Today I'm talking with El at Minnesota Half-Assed Homesteaders. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with El, Minnesota half-assed homesteaders. Good morning, El, how are you? Good morning, I'm wonderful, how are you? I'm great, it is a glorious day in Minnesota this morning. It's beautiful, I always love it when I can go out and do chores in the morning with a sweatshirt on and you have that perfect, like, cool weather. It just... 00:29 It starts the day off perfect. Yeah, it's almost feeling like back to school day, used to feel when I would go back to school every year in Maine. So yeah, it's cool outside, but it's so sunny and everything's bright and shiny. It's lovely here. You are in Pine City? Pine River. Pine River, sorry. Nope, that's not it. And that's north of the cities, right? Yeah, we're in the Brainerd Lakes area. 00:55 Oh, so you're up there. You're in the really pretty area of Minnesota. Yes. It's beautiful up here. Awesome. Okay. So two things, El and I were talking before I started recording. El's real name is Elspeth. And I was saying that that's one of the most beautiful names I've ever heard. And I thought she might be named after a family member, but no, she's named after a person in a book. So do you want to tell me about that? Yeah, absolutely. I don't ever remember the name of the book. 01:25 But when my mom was pregnant with me, she was reading a book that had a good witch who was a steward of the earth and she would go around planting flowers and bringing life back to dead areas on earth. And her name was Elspeth. And my mom fell in love with the name. 01:52 They were going to name me Rowena after my great grandma. Um, but once mom found that name, she really liked it. And my dad liked it because I'm the youngest of four kids and the last girl. Um, and he thought it sounded like a princess name. So he was okay with that. And then gave me the middle name of Prairie. 02:19 Um, because he wanted to name me Prairie Rose. So they both kind of got to pick and ended up with Elspeth Prairie. I, like I said before, I think it's absolutely beautiful and how appropriate considering what you're doing with your life that you are named after, uh, a princess or whatever that, that basically stewards the earth. I, it's come to full. 02:46 come to full fruition for me. And it's one of those things that now, especially since my mom has passed on, and I'm kind of keeping her legacy alive too in homesteading and foraging, natural medicine, things like that, that I realized that maybe she was, she was getting to something and kind of determining my fate before I even knew it. So. 03:13 I feel like this podcast episode is going to be magical. That's how it feels from the start. Okay. So, and another thing, I love Minnesota half-assed homesteaders for a name. That is fantastic. We, you know, a lot of people who end up joining say, I joined because of the name. My husband and I started it about two years ago. 03:38 kind of just as a way for us to document what we're doing on our homestead. Our successes, our failures, our challenges. And it kind of grew into this community. It was originally strictly for people who were in Minnesota. But then we found, you know, we had people who had growing or similar growing seasons that we have. 04:08 and had similar interests and we wanted to have that diversity to be able to compare and contrast. So we started getting people from all over the United States and now we have 04:21 5,000 people, 5,400 I think in two years. So it's kind of grown into this fun little community of people who are like-minded. And our whole purpose for the name of the group is that we're not fancy. We don't necessarily, especially when we started, we didn't have a lot of money to put into. 04:49 our homestead, but we knew that we wanted to make our own food, provide for ourselves and be as self-sufficient as we could. And I was joking one day saying, well, I guess we're just doing it the half-assed way. And that is how Minnesota Half-Assed Homesteaders came about because we do what we can with where we are and what we have. 05:19 using plastic grow bags on the deck because we have horrible soil and we didn't know what our you know sun exposure was we didn't know where our best places to grow were and most of our yard was too shady for gardening anyway so over the last couple of years we've cut down trees and kind of expanded and built our way up. 05:47 to having raised beds and chickens and ducks, and we're just gonna keep seeing where things go. But that's kind of how we started, was just working with what we have and just wanting to kind of build this dream for our future of being able to be self-sufficient in as many ways as we can be with the limited land and resources that we have. 06:17 Yep, absolutely. I'm always saying do what you can with what you have where you are. Yep. And it's better to be half-assed than no-assed. So you're doing a good job. You know, exactly. And the other thing I like about it is that it implies that there's, you know, some amount of work that goes into homesteading. Some people think that homesteading is just, oh, I have this little vegetable garden and I just kind of putz. And 06:47 Homesteading is hard work and it is a labor of love. It's a lot of dedication. It's a lot of heartbreak, but there's also a lot of joy that comes with it. And we wanted that to kind of be one of our messages too, of it's not for the faint of heart, but anybody can do it. And I get a lot of people that I talk to who say, 07:14 Oh, I would love to have a homestead, but I don't have any land. I live in town and I want a garden. And, you know, I always point out, like we started with buckets on our deck. Um, and you don't even need buckets. You can use, you know, empty coffee containers and, you know, like empty food containers to get started. It's not something where you really have to put a big investment in right away. 07:44 And once you figure out what works for you, then you can expand. Um, but that's kind of always been where, you know, I guess kind of the soul of our group and of our homestead has been with. 08:03 being half-assed, but also, you know, it's a lot of hard work and there's a lot of failure. But at the end of the day, it is very fulfilling looking at our... 08:18 cabinets looking at our pantry and knowing that we grew that, that we preserved that. Absolutely and my definition of failure is not doing anything. My take on my mistakes, which people would call failures, is that they're learning experiences. 08:42 Exactly. And, you know, there's stuff that we've done that just has not worked out. But very rarely have we ever went, well, I guess we're done with that. We're never going to do it again. It's okay. Here's how we can do this better next time. 09:01 Yeah, and the other thing is that sometimes things that you try, you can't make go because you don't have the conditions to make it go. Correct. So you can't count that as a failure because it's nothing that's beyond your control. Right. So, you said you started out small. Where are you now? How are you doing now? Now we have... Oh... 09:28 Can I talk? You can talk. Hubby's here. My husband, Eric. Welcome, Eric. The other part of Half-Assed Homestead. Hi. He knows better on where we're at because he does all the building. I just help with procurement. Okay, sure. Chime on in, Eric. All right. Right now we're growing in about 70, 5-gallon buckets still. We have 22 raised beds that are around a 5-foot diameter. 09:57 and 70 foot hugelkultur mound that's doing very mediocre. Okay. I also have just a shelter logic, 20 foot greenhouse with a few various greens and some starts in it. Awesome. Can you, can you do me a favor and explain what a hugelkultur mound is, how you, how you did that? Because I keep hearing about it. I keep reading about it, but I don't know how to explain it. 10:26 Simply, it's just a compost hill you grow on. It's a fancy compost hill in simplest terms. Ours, I didn't do full horticulture because I didn't have the time to do it. I laid out just fresh cut and some forest fall trees we had in the yard in a long line. Put a little bit of dirt on it, let it sit for about two weeks to compress some, and then just pile dirt and straw on it. Okay. 10:54 It so it ain't fully composting it has some hot spots where he just kills everything because some of the stuff is composting a little too well. I figured in five years, it'll be a good mound to grow crap on. And the whole kind of concept of a Hugo culture is that you basically create a self feeding self sustaining environment for whatever you're planting in there. So the 11:22 tree fall and whatever you're putting underneath the soil ends up composting, which feeds your plants. And then because you have all of the extra wood and it's in essentially a stack or a mound, as it rains, that wood absorbs the water. So theoretically, you should never have to touch your hugelkultur. You shouldn't have to water it. You shouldn't have to fertilize it. 11:53 this microclimate for whatever's growing on there. So right now we use that for our potatoes and then our squashes. So we did squash all along the top so that as they grow, they'll go down the mound so that they're easier to harvest. And then I also have my blueberry and my raspberries in the end of the mound. And then we just have wildflowers all over. 12:21 I bet that's gorgeous right now, because this is the end of the season for wildflowers. It's mostly our zinnias and some of our nasturtiums. It was really pretty when all of our potatoes were blooming, because then we had the purple flowers all over the mound. We do still have quite a few squash blooms, but next year we're going to start over and really put down a lot of tack mulch. 12:49 because the hardest part about maintaining it because it's kind of this, you know, natural microclimate is there is a lot of weeds. Yeah. So we're gonna do tack mulch at the beginning of the year so that we can kind of use that for some weed control to make it a little easier on ourselves so we're not spending an entire day weeding. Yes, because weeding is terrible. 13:17 I hate weeding. I hate it. I don't want to do it and I don't do it because I'm not the gardener my husband is but I remember weeding with my mom in her garden and I despised every second of it. When I'm growing up with my mom in her garden, I also I hate weeding. I don't like it. I never have. 13:40 And I, but I always wanted all of the goodies that came out of the garden. I wanted the fresh tomatoes and the fresh peas. And so my mom would be like, you didn't pay the weed tax, so you don't get any. You don't work, if you don't work, you don't eat. Yeah. If you don't work, you don't eat. And so I would go out to the garden and I would be more than happy to help pick stuff. But when it came to the weeding, I was like, I don't want to do it. And so my mom would. 14:04 finally get to the point where, you know, she'd come in with these gorgeous peas and I'd want to eat them and she's like, you didn't come out to help weeds so you don't get any. Oh, that's, that's mean. I mean, I know it's tough love, but it's mean. Tough love and it teaches you that, you know, you need to work for what you want. And if you want it bad enough, you'll do the things you don't like. Yes. Yes, you will, because that's how it works. 14:31 So how did you guys do with rainfall this summer of never ending rain in southern Minnesota? Because I don't know what it's been like for you. You know, we were pretty... Obviously, it was a pretty mild winter, so we didn't have the snowfall to start out the season with adequate moisture. But we did have a lot of rainfall. And... 14:58 For us, in some cases, that's been nice because one of our biggest challenges with expanding the homestead and the gardening has been water sources. So last year we ended up putting in a well at the other end of the yard that's run off of our solar generator so that we can water everything at that end of the yard because that's our direct sun. It's, you know, it gets Northeast sun. 15:28 Um, and that was our biggest obstacle. Uh, we, we didn't have a lot of success the year before last down there because we just, we were running hoses and our well that we have here wasn't enough to support it. So we're thankful this year that we have it, but we've had to use it very rarely because of 15:57 the rainfall. Now, the other way that we designed our beds is it's a raised bed, but then in the middle of the bed is a five gallon bucket that has holes drilled into it in the bottom. And the purpose for us doing that is that when it rains, we can take the cover off and let it catch rain. So it'll help to water, kind of disperse the water throughout from 16:28 the middle of the bed. But then we also, when we are weeding, or if we have, you know, a tomato that's gone bad, we put our compost into the middle of the bucket so that it can put the nutrients back into the soil so that we don't have to do as much soil amendments. That's brilliant. We also have started a couple of colonies of worms that we've kept going of red wigglers. 16:57 And so each spring, we'll get a pretty healthy batch of worms going over the winter. And then we can just put a handful of compost and worms in the bucket in the spring. And then they help to aerate and spread the nutrients out, eat the compost. So that has helped having that set up so that it's not as 17:26 you know, these solid beds that have to be watered. Um, that really has been beneficial for us too, even with the rain and having that, I think also helps with some of the drainage because we haven't really had overwatered stuff. We haven't had anything that's really drowned because of too much water. And I think that that's because of how we designed our raised beds. That whole. 17:56 story of what you've done with that bucket and how you're using it sounds really simple, but it's also ingenious. It's really smart. It's, it is in the spirit of half-assed homesteaders. We try a bunch of different things and see if they work. And if they work, we ramp them up. So one of the other things that we did this year is we were gifted from somebody in our group. 18:24 a water catchment system that had four large barrels. We decided it doesn't really work with our setup and we're going to do a water catchment system in the future. But we ended up taking one of those barrels and while I was at work one day, Hubby went and drilled holes and 18:53 from the top to the bottom, I think we have six rows. The top was cut off and then we used a heat gun and actually a wine bottle to heat up the slits and then push the wine bottle in to kind of make it a cup. Yeah. To turn it into a planter for herbs and it's kind of my like salad planter. So I have chives and tomatoes in the top. 19:20 Um, and then all of our herbs and lettuces around the side, but we did the same concept that we did with the five gallon buckets in that with using a four inch PVC pipe. So there's actually a four inch PVC that runs from the bottom all the way up to the top that has a cap on it so that when I need to water, just because, you know, it's a little closer together, it's a little bit harder to water all the way to the bottom. 19:50 I just stick the hose in the middle and I let it fill up until it starts spouting water out the top. And I think I've probably only had to water that thing three times this summer. But then we can do the same thing with the compost too. So we just, you know, put a leaf matter or any weeds, anything like that down into the hole and between the water and the... 20:18 the compost and the worms, it's been really, really healthy with all the plants. So we're hoping to do another one or two of those for next year. But we looked at it and it was just stuff that we had laying around. Most people have a chunk of PVC pipe and an old tub or something around to do it, but it really helps, we've noticed. 20:47 you know, retaining moisture, being able to water easier, but also with our soil health. The ones where we kind of had bad soil to start with because we were using what we had. After two seasons of using the bucket with the compost and the worms, the soil is beautiful, and it is healthy. It's balanced, and we haven't really had a whole lot of issues with 21:17 either because we do a lot of companion planting. So I think that all of that, we've kind of hit a sweet spot, so to speak, knock on wood. I hate to say that because I feel like we're deeming ourselves for disaster next year. But it's been a good year. And despite the lack of water in the spring, and then the constant rain all summer. 21:45 I think our setup is kind of the perfect system for that. I am so glad that you have had a good growing season. We have not had a good growing season here in Lesor, Minnesota. No, Minnesota is rough. Yeah, I've talked about it a lot on the podcast already, so I don't want to get too far into it. But the one thing that it did teach us that we didn't know is that you don't have to 22:15 to stake your tomato plants. We couldn't go stake our baby tomato plants this spring because it was a soupy mess in the garden. Could not get out there without sinking up to our ankles. And the tomato plants didn't die, they just stalled out. And we're pulling in tomatoes off those plants and they are literally laying on top of straw because we had to put straw in so that the fruits that were on the ground wouldn't rot. So you know. 22:44 Our tomatoes are that are in our raised beds, the ones that are in the buckets we stayed up. Um, but our raised bed ones, we did not stake and they are, you know, taking over, they're laying on top of other stuff. They're hanging off the side. They're, you know, growing, laying on the ground and they are coming in like mad. Um, we had no idea that you didn't actually have to stake them. 23:14 You don't. Generally when people recommend staking your tomatoes, it is so that you can get the appropriate airflow so that your, your vegetables, your tomatoes don't end up rotting, but you know, if you think about commercial tomato fields, they don't stake theirs, they don't trellis theirs, they don't do anything. They literally just. 23:42 put them in the ground and they grow like bushes. Yeah, yep. So it hasn't been a total loss that we thought it was going to be this year. That's good. We have some, we have 50 young tomato plants that my husband Jess put in the actual garden, like a month ago. Oh wow. Cause we had them growing in the greenhouse. We put up a greenhouse in May. 24:08 a hard side of greenhouse and my husband was smart and planted 50 more tomato plants from seed back in mid-June because he knew that we were going to have issues with the plants that were in the garden already. And those tomato plants look gorgeous. I looked out the other day and I was like, oh my God, look at that beautiful row of tomato plants. You know, and it's funny that you mentioned that because our tomatoes that we actually put in the bucket. 24:38 did not, granted the sunlight that they get is a little bit different than the ones that are down in our actual raised beds. But the ones that we put in the buckets did not do well. Our plants didn't do very well, but they were the... 24:59 the little, kind of the more, so we learned a big lesson this year that the soil that you use for your seedlings is vital to the health and abundance of your plant. Oh, yes. We had a bunch that we had used some compost mix that we had gotten from the store and it wasn't composted enough. So we ended up... 25:28 burning all of our seedlings because they got too hot. So we started just doing our own mix of taking a big giant tub and doing a third potting soil, a third compost and a third perlite. Yep. And those ones, when we did our second start, our second set, because we saw that our first ones weren't doing very well. 25:54 those ones did amazing and they're continuing. Those are the ones that are producing. I mean, the plants are so full. I don't know how I'm gonna get all the tomatoes out of them. But the ones that were in the first set that were in the less nutritious soil just did not do well. And so I'm glad that we went and we did do the second round of starting with new soil 26:25 everything that we started with that first set just didn't do very well when we, you know, planted it with a hope and a prayer. But even the same tomatoes, the same kind from the same pack of seeds, the ones that were in the soil that got too hot were having a lot of issues with blossom end rot and with cracking. 26:49 But the exact same ones that were started in the better soil, we haven't had any of those issues with. So it really is kind of amazing how you can just make one change, you know, with seed starting in a couple of different batches and really see the difference that that change makes either positive or negative. Absolutely. I can't agree more. And 27:18 I end up talking about tomatoes a lot on this podcast because I happen to love tomatoes. I love spaghetti sauce. I love bruschetta. I love just a cucumber and a tomato cut up with some dressing on it. I love tomatoes. So if it seems like I talk about tomatoes on this podcast a lot, I do because I love tomatoes. Not everybody loves tomatoes. So I'm sure that I've had people like... 27:46 leave because they're like, I can't listen to tomatoes anymore. Funny because I adore fresh tomatoes. I always have. Eric does not like them. So a lot of people who know that they're like, why do you guys grow so many tomatoes when he doesn't like tomatoes? So we grew one cherry tomato plant this year for me for like fresh tomatoes to have in salads or just to eat, however. Yeah. But we use a lot of tomato products as well. 28:15 Um, and we love making last year. We did catch up. We did pizza sauce. We did pasta sauce. Um, we did our own barbecue sauce last year and you know, it's the stuff that we use on a daily basis and a lot of it is condiments, but you know, we're Minnesotans and it gets cold here in the winter and sometimes you just want to have, you know, spaghetti once a week. Um. 28:41 So yeah, we talk about our tomatoes a lot as well, just because that's, I think, what we grow the most of, but it's because it's what we use the most of. Yeah, exactly. That's us too. And I would talk about cucumbers a lot, but cucumbers are not easily preserved. You basically preserve cucumbers by making pickles. That's pretty much it, because you can't freeze them, because they go to mush. And you can't just can a pickle. I mean, a tomato. I can't even talk. A cucumber. 29:11 because it doesn't taste like anything if you just can a cucumber, you have to make them into something. So I love cucumbers, but I don't talk about them a lot because I don't use them in a lot. I eat them in season and that's pretty much it. So I was going to say about tomatoes, the other reason tomatoes are important is because they are a huge source of antioxidants and that's really important for your body. So that's the other reason that I eat a lot of them. 29:40 I talk about tomatoes more than I talk about Maggie my dog. So I guess that's okay. Just change her name to tomato and then people- No, no. I can't do it. She's been Maggie since before we picked her up. So I can't change her name now. Yeah, we're known around town as the dog people and the garden people because that's- 30:06 That's pretty much what we talk about. That's pretty much our lives is our dogs and our gardens. What kind of dogs do you have? We have three. So we have Bert. He is a King Corso Mastiff. So he's our big boy. Oh, yeah. Loves just this morning we were out in the garden. He loves fresh vegetables. And so his favorite thing is garden snacks. And even this morning, he was. 30:33 sticking his head in the bean plant, pulling beans off of our bean bush. Oh, he even picks them himself. Oh, he will help himself to those and cucumbers. And he's not a huge fan of tomatoes, but his beans, cucumbers, he will help himself. He thinks that it's the greatest thing that mom and dad built him and all you can eat buffet. Okay. And then the other two dogs? The other two we have Sally. She's our golden doodle. She's our little... 31:00 our little rescue we found actually Burt found her running down the middle of the road by us. Oh my. And went to save her. And then we have their not planned baby that we call our canoodle because she's a cane corso and a doodle cross. And Abby's so she's kind of the the best and the worst of both of us. Your canoodle I love that. That is so cute. Okay. All right. 31:29 Well, if it makes you feel any better, Maggie loves winter squash. She loves slices of zucchini. She loves slices of cucumber. She loves watermelon, more than anything in the world. Our dogs are melon fans. I kind of thought that they would be. My other dog, Emmett, that I used to have, he loved melon, but Bert never really liked it and I think it's a texture thing. Yeah. 31:59 We can't eat watermelon without Maggie sitting at our feet, being very, very well behaved and just staring at us like, can I please have a piece? And she doesn't, she's not a begging dog. Like we trained her not to beg. So her version of begging is just sitting politely beside you and waiting for a piece to be offered to her. Bert doesn't beg, but in the true nature of a mastiff, he will just sit there and drool. Yeah. 32:28 two laces down the side of his face until you give him some. So that's his way of begging for food. Yeah. Maggie's way is being very pretty. She's a mini Australian shepherd and she's the classic black tri. So she has the gold beauty marks above her eyes. And she's beautiful. And she knows the face to put on to be like, I'm just waiting patiently. I'm being good until you give me some. Right. 32:57 So she doesn't beg, she doesn't whine, she doesn't try to get your food, but she definitely makes herself available. They'll get someone when you're done. Yeah, and she just loves watermelon. If we cut a watermelon open on the counter, she hears the snap when it comes apart, and she comes running from wherever she is in the house and sits down and she's like, I'm ready and I'm pretty. Cool, good, we'll get to you when we get to you. 33:27 So yeah, I try not to talk about Maggie too much anymore because I really talked about her the first six months of the podcast. So I'm like, it's gotta be relevant. So- Well, we talk about the things we love and the things that are important. And honestly, our dogs are a central part of our homestead. So it's kind of, we don't have kids, we've never had kids, don't ever wanna have kids. 33:56 So it's, you know, our dogs are our babies, and then we have our chickens and our ducks, and they take up our time, so. Oh yeah, yep. We have four adult kids, and the youngest one still lives with us. He's 22. He'll be 23 in December, oh my God. And I don't talk about the kids much, mostly because they all, one lives in Florida, one lives in Nebraska, 34:26 Minnesota not with us and then the youngest lives with us and the youngest doesn't want me to talk about him on the podcast. He's like, it's your podcast, don't talk about me. I'm like, okay, that's fine. So I don't really have little kids to talk about. I don't have medium kids to talk about and the grown kids don't want me to talk about them. Well, and that's why you have Maggie. I do. She's the kid that doesn't tell me not to talk about her. 34:55 Usually she barks in the background. She's been real good this morning. I haven't heard her yip yet. So anyway, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me, Elle. It's been a pleasure. I apologize that it's taken us so long to connect. This ended up working out. I took a couple of days off from work to do the fall stuff. We're working on stew and soup this weekend. Hubby planted leeks. 35:25 Yum. And they're doing amazing. So we are doing our beef stew that we put up. We are gonna try freeze drying that this year too. And then it's soup weekend. So we have chicken wild rice soup that we're gonna be making and potato leeks. So. I am so looking forward to fall soup season. I just mentioned this to my husband yesterday. 35:55 I was like first cold weekend, I am making French onion soup. I am making chicken, wal-braise soup. I am making bacon potato soup. And if Cameron doesn't want it, he's our son, you and I are gonna eat it and I'm gonna freeze the rest of it. Because we didn't really do a lot of soups last winter. I don't know why, but we didn't. And I have just been craving soups. So as soon as it gets cold, it's gonna be like three weekends of soups going on. I am. 36:23 eternally and will always be a soup girl. I used to say that I could live off of soup. Oh, me too. Eric is not a soup fan. He's not a chili fan. He likes everything that goes into them separately. Yeah. But he likes stew. He'll do that. But I am the soup person. So I know how you feel there. I did. Actually, we just pulled him out of the freeze dryer the other day. 36:51 because last winter I made ham and bean soup and I made chicken enchilada soup for me for lunches for work. And I just, I made too many, you know, starts getting hot and you don't wanna eat soup. So we freeze dried them so that we can take them out on the ice this winter when we go ice fishing. So that'll be a new adventure for us too with our first actual like freeze dried meals. So we're really looking forward to doing that this winter. 