha, look what we did. It's just that there's opportunities that you can't possibly know are coming down the pike for you because that's how life is. Oh yeah, definitely. And hopefully the housing market changes. That would be wonderful. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, that would be good. And then I'll be like on board right away.
16:15Let's go. It's time. Yes. Yeah, it's time. My bags have been packed since we talked about it. Let's go now. Now is the time. Yes. We can get a horse and a cow. Yep, exactly. Um, okay. So I don't know. Did you, did you grow up wanting to have a homestead?
16:40I would definitely not say a homestead. Probably wanting to live on a farm. I've always had like a gajillion animals of all sorts. And then when we lived at the last home that we owned, it was only so big so we had cats and dogs and I couldn't have the chickens. So when we got here, I was like, it's happening. And it happened. And it's kind of explicit with animals and I love it. And the kids like...
17:06I honestly adore it. I think the only one that doesn't love it entirely is my oldest daughter, but she's getting to the point where she's like enjoying seeing the animals. She likes the little ducklings and the chickens running around. So it's like she's starting to appreciate it more, whereas I feel like she really didn't appreciate a lot of things the same. Yeah. So I would say that overall, I think that it's starting to help everybody around here. Even my husband who was like super like clean freak and now he's like...
17:35getting in the garden, which is crazy to me, and cleaning up chicken poop and duck pools. So overall, I would definitely say this wasn't the end goal. I would still love a farm, but yeah, this is where I'm happy to be for sure. Cool. So how do your neighbors react to what you're doing? I mean, when you started doing all this stuff, were they like, what are you doing?
18:04Well, we told the one neighbor we were getting chickens because he's like he's the closer neighbor. He's like on the side of our driveway basically near the garage. And then the other neighbor is kind of far. And I was like, we're not getting roosters. So I'll just let it go. But we told him and he's like, I want chickens too. But he didn't get chickens still. But he was fine with it. And then we were like, we're gonna get rabbits. And then we got quail and ducks.
18:29So now every time he'll just like pop over in the gate, like walk through and check everything out. So he's like super into it and like intrigued. And then like the neighbors across the street are like semi intrigued, but they have like a huge massive garden going on. So really nobody's really bothered. And honestly, the ducks are way louder than the chickens, I would say. Yeah, I can imagine they probably are. Cause quite.
18:54quack is a lot different than that. Yeah, you come out the back door, it slams and they are going off. Like definitely louder than the chickens. Yeah, you know what's also louder than chickens? Barn cats. Barn cats are louder than chickens. Our barn cats have the loudest meows I've ever heard. What are they meowing for? Oh, just to let us know they're there. We have two cats that live outside, so I call them the barn cats.
19:23Yeah, the littlest one is four months and a couple weeks old. And every morning he comes tearing from the pole barn over the steps of the house. And the whole time he's going, I'm here. Hello. You have a snack? I'm like, dude, I see you. You stick out like a sore thumb. You're white with beige spots against green grass. I know you're there, but he's very friendly and he's a big love. So it's fine. But yeah, the barn cats are probably the loudest thing outside.
19:53that's kind of obnoxious. The chickens aren't bad. They're not that loud. Really, they're not. They're not loud at all. The ducks are really loud. The cats can be loud too. Yeah. So, um, when you, when you decided to get ducks, did you already know what they needed? No, I had no idea. And I honestly didn't want ducks and I really didn't want ducks. And then we sadly went to tractor supply and these ducks look so sad.
20:20in the bin. Of course, they got you. And I was like, all right, we're going to bring these ducks home. And then when we brought them home, we were like immediately obsessed. So I just poured my heart into everything you could think of. We build a duck house and everything for them. And now they have two pools. But I really had no idea. And I didn't want them because they were dirty, apparently, which they are very dirty, but they're so smart.
20:48and they clean up way better than the chickens do. They eat less than the chickens do. So I would definitely say they're a very cool animal. Yeah. And the baby ones are so cute. Oh, my God. Their feet are so big and they're so tiny. So cute. You know, like they're stomping around with little boots.
21:11So have you found that one of the benefits of having chickens and ducks and rabbits and quail is that you don't have as much lawn to mow? Oh, 100%. But then we have the dogs that are, you know, fertilizing it themselves every day. So there's patches of high and then there's patches of bare. But yeah, definitely they do a lot. And like I said, the ducks do a lot with like the pests way more than the chickens.
21:39And then the chickens scratch up anything they can find. So I'm cool with that. And since you said all of that, you are definitely a homesteader because you understand the whole circle of how things work. Yeah, I really oh my God, I'm so glad you said that because I swear me and my husband talk about all the time, people are online. They're like, is it OK if my chicken has this? I'm like, if the chicken's going to eat it, it's probably fine. Like, they know what to eat, not to eat the same with the ducks. Like, yeah.
22:08If you're going to throw something out there and poison them, they're going to eat it because they naturally would eat that. But they're so like self-sufficient. That's why you see them out in the wild. Like it's just so bizarre how people try to like make it really complex and it's really so simple. And that's why it's so enjoyable because of the simplicity. Yeah. The hardest thing about homesteading, whether it's gardening or raising animals, is the work involved to get it going. Right.
22:37That's exactly what it is. It's the hardest part. And then when you get it done, it's like, you can enjoy it for a little bit until you do the next thing. Yeah. And what's funny is the beginning of anything is always the hardest part. It is because you have to figure it out. Yeah. And so people are like, Oh my God, how did you do that? That's a lot of work. And I'm like, how did you figure out how to do the thing that you're doing that you love, right? You had to start somewhere too.
23:05It's the same. And I feel like it's because they think of it as more of a hobby. But when you're trying to do something on a larger scale or maybe larger for you, and like even if they don't know how large it is to you, it's different for them, I guess, because it's not the same hobby, I guess they want to call it. Yeah, I don't know. I just, I feel like people sometimes don't think about what they're saying before it comes out of their mouth. Right. And I don't, I don't mean that.
23:35as in they're not smart. There's just no online editor to stop what they're thinking to come out their mouth. And so when they're confused or perplexed, this question comes out and you look at them like, but you did the same thing with ABCD, you know? Right, correct. And then they realized what they asked and they're like, oh yeah, I did. Okay, so it's kind of the same. Yes, it's kind of the same.
24:05It really is. You just kind of have to smooth the edges for them and then they realize. Yeah. Whatever your passion is, whatever things sparked you to want to know more and then to do that thing, it's all the same motivation behind it, if that makes sense? Definitely. It definitely makes sense. Yeah. When we got chickens, we got chickens when we lived at the old place because that bird flu thing was going through. And we had four kids.
24:35And eggs were really expensive and my children really liked homemade chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip cookies take eggs. And I said to my husband, I said, how hard would it be to get like four chickens? And he said we would have to buy a shed or a coop for them. And I said, how much would that cost? He told me. And I said, okay. And I like went out of my way to make enough money to get one of the little prefab chicken coop things from Fleet Farm.
25:04Oh, New Jersey doesn't have fleet from I don't think but. Tractors fly basically. Yeah and come to find out it was a little too small for four chickens so we ended up buying one of the the sheds at Home Depot that you can put together. Yep. And we retrofitted that sucker and it was a great coop and we had eggs for less money than we would have been paying at the store because feeding four chickens isn't that expensive. And I was hooked.
25:34I just thought this is great. These eggs are so much better than the store bought eggs. And whether they... Don't you love when you crack them and they're orange inside and then, oh my God, I got a hard boiled egg from like a convenience store because I had to go out one day and I had to get food. This egg on the inside was like almost like white. Why? I was like, this is gross. I am not eating this. I would rather starve. Yeah. And the thing is I...
26:02Every time I have this conversation with people who get it, they're like, oh yeah, eggs from your chickens are so much better than eggs from the store. And I agree, but there are reasons for that. Number one, the eggs at the store have probably been on the shelf for at least three weeks. For two weeks. Yeah. Which degrades the nutrient value and probably the taste of the egg.
26:30when you are literally cracking an egg from the chicken that just laid it 10 minutes before and frying it up, it's clearly going to taste different and it's going to look different. Oh, so delicious, yes. So, so yeah, I just, I, I always feel stuck on this point because grocery stores are important because not everyone can or will have their own chicken.
27:01And eggs are good for you. I think that people should eat eggs. I think people should drink milk as long as they don't get sick from drinking milk, you know? But not everybody can go out to the barn and milk their cow and have fresh milked. I'm sorry. Well, apparently in New Jersey, you can't even have raw milk like to sell anymore. You can drink it personally, but you have to find a way to acquire it because you can't sell it. Yep. So they've kind of taken away that right.
27:28my husband said as of I think he said 22 or 21. So it's like you can't even do milk, but it's almost like I wish they would do the day where they dropped it on your front doorstep. Just like the same thing with the eggs. Like I do think the grocery store is a necessity, but I think that there's a lot of things that they're cutting corners on that are definitely gross.
27:56So everything happens for a reason. The reason just may not be very good is how I'm gonna put it. Right. But either way, the whole point of my podcast is to let people share about what they're doing to make their life what they want it to be. And I'm so impressed that you are doing all of this on probably what, a fifth of an acre, not even a fifth of an acre? 0.40, so. Yeah.
28:26Yeah. But with the house and the garage. Yeah, really not a lot of them now. Yeah. So you're using probably every square inch of what yard you have to basically better your life. Right. Just to provide any more sustainability and to not rely, I guess, on the grocery stores as much because they're not that reliable anymore, to be fair. Yeah. I talked with a lady
28:56couple months ago and she has a little tiny city lot in, I can't remember where, and she's surrounded by a hospital and some clinics. And the doctors and the nurses who go on break, they come outside to the break area and they can see into her yard where she grows produce and bedding plants and stuff, and they come over and talk to her and ask her questions all the time on their break.
29:26Because it's probably so amazing that like, probably like crazy to see that around all that, all those buildings, but it's like so necessary. Yeah, she had five, I think she said 5,000 seedlings started in her basement. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, I loved her story. I love your story too. Because I keep saying to people, you can homestead in...
29:55loft apartment in New York because it's not about land, it's about lifestyle. It is not. I tell my husband that all the time. People in the city can have quail on their porch, they can have plants on their porch. There's so many things that people can do and I really, really want people to see that. That's really important to me because if we can do it, there's no reason someone else can't do it. Yeah, absolutely. And if you're growing something that doesn't need to be pollinated, like lettuces or...
30:24radishes or carrots or spinach. You can grow that stuff in containers on a table under grow lights in your kitchen. Right, and they have those hydro grow things now. You can do the towers. Like there's so many options. And I definitely think people are forgetting what the country was built on, which is agriculture and all that because that's necessary to learn about. Mm-hmm, absolutely.
30:52So why is it Little Strawberry Patch? Oh, Little Strawberry Patch. Well, first, because it's little. Yep. Strawberry, because we live on the road, is called Strawberry. It's a patch because it is just a patch. Yeah. And it's a homestead. Okay, cool. I just, when people have cute names, I'm like, why is it called that? Just very simple. Yeah. Ours is a tiny homestead because 3.1 acres isn't that big.
31:20So, and plus we named it when we lived on our 10th of an acre. That was the name of our business. So I was like, okay, well, we're still a tiny homestead. We're just a little bigger tiny homestead now. Yeah, we'll just drag it over. Yep. So, all right, Nicole, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. I try to keep these 30 minutes and we are there. All right, thank you so much. This was awesome. Yep. It's all right. All right, thanks. Have a great day.
 

Charlotte Smith - Farm Marketing Mindset

Today I'm talking with Charlotte Smith about Farm Marketing Mindset.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Charlotte Smith. Good afternoon, Charlotte, how are you? I'm good, thank you. Good afternoon to you too. Good, so tell me about yourself and what you do.
00:30That is a big question. So I live in St. Paul, Oregon, and I've been a farm girl my whole life. As a matter of fact, I went away to college and swore I'd never come back. But then I came back 20 years ago because I wanted my kids to have the same lifestyle. And first of all, started kind of a homestead, milk in my own cow to provide milk for my family.
00:56And as anyone who has a cow knows, one cow provides milk for like 50 families. So I started selling my milk and had a raw milk dairy at an on-farm store. And then that evolved into about 10 years ago, teaching other homesteaders and farmers and now ranchers to market and sell their products too.
01:25These are expensive endeavors and it's nice to get some money back, either to pay your costs if you're just a homesteader or if you actually want to make a business out of it. I teach farmers how to do that too. So yeah, I'm a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I like to say. Well multi-passionate is a great thing.
01:55Perferred in Australia last week and I don't know if you know about her but she does sort of the same thing you do but her focus is women over 40 and helping them find what they're good at regarding homesteading to Make money to help support the homestead. I don't know if you know about her. I don't but this You're slightly different than her number one. You're in Oregon not Australia and
02:24I just was like, I want to see what your take is on how to make this go, I guess. Sure. Well, absolutely you have to be good at it. What I always say is, what are you passionate about? Because if you are milking cows because you think you need to make money and not because you love it, you're going to be very unhappy and unfulfilled. So...
02:52I always work with my clients to make sure that yes, they're learning to make money and they are making money at something they love. Sometimes it's just a matter of telling them that yes, you have permission to say you don't enjoy it. Sometimes they're making money at things they don't enjoy because they think they need to keep doing it or need to make money. Yes, so I do similar things.
03:20Figure out what you love and what you're passionate about, and you can make a profit at it. So, yes, and live a very fulfilling life. All right, that's kinda what I thought. That's why I decided to do a podcast, because I really, really do love it. Yeah, that's wonderful. And people love to talk about what they love. So I was like, I love talking to people. People love talking about what they love to do.
03:50I'm doing homesteading, I bake, I make crafty stuff. Let's go talk to people who are doing the things that I'm doing. And it's almost a year that I've been doing this and I still love it as much as the first one I did the last week of August last year. I hear you, I hear you, I'm the same way. Yep, it's crazy. I was not a podcast listening girl. I've listened to more.
04:15podcast from other people in the last eight months than I have ever listened to in my entire life. Because I needed to know how other people are doing it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you educated yourself, huh? I had to because I was like I have no idea how to do this. I need help. And that's one of the things that I would say is that if you're going to start a business, do the research.
04:41go look at what other people are doing, find somebody who's doing what you want to be doing and ask them questions. Yeah, or go intern with them. That's my thing. Before I brought home my first milk cow, I spent a year going and visiting other dairy farmers, observing them, actually sitting next to them, milking with them, and you can do that no matter what it is you're doing on your homestead. As a matter of fact, if you do that, you'll save so much money.
05:10because you will prevent so many expensive mistakes. Yes, and there are so many expensive mistakes to be made. And I don't want to discourage anyone from homesteading life, but just understand that if you're going to be growing produce or raising animals, mistakes will happen because you can't know what you don't know. Exactly. We learn experientially as humans.
05:40kills our crop of vegetables only when we kill the crop of vegetables. And go, oh, I wasn't supposed to do that. Or cow or whatever animal it might be too. Yes. And sometimes it's not even anything that you did or have control over. Our garden right now is a huge garden of lovely grasses and weeds, mostly because it rained for a month and a half straight here in Minnesota this spring.
06:09and the garden has been pretty much stopping wet since then. So we have some things growing that we put in, but they're not doing very well. And if Mother Nature could shut off the tap for a while, it would be really, really appreciated. Mm-hmm. It's been rough here in Minnesota. Oh, no. I don't know what it's been like where you are, but this has been terrible.
06:34We get a lot of rain six months in the winter. We're a rainforest and then we're kind of a drought in the summer. We really don't get much rain. I live next to a river and I have water rights. So luckily I can keep my grass green all year, but yeah, summer's kind of a drought here where I live. Well, the joke here at the homestead has been that we didn't know that we had been transported to Oregon or Washington state this summer. Right. I was in Minnesota teaching marketing.
07:03to a group of farmers in April. And the day I left, it snowed. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna move to Minnesota. It snows in April. Yep, Prince had a song, or has a song, called Sometimes It Snows in April, and he was not wrong. Yes, oh my gosh, you're right. How funny. Yeah, that boy grew up here. I think he knew what he was talking about. Yeah. Okay, so, you have a course.
07:33that you offer. And I can't remember if it's a free course or a paid for course. So tell me about the course. I have lots of free courses and one paid course. So yeah, what I love to do is, my family farm when I grew up, when I was a teenager went bankrupt. We lost everything except the clothes on our back. Our house was sold.
08:00in the bankruptcy sale, the farmland, the equipment, you know, we lost everything, put the clothes on our backs. So that has stayed with me in my whole life. And I saw a lot of other farmers at that time do the same thing. And now today, now that I've started my farm back in 2009, I've seen so many farmers go out of business. So my passion in life is to make sure that every farmer.
08:30everywhere knows they don't have to live in poverty and they can make money on their farm if they learn the skill, the money-making skills. And for me, I teach marketing and I teach farmers how to make money. It's what my website says because as we know, this is just so expensive. No matter what size you are, even if you just have backyard chickens, it's going to be
08:59feed them and take care of them. So I offer all sorts of free courses that just help you get started. If you've never thought of marketing your products before, I have a free email marketing course that gives you the basics so you can set up your foundation. I have a free pricing course called Price for Profit. I just took all the expenses on my farm and I created some
09:29Excel spreadsheets and made it so that you can plug your numbers in. You plug in your expenses and it spits out a number of what you should be charging for your products and most farmers are shocked. And when I say farmers, I'm talking about farmers, homesteaders, ranchers, anyone trying to make money selling a product direct to consumer. They're usually shocked. So I love people to have that awareness.
09:57They're wondering like, why do I never have any money left at the end of the year? And yet we sold, we're selling more and more every year, but there's no more money left and many times it comes down to, they just aren't charging enough. And so I love that exercise and, um, I can share with you where they can find that free course if you want. Sure. Good. You can, you can email it out, but they can go to Charlotte M Smith.
10:25dot com forward slash price for profit, all one word, price for profit. And it's just a six day course. So I'll get an email every day with the spreadsheets and it'll really open their eyes to why they're working so hard for not much return. And so, so that's kind of the, the free things really help you get your foundational things set up with email marketing and pricing.
10:53And then my paid course, what happens is once you know what to charge, what's going to happen is you're going to feel really guilty charging that much. You're going to feel really scared increasing your price. You're going to think you're going to lose people. So that's where then I do my, what I sell, what I have for sale is my course called farm marketing mastery. And that is beginning through advanced marketing training. So, and coaching. And that's where once you know what you need to charge.
11:24We help you figure out number one, is that what you love doing? And then coaching you and working with you through the year to make sure you're learning exactly how to market that one thing, price it for profit, and then build consistent sales with loyal customers that come back time and time again. So, that's kind of it. My free things are an introduction. And then my paid courses where you learn to be a very confident
11:54farm marketer and actually start to make money at what you're doing, which helps you in so many areas. Yeah, because most people who start a business are not fluent in marketing or sales. Marketing sales are a whole different career than the thing that we're starting. I was lucky enough to have some marketing background because I worked for a friend for six years.
12:24She was a PR and marketing company. And I had no idea how much I actually learned from her until we moved here four years ago and we're like, oh, we're gonna do a farm to market garden and we're gonna do a farm stand on the property and we're gonna do the farmer's markets and we're gonna sell produce. And my husband was like, so how do we get the word out? And I was like, I got you covered, honey. Nice. Yep, because it was in my brain from working with her and she is...
12:54still my friend and I love her and I love her more now because she taught me all these things that I didn't even know I was learning by osmosis. So it worked out fantastically. So here's the thing with the spreadsheet thing and showing people what they should be charging for their product. That is a thing we have trouble with sometimes too.
13:23tons of tomatoes and people wanted tomatoes for canning. And I told my husband, I said, you could probably be charging a dollar to two dollars more per pound this year than you did last year because there's a demand, there's a higher demand for them. And he was like, yeah, but with inflation, I don't wanna do that, it feels like taking advantage. And I was like, it's your garden, it's your baby, it's your tomatoes, you sell them for the price you wanna sell them for.
13:52And it's bugged me since because on one hand, he's right. Money was very tight for people last year. And we live in a small town. And we were very thankful that people wanted to buy our tomatoes. On the other hand, we could have charged more than the year before. So the whole pricing thing gets real uncomfortable for people. So what should we have done maybe in that situation? Yes. Well, the...
14:21What you're describing is very real. We take it very personally, like it's our responsibility to help people's budgets. But what I see, and remember, I work with, I see big scale. I work with 300 farmers a year of all different sizes, backyards, you know, quarter acre, one acre, three acre, five, 10, a hundred, 10,000 acres. So I have a vast.
14:49experience over 10 years of thousands and thousands of farmers. And the thing is, if you don't decide to charge a sustainable price, at some point, your husband and or you will say, this is too much work for the money. I'd really like to just go to the beach more this summer. Let's just stop selling tomatoes altogether. And now you've left your community hanging.
15:16Many of them would rather pay a dollar or two more per pound and have you there to five and 10 years later. So when farmers, and it's a skill, it's a learned skill to be able to charge a sustainable price and what I mean by sustainable is you make enough money that you want to be around. You can prioritize farming over everything else because you're making
15:41a profit, it makes it worth the work and you're there to serve your community long-term. If you're not charging enough, it's unsustainable, which means you won't be able to sustain it for years. You won't want to do it to five and 10 years from now because of the effort involved for the return. So it's a mindset shift. It's purely a mindset shift. And once you get that, you realize that your community wants to support you.
16:10in being sustainable. They're like, yes, we're happy to pay one or $2 more or $5 more per pound, whatever it takes for you to be fair to yourselves and for it to make sure that you're going to be here in the years to come. So that's it in a nutshell, there's a lot more to it, but it's just shifting how you think about it. Okay, well.
16:36In my husband's defense, he's a very sweet man and he really does want to help the community so I can totally see where he was coming from. But I'm going to share this particular discussion with him sometime in the next two weeks and be like next summer we need to figure it out. We need to start in January and figure out what your time is worth, what the product is worth, and what you think you want to make for what you're doing.
17:04instead of, I'm afraid that people will starve if we don't feed them our tomatoes. Yes, and people will not starve, period. That's an unproductive, unuseful thought that is just not true. They want garden fresh tomatoes and they're happy to prioritize them. I prioritize farm fresh food for my family. Two of my kids have moved out. I have one left at home. Me too.
17:33Feeding, okay. So feeding this large family, I prioritized farm fresh food, which meant there were lots of things we didn't do. We didn't go to Disneyland. We went to, we drove to go camping or we drove to the beach. We didn't take expensive trips because of the way it was important to me to prioritize food. Everybody will choose who wants to prioritize farm fresh food. We'll do so and we'll adjust their budgets to do so.
18:03And something I say to people like your husband, like maybe he decides tomatoes are his charity and he is going to keep the price low because that's how he gives back to his community and it's not affecting him financially and he doesn't mind growing and harvesting and putting all the time and maybe that's his charity. But then you, you've got a little bit different mindset and this is why I have a coaching program.
18:32the farm marketing mastery where we coach for a year, because a lot of times the partners working in the homestead or on the farm together are of a different mindset. So your mindset is more like, if we're going to work this hard, we're going to make money at it. Now, I put those words in your mouth. And he's of the mindset, if I charge more than I'm not helping people, I want to help people. So you've got two different mindsets here.
19:02What will it take to get you on the same page? Or do you just want to focus on what you're going to produce to make money and let him have his charity, let him give away, like for instance, I had a raw milk dairy and a huge garden. I never charged for my vegetables, but my best customers spent hundreds of dollars with us every month, hundreds or maybe even, you know, thousands, which is thousands by the end of the year.
19:31I would give them tomatoes. They would get a bucket of tomatoes every week when they came during tomato season. I could have charged, but that was my charity. I made money on my raw milk dairy and the tomatoes were kind of a bonus or a free gift. So you can set it up any way you want, but at a certain point, if he says, whoa, this is just too much work. I need help. I can't do it all myself.
19:59But I'm not paying any money. I can't even pay a high school kid to come help me out. Well, then, you know, maybe he's ready to shift his mindset, but any, any way you want to do it is fine as long as you figure out how's it working for our family, our household, for our values. But no, it's absolutely not your responsibility to give people cheap tomatoes because they will, they will take them and run.
20:27Well, the good news and bad news this year is that we don't really have any extra tomatoes. So this summer is a wash. We're not even going to worry about it because I can barely get a tomato from my own salad out of the garden this year. It's so sad. Hopefully Mother Nature will be kinder to us next year. Hopefully. Have had some cucumbers though. They've been great. Oh, good. I know. I've just been eating lemon cucumbers like crazy because we have so many all of a sudden.
20:56Yeah, we don't have so many but the cucumbers that are coming in are great because who knew cucumbers actually love rain? They love water. Mm-hmm kind of like watermelons love water. Yeah watermelons without water Okay, so now that we said all that I have a couple questions for you if I can pick your brain a little bit since you're here course, we built a heated winter greenhouse this May
21:26I applied for a grant for it and we got the grant. And so the grant covered the cost of building the heated winter greenhouse. Very exciting. Now, the plan for that greenhouse was to, thank God, have it built by the time they wanted us to have it built, which we did, and then use it for growing some stuff during the summer in there as well.
21:51Thank God we have it because that's where a lot of what we're eating is coming from because again the garden is so. So this could not have been better timing. I'm so thrilled that we had this happen in May. The plan for this winter is to grow anything that doesn't need to be pollinated like leafy greens like beets, radishes, things like that and to be able to offer a fresh produce.
22:20during the winter because Minnesota, you know, there really isn't a whole lot of local fresh produce happening because it's snow covered and ice. So how can I, like I have a couple of months before we start the fall garden. So how can I get the word out about us doing this? Because I'd like to kind of jump on it in the next three, four weeks and just let people know what we're doing.
22:49So do I put it on Facebook? Do I put it on the Nextdoor app? Do I send emails to people? What's the smartest way to do this? So the foundation I teach applies to no matter what you're doing. And that is you've got to have an email list. The only legal way to let people know you have something to say by email is if you have an email.
23:18email marketing software provider. You can't just take your Gmail account or your Yahoo, or I have people still on America Online AOL and send an email that's set to blind copy 20 or 50 people and say, hey, we've got fresh lettuce for sale this winter. If you're selling some, if you're sending an email to sell something, no matter how small you are, you've got to use an email software.
23:47email marketing service. And those can be free or cheap. And so that's my free email course. That's at charlottemsmith.com forward slash free email course, I believe. It's pretty straightforward. And it'll teach you how to set that up. And then what happens is then you do use all these other places.
24:14social media, of course, wherever you go, you're funneling people to your email list. And then you just email them once a week. You just keep up with, hey, we've got you, take them on your journey. If you're not going to have anything for sale in your greenhouse until say October or November, December, whatever, it's still not too early to start connecting with them. Now people buy from you because they trust you and they trust you when you communicate with them regularly, like in a weekly email.
24:44So you can just take them on your journey of we got the grant, we built the greenhouse. This is what we're doing this week. By the time you have something to sell, they will be so happy to pay you money to buy from you. So yeah, you start now, your email list is your foundation and you use all the other places you mentioned to funnel them to get on that email list. And that's what I teach step by step, very simple step by step.
25:13in the farm marketing mastery program. Everyone thinks like, oh, let's just jump on Instagram and Facebook and tell people we have stuff for sale. Well, there's algorithms on there that prevent your followers from seeing those posts as soon as you start saying you have things for sale. So the workaround is you funnel them to your email list and you let them know you have things for sale there. So that's my like year long teaching. Well,
25:42It takes about six weeks to learn that, and I just told you what I could in like 10 sentences. So know that this is very, very brief, but that will be your foundation. And the sooner you start building an email list, the better. Okay. Well, I have a website for our business, and I have it set up so people can subscribe to the website. And then I have an email program.
26:11along with my hosting that takes all those emails and when I do a post or a blog post or whatever on my website, it goes out to all the email people that have signed up. Is that the same thing or is it different? Yeah, it is. Is your email software through your website? Yes. Okay. Yeah, so that's, I don't recommend that. It's lacking. So just throwing out some. There's MailChimp.
26:41There's MailerLite, there's Flowdesk, there's so many email marketing software providers, just choose one. But you don't want the one that's provided with the website because it's not robust. It's, it does not have the features that you need for marketing. And yes, even if you're just a homestead, you're selling not very many, you know, things through the winter, it doesn't matter your size.
27:11It will be so much more efficient. So just choose an outside provider, any one of those I mentioned or other. And then you'll just take your subscribers you've already got with the website and transfer them to there and start emailing out of there. Then you will have so much more data you'll be able to track and you'll be able to improve your marketing because of that.
27:41Okay, I thought it wasn't the same, but I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. Okay, awesome. All right, so I don't know what else to ask you because I've been looking at your Facebook page for days trying to figure out questions and I'm like, I'm so out of my depth on this. I don't even know what to ask this woman. That's okay. I have a free training coming up in September. I don't know if you've attended any of the free trainings, but you will learn so much.
28:12And so, you know, again, that, I think that sign up is charlottemsmith.com forward slash masterclass. And that is farm marketing masterclass, three essential steps to building a profitable farm. There's three things you've got or three pillars. So that's in September, and you'll learn a ton, anyone who goes to that, no matter what size you are, farm.
28:41will learn so much from that class. You'll see yourself in that class. I already do. Yeah, good, good, good. Yeah, the thing that I didn't realize when we moved here is that my husband would want to make this his job. And we tried that last summer. It really did not work. And so he ended up finding a jobby job in November last year again.
29:10And he was out of work for about eight months. We had savings, nobody died, no one starved, everything was okay, but he ended up having to get a job that's off the farm again. And if he could make it so that he could just have the homestead, the farm, be his job, he would. But I didn't know how to make it go any more than it went. He certainly didn't know. So.
29:35I am really glad that I found you because I'm going to go take some of your free classes and see what we can do to make it more workable to make this his job. Yeah. So it's interesting you just said that because he did not have a mindset of making money even though he wanted it to be his job. He then did not charge enough for his tomatoes. So see, he's got...
30:05He's got, on the one hand, he wants it to be his job, but on the other hand, he's not willing to charge what it takes to make it his job. So he could totally, and this is what I tell farmers all the time, you can absolutely make it your job if you shift your mindset. It's a business, which means a business has profit left over after you pay the expenses and after we pay your husband's salary so he can replace his job salary.
30:34there's still leftover money. Uh-huh. So, but that's a mindset. Rather than if your mindset is, I am responsible for getting people cheap food, cheap tomatoes, he's not going to replace his day job. So and that is one, what I just described is one of the most common mindset shifts that people join my program to make. They're in the same position you are. Like, ah, we're not making any money.
31:01Why not? Oh, I feel guilty charging what I'm supposed to for my meat. Well, that's okay. Except that you told me you want this to be your day job, right? So you've got, everyone's got to work to make that mental shift to running a business if they want a business. Now it's okay if they don't, but like you expressed, your husband wanted it to be his business. So he can do that. And if he gets his part of his brain on board, that will help.
31:31support him in charging what he needs to charge for that profitable business. Definitely. And I'm going to tell one more little story and then I won't take up any more of your time. When I started this podcast last year, I didn't think it would go anywhere. I didn't think it would do anything. I was like, I'm going to try a podcast. Why not? And it just became monetized Monday morning this week. And
32:00I now have ads on my podcast. My podcast has been the cleanest podcast ever. No music, it's all just information. I loved it. And now I listen to them because I have to listen to them before I share them. And the ads are there and I'm like, oh, it's got ads. It sounds terrible. It's not as clean. It's not as lovely as it was. And I'm like, but I need to make money. And so I'm sorry listeners, I have to make money to continue to do the podcast. I have spent almost a year doing this.
32:29for free and I have to make money too. So that's where I'm at with the, I would really like it to be this, but it has to make money too. Absolutely. Yeah, and this is just, you know, private aside coaching is you have a huge opportunity to create some kind of online course and you mentioned that on your podcast and that's how you make money.
32:57instead of ads if you want, or you can stick with ads, except that you apologize for them. It makes me think maybe you aren't happy about the ads being there. That's what so many farmers and homesteaders are doing is they're doing their sale. They're selling their tomatoes, and then they're teaching a class on how to can tomatoes, or they're selling eBooks on how to can tomatoes, or how to grow tomatoes, or how to...
33:25have, you know, or they're selling seeds or whatever. So you could add that to your podcast and that, because podcasts are not free to produce and, and it takes money out of the pocket and as well as your time. So you could sell your online courses and every homestead or listening could come up with something they could sell. Cause many of them have podcasts or YouTube channels or something you can sell.
33:55things like that on there. Just mention it. You know, hey, and if you want to learn how to raise your own tomatoes like we did, get my ebook, How to Raise the World's Most Delicious Tomatoes. $5.99, $50 for my online class, whatever it might be. So anyway, another thing you can do to help pay for it. Yes. There is a huge market for selling educational information right now.
34:23And that's a terrible way of saying it, but I think, you know what I mean? It's people want to learn. I think since COVID happened, people have become more aware of what they're doing and why they're doing it. And a lot of people are just hungry for information on how to change whatever that means for them. Yeah. So, but anyway, Charlotte, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. And I didn't really.
34:53expect you to help me as much as you have, but in helping me, I'm sure you help the listeners too. I love helping and it's fun. I want every homesteader farmer to know you can make money. You don't have to go in the hole. You can at least cover your expenses. So I'm happy to help you. And yes, definitely others will be struggling with these same things we talked about. So I'm glad you're out there sharing all this information.
35:18I am trying so hard to get everything out there I can get out there in the time that I have to allotted to me. All right. Thanks Charlotte. Have a great afternoon. Thank you.
 

Pleasant Valley Acres

Today I'm talking with Madeline at Pleasant Valley Acres.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Madeline at Pleasant Valley Acres. Good afternoon, Madeline, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good, you're in Oregon, right?
00:27Yeah, we are in Sweet Home, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley area. What a great name for a town. Yeah. I love that. Okay, so tell me all about yourself and what you do. Oh well, we have been doing just a little bit by a little bit over the last couple of years. I got married to my husband about four years ago. And
00:54He is not necessarily an animal freak, but I am. So what turned into just a few chickens is now turned into a herd of, I think, eight goats and we raise them for dairy and show and just good milk quality. We raised registered mini limachas. OK, so.
01:17I have talked to many people about many different kinds of goats, but I haven't talked to anybody about Lamanches and I didn't know there were mini Lamanches. So tell me about your particular color or spice of goat. Tell me about the Lamanches. Well, the Lamanches, the mini Lamanches come from a standard breed of goat called the Lamancha goat. These are just essentially a smaller scale, more economically friendly breed.
01:47They are small in stature, which means they need less feed, they need less room. Um, but you're getting that small stature of a standard size or a small stature of mini goats with the production of a standard size goat. So for us, it's kind of the best of both worlds. I'm not feeding tons and tons of hay, but I'm getting lots and lots of milk. So, um, they're an earless breed of goat. So.
02:15People tend to look at them a little weird at first. But we like their characteristics. They're very mellow and easy to work with. Okay, so how big is a standard lemonsha versus a mini lemonsha? It varies because the mini lemonsha go in different generations. So you have your first generation cross, which would be an Iberian dwarf goat and lemonsha.
02:44I've seen those first generation minis range in size a lot. The farther you get, so the more generations of that mini La Mancha, I'd say that they don't usually get more. Like the doughs stay around 100 pounds maybe. Bucks getting closer to 125. Your standards are, I think the doughs are about 150.