37:20 That's so fun. You're gonna have to message me and let me know how it was. I'm really, really hoping we have some winter squash growing out in the garden. I haven't dared to ask because I'm afraid that they didn't make it. But I love making squash soup too. So that's gonna be on list for like January, if we have any, I will roast it and freeze it. I'm looking forward to that too. And just fresh squash. Luckily, ours is doing okay. 37:48 Emerald pumpkins are taking over everything. So we're going to definitely have a lot of pumpkin, but I'll have to figure out what to do with all that. Yep. And we're going to have to, the husband and I are going to have to get up to the apple place in Jordan and get some apples so that we can do some apple crust here in the next couple of weeks. Cause that is like the, the thing for September. Cause I make a killer apple crust. Where you're talking about and their apples are divine. Mm hmm. 38:17 Yep. Um, I'm not talking about the, the apple barn though. I'm not talking about Minnesota's biggest candy store place. I'm talking about the one further up 169. And I'm not talking about Sponsles either. Uh, maybe that's one that I'm thinking of. But they do. Sponsles has great apples as well. They actually sold an apple called Minnesota 1666 about eight years ago. And they ended up renaming it, whoever developed it. 38:45 renamed it the Renaissance Apple, which I thought was so funny. And it's an early apple. It's really hard to find because they aren't, there's not a lot of supply yet because it's a brand new variety. It is so good. It's great to eat. It's great to bake with. It's great to dry for like, you know, fruit leather or apple wedges that are just dried that just eat. Yeah. It's fantastic. Crack some of those down. Yeah. I love them. 39:14 We won't get any this year. They're probably sold out by now because they're they're really early apple Okay, but anyway, we've been talking for almost 40 minutes. I try to keep these to half an hour So i'm gonna i'm gonna cut you loose. I'm sure you got stuff to do Yep, we gotta run to town and do some errands. So All right. Well again, it was an absolute pleasure talking with you l I appreciate it. Thank you so much You too. Thank you. And if you ever want to do this again 39:43 would be more than happy. All right we'll have to set it up for spring so I can find out how your winter went. Yeah that's a great idea. All right cool thank you. You're welcome. Bye. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Tracey at Makers Acres Homestead. You can also follow on Instagram. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Tracey at Makers Acres Homestead. Good morning Tracey, how is the weather in Tennessee today? Good morning. It is sweltering. I think we're going to have a record high today actually. So like... 00:28 actual about 100 degrees. I'm not sure what feels like temperature will be, but I am so sorry to hear that. We had feels like temps two days ago of 110. Wow. In Minnesota. I'm going to say that's something from Minnesota. My goodness. Yeah. It was gross. You stepped outside and you were immediately misted. It was terrible. Yeah. And we were in a drought too. So my gardens are a hot mess right now, a little bit of a dumpster fire, but you know, you just kind of go with. 00:58 We've got a pretty good dumpster fire going on with our gardens and absence. So may so I understand. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you're doing. Makers Acres Homestead. Yeah, well, we we do a few things where I maybe I should say I or I don't know my husband's kind of long for the ride and some of this stuff. I'm the person with all the ideas. 01:23 I want to do about a thousand times more than I'm doing because my ability to execute everything doesn't keep up with all my ideas. But we named, we kind of gave it this property when we moved here five years ago from Michigan. We gave this property, we're on six acres and my parents have a home on the property as well that we moved them down to a couple years after we moved here. 01:51 And Makers Acres is just meaning that we just recognize and proclaim that all this belongs to the Lord and this is His land, His property, and we truly just want to be obedient to Him in that and how He wants to use it. But back in Michigan, before we even moved, I really had this like dream that I felt like God put on my heart. 02:21 to grow food and give it away to people, basically. And mainly because a little bit of just a brief backstory is I have really seen the power of nutrition change my health story and that of my family. And so I just recognize like everyone deserves access to fresh fruits and vegetables. And even back, 02:51 before even my health transformation, we, for a time period during the crash in 08, we actually utilized some of the government services like food stamps and stuff like that because my husband lost his job. And so I have like this intimate knowledge of just that process and being a part of that, just that world. And I mean, 03:17 It's fascinating. That's like a whole different rabbit trail. But when you can get candy and junk food and all that with food stamps, just as well as anything else, you're going for cheap because you're trying to make your dollar stretch. And so I think when anyone, whether they're using government assistance or not, 03:44 When you're feeling that pinch in your budget, we're always trying to make everything stretch farther. And it's so easy to. 03:55 just to compromise because unfortunately the system and the setup is where like junk food is cheaper than healthy food. And so we, I just really wanted to give everyone the access. Now I, you know, not everyone wants it. That's fine. I mean, I get that. And so there is an educational piece behind it. But 04:19 I just really wanted everyone to have access to fresh food. And so that's what kind of started this idea in my heart to essentially grow it and give it away. And I personally use these vertical aeroponic tower gardens, a distributor for the company. And that's really how I got my start, zero green thumb, but I just wanted to grow food for my family. And 04:45 Michigan soil is very sandy and I lived in a lot of shade and so My back porch was really the only place to grow so That's a nice. I started growing with those and I just realized how much I could grow in a small space So that's kind of what spearheaded that and that dream really took root once we moved to Tennessee and we bought this property and we're like 05:12 Okay, so we actually, it's the name of that is called Maker's Pharmacy. And pharmacy is spelled F-A-R-M-A-C-Y. You know, just, you know, food is medicine. And so that's kind of the, the story in brief behind that. I'm sorry if I went off on a rabbit trail a little bit with your question, but. Nope. I want all the stories I can get. I am thrilled when people talk for five minutes about what they're doing. It makes me happy. Oh, good. 05:41 So when did you move to Tennessee again? So we moved in the summer of 2019. Okay, so it's been like five years. Yes. Okay. Do you love it? It's been a really good move for us, yes. I mean, it was just really God. We had zero plans to move. All of our family lived in Michigan. Well, I shouldn't say all of my family did. My husband had a few. 06:09 family members outside. And, but, you know, never, never planned on moving in that sense. And then just a few things happened. My husband really was feeling super frustrated at work, wasn't able to grow and, but it was like the best job he could get in the area kind of thing too. So you feel easily can feel trapped and I'm not going to lie. 06:38 I mean, you live in Minnesota, so you get this. I was kind of over the winters. Oh, I'm getting there, yeah. And our actually, our oldest son had already graduated and he was living in Florida with my father-in-law. And so initially we started, it was like one of those like wild hair ideas that all of a sudden you just like start pulling that thread and God just seems to be like, yes, yes, yes. Let's see what happens next, yes. 07:06 So we explored the idea of Florida initially, but I wasn't overly, I mean, I like it going to the beach on vacation or whatever. And I know not all Florida's beach, but it just, it didn't seem to be the fit for us. I had visited Tennessee a few times with my business and it still had four seasons, you know, albeit they're, they're different a little bit, but I just, yeah, we ended up, we ended up coming here. 07:35 And it's been a nice like just in between place between all the family and then family continues to move closer to us now. That's always helpful. The reason that I won't leave, I will never live in a non northern tier state is I love the Four Seasons. I hate like with a purple passion, passion. I hate high summer when it's hot and muggy. And I hate low winter. 08:05 mid January to the end of February when it's cold and icy and snowy or just cold. We didn't even get real snow last year. So what the heck Mother Nature is doing? I have no idea. We got like a foot of snow last winter. But I love spring. I love rolling into summer. I hate high summer and I love fall. God, I love fall. 08:35 Michigan. It's not the same, but I'll take my mild winters. Yeah. Yep. This past winter here was crazy. And it was probably the mildest winter I have seen in the over 30 years that I have lived in Minnesota. It was crazy. So the reason I asked you if you love Tennessee is because I keep talking to people from Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. 09:02 That's where most of the people I talk to who are growing things live. Most of you are homesteading live. And I'm like, well, maybe we should have moved to freaking Tennessee instead of state Minnesota. I don't know. Oh, you would hate the summer though. Yeah, I know. I know. But we're, we, we have basically found our favorite place on earth to live. So I can't imagine that we're going to. 09:27 move again before we die. We found our dream home. We love it. We live here. We live here. I mean, it's not like it's where we lay our heads. It's where we live our lives. So, so I'm going to tell you this. It's really funny to me when people, it's not funny to me. It's unusual to me when people talk about God like he's their friend, like personal friend, because I am 09:57 religious person I know. And it's not that I don't appreciate people who have faith, but it's just really unusual for me to hear anyone speak of God as if he's their best friend. So when people do, I'm like, oh yeah, people do that. I forgot. So if I seem weird about it, that's why. I just had a conversation with a lady yesterday and I was like, I'm the most Christian. 10:27 un-Christian person you'll ever meet. And she said, how's that work? And I said, I try really, really hard to live by the tenets set forth by the Ten Commandments, but I don't go to church. I don't know if there's a God. I don't know if there's a heaven. I don't know if there's a hell. I don't know. And she was like, huh. She said, so you're Christian, but you don't ascribe to being Christian. I said, kinda sorta. She said, you're the most interesting person I've ever met. And I just laughed. 10:57 So it's really interesting to me when people do have a strong faith and I'm always curious about it. So good for you. I'm glad that you have a strong faith and you remind me so much of the girls in the TV show Sweeping Magnolias. Sweeping Magnolias, is that what you call it? Sweet. Sweet Magnolias, I think it is. I don't think I've heard of that. Oh, I think it's on Netflix or Prime. I can't remember, but it's adorable. 11:24 It's this little southern town with all these southern bells. It's so much fun. So anyway, we got way off track there. That's okay. Well, thank you for sharing a part of your story. Yeah. The reason that I am not a church going girl, and I can tell this story because I'm sure that the pastor of that church is long gone by now. When I was living in my little town of St. Paul's me when I was growing up, there was a pastor. 11:53 and he did some very unsavory things, and I know it to be a fact because I got the facts, and that was the church that I went to when I was a teenage girl. And the people involved were teenage girls in that church. I luckily was not involved. And I used to go to Sunday school there, and I found out what happened, and I went home from Sunday school that day, and I said, I need you guys, my parents, to verify if this is true. 12:23 And they did. And I said, I'm never going back to church. I'm not. And I know that churches are not God. Like it's where people go to worship. It's where they go to commune and learn. But it put me off it pretty hard. So that's why. Yeah, I respect that. On behalf of 12:52 Christ followers, I'm sorry. I apologize on behalf of people in authority that have not walked humbly before the Lord and obedience to Him. And unfortunately, unfortunately, I mean, I'm not making excuses. We all, everyone, I don't care if you're a leader or what authority position, we are all in need of a savior because we have all fallen short. 13:22 But when you're in a position of authority, that, yeah. I mean, so many people, it's sad to me. I mean, sad's just not even the right word. How many people have been hurt, grieved, grieved and abused by the church when that is truly not the heart of God? Yep, no, no, it's not. But I was like 15 when I found out about this. And I was just like, nope, if I wanna talk to God, 13:52 I'm gonna go for a walk in the woods and I'm gonna have a chat with God. That's where my church is. So anyway, we're getting real deep on this. The other thing I wanted to touch on is I'm so proud of you for wanting to feed people. Make sure that people have good nutritious food. And I will tell you why. There was a period in my life back when I was in my twenties where I didn't eat a lot of food because I didn't have a lot of money. 14:21 And I learned what it actually feels like to be truly hungry. You know, I was eating one meal a day and I felt really lucky to have that. And hunger is a weird thing because you can get used to it. You can adjust to it. And I lost weight. I didn't, I didn't get too skinny, but I lost weight for sure. And hunger, if you have never felt it before, feels like the inside of your stomach. 14:48 one side of your stomach is rubbing the other side. That's what hunger feels like. You also get like your brain gets cloudy because it's not being fed. Yeah. Hunger is not a fun place to be. So really, really happy that you're doing what you're doing. So tell me how you're doing it. How are you feeding people? How are you feeding your community? 15:18 vertical gardens. We use those primarily, but then this last year I actually received a couple raised beds and trellis from Vago Gardens. They donated to us and so that's allowed us to expand our offering because the vertical gardens 15:40 can grow so much, but they are a little limited to, they cannot grow root vegetables because it's not, it's a soil-less system that we use. And so, and it's, you know, root, so I'm not growing onions. So I'm growing onions, potatoes, carrots, that kind of thing outside of those towers. I can do that in the raised beds and stuff like that. So that kind of gave us some more options. And so we partnered, like the, 16:10 Last couple years, we just kind of play it by, well, I don't know if play it by ears is exactly the right term, but each year we approach it. Each year we approach it differently and see who we can serve. My goal or our vision is more to, I'd rather go deep with one organization than do a little bit with a bunch of organizations, if that makes sense. So Yep. 16:38 I'm not trying to be a food pantry itself. I want to partner with the organizations and ministries, whatever, that are already working and have relationships with people in the community that they're serving. So we've worked with a couple in the past, we've worked with a couple homeless shelters that serve a few meals during the week and or give out food bags. 17:07 this year we partnered with a ministry that's actually serving women that have gotten out of sex trafficking and sex exploitation and they're kind of in a rehabilitation home. And so we've helped provide fresh food for them. And you know, when you start something 17:37 morph as you go because, you know, for example, when you're serving, so when I'm serving this home that is, that has women that live there and I can provide for them and they have a kitchen and they can make stuff, you know, that is, that's different than even when I'm providing food bags for, for largely. 18:02 The homeless are on I think on houses, the more politically correct word. It's the new word. Yes. But, um, you know, like, so with them, I'm like, I've packaged up some cucumbers and some cherry tomatoes, cause I'm like, you can just eat those going down while you're walking down the street or sitting at the park or whatever, you don't have to have a kitchen, you know, to prepare that. So it, I, I. Totally. 18:32 I would say I started with a lot of ignorance, but God is so faithful to just, He can do so much with obedience. You don't have to be skilled and completely knowledgeable or educated and all the things you want to do. You just, a little bit of ignorance on fire and you show up and He does the rest. So like I said, we're changing kind of what we do from year to year. And then 19:00 I'm going to be completely transparent with you. OK. We are actually, just last week, our board, we voted to put it on hold to go dormant in a gardening term, whatever, for the winter. So last fall, we did raise money. Last fall, we put up a greenhouse so that the towers are in the greenhouse. 19:30 That way, the goal is to be able to grow year round in a greenhouse. So that was the vision. We haven't been able to complete all that work yet financially, but as far as like wiring the greenhouse for all that. We put it on hold largely because I kind of got burnt out. It happens. Yeah. Well, and... 19:56 And I want to say this very carefully because I don't mean any disrespect to anyone board members or people that partnered with us, but. 20:08 no one will work as hard for your dream than you will. And I totally understand that. But yet, we got to a place where I'm like, I cannot do everything. And so alongside, I have a business, I homeschool my boys, I'm a wife, I'm a caregiver for my parents. There's just so many different 20:37 this ministry can become and did become, especially during peak growing season, easily at least a part-time job several hours a day. And it just became where I just couldn't do it. And then it got to where even if I could do it, I didn't want to do it anymore. But not from a like, I didn't believe that it wasn't important. It just was like, I am tired of doing this by myself. 21:07 I don't know, I'm working through that a little bit and I feel good with putting, essentially closing it down for the winter. I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I fight like, oh my gosh, did we do something wrong or did I try to make something happen before it was the right time? You know, where have I failed or whatever. 21:38 I just have to surrender it and release it and just trust what God is doing and trust the process. And we'll see, you know, I just, I need more people to come around to make it actually work. Yes. And you have not failed. You have started something wonderful. And I'm going to be completely transparent with you. I'm going to bust my everloving hiney over the next couple of weeks to get some episodes recorded and banked. 22:07 So I can take a week off from recording because my house needs a humongous cleaning. Oh girl. I know. And I'm, and I'm, I'm starting to find that trying to do a, a interview a day every day is a lot. Yeah. So I'm going to try to do a few extras a week so that I have some bank so that I can take like four days off from recording. 22:34 so that I can get stuff organized so I feel like I'm more focused on the podcast when I'm focused on it. And I think that you taking the winter to, number one, give it a rest, number two, reevaluate, and number three, figure out where to go from here, is healthy. That is not a terrible thing to do. I agree. I... 23:00 Like I said, I'd be lying if there weren't those doubts, but at the same time I reached such a place where I'm like, I just, I don't even know if I can say this, but it's like, I don't even, I care, but at the same time when you're so tired and weary, like I don't care what happens either. There's a word, I'm not going to use it. You have no Fs. 23:27 to give at this point. Yeah, I know what you mean. And there's another term, out of spoons. When you're tired, when you're done for the day, I have friends and I learned it from them that say, I'm out of spoons. I just, I can't keep going right now. So if you don't want to use the F one, you can use I'm out of spoons and people look at you funny. You just say, I'm just out of gas. I can't keep going right now. 23:51 Yeah, and I just felt like it's like a season for me to withdraw. It's not like the right word either because I don't, it sounds a little bit of a negative connotation, but it is just to be like, okay, I am just setting some boundaries and I'm just focusing on my home, my family and my business. And like you said, I mean, I'm just working through even 24:13 some basic cleaning projects around my home and property because it just gets neglected when you're going in 20 directions. Yep, it sure does. If you could see the back of my stove in my kitchen right now, you'd be like, Mary, why did you not clean your stove for a month? Because we don't have a vent above our stove. We don't have the thing that blows the grease out because it's just not set up that way. 24:38 I can't seem to find a place that has one of those when I live in it. It just never shows up. But my husband and my kid love bacon. They love burgers. So grease gets everywhere when you don't have one of those hood vents. I have got to, got to this weekend clean that because it's driving me insane. It's going to feel so good when you do that. Oh, you're going to be so proud of yourself. 25:06 And nobody else really cares. And I don't really care because nobody really visits here very often. Cause that's how my life is set up. I'm not a people person. I don't have people over very often, but when I'm looking at it and going, that's just gross, I got to take care of that. It's time. And it's just, there are so many things that you have to make choices about every day about what you're going to do and what's going to wait. And, and I looked at your Instagram. 25:35 page feed, whatever they call it. You have lots going on. Yeah. So don't beat yourself up. Mentally hug yourself. Say that you're taking care of you and do things you need to take care of you. It's okay. And don't lose hope because once you take a break, you get yourself together. You figure out what you want to do. You're going to have renewed energy to make the next thing even better. 26:06 Yes. And I sound like a cheerleader, but that's what I would tell myself. I'm going to tell you. Yeah. So, and I'm assuming you're not going to go anywhere. You're still going to be available online on Instagram and Facebook. Oh, yeah. People can still learn about stuff from you. I love, I love talking about it. And I love, and like, I love equipping and inspiring others to, you know, to provide for their family and have hope for the health of their own family, as well as 26:36 you know, to be able to operate in the plans and purposes God has for them and designed for them too. So I love, I'm the worn out woman and maxed out mom right now, but I love to champ. I really love championing them because I've been there. I am there. And, but I know it's not our story forever. It's just a chapter. Yeah. And the thing I've learned in 54 years is everything is a chapter. Yeah. 27:05 Every stage of your life is a chapter and sometimes you have to go back and read past chapters To figure out what maybe the direction of the next one is Yeah I've had to I I have and to remember what is like Remember how you've changed and grown through every chapter because of the chapter, too Yeah, the thing I hang on to is you can only make decisions based on what you know at the time and so 27:35 I refuse to see anything I've ever done as a mistake. I see it as a learning experience. Yeah. I tell people that about gardening all the time. It is always an adventure and experience. The best gardeners have killed many plants. Oh yeah. So I actually did a post about this the other day. I said, I was talking, the video of my dad cucumber plant, even the healthiest plants, they come to an end. They have a season. 28:04 But it's like, I don't regret planting that. I don't think it was a waste of time. So I shouldn't view where I'm at and just where Maker's Pharmacy is at either that way. I should just, it's just a season. It is and hang on to that because it will keep you sane. There have been days in my life where I have looked around and gone, what the hell am I doing? Why? Burn it all to the ground. 28:31 Why am I doing this? Well, how did I even get to where I'm doing this? You know, just having one of those terrible days. And I haven't had one in quite a while, but I remember the last one I had, it was probably eight, nine years ago. Frustrated, beyond measure about something, and just mad, you know, horny mad. And I called my mom and I was like, I need to vent, because my mom's real good about that. She's like, you call anytime you want to talk. So I called her, I was like, 29:01 This thing is going on. I know I did it to myself because I made these choices, blah, blah, blah. And she was like, yes. I said, having a bad day. She was like, yep, that happens. She said, I have compassion for you and I'm glad that you called the vent because that's what I'm here for. She said, but you need to sleep on this. She said, go on with your day. Try to find some good things in it. Get some sleep. Look at it tomorrow morning. It will probably look better. Love, my mom. 29:31 So I got off the phone and I basically hiked up my big girl pants and finished my day and went to sleep and actually slept. That helped too. Got up next morning. I don't know why I was so mad yesterday. This is easily fixable. I just need to change some things. It's okay. And the other thing I'm going to say, I was thinking about this this morning, is that sleep is as important as food. I, my husband, my husband snores. 30:00 And I go to bed early so I can get at least four hours solid sleep before he comes to bed because half the time he comes up, he doesn't snore, I'm good. Other half of the time he snores like a chainsaw and I get no sleep. And four nights in a row of no really good sleep will make me really, really angry. So, so people, good food is really important, but good sleep going hand in hand with nutrition is really important. Yes. 30:31 Yes. Amen. Amen. I will join you on the amen on that one. So, so it's all about, I mean, you're tired. I know you're tired and you're busy and you're trying to give of yourself and that is a noble, wonderful thing. But if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of anybody else. And this whole podcast today has been very, very new agey, coachy. 31:00 And that's not what the podcast is really about, but it really does apply because when you're trying to do things like grow produce or raise animals for meat or heck raise kids, cause you wanted a pastel of kids, it's all very big and very tiring and very good makes you feel great when it works, but you have to be good in yourself to be able to do it. 31:29 So I think it's appropriate. I think that this whole 30 minute conversation was really important today. Good, I hope that it encourages someone and just they feel seen and know that there is hope. It's okay, like you said, we have bad days. We have rough, hard seasons. It's been a hard year, but it's laying the ground for something better too. And I just. 31:58 I put my hope and my trust in Lord Jesus. Yeah and I'm not religious at all but I'm going to say this and people are going to laugh at me. Maybe God put me in your path for me to talk to you about this today. Yeah, God uses, God can use anyone. Was it they believe in him or not? Exactly and I figure he has a very good time doing that. He's like, I'm going to let her know I'm here whether she thinks I am or not. 32:28 All right, Tracey, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're there and I really appreciate you being so open with me. That was great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for the invitation. You're welcome. And thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Have a great day. You too.