03:13125 to 150 pounds for your standard La Mancha does. And your bucks are pushing close to 200. And I could be wrong, but they're depending on the lines of that standard size goat, they are pretty big. I've seen some of the La Mancha bucks be huge.
03:34Okay. It's really funny. I feel like my podcast varies from psychology to philosophy to science to chemistry to genetics on whatever day I'm talking to whoever I'm talking to. I just talked to a lady the other day and we're talking about genetics and I can't remember what it was about right now, but got a full genetics lesson from her and
04:02I thanked her and I wasn't being a smart ass. I actually was really excited to hear about how that particular thing worked. With the Lamanches, what they're talking about, genetics play a huge part. I'm going to relate sort of the same story I related to her to you. Our dog is a mini Australian Shepherd and she weighs about 35 pounds.
04:31standard Australian Shepherd and supposedly smaller breed dogs, but I have to look into that because I'm not sure and Our dog looks exactly like a black tri Australian Shepherd except that she is 35 pounds now Technically because I've been doing some research. She might actually just be a small standard Australian Shepherd because she's tall and she's right at the weight
05:02edge of not being a mini. However, her mama was only about 25 pounds and her dad was probably 40 to 45 pounds. So it's all crazy to me how genetics are bred into animals to get what you want. And even then sometimes it doesn't quite work out that way. Yes. Yeah. And that's kind of the...
05:27you know, the toss up with breeding, you try to pair your best genetic quality to get a better kid than their mom is. But sometimes it doesn't work out that way and you still get like a little curve ball here and there. And you know, that's okay. You can work with the curve balls most of the time. But yeah.
05:53you would assume that she is just an Australian shepherd because the perspective and the perception is makes her look bigger than she is. And then she walks up to you and you're like, oh, you're only up to my knee. Yeah. Okay. You're not as big as you look. So it's really fun when the looks of the animal turn out exactly correct, but the size of the animal might not be exactly what you were going for. Yes.
06:23Yes, and that's a good, that's kind of how the Manila Machos are. You're aiming for that standard size goat quality, but in a smaller package. So you want these goats to look like those standard animals, but a good couple inches shorter and a couple pounds lighter.
06:46So I have a question about the ears because you said Lamancha's don't have ears, but I know the many Nigerians do. So have you ended up with many Lamancha goats with ears? Um, I have not yet. So the gopher ear, which is like what's on Lamancha's, is a dominant trait. So most of the time this year I had one Nigerian doe that was bred to my mini Lamancha buck.
07:14and I was wondering like, man, you know, her kids get to have ears. Well, when she had them, they all had what is called elf ears. So they're just about one inch, maybe an inch and a half of ear that kind of comes out. But it's not like a full year. It's just a little little skin tab kind of. I bet they were adorable. Oh, they were precious. They all had blue eyes and they were just the cutest darn things. But so I haven't personally had it, but I have seen.
07:43registered mini lemonges that do have that Nigerian dwarf ear. It's not a, uh, it's not a flaw to my understanding for the breed standard, but it's, it's a little frowned upon, you know, you don't want it to carry on for generations and generations type of thing. Yep. Okay. So do you do other things besides the goats? Um, we do.
08:10Well, like I said, chickens kind of got me all started on this. We started with a few, a handful of chickens. I hatch chicks for people during the spring and summer and sell hatching eggs and stuff to people locally. Um, so we, we do a lot of that. We've done meat chickens in the past. This year we took a break because it's just a lot of work. Um, and we do our own personal little garden.
08:40type of things, but the predominantly is we do the dairy goats. Okay. And do you sell the milk? Do you sell the goats for meat? Do you just raise them to show them? How does this all work? We do a little bit of everything. We at least, you know, learning to try to do a little bit of everything. This year I've sold milk to people for either animals.
09:08goat milk is really good alternative, pretty much to all bottle formulas for dogs, cats, I have a gal that actually buys the milk for piglets. She has a couple bottle piglets and they drink the goat milk. We have sold it for drinking. We have a couple like family friends that will buy it for drinking. And then we actually attended our first show this past weekend. Yeah, on Saturday.
09:38We did our first bit of showing, so that was fun. Did you did you win anything or is that not how it works? Yeah, no, I only brought two of my does because it was my first time and I thought I better start small. And we had one that placed first in her class and then overall one Grand Champion in that breed group. Congratulations because that's super fast on getting to that point.
10:06Yes, thank you. I was pretty excited that when they gave her the first place ribbon, I was just like, oh my word. And then we went all the breed group went out together and then they put her grand champion ribbon on. I was just like, I was shocked. I was so excited though. So she must have exhausted her though. We brought her back to the pen and she collapsed and just fell asleep by the hay feeder for a couple hours. Like, oh, I'm done.
10:33It was the adrenaline rush from winning. It made her sleepy. Yeah, maybe. So yeah, we did some show, that show this year, and we, you know, gives you confidence to try to do more next year. So that's the goal next year is to do more shows. And then we do try to breed. I try to keep my kids and the stock I have on the wider side of things. So when we get bucklings born that aren't breeding quality,
11:02We weather them and we either sell them as pets, ideally pets if I can, but at the end of the day, if they can't go as pets, we send them either to auction yard or to a meat buyer. So they're still getting, they still have a purpose here and I don't have any extra mouths to feed. Uh huh. And that's a good way to do it. So did you want to be doing this from the time you were little or did this just become something you wanted to do later?
11:32I remember for a long time really enjoying goats as a kid. You know, they're funny and they make a lot of noise and whatnot. Um, I, so my family actually moved from Indiana to Oregon when I was 11. And when I was probably close to 13, 12 or 13, we got our first goat on the farm that we'd moved to and it was a standard La Mancha and I just fell in love with her. It kind of became my project. And.
12:02I knew it I had like I don't know quite a few standard Lamanches or Lamontra crosses that I would milk and breed and sell kids and sell the milk and whatnot. And then when I started a full time job the goats kind of went to the wayside I sold them all and then when I got married a couple years back it kind of revived itself and I started going more serious with it in the last couple years as I've been when I was younger. So they've
12:30I've been around them for a while and I've just always enjoyed them. They're just something about them. When they're behaving, they're great. Okay. Anyone who's listened to the podcast since it started last end of August knows that I love goats and that I don't have any. I love baby goats most of all. The older ones are fine, but the baby ones are special. So
12:58I have never met a goat, whether it was a baby or a grown up goat, that wasn't friendly. Are goats inherently friendly or is it just the fact that if you handle them from when they're little, they love people? I think they're inherently curious. And they're piggies. They love grain. They love treats. So I would say they are always a curious creature. I think.
13:27Friendliness definitely comes with hand raising. I've done both. I've bottle raised my babies and I have just dam raised to them. And you can have friendly, you know, dam raised kids but it takes a lot more handling. And I've learned that they really don't team down until they learn what the grain bucket is. And then they just associate you with the grain and they're friendly because you have food. The bottle babies.
13:55they want to cuddle and just be with you all the time, which is nice, but it is also annoying when you're trying to work. So there's kind of a side to each of that. It's like, well.
14:08Yeah. So I know that goats are really intelligent animals. And I always liken them to a dog, because they're built kind of like a dog, they're friendly like a dog, they like to be petted like a dog. Can you train a goat to do tricks? You know, I've never tried training them to do tricks. I will say they are smart. I'm learning.
14:37more and more as time goes on that they are smarter and smarter than I give them credit for. This year I had a bottle baby and we call it we ended up calling her Tinkerbell and I just thought you know I'm gonna see if like I could teach teach her her name and I can pretty confidently say at this point you know she's off the bottle. If I go out there and I yell Tinkerbell she comes tearing across the field. None of the other goats really come that quick but she comes running because she knows hey mom's here.
15:05You know, I'm coming, don't worry. And my other girls, if I say, Hey girls, come on, then the rest of the herd will come. Um, yeah, I have learned that they are incredibly smart, but I haven't tried tricks. So they're probably the same kind of intelligence as a dog. That's what I think. I would say close to it. I mean, there are certain breeds of dogs that are probably smarter, like your, you know, Australian shepherds, your border collies, but they are.
15:34They've got like the intelligent, I'd say, you know, like a golden retriever or a lab. So, so kind of dorky, but smart. Yes. Yep. Okay. Yeah. I always, I always wondered about that because my, my friend growing up, her parents raised goats and they had the long eared goats, they had the short eared goats, they had goats and, and her dad, God love him, taught one of them how to smoke a cigarette.
16:02I'm not kidding you, I saw it done, yes. Oh, that's hilarious. And he said, watch this, Mary. And I'm like, what? Because I was out on the barn. And he smoked. And he lit a cigarette. And he put it in the goat's lips. And she put her lips around that cigarette and inhaled and blew it out her nose. I was like, number one, that's terrible. Number two, how in the world did you get her to learn how to do that? Oh, that's funny.
16:30And he said, I don't know how she learned to do it. He said, I was just being silly one time. She tried to grab out of my hand. I let her take it. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Oh, I said, I said, you really shouldn't be doing that. That's not good. And he's, he's just laughing. I'm like, okay, it's your goat. It's your goat. Exactly. Funniest thing I've ever seen in my life and most terrible thing with an animal I've ever seen in my life.
16:58And if that is the case, then that's good, because it's probably not as bad as I think it is. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not like you smoke in a pack a day. So hopefully not. Yeah, you just see her out there with the with his whole pack of cigarettes. It was a very funny party trick is what it was. I laughed so hard and then I felt bad about it. So but anyway, I've told that story.
17:27once, I think, in the last year on the podcast. And you actually laughed harder than the other person did. Oh, I think it's great. I know my husband, man, he'd get a kick out of that. If I could teach a goat to smoke a cigarette or one of his cigars, he would think that was the best thing ever. He'd be like, you can keep all the goats you want if they can do that. Uh-huh. I wish I had video of it. But back then...
17:53You know, I'm 54, we didn't have cell phones with video cameras in them. So, yeah. Okay. So, um, what is the hardest thing about having the goats?
18:09Oh, I don't know. You know, it's a season by season thing sometimes. You know, one minute I'm like, man, I can't do this anymore. And other times like, man, this is so fun. I love having them. It's hard. We have two little kids. It's hard balancing it with the kids at times. I've got my oldest is two and a half and my youngest turns one in two weeks. So we do a lot of pushing around in the stroller with goats behind and
18:39They've learned to be very patient with me while we're taking care of this or taking care of that. The summertime is hard with them here. We get really dry ground and we have very steep terrain. So we run all the electric fence. Well, when the ground gets really dry, they don't ground. The goats don't ground well. So they tend to flip through the electric fence a lot more. So I spend a lot of August and September either tethering goats.
19:08which means moving around constantly, watering constantly, making sure no one's tangled, or catching goats and putting them back in their pen. So I would say summer, you know, summer is when I'm like, oh, I'm done. End of summer, we've got milking still going on, goats are getting out. No cute babies frolicking about to keep you happy. Yeah. Yeah.
19:35Is it, okay, I don't need specific numbers. I'm trying really hard not to ask a rude question, but I have a question. Is it expensive to have them, to have the goats? I think it depends on how you manage them. I've seen people drop, you know, they'll feed their goats only 100% alfalfa hay and that's costly. At least where we live, it's costly. And I know it varies much by, you know, what region of the United States you're in and whatnot. It's not too bad for us.
20:04We rotate great, we rotate our pastures as frequently as we can. So they're getting fresh brush almost year round. Um, that cuts our feed bill down enormously. We do our own hay. So we're not paying outside of obviously the cost to do the hay. We're not outsourcing our hay. So they get local by local, like a quarter mile away, grass hay. Um, that's local. Yeah.
20:33local grass hay and I think they they kind of want to build more once again in the summer with milking they're eating a lot more grain up on the milk stand. If the pasture starts to get a little bit thin I'm giving them a little more grain with their grass hay that's just you know free choice for them. So like I said I think it depends you know if you're if you and your goats on a dry lot and I know a few people that do yeah you're going to run off quite a hay bill.
21:01but if you've got the space for them, they're pretty low maintenance compared to more most animals. I think my chickens honestly probably cost more than my goats. Okay, so that leads me to my next question. Do you do your own vetting for them or do you have someone that can take care of them if they get sick? Um we thank goodness, knock on one. Um
21:26I haven't had too many issues when we've had the vet come out. I have a couple really good friends that are more experienced than I am with goats and they've been able to guide me like, hey, you know, try doing this. I bet you this is what she has. So most of the time I do my own vetting where I can. And we haven't had a situation where we've needed a vet. We do have one that's about 20 minutes away. And they work like...
21:55days a week. So, hopefully if the stars align and we needed him and he was happy to be working that day, we do have a vet that we could consult with. So, that's been nice. Okay. I know the veterinary costs right now are crazy. We took our dog for her yearly checkup last August. We had to get her on the books again now.
22:24I think it came to over $150 just for a wellness checkup. And I was just like, you've got to be kidding me. You gave her like one shot and weighed her and checked her out. 150 bucks. I love our vet. The vet that we have seen the last two times has been fantastic. Maggie does not necessarily appreciate the vets.
22:54who the vet is versus who the techs are. Oh. Maggie adores the technicians, the people that help the veterinarian. The minute the veterinarian walks in the door of the room, Maggie backs up towards us and just growls. Oh, dear. She doesn't growl at anybody. She'll bark, but she doesn't growl.
23:16And the first time she did it, I was like, oh no, no, no, no, this is a good person who's going to help you. And Maggie looked at me like, I don't know about this. Yeah. But worth every penny of that $150 because they take really good care of her. Yeah. But any owning of animals right now is not inexpensive. And if you have ways to cut the costs, which it sounds like you do, that's great. Yeah.
23:46Part of the reason we don't have livestock is because we would have to buy all the feed because we don't have room enough for them to graze. Yeah, and sometimes it depends on the breed. Another reason we have the mini lemontias, they just don't eat a ton. We had Nigerian dwarfs before them as well. We weren't flying through hay. In a few years from now when my kids are older and we've expanded our pasture space, we would like to get standards as well. And I'll be curious to see.
24:16the price difference or how much just feed they consume. But yes, I am thankful we have not had to have too many vet visits because like you said, they are really expensive and livestock vets are like triple vet costs and taking your dog in. I had one that came up with some astitis this year and I called and I said, Hey, just a rough estimate. How much is it going to be to have you come out?
24:43so I could get a prescription for like, I knew what medication we needed, I just needed the prescription for it. Yeah. And they're like, well, if you can bring her in, oh, I don't know, it was probably gonna be like 300 bucks for them to look at her. And then it was good, he's like, or we can come out to you and it'll be 600. And I was like, oh, I was like, oh, you know, I'm good. And I ended up just doing antibiotics for a longer period of time. Just, uh-huh.
25:11But it worked, but man, I was just like, man, that's expensive. Yeah, that's a lot of money. Yeah. So the other question I had, and I keep meaning to ask people this and I keep forgetting because I get busy thinking about all the other things I want to ask you. When people, OK, if someone wants to get a goat, like for their home, for their homestead.
25:37Number one, I keep being told that goats need to have friends. They need, you need to get more than one goat. And number two, do you, can you get like young goats, not quite six months old? And is it less expensive to buy them when they're young versus when they're already of age as it were? Well, to answer the first question, I do think goats thrive with a buddy. It doesn't necessarily need to be.
26:06It's odd enough, I think they do better in, what would be, even numbers. So two do great together. If you do three, someone's getting picked on. And if you do four, everyone's good. You do five, someone's getting picked on. It just seems to be how it falls. You're like children. Yes. Yeah. They're best in pairs. Um, I've had goats though, that do fine by themselves, especially, especially my bucks, I've noticed. Bucks don't necessarily need the companionship. Um.
26:35I've had bucks just by themselves and then somebody else's pasture or just tethered around the property and they could care less. The doughs tend to like buddies. And then the other question, I sell my kids typically around 8 to 12 weeks depending on how they're growing and whatnot. And from my experience and like when I priced my stock, I think kids, I always priced my kids cheaper than an adult dough or a yearling.
27:05Yearlings, I think, usually are pretty expensive. And then so are your seasoned doughs. They've got proof in the pudding per se on those doughs. You know what you're looking at as far as their production, their udders, their body structure. Kids, you should still be getting what you see as far as what you look at the parents. Then you should know what that kid should be like as well. But I would say typically, you know, your kids are a little bit cheaper.
27:35which I think they probably should be. You know, you've got a lot of care and a lot of money and feed and hopefully no vet bills, but possible vet bills, you know, until you get to that breeding age. So. Okay. So if you, if you typically sell them between eight and 12 weeks, are they still nursing or are they able to just eat hay and grain? Yeah, typically at that point they're eating hay and grain. They might go in for a snack once or twice a day, but usually moms are done.
28:04I don't know much. I have one or two does that will nurse their kids as long as you let them. So I had one last year that nursed hers until she was six or seven months old. Wow. But mom's condition went really downhill. It was really hard to keep the weight on her because she was nursing this kid who did not really need it. So really just save the mom's body condition.
28:32I try to pull them at 8 to 12 weeks if I can. And I've never had a problem with the kids not growing well or keeping up with their peers. I do like to keep them on mom if I can. If mom's holding the weight and everyone's doing good and growing well, I'll let them just nurse on if I don't need the milk. But 8 to 12 weeks we seem to, seems to be a good sweet spot for everybody.
29:00Okay, so does mom wean them or do you just take them away from her? Um, I found, I will usually leave the kids on until the buyer picks them up around eight to 12 weeks. And then they just go right with the buyer. And I've never had anyone complain to me about, oh, he's just screaming and crying because they're going right into a new situation. And most of the time they're, they're too busy with that new situation that there's not a lot of whining. Yeah.
29:29I have let doe kids or kids I keep back, I'll let their mom wean them. Typically when that mom gets re-bred in the fall, she will just wean them. Like nope, I'm done, I'm pregnant, no more. I've had situations though where they don't and then you've got a year old kid nursing off a mom who just had babies and that's not a situation you want to be in. So I try to separate if I can.
29:59Okay, so the reason I ask is we have a mama cat and one of her kittens that we're keeping. All the other kittens found homes. Like two weeks ago, and the kitten's almost four and a half months old now, I think, he was trying to nurse and she growled at him and moved away and he came back and tried to nurse again and she growled louder and walked further away. He came up to her the third time and she,
30:28thumped him with her paw. I heard her hit him with her paw, like thunk. And then she rolled him, you know, like jumped on him like she's a kitten too and rolled him over and batted him a couple more times and then ran into our treeline to get away from him. And I was like, if that's how mama cats tell their kittens know, I wonder how goats and cows and horses do it. Because I can't imagine getting kicked in the head with a cloven hoof. It's a lot of fun.
30:57No, no, there's usually I had one that her kids were about three four months old and I was letting her just nurse him handle it on her own because I didn't need her milk and I didn't mind the baby's nurse and she reached the point where she was like I am done and it's pretty much any time they went in she would kind of jump and scoot away and kind of try to kick with her with her back leg and
31:23there was one that wouldn't quite get the hint and they will actually reach over and kind of bite their butt like no and Then they usually get the hint and like okay, I'll stop but Headbutting involved the milk bar is closed children. We're done. Yes. Yep That's how that's how flu was with her kitten, too So it was it was so funny to see her roll him over. I just like wow Yeah, okay
31:53Yeah, she means business. Oh, she was mad. This is the most aggressively friendly barn cat you will ever meet. To see her angry was so funny. Oh. But anyway, alright, so in sharing that story and making you laugh, I think we're good. We've got 31 minutes, well almost 32 minutes.
32:17Recorded and I try to keep these to half an hour. So I really appreciate you taking time to talk to me today, Madeline Yeah, well, thanks for reaching out and I enjoyed this thoroughly. So yeah, I hope you have a good rest of your day and Yeah, thanks for chatting with me Absolutely, I need all the stories I can get thank you so much Of course. All right. Bye. Bye
 

Windy River Eco Farm

Today I'm talking with Tamara at Windy River Eco Farm.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Tamara at the Windy River Eco Farm in Big Lake, Minnesota. Good morning, Tamara, how are you? Good morning. Big Lake, Minnesota, right? That is right.
00:29Okay, you're about two hours northwest of me, I think. More north than west. Yeah, we're an hour from Minneapolis, half hour from St. Cloud. Yeah. Yeah, you're a little bit of a distant, but we're in the same state. Yeah. That's awesome. So tell me about what you do, Tamara. Well, at this point, I just do CSA shares, and they are all member choice. So I don't do boxes. I let them pick out their items by
00:59I call it buffet style. And the only other thing I'm selling off of, outside of that is garlic. I started selling garlic off my website last year mostly for planting. And I've stopped selling at markets and I've stopped selling to the store and things like that. I don't sell anything off the farm. I just streamlined and just do CSA. But I also do, I'm a registered cottage food producer. And so I do.
01:29Make various cottage foods that I offer with the CSA as well, and I do sometimes sell those locally if I can So that is what I'm doing. I do work, you know minor part-time job And then the CSA I have I have enough I grow one acre and in that I could do 45 to 50 families a week at the best Yeah, you know in my best shape and the garden's best shape with the most members I can get
01:58Um, but right now I just have, I think only about 25 this year per week. It's a little bit down. So, Well, I'm very impressed that you managed to have produce for that many people this year after the freaking spring we just had. It actually didn't affect me very much because, um, we are in the sand and I like that and so I had no problems at all this spring with the, um,
02:25with the extra amount of rain that we've had. It's been really nice actually. Well, you are lucky because we are not doing so great here. We decided last winter that we weren't going to offer a CSA this year, we have for the last three years. And I'm really glad we didn't offer it because we would have had nothing to give anyone until probably two weeks from now. That's a real, real bad way to run a CSA. Yeah, that would be. Yeah.
02:54I know I have heard a lot of that. I grew up with my grandma's farm and where my dad farmed. It was in the clay out in Eastern Minnesota and there was always a tractor getting stuck or you can't get into this field or whatever. And I ended up settling in the Monticello area between Monticello and Big Lake for the last 30, 40 years. And it's sandy here
03:24you know, there's some problems with that, but I like it. And so when we were moving to our own land, I decided definitely to stick with the sand and it definitely has problems, but I don't have to worry about a wet year or a wet spring. And I can get in as soon as the snow melts, I can start planting. The perennials are very, very slow, but it does have its advantages on a wet season. Yeah, yep, absolutely.
03:53Your produce looks amazing. I was looking through the pictures on your Facebook page and I was like, I'm so jealous. I want to go visit her just to see some really nice produce. Thank you. But I'm sure that if you visited for real, you'd see a lot of bad things because, yeah, you always take pictures of the good things. And I always say to, I have really small hands. I'm not a very big person. And so when you have small hands, your produce always photographs really well and it looks huge. So that's like a little trick. But yeah, I.
04:22I mean, some things do well and I have a lot of experience now, but there's always good and bad things. I think people need to recognize that there's good and bad out there. And any day you're going to see something good and you're going to see something that makes you happy and then something that on the next bed over even that makes you sad and depressed because it doesn't look very good and you wonder why. And then you'll feel like you really know what you're doing and then five minutes later you'll feel like you really don't know what you're doing.
04:52That is farming. It sure is. Preach into the choir here, ma'am. That's how it works. So what's the origin story for your place? How did you end up doing this? Well, like I said, I grew up farming with my grandma. And even though I was pretty young by the time she was very old and started to retire, it was just in my DNA. And so I started vegetable gardening pretty seriously in my 20s.
05:19but lived in town, you know, in the small town we're in. And just, I would see like fields freshly disc and I would like just get this urge, like I just have to plant. But it wasn't just like, most people just want to plant, but not necessarily market. But I had this, you know, thing I had grown up, you know, growing and selling, and it just became this need. And I started looking for land to rent about, you know, 2006,
05:49because I still lived in town and my husband didn't really want to move. And it was difficult to find anything, but I just wanted more land. I wanted to go to market. And so in 2008, I just ended up connecting with the right person because it was really hard to connect with anyone who had land. And I started renting then in 2008, 50 by a hundred feet, which was way bigger than what I had been growing in my little yard, you know, but.
06:16And I still kind of knew what I was doing. And then from there, I started at Market the next year. And then I started at CSA with CSA shares in 2010. I started with six people. So this is my 15th year of CSA. And I did Market for about nine years with the goal of just doing CSA because I felt that was a better fit for me. And then we moved to our present land in 2015. My husband finally decided to go ahead and move. And we ended up with a little bit different
06:46had dreamed about a little bit more of a traditional farm, but that really isn't available in my area. To get that, you have to go north half an hour or so. And I wanted to continue to have CSA pick up on the farm. And even moving, I moved, it was about eight or nine miles from the land I had been renting, and I even lost members in that, that they didn't wanna go that little bit further, so.
07:14I was glad I didn't go a half an hour further to where there's agricultural land. But so I say that we are on an urban farm in the country, which is kind of silly, but that kind of describes what I have set up. We're on a county road, but it's like a little bit of like a loop development with maybe 30 homes. And we have just under three acres total, and I have one acre fenced in with a quite proper deer fence.
07:43And then outside of that, I have additional flowers and different things like that. But mainly that one acre I farm very intensively most years. This year I actually have a third of an acre in cover crop, which is the first time I've ever really taken any part out because I always try to have just any more footage I can do. I always try to grow in. And this year I decided to just cut back, for my own like body's sake, I think.
08:10a little bit and put some in cover crop. The weeds just took over last year really bad. And so in that I have flowers and all the veggies that you pretty much can grow and then fruit trees and blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes and things like that. So I have all the different crops just in a small amount. I like growing all the different things, but I think someday I might need to start specializing in whatever, I don't know what it's gonna be yet.
08:39but bringing that down, because a lot of people don't grow like everything and do everything like I do. And I've done that when I went to market, I would bring everything and nobody else did that by themselves. And it was just crazy. I was just always over done, overstressed, couldn't set up on time. And I always had baked goods, canned goods. I would sell seeds, I would sell dried seasoning mixes. And then all the veggies, flour arrangements,
09:09everything. So I'm still kind of doing all that because I like it, but just in a smaller, easier way and in my own backyard instead of rented land. So I'm happy with that. Wow. Okay. That is a, that's a hell of an origin story. I love that. Okay. So what are you using for a cover crop on the third of the acre? Right now I have two parts of it are in,
09:36clover and winter red clover and winter rye, because I already have that seed available. And then I do have one little section tarped with occultation tarps. I think it's how you say that. And then I have one section that I've had to till a couple of times and I'm gonna be sowing buckwheat next week and then I'm gonna let that go for a little while and then do red clover and winter rye. I think red clover can be good.
10:05It's cheaper than some of the other clovers. So I tend to use that if it's not gonna be something forever. But if you do wanna put something in a longer amount of time, that's like a lower growing thing, then I would get white clover, which I have in some places as well. I have white clover. I have a lot of bunnies and I have a lot of bunnies eating a lot of white clover on my property. And so that's everywhere too. Okay.
10:32Since you said bunnies, I was sitting out on the porch a little bit ago and looked out the window and there was a chipmunk on our cement pad in front of our door. First chipmunk I've seen here since we moved in four years ago. Are your trees getting bigger? No. Yeah, we don't have trees like anywhere really on our property. That was hard to find. That was what we were looking for when we...
10:58purchased in 2015 was like something open and flat and we finally found one. But everything else has trees around us. So we very rarely see like a squirrel or chipmunk venture into our area, but they will every so often like a little ways and then run back. So we don't have trees, but definitely the bunnies are not afraid at all and they are all over the place. I got the deer out of the garden, but now I have a bunny problem.
11:23Yeah, we have bunnies too. And this year they're not a problem because there's not a whole lot for them to get into because our garden is not not packed full because of the rain. But the chipmunk probably won't last long because we have three barn cats. I'm sure they will they will dispatch him or her pretty quickly. Yep. Um, okay. So I have two things I want to ask you about. First one is garlic. Are you growing the hard neck variety garlic?
11:50I have actually 48 varieties of garlic this year. Wow. And I would say most are hard neck and then I have a few soft necks. So I was growing garlic pretty heavily back in 2010 and I was really getting somewhere with it. And then I think it was 2011 but it might have been 2012 that Astor's Yellow's disease came through the Midwest and hit every garlic grower.
12:19and it brought everybody back to the beginning. And so before that, I had some really nice softnecks that I would braid and sell at market and different things. And there's one variety of softneck garlic that I grew back then that I cannot locate anywhere in the world anymore. I've been asking other growers for it and stuff because it did well before that, Aster's Yellows. But since then anyway, I've started up again and a couple times.
12:48And now I finally, I did put in, I think, 2400 garlic cloves last year and 48 varieties. So mostly hardneck. Some of the softnecks that I grow, I might take out of circulation because they didn't get very big, but some did really well. You know, in Minnesota, I think you have to go with, you know, what grows well. Some of them just, you just got to take out if they don't do well. So I will be putting.
13:17probably at least half of those varieties on my website for sale once I get everything cleaned up and organized and, you know, towards the fall. Okay. The reason I asked is I just talked to a lady who lives in New York, I think, the other day for an interview, and her predominant cash crop is garlic. And I was like, I need to pick your brain because I've been trying to grow garlic for three years and it's been a fail every year. And she said,
13:44you're in a cold environment like I am. And I said, yes, Minnesota is definitely cold. And she said, hardnecks. She said, you can try doing the softnecks, but hardnecks are the ones that will do better. And then she told me all about garlic, and it was really fun. So I don't really want to get too deep into garlic because I just did this the other day. But I was just curious since you're actually in my state and not far away, which kind you were doing. Garlic grows really well in Minnesota if you get the right kinds, but it doesn't like too heavy of soil.
14:14I know the farmer friends that I have that are another CSA farm around here that are north of me, they cannot grow it at all. It rots in their heavy soil. But next week is the Minnesota Garlic Festival and I recommend you go there and you can buy garlic to plant and really there's so much information there. It's wonderful. I applied to sell there for the first time this year and I am like sixth.
14:42in the waiting list to sell. So maybe next year, but we will be going next year, next week to shop. And it's wonderful. So definitely check it out. John, where is it? It's in Hutchinson. Okay. All right. Probably won't be going because we have some stuff going on here. But if it doesn't like heavy soil, then if we were to add like sand or peat moss or something to our soil, would it maybe help?
15:11Yeah, I would say a lot of people do a raised bed then. It does well in raised beds, where you could get some lighter soils in. I know if you have clay soil and you add sand, I've heard that you just get pottery, so I can't recommend sand, but chopped up composty things, adding that organic matter. But definitely put in a raised bed and try it out. Once you start growing it.
15:39you know, it multiplies to the point that, you know, you can, you don't have to start with a lot. You can keep growing, keep multiplying it every year. So I would say, you know, try one raised bed and see what happens. Yeah, we have some, we have some boxes that we use for raised beds for potatoes, and the potatoes did really well in the raised bed. So I'm assuming garlic would probably do really well too. So yeah, thank you. That would help.
16:06Okay, and then my next question, once I deal with the Windows security thing, it just popped up on my screen. Um, uh, the, the, the way, the model that you use for your CS they were people choose what they want, how difficult was that to set up and does it, does it work really well? I mean, I'm assuming it works really well for you, but how does that work? It has, it's good points and bad points for sure. And I could talk.
16:33for a while on that if anybody ever wants details. But for me, I never wanted to have a box, normal box CSA. I wouldn't want that as a customer. And so I knew starting back in 2010 that I didn't want to do it that way. I did pack up people's boxes. Well, I did a cooler for them right away from the beginning. But I would have them fill out a taste questionnaire.
17:02decide what they were gonna get and I'd pack up each person's cooler individually. And so that took a lot of time. So then I transferred over at some point to doing 50% bagged and it would be just kind of your normal things. And then they'd get to choose 50% off, you know, like table set up. And that, everybody liked that. They loved when they contacted me and I said they got to choose 50%.
17:29that definitely made them more interested than a farm where you just get the box. But for me, I've just always been kind of too obsessed with the dollar value of everything and trying to keep their choices even. And so I think for some extent, I was probably had some ways I could have done it that I do now that I was like, oh no, I gotta keep track of the value and make sure everybody has the same value.
17:57And I do think that the dollar value of your share is really important. I don't go just by size like some people do. But so what I do gradually then I went to 100% member choice and I was setting up like half of the booth I would set up in like the more expensive, like $5 items. And then the other half would be like the $3 items. And sometimes to get to that dollar amount, I would put two things together, or I would put like.
18:27like kits, like I would have like a salad kit or whatever, but then I would tell them how many to choose from the one side and the other side. And I started to realize that, you know, value is so relative. I think if you want something, the value, you know, it goes up. For instance, like my husband doesn't buy groceries, but if he buys something, if he really wants it, if he wants like, if he saw a big, giant onion.
18:55he would spend five bucks on it easy. To him, that would be the value, it would be no problem. So value is so relative. So I decided a couple years ago to just put everything out and kind of average it out to, in my head, maybe like $4-ish value and just let people choose what they want so they just choose. I just set it up now by heaviest to lightest or most fragile, basically.
19:21And they can choose a share that's either six item size or nine item size. And they can choose every week or every other week. So that's four different sizes. So it's very customizable. And then from there, they get to choose anything they want off of all the veggies. And then I do put the cottage foods there, at least most of the year, once we get to the heavy veggie time of year, there's no room for that. But so they get to choose. So because I'm picking everything,
19:49It's not to order, you know, so I don't get like a spreadsheet and say I need to pick five of this and 20 of this and whatever. I have to kind of guess what they're going to want. And because of that, there's more waste. I do have three CSA days, Tuesdays and Thursdays are more your normal, you know, sign up for the season CSA. And then on Fridays, I have a program where people can sign up $100 and they can pick three weeks to come.
20:18And then they don't have to pay another $100 for another three weeks, but they can choose whatever weeks they want to come and then they come and choose the main items. So I have that Friday that, you know, anything that's really extra that I've picked through the week, I can try to, you know, not have too much surplus then at the end of the week. But I do have a member with pigs and I give her the surplus of, you know, anything from last week that.
20:47was left over because I picked too much and the members didn't want it. But I never know what they're going to want really. But over the years you start to get a much, you know, you get much wiser and you start to see what they want. And I think each group, to some extent, I start to say, oh, this group really likes this, I'll put up more of this. And there's always things that surprise me a little bit that people will take, you know, something more or less than I thought. But like I said, this is my 15th season.
21:17So I'm pretty used to how much they want of things. And I try to reduce or increase every season according to what I saw. It's like, for instance, you know, I'll only put out like three bunches of kohlrabi. And even that last year, they weren't taking like at all. So this year I didn't put in any kohlrabi until a fall crop because they're so beautiful in the fall. And so I've cut that back.
21:45you know, and other things I've increased. I put in a lot of, like, berries, a lot of fruit, a lot of potatoes. And just kind of monkey with that a little bit and, you know, hope everybody's happy. And I think that they definitely, they definitely appreciate the member choice. I think there's still the inherent problems of CSA, of logistics, of them picking up and, you know, making sure that their life is scheduled enough to.
22:16pick up on the day they're supposed to pick up. And still just eating. I think people have gone back to eating out at restaurants a lot and maybe eating less at home again. And so I think there's some of that word that even though they're choosing what they want, there might be some waste. But I definitely recommend the member choice CSA to farmers because I just think that, like I said, I would want that. And so I want to sell.