Today I'm talking with Lexi at The Steady Home. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Lexi Maitland, and I don't really have a business name for you. So good morning, Lexi, how are you? Hey, Mary, I'm good. And our business is The Steady Home, but how are you? The Steady Home, yes. I think that's how I found you, but I completely forgot. 00:29 No, that's okay. I'm well. It is not stiflingly, miserably humid and hot here today. So... Oh, I love that. I love that. Now, where are you, Barry? Minnesota. In what part of the country? Minnesota. Nice. Yeah, it's like 90, I think 93 here today. So it's a little toasty on my end. And you're in Virginia? I am. Just south of Richmond and Dimwitty. Okay. Yes. All right. So before we get into what you do... 00:57 I have a little minor self-promotion thing to say. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my podcast. What? I'm so excited for you. I saw it on your Facebook yesterday. I was like, oh my gosh, that's so exciting. Yeah. And I just wanted to thank all my guests. I'm upset. I'm like, I'm shook up here. All my guests and all my listeners. Because when I started this, I didn't think it was going to do. 01:27 anything at all. So one year is a big deal. It's a massive deal, Mary. Your discipline through your podcast. I mean, you do multiple a week. I listened to a podcast not long ago and you said that you did nine interviews within a week. So I just want to congratulate you because it is not easy doing a podcast by itself, but your discipline and the community that you've created within your podcast has been amazing. I've loved listening to you. 01:57 Well, thank you. And if I didn't love it so much, I wouldn't be doing it. Well, you do a great job. I love it. Thank you. I didn't realize I was going to tear up, but boy, what a year it's been. Yes. Take that moment for you. That's amazing. So, that's my teary moment for the day, I guess. So, anyway, thank you everybody for supporting me. And so, tell me about the study home, Lexi. Tell me all about you. Sure. 02:25 a little bit about me. I grew up on a little over a hundred acre farm most of my life throughout my whole childhood and when I hit adulthood I had I thought I had been sheltered and so I thought maybe the city offered more to life and so I shifted to a smaller city and then I quickly came back to my to my roots and so how you found me I think was through 02:53 the Facebook group that I created. And so I'll get into a little bit about that. But how I started homesteading was my daughter, personally, I mean, I grew up on a farm, but personally started homesteading within my own home and cultivating that throughout my family was my daughter was born in 2021. And after the massive push for the COVID Vax and the boosters, I started doing my own research and questioning what feels like everything. 03:20 So when I started, I started a little Facebook group in November of 2023 to help others find a community of information and to feel safe in asking some of those difficult questions specifically for beginners. And since I started the group the end of last year, we've grown to over 97,000 in the group and our active newsletter subscribers reached a little over 40,000 now. So we have a total of 60 but active are right at 40,000. 03:49 Um, so we've, we've done some, a lot in a short timeframe and I feel like it's been a little overwhelming. So I understand celebrating your first year. There's so the, the grind and the hustle that first year is, is, um, you know, some of the best work I believe through that discipline. So again, hats off to you. Um, so since I started the group, um, yeah, we've, we've 04:16 We've done a lot. And so we've done, we've created like homestead workshops, we've created a membership, we have, you know, the newsletter and now, you know, we're inviting sponsors to sponsor the newsletter that are aligned with our audience. We've done a membership, we've started a little blog on Pinterest and yeah, it's been, it's been quite a year. So that's kind of like a gist and you know, what, what we're up to within this. 04:45 quote unquote steady home. It feels kind of cliche to say it publicly, but I really wanted to create more sustainability within our home and we ran a solar company for a little over five years. And so we really were immersed into sustainability before we were immersed into homesteading. So now we've got the basic homestead animals, the chickens, the goats, canning and. 05:13 growing our little raised gardens and now we're getting ready to the big dogs now. So we're pretty excited. And it was just a, it was a lonely journey when I first started. So I didn't want that for anybody else. And so that's why I created the Steady Home and the little Facebook group and it's just grown immensely. You got some big numbers going on there, ma'am. Yeah, it's been quite a, it was wild. 05:40 to be honest with you because I had only started this group in Virginia. And I think because of the beginning of the group, it says getting started, homesteading and natural living. I think a lot of people, at least towards the end of the year and the beginning of this year, started growing within the nation. And so what was meant for me to just find my people in Virginia, it quickly grew to nationwide. So we're looking to see how. 06:08 We can kind of connect everybody. So right now we have within the Facebook group, we have all the states, all 50 states. And you can go in there and introduce yourself, figure out who within the chats, I'm sorry, within the chats, you can go in there and say, I'm from Dimwitty, Virginia, and who's around me? And they'll shout out and say. 06:33 I'm in Prince George, I'm in Chester, and everybody kind of gets excited because you start finding all of the people that are also on that same journey of getting started within homesteading and natural living. And so it's been amazing. I absolutely love this journey. You've created a network so that the tribe can find its people. Yes. Yes, I have. Good job. You're a connector. That kind of feels... 07:01 very fitting. That feels fitting for me. I found that I've really enjoyed operations within business and, you know, helping people kind of work up the hierarchy ladder and, you know, who they would manage well and looking at their skill set. And so this just kind of feels like my skill set is, I just like to connect things, connect the dots. Yeah, and I'm a systems girl. I really like having a system for things. 07:28 Yeah, which is real hard when my husband has ADD and wouldn't know a system if it bit him on the butt. So, so yeah, it's a part of the reason I started the podcast is because it's mine. It's the only thing that's mine. I have a system. I know how it works. I work the system. This system works. Yeah, I get it. And you you partner pretty well too. And just finding your network for your podcast host, you know, who you want to host with and making sure that they're aligned, they're aligned 07:58 your goal as well. So Mary, if you don't, I know you typically ask the questions, but I have a question for you if that's okay. That's totally fine, I think. So what is your mission with the podcast? Like what is the origin story of A Tiny Homestead and what is your long-term vision for A Tiny Homestead? What would you like to see? Well I've told the story a couple of times, but I'll tell you real quick. My son was going 08:27 four kids. He was going to be leaving in September last year and he was going to go stay with his brother for a while, which is totally fine. They're really good friends. It was just going to be me and my husband. I was like, I need a project because otherwise I'm going to go through that empty nest thing hard and that's going to suck. I need a new baby. I had really been wanting to do something that actually used my talents. I was like, 08:56 And I wanted to do a podcast, but I don't know what it is. And I talked with my husband about it, and he's like, just keep throwing ideas at me. One of them will stick. And after a month or two, I was like, how about interviewing people who are doing homesteading, cottage food producing, and crafting, because that's what we're both into, and other people would learn from it, and it would be really fun, and I wouldn't get bored with it. And he was like, yes, do that. 09:23 Oh my goodness. That was so perfectly aligned for you guys. So that's how it started. And then my son actually moved back two months after he moved out. And I've told this story already, too, but I'll tell it again. He was like, I have a doctor's appointment. Can you take me? And I had told him when he got back that you need to put stuff on the calendar because I have a calendar now that is booked. It's all it. And. 09:49 I was like, I have an interview at that time. And he was like, can you reschedule it? And I said, yes, but this is why we need to put things on the calendar. And he has since he's let me know every time when he has something going on that he needs a ride to. Very long story on why he can't drive right now. He has a thing going on that he has no control over and I can't talk about it. I'm not allowed to. So it's. 10:16 He's home living with us for very, very good reasons. There's nothing bad that he's done. So the long-term plan, I don't know, until I am bored of talking with people who are brilliant and inventive and creative and geniuses. Do you ever get bored of that, ever? Not really, no. And I mean, the long, long-term plan is that it brings in some supplemental income to put toward the homestead here. 10:46 Yes. Oh, that's an amazing vision. I love that. Yes. And I actually had my first sponsor two Mondays ago, trial sponsorship two Mondays ago for two weeks. And I just monetized it that same day. So I had my first sponsor and monetized it in under a year. Oh, my goodness. That's an amazing milestone, Mary. That was the goal for the first year and I didn't think I'd hit it. So Oh, gosh. 11:15 Yeah, you hung on to that vision. Even with a little bit of self-doubt, you did amazing. That's so exciting. I figured if I didn't think I would make it, I would be so excited if I did, and I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't, so. I get it. There's pros and cons. But also, the other thing I wanted the podcast to do is get the word out about all of you guys doing the things you're doing. Because it's really hard to market if you're not a marketer. It is. 11:45 It is. Yeah, that's something that I've learned to grow as, especially, you know, running a solar company for the last five years. We really adjusted to, you know, the different marketing strategies on the different platforms, having the different channels and what speaks to this person doesn't speak to that person. And so it's always interesting to test, you know, different ways of the delivery channel and then, you know, what makes people bite. 12:15 Um, and so I've, I've really loved that part of the life that we've created is, you know, learning the different styles of personality within the people too, because, you know, you'll have a voice for people that I won't ever have a voice for. And you know, my channel is not, is not a podcast. And so the people that you reach in collaboration with, you know, those two different audiences is 12:42 is a very strategic way for you to grow your podcast. So that's incredible, Mary, I love that. So that's the shorter version. The short version is I needed a hobby, so I picked one up. That's the simple version. Yeah. That's amazing. So what do you guys do exactly? Sure. So when I started the Facebook group, I really wanted to just create a community where people feel safe in asking the questions. 13:11 It took me personally two years to really just understand the basics of homesteading and natural living. A ton of trial and error, hours of research, reading through tons of blogs on Pinterest and watching the YouTube videos to learn what I know today and picking my grandparents' brain too. I still feel like I know very little about homesteading if I'm being completely honest. 13:41 people can jump in and ask the questions that they think are silly. I think that there's a big push since the keyword, I'm sorry, the C word, to take back some of the control and question everything. And if there is one thing I've learned, it's if I'm interested in something someone else is too. And so that I trust I'll personally pioneer the path to learning and then educating as my give back for my active service. So... 14:10 I have a, I created my mission last month through this workshop that I was doing. And my mission is to educate sustainability through homesteading and cultivate an abundant mindset. I think a lot of times in homesteading, it can be perceived as limited or minimalist or frugal. And the sub effects could impact our own mindset and that we have a limited resources or a limited supply because it's what we've created off of our. 14:39 our own land. So my goal is just to cultivate the overflow mindset and the abundance mindset. So that way there's, you know, always more within their own little family, because I think a lot of the people that I touch are the either the homemakers or the people that are, you know, working the nine to five job want to control some of the things that are going into their children's bodies, their own bodies. 15:09 what the better goal of the government is. And so just having like more more control within their own home and what goes on for their children. So we have with our membership, we have we like to just turn down the noise of the Internet and turn up their action into Homestead and Natural Living. And so we have tutorials on all things Homestead based on. 15:37 research that we've done. We've cultivated many, many different blogs that we found extremely helpful through the two-year journey that I have and so that I did within my first two years. And so just kind of finding those resources that really impacted my journey that I felt were extremely educational. So we've condensed the amount of information that a lot of people can just go on Pinterest and search for. Within our 16:05 newsletter, we do three personalized emails. So we have like a DIY, DIY email and educational email and then homemade recipes. Those are the three dedicated emails that they get within the membership. And then we also do giveaways. And then they have access to pre-launch within the merch because we have like a small e-comm store. And 16:31 Let's see, I'm trying to think of what else. They get discounts on our website. They get discounts with our partner brands. One of the things that we are working on is for the beginner homesteads. They don't, homesteaders, they don't have a lot of assets on their homestead, but we still want to ensure what they do have. We have, within our group, we have beginner homesteads, stutters, intermediate homesteaders, and advanced homesteaders. And so one of the things that 17:01 we've seen within our community is that somebody's homestead caught on fire and they lost so much equipment and animals in their barns. And so one of the things that I really touched my heart is that the community themselves chipped in to get them back on their feet, get them back. And they were living off of their land. They didn't have full-time jobs. Their entire living was based on their own homestead. And so when that happened, they felt like... 17:30 they went to nothing. And so when I saw that, I was like, Oh my gosh, I wonder if there is insurance that protects homesteaders for in an event for a fire. And luckily everybody was safe. Um, minus some of the, the barnyard animals, they, but there was nothing that I could find that really protected the smaller homesteaders. There were things for, you know, the larger farmers. And so that's one of the things that we're looking at. 17:59 to turn our membership into an actual homestead association. So that way we can lend a helping hand in the event anything happened. They're also protected through the Homestead Association. So that's in the works that'll probably be live within the next 45 days. So that's been really interesting. So I've basically buckled down and just put my head down, figure out what people want. That's the most, that's the creative. 18:28 Part of me that I absolutely love is just learning what other people are looking for. You can typically share what those journeys are based on what you've already been through. Because I was able to look at the last two years, all of my Pinterest, my massive Pinterest board, look at the things that I changed within our own home, I was able to create a community within my little network. Then I was like, well, 18:57 Let's create a Facebook group because I'm sure there's more people out in Virginia that I don't know that I'd love to connect with. And so that was the, that was the idea. I think I created, I created the group back in November and then it caught wind November, December, and January. And in January is when we took it nationwide just for other people to find their people. Um, I figured I didn't. 19:26 I don't want to be selfish and just kind of keep my little network. And so I just created a bunch of different chats for each state and so that way everybody could find their own. So it's been a blast. I absolutely loved it. It's had its challenges. Some people would be in the group and given false information. 19:50 And so that's been really interesting. Just, I had to hire an admin just to accept the amount of group members that we received in a little over 10 months. Um, and so I had to hire an admin and I was like, okay, I'm, you know, I'm paying for this out of my pocket, which is fun, but it'd be really nice if, you know, we could just somehow offset some of the costs. And so that's why we started the membership, just so that way we could have, you know, I couldn't. 20:16 hire somebody to write the newsletters and so that way I could focus on my full-time job of running another business. The entire idea was not to monetize the Facebook group. The entire idea was to just create friends, create a little network for myself. With every startup, there comes its challenges and there comes their delegation. 20:46 So that's the idea of the membership. And we have a little over 300 people that are within the program currently. And we're consistently seeing growth every single day. So it's been awesome. Super cool. I love that. I love it. I love it when people are like, I'm gonna do this thing. And then it just keeps exponentially growing like a spider web, you know? It really has. I think the coolest part is just seeing it. 21:14 the different levels of homesteading. It's like, we have, you know, people within the Facebook group that'll ask the most basic questions and you can tell that they just feel bad or they'll ask, you know, questions and be anonymous. And then you'll also have, you know, people that will talk about, you know, the insemination of different animals. And it's like, huh, I haven't gotten there yet. You know, there's levels to this game. But it's... 21:43 It's really, really cool to see just how the community itself can be like help just has an active service to help. You know, I've been there, let me help you with that. You want to learn sourdough. Okay, first you need a starter. Here's how you start. Here's the, you know, portions. And so, just seeing the different people kind of jump in and be so resourceful within their own life and then want to give back to the people that are in the beginning stages has been. 22:13 incredible. Yeah, the thing I've learned over the last year is that most people I've talked to, whether they're bakers or they're crafters or they're homestudders, they're all genuinely happy and willing to share help and information. And I love that because the world is so small, but so disconnected sometimes. It really can be. And I think the disconnection even 22:43 has been a massive push for the last few years. I think that's what the pandemic did to a lot of people is kind of cut off the social and the bartering. And I'm seeing a lot of people go back to the bartering lifestyle. And that's been amazing too. I guess you can call her my mother-in-law. She's got chickens and they're producing eggs and she's so excited about it. 23:13 And her neighbor across the street has like opened up a little farm stand for blackberries and blueberries. And she was like, Oh my gosh, I wonder if they would trade for my, my eggs for their blackberries and blueberries. And I was like, they absolutely will. Like you just have to, you have to make that connection. And so it's interesting to just see people be a little more hesitant to just going up to people and asking them, Hey, you know, would you be interested in, and maybe swap in or doing this service? 23:44 Yeah, we've done quite a few within the last few months. We've provided sourdough starter to a couple hundred people within the group. We created a seed swaps chat within the group too. So people are swapping seeds. We did that in the spring and every morning we do a Bible devotion within the Facebook group. I'll go into the Bible app and 24:09 read the devotion and copy and paste it into the Bible devotion app. And there's been, I think there's like over 3000 people in that, in that individual chat. And so that's been really cool to see too. So there's a lot in the works. I think people are really kind of going back to their roots. I think there's been so much more awareness that has peaked over the last few years. And I think it's. 24:38 for the better, especially with, you know, the different bioengineered foods that are coming out, you know, genetically made eggs and things like that. So just people taking back that control and responsibility in their own life has been really awesome to see. 25:05 They're all kind of winding down on giving us eggs and feeding chickens just to feed chickens is not the plan. And so over the winter, we're going to be buying eggs at the store. We haven't done that in four years. Oh my goodness. Are you considering getting chicks again or just... Next spring, yeah. Next spring. Gotcha. Yeah. We did a workshop not too long ago. One of the girls... One of the... 25:31 group members named Caitlin did post a workshop on how to process a chicken. And so I'll have to send you that video because if, have you already, have you already or ever called a chicken before? Yes. Yes, we have. So this is new for you. Yeah, but it's good that you have that because a lot of people have never called any animals. So right. But we're going to take the healthiest chickens because there's still like four of them that are fat and sassy and look really healthy. 26:00 and we're going to dispatch them and then we're going to roast them up in our roaster and make chicken stock and hand the chicken stock. Oh, that's so perfect. So they're not going to go to waste. No, no. And you could savor every single part, almost every single part. We have a friend and not too far, he's been an hour and a half away from us and him and his wife also process chickens and they do a big batch twice a year. I believe it's twice a year. 26:30 I've bought quite a few chickens from them just to get away from the grocery store. And anyway, it was really crazy to see the difference in a chicken that was raised and processed on a local farm versus the store-bought chicken. I could not believe the difference in the taste. And it is a little bit more expensive, but for me, it's so worth it. 26:58 Just to know where things come from and you know what goes into their bodies and you know what they're what they're feeding them so I think that's the that's the way to do it is support the local farm stands and support the local farmers that are Getting off, you know their feet to to process because that is not an easy job After watching the workshop video. I was like, wow, this is insane. And I had no idea how much work went into just plucking 27:28 So it's a lot of hard, good work. Yeah, I was going to say, it's relatively hard. I don't think it's difficult. I think it's time. It's a lot of time involved. Yes, if you don't have the proper equipment, it does take quite a bit of time. Yeah. So I have a rather pointed question. It's going to sound pointed. I'm not trying to be a snot. I just need to know. 27:57 Is your, is the study home your only business or do you guys like garden or do you have animals or do you do any of those things? Yes, we do. So we have, let's see, Martha, we have goats, we have Nigerian dwarf goats. My first goat that we got, her name is Martha, she just had her first, she just went into, I guess came out of kidding season. 28:24 And we just pulled her babies from her last week. So we have five total now Nigerian Dwarf goats. And then we have, let's see, one, two, three. I think we're at either 11 or 12 chickens. So very small. And then we have the raised garden beds that I realized this year are just way too small for us for our goals with having a massive pantry. So that, 28:55 bought the equipment that we needed to be able to do our own full garden. So I think that's going to be like 0.25 acres of a garden is, yeah, so pretty big. At least for us, it's pretty big. But my grandparents have a bigger one and a massive greenhouse too. So I always feel like I'm just a little guy. But 29:17 Yeah, so we do everything that we teach. We're not just all business. We very much are hands-on, and my kids are hands-on. So that was the main reason that I wanted to do this was for them, because I realized a lot of the grit that I was taught as a kid came from having my hands in the dirt, riding fullers, and being outside, and fishing in the pond. So a lot of the grit was instilled 29:46 through my childhood and as I was reading my oldest daughter, Lily, I realized that she didn't have a lot of grit. She was actually a little scared of the dirt. And I was like, no, we need to pivot. So we jumped into chickens first, like I think everybody does as far as hands in the dirt. So we got the chickens and then we... 30:10 Got two goats after that and got another set of chickens and we got meat chickens and that did not actually did not turn out the way that I had expected. We had a predator get to them that wasn't we were not prepared for that as much as I thought that we would be. And so we're going to do another another round of meat chickens next year just to be able to do it. 30:38 you know, see how we like it. And if it's something that we like, then we'll continue to do it just for our family. And let's see, I think that's it. But we're only on like two and a half, a little less than two and a half acres. And so we're in search of more land that is centralized to the kids school. And my oldest daughter is eight and then my youngest, she's getting ready to turn three. 31:04 And so just finding something that is central to the area and then not too far from our family because our family is about an hour and a half apart within his mom's side and then my dad's side. So it's quite a hike. So we got to find something kind of in the middle. Okay. And the reason I said it was a pointed question is it was going to come off sounding like, well, if you're doing this, but you're not actually raising anything, then why are you doing this? And that's not what I was getting at. 31:34 Oh, I didn't take it that way. Yeah, so I wanted to make sure that I put that in there because you don't have to be a homesteader to learn about homesteading skills. Right. Yeah, there's a lot of people that are just putting potatoes in a five gallon bucket on their back porch in their apartment. And so I think. 31:56 You know, you can really start at any point wherever you are in your life and, you know, growing little seedlings within your house. That's where I started with my garden. And yeah, it's just, I think to be educated and just to consume the knowledge and not take any action on it. If you have a goal of taking future action, that's completely great. Like that's great. You're doing what you need to in order to get started. But if you never take the action, what's the 32:24 There's minimal point in my opinion of doing it because you learn so much more hands on. You know, there's, there's, you can consume as much information as you like, but if you don't apply the knowledge, you lose it in 30 days. Yes. And honestly, if you can make a meal from scratch, one meal, that's homesteading. If you can, if you can crochet a basic scarf, that's homesteading. 32:54 Exactly. Yeah, the first thing that I ever, I was so, I don't know all of the ends and outs of it. I got a sewing machine for my birthday and I still have yet to really put in more than an hour's work on it. We've just had our hands in so many other different projects that I just haven't slowed down. And I think slowing is like... 33:17 the intention of that is just to take a break and disconnect and be creative with your hands and you know, learning how to do the basics. And I've watched a couple different videos on sewing, but I did mystery, like a wasse mystery. That was part of the thing, one of the launches that we did for the sourdough. But yeah, we've done, I've done a couple different 33:47 plug in the little, the needles into. And that was the first thing that I ever said. And so just taking time to just slow down and create little things like that, I think is so fulfilling too. Yes, because the world is so busy and distracting. You can find anything to do where it's your hands or your body and you are focused on the one thing that you're creating. It actually gives your brain a chance to relax. 34:17 Mm-hmm, and that's what I love about cooking. Oh So you're in the kitchen that's where you relax Yeah, and on the podcast because I really love listening to you guys's stories So I'm focused on your stories for a half an hour to 45 minutes every day. Hopefully You know a lot of people think that it it takes and I know we're coming up on time No, I think a lot of people 34:40 think about homesteading or just slowing down, like that's slowing down as a particular lifestyle that you have to slow down in every area. And I've studied masculine and feminine energy and understanding the different roles and how they integrate. And I think integration is extremely important. There is a certain point where you have to have a lot of drive and a lot of masculine energy to go, go, go. And then there's a certain time where, even if it's five to 10 minutes a day, 35:09 For me, it's walking out in my backyard with my toes just ingrained in the grass. I just feel so much more connected to what our long-term mission is. I can really go into a creative space within my mind if I want to of what is the next vision. Or I can slow down and say, okay, I'm going to be present here in this moment. I feel sun on my skin. Just taking that time for us to get out of the hook. 35:38 the hustle culture that they've created has been my wind down. I've just connected and then, you know, doing the devotions every morning has been very fulfilling. And reading a book, you know, anything that I think just makes you utilize some of your, your senses rather than the mind so much. It's definitely ways to slow down. Yep. And everybody needs a chance to slow down. 36:08 I've said this a bunch of times over the last year, your body cannot handle a state of constant anxiety for very long without starting to break down. Right. Yeah. Staying in a fight or flight state is not going to keep you alive or, you know, see your great grandchildren towards the end of your life. You've got to learn different ways to cope and to... 36:35 get back into your body and figure out what it is that you wanna do within your life that doesn't create a go, go, go. Because at the end of your life, I think you always question, what is it that I was here to do and did I fulfill that? And if the answer is no, it may seem like a life full of regret. But if you do take time and say, okay, what was extremely important to me and to the people? 37:01 around me that creates the fulfillment, then did I have a life worth living? Absolutely. Yep, absolutely. And that is a great note to end this podcast episode on. Thank you, Lexi, for your time. I appreciate it. Oh, thanks so much, Mary. And congratulations. Happy one year to you. Thank you. And I will put all the links to all the things in your show notes, okay? Yes. Okay. Sounds good, Mary. Thank you. Thanks. Have a good afternoon.