22:45you know, what I would choose and what I can be really happy and proud of. And so I try to run my CSA so that I can be really, every week, be really proud of what I've put out for them. And I think they like that. Okay. So are you there when they pick out what they want? I'm around. I can't just like stand there, but at the Thursday, so Tuesdays they pick up three to nine.
23:12It's my, you know, in my backyard, we have a gazebo set up and I put it under there. Um, and I usually like set it up. It's three o'clock. It starts. I have to go and take a break finally, you know, um, and then I might go out, you know, see some people, but I'm not there for, you know, seeing all of them. I don't have to like watch what they take. I've never had problems, um, where, you know, there was any dishonesty or anything like that. And then in the Thursday. Share.
23:41That one's actually in the closest suburb to Minneapolis at a clinic. And I am there because, you know, I don't have anywhere else to go. So I'm either sitting in my truck or sitting, you know, by the, by the tables or whatever. But I don't have to, you know, supervise them in any way, just, you know, just talk. And I tell them what to do in the spring and some people still, you know, have a hard time with it and some people take to it right away.
24:09And then on Friday, I set the shares out again. I don't I don't stand there or anything. So it is for me It's the most streamlined because my issues over this last, you know, the 17 years have it's always been time I never have enough time I don't have any employees or anything. So I do this because it is the most streamlined and time efficient way to go Sure. I was just curious if you mean it if you
24:38caught any commentary when people show up and see the gorgeous produce and you know are they like oh this is great or oh look at this beautiful pepper or you know. Oh yeah I hear a lot of that. Yeah I hear plenty of that. Yeah and I need that I'm not somebody who's overconfident. I have I have some members who are extremely into it and you know they they have a lot of compliments to make.
25:07especially, yeah, there's a couple that really like to do that. And I used to always put out a survey, you know, like an anonymous survey monkey survey, like many CSA farmers do that. And, you know, did it for many years. I kind of quit at one point because the comments were kind of the same every year and I wasn't really getting any intel, but...
25:31But this last year, I actually had quite a number of members not return. And I think it's just the way things are right now. I really don't think there was anything that scared them off as a group. But I had probably just 50% return this year. And it was a little bit hard to take. And so I might start doing a survey again just to see if there is something I'm missing and if there is any kind of new intel, new needs people have.
26:01I mean, times change and people change. And I've noticed a big difference in the age of people and how they kind of react to the CSA. The youngest groups, the 20 somethings just really don't get the idea of that they are trying to support a farm. They don't get that idea of sustaining a farm and that we need your support to keep going. And that...
26:29of subscribing to something, they just really don't get that idea. So I've had, I try to kind of, you know, I get somebody interested and then they just peter out, they just don't get it. So I think I might start doing surveys again and try to kind of get the intel on everybody and what I can do to make sure I keep them happy and keep them signing up.
26:55Absolutely. Any information you can get to make your business better is a good thing. So a couple things. We didn't have as many people sign up two springs ago. And I chalked it up to the fact that inflation had been growing and that people just didn't have the outlay money for the investment for the summer for RCSA. And I...
27:22We just decided this year that we would just sell whatever we managed to eke out of the garden at the farmers market because the farmers market is like three and a half miles from us. We load up the truck, we drive down, set up the tent, set up the tables and people buy stuff. And my husband is the one that does it and he's so social. He really does enjoy it. His return is not only the money he makes, but the social interaction that he gets with just everyday people from our community. He loves it.
27:51And then the other thing I was going to mention is he decided last fall that he was going to only grow the things that really sell because for the last three summers, he has grown as much as he possibly can. He was growing broccoli and cauliflower and green beans and peas and all the things. And broccoli and cauliflower don't sell that well. And I love broccoli and cauliflower. I'm sad that they don't sell well.
28:21Tomatoes sell like hotcakes if you have them and if you have lots of them because people want to can and Okay, you can sell cucumbers sell it crazy green beans sell it crazy So he said to me last I don't know probably October November He was like I think I'm just gonna cut back to like four or five different things and just grow more of that Mm-hmm, and it's his baby. He loves it. It's his job. He loves gardening and I was like honey
28:49do whatever you want to do. It's your baby, it's your garden, and you're the one who has your finger on the pulse of what's selling because you're the one selling it at the farmers' market. So that was the grand plan for this year. And then it rained and we have really, really loamy black soil and everything flooded and everything stalled out. And my husband and my son actually just picked like 12 cucumbers last night all at the same time.
29:18We've gotten like two, three weeks ago and two, two weeks ago. So having 10 or 12 cucumbers all at once is like a major win for right now.
29:30Yeah, a couple of things that I think, I think I really recommend people to do farmers market before they would do a CSA for sure, to know what people want and how much they want of it and to really get that interaction. I think that they very much complement each other. And I did both from 2010 to 2017. I did both. And what's nice about that is
29:56then you don't have to oversell your CSA shares to try to make a certain amount of money, which is a big problem with farming. And so because you have that market to back it up, but if you don't have quite enough, you don't have to bring it to market and you do get that instant feedback on people. But every market is very different and more of the rural markets like my area, it's, you know, it's a commuter area, but it's kind of more of the rural mindset.
30:24didn't sell tomatoes very well. And that was because everybody has them in their yard or their neighbor has them. And people's, the biggest competition in my area is everybody's home gardens. And that's where I actually lose members to, I'm gonna have a garden this year. And I don't know why they're quitting, but then they contact me to buy plants and then I'm like, oh, okay. And they do a lot of that. So it really depends.
30:51you know, in your area, I think in the more in metro areas, it seems like tomatoes sell. Of course, I didn't grow canners. So I grew like, grow heirlooms and people were not really looking, and they didn't want to change. But everything, you know, it depends. And that's why you do have to tweak. But on that idea of specializing, you know, I really would like to do that at some point when I can. I know I listened to a podcast several years ago, and there was a farmer that did.
31:21garlic, carrots, and peppers. And I thought that was a great combination. They're all different family groups and they're different seasons. And I thought, oh, that sounds great. That works really well for him. And I wish I could look into the future somehow and see what things I should specialize in. And you can't, but I have.
31:46cut out, you know, like I used to grow pickling cukes and it was such a pain in the butt to deal with people wanting a bushel as cheap as they could get. The plants were dying and you have to pick these itsy bitsy things like, you know, every other day. And then everybody wants their bushel on the same week. And then this other week that you've got it, nobody wants something else. So I cut out a lot of that kind of thing. Like I don't do canning tomatoes. I don't do pickling cubes. You know, I don't.
32:14grow beans in excess because it just did not make sense to do those things. I was still selling heirloom tomatoes to the grocery store, which was a good extra money. But I cut that out too. I think it's nice to at least say to the CSA members, I'm just growing for you, so you are my priority and everything. But it took years of monkeying around with everything, with growing and selling at market.
32:44and all of that to kind of get to this point. But you do really have to, you know, let the intel, let the data, let the sales decide what you're gonna do and not be too sentimental about growing certain things. And I think I'm pretty good with that, but I do like, I kind of like the idea of growing, you know, a lot of different, I enjoy, you know, eating, the things I enjoy eating, you know, I wanna keep growing.
33:12But I do cut way back on some of that stuff though, especially if it doesn't grow well. If it's like something that is hard to grow and isn't very popular, then of course why would you continue to grow it? Yes, I had to make my husband stop trying to grow Brussels sprouts because we tried and tried and tried and they just didn't do well. It didn't matter what conditions we grew them in. They just did not wanna grow for us.
33:39He said to me last fall, he said, do you want me to plant Brussels sprouts for you? And I'm like, no, no, I don't. And he said, why? And I said, because they don't produce sprouts. They grow beautiful, big plants, but they just don't grow the edible part that I want. And he was like, we can try again. And it's only, you know, this much for the seeds. And I was like, no, because I get so excited when I see those little tiny sprouts start and then they never turn in the sprouts.
34:07So no, don't, don't, please just don't anymore grow Brussels sprouts or try to. And he was like, okay. And the dumbest thing is back many years ago, we planted some in the winter sowing milk jug thing. And we had like four plants come up that looked really good in the jug. And so when it was time to get them in the ground, we got them in the ground.
34:34And basically they were like a weed. We just put them over by the rose bushes and they grew. And we had the most beautiful Brussels sprouts that one year. And I was like, Oh, that was really easy. You just treat them like a weed. No, it doesn't matter what we do. We can, we can be the kindest growers ever to our Brussels sprouts. We can be the most negligent growers to Brussels sprouts and they will never produce me a sprout that I can eat. So we have given up on sprouts right now. There are some things that.
35:04They don't like to grow in a group. Like as a thing you're trying, like an actual crop. Like for me, I've struggled with Napa cabbage to some extent because it doesn't really like to grow with other Napa cabbages. It just likes to, if you have like an accidental one with your other stuff, then it will grow into this thing that's like picture perfect. But if you try to grow a whole bed of them, they don't do well. I actually have one.
35:33one Brussels sprout that survived winter that is growing in my cover crop and I just mow around it because I want to see what happens. Because I usually don't get, I usually get like small sprouts and then the disease starts to kind of hit them and they start to rot a little bit. So I definitely buy in sprouts most of the time. But it's a tough one because it's got so much plant, it's like corn where it's got so much plant but you don't get a whole lot out of it.
36:00It's just like a lot of compost that you get. You're just growing compost because there's so much plant matter that comes out of your soil. For me with sandy soil, I have to kind of think about, you know, how many nutrients am I taking out growing this thing? And that's why I like don't grow celery. That takes so much nutrients out and then nobody wants it anyway, you know? But some of those things are really tough to grow in soil that's not absolutely perfect.
36:30Yes. And I was going to, I was going to say like three minutes ago, we got talking about sprouts and celery and sandy soil. Um, when you are growing produce, I feel like there's a lot of dancing and pivoting that happens because you, you may start out thinking, okay, I'm going to grow this 50 by 50 plot.
36:53and your recording stopped it says. Um, I just got a call from my husband. Yeah, that's okay. Don't worry about it. I think, I think we're okay. Good. I was seeing the time change here on the phone. So, yeah, I think you're good. Okay. So anyway, you can have a plan to grow a 50 foot by 50 foot garden, and you're going to plant these specific things and you're going to take good care of it. And it's going to produce what you want it to produce.
37:23And then you discover that maybe some of those things you're trying to grow aren't really suitable for your soil isn't good for it or whatever. And then you find out that, I don't know, everybody loves cherry tomatoes. So you're like, great, I'm going to grow half the garden in cherry tomatoes because people want them. And then the following year, nobody's really interested in cherry tomatoes. So it's a lot of guessing, planning.
37:53and trying to take into account what you do know versus what you can't know. And so it's, if you love DeGarden, it is totally worth doing. If you love trying to help your community, it is totally worth doing. But if you're not really into it, you will get down about it real quick. I also want to throw in there, if you really need to make money and you're really, you're doing this to actually pay your bills.
38:21you're going to be in a lot of trouble with that kind of situation. Yes. Yes. I think, you know, it ends up being people who have a spouse that pays the bills that end up sticking with farming. The people that have had the toughest situation is like, I knew a guy at market that was single and so he had to pay the mortgage and then he had bought all the equipment and he was running a big hundreds of members of CSA.
38:47And then he was trying to, you know, for money, then he was, you know, mooring, Tommy was trying to go to like all the markets every day. And he would have, you know, maybe a hard, like hard spring like this year. And, um, and the members would get mad because they'd have small baskets, but then they'd see stuff at market that he didn't have enough of to put in the baskets or CSA, and he had a certain amount of money he needed to make to pay all those bills himself, and he couldn't keep going.
39:17where, you know, me and then the guy next to me at Market, we had spouses that were really subsidizing us basically, and paying the bills. And so we could keep going. But, you know, we didn't really have any different situation from this guy. He was he was good at it and everything. He just he had to pay everything off. And that is what I've seen across the country with CSA is especially because people are paying ahead. And they say, okay, to
39:44pay all my bills, I need to sell this many CSA shares, but then they can't fill that many CSA shares. And they have so much equipment that they maybe could do without the refrigerated van and things like that, you know, and, you know, the barrel washer and the green spinners and just all that kind of stuff. And so, but all of that is, is, you know, being paid for. And so then they oversell their CSA shares and they can't fill them. And so you really
40:14to think about, you know, if you're gonna get started in it, do you have to make money? And how much can you really produce? And I just never, ever recommend it unless somebody's like me where they just couldn't not do it. They just have to do it, or they already have the land, or they already have, you know, a spouse that's, you know, paying the bills. Cause otherwise it just, it's not really, you know, it's like, there is an old joke that if you wanna make a million dollars farming, you start with $2 million.
40:44lame joke, but it is really, it's really kind of sadly true unless you have, you know, if the commercial, in my area, the only farmers there are around anymore, there are no cattle or dairy farmers really in this area. It's all big potato farms and they do potatoes, corn and soy. And of course corn and soy subsidized and they have thousands of acres and it's just a whole different kind of agriculture. You know, they're not.
41:11it's not even the same as somebody who's growing a vegetable farm. And that kind of thing, I believe, is making money. I guess I don't know because I don't do it. But otherwise, it gets tough. So I just, you know, if somebody says to me, you know, what do you recommend for the new farmer? I'd be like, well, don't do it unless you have these situations. And I think that the what they call the rock star farmers out there that are teaching
41:41And there's a few names I could drop, but I don't want to pinpoint anybody. But those farmers that teach and they make a lot of money, you know, teaching, writing books, and they're telling everybody to do it because you can make tens of thousands of dollars, you know, selling kale and stuff. They're all in an urban market where they have a very good clientele base. But just.
42:05they're telling people to start doing that all across North America. And it's just not a responsible thing to do, because if that was you, you know, if I was paying the bills with farming, I would be homeless and I'd only have my vegetables to eat. I think I wouldn't really be, you know, I hate to bring up like the money side of it, but I wouldn't really be making enough to survive. And so I think it's really irresponsible for people to be teaching how to farm
42:34putting these dollar signs in, especially like guys' brains and thinking they can do this just like this certain farmer that farms, you know, that's real famous and farms in the city somewhere. Yes. And I don't want to end this on a downer. I hate ending the podcast on a downer. So I'm going to flip it and say, number one, you're right. Farming is a hard way to make money. It takes a lot of patience, a lot of faith.
43:02and a lot of hard work and it makes your body hurt. If you're doing hard work, your body's gonna ache. But if you really enjoy gardening, there's absolutely nothing wrong with starting a garden and learning how to do it and growing things. And if you're successful at it, you can supplement your income with it. How's that for Flip It Up? Yeah, yeah. No, I think, I mean, I love it and I don't wanna give up doing it, but I don't want people to think.
43:31you know, have expectations that aren't going to be met. But I especially like the flower side of my, I haven't really mentioned that I do grow flowers too. That gives me so much pleasure to see them every day. And then when I arrange them, it's this artistic outlet that I just love. And I don't do a lot of that. You know, I just have a small, you know, area of flowers and I have just a few extra, I have add on CSA flower shares, but I really love that part of it. And
44:01It's something that I wouldn't, if I go a different direction and I specialize in something and say didn't do CSA, I'd be like, what would I do about, what would I do about the flowers? I still have to do that. It's a very pleasurable thing. I understand. I love flowers. I don't necessarily want to get into selling them at all really, but I love flowers. We have lots of peonies here now. We moved here four years ago.
44:31And we also have just two wildflower gardens that we just bought wildflower seeds and tilled up a four by four patch of dirt and threw wildflower seeds in and said grow. And the two patches come up now every spring and they're just so perky and pretty and there's poppies, there's little mini sunflower looking flowers in there, there's forget me nots.
44:57There's just all kinds of these really pretty different wildflowers. And I love it because I look out the window and I can just see them from my living room. And when they start to bloom, I'm like, okay, we're into real summer now. Yeah, it's yes. I have where I'm sitting right now in my house. I have a wildflower patch that I see out of this window and it's near where the CSAs pick up and my husband didn't like it when I first tilled this big patch of our backyard. But.
45:27now it is it is so nice. So we're really happy even though we have less than three acres, you know, we just like to sit and look at all those things and we really appreciate just every little part of that, you know, the birds and you know the frogs and toads and just all of it, you know, it is really nice just to have that little bit and see your trees grow and I think that, you know, that's human nature and that I mean that should be should be human nature for everybody. It's
45:56relaxing, healthful thing to do. Yes, and flowers are prettier than grass. So why not put in flowers? I mean, I like the look of a good lawn, but I feel like a good lawn is useless. It sure is. But flowers are pretty, so they feed your soul. And if you can grow food instead of grass, you feed yourself. So don't grow grass, people. Grow flowers, grow produce, grow something that actually feeds you.
46:25because grass does not feed you. Yeah, I don't want too many people in my area to grow vegetables though, because then I won't be selling any vegetables, but I'm just kidding. Yeah, I know, I know, double-edged sword. I definitely give out a lot. When I was at market, I gave out a ton of help all the time. I love helping people grow things. I love when they want to try, and they get inspired and they're like, oh, look at this, I'm gonna try to do this.
46:54I had a lot of that was, I mean, I do miss that somewhat at market that, you know, talking to people that were really excited about the different things that they saw and kind of getting back to nature to some extent. I do miss that. Yeah. All right. Well, we've been talking for over 45 minutes, Tamara, and I really enjoyed it. And you know how I know I enjoyed it? Because I was like, oh, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're at 45 minutes. I didn't know that.
47:22Well, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Thank you very much. All right. Bye.
 
 

The Canny Couple

Today I'm talking with Aaron and Julia at The Canny Couple.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Aaron and Julia at The Candy Couple. Good afternoon, guys. Hello. Thanks for having us. Yeah.