Today I'm talking with Troy at the Red Tool House Farm. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Troy at Red Tool House Farm. Good morning, Troy, how are you? Good morning, how are you? I'm good, it's nice to talk with you again. Last time we talked, we were talking about the Homesteading-ish Conference, but today we're talking about you. Yes. 00:29 So tell me about yourself and what you do at the Red Toolhouse farm. Well, Red Toolhouse is the name of the place that we've been on for the last 24 years. It is about a hundred acres and we're in the southwestern portion of West Virginia, what I consider the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a piece of property in major disrepair when we bought it. 00:57 had lots of garbage on it, old house, old trailer, just had been abandoned for so long or unused for so long that it had just accumulated a lot of the neighborhood garbage. So we bought it knowing that we were going to have to put a lot of sweat equity into it. We had a lot of potential with the property. We knew. 01:22 We knew there was a lot of potential there, but just, just going to have to get through a lot of that work. Got a great deal on the property. Um, so young and dumb, didn't know any better. So just dove head first into it. So over the last 24 years, just kind of embraced more of a regenerative agricultural elements, you know, the homesteading, we kind of picked up the homesteading vibe about 14 years ago and started pursuing that more kind of knowing where food comes from, producing our own food. 01:51 raising livestock and then just managing the forest on this 100 acres is kind of where we've landed. Okay. So where did you live before? Okay. So I, my wife and I, we dated through high school and we were West Virginians. So we were, well, she's a transplant. She was from Florida originally, but we went to high school together. We went to college together. We went to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. 02:16 And after college, we decided, hey, we can't stay in West Virginia. We want to get a job. All the things that went along with that. So we moved to Orlando for a couple of years. And Orlando is okay, but there's a lot of humanity in Orlando. So we kind of felt the call to come back home. We always joke that West Virginians are like boomerangs. They keep coming back. So we moved back in. 02:44 1998, I believe, eight or nine. And moved back, actually stayed in a little cabin that was just over the mountain from where I grew up and spent a year trying to find property. I told Kelly, my wife, I said, if we're gonna move back to West Virginia, I don't wanna live in town, I don't wanna live around people. Orlando had really turned me off from even liking people anymore. I just didn't like people. So I... 03:10 I said, we need to live as rural as we possibly can, but we both still work full-time jobs in the city of Charleston. So we knew we still had to be a reasonable commutable drive from Charleston. So we looked about an hour out, just drew a circle around the city of Charleston and said, let's look for land. 03:31 This land wasn't even on the market. It was actually just a piece of land lying here and we had to go door to door. As before, the internet was really a thing where you could search all that stuff. So we just went door to door, finally found out who owned it and made an offer on it and they accepted our first offer. Okay, so you had a plan for sure to do this. This isn't like you were living in town and went, eh, I want to try something completely different and just chose this. You had a plan. 04:00 Well, I grew up rural in West Virginia. My folks, we just call it rural life. I mean, mom and dad did a garden. We didn't have any livestock. I think we did a garden. We lived on a bigger tract of land. So we cut firewood. We provided our own fuel source for heat and that type of stuff. So I thought, well, if I'm moving back to West Virginia, I want to go back to the things I miss and Orlando really made me realize how much I missed not being surrounded by humanity. 04:30 And there's just some beautiful land in Western, just a gorgeous state. And I thought, well, I want to be able to have something I can call my own and be able to carve out whatever I want, have enough acreage that I can do, do the little piddly things that I like to do. So that was, that was probably really the only goal. We weren't, I wasn't thinking self-reliant. I wasn't thinking prepper. I wasn't thinking homestead. I was just thinking, I don't like people and I don't want to be near them. And of course that, that changed the good Lord changed my heart in the first. 04:59 first 10 years and, and, uh, and it kind of had me refocus on what was important and what wasn't. Yeah. I'm going to jump on the, I don't like people part. I, I keep saying that I don't like people. I like persons. Yeah. Like I can deal with one person at a time. Just fine. It's when I have to be around a lot of people that I get real twitchy and it's because people are unpredictable critters. I have no idea. If I go. 05:29 someplace where those people I haven't met, who those people are, what they're gonna do, or what they're gonna say, or how they're gonna act. That's the part that makes me not like people. Now, as a general rule, I do enjoy people. I just don't like being in confined spaces with more than one or two at a time. Right, yeah, Orlando traffic really affected me negatively, and you're exactly right, the crowds. 05:55 And in West Virginia, we're only 1.8 million people. So even in a state our size, it's just usually not around a whole bunch of people, even when you're in urban areas. So it was quite an adjustment for us. And when I got home, I was like, man, I really need one. I wanna stretch my legs. Those several years in Orlando really, really kind of cramped me. Yeah, that happens. Okay, so tell me about your farm. What do you guys do on the farm? Well, so. 06:23 So the 100 Acres is, since it's West Virginia topography, it obviously has a lot of pitch and roll to it. And I joke that with 100 Acres, I only have two places where I can turn my truck and trailer around easily. So it's very hilly. It's out of the 100 Acres, probably 95 of it is wooded. So it's Appalachian hardwood forest, which is just absolutely gorgeous all year long. 06:51 So it provides for us a lot of natural resources. So when we bought the property, I, uh, to help fund our initial expenses, I had the property selectively timbered, which was a very, um, it was a very detailed process. So the timber broker that I use, he went through and of course, itemized and inventoried everything. So point being that, that not every, it wasn't a clear cut. It wasn't a slash and burn. The forest was maintained nicely. 07:18 And it gave us quite a bit of revenue to be able to help do some startup stuff. So we built a small garage apartment to live out of until we could afford to build a main house. And took, took all these projects on for myself. I was in my mid twenties. Again, too young to know any better. Um, so, uh, took those projects on. So as, as it developed, we started, as most homesitters do, we, we started by adding chickens because, uh, we thought, well, we, we want to be more. 07:45 responsible for our food that we eat. Our first child was born at that point and that was kind of that catalyst. It's like, well, we want our son to eat better than we do or did at his age. So we got chickens for eggs. And then I realized that, Hey, I could, I could put pigs on this property very easily because pigs on pasture and woodlot are easy to do and they won't have a huge expense and fence and I really like bacon and that really. 08:13 really started my love affair with pigs. I just absolutely love those animals. And so we still raise pigs to this day. We still have our egg laying chickens. In fact, we have multiple flocks that we're doing different things with. And then we do broiler chickens during the season. We have some in our brooder right now. That'll be our final run of broiler chickens. And up until, actually up until the last couple months, we decided we were gonna do all of this at retail scale. So... 08:42 I'm self-employed, so it just seemed like kind of a fit to say, well, if I'm going to raise one pig or two pigs or three pigs for me, why not raise 15 or 20 or 30 and try to make some revenue from that. We've had retail sales with the pork and with the eggs and with the broiler chickens and just here recently, but my youngest son, I have two boys, my youngest son graduated from high school, so I lost my labor. 09:10 So we're deciding now to kind of scale back to the homesteading level. We're going to raise just enough food for ourselves and some friends and family. Um, but we're, we're constantly experimenting with things. We're experimenting with the land and, and how to, how to improve it, how to improve soil, how to manage the forest, how to have a good symbiotic relationship with our, our pigs in forest, uh, we're creating Silva pasture. 09:36 because we do want to introduce, hopefully within the next five years, get enough land open up that we can introduce beef so we can raise some of our own beef. And then just, we really like, I like a permaculture aspect to a lot of things. So I try to do things on the homestead that allow me to do function stacking or just have a little bit more responsible approach to stuff. I do have a tractor. I do burn fossil fuels and do those types of things. 10:05 be a little more deliberate on how I do it and maybe when I'm burning those things, I'm maximizing that potential as much as possible. Okay. The experimentation part, I have a thing about that too. We put in two peach trees last year, you know, just saplings, and my youngest walked in the house last night with four peaches in his hand from one of our two trees. Yeah. 10:33 They are delicious and we didn't expect the peach trees to produce anything for three years. So we were very excited that we now have another food source on our homestead that we didn't expect to have for at least three years. Yeah. Peaches are fantastic. I keep forgetting how much I love them because they're also expensive, which means we don't buy them very often. Yeah. And they're not just a Southern tree. A lot of people just assume that peaches are only the Georgia. 11:01 You know, the, the south, uh, part of the United States region, but yeah, you can get peaches to grow real far north. I think they grow them in New England. So, yeah, I think you can grow them in Southern Canada, but it has to be a specific variety. I mean, the peach tree you're going to grow in Georgia is not the peach tree we're going to grow in Minnesota. Exactly. But I was so excited and it's like the highlight of my summer, which seems like a really low bar to reach. 11:31 But it rained here all springs or our garden did not do well. So seeing those beautiful peaches on my island was just fabulous. Like I went to bed just smiling. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's a perfect example of you kind of experimenting with. Can, can we raise, I really like the perennial plants. My wife's more of the annual, she does the annual side of the garden. And I really like the perennials. So an example of experimentation in line with your peaches was 12:02 We have an apple, a cherry, and then I cultivate some wild plum here that just occurred naturally on the property. And so we have that in a small little orchard area. And around June, the Japanese beetles come out in full force and they were just skeletonizing our fruit trees, just wearing them out and really stunting the growth and I thought, man, I tried the traps, the traps just seemed to bring in more. 12:27 I tried all these different things and then realized, well, I just hate to use all these chemical processes of eliminating this pest. There's got to be something more natural. And then do a little bit of research and just trial and error. I have a mobile chicken coop, so it's a trailer that I can pull behind my ATV. I call it the coop de ville. We move it in May. I move it. 12:54 around the fruit trees. And of course, we use the poultry netting so I can move that wherever I need to. So I ring in all of the fruit trees with the poultry netting and have the Coupe de Ville park there. And the chickens, we let them stay there for about a month and a half. So they are a little bit hard on the grass in that area, which I don't mind, but they eradicate the Japanese beetle larvae as they come out of the ground. And so 13:22 that has been able to completely eliminate damage from the Japanese beetle. We may see one or two that have flown in from the outskirt type of thing, but we don't have that high concentration that we've had for years. And so this year was the first year that I got a decent amount of apple production off the apple tree because they weren't stunted by the Japanese beetle activity. Very nice. The other thing that you could have done. 13:50 because I talked to a lady who taught me about trap crops, T-R-A-P, is Japanese beetles really, really love rose bushes, rose leaves. And we had rose bushes at our old house that went up a trellis. And our garden was small in our small backyard where we used to live. And the Japanese beetles showed up back 10, 12 years ago when we still lived there. And they were eating the rose leaves. 14:18 And I was like, I will sacrifice the roses for the stuff we can eat in the garden. Right. So I was talking to this lady. She's, I can't remember her name right now, but I interviewed her and her episode was released weeks ago. She said, you had a trap crop. I had never heard of a trap crop. And she said, so did you sacrifice your roses every year? And I said, well, yeah, cause they would bloom in a big lush bloom phase before the Japanese beetles showed up. 14:46 So I got my one really pretty moment and then the Japanese bees would eat the roses and they wouldn't eat my garden. And she was like, you did something you didn't even know you were doing. I was like, yeah, huh, weird. So a trap crop works as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's a lot of different options to explore more natural methods of pest management. And again, with the permaculture aspect, not if I would... 15:14 If I would redo it, I wouldn't even plant my fruit trees together in a small orchard. I would mix them up in guilds and that way that pressure in one area doesn't spill over easily into the other. So definitely things you learn as you go along. Yeah, because you can't know everything when you start. I keep saying on this podcast, everybody has to start at the beginning. Absolutely. That's where the beginning is. It's at the start. You can't know until you know. You can't experience things until you do the thing. 15:43 So that's why I really love doing this podcast because I get to learn things from people that I hadn't even known existed and get to try them or find out I've been doing a thing that people have been doing forever. And I'm like, oh, well, okay. Yeah, yeah. So I saw your video about how to tell a boar from a sow on Facebook and laugh myself stupid and thought, well, yeah. And then... 16:12 I was like, not everybody knows all these things about animals and I shouldn't laugh. But it was a very funny video. Yeah. I always say my spiritual gift is sarcasm. My wife disagrees that she doesn't think that's a spiritual gift. But I do. Yeah. So it was just, it was just funny simply because of, and there's actually a funny story behind this. We had some friends that came out with their young children, two young girls came out of 16:39 Last year to the farm and visited the farm for the first time and so I was taking them around and showing them We had piglets on the farm at the time So showing them piglets they want to see the chickens the baby chicks all of those type of things and then we when we got To our breed stock we had our boars. We had them at that point We had them sequestered in their own little little pasture area because we didn't want them breeding at that time and so the Boars are hanging out and these are good sized boys as you saw in the video and so they're 17:08 They're just big. They're big everywhere. They're, they're well endowed and the, um, the physiology of a bore, his, his reproductive organs, of course, hang out very prominent on the back end of him. And so the girls didn't say anything. They, you know, they was, oh yeah, bore. Okay. And no words, but, but our friends called us when they were on their way home. And they said, we have to tell you this. And we could tell they'd been laughing so hard that could barely breathe. 17:32 We have to tell you this and we got in the car, headed back, we asked them, you know, what was your favorite part of the farm? And they were talking about all these different things. And then one of the daughters said, it was just really strange. The boars with their, their, their little pig butts. And so they're like, what are you talking about? Their pig butts. And she, they both assumed that these, these large, this large appendage hanging off the back of the pig, which kind of looks like a butt cheek. Well, it was actually the butt cheeks of the pig and instead of its testicles. 18:02 So they got a good kick out of that. And we just laughed and laughed about that. And it's like, yeah, you kind of, you kind of, you're sexing a full grown pig is not difficult to do if he's intact. So that's why I did the video. It's like, let's do a little tongue in cheek here to say, if you're having a hard time figuring out which is a sow and which is a boar, then let's give you some tips. And of course, just go to some of the non-obvious things while showing the video of the very obvious thing right there in front of you. So, yeah. 18:32 Kids say the darndest things and I love kids. They make me laugh all the time. I was highly entertained for basically concurrently over a hundred years raising my kids. Not consecutively, but concurrently with all their years. So yeah, kids are fun. And kids are also a lot of work. I mean, I am happy that my children are adults and they're raised and I did a good job. And I'm pretty sure I did a good job. 19:01 So I'm at that point in my life where I get to kick back and watch them be grownups, which is almost more entertaining. Yes, yeah, it is. It is good to see them. Almost. Right, yeah. Yeah, it's good to see them make good choices. Yeah, the one knot of my body is actually starting a garden. He's my husband's son from a previous relationship. And he has the most beautiful produce coming in right now, and he keeps texting us pictures. 19:30 And then we send him pictures of our sad garden. And he's like, there's always next year guys, it's okay. So he's being our cheerleader this year. That's great. Yep, he's very excited. We did send him the pictures of the peaches though. And he was like, those look fantastic. I was like, yeah, the one thing we didn't expect is doing great. The things that we expected to do well are doing nothing. Go big. That's the way it goes. Yeah, nature is fickle. When she... 19:59 When she provides, she really provides. When she says no, there's nothing. It's not, it's not fair. Okay. So I don't, I, you also said you do timber stuff. So do you sell wood from your property? So, um, at one time I did, I've had a, I've had a mill for about, well, off and on, cause I sold one and then, uh, 20:28 got my other one, I got a new one. So yeah, probably 10, 15 years of being here, we we've had a mill or at least access to a mill. And with, with that, I, I, I like doing woodworking. The, the little garage apartment that we lived in for two years before you built the main house is now my wood shop. So I have, uh, finishing equipment. So, you know, what would you consider the standard equipment you'd see in a wood shop to make furniture and do that. So I was doing a lot of. 20:56 of milling to the point of taking it to furniture building. I was getting into cabinetry a lot, like gun cabinets, that type of stuff, not kitchen cabinets, building small furniture, doing that for some extra income and just for the love of it. And then as we got more invested in the homestead and experimenting with doing more agriculture type stuff, then I kind of shifted and said, well, I'm going to do less woodworking and kind of come back to doing more general carpentry and construction. 21:26 The mill allows me to produce lumber to build, I build our farrowing barn, which is a decent size structure that our pigs hang out in when it's time to farrow. And then I built a fixed coop that we use for compost creation. And I call it the chicken church. It's built to resemble, even has a little steeple, it's built to resemble the old country churches that you don't see much of anymore. It's kind of my homage to those relics that are going away. But. 21:56 The mill allows us to provide that type of building material. So we're, we're constantly doing that. I'm actually sitting on a deck that I made for Kelly as a surprise for our anniversary this year that was all milled from white oak that, uh, that are harvested from the property. So I really haven't done much here in the last couple of years that, that I would resell the timber because every time I fire the mill up, I have a purpose or a use for the material that's going to come off of it. Okay. 22:25 That makes sense. And what a great present for your wife. Oh my God. How did you keep it a secret? Well, fortunately, she and the boys were on their way to her side of the family. They were just getting together for a niece's birthday. They were doing four or five days down in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. So they were going down, renting a cabin in the mountains and hanging out. So I had this idea brewing in my head, and this was a perfect opportunity to say, well, I need to stay home and take care of the farm. 22:55 They wanted me to go. I was like, well, if I take care of the farm, we don't have to put the dog in a boarding situation. So we'll save some money there. I just got so much work to do. I just can't do it right now. So they were disappointed that I didn't go, but all the while I was lying to them because I had this project in mind. So I had basically a four-day window to get it done. I'm 51 years old, but my mind still thinks I'm 25. It was tough. 23:21 But did get it done. In fact, the Sunday morning they were to return, I was cleaning up and attaching the last boards and doing all that type of stuff. So I was able to pull it off just in time. And we did a whole video about it. But when they showed up, I was sitting out here on the finished deck in the shade just enjoying a nice afternoon. And poor girl, she showed up. Everybody got the flu down there. That was their gift for going to the... 23:51 She came back and she was sick as a dog, but she was so excited about the deck. You know, actually was, was quite a blessing because, uh, being, she was sick all week and we, we had just a beautiful stretch of weather. It was about, it's about a way it is now 70 degrees during the day, low humidity. So she just stay out here on her hammock all week to just recover and, and just soak up, soak up that UV, get the sun, get the fresh air. And then it really helped her in her recovery process. But. 24:20 Yeah, it was fun. It was a fun project. I bet. Um, speaking of sickness, I'm a jinx myself. I have not been sick since the December before COVID hit. There you go. And that was four and a half years ago now, I think. And I don't, I like, I'm so afraid if I get a bug, I'm going to be so miserable and it's just going to be perception. Cause I haven't felt sick in over four years. And so long, right. 24:50 It's crazy and you know, in my, I don't wanna say in my defense, it doesn't really matter, I'm not defending anything. I don't really go anywhere or see anybody. If I go anywhere, it's to pick up groceries because I'm not gonna spend my time actually shopping. Right. Because why would I do that? And I love where I live, you know? We have three acres. If I wanna be outside, I just step out the door and I have three acres to be wandering on. Exactly, yep. So, yeah. 25:19 It's crazy. And I don't want to get what anybody else has gotten. I sure as heck don't want to share any germs I have with anybody else. So I just don't people. It's just easier. Yeah. Um, so speaking of people, you have a conference coming up here in a couple of weeks and I don't want to get too deep because we already talked about it, but how's that planning going? How's it coming? Do you know how many people are planning on attending that kind of stuff? Yeah. So it's, um, 25:49 Yeah, it's first time, so it's an inaugural conference and it's got a little bit of growing pains as we'd expected. So we're still working out some of the kinks, but you've got a good lineup of speakers coming and those have all been confirmed and so excited about that. Ticket sales, we still have tickets available. We're only selling 500 because of the venue. We wanted to try to keep it a little bit more intimate so people could interact more with the speakers and have more Q&A time. 26:18 But still, some of the vendors and sponsors are probably our biggest hurdle right now, still trying to get some of that taken care of. But we are, we're at least to the point where we're net neutral when it comes to expenses. So that's been a big relief to say, okay, we're at least, we're covering our expenses here, the nuts covered, so anything else, we get to reinvest for next year if we wanna do this. But it's gonna be a fun, fun event. We're partnering, so Red Tool House, 26:47 is partnering with our Capital Conservation District, which is a conservation entity. They have more ties to nonprofit organizations, academia, that type of stuff. And of course, what we bring to the table is more of the homestead or social media connections that we have. So I think it's going to be a neat mashup of practical homestead interaction. Of course, meet some of your favorite homesteaders with people like Joel Salaton and... 27:17 and Josh Draper and Nathan Elliott, those guys. But then they're going to bring in, hey, here's kind of the soup to nuts on how to take advantage of this type of process if you want to, like high tunnels, utilize NRCS money to help with a high tunnel, that type of thing. So it's kind of an interesting mashup. I really haven't seen a conference that's kind of doing it this way. So I'm hoping it's going to be successful. And 27:44 at least present information that we think people will find useful. I hope so too. And I actually don't have any doubt that it will. I think it think it's going to help a lot of people. Um, so this whole homesteading farming, growing produce, raising animals, whatever. People think that it's either really hard or it's really easy to the point that the dumb people do this. And. 28:14 It's not really hard and it's not really easy. It's really what you want to do with your life and what you want to do for yourself versus what you want to pay somebody to do for you. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, I don't think that this is for everybody. I think that if you are a person who wants things to be done for you and you want to pay money instead of time and effort, that's totally fine, do that. But I really... 28:43 love it when people learn how to do things themselves because there's such satisfaction in knowing that you took the time to learn how to do the thing, you tried to do the thing, you may have failed a couple of times trying to do the thing, and when you finally get it right, it's just amazing. Yeah. And I agree with you 100%. And I think the two biggest mistakes that I have seen people do is that they don't know 29:10 do or their attitudes towards homesteading when they want to do it, but don't necessarily want to embrace it. And I've got one friend, I'll leave his name out so I won't embarrass him in case he's listening. But when he first was looking into this, he was a doctor, so medical professional. His ability to earn income off the property, of course, was much, much higher than he could ever do on property. Very specialized doctor. So he had a lot of resources. 29:41 So what he would do is he would start to bankroll these things. He would, you know, bit these big seed caches together. He'd buy all this off grid equipment and have it just, just kind of squirreled away in these places. And I remember just having a conversation with him. He's like, yeah, if it hits the fan one of these days, then I'll be able to, we've got all these seeds, I can plant a garden. I'll be able to do this and provide for my family, do this and this. I'm like, but you've never done that before. And the fallacy of saying, well, I've got all the material and. 30:10 not having the experience. I mean, you know good and well, Mary, just as well as I do, that first time planting a garden, you take a handful of seeds, you take it out and throw it in the ground, you're not going to get a bounty of produce that's going to allow you to feed your family for another year. And that was kind of the fallacy. It's like, man, you need to be experiencing this seasonally every day. You need to be out here doing this so you have the experience. So when it does hit the fan, then you've got the experience. You can't just go to your cash of stores and say, bang, here's the money. 30:39 This is all going to work out for me now. So that was a big issue. And then, and then the second problem I've run into are people that will. That will, will approach us about, Hey, um, we're having trouble making ends meet, playing the game, you know, the rat race, working the nine to five, the, the, the car, the house payment, all that type of stuff. We want to scale back and save money. Uh, so we want to embrace the homesteading lifestyle because we think that's going to be cost effective. 31:08 And I would say, well, even though your intentions may be pure, your motivation and the actual results could be different. Homesteading doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a cheaper way of living, especially if you don't have your land. And right now, post-COVID with land prices just going out of control, that's become the biggest obstacle. Somebody says, well, I want to move out of the suburbs, so I'd like a 10-acre tract. It's like, okay, are you ready to throw down? 31:35 anywhere from five to $10,000 an acre in some places. It's like, well, okay, now I've got a mortgage on that. So I got to work a job. So, and then try to buy all the equipment and the experiences of learning to homestead and raise your own food and do that type of stuff. They think, you know, the joke of, you know, when you grow your first tomato, this is the tastiest $100 tomato I've ever eaten type of thing. And they just don't see that. 32:01 Accumulatively, it's actually going to cost you more money to transition into that lifestyle. So you have to be a little bit more deliberate. It's not going to be a way to save you money immediately. It may have savings and other value added benefits in the long run. And that's the thing I always try to caution people. It's like, don't think you can make this change. Sell your house in the burbs, even if you sell it for way more money than what you're going to buy property for. 32:28 You still got to have a place to live and you still got to find a way to pay your property taxes and you still got to find a way to buy and acquire the supplies you need to have a homesteading lifestyle. Yeah, I've said a billion times in the last year doing this podcast that homesteading is not property. It's lifestyle. It's about learning skills piece by piece and then eventually moving into what you want to do with those skills. 32:58 home in the burbs and just have a little side garden and make your own stuff, that's homesteading too. So it's not about, we call our place a tiny homestead. It's 3.1 acres. We have a garden, we have chickens, we have barn cats, we have a dog, and we have a really nice home and we love our home. So for us, we call it a tiny homestead. 33:25 A lot of people would not call it tiny because it is three acres. It's not like a tenth of an acre like we used to have. Yeah. You can do a lot on three acres. Yeah. But we're not doing livestock or anything. We don't, we don't, we're not interested in doing growing animals. We're interested in growing produce. Yeah. So it's all choices and decisions about how you want to practice homesteading as a lifestyle. Yes. I agree. That's what, that's what I think anyway. Yeah. 33:54 Yeah, very eclectic options. Yeah, you can do anything. And that's the other thing that's funny is I hear from people all the time. Well, I can't do that. And I'm like, well, you probably could if you tried. Is it more that you don't want to do that? Yeah. And I'm like, well, yeah, I don't want to do that. And I'm like, okay, don't say I can't just say I'm not interested in doing that because they're two different mindsets. Right. Yeah. 34:21 Yeah, there's that initial apprehension to learn something new. And if you get over that, that's one thing I've tried to ingrain in my boys is like, you need to be learning every day. When you stop learning, it's time to start dying. And you just, you need to challenge yourself every day. And, and as you learn new things, you discover, well, I really enjoyed that. Or I didn't like that at all. I really don't want to do that again, but at least you have an educated opinion now of whether that's something worth your time and effort. Right. 34:50 And the other thing is it's a lot easier to get started on the homesteading stuff when you're younger and your body is younger, because you don't hurt half as bad when you work hard. Right, for sure. I would have loved to have started this when I was 25, but at 25, I was still married to the guy, the first husband that I am no longer married to, hadn't married the second one, and hadn't even met the third one. So... 35:19 So it's just life gives you choices and you make the choices with the information you have at the time. And so if you have the opportunity to do something you really want to do, jump on it. If it doesn't present itself and you think you really want to do something, I don't know, go make the opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Just, yeah, exactly. Take advantage of what you can take advantage of. Explore what... 35:47 what you feel is a challenge and then embrace the suck as they say, right? Yes, yes. And even if it's a great thing you're doing, there's always going to be some kind of suck that goes along with it because that's how life works. Right. All right, Troy. Thank you for coming back and talking with me. I really appreciate it. Well, I enjoyed it, Mary. It was a good conversation. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Thanks. Have a great afternoon. You too.

Today I'm talking with Brenda at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance about composting as an environmentally friendly self-reliant activity. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Brenda at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Good morning, Brenda. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. You're in Minneapolis? I'm actually in the Washington, D.C. office. Oh, okay. 00:29 All right, cool. What's it like in Washington, DC today? It's it's actually a very nice day. It's in the 70s. I don't have the AC on. I have the fans going. Very nice. It's it's overcast in Minnesota, but it's also not hot yet. So that's a good thing. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, I head up one of our. 00:56 initiatives at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. We are a national non-profit research and technical assistance organization and we were founded in 1974 so we turned 50 this year and we have championed local self-reliance, a strategy that underscores the need for humanly scaled institutions and economies and the widest possible distribution of ownership. So what does that mean? Well we work in key sectors of the economy so 01:25 We have an independent business initiative, which is fighting the outsize monopoly power of corporations like Amazon. Before that, it was Walmart, which has kind of been dwarfed by Amazon. We have a community broadband initiative, which is promoting municipally owned broadband fiber optic networks, for instance. We have an energy democracy program, which is promoting community controlled utilities and. 01:54 Looftop solar and the like, and I head up our composting for community initiative and have been working on waste issues for 38 years. I've been at ILSR for 38 years and, um, most of that time I've been fighting trash incinerators and documenting communities with the highest recycling and composting levels and in. 02:18 probably the last decade began to focus more and more on composting because composting is inherently local. We can do it in our backyards, in our communities, at schools, community gardens, urban farms. You can do it anywhere in the world. Wherever we are eating, which hopefully if we're lucky we're eating at least three meals a day and you have food scraps, so we should be doing something with those food scraps. 02:45 Even the final product that you make from compost is generally used locally. We're not shipping the food scraps from coast to coast. You know, we have, you know, markets for waste paper and steel and metals, other types of recycled commodities. Those can be global markets, but we're not shipping our banana peels from the East Coast to the West Coast. And then the finished product tends to be used within local and regional markets as well. Back into the soil. Good. Okay. 03:15 So I am gonna, I'm gonna tell you my experience with composting in a small town. We don't live there anymore, so I don't have to abide by their rules now. But back when we lived in this small town in Minnesota, in town, we were only allowed to have the compost barrels that get closed up and you turn them. We were not allowed to have any kind of open compost bin. 03:45 And I think the reasoning was that it would draw in pests. So do you hear this in cities that there's specific ways you're allowed to compost? Yeah, there are definitely archaic and two laws on the books, old laws. And there was ones like the one you described that are just far too prescriptive. So I actually did a report a few years ago called Yes in My Backyard. 04:15 for local government on home composting programs. And we had a whole chapter on how to address archaic laws and ordinances. And we actually called out the problem with the specifics like what you just mentioned is, and let me just back up and say that there are a few things that you need to keep in mind for successful composting. And they are things like you gotta balance your 04:40 nitrogen rich materials, that's your food scraps, glass, grass clippings, think of nitrogen rich materials and things that can rot easily or have a lot of moisture. And you got to balance that with carbon rich materials, that's your browns. And the right ratio, you got to pay attention to oxygen, composting is an aerobic process, it needs oxygen, and it needs moisture. And you know, you need enough mass, but to do it successfully and to keep out... 05:07 unwanted critters like rodents or raccoons or possums. It's not about whether it's enclosed or not. I mean sometimes that can help but I know lots of composters that are and even in Brooklyn, New York there's a site that has open piles but they seal the piles, they're composting correctly, there's open space around them. So composting successfully is not so much about the system 05:36 but about whether you're taking into account things like the recipe and the oxygen and the moisture. Sure, yes. So when we moved to our acreage, we were so excited to have room for actual big old compost bins that weren't regulated by the city. And we've been here almost four years, on our fourth anniversary, August 7th. And we have three huge compost bins out by our tree line. 06:05 And we have had them since we moved in, I think. And we have made the most gorgeous compost for our big garden. And we do all the things you just said, the greens, the browns, the whole bit. So it is absolutely doable. But can you tell people who live in cities how to go about it? Because again, there are, there are regulations and laws on cities about how you're allowed to do it. How do you, how do you get around that? 06:36 I guess is what I'm asking. Yeah. If you're in a city, contact your local recycling office, Department of Public Works, and ask what kind of resources they have for home composting. Increasingly, we're seeing cities and counties offer educational materials at the local level. You can also contact your local extension agent. Sometimes they 07:04 local university extension offices will have actually do training on how to compost and level up. Take a course, take an evening course. Many are offered just an hour. Increasingly with COVID, we have more opportunities to learn virtually. I do think that that can help, but there's nothing like an in-person class to learn how to compost and get your hands in there and smell the system and build a pile together. 07:32 But if your community offers a course, it's not rocket science, but you do need to know the basics. And so taking a short course can really help. As I was mentioning, some cities and counties have programs where they might give away a home composting bin for free, like the City of Orlando in Florida does that. Or they might offer, you can order online a few times a year. 08:02 bulk purchasing so you can get a bin for wholesale prices. Then they might have a day where you just go, all the bins are delivered, come pick up the one you ordered. There are cities that have those programs. If your city does not, which is perhaps sadly more common than if it did have a program, then advocate for one and contact your local city council or county council rep. 08:30 They need to hear from their constituents about the programs that you need. You need the resources, you need the bins, you need the equipment. But if you want to get started, we have some resources on our website, ilsr.org. And you can go just Google once you're on there for home composting. Actually, you could just Google ILSR home composting resources. We have a series of YouTube videos, so you can watch those there. You can watch the whole. 09:00 One hour training we do or it's broken into pieces. Like, how do I know what bin to get? Or now that I've made compost, how do I use it? We also offer that training in Spanish. So, um, and we're increasingly looking at offering more of our resources in different languages. Awesome. That's fantastic. Um, okay. So it might seem weird that I asked, asked you to be on the podcast, but 09:27 Part of the reason I asked you is because I had never heard of the Institute for a local self-reliance. And I have actually been being fed through my Facebook feed a lot of places that I didn't know about because they relate to my podcast topics. And it's frustrating to me that I don't know. I didn't know that your organization existed. There's been a couple other organizations that have been fed to me. And I was like... 09:56 Who are these people? I didn't even know they existed. Like there's an organization, I can't think of the name of it right now. And it's Water and Land Conservation is part of the name. And they've been around forever and I didn't even know about them. So how can help? I mean, I'm trying to help get you out there in the world so people know about you. 10:25 by having you on the podcast. But how can we get organizations like yours more known? Do you know? Wow. Thanks for finding us. I'm so happy to be on here. Thanks for finding us, Mary. And you know, we're not a huge nonprofit organization. We're fairly small as national. 10:47 nonprofits, we're not strictly like an environmental nonprofit like the Sierra Club or Natural Resources Defense Council, or the Nature Conservancy. And we really do have a unique mission and lens, which is fighting concentrated corporate power. So we don't really fit into one of those kind of silos, but you know, for lack of a better byline where we really do promote sustainable. 11:13 local economic development or promoting a homegrown economy. But you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. So I think our Facebook is, I mean, not people are moving away from Facebook, but more and more but facebook.com slash local self-reliance on Instagram, where instagram.com slash ilisr. 11:40 underscore org. But anyway, if you go to our website, ilsr.org, you can click on any of our social media handles. And, you know, if you go to our website, we have a lot of resources. One of our biggest campaigns right now is fighting the proliferation of dollar stores and in both rural and urban communities. And there are now more dollar stores in America. 12:08 Then there are Starbucks, McDonald's, Walmart's, and Target combined. Think about that. It's like 36,000. It's probably more than that because every day there's more. And at best a dollar store, you know, when it comes to healthy food, at best it's like frozen waffles and canned peaches. So they, um, their model is really putting out healthy local grocery stores in communities and taking over. And there's. 12:37 Most of those stores that I mentioned are owned by two companies alone. And so this is, you know, this is the kind of monopoly corporate concentrated power that is our lens to fight. And we have, if you're facing a dollar store, there's just lots of resources on our website about that. Um, Amazon, you know, it was very popular for many reasons. It's kind of like frictional, frictionalist buying, but they're outside control. 13:06 in so much parts of the economy now is really scary. I mean, you go online and you're like, I don't know, looking for pot holders or bar stools for your kitchen. They control so much of the internet infrastructure that they can now feature their store above any other independent suppliers or vendors. Not only that, but their algorithms now 13:35 show that, will tell them the data that what's popular, what people are looking for. So then they can start manufacturing that and put out other independent businesses. So the way that Amazon just needs to be broken up. I mean, it's just too much concentrated power. So most of our resources are really oriented, not necessarily towards the everyday person on our website. You know, it's, it's, um, we, 14:04 run a coalition Athena of independent business owners. So, you know, elected officials, we do a lot of policy work. And I would say our home composting resources is one of the outliers on that, that of course we're trying to reach people who, you know, like to garden, have big yards, or wanna really be able to use that black gold. Maybe you're buying soil amendments and you realize you can create your own. 14:32 So, but I think part of the issue for people not knowing who we are is partly because our audience isn't necessarily just the everyday person. Okay, that makes sense. Wouldn't it be nice if corporate America and the little guy could maybe shake hands and cut a deal and the healthy things that the little guy is trying to create or produce could be marketed by corporate America and that way corporate America is not this big 15:01 scary in it only for the dollar thing. I mean, that's very, very, very idealistic, I understand. But wouldn't it be nice? Yeah. And you know, we're not against, you know, just to be clear, we're not against businesses and corporations. I just mentioned the Athena coalition where we have thousands and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of independent businesses, part of that coalition through independent business coalitions that exist in 15:30 So we're just against concentrated monopoly power. And you know, you think about, you know, this election that's coming up too, is people are feeling disenfranchised and left out of things and that the system is rigged against them. And a lot of the reason that they're feeling that way is because of whose pockets are being lined, it's not theirs. 15:59 It's the big companies, you know, profits are at all time highs for so many companies, Amazon being not an exception to that. And so this is this is kind of the one of the big structural issues that's facing us as a country and our economy and some of the key problems that and challenges that people face on a day to day basis. Yep, absolutely. The other problem with with. 16:28 what you're talking about is when you buy something that is manufactured, it's probably going to break sooner than something that someone actually built themselves. And I'm going to give you an example. My husband built me this beautiful desk for the corner of our bedroom and our house. And I wasn't going to give that desk up and move because it's gorgeous and it's solid and it's never going to fall apart. 16:57 So we made a spot for it in the new house. That thing is made out of maple. It is never gonna break. And when we moved in here, I really wanted a coffee table and there was no time to make one. So I ordered a coffee table through Amazon. It lasted two months. If people are interested in buying long lasting things, then maybe find a local 17:28 business that isn't a corporation where they actually do build things by hand. And yes, you are going to pay more for it, but it's going to last you a lifetime and probably your grandchildren's lifetimes. Yeah. And you know, there's a, there's a growing sharing economy too. Um, I was looking for a nice dining room table set because we just needed a new one and, um, 17:57 you know, I wanted to support local artisans and it was so expensive. Like, you know, talking thousands of dollars for the table, the chair. And I'm like, Oh, I thought I got to buy something that fits in with my values. You know, not gonna, you know, and, but then I'm on my community listserv and somebody says, I have my family dining room set and I'd like to sell it and it's Oak and you know, I want it to go to good family. So. 18:22 My husband and I went over there and we ended up buying this beautiful set for like a thousand dollars. I had the seats reupholstered and I supported a local, talk about reused, reupholstery business and picked out the fabric. And it's just like so great to have this table. And the woman who sold it to me was so happy that her family set ended up with another family. My kids were young at the time. We've had it for 20 years now already. 18:52 Yeah, I mean, there's so many other ways to get durable products. And, you know, back to your compost bin and your town that was so prescriptive, oh, you need to have this, you know, enclosed system that you buy. Well, it is actually, um, if you have somebody who's handy, like, it sounds like your husband is to build your own, they actually work better. Like you can take repurposed wooden pallets. It's cheaper local resource. You can, um, if you are in an urban area and you're concerned about. 19:21 critters and rodents because you know that there's like in DC where I am, you know, and other major cities in America, there's a lot of rat problems. So you might enclose it with what's called hardware cloth, quarter inch will keep out mice too. It's like a steel mesh and you can build like three or four foot cubes and you could do like a multi bin. There's tons of designs, you know, online for these type of systems. 19:50 It's easier to compost in a multi-bin system. You can flip from one bin to the next and it'll last you longer. Whereas the tumbler that you're talking about, it's, I have tried to use those and it's really hard to get oxygen in there. So having the mesh, you know, in a wooden pallet is actually easier to do composting than an enclosed system. So then often with these tumblers, you end up with a mushy kind of mush in there. 20:17 you know, and it's harder to troubleshoot or you have to empty it. And so it's just, it's just almost easier to do composting and it do it yourself system. Yes. And the bin that we had, because we were going to do it, you know, we, we, we got a composting bin, a one that you rotate. And number one, that thing gets heavy when it's full. So it's really hard to rotate. 20:41 And number two, when you open it up, you might want to be wearing a mask because it does not work the way it's supposed to and it's super stinky. So yeah, don't, don't buy those rotating ones. If you don't have to, they don't work as well as other things that people have tried. Yeah. You know, a few things on that. The ones that rotate on the vertical access. So they're kind of taller when they're full. 21:06 they are actually harder to turn. So the ones that are on the horizontal axis are easier to turn. There's a lot of systems, the cheaper systems tend to be smaller and you do need sufficient mass to compost. I mean, they say you need like three feet by three feet by three feet in order to have enough of a pile that it can heat up. And by the way, the temperature when your pile heats up comes from the microbes consuming 21:36 the organic material you're feeding them and they're giving off energy in the form of heat as they consume the material. So that's where the heat comes from. It doesn't come from the sun. So you don't need a black bin to absorb the sun. You can compost during the winter. It can slow down a little bit more in the winter, but you can compost your round. 22:00 The heat comes from making those microbes happy. And one way you make the microbes happy is you, you don't, you have to have oxygen in there. So if you have a tumbler and. You know, in some urban areas where there are rat issues, you may want an enclosed system, but just know like you have to get air in there. You have to fluff it. You don't want it too wet. If you do have a strong odor. 22:25 that can indicate that the nose knows, as we say, people were training the nose knows. So if there is, composting does smell, there's an odor, but it shouldn't be a noxious odor that you think, oh, this is not good, then you got to troubleshoot, maybe add more leaves, more carbon, maybe it's too wet. Because when it's too wet, you fill up those spaces in your pile. 22:52 what we often call pores, and then the pile goes anaerobic, meaning lack of oxygen. And when it goes anaerobic, then you produce methane and it creates more odors. So if you're having a strong odor, that's always a sign you need to just do some quick troubleshooting, fluff it, get some oxygen in there. Maybe it's too wet, put some wood chips in there to create some pore space. But you can compost in a tumbler. 