00:26So tell me about what you do because from your Facebook page and your website, it looks like you're very much content creators. So tell me what about what you do. Yeah, we, we do content creation. We do podcasting. Um, it's really all comes to how we live a homesteading, frugal lifestyle. Yeah. And it all we've considered all underneath the candy couple. Like we have different.
00:55side hustles things we do on the side, but in our mind, everything falls underneath the candy. It does. So the candy couple is the umbrella that covers everything you do. Okay, cool. We do a little bit of everything. Okay, so do you have a homestead or how does it work? Yes. Yeah, so we do. We have a small, we're a small homestead family. We have 25 acres.
01:23Most of it is wood and mountainous areas. So we, we, we, we considered a small homestead because we don't have much real usable land unless we were to clear some of the forest out, which we don't have any plans of doing. Right. So, but we do have a small homestead. We do a lot of gardening, animals, poultry, mostly is what we focus on, on our homestead. And
01:52Where it's really working every single day to be more self-reliant, self-sufficient. We do have a pretty extensive orchard. I guess you would call it. Most people call it an orchard that we are cultivating and working through. Okay. Tell me again where you guys are. So we are in rural Southwest Virginia. We're closer to the Tennessee line than anywhere else. So, um, like most of our trips.
02:20involves going into Tennessee. And I know there's a lot of homesteaders in Tennessee areas. So we're always at least there usually at least every other week. Yeah, I was going to say you sounded more Tennessee than West Virginia. So it's mountain. It's a mountain accent. It's what somebody told me once and it made sense. It's just one of those, but it's not West Virginia where we live in Virginia, not West Virginia. We're just like in the south.
02:49western part of Virginia. Oh, okay. Sorry, I misheard you. That's okay. Yeah, your accent is beautiful. There are some southern accents and I'm like, I can't understand it. And you guys is just gorgeous. Oh, thank you. I'm big on accents. Part of the reason I love doing the podcast is I get to hear a different accent almost every day. It makes me so happy. That is true. It is. Yeah. So do you guys...
03:18I asked this of everybody homesteads don't be offended. Do you guys try to make what you do on the homestead support the homestead financially? Are you just more about being self-sufficient? So our goal is to have the homestead help support us financially. Um, with our tree crops, because that's kind of where our big focus was at the beginning of our journey was to work on our perennial systems. We look at everything through the lens of we are going to get older.
03:48And everything takes a lot of really good systems take a long time to put into place. And we have experience on our property of these six apple trees and they produce a great crop for us. We eat them, we use them, we can them. And we wanted to have a lot more of that, but we're also hoping to eventually sell a lot of that produce and things like that. But that's a ways down the road. If I had it to do over again, I would probably put in more.
04:18um, berry crops because it has a faster turnaround. Mm-hmm. Yep. And that could also still happen. We do have some property we could cultivate. Um, but it's just, that is like a five year plan, not a right now plan. Okay. You said apple trees. How, how did the apples do in the South? Because I'm up North in Minnesota. I'm a Yankee and, uh, our apple trees go dormant about October.
04:46And they're asleep until at least April. So how does that work in Virginia? I'm sorry. That's the same one. So ours, usually we have, so we got, it's an old red delicious, old yellow delicious that we had. Um, these trees have been here almost, I guess, 40 years now. So they're older trees, that's for sure. And, um, they usually bloom in late April, first of May. And then we get our.
05:15apples from them at the usually first of August, middle of August. And through September. Yeah. I'll have Erin go and get me boxes and I'll can them up in the in the evenings. Okay, that's what we would call an early apple here in Minnesota. And we don't have very many early apples in Minnesota. Most of our apples are harvested.
05:41toward the end of September through first of November. Well, I guess you would have to worry about your blooms getting, getting a bit. Crossed. Yeah. Yep, or in our case, we have high winds and so we lost almost every single blossom this spring. I think we have a total of 12 apples on 20 trees out there. Oh, God. Oh, wow. Oh, that's awful.
06:10Yeah, luckily we don't rely on the apples to support the homestead. So it's okay. But it was very sad when we thought we were in the clear and then we had a really nasty thunderstorm come through and really high winds. And I was like, there goes the blooms. We're done with apples for the year. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's growing produce is such a crap shoot. It's so hard. It is. That's the struggle we've had this year with our garden, the heat. We.
06:40Haven't like we've had 90 degree days and we have we we do get hot here. We can get really, really warm, but never in June. Like net we're never in, you know, a hundred degrees almost in June. Um, it's very, very rare for us. So it's, it's killed our garden. I mean, yeah, it's, we can tell it's going to hurt for this year's, what we put up, um, what we have from winter squash perspective, especially.
07:10Cause that's one of our big, that's something I rely on very heavily. Um, because we eat a lot of winter squash. We, uh, I thought put away a lot of winter squash, um, for pumpkin bread, pumpkin pies, things like that. Cause it's one of our favorite things. See it. It's, uh, we can definitely see that we don't have near as many as we have last year from this heat. Yep. We love winter squash here too. And, uh, we had exactly the opposite of what you had.
07:39We had tons and tons and tons of rain this spring. And so a lot of our stuff that we got planted, stalled out, it didn't die, but stalled out. And it's just now starting to really grow. So I don't know how we're gonna do on winter squashes this year either. And we're like you, we really like winter squash here. And I really like pumpkin pie, partly because I feel like it's probably one of the healthiest pies you can eat. Yes. And so,
08:10In the summertime, one of our local grocery stores will occasionally have pumpkin pies in July. And if my husband sees one, he's like, do you want a pumpkin pie in July that you don't have to make? And I'm like, yes, please, please, pumpkin pie sounds wonderful. So I feel your pain, believe me. It's been, it has not been a great growing season for anybody in the United States this year because it's either been so hot, so dry, or so wet, depending on where everybody is.
08:40It's been really hard to navigate it. It's been really hard to kind of manage, but with, I mean, it just seems like it's a cost to change every year, the year before we had a steady rain, the weather was perfect, we had a very mild start to our summer and we had God, I don't know how many hundreds of pounds of squash we ended up putting up, um, you know, and that was zucchini and everything, but this year it's been completely different.
09:10And so for us, we really don't want to rely on the garden for income. That's not our income producer. I don't want to rely on the garden for income. Aaron would try it. That's not me. He's the, uh, he's the brains behind our enterprise. I'm sure that some of your brain gets used to, but I understand what you're saying. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't ever want to rely on our farm to market garden.
09:38to be the income for the household because that's a really scary bet to make here. So we don't do that. My husband has what we call the jobby job, the job that he goes to to make money so that we eat. And if the garden produces really, really well, then we make a little bit of a supplemental income. If the garden does not do well, we don't starve to death. So that's our hedging, our bet plan.
10:07We don't take anything to market, but, um, Aaron, he does work outside of the home and I focus on the house and raising the little one in the homestead. Do you guys have chickens? Do you say chickens? Yes, we do. Do you have lots of chickens or just a couple? So we, we, we hope so. We do it a little bit differently compared to what, like you see a lot of on social media, we're.
10:36proponents on focusing on your family needs and you know, looking at it that way, but also with frugality of mind. For our family needs, we don't need a hundred chickens. We don't, but we wouldn't need all those eggs. We could sell them, but there's a lot of people in our area who sell eggs. A lot of people. I mean, this is just what you do out here. If you, it's nothing to see people selling eggs.
11:03So it would be a very hard competitive market to get into in our area. So for us, our laying flock is just really enough to get us, you know, get our egg needs taken care of. Now we do plan on doing meat birds and we will be focusing on our yearly needs on meat birds. So we really do focus on looking at it with, you know, a cost analysis sort of frugal mindset
11:33you know, come into our home set to make sure we're making the most efficient use of our time, our resources and everything else. But we do have like a smaller laying block. We wouldn't have more than 10 chickens at a laying block at a time. That's good for our family size. Yep, that's we've got nine or ten chickens and we did have like 25 last year and 25 chickens was way too many chickens because we're in the same boat that you're in.
12:00A lot of people either have backyard blocks, so they have their own chickens, their own eggs, or there's a lady at the farmer's market that we sell at. She has many, many chickens and she's been selling eggs at the farmer's market for years. So there's no market for us to sell our eggs. So now that we're down to nine or 10, it's perfect for what we need. We're going to stick with nine or 10. Nine or 10 is a good number.
12:25That's what we thought too. We, we looked at that cause you know, I told Erin, I said the most all over one is 20 like at any given time, but I think 20 would still be too much for us because there's just three of us. Um, with, um, Erin, myself and the little one, we don't, we don't need that many eggs, Erin could do without the eggs. It's me, the little one who eat more of them and more me than anybody else. So, so when did you guys get into doing this, this homesteading thing?
12:55Eight years ago. Yeah. I guess it was eight years ago. So we originally didn't have any intention of doing homesteading. Had no, I did not want to garden. I didn't want to do any of this. And I was like, okay, we have these old established, uh, apple trees. I was like, we're going to get to a point where these are not producing anymore. Let's talk about some more trees, some more berries, cause we had some.
13:25established blueberries as well that had done good for many years. And we had some fresher ones that I had just planted on the side. And we were like, okay, let's buy some trees. Let's buy some berries. And it turned into... Era went a little crazy. I put in hundreds of trees and berries and that at the time...
13:52We weren't familiar with the permaculture aspect and we sort of ruined a few of our zones, but thankfully we had a couple areas that didn't actually turn out or didn't take off in those areas, thankfully. And so now we can transition those over to other infrastructure needs. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of trial and error when you get into this because you're like, hey, there's dirt. Let's put a dirt. Let's put a plant in the dirt and see what happens. But.
14:19There's a little more to it. And sometimes that, that chaos thing that people end up doing works, but sometimes it's better to maybe, maybe make a couple of mistakes and be like, Oh, research is good. We should probably look things up. We've had that happen here. We like the slow build. Um, the slow build has actually led us to really look at our property.
14:44I'm going to use our front yard and example. It's a great example to use here. It's really allowed us to look at our property and determine future needs. So right now we have a really big, big front yard, a good size one, and it's on a hill and it doesn't serve a purpose for us. And we really need to make this more usable. So we're actually planning on terracing this out and making it into a food for us.
15:08that will produce for us, but also something that we don't have to manage when we get older. So we're not going to have to mow this area or what little bit of maintenance going to be much, much less compared to what it actually is right now. So we've really learned the slow build and actually looking through thinking, really, really thinking about what we want to do with the spot. Yep. We, we put in apple trees.
15:37when we first moved in and then the following year we put in more because when my husband and I were younger when we talked about our eventual place that we would live, which we didn't think we had a hope in hell getting, we wanted apple trees just because we love apple trees. And we've gotten maybe 30, 40 apples since we moved in four years ago. And it's because of the winds and the rain and the thunderstorms every spring. So...
16:03We have to talk about putting in more apple trees so that they are actually protecting each other because we have two, we have one row that goes north south and one row that goes east west on different sides of the property. And neither one of them are doing great because they're not protected from the wind. So we have to research this and figure out how to make this work better because we don't want to have to take the trees out. We also have, we planted peach trees and cherry trees, I think last year.
16:33And we actually have peaches growing that are about the size of a baseball right now. Oh, that's awesome. In Minnesota, we have peaches growing and they're obviously a winter hardy tree that we purposely decided to get so that we would have peaches. But I wasn't sure that that would work. And we have peaches and they're not all bug eaten. So I guess the peaches are probably going to do okay. And we also got some honey berry plants. I don't know if you guys know what honey berries are.
17:02We've got honey berries as well. Yeah. We have two plants. We just, we just received those in the mail a month ago and they got put in right away and they're doing great. So I don't know if it takes a year or two for those to start producing. It will. And they are spreaders. So they're going to bush out like really kind of a low bush. It's not quite as tall as a blueberry. They're more low kind of almost shrubby looking.
17:28Um, and when you start to get berries, they are hard to see. Cause they come up underneath the leaves. And they're like velvety feeling. Um, but we do have several, they like honeysuckles. If you have a place where honeysuckle grows, um, I don't know if you all have anything like that in Michigan, but honey, Minnesota, sorry. Um, but we do, we honeysuckles like should be the state flair.
17:55in this area, almost the state, the state mines, the state weed. And it's one of those things that it will, it will compete with the honeysuckle and it loves that kind of an area. Okay. Well, yeah, honeysuckle grows wild in Minnesota, but where we put the, the honey berry plants, there isn't any. So we, we purposely put it there to try to out compete with the honeysuckle. It has helped. It has helped a lot. Not completely.
18:24Um, we still have to maintain the honey cycle, but it is not nearly as rampant as it was before. And I will say these plants, since we put them in, I mean, we have one, it's probably six feet wide, at least. I would say so. And we've had them four years now, I guess. I'd say five. Five. Okay. He knows better about it than I do. Um, he's the one who manages what we put, where we put it and, and why we set it up that way. Well, I think that's great.
18:53I think that's just fine. So the honey berry plants, will they fruit? The ones we put in this year, will they fruit next year? They just won't fruit a lot or do we have to wait a couple years? I would treat it like a blueberry bush where you give it like the three years. They're not like an instant. They're not quite like a blueberry, but treat them like a blueberry. They work very similarly. Yeah. They're not as...
19:21They don't have this sweetness as a, as I guess you could say a blueberry does. It's got a little bit more bitterness to them. Okay. And they don't need the, as the acidic dirt that we were, isn't it right? Right. Okay, good. Cause I was going to say if they do, we're screwed. Cause we don't have any acidic soil here. No, they don't. They do pretty decent. I mean, because
19:47Where we put them, they just sort of took over the area. I mean, we actually probably need to prune ours back some because it's getting... Or start off new... Or propagate. ..applications off of it. Okay. So you can, can you do that? Can you propagate them? Do you do it from cuttings or from the roots or how do you do it? Well, we'll try it. I mean, honeyberries are kind of a newer species. But we, for us, but for me, I have found propagation. I could watch videos on it and...
20:17You know, read books, but it kind of in learned the basics, but for me, it's all trial and error. So we can get through everything. It's, it's just sort of learning what works best for us. Yeah. And I ask people who start talking to me about stuff, what they know, and then I take it and steal it and use it. It's easier and less time consuming and way more fun, way more fun to talk to you guys and learn, I swear. I have such a ball talking with you and everybody else. Um,
20:45Okay, so my whole point about this, and I said honey berries and you have experience and we got onto honey berries. We put in a whole bunch of different fruit plants because fruit plants tend to be perennial. We don't have to do a whole lot of crazy maintenance with them and we don't have to put them in every spring like we do with say green beans or basil plants or tomatoes. And like you said, you're planning for the fact that you're going to eventually get older.
21:12We are eventually getting older faster than you. My husband is 55, I'm 54. And he is the one who gardens, he loves it. And he beats himself up gardening. He works really hard and he comes in, he's like, my back's sore, or I twisted my arm funny, or whatever it is. Because once you hit 40, you can turn over wrong in your sleep and hurt yourself. So we're there, we're at that point where it's like, okay, what's the best use of our time?
21:41that doesn't beat us up so bad doing it. And perennial plants are amazing because you expend the energy to put them in the first time. And then you just kind of take care of them, but you don't have to do as much hard work as the annual plants. Absolutely. That's why what was our big focus when we first started moving towards this. We wanted to get as many perennials, especially things like apricots and plum cocks and things like that into the ground as possible.
22:11Um, now we didn't completely do it the right way. Like we should have, we tried a lot of different exotic things that we might not have liked, um, and we really should have focused on things that we know grow well for us, and that was probably one of the big, big things I wish we would have changed, like focusing on gooseberries and they grow really well for us. We can get a lot of gooseberries. We would have focused on those as our perennials on their front end. I feel like we would have had.
22:40more success and we would be a lot further along now. Um, but we, even our garden, we're looking at it like, okay, in a couple of years, we might have to change our main garden area to be more friendly from when we get older so we can do it slowly instead of having a large upfront costs because we are going to get, we are going to get older, it's going to be hard to bend over and you know, get things off of the ground and it's just things we have to think about. Yep.
23:08Everybody does because you're not 20 years old forever and and I'm gonna say this even at 20 I can remember helping my mom weed her garden when I was 12 and We would sit out there from 7 in the morning until noon weeding rows of plants in the garden And I would feel it the next day and I was a teenager, you know, it's hard
23:32work and it stretches your muscles in ways that they're not always stretched and your body will tell you to cut that out, stop doing that. So it's not just age, it's just work. Work makes you hurt and it also makes you tired and it makes you sleep really well.
23:51So I agree with that. Yeah. So, um, so tell me about the whole social media content thing, because you guys have a lot going on with videos. How'd you get into that?
24:08So I don't, I don't know if I actually remember how we got into that. So it was just one of those fervent moment things. I was like, Hey, let's do this. She's like, okay. But it's, it's what it was really done is we've, we started out mostly with the podcast first. And then from that we were like, okay, we can throw in videos.
24:37short YouTube, stuff like that at the same time. So it's something that is, I mean, it's almost a full time job itself, just coming up with content and producing it on a weekly basis, as you know. Um, it, it can be where you, we plan ahead a lot for stuff, you know, we're like, okay, we constantly come up with ideas and like, okay, we're going to do this in a few months or we're going to do this this week.
25:05We always have like a content creation calendar sort of going to think, okay, how about this this week? How about this another week, you know, or if something comes up in the news or something comes up, you know, about, oh, we need to get more tomato production because everybody else is having a bad year of tomato production. We'll come up with ideas around that, for example. So do you guys just use your cell phones to do video or do you have a video camera or how do you do it? Oh.
25:36We have all. OK. So I will say most of our content is produced through a phone for video-wise. We actually bought a specific phone just for video content creation. We do have GoPros. And I did photography on the side before, so I have cameras that.
26:03we can set up and do different things with as well. So this is sort of my creativity from photography moving over to content creation. Yeah, the reason I ask is because it's a lot of work to produce videos. We tried last year or the year before, I can't remember, to do some stuff with our canning, you know, to video some of our canning and our soap making.