23:20 But don't get one that's too small. Sometimes they have these tumblers that are like split. So there's dual sides, which the reason they do that, it's a batch system. So while one side is composting actively and maybe you want to let it finish, because if you keep adding material, you're never going to get compost. You need to let it cure and finish and stabilize. So that allows you to start a new batch on the other side. But what happens is it makes them, 23:49 each chamber gets smaller often. And so then you don't have that adequate mass to, to be able to enable the microbes to heat up the pile. And so just keep that in mind when you're buying a tumbler, it's bigger to get a, it's better to get a bigger tumbler for more mass. And, and, um, there are some systems that are insulated that can help through the, that really, um, deep winter, which maybe in Minnesota might, what it would have been interesting if you had tried some of those. So. 24:17 You know, not all tumblers are created equal and you can actually make your own tumblers. There's lots of good design on those too, but I just think they're just a little more challenging. Yes, we, we think so too. And we, we kind of love our open bins because they're made out of pellets, because that was the easiest way to do it. And the least expensive. And, uh, last winter, my husband took the tractor out and wanted to see how hot the inside of the 24:46 compost pile was. So he took the tractor and he dug into the middle of the pile from the outside, flipped it, and it looked like smoke out there. It was so hot on the inside. So yes, composting does work in the wintertime, even at minus 20, which is good to know. Yeah. So tell me what, I know what we use compost for, but tell listeners why compost is important and how you can use it once it is compost. Yeah. 25:16 I like to call compost black gold because there are so many benefits to using it. So when we throw our food scraps in a landfill, landfills are actually anaerobic conditions without oxygen. So you're producing methane. Landfills are one of the top sources of methane, very potent greenhouse gas. So one of the top sources in our country of manmade methane emissions. And if they say a food waste was a country, it would be the fourth. 25:46 Just the food, yeah, food waste, if food waste was a country, it would be the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases. So how we handle our food scraps and wasted food has very direct connections to climate protection and climate disruption. So, but when we make compost, that black gold, it's a soil amendment. Now, compost is not soil, but it's something that you can amend your soil with. 26:15 helps sequester or store carbon in soil. So when you're adding compost to soil you're now instead of emitting methane you're now putting carbon into the soil and holding it there. Once it's in there it can improve soil structure, it improves the water holding capacity so if we're facing more drought conditions it can be the difference between your tomato plant surviving or a crop for a 26:45 because of its water holding capacity. And even during storm water conditions, because there's humic acids in compost, kind of humic acids act like a glue, like an aggregator of soil particles. So compost is organic matter and it holds soil together, which is one of the reasons why it increases water holding capacity in your soil. But it also, during storm events, it can prevent soil erosion. 27:15 that works much better when you've got plants in it too. So when plants go into the soil amended with compost, you have bigger root structure, you have bigger plants, more photosynthesis, so then you're getting those added compost benefits and you're holding the soil in place, so you're having less soil runoff and soil erosion. In addition, there has been many studies on the benefits of 27:42 compost to plants. Like a lot of people, if they're doing like fossil fuel based fertilizers, it's like, you know, it's more like steroids. You know, you're giving your plant, you know, food for a day. But if you're feeding the soil, then you're actually helping the plant survive over the long term. So studies show you're resisting plant disease when you're adding compost, you're improving growth hormones. So the ability to put us for seedlings to. 28:12 leaf growth and grow early on in their life. So there's all these nutrient benefits, plant growth benefits and carbon benefits to compost. Okay, thank you. Cause I just talked with my friend who's a master gardener on my other podcast, which is Mary and the master gardener. My friend Liz is the master gardener. We did a whole episode on compost that hasn't been released yet. And so... 28:39 Um, that one's being released probably Monday and then your yours and my episode will be released a week or so from now. So there's gonna be two compost episodes coming up. So if people want to know about compost, I have people covered. Um, so I, I'm going to say this, probably going to sound stupid. We knew all this stuff back in the day. We just didn't know the science behind it. 29:08 like in the 1800s, farmers did this stuff all the time, yes? Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, indigenous knowledge and ancestral knowledge. I mean, the Mayans were doing it thousands of years ago. I was in the lease on an island, Ambergeese Key, and the local guide said, oh, if you go down to the southern side of the island, you know, the mangrove groves are like, whatever they were, I don't remember exactly, but like 10 or 12 feet tall, because the Mayans would compost back. 29:38 that you know down there at that side of the island. So yeah, composting it, you know, has been around for a very long time. So the question for me is, how did we get so far away from all of this stuff? 29:55 Well, you know, there's probably many factors like with so many problems, but just coming back to the corporate concentration piece, I mean, in the U.S., there are just a handful of companies that control the $90 billion solid waste sector. I mean, think about that. There's like three companies that own more than 50% of the landfills. So they're a vested interest. 30:23 that want to see us continue to consume and produce waste and throw them in their landfills so they can line their pockets. Whereas the alternative, you know, is for the public good is community, cities, and counties giving out bins, training their citizens how to do this in their backyard, educating them on the connections to healthy soils, which we need to survive, and climate protection and waste reduction. 30:53 frankly, controlling cost. I mean, if you have a truck coming every week to pick up your food scraps, which is the heaviest part of what we put out at the curb every week, then your local government is saving, you know, a boatload of money. The research I did and that guide I mentioned earlier on yes in my backyard showed that for every 10,000 households composting, local government could avoid up to $250,000. 31:23 a year just in collecting and throwing away the food scraps. Because now once you set up a household for composting, for success, that's why the training and the giving away bins is so important, that household will continue to compost for as long as they have that bin. And then those savings, you know, compound for that local government over time. And so there are all these benefits and we just need to do a better job of 31:52 telling that story and providing that narrative and fighting against the vested powers that be that make money off of us continuing to throw away our stuff. Yes, I agree. And honestly, we have we have chickens. So a lot of our food scraps go to the chickens. And then whatever's left goes to the compost pile. And so I guess what I would tell people is if your city allows you to have three or four chickens, 32:22 get three or four chickens and get a composting bin or figure out a way to do it. And then you can give the chickens treats and you can have a compost pile and you'd be well on your way to some self-reliance. That's what I think. Absolutely. And there are cities like Austin, maybe Austin's the only one, but they, Austin, the city of Austin offers a $75 rebate if you on the cost of building a chicken coop using a design that they have or the brand that they use. 32:52 But cities like Austin are actually encouraging backyard chickens. And chickens can eat a lot of food scraps, as Mary can attest to. Uh-huh. And they love it. And they're very fun to watch when you throw the food scraps in the run. When we buy strawberries, which doesn't happen often because strawberries are expensive. And we grow strawberries, but the one that's season here, we give them the hulls. And 33:18 The chickens lose their minds when we take the bowl of hulls up to them. It's like watching them dance. It's so much fun. That's great. And yes. Then you, and then how many eggs do you get every week or day? Well, a chicken lays an egg a day. So we have, I think nine chickens right now. So we get, well, we got a couple freeloaders. They're older, so they're not laying. So we get about seven eggs a day. That's a lot. That's, that's great. Yep. There's, there's a lot of. 33:48 good to be found in doing things the old-fashioned way. And that's part of this nice start of the podcast because I was like, there's a lot of people out there doing things the old-fashioned way. I want to talk to them. Yeah. And you know, one thing that we promote is, you know, there's many ways to compost from backyard bins or worm bin in a classroom all the way to huge industrial sites. And food waste recovery is growing. I mean, curbside collection, but I think there's a disturbing trend. 34:17 to collect food scraps and take them to far away industrial sites. And you know, at some point we may need those. I think the jury is still out on that, but they shouldn't be privileged over local, hyper-local options. I do some work in Baltimore. I've done over many years and there's a great site. It's called Hidden Harvest Community Farm in the middle of Baltimore. And 34:44 There's such a model, I think of what you're talking about, local self-reliance, because they have, they're all volunteer cooperatives. So there's volunteers that run the farm cooperative and there's volunteers that run the chicken coop cooperative. And then there's volunteers that run the compost cooperative, but right as part of the farm, they have a part of the farm that's set aside for growing, uh, plants for, for dying cloth, for dying textiles. So Marigold, gold, indigo. 35:10 can't remember all the plants that they have there. And then right next to that in the alley there, they have a warehouse where they're drying the plants and creating the dyes and teaching workshops and how to use the dyes to dye textiles. And so I just love that it, and then in the alley too, they have a refrigerator for rescuing food. So people can come and drop off food that they don't need or want on, you know, unopened kind of stuff. 35:38 And then other people can come and take what they need. So it's the community fridge. And it's such a lovely model of community, local self-reliance, like, you know, it's in an urban area, it's a neighborhood. They're engaging the community. They're teaching classes. Um, you see people of all ages working together, coming together to build this fabric of community. And so, you know, growing food together. Um. 36:06 learning how to compost together and manage a little community site. And on Saturdays they have a drop off. So people from the neighborhood can drop off their food scraps. I think it's like 10 to 12 every Saturday. And I've been there a number of times and there's families coming in with their kids and then they come to the garden and they could get stuff at the farm. So it's just, it's just so lovely to see these things percolating and growing across the country. That is super cool. I. 36:34 I love it when communities come together to help each other out. I live in LaSore, Minnesota, and technically I don't live in LaSore County. I live in Sidley County because we're right on the border. But my mailing address is LaSore. And we have a really thriving farmers market in LaSore. And we grow a farm to market garden, so we sell at the farmers market. And there is a dollar store or a dollar general or something in town here. 37:03 And our town is like 6,000 people. And it's really interesting to me that we have this robust, thriving farmers market. It's just been growing and growing for the last three years. And people come, I mean, they walk from their homes in town to the farmers market. They don't even drive. And so they're not driving, which means they're not emitting greenhouse gases, which is good. And honestly, the dollar stores don't have. 37:33 produce really. They have stuff that's canned like you said. So our community is really stepping up and providing homegrown healthy produce for our town. And my husband and I are part of that because we grow the garden and we sell there from our stuff. And I feel like every little town that does something like my town is doing or like what you were just talking about. 38:02 It's one little tiny step, but if there's a lot of tiny steps, it becomes a week. Yeah. And you know, that's where a lot of the work we do is kind of structural work for on policies and, um, passing state laws. I mean, on the, I mentioned the community broadband work we did. Well, you know, in, um, there was, there were cities like Chattanooga that were early cities that developed their own. 38:31 municipal owned broadband and they could offer that service for cheaper prices at faster speeds to more of their citizens or residents. So it was an equity issue in terms of access. And then the big companies, telecom companies tried to pass statewide laws to prevent cities from owning their own municipal broadband networks because they didn't want to give up that market. 39:00 That's where the structural, like exercise, you know, we need to lead by example and do the things we're talking about. But it's also, I think, really important to exercise your civic muscle, your citizen muscle, and advocate for good policies. And fight, you know, they have so much money for lobbyists and to pass bad laws and prevent us from doing the things we need to be doing to promote. 39:27 you know, the sharing economy, reduce waste or save money or be more self-reliant or, you know, the homegrown economy. And so we have to really fight that power structure and we have to protect. And, you know, my, one of our co-founders, David Morris coined this term because we're a democracy, like we make the rules as a democracy and the rules make us so, you know, it's very important being engaged in the rulemaking in your community. 39:54 One thing I want to go back to that you said, what you talked about the table your husband made for you and durability, and then when you bought the coffee table from Amazon, it fell apart in two months, but durability and just moving towards more reusable products is really easy. And it can save a ton of money, not only for our local governments, but also individuals, as families. If we carry a water bottle and fill it up, we're blessed to have clean water in this country. 40:23 You're not buying bottled water, that's a ton of money. If you get old towels and you rip them up as rags and you're not buying paper towels or you use cloth napkins and you're not buying paper napkins, you're saving money, et cetera. So there's just so many ways that we can save money through reuse and I think some of the policies are catching up at the local level. There's now, I think it's, forget the... 40:52 some of the towns that have passed bills that if you're using single, you know, that single use like coffee cups, you can get a discount for usables, but you pay a fee for the single use. Same with like a lot of shopping bags. I don't know in Minnesota where there is, but it's big in Maryland, in my area, where in the county, Montgomery County, for instance, you pay a five and DC to you pay like a five cent fee for your plastic shopping bags. 41:22 everywhere you go, people are using, we use bags just to avoid that five cent fee. So it's, it's not a lot of money. It's not a big, um, incentive, but it's enough of a policy shift, setting the infrastructure that we can shift people to different behaviors. And I think that's just really important. Yes. And on that note, it takes a month to build a habit. I've been told. And. 41:48 We do shop at Sam's like once every couple of months because we need to stock up. This is how it works in my house. And we got the cooler bags for milk and butter and things. And we always remember to take the cooler bags because if we don't, then stuff gets warm and it might spoil and it's not good. Took us two months to remember to bring the cooler bags because, you know, it was new back when we started doing it. But... 42:16 Now there's always a cooler bag, at least one in every vehicle that we own so that if we do stop somewhere and get milk, the milk goes into the cooler bag. That's a reusable system. And really a lot of the stuff that we do in our daily life is habit. So it only takes a month to build a habit, whether it's bad or good. So if the listeners think that they can't change how they do things in their lives, 42:46 They can. It may take a month, but you can change to a better way of doing things. 42:54 That's right. And we're trying to, we've been doing work in the schools because there's nothing like your young kid coming home and saying, we're going to start doing it this way. So kids have a lot of agency and a lot of, um, and, uh, can get, you know, it was kids, they say has got us all to wear seat belts. They'd be like, your seatbelt's not on, you know, so, um, holding their parents accountable. Um, it can work both ways. I know, but, um, but. Yeah. Getting. 43:23 giving kids the tools that they need to improve their own world. I just find they're just fierce advocate advocates for the change we need to be making. And it's a good thing they are because if they weren't, they probably won't have a world to to be doing better things in. And I say that not to be a downer, but because I believe it's true. My son and I were talking, I don't know, last year about this time about something. 43:53 And he's a young adult. I mean, he's 22 now. And I said something about the future, like 50 years from now. And he completely deadpan looked at me and said, it doesn't matter, I'm gonna be dead by then anyway. He's 22. And I said, what do you mean? And he said,

Today I'm talking with Karina at Niemczyk Family Farms LLC. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Karina at Niemczyk Family Farms LLC. Good morning, Karina. How are you? Hi. Good morning. Doing well. Thank you. Good. I need to close an app real quick. Hang on. Okay. 00:27 Tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Yeah, so we started our business, or technically became a business in 2023. We've been living on our farm since 2020. So it's kind of been incorporating homesteading and small farm practices in our daily life. But when we decided that we wanted to kind of pursue this more as a business 00:58 potentially grow in 2023. So that was kind of the first kind of stepping stones. And, you know, the 2023 was kind of our basic growth year. And then this year has been a year that has been a little bit more, I want to say exponential, because that's a little bit aggressive, but definitely a bigger year for growth. So it's been good. 01:27 Okay, when you say we, is it you and a husband and kids? Yes, my husband and I are married. We got married in 2019 and so we partnered together and this is kind of our 50-50% business. We have two small kids, one is three and then one is one and a half. Our oldest is a boy and then our youngest is a girl. They don't really help out too much on the farm, but they are just, I don't know. 01:56 there and around and learning as we go. So soaking up all the good farm stuff. Yes. Exactly. So, okay. So you're, go ahead. Nope, go ahead. So you're a really busy lady if you have two under three years old and you're doing produce and you're doing cottage food production and you're doing meat too, right? Yep. Yep. And we, uh, we both still have full-time jobs. We haven't, um, 02:26 transitioned into being self-sufficient enough yet where one of us can potentially, you know, move into us having it as a full-time job. So that's kind of where we're, you know, wanting to grow and potentially within the next five years have one of us be able to stay home and pursue this full-time, which would be really great. But yep, so we both have full-time jobs, have the farm as our... 02:54 know, essentially side business right now and then our two, two young kids. And, um, uh, basically, you know, the, our passion or our desire to start the farm started with actually like the meat side of it and raising our own animals, um, raising our own food, um, and doing it in a way that was sustainable and regenerative in a sense of. 03:22 utilizing the land that we have, utilizing the resources and utilizing the environment and it being a regenerative type farm and using that instead of a conventional type basis. So that's kind of where everything stemmed from was producing our own food, but then also growing into doing it for others as well who wanted to purchase and also have similar beliefs as us as where their food comes from. 03:52 Yeah, absolutely. That's fantastic. So you must be working some time management magic over there in Arlington because I don't know how you're doing it. Yep, it's a long, long days, long, sometimes long nights. We also do hay. We run about 25 to 30 acres of hay. We do that in the summertime as well. So we, that's part of the... 04:21 regenerative aspect of our farm as well. Instead of necessarily feeding animals, crops such as corn and soy and things like that, which is definitely some things we utilize into the feed of our animals, but we also use hay for feeding the animals as well, but also using it to sell to other farmers who also utilize it for their cattle or you know a lot of times people use you 04:51 Yeah, so that's another piece of our farm as well. So yeah, time management is kind of just doing it as we go and trying to figure it out day by day. Sometimes it's not always like a week schedule or a month schedule. It's just kind of like flying by the seat of our pants sometimes. Well, I'm glad it works for you. I was hoping you had some advice because I know my listeners are dying for ways to schedule their lives easier or better. 05:20 I guess one thing we do utilize if nobody else, you know, I'm sure it's a very similar thing others do, but my husband and I, we have a shared Google calendar. So if you, each of you have like a spouse or a partner, use your Google calendar. And that's where we put in like, it's always, it always changes, but like we'll block out a week or we'll have a week of like, this is what we're projecting. We're doing, Hey, 05:45 or like this is where the week we're projecting like our chicken butchering, or this is when our layers are getting delivered, and this is when we're hatching these chicks, or certain things like that. So we kind of have a general outline of, okay, this is what we're blocking off for this week. And if it doesn't work out, we can change it, but then we kind of know what's coming up. So, and then we can schedule it. Okay, this kid has this appointment. This day at work, we have to stay late. So you always kind of have a running schedule of. 06:16 what's going on and then incorporating your farm in there as well. So you kind of have an idea of, you know, when you get home from work, this is what we need to be doing. Or on the weekends, this is what we need to be focusing on. So I know it's very simple. It's kind of basic, but it's, um, you know, if you're at work, if you still have a regular full-time job at a computer on your phone, very easy. Look at the app on your phone, look at your computer, remind yourself, okay, this is what we have going on. So that's one thing we do. 06:45 utilized pretty frequently. Yeah, I didn't think you were a time wizard or anything, but I just know you are extremely on the go from what you're telling me. And the other thing is you can plan all you want, but then the universe throws you a curveball. We had a bunch of big logs delivered, I don't know, three, four weeks ago for cutting up and splitting for our wood burning boiler that we need the house with. 07:15 and my husband and my son went out to work on it. And my husband stood funny and threw his back out. He was literally at the doctor's office like three days later. And he was not laid up, but he certainly wasn't in any condition to continue doing any kind of heavy lifting or heavy chores for a couple of weeks. So. 07:40 The logs are still sitting right now and we have about two months before we have to get them done. So he's much better now, but it would have been nice if that hadn't happened because it threw a wrench in the works and that's part of farming and homesteading. You never know what's going to happen. Yes, absolutely. Oh yeah. And injuries, you can't really do much about injuries. Same with weather. That's one thing that's really gotten us behind this year is weather. 08:08 cooperating for when we wanted to do things. So that's just one thing of mother nature just saying like, hey, this was your plan, but I have a bigger plan and you guys are not not in our radar at all. So it's. Yeah. And I, and I didn't say what state you're in. You're in Minnesota. You are, you are like 20 minutes from where I live. So, yep, yep. So how did your guys garden? 08:35 fair this year because ours did not fare well at all. Very terrible, very terrible. Yeah, we had a bunch of sweet corn, all of it basically drowned out. We do a bunch of potatoes, those also got rotted, all the roots rotted out. The only thing that's been doing okay is our cucumbers. I think our carrots are gonna make it, and tomatoes are doing okay because we have them in beds. But yeah, anything that we had kind of in our, in our, 09:04 big garden, Jan didn't do well. So I'm assuming that's similar to you as well. Oh, yeah, it's, it's been, wow, that's not very Minnesota. I'm actually not from Minnesota. So anytime I say something that sounds Minnesota, it startles me. And I've been here for over 30 years, but I just typically don't sound like I'm from here. We grow a farm to market garden, anyone who's been listening to the podcast for almost the last year knows that. And 09:33 Last summer we had a farm stand on our property and it was open in mid June and we had our banner out and people would just come into the farm stand and buy what they wanted and it was awesome. This year we didn't even bother to put the banner out because we don't have enough to sell in the farm stand. We did bring in a whole bunch of tomatoes last night that look really good. Like maybe three quarters of a milk crate full. 10:02 Oh, wow. Nice. And I didn't even expect to get those. So I'm very excited about this because a lot of them are not quite ripe, which means we can sell them at the farmer's market Saturday. Finally. Yay. So it's been it's been rough and disappointing. And the thing that I'm holding on to with every fiber of my being is that the last three summers that we've had the garden going since we moved in in 2020, the garden has performed. 10:30 majestically. It has been gorgeous and lush and full and vibrant and productive. And so I'm really hoping that this year is just a fluke and we can go back to the regularly scheduled programming next year. Yep, I agree. It's definitely disheartening when all your work that you put in is a failure. Yeah, and especially when you did everything you possibly could and it still fell apart. 10:59 Yep, absolutely. It's just kind of the nature of farming and you know, it's farming is the biggest gamble in the world that you can take. So that's definitely, sometimes it can be really rewarding, like you said, and other times it can be very, very disappointing. And but you know, like you said, we kind of hope that certain years that make up for the bad years and we just keep going. Yeah, because you can't quit. 11:28 We're addicted. 11:58 And then people are like, Oh yeah. I'm like, Oh yeah. Everybody's struggling this year. Okay. I know it's kind of shocking to like how many people are, you know, your customers come and they're like, you know, asking, you know, what's going on? Why is there no produce here at the markets, this and that. But then you say it's all been drawn out. Everybody's struggling because of the, all the rain. And then, like you said, they're kind of like, Oh, like it hits them. Like. 12:26 it's been super wet. It's almost like people aren't necessarily as aware of where their food is coming from, especially at markets, and how that this is local, their local environments affect their local farmers markets. So being out there at farmers markets and inspiring the community of how, where their food comes from affects the entire community. Yeah. 12:50 Absolutely. My dog is losing her mind because my son is taking off for the day to go hang out with friends. And she's very upset that she's not going with him right now. That's Maggie. That's the dog I talk about all the time on the podcast. She'll settle down in a minute once they take off. My son has been so excited about this day trip thing for months now. And he said something about, yeah, I'll be leaving at 10 o'clock this morning. And I said, what? 13:19 He said, are you dumb? I've only been talking about this for two months. I said, oh, it's the 20th. That's right. Okay. Yes. I said, when are you leaving? He said 10. And I'm like, great. Maggie's going to lose her mind. So she is losing her mind right this second. That's all right. It happens. You got to go with it. Oh, yeah. I never, I never edit out the dog because there's no point. I live on a homestead. 13:49 We have a dog, we have cats, we have chickens. There's always going to be noise. So it's fine. Um, so I saw you guys sell lamb. I have a very specific question about that. Yes. Would you, I don't even know if this is legal in Minnesota, would you sell a lamb to somebody so they could butcher it themselves or do you have to have it butchered before you sell it? Um, so typically. 14:17 At least how we do it, I know there's a lot of red tape with the USDA, so we follow the USDA guidelines. So specifically for us to sell direct to consumer, we have to have the animal butchered already and packaged with certain food label for us to be able to sell direct to consumer. As far as selling of live animals, I don't think there's necessarily any 14:46 you know, there's there isn't anything different. You know, what does it matter if I go buy my lamb from a farmer that I'm just going to finish raising out and butcher? So I guess it doesn't necessarily matter if someone wanted to buy my live animal and then butcher themselves. But that's not necessarily, you know, there's plenty of other farmers out there that do that and like raise the animal to about, you know, you know, for lamb would be like three months, that's kind of when 15:16 finish out on grass. That's what we do. But, you know, there's plenty of other farmers that do that. And that someone could potentially, you know, buy that land at an older age and then butcher it themselves. So I think there could be options out there for people to do that and just buy a land at an older age and then just butcher it themselves. However, that's not necessarily what we do. But I guess I'm not 100% sure. 15:46 of anybody that does that. We have done it once. It was years ago. I have no idea what the legalities are involved with that. It was like a friend of a friend was going to sell some lambs off and it was already dead and skinned. No head, no hooves, no tail. 16:15 and we butchered it on our kitchen table. And that worked out great because we didn't have to pay the extra money for the processing. Yep, for sure. And anyone who's ever bought a whole or a half steer beef, what do you want to call it, or a lamb or whatever, it's not only the cost of the animal that you're buying that you're going to use for food, it's the cost of the processing of the animal too. And a lot of people don't know that. 16:43 Yep, absolutely. And the processing is expensive because butchering is a talent. It is a skill. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, we definitely were not confident in butchering lambs ourselves. Um, you know, there's, you know, if we were to just eat the lamb for ourselves or like a family friend or whatever, absolutely. There's no, I wouldn't even question if someone wanted to butcher it themselves. You know, um, that's your own food, your own. 17:13 you know, whatever you're going to do with that animal. Totally. But for us, we knew that we wanted to sell it to other consumers. And we were like, we are not confident in our own betraying skills of a lamb. You know, that's just, like you said, an art, it's if you want to get nice cuts of meat, especially with those lamb chops, you want to get them looking nice, good, thick with a bone, you know, it's just you're like, yep, nope, there's no way. Yeah, and 17:42 I am not going to get too far into my opinion on lamb here because I've already talked about a billion times on the podcast episodes, but we love lamb here. And if we were going to get lamb, we would try to figure out a way to do it so that we get the animal, dispatch it on our property and butcher it ourselves because it would just be more affordable for us. Yes, for sure. And especially if you're eating it for yourself, who cares what it looks like? Yeah. And lamb is so delicious. I hate it. 18:12 I hate, hate, hate that it comes from such a cute little critter. Yeah. But it's so good. Yes, it is a very, uh, it definitely has a taste different from pork or beef, but it's, it's very mild and it does have a very savory, rich flavor, but it does, you know, especially the way, you know, it depends on how it's raised, but I feel like the way that, you know, if they have a lot of good grass and pasture in their diets mixed with, you know, the grain, it doesn't get that gamey flavor, which is. Oh, you know. 18:40 one of the better things, one of the things you worry about with lamb is if it tastes a little bit on the gamey side. Yeah, I've never had lamb that tasted gamey. Well, there you go. We've had, we've had lamb, oh my goodness, I mean, obviously the one that we butchered ourselves, we had that for the year until it was gone. And honestly, I don't think we made it to six months, but, yeah, you know, lambs are not very big when you butcher them. Yeah, but, but we've had lamb from other places that we just bought. 19:09 you know, a roast or a leg or whatever. And I've never had gaming, gamey tasting lamb in my life. So there you go. Very good. So it's, it's a great option. If you're sick of beef and chicken and pork, God knows I am sick of beef and chicken and pork. We bought a half a year or so ago and we are, we are through all the ground beef. 19:38 We have eaten all the ground beef from that half. Yep, that's a lot. Yeah, my husband picked up beef from, I think it was Sam's club over the weekend and we didn't have a plan for Sunday for dinner. And he was like, we've got burger, do you want to do hamburgers? And I'm like, no, I really don't want to do burgers, but yes, we can do burgers. I'm so over it. Like if I could eat nothing but vegetables and pasta for the next month, I would do it. Yep, just skip the protein, who needs it? 20:07 Yeah, and you can, you can get overdosed on stuff. Yes. So, that's where I'm at and he will never be overdosed on meat. He wants meat and some kind of starch for dinner every day. Yep. And I'm like, dude, really? There are other options. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, we can have variability, can't we? Yeah, please. So. 20:33 So I'm going to beg him next week, can we please do something other than a potato and a protein at least twice? And he'll probably be fine with it. But it's really hard when you're partnered up and you're very different, but your core values are the same. Yes, absolutely. Because don't get me wrong, I adore my husband. I love everything about his soul. But I don't necessarily love his obsession with... 21:01 the things that he loves to eat because I'm the cook, which means I have to make dinner, which means I have to eat what I make, which means he's going to get what he wants and I'm going to eat it. So yes, absolutely. That's not working around here. Yup. I hear a little one, I think. Yup. I have my little guy who just came in from outside with down. So hello little guy. Who's talking? 21:31 I'm talking, I'm just working on the phone. Come here. 21:38 meet myself for a minute here. Yep. 21:42 Okay, good. So cute. What a cute little voice. Who's talking mom? Who's talking? Who are you talking to? Hi. I love. Yes, we'll be starting preschool in the fall here a couple days, so that'll be good. Don't cry mom. I know. It'll be good. He's ready. Yeah. Okay, so back to the farm stuff. Yes. 22:12 Do you guys grow? What kind of hay do you grow? So for our on our property we have um four acres that are hay that we have cut in the past but now we're uh might only cut it in the future maybe once a year and then we but for uh grazing um but we seeded it ourselves with three different types of pasture grasses and then this year uh we seeded it with 22:43 to think what kind of grasses are there mixed, but there's three different types of pasture grasses that are in there. And then the other land that we have is rented through our neighbors. So there's also around like a kind of like a county ditch area, the neighbors that we have also 23:13 We also have another rental property that is 20 acres, very similar, where they had seeded some pasture grass that's been established for many years that we cut to be able to sell those small squares to other farmers. But for our pasture, we know more specifically what grasses are in there just because we seeded it ourselves. 23:41 Yeah, I've become very aware that hay is not just hay and hay and straw are different. Yeah. And the whole bit because my husband keeps wanting to get wheat or oat or rye straw to use for bedding in the garden. And he's like, I don't want hay. And I'm like, why? And he's like, because we're going to get more weeds. I'm like, aren't you going to get... 24:08 straw, aren't you going to get wheat or rye or oat weeds too?" And he was like, not as much. I'm like, okay, fine. Yep. Yep. I know. It's a whole thing of, you know, straws for bedding, hay is for eating, you know, so it's a whole thing of, you know, you want to get good quality and certain animals prefer certain types of hay. Horses can be pickier. So certain types of grasses that are in hay, they, you know, 24:36 people don't necessarily want to buy because it doesn't agree with them or they get ulcers. So that's a thing. Cows can be a little bit less picky. So it kind of, you know, most of the time alfalfa and clover is a little bit more sought after because it has a higher protein content for the cows. But yeah, it's definitely a huge learning curve in trying to figure out which people and which... 25:04 you know, customers like certain types of things for other animals that they're raising. Yeah, and until we moved here, I had no idea that straw and hay were very different things and they were used for very different things. I had no idea. So, even in my mid-50s, I'm still learning all kinds of things about how things work. Oh, yes, absolutely. It's always learning. You can always learn new things and there's always new things. 25:35 changing and farming in a culture of ways that we can be more sustainable and ways that we can utilize the land for the soil and plants for for better utilization of them Yep for sure Okay, so I have like a couple more questions and I'm gonna cut you loose because I know you're busy You sell lamb. Do you sell poultry too? Yep, so we do 26:05 chicken broilers that we raise in the summertime, primarily on pasture grass. When they're young chicks, they, you know, stay in the barn on heat until they're able to tolerate the environment and the weather outside. Once that happens, they stay 100% outside. They never go back inside and they're on pasture. They get moved every day. New pasture with new grasses on the pasture that we seeded. So they have all that different variabilities of the grasses. 26:34 alfalfa, clover, those things that they eat, plus the bugs and the grubs and the dirt and they also eat the dirt. And then they are out there until we butcher them. They do get some supplemental corn feed that kind of just helps put on a little bit more muscle mass to their, I don't know if we marked that content too, which is sometimes nice for those skin on cuts that you like or a whole chicken. 27:00 And then we also do turkey. So turkeys will be ready, usually butchering in September, early October to be ready for Thanksgiving. And that's primarily the two poultry animals that we do. And then we do lamb. And then hopefully within the next upcoming weeks here, we'll get our first cow. We're getting a first year bred huckler who will come to the farm already pregnant. 27:28 either by AI or a bull that's on the farm that we're getting it from. And then we'll be getting two steers as well that we'll be able to finish growing out on the pasture for butcher. I was wondering if you were going to head toward cows and steers and you are. I'm very excited for you. Yeah. Okay. And then my other question is you're a cottage food producer. Yes. Because I saw the pictures of your treats. Oh my God. Yup. I do. 27:55 I want to come to your house and live in your kitchen for a day. Absolutely. Yeah. So you make? So primarily sourdough is what I do. Um, mostly different kinds. I just kind of experiment with a whole bunch of different types of sourdough. Um, and some, I do some can, not a bunch of canning kind of just what I get from the garden to kind of produce for the family throughout the, uh, 28:20 throughout the winter and if I have any extras for, you know, jams, jellies, things like that, I will bring to our farmers markets. Sourdough, I obviously bring us the farmers markets as well, but also that's kind of what we use to, you know, feed my family is I make the sourdough bread. And that's just, you know, one of the things that I like to do to be more sustainable in our own kitchen, you know, get out some extra preservatives in our diet as much as possible. 28:50 and lowering food costs when going to the grocery store. So, yeah. I do not know how you do it, Karina. I would be like crazy trying to do everything that you're doing with little ones underfoot and a job job, a jobby job. Yep, I mean, granted in the summertime, I worked with a school system, so I can have some recess, which is super nice. 29:15 So I only have to go into my job a few times during the summer occasionally, but I have summers off which makes it really nice so we can focus on going to farmers markets, being consistent at farmers markets, bringing our products, having consistent baking type of thing. Just kind of, so I mean, that's one thing that is nice about the summertime is having that option for our farm and everything. 29:44 especially with taking care of the animals and everything because we obviously have a lot more animals in the sire time throughout the winter. That's one most benefit. Yeah, and if you don't mind me assuming something, I'm assuming you're not like 40. I'm assuming you're probably in your mid to late 20s. Yes, I'm 28. I'll be 29 pretty soon. My husband's also 29. 30:11 So you have the energy of your 20s kicking you too. You're like, I can do it. I'll sleep when I'm dead. It's okay. Yep. Pretty much. It's kind of like, and you know, it's fine. We're just going to do all these things all at one time. And then eventually once we work the kinks out, it'll be fine. But yeah, we just, uh, uh, have the mentality. I mean, both my husband and I have very strong work ethics. We're very, uh, you know, 30:38 very, if we're sitting still, something's wrong. Like there is no sitting on the couch. There's no watching TV and, you know, chilling. If we're sitting down, it's like, okay, something needs to be done or we need to do something. So that's just kind of how we both have been for forever. And it was just kind of, you know, happen sense that we both met each other. And that's probably why we, you know, hit it off so well. And, you know, have the business that we have enough. 31:07 mentality and the momentum that we have is, you know, just having that dedication, that passion of, you know, strong work ethic and just wanting to better ourselves as well. So, yeah. Yeah, we have a good work ethic, but we do not have the energy we had when we were in our 20s. I know, it changes for sure. It does. It really does. I miss those 20s days. I really do. I miss my 30s too, actually. Yep. 31:35 I don't know, you know, 30s I hear are good years, so I'm looking forward to that too. 30s were the best years of my life. I will die on that hill. 30s and up to about 45. Yep, I've heard the same thing. I've heard the same thing. So I'm happy to hear that, that it's, you know, good years are ahead. Yeah, and I don't want to discount my 45 to 55 stretch here either. I mean, these have been good years too, but in a different way. 32:06 All different, but all good seasons and phases of your life. As long as you're breathing and you can walk, life is good. Yep, absolutely. All right, Karina, you keep on keeping on. Give those babies kisses for me. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. If any questions come up, please let me know. 32:35 again we're Niemczyk Family Farms LLC. We are located in Arlington Minnesota. We do have a website so you know feel free to look and you know there are ways that you can contact us through our website too. So let us know. And I will put the website address in the show notes okay. Fantastic thank you I appreciate it. Absolutely have a great rest of your day Karina thank you. Thank you. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Sara at Fameflower Farm. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Sara at Fameflower Farm. How are you, Sarah? I'm doing good. Thanks. How about you? I'm good. You're in Tennessee? Yes, middle Tennessee, not too far from Nashville. Oh, nice. 00:26 All right, well, tell me about yourself and what you do at Fameflower Farm. Okay, so we are a mini farm and we've been at this little homestead mini farm thing for about a decade now. And we, my husband and I moved here from the Chicagoland area with the ultimate goal of growing and raising as much of our own food as possible. We moved from a condo with zero land whatsoever. So it was a huge shift to almost 17 acres in Middle Tennessee. 00:56 And you know, we thought it'd be easy-ish to figure it all out. And we're learning as we go that there's just so many things and everything has a big learning curve, but we love the lifestyle, the homesteading lifestyle and are really happy we have moved here and are doing all the things. We've got a bunch of different animals, huge garden and permaculture food forest and probably other things I'm forgetting. 01:23 Oh, that's such a good question. Naming our farm was such a challenge. So our last name is Chodal, but it's spelled with a C-H, super hard to pronounce. So we figured that's out. We're not gonna use that name. And a lot of people name their homes that are farms based on their names. So since that was out, we had to go with something else. And we were looking for a bunch of different names and we discovered we are on limestone and we're in an area of the country that has some endangered plant species. We happen to have limestone glades on our property that grow maybe 01:51 up to 10 different types of endangered plant species. The fameflower is one of those. And it sounded kind of cool, fameflower farm, three Fs, so we went with her. So what is a fameflower? It's a tiny little, it almost looks like a succulent with its leaves and it has a very beautiful, bright, almost fuchsia color of flower that only blooms in the afternoons in the summer. 02:16 And it's an endangered plant species, so it's not found everywhere. It's challenging to find. And since we have it on our property, you know, that's pretty cool. Very nice. I'm always excited to hear about flowers that I don't know about yet. It makes me grin. Okay. So I really, I really want to talk about the dogs. And I mentioned this beforehand before we started recording. 02:41 We have a mini Australian shepherd named Maggie that I talk about ad nauseam on the podcast. I try hard not to talk about her. So that's what we have. We have a dog. Her job is to be a watchdog. That is her only job. She does it really well to the point of doing it too well. So you raise Pyrenees poodle crosses. And they're gorgeous. 03:08 But I need to know more about why that's a good mix. Okay, so we had a... Do you want me to tell you how I got into this whole dog thing to begin with? Yes, please. Okay, so we, both my husband and I have had dogs our whole lives. And we had, when we moved here, we had an Aussie poo, so Australian Shepherd poodle mix. He is an F2B, which means he's got a lot of poodle in him, essentially. 03:37 And then we also had a skipper keep poodle mix. So we already loved poodle mixes. Those two dogs are just house dogs, cute, friendly, whatever. Nothing that they're gonna have work to do. And then we had a big chicken loss with a predator. So we got a great Pyrenees to guard our flock. As our great Pyrenees grows, she's just a beautiful, wonderful, amazing dog. And my mom, who had previously bred dogs like 30 years ago, kept saying Bishop, that's her name, is beautiful. You should breed her. 04:06 And I told her I wasn't really sure that that was something I wanted to do because, you know, there's lots of dogs that need rescued and I don't know if I want to become a dog breeder. And then my mother-in-law also said she really wanted a dog and would love to have a dog if Bishop had babies. And they both had met our poodle mixes and everyone that we know likes the poodle mixes. I know poodle mixes are not for everybody, but they are for us. So we decided to do a litter with Bishop and a standard poodle. 04:34 my mom's water aerobics instructor happened to have a health-tested standard poodle available to be the dad. So it just all kind of came together perfectly and he was a very beautiful, calm-ish for a poodle, standard poodle. So it was all wonderful, had the first litter, and my mother-in-law ended up getting one of those puppies once she worked through some health issues because that kind of delayed getting her puppy, but then everybody else got puppies and they all loved them. And one of the reasons I think they love the puppy so much is because 05:04 When we first bred the dog, I posted about it on Instagram, and somebody commented and said, have you looked into puppy culture? That's a training program that you can do as a breeder. And I had never heard of it, have had dogs my whole life. I had no idea the breeder could actually start doing things with the puppy to make them a more calm, confident, wonderful family dog as they grew. So we looked into the program, got it, and started implementing it right away. 05:32 You can start on day three of the puppy's life doing certain things with them. And it just makes the most amazing puppies. So after that first litter, we had so much positive feedback, we decided to continue to breed the periodoodle puppies. So ours are an F1 generation, meaning that the mom is a full great Pyrenees and the dad is a full standard poodle. So first generation F1 are periodoodles. There are other options available out there, of course, that have more poodle in them for less shedding. 06:01 but we really like the F1s because they still maintain some of those great Pyrenees traits. And they're just so sweet, loving. They aren't necessarily the best guardian dogs like a full great Pyrenees would be, but they are such amazing family dogs. And as we kept one of the puppies from the first litter, she's now almost three and she exhibits some natural guarding of our kids. 06:27 So she'll put herself between other people if she's concerned about the other people and our kids. It's really amazing to watch. Okay, so here's what I know about poodles. Zero. I know nothing about poodles. I have seen them. I don't think I've ever pet one. I don't think I've ever met a poodle. Okay. I have met Pyrenees dogs, many, and they are lovely animals. 06:53 The only issue that I have heard about with Pyrenees is that they like to wander. And there's one that lives about eight miles down the road from us. His name is Yukon. And he came to visit us the first summer after we moved in four years ago. And my dog, I just let her outside and she's on a lead all the time because we have a big busy road outside and she yipped. 07:20 And she was looking towards the side of the house and I couldn't see her on the corner, but she could. And I was like, what is over there? So I step around and there's this big great Pyrenees dog. And I was like, hi buddy, what are you doing? And he just trotted over and introduced himself wagging his tail. I was like, okay, at least you're friendly. And then he had to go check out Maggie. And Maggie is a mini Australian shepherd. She weighed maybe 25 pounds at the time. So 07:49 You can imagine this little black tri, mini Australian shepherd and this probably 90 pound great parent, his dog introducing themselves. I was like, please don't kill each other. And come to find out the owners had tried many, many things to make Yukon stay home and none of them worked except that we haven't seen him this summer. So either their solution is working, keeping him on his property. 08:18 or he's no longer with us and we don't know which. So, Pyrenees like to wander. We have friends that own a couple and they wander as well. Yes. So tell me about poodles. What are the traits for poodles? So the poodle is known for being very intelligent. If you look at the dog intelligent charts, you'll oftentimes see poodle at the very top. I normally see them as the second most intelligent dog, which is awesome for training. 08:48 They also, if you look at their history, they are known for doing just about everything a dog has ever done to help humans, such as even retrieving and guarding and doing service dog duties. The list just goes on and on and on of things that they have been able to do for humans, depending on what you look at, since there's just so much information out there about everything. The other thing they can be known for is being a little high strung and maybe a little bit 09:15 neurotic at times, some of the standard poodles or poodles in general. They also are known for not shedding, of course. So that's, I think, where the breeding of poodles with other dogs has come to become more popular because people want a specific dog breed, but then they don't want the shedding. So they mix the poodle and that breed and then they get less shedding. So that's nice. 09:45 experienced the fact that great Pyrenees dogs tend to be pretty calm, pretty laid back. Yes. And so does that kind of mitigate the neuroticness of the poodle? I think yes. And we also, when we're breeding, we're looking for a dad dog that is on the calmer end of the poodle spectrum. So breeding for temperament, I think, is really important because you want to get those traits passed along. And then also with the puppy culture stuff that we do when they're young. 