26:32processes and we bought the ring light and we bought the things to hold the cell phones they could be angled correctly and all that stuff. And after the first couple of times we tried doing videos I was like this is such a pain in the ass. I hate it. And my husband looked at me and you could just see the relief on him. He was like I don't want to do videos. I was like I don't either. I said this is ridiculous. We are, we're working.
27:01with lye and water to make soap while we're trying to video stuff. This seems like a really dangerous plan here. And so we decided almost at the same moment that we really didn't wanna do videos of our homesteading endeavors because it's a time suck and it's a lot of work and half the time you have to redo it because it didn't work the right way the first time because we were new at it. So I'm really impressed that you guys do this because we...
27:29Within a month we were like, nope. And now we have a ring light that we never use and we have the little holder thingies for the phones that we never use. But I guess it was worth finding out that that wasn't what we wanted to do, I guess.
27:45It's a lot of work. Um, I have more issues with trial and error with it. It's not my favorite thing, but I'm probably in front of the camera more than Erin is just because of the nature of like what we're talking about or what we're doing, um, what we're trying to share with others, uh, whatever value we think we could bring, but.
28:07Um, it is a lot of work. It is just learning the process for it. And I will say like the biggest issue I had when we first started doing, especially like if I was cooking, um, it was the prep work because I don't want to bore people to death. Yeah. That's like my thing. Like I don't want to bore you with you watching me cut all this stuff up. And it's a lot of work for Aaron to fast forward and find something to put.
28:35Inside of those minutes that he's fast forwarding through and we have to add voiceovers and all this other stuff, that's a lot of extra work. So doing the prep work, um, off camera was probably one of the easiest things I did and it will cut out a lot of extra, just extra stuff because then you have to fill the space with talking and all of this other stuff, it was, it, you just kind of had to find the rhythm that works. Yeah. For us, it was just painful.
29:05And the worst part of it is, is that the three of us who live here, my husband, myself, and our 22 year old son, we all tend to swear like pirates when there's no one around. And so invariably one of us would swear in chatting with each other about what we're doing while we're videoing. And I'm like, ah, we got to edit that. Oh no. It just, it was such a cluster clock, C L U C K that we just decided it. It was not our forte.
29:35And it actually put me off doing anything with content creation for a good year and a half because I was like I suck at this. This is terrible. And then I realized that podcasting didn't require a video and it's fairly easy to edit. And I was like I can do podcasting instead of video and it'll all be good and has been wonderful.
29:58I was the one who pushed for podcasting to get us started. I thought it would be easier because he, he was wanting to jump straight into videos and all of this other stuff. And I think this was right when we were starting our house remodels, we were doing all this other stuff and it was like, this is not the best time to jump into videos, we are packing, we're packing up the entire upstairs, we're doing all this other work, we have a newborn. We've got a different option right now, just for me to function. Yeah.
30:28Yeah, exactly. And I needed some kind of creative outlet to feel like I was doing something good. And so I was like, podcasting is a great idea. I'm gonna try that. If I suck at it, it's not gonna cost me any money. It's gonna cost me very little time to discover that it sucks and I don't wanna do it. And surprise, surprise, I found it doesn't suck and I really do like it and I really do enjoy it. So I think that we all have things that we're good at.
30:56and that we're talented in. And if you can figure out how to make that work for you, then you're off and running. And you guys clearly are good at doing the videos. I've watched a couple and they're very entertaining. I think it's great. Oh, well, thank you. You're welcome. And I don't wanna get too into all the techie stuff with this because really you are using that medium to promote and talk about what you do being frugal and living a homesteading lifestyle. So.
31:26You fit my topic from my podcast, but I don't want to bore people with the detail-y stuff that I know about and you know about, but probably nobody else wants to know about. Yeah. So, um, so what's the plan? Is there a long-term plan? Is there a five-year plan for where you guys go from here? Yeah. So we had that sudden change last year. Um, so we weren't debt free last year. We.
31:55changed last year. We decided to do a really hard push and we paid off almost six figures worth the debt in like six months. And this was when Erin and I were both working. And now that we are debt-free, I'm home. And the goal is for us to set up our side businesses to really start to function and work and help bring in some extra income and to just really focus on building up the homestead.
32:25debt free the way we want it. Yeah. Not going back into it again. Not going back to again, build up the side hustles, um, to where they function and work for us every day. Um, and bring in some supplemental income and hopefully we can, you know, get Aaron to where he doesn't have to work as hard as he works now. That's a fantastic plan. And I wish you all the luck in the world with it because it is really hard.
32:55It is really hard to run a homestead, try to raise kids, and have an outside the home job. My husband has been doing an outside the home job since we got together many, many years ago. And, like, he has always had a job. If he didn't have a job, I don't think he'd know what to do with himself. But if he could have the homestead be the job, I think that he would really, really love that. There's only so many hours in the day.
33:23and there's only so much energy in one body, and it gets to be exhausting with trying to do everything all the time. And thank God for good husbands, because he works so hard, and when he gets home, I try to have dinner ready, and something that he is gonna enjoy eating, I don't always succeed, but I try. And I try really hard to make sure that he has the things that he needs that makes his life easier.
33:51so that he doesn't hate his life with getting up in the morning and going to work. And men have gotten a bad rap. And there's a lot of men out there who might deserve that, but there's a lot of good men in the world who are fantastic providers, fantastic husbands, fantastic fathers. And I don't feel like you guys get the accolades you should get, if that makes any sense with what I just said. Yes, definitely. And I will say though.
34:21Like getting Julia home here, for example, was one of our things that we knew we had to do to function day to day. It was either the homestead had to go or my job had to go. We couldn't, I couldn't do both. I couldn't do both. I couldn't manage both, but I will say what you were just saying that resonates with me and Aaron and I have been talking about this in the last few weeks because he struggles right now with feeling like he's not doing enough on the homestead.
34:51It's been something he's been struggling with because I've been trying to help pull off as much as I can so he doesn't have to deal with it because he does work hard. He works extremely hard for us and it gives me the privilege to take care of our little one every day. Yep. I raised four and I was a stay-at-home mom and I know exactly how hard you work too, Julia. I know. I asked my dad a long time ago how he and my mom managed to stay together for so long.
35:20And he said that the answer was pretty simple, but it wasn't necessarily how other people do it. And I said, okay. He said, every day we try to give 100% each. He said, in some days I can only give 50%, so your mom gives 150%. And some days she can only give 50%, so I give 150% that day. He said, we try to balance it so that everybody hits, the total is 100%. And I thought that was beautiful.
35:48I thought it was a great way to work through your life with your spouse. And it's hard work. They've been married for over 50 years. Only to each other, no other spouses ever, no other children with anybody ever. Like they are goals when it comes to a long lasting marriage. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is if you're gonna be partnered with somebody, I
36:18think, me, I think that you need to be on top of yourself and be okay in yourself and you have to want to make the partner's life better and hopefully the partner wants to make your life better as well. Absolutely. I don't want to talk, I don't want to give marriage advice or anything but I just, I keep hearing from people about how hard this homesteading thing is when it comes to relationships.
36:48And I'm listening and it is hard. It's hard because some days one of you has a horrible day. And all you wanna do is kick a door or slam a cabinet. And you might do that. It wouldn't surprise me. I've slammed a couple of cabinet doors in my life. And it's not the other person's fault that you had a bad day. So as the person having the bad day,
37:17If I'm having a bad day, I have to realize that it's not my husband's fault and try not to take it out on him. And what I expect out of him is some compassion for the fact that I had a bad day and I try to do the same for him. And so it's all a balance. Everything is a balance with this whole thing and you got to find it because if you don't find it, you're going to fall over. I agree completely. For us, it's more we know we have learned our strengths on our homestead.
37:46We have learned who does what the best and if Aaron needs me to pick up for him and focus on something I will if I need Aaron to pick up for me. You know he might not do it the way I do it that's fine but he'll get the job done the way he you know what he'll get it done. And but for the most part we've sort of learned and that's helped we've we've got so we're very weird really don't argue.
38:14We don't argue, we don't fight, we might get a little sleepy at each other, but we really try to manage that to the best of our ability. And it's more of a just kind of, you know, like you said, balance and just understanding that the other person is human and working through the difficulties together, talking through the difficulties together. Yep. My husband and I don't really argue. We may have words now and then.
38:42And the one rule I learned in the first six months of living with him is that he does not appreciate being called names. And I understand that. That's not a good way to run a marriage or a relationship by calling people names. But he had said or done something and I was livid and I said something that I shouldn't have said and it involved calling him a name. He didn't talk to me for three days straight.
39:09So the rule in our marriage is that no one calls the other one a name. We can say you are acting like you are angry about, but we can't say you're acting like a jackass. We just, we can't call names. We can't do that. It's not acceptable. So that's the one rule in our marriage that has probably made our marriage last. It's a good rule to have. It's a good, I mean, everybody kind of has to find what works for them. It's kind of like homesteading.
39:38There's no like blueprint that works for every family, everyone. And I feel like that's part of the problem today, especially with social media, is something that we are constantly feeling like we're having to push up against and it's, you know, we don't look like the homesitters you're going to see on Instagram because that doesn't work for our family and it's.
40:02probably not gonna work for your family either. So you need to find what is actually best for you and your family, not what Instagram is telling you is best for you and your family. Well, I think the best thing about Instagram and Facebook and everything is that if you're, if you're, what's the word I want? Of course I can't find it. It was right there, now it's gone. If you are a reasonable human being that doesn't buy everything you're sold,
40:32you're probably going to figure out that a lot of it is smoke and mirrors and that it's very pretty. It's a very pretty life. The thing is life is not pretty. Life is beautiful and life is dirty. Beautiful and dirty and they can be, it can be the same in the same moment. And so if you are a reasonable human being who realizes that you can't judge a book by its cover and not everything is true,
41:01Then glean what you need to glean from what you're taking in, and then use it to your advantage. And don't worry about the fact that this gorgeous woman is dressed in this beautiful dress and supposedly gardening in mud and still looks like an angel. Don't apply that, that's staged. And if it isn't, good on her, because I don't know how she does it. That's what I said, the woman wearing all white mucking stables from her goat.
41:28This was one that I saw. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. But no, it's like, it's great for gathering ideas. And that's what I use social media for. I look for things that are going to help make us more functional ideas to better our home set. But for the most, I mean, it's just, it's just, we live in a very different world. Yes. Yes, we do. And you do. And everybody does. Everybody's experience is completely different from everybody else's.
41:58And the term I was thinking of was critical thinker. If you're a critical thinker. I, okay, I made some gift baskets a couple of years ago for our realtor lady, because she wanted to buy some of our stuff that we make to give to her clients as closing gifts. And the baskets were beautiful. Like I put these together. I did the weird crinkly paper in the bottom, put our stuff in them,
42:27the cellophane around them, put ribbons on them. They were gorgeous when they were done. I took photos on my island and it looked really professional. If you could have seen my kitchen an hour before they were done, you would have been like, she has no idea what she's doing. Because everything was everywhere. So I say that because an hour before I took the photos, it looked like a bomb went off on that island.
42:52And then I got the baskets together, cleaned the island off, wiped it down so it was pretty, put the basket on the thing with the vase of flowers behind it, and it looked like sheer perfection. So it is all manufacturing to make the thing that you're doing look attractive. Not everything is attractive. The getting to the attractive part is not attractive all the time. Absolutely. You guys know this, you do videos. It's not easy.
43:21tried to for for me, as long as my kitchen is clean, that's like my biggest rule when I do videos inside. Um, and just to focus on, you know, just being as real as possible. Um, it might not get us a lot of views sometimes, but we really just try to focus on that cause I'll tell you, I'm like the least aesthetic person.
43:45I'm the one who has nothing on the walls, who has nothing out because it's more for me to clean later. So it's just one of those things that I tend to focus on personally. But I completely understand you're looking for that perfect picture. To get that perfect picture, you're going to pull out a thousand different things and have a thousand different dishes to have to wash afterwards. Yeah, it's a lot. It is a lot of work.
44:13I think that people who have never done it think that it's like, oh, they just had this really pretty dish and they put this really pretty piece of cake on it, took this really pretty picture. No, that is not how that went down, folks. A lot of time and thought went into that pretty picture, that pretty piece of cake. Plus what you're doing, you're sharing things that people can learn from. So it's not really necessarily, I mean, clearly you want to look presentable and you want things around you to look presentable.
44:43The meat and potatoes of your videos is sharing information, yes? Yes, yeah. Yeah. We like to share like how, you know, we keep our grocery bill cost down, how we, you know, keep our frugality lifestyle as it is and how we, you know, look at our homes with a frugal mindset now compared to what we did eight years ago or even three years ago. So that's kind of what we share. We really...
45:10have tried to merge our homesteading and frugality. Wouldn't you say, Eric? Yeah, and it's actually helped us more overall because we think about it more. We do. We are much more mindful and very thoughtful on how we spend money and how we approach our homestead. I mean, really, that frugality mindset has really taken over for us in all aspects.
45:39Yep, that's what we, well, we still do it. We don't do it to the same extent that we did before when we had four kids at home on one income. But when my kids were little, there was a lot of hacks that we did that were frugal. And it's part of the reason we ended up where we are, because I used to make things from scratch all the time for the kids because it was too expensive to buy things new for them. And you have one little one. I had four little ones.
46:10And kids cost money. It, there's no way around it. They cost money. It's all part of the game. So I understand the whole frugal thing. We, we still are frugal. I mean, we still can tomato sauce because we love doing it and it saves us money from the store in the wintertime. And it tastes better. Oh my God. Does it taste better? Yes. And we, we buy fruit from.
46:37the fruit truck dot com place, because we don't have any fruit we can harvest yet, because we've only been here four years in August. And we can jam and jelly, because I'm not gonna buy jelly at the store. Why would I buy jelly at the store? That's craziness. So we do some of the same kinds of things. And we wear our clothes until they are so holy, you can't wear them in public anymore, because why would you throw out jeans that are not destroyed yet?
47:06Absolutely. Or tournament rags. Yeah. I mean, there are so many things that I think about that I see people do. And I'm like, why? I don't want to rag on people. I'm not going to pick anybody in specific, but I know there are people out there who have walk-in closets full of clothing, shoes, and accessories that they bought five years ago that they haven't even worn yet. Yeah. I'm like, why?
47:35Why would you do that? If you're going to buy something, wear it. Absolutely. Or don't, don't buy it and don't wear it. I mean, those are the two options in my house. If I'm going to buy it and not wear it, it's going to get sold or given to somebody. We agree. We've, uh, well, when I was working, I probably bought more because I would go into the office in a professional setting, but in the past,
48:01seven months my my world has changed i've been doing massive purges yep i i buy a coat probably once every five years and when the zipper breaks because i am not a seamstress i end up buying i end up buying a new coat and that's terrible i should learn how to replace the zipper but i haven't figured it out yet but i figure five years out of a 20 dollar jacket is probably okay i think that works
48:29I mean you you've got your money out of it at that point. Yeah, and someday Maybe I'll learn how to put a zipper in a coat and it'll last me till I die. Who knows? We'll see what happens. All right guys. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today and it's been really fun Yes, definitely. Absolutely. All right. You guys have a great afternoon You too. All right
 
 

Tandi Family Farms

Today I'm talking with Andrea and Renata at Tandi Family Farms.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Andrea and Renata at Tandy Family Farms. How are you girls? We're good. What's going on? How are you? Good. I'm great. You're in California? Yes, California.
00:29Like where? California is a big state. Yeah, the San Francisco Bay area, specifically San Leandro. Okay, cool. Yeah, and I'm in Minnesota, so I'm a long ways away from you guys. So tell me about yourselves and what you do. So we're brand new. We launched everything that we're doing in May.
00:54Kind of in honor, not kind of, but in honor of my grandfather who was a farm to table chef. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so what are you doing? Well we are forming a nonprofit organization. We're almost have that set. And we are currently spending our time helping people set up gardens in their spaces, whether that be a backyard or...
01:22In one case, an apartment complex, community garden, but we are in the process of fundraising and looking to get a piece of land, hopefully in the near-ish future. But of course, that depends on funding. To have a teaching farm, which will be a regenerative farm, as well as a place to teach from, so a farm and farm school. So we're in the early stages.
01:53That's where we are now. Okay. So a teaching farm. So like anybody, any age or kids or grownups or what? Everyone. Anyone willing to learn and wanting to learn about how to sustainably grow your own food and how to cook the food that you grow. I love that because usually farm school is about growing food. It's not necessarily about what you do with the food that you grow. Yeah.
02:20And it's really important to use that food you grow because there's a lot of work that goes into it. There is a lot of work and patience. Mm-hmm. And it's so good for you. We have a farm-to-market garden that we grow. And it's looking real sad this year because we've had a lot of rain. But I did manage to eke out four cucumbers so far. And oh, my god, they're so good because of the rain. Go fig.
02:49It's terrible growing conditions, but cucumbers love water. Yeah. Yup. It's a hard job growing food and I don't grow the garden my husband does, but I have helped him in years past and it's hard work. It's dirty work and it's such good work. Yeah. We love getting dirty and we love hard work.
03:16So it's a great combination. Yeah. So why did you guys exactly start to do this? You mentioned your father? My grandfather. Grandfather, yes. Tell the story. So my Nono, so we are Italian. My Nono John or Giovanni Tandi, he's a first generation Italian American. And his family.
03:45They come from a little province in Italy called Genoa, and more specifically, Appicella. And their vocation, they were farmers. So something that's kind of cool is that my great grandfather, Angelo Tandi, he brought with him these green beans. And they're an Italian broad green bean. And they've been in our family.
04:12for over 100 years and they're currently growing in three of the Victory Gardens or community gardens that we've started. So they're literally heirloom vegetables. Yes, literally, yeah, literally heirloom vegetables. I love that, oh, you make me so happy. Yeah. Stories like this just make my heart too big for my chest. That's great. One thing, oh, sorry. Go ahead.
04:40Oh, one thing that Andrea maybe didn't mention is that he, he passed this year. And so we've had this dream of launching this farm for a while now. And it was just kind of like the, the motivation or just the, the oomph we, we had to, this is the time, um, you know, to do it in his honor. Um, so, but it is a dream we've had for a long time. It just, it just kind of felt like it's the time is now. Right. Yep.
05:10And I made the decision to leave public education after 22 years, the last 10 being an elementary school administrator. And yeah, this has been a healing process and it's like a passion too.
05:31Fantastic. So it's non-profit. So does that mean that you won't be charging for the classes or does that just mean the money goes right back into the business? Goes right back into the business. Okay. Yeah. And currently how our, what we call little farmsteads or victory gardens is that we design them and we provide the plants at no cost to the folks that we're designing for.
06:00They provide the soil, they provide containers, whatever they're going to be growing in. So essentially our services currently are free. They just pay us the starting cost for themselves to get going. Okay. And how is it going? I mean, it's almost August. So how has it been this year? Amazing. We have...
06:28So we have four working farmsteads as we call them, two of which are in Castro Valley, which are over the hill from where we are. And then we have our family plot, which is on 98th Avenue in Oakland, which is massive. Everything is growing really, really well. The only thing we've had some issues with are carrots. We you know, our little micro climate here, we have like heat waves.
06:58were like 100 degrees and then we drop into like the 60s or below and the carrots didn't like that. So they all died. Every single patch of carrots that we planted died. Yeah. So and we're growing pumpkins, we're growing squash, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers. What else are we growing?
07:25Oh, goodness. Lots of different things. We're trying to go for as much biodiversity as possible. We envision our eventual farm as extremely biodiverse, very much taking inspiration from people like Apricot Lane or also known as the biggest little farm. So we're trying to start that biodiversity now in our smaller gardens.
07:56Okay. So I have to know, has this project been consuming you since you started it? Because when I start a project, all I can think about, all I can talk about is the thing I'm doing. I would say yes and no. We try to find a good balance. But it's like, it's a good, if it is becomes consuming, it's a good consuming, meaning that it's just really good for, especially for
08:25for me right now. I'm not working, it's summer break and I'm not, I'm indefinitely on a summer break. So I have a bit of a routine. I can go to any of our plots, start working, you know, doing whatever. And yeah, I don't know if that answers your question fully, but... So do people, do people show up at the garden plots and you get to visit while you're weeding or working? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Mm hmm.
08:55Okay. Yeah, since these are mostly at people's homes. When we come there, it's because we've arranged with them to work in our garden. And so there's a lot of interaction. Yeah. So you get a lot of social benefit out of it too. Yes. And our own family garden, which is the 98th Avenue Garden, the whole family comes out pretty much.
09:21my 90 year 93 year old Noni or grandmother and my youngest nephew who is about to be three and we all work in the garden together pulling weeds, finding worms, you know, harvesting. And then you know, everyone has to take a chance or take a turn on the backyard swing after they've worked real hard in the garden. Oh, yes. Including the adults.
09:50So it's providing really nice family bonding time too. Oh yeah, yeah. And it's just like, so my youngest nephew who is two, we started working in the garden with my Nonu at about that age. And so it's just, you know, it's repeating, it's repeating that process.
10:13Yes, my favorite memory of the garden at the house that I grew up in with my dad and my mom and my sister and my brother is my least favorite was weeding because I really don't love weeding. I still to this day don't love weeding. My dad was really the one that started the garden and my mom would tend it in the summer and they would go out and pick beans and stuff when it was ready.
10:41My favorite memory is at the end of summer when the garden was done and my dad would pull everything out, put it in the middle of the garden and let it sit for about a week. And then that following weekend, he would have a bonfire and burn everything that had dried out. And he would have one beer in the fridge that waited for him until the bonfire was done. Because it was hot work, you know, in Maine, hot muggy.
11:11And he would go in and get that beer and sit down in the grass and look at the pile of embers and go, that's a wrap. I would just laugh. And my dad, my dad and mom didn't really drink. So, so it was a very celebratory drink for him that they got through another summer, had a good yield and put it to bed. That's great. Yeah, at the end of the end of each growing season, particularly
11:41There's this, it's the end of a harvest. So back in Italy, what the farmers would do was they would have a barn dance and they would enjoy something called Boniocolda, which in translation is hot bath. So they would bring their, whatever they were growing to the table and they did, it was like, it's how we call it Italian fondue. So they'd stick.
12:09whatever they were going to be cooking in the hot bath of the Banyukalda, they'd go dance and then come back and then eat what was on their skewer. And that's a tradition that we do to this day. So that was their harvest festival, basically? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of vino too. I bet. I bet. Okay. So you were talking about teaching people how to cook with the food that they grow.
12:38So what kinds of things would you teach them? Because I have a couple of things that I would teach them, but I'd rather hear what you would teach them. Yeah. So the idea to teach people to cook also comes from two places. Like I said, my grandfather, he was a farm to table chef. Up until this past October, he was cooking for 500 men at the Colombo Club of...
13:07an Oakland, which is an Italian American club. And before we could walk, we had ladles and spoons in our hands. And one of my fondest memories growing up was learning how to make my No No's pasta sauce with him. And I was about eight years old, and in these big industrial kitchens, and like the instruments were bigger than I was. So like the pot was bigger than me.
13:37how to properly cut and dice vegetables. As part of my job as an MTSS, which stands for Multi-Tiered System of Support, a big part of what I did was social and emotional learning. And after we came back from COVID, we were seeing students eating things like Takis and ramen and things like that or sports drinks, and they'd literally crash after lunch.
14:06So what I would do is I would do something called lunch bunches. And I started with my third graders because they were the age that I was when I started to cook with my Nonu. And we also at our school had this massive organic garden. So together we would recreate their favorite foods using as much as we could the vegetables from our garden. So some of their favorites were ramen.
14:35where we picked bok choy and carrots and all the things that we were growing and created a lunch together. We did poke bowls, pizzas, all kinds of stuff. So those are the things that we would definitely be teaching. Also, really, people have asked for ravioli making classes. So that's something that we will be doing. Again, the recipe is really old.
15:02handed down from generation to generation. And the rolling pin that we use to make our raviolis is our great-grandmother's. So who knows how old it is? But yeah, so those are the things. Not just Italian food. We also have a background in the Hawaiian islands. So we cook all kinds of different things. So.
15:27I'm going to share what I would teach people because I don't have any Italian or Hawaiian background. But one of the things that I would actually teach people how to do is bruschetta. Oh yeah, easy. Because I love it. I had it at a restaurant years ago as an appetizer. I was just smitten with this very simple bread with garlic and basil and tomato.
15:56and mozzarella cheese and balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It was the simplest thing to make ever. And I loved it. And the next week I was like, I need to figure out how to make this. I got to find the recipe. Found the recipe and went, oh, I can make this every day if I want to. And clearly I don't want to eat half a loaf of bread every day because that's probably not great for me. But once every couple of weeks, it's a really yummy, bright, fresh thing to have.
16:25eat as dinner. We will have it for dinner. That's it. Easy, right? It's easy to do. Yeah. So as soon as the tomatoes and the basil are kicking in the garden, we have it like once every two weeks because it's quick, it's easy and it's yummy. So I would teach people how to make that. I would teach people how to make, which is going to sound really funny because I have no Italian heritage, but the things I'm saying are very Italian. I would teach them how to make a basic spaghetti sauce because I...
16:53fed my kids spaghetti once a week for years because we were broke and spaghetti was cheap. And a homemade spaghetti sauce is fantastic. It is so easy to make really. Yeah, it is. And those are the things that I think of from the garden because we grow tons of tomatoes every year. So anything with tomatoes is going to be on the menu. Yeah.
17:18Unfortunately, our tomato, that's the one thing that they're not doing great this year, like kind of across our area is they're just not turning green or they're not turning red. They're just not turning over or the yields are kind of small. But typically that's yeah, we have us a pasta sauce called pasta Lana that my my Noni it's her signature dish that everyone loves. That's very simple with, you know, onions, basil, no garlic, she says.
17:49and tomatoes. Yeah, yeah, just unusual to have no garlic, but different variations of our family who make that sauce, they put a little garlic in there. Yeah, yeah. Can you guys grow winter squash where you are? Yes. Okay, so the other thing I would teach people to make is just a basic roasted squash because people think that you got to get fancy with winter squash.
18:16If the squash has grown the way it's supposed to, all you have to do is cut that thing in half, scoop the seeds out, put the seeds in a bowl to roast later because any winter squash seed is edible as far as I know. And you put that flesh down on a cookie sheet with sides so it doesn't spill because it will leak out water or fluid. And you roast it until it's got like a nice caramelization on the flesh on the on the bottom side. And you put a fork through it easy.
18:45And that is the yummiest, yummiest snack. Easy peasy. So yeah, we have been doing like on our Instagram page, what is in season. And so we'll do quick fast recipes with in season vegetables. And I think a family and fan favorite is our cauliflower recipe, which is very simple. It's literally,
19:16garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, butter. And you just pour it on the top, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put it in a Dutch oven, put it in the oven for 40 minutes and it's the most tastiest cauliflower ever. It's a little Parmesan cheese on top. Melts in your mouth. Yeah, it's really good. Could you do it with broccoli that way too? We haven't, but I bet you you could.
19:45Yeah, I always see broccoli and cauliflower as interchangeable. Whatever I have, I'm going to use. Okay, that's awesome. I had thought of something while you were talking and as usual, I got focused on what you were saying and completely forgot what it was and it was about food. Oh, and I don't know. My daughter lived in California for a few years. She just moved to Florida last year and she was vegan. She is not vegan now.
20:13I don't know if people do soups in California in the wintertime like people do in the Midwest. Oh, we do soups. We're very much a soup family. Yeah. Okay. Because I've made cream of broccoli soup with broccoli from our garden. Oh, that was fabulous. I've made squash, winter squash soup with our squashes. And that's amazing. Yeah.
20:42You know, sprinkled on top. Yeah. It just it's so good when it's cold, though. And I know California doesn't get as cold as Minnesota, clearly. But my daughter told me two winters ago that it got down to like 30 degrees. Yeah, it can get cold where we are. Yeah. Well, it also depends on which. Yeah. Where? Which climate? Because there's multiple climates in California.
21:08You guys have everything, right? Yeah, we have mountains and snow to the ocean. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's all relative. Even if it's not that cold here, we feel cold because we're wimps. And so it feels like soup weather to us, even if it's not as cold as Minnesota. Yeah. And this year, since we are growing leeks, one of our favorite soups is tomato potato leek soup. Oh, yes. Yeah. So we're also growing potatoes.
21:37And it'll be fun to cook one of our favorite soups with everything that we've grown in our garden. Not just the herbs or not just the leeks, but also the potatoes. Yeah. Big potato crop coming. Awesome. We do not. We didn't put any in this year. I'm sad. We did make bacon potato soup last winter with our potatoes.
22:07bacon that we had bought from a local butcher, like we got a half of a pig and stuck it in our freezer. So I felt like we had really made things almost from everything that we had in that soup. And I counted the bacon because we bought it from a local butcher. We didn't raise that pig, but we contributed to the money that paid for that pig's raising. Right. Yeah. Thanks. So we were very proud of ourselves on that one. Nice. Yeah.
22:37We always, we hear my husband, myself and my son, summer's hard because stuff doesn't really start coming in from the garden until mid July, 1st of August for us. And, and it's hot. Nobody wants to eat a roasted chicken and mashed potatoes in the summer. Nobody wants to eat hot food. And so we find ourselves doing stuff that might take 10 minutes in the oven, like the bread for the bruschetta.
23:06Or we'll do salads from the store which sucks because you know, yeah, you know Yeah, you better have a lettuce from our gardens. But by the time it's hot the lettuces aren't good anymore. They're very bitter Right. And so we end up buying drinking water That's okay. We end up buying salad from the store We end up buying cold cut stuff sandwiches because it's so muggy and hot out. Nobody wants to cook
23:33I looked at my husband the other day because we literally had a cold meal we planned a week or so ago. And I said, I can't wait. I can't wait for a soup season. He said, why? I said, I don't care. I want food. I want real hearty hot food, but I don't want to eat it right now. Yeah. Today is kind of a soup day for us. It's kind of rainy and a little bit cold.
24:02But then it'll be 85 degrees tomorrow. So we'll see. Yeah. And I feel like I spend half my life talking about food, whether with my husband and my son, because I'm the one that kind of directs the meal plans for the weeks or on the podcast, because cooking is a big part of homesteading and obviously cottage food producing. So I talk about food a lot and I'm actually, I don't weigh 300 pounds. I'm not, I'm a tall kind of thin girl, but.
24:31Food is life and you can grow your own food for yourself, number one. And if you can grow food for other people, number two, you are doing a fabulous thing for the world. Yeah, we think so. So that was your dog. I saw that you have three dogs. Well, we don't exactly have three dogs. Oh, okay.
24:54one of our board members, Gary has a dog, her name is Willie. And then my parents, their dog is Scotty. And we all work on the farm together one way or another. And they're all besties. And so we're typically wherever we are all at, the dogs are out with us. And it started out kind of like as a little joke, but everyone knows Willie, Bristol and Scotty.
25:23Okay, is Bristol yours? Bristol is ours, yeah. Okay, all right. What is Bristol? What kind of dog? She is a Belgian Mellon Waff. I love them. They're beautiful. And thankfully she's a chill one. She's not a raptor. She's very chill. We lucked out in that way. Is she big? She's a little bit smaller than a German Shepherd. She weighs about, right now she's like 56 pounds, so under 60 pounds.
25:53Oh, so she's not big big. No, she's not big big. And they're medium sized. And they're slender. Their breed is pretty slender. Uh huh, okay. Well, since you guys have a dog and you have two friend dogs that hang out, I get to talk about my dog. I've been trying not to talk about Maggie because I talk about her too much. Oh no, we love dogs. Me too, but I'm sure my podcast listeners are like, oh no, she's gonna talk about Maggie again. No, it's fine. We love you. We don't care about Maggie.
26:20Yeah, I have, we have, I don't have, we, all three of us have a mini Australian shepherd named Maggie. And she weighs about 35 pounds and she actually probably weighed 40 pounds two days ago, but my son brushed her. She finally let him brush her. He pulled off like handfuls of little Maggie's all over the place. It was great. Yeah. So she looks much sleeker now. And she's, it's funny because we got her to be a watchdog.
26:50for the property because we used to live in town and our neighbors are really close and we always knew if somebody was around. We all watched each other's houses. So we moved to three acres and our nearest neighbors are a quarter mile away. And I was like, I really wanna know if somebody's pulling in the driveway who isn't supposed to be here. So we got a dog and she is the most fabulous on it watchdog I've ever met. She's great and that's her only job.
27:19other than to be our friend and let us pet her, that's her job. So we adore her and that's why I talk about her a lot. But that's why I didn't mind that your dog was making slopping noises in the background because Maggie barks all the time. Yeah. Bristol is not the best watchdog. Okay. She hardly barks ever.
27:44There is, she does alert us though. Uh, Renata actually had an accident two years ago where she fainted in the middle of the night and first of all was very responsive and got me up. So she does bark in those terms, but other, or, or, you know, alert you to something. Um, but other than that, she's like, Oh, the dogs are barking. I'll go look out the window and see what's happening. So she's not a bork and barker like we call Maggie.
28:13Okay, we have all kinds of things we say about Maggie. Her tail is docked. So she has like a maybe inch and a half nubbin and she's a wiggle butt. She wiggles her butt all the time when she's happy. And so we call her a nubbin wagger. Oh my gosh. And a bork and borker. That's funny. And a hecking good dog. And just silliness because you know, you can't get a puppy at
28:42day shy of eight weeks old and not be silly and that's how old she was when we got her. She's almost four. Her birthday is coming up on August 4th. So, got to talk about the dog without feeling bad about it today. That's good. Yeah, no worry. Yep, I think that dogs are wonderful. I think that cats are wonderful too. We have barn cats. Three barn cats. And one of them is almost four months old now. He's a kitten.
29:10He had a head tilt when he was like, I think he was three or four weeks old and he was walking on a pole barn and his head was tilted and I thought he had ear mites and it wasn't ear mites. We think he just had some kind of thing with the muscle in his neck. And so now he's still tilt, but it's very little tilt anymore. So his name is Tilt. Oh, that's cute. Yeah, he is the loviest baby kitten I've ever met in my whole life.
29:40You touch him and he starts to purr. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah. So we have cats, we have a dog, we have chickens, and that's it. That's all we have for animals on our three acres. Yeah. Well, we don't have cats. We don't have a cat yet because we can't have a cat where we are. But the hope would be to have cats, chickens, all that kind of stuff. We do have a cat.
30:03A new addition to the family, my nieces got it. They found a kitten in a storm drain. Oh no. He has five toes and his name is Skeeter. He's probably about four months old too. Oh, so he's a polydactyl kitty? Yes. And his front paw, we call them thumbs because they're huge. They're huge and he thinks he's a dog, which is amazing.
30:31Scotty likes to play really rough with him and Bristol will tend to rescue him. Oh, sweet. Yeah. That's very cute. Yeah. All right. Well, ladies, it's been half an hour already. I swear I get talking with you and it feels like the time just goes whoosh, you know? Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for taking the time to talk with me and I wish you all the luck with your project. Thank you. Thanks for being flexible with all the times. Oh, yeah. That's fine.
31:01Great. All right. Have a great afternoon. You too. You too. Bye. Bye.