10:15 We play the puppies classical music, and that's been shown in studies to calm them, not only as puppies, but through their lifetime. So we're doing things to help reduce any type of neurotic tendencies that any puppy might have. So we're already working with them from a very young age to help get them to be pretty chill. And we have had feedback from the majority of our puppy owners now saying, this is the calmest dog I've ever had. 10:42 is this really a puppy? She seems so old, she's an old soul, that type of thing, because they are calmer with all the training and then also that great Pyrenees jeans. So you're really helping out the new owners before they even get their puppy, because you're training them from three days old. That is the goal, yes. So what really sold me on the puppy culture thing was when I looked at pictures and I saw a picture of 11:09 I think it was five week old puppies and they were all sitting still staring at the person. And I thought, yes, that is what I want. It's amazing. And there's a ton of other stuff that goes into it. But to get them to do that is really not that difficult. As long as you are consistent and you work with the dogs when they're little, they can obey and just be much more calm than a regular puppy that doesn't have that type of upbringing. 11:39 It's just we don't give them treats or attention unless they are sitting. And they learn it so fast when they're little. It's kind of like kids, you know, they learn stuff really, really fast. Puppies learn really, really fast too. You don't have to tell them multiple times. Just do it a few times and then all of a sudden they have figured it out and they are sitting whenever they see you because they know that you're gonna give them attention or the food or whatever it is quicker if they sit. Yep. I'm gonna talk for a minute or two about what we did with Maggie because we had never had any... 12:08 We'd never had a puppy. In the 20 something years, my husband and I have been together. We didn't have room for a dog. We didn't have a yard for a dog. We did not have a dog. And friends of ours had the mom and dad, Minnie Australian Shepherd, and she, the female got pregnant and they, this was the first ever litter from the female that they'd experienced. 12:38 our friends, you know, they post on their Facebook page and I was, I messaged Jean and I said, I would, we would love to have one of those puppies. We're moving to a 3.1 acre property here soon. And that seems like more enough room for a mini Australian shepherd. And I think when I messaged her, she thought that I was just like, Oh, it would be nice to have one. So it got down to where the puppies were. 13:04 were starting to find homes and she posted and she said, we have two left if you want one, message me. And it was just a general post on Facebook. And I messaged her immediately and I said, I wasn't joking, how much are they? And she told me and I was like, cool, I want one. And she sent me a picture, two black tri puppies looked almost identical, both female. And she said, which one do you want? 13:29 And I said, I have no idea they look exactly like. And she said, just pick one. I said, the one on the right in the picture. And she was like, do you have a name in mind? And I said, Maggie. And she said, okay, we will be calling her Maggie from now on, so she learns her name. Yeah. So Maggie knew her name long before we picked her up. 13:48 So, Diesel and Daisy, Maggie's parents, the dog parents, they were outdoor dogs. They are farm dogs, they are working dogs. So the puppies spent a ton of time outside. So, Maggie was practically potty trained before we even got her. That helped too. Now, this dog had seven kids who were around all the time because Jean and her husband have seven kids. And so, 14:17 Maggie was terribly socialized to children and to her litter mates, but she wasn't terribly socialized to being confined and she wasn't socialized to other people. So when we brought her home, we were trying to crate train her. We lasted six nights and we got no sleep. That dog cried and screeched and barked all night long for six nights in a row and we gave up and brought her to bed with us, which was a mistake. It's fine. She's small. 14:47 Yeah. So, um, within a week of her coming home, I was trying to teach her sit, because I didn't know how to train a dog. I'd never had a puppy. And we had some little treats that she really liked. And, and I, I basically put the treat in my fingertips and held it above her head and said, sit, and as soon as she sat down, cause she lifted her head up, I would give her the treat took five minutes. This dog has known sit and lay down since. 15:16 And she thinks that sit means sit and lay down all in one motion. So if you say sit, she's going to sit down and then she lays down, which is very, very cute. She's, she's been terribly trainable. And once she hit about three, she's four now. Once she hit about three, she did it. She decided that her crate is her favorite place in the world. Go fit. So if she's going to lay down and take a nap, she goes in the crate. 15:45 And she's also old enough now to have the run of the house at night. So she doesn't need to go in her crate and have the door shut. So she trained herself for the crate three years later. Go fig. But the one thing that I can say about having a puppy and never having had a puppy before is the things that we tried to do was number one, always talk to her in an upbeat, gentle voice from the very beginning. 16:14 Never yell at her if we could avoid it. I mean, if she was in danger, of course we were gonna yell, but that didn't happen. So she's never really been yelled at in panic or anger. And never ever hit a dog, ever. I agree, yep. Because it teaches them fear and it breaks their spirit. You should not hit a dog. The old thing about taking a rolled up newspaper and swatting a dog, don't do that. It doesn't help. So. 16:44 Those are my hints on raising a puppy since I'm very new at it. What are your hints? I mean, you're doing the puppy thing that you were talking about, but what have you learned? Yeah, I totally agree with not hitting a dog and the puppy culture program talks about that a lot as well. They actually have another program for people when they first bring a dog home. So there's one for breeding breeders and then there's also one for when the dog first comes or the puppy first comes home with you. 17:13 I think that's extremely useful as well. I think all their information is amazing. So getting that and then preparing for the puppy before it enters your home is always really helpful to have all the things on hand. It doesn't need a ton of things, but a crate is very helpful, I think. I know it didn't work out so well for Maggie, but for the most part, you know, crate training works very, very well. That's one of the things that we do as breeders with the Puppy Culture Program is we introduce the crate to every puppy. 17:40 multiple times before they go home. They actually have a crate in their area just so they can go in and out of it. We put treats in there. We'll put part of their food in there sometimes. We'll have them have meals in there just so they're used to that confined space because our dogs, our puppies are also born outside but they come inside every day, many times a day once they're old enough and they can see in here because before they can see in here it's not really useful. And they're with mama a lot then. But since our mama dog is an outside dog, she never comes inside. So they don't come inside until they are 18:10 able to see and hear, which is around three weeks old. Yeah, Maggie was born inside. She was in the house. But as soon as she could see and hear and was walking well, the puppies would go out with mom and dad. So I'm not at all upset that Maggie was an outside dog for a while when she was still with the mom and dad dog. That's totally cool. Yeah. Go ahead. You were saying. Oh yeah. 18:41 Yeah, so we just try to get all them used to as many things as possible before they go home with their owner, their human parents. And we also bring people over once the puppies are old enough to see and hear and they're able to be socialized and mama dog's okay with it. Because the puppy culture program talks about how dogs do not generalize. So even if they see a person and they're used to a person, they're not necessarily going to... 19:08 correlate that with another person. So they need to see as many different size, shape, color, hairdos, hats, shoes, clothing, all the different things so they get used to all of those things because they're not going to generalize from one thing to the next. So we specifically have people come over to show them different types of people and different clothing styles and different hats and different... I have my kids put on costumes, so they get used to costumes and different noises. So we're trying to get them used to all that stuff. 19:38 And then when the parents do first bring their puppy home, if there's anything that they do that's specific to their lifestyle that they want their dog to be very used to, let's say they have a boat or an RV, or they go to a gym every day and they do gymnastics or taekwondo or whatever, and they want the dog to come with them, I always recommend taking the puppy with them to as many of those things as possible before they hit 12 weeks, because they say that 12 weeks is the... 20:07 critical socialization period. And after 12 weeks, they can definitely learn new things. It just will take longer. So it takes one positive or negative thing to happen to the puppy before 12 weeks, and it should be imprinted in their brain for the rest of their life. And you can obviously help them if something negative does happen, but if it's a positive experience, then it's way easier to say, okay, this is our boat, and we go on the boat all the time, and you like the boat, and it's great, and you saw it before you were 12 weeks old, and now you're not scared of it, that type of thing. 20:36 Wow, I didn't know it was before 12 weeks. That's good to know. The other thing that we learned when we brought Maggie home is that puppies grieve. They grieve losing their litter mates. She was so sad that first three days. I mean, she was okay, but she was just very down. And I was like, did we buy a dud puppy? She's not very bouncy. 21:05 And then after about a week, she livened up. She was eating fine. That's the other thing is that they're weird about eating if they're grieving. Oh. So we had to basically feed her food out of our fingers for the first three or four days because she was just so sad. Oh my goodness. It was terrible, yeah. And I think she missed her human kids too. Mm, interesting. Yeah, when we took her back over, 21:35 to visit. And I asked before we did it, I was like, Jean, do you think that Maggie would recognize Daisy and Diesel if we brought her back over? And she was like, I have no idea, but you're welcome to bring her over. I'd love to see her. So we took Maggie over to see them. And the mama dog, Daisy, she was very interested in Maggie, but I'm not sure that she realized that Maggie was her kid. But the most interesting thing of all is that 22:04 My friend Jean would give each of the kids a puppy to basically kind of take care of while they were little. Yeah. Kids would have some responsibility for that particular puppy. And come to find out Maggie's puppy name was Lulu. And one of Jean's teenage sons was in charge of Lulu, who eventually became our dog Maggie. And he was standing off the side watching Maggie and I said, 22:32 I said, do you want her to come to you? And he was like, yeah. And he scooched down. And I said, Maggie, it's okay. And she looked at me like, I don't know him. And he said, it's okay, Lulu, come here. And her ears perked up, her face changed, and she ran over to him and gave him the biggest dog hug I've ever seen in my life. Jean and I cried, no joke. No joke, just lost it. 23:02 I was like, can I hug you? She's like, yeah, I need a hug. I'm like, okay. And Maggie immediately, as soon as she heard that first name and his tone of voice, she knew who he was. So it's amazing to me what they remember, but what they don't remember as well. Yes, for sure. We have had a number of puppies come back and either we puppy set them or just came to visit and mama dog doesn't. 23:29 really seem to care. Some of them she actually doesn't seem to like that much and would prefer them to not be near her. But most of them she's like, oh it's another dog, you know, we can play and it's fine. Others she's like, well you're fine but I'm not really caring too much that you're here. She doesn't seem to recognize them at all. But they all seem to recognize me. I spend the most time with the puppies. So they definitely seem to remember me to some extent and it's really cool to see. Yeah, it's, I wonder... 23:58 I really wonder if maybe the reason the mama dogs don't recognize their offspring later is because the last time they saw them, they were little, they still looked like puppies, they still smelled like where they live and they still smelled like mom. And then if you bring them back six months later, they're dogs, they don't smell like mom anymore, they don't smell like where mom lives anymore. So maybe that's part of it? Oh, I definitely think it could be. 24:26 And our mama dog, she's an amazing mother, but after a while, you know, she's like, it's been six weeks of this whole nursing thing and I'm really ready for a break. Especially when there's, we've had, she had a litter of 11 for her first litter. She was done with them. She was ready to go back to work and be the guardian dog and be done being mom. It was too much. She was done. There was lots of them jumping on her all the time whenever she saw them. Oh yeah, absolutely. 24:54 Daisy, Maggie's mom, she wants to be back outside running when the hups are about, from what Jean told me, from about four to six weeks old. And she won't leave those puppies that first week. She is right in the welping kennel or whatever it's called. And she'll go out to pee and number two. But that's about it. And the day that we picked up Maggie. 25:24 Maggie was a day shy of eight weeks old. She was one of the last puppies to leave. And, uh, Jean told me that day that that was the first day that Daisy had really been out and running around with Diesel. Oh, wow. The daddy dog and really just letting the puppies be while she, she went and ran and checked out the farm and, you know, got reacclimated to it. So she was a really good mom. That first litter, that was the first litter she'd ever had. 25:54 So yeah, I'm so glad that you were cool with talking about dogs today, because I've been wanting to talk about this in depth for a while, and I tried to reach out to a couple people who breed Australian Shepherds, but I haven't gotten any response back, because I wanted to know more about that particular breed. But I think that dogs in general, if you treat them well, if you aren't mean to them, if you don't teach them, train them, 26:23 to be mean, to be attack dogs, you can have a wonderful animal and it doesn't matter what the breed is. That's my take on it. I tend to agree with that, especially if they have a good start to life because they can get real scared real fast if something bad happens when they're little. So yeah, just treat them well and positive reinforcement. The puppy culture thing, when I was going through it and every time I reacclimate before we have a litter and it just reminds me of a toddler. 26:49 I just think of these little puppies as toddlers. You set them up for success. You give them a yes space. You give them things that they can have. And they just do great. I feel like they become little people in puppy suits. Maggie has all these expressions and yips and barks and whines and whistles that she does to tell me what she needs. And as long as I'm paying attention, she does great. 27:17 It's when I drop the ball and I'm not listening to what she's telling me that things happen. Yeah, I would agree with that too. A lot of the things that the dogs do that you may not like are generally because there wasn't enough attention being paid. It's a lot, so I understand that happens sometimes, but if you can pay attention to them, especially with potty training and stuff, you see their cues, take them outside, less accidents. Uh-huh, yes, absolutely. And that actually leads me to my next thing. 27:48 If somebody's gonna get a puppy, and I am not a dog trainer, I'm just going from the experience we've had with the one dog that we got when she was a day shy of eight weeks old. You can't just get a puppy, put them in a crate for eight hours a day, take them out, and let them be out with you for a couple hours and expect to be able to put them back in the crate all night because you're going to ruin that dog. Yeah, they need a lot more. 28:16 A lot more than that. They need time. They need attention. They need training. They need love. You can't just put them in a box. That's not how that works. No, definitely not. We actually send a potty training and crate training document to puppy parents before they bring their dog home to give them some ideas of how to potty train and how often to be taking them out and things like that. A little sample schedule just to get some thoughts started and kind of get some ideas going. 28:46 Yeah, I was told that the pups can hold it as it were for an hour for every month they are old and that is not necessarily true for a four week old puppy. A four week old puppy is going to pee when it needs to pee, end of story, it doesn't matter where it is. But basically when you bring them home at hopefully eight to ten weeks old, they're good for about an hour. And then as they get older, once they're a year old. 29:16 They can probably hold it for eight hours and asking them to hold it for more than eight hours is a little much. I think eight hours is a good amount for an older dog and any dog really. As they get older, some of them can hold it for so long. We have had puppies go home and they're sleeping through the night in a week or two. These are a bigger dog though, so they've got a bigger bladder. When they go home, maybe they're, oh gosh, is it 10 pounds? 29:45 good size and they grow to be between 70 to 100 pounds. So they're a larger dog with a larger bladder so they can hold it for longer. But yeah, ours will, our puppies, we've heard reports back that they slept through the night starting quite soon. And I'm always very happy to hear that because I want them to have a really successful integration into their new family. That must be so nice. Maggie was five pounds when we brought her home and she's 35 pounds now. 30:08 And I'm telling you, we would have been totally cool with creating her at night from the beginning, but she was not totally cool with that at all. Oh yeah, I get it. So, yeah. So, I love that you're, this is gonna sound crazy. I love that you are doing this, but I also love that it looks like you only let her have one litter a year. Yes, we just do one litter per year. So she... 30:37 She had a litter and then we gave her a break. There's a heat cycle about every six to seven months. So she'll have another heat cycle after that litter. And then the following heat cycle is when she got bred again. And so she's had three litters so far. She will be having her fourth and final litter next year. So we don't want her to be too old, you know, when she has more litters. So she'll be done after next year. And we're hopefully gonna have another mama dog step in after that. So you are very, very purposeful and directed 31:07 this. This isn't about making lots of money. This is you're doing this because you love it. Yeah, we love it and we want to be able to provide good family dogs for people, especially now that we have young kids. I appreciate the fact that I feel comfortable with these dogs going to a home with children. And I think rescuing is an awesome thing, but I also have many friends who have been attacked by their rescue dogs. And if that were to be a child that got attacked, that is just too much of a worry in my mind. 31:35 I know some people are really great at training and that works well for them, but I want to be able to provide that for people to have access to a great family dog for them and their family. Yeah. And I feel like if you're going to rescue a dog, I think that's a noble thing to do. But I also think that you need to know about dogs. You need to understand dog's cues. You need to understand how to work with them and work them through issues. And we were not those people. 32:03 When we talked about getting a dog for our place, we really wanted to get a puppy because that way if there were issues, we caused the issues. We knew where it came from and we would figure out how to fix it. I did not want to go get a three-year-old dog from the Humane Society that I didn't know, that didn't know me, and they had no background on it because we were not educated enough about that to help. 32:33 that dog. Yeah, I understand that. Yep. So, um, the one of the last things I will share about Maggie, because I'm allowed to talk about Maggie today, is that she's she's gorgeous. She is she is perfect. She is the epitome of a black tri Australian shepherd, except that she's a mini. She looks exactly like a normal Australian shepherd. She's just small. 33:03 It doesn't look like they took an Australian shepherd and bred her with a chihuahua. That's not how that worked. And I would have loved to let Maggie have babies. The reason we didn't do that is because I don't want to be in the dog breeding business. And what would have happened is we would have let her have puppies and I would have wanted to do it every year like you do, because I love puppies. The problem with breeding puppies is that you have to find homes for them. 33:32 And you have to let them go to those homes. And I would have just cried every single time. It's funny, people ask me that all the time. How do you let them go? And I always say, I don't have enough hands. You know, you're gonna have nine puppies left. I can't pet all of them at once. There's too many. They need to go somewhere else where there's enough hands to love them. Yep, I still would have sobbed every time though. Yeah. And I am so in love with this dog. 33:59 that if anything had happened to her having puppies, I would have shot myself. You know, I just, I wouldn't have ever been able to forgive myself. So she was spayed at six months. Okay. And she will never have puppies. So she will basically always be my puppy until she's no longer with us. And I don't know if we're ever gonna get one again. Not that kind, not that breed. She's a very laid back. 34:28 many Australian shepherds. She's very calm when she's in the house. However, we got her during COVID. We could not socialize her because we weren't going anywhere. So the dog wasn't going anywhere. And every time new people come, she barks her head off. She eventually decides they're okay and they're her friend, but it takes her a little bit. So I'm hoping that with the next puppy, maybe a lab, maybe. We'll see. Not a Pyrenees though. They're too big. 34:58 But they're very big, yeah, and they do love to be outside. I know they can't be house dogs, but man, do they love to be outside. They're beautiful. I mean, if I was 24 and still had the energy that I had when I was 24 and we had 3.1 acres, I might consider a Pyrenees. But I'm 54 and I don't have the energy to run and play with a Pyrenees and I would want to run and play with it. Yeah. 35:26 not happening in my lifetime. However, I do love them. They are beautiful. And when my friends, when we go to our friend's house, I'm always petting the male. The female is kind of skittish, but the male is really friendly. And he's so funny. He chuffs. You know, he does that, that kind of, it's like a snort except it's just in your mouth. He chuffs to say hi. And I'm like, I'm chuffed to see you too. 35:53 So anyway, I don't know, I wanted to talk about, Maggie, I wanted to hear about your dogs and why you're doing it, and I know it's because you love doing it. And I wanted to talk about that you really have to do certain things when they're puppies if you want a good dog on the other side. So I think we covered that today. Definitely. And I appreciate you indulging me. I have been desperately wanting to talk about puppies with someone who knows what they're talking about too. 36:22 Yeah, we love the puppies so much. It's so fun to have them and see them grow and learn and get it. Just so cute when you see it clicking in their heads. Oh man, cutest little things ever. And their little floppy puppy ears and head when you pet them. So, so cute. Oh yeah, do the Pyrenees do the head cock, the turning their head to the side when they're listening? Um, I would say sometimes, yeah. Not as much as our Skipperkey Poodle mix. He was... 36:49 the king of head cocking. He was constantly looking at you trying to figure out what you were saying. He had those big ears sticking up that were kind of twisting like satellites or something. So they don't quite fit. The two big Pyrenees traits that I think are so cute in most situations, they hug, which is not cute when they're dirty, but they will literally stand there and hook you. And a lot of the periododal dogs that we have that have grown up, they also will do the hugging with them. They put their arms around you and hook you. And then they also smile. 37:19 When they see you, they will give you the big smile. It's adorable. Yeah. Maggie smiles. And at first I thought it, at first I thought it was just bearing her teeth. And then I saw, and then I saw her bear her teeth and I was like, Oh, that's different, they're different things. Yep. It's so cute when they smile at you. And then when they're bad, they give you that smile like oopsies. I did something bad. Yeah. Maggie has the, the rosebud ears. So her ears don't stand up. They're, they're down. 37:49 Okay. And when she thinks she's done something she's not supposed to do, she lays them back flat, you know, like toward her neck. Yeah. And she hasn't actually done anything wrong. She just thinks maybe she has. And I'm like, no, honey, it's okay. And she looks at me and she gives me the actual smile and she brings them back forward. And I'm like, okay, we're good. It's so weird. They... 38:16 there are certain tones of voice that Maggie hears and she thinks that she's maybe stepped in it, you know? Oh, I see, yeah. And I'm like, nobody is upset with you. I don't know why you're doing that. The period that we kept, her name is Ziva, she will give us that smile in her head down when she's jumped up on the counter and grabbed something out of the compost bin when we were gone. So when I come in and she's doing that, I'm thinking to myself, is that compost on the floor again? 38:45 And normally it is because she has jumped up there and I left it in the wrong spot. So yeah. Yeah. And that's probably a good way to end this. If you're going to have a puppy that you're going to grow into a full-grown dog as your pet, you have to make sure that you're setting them up for success. Oh yeah. Definitely. And I'm not saying you didn't by leaving the compost or whatever too close to the edge, but. 39:14 But when we moved in here, we got Maggie like a month later. So we hadn't even fully unpacked our home yet. So there was very little for her to get into, which worked out great because there was nothing for her to eat or get choked on or trip over. And if we thought about bringing a puppy in this house right now, we've been here for years, I would have to, I'd have to completely clean my house from top to bottom to get a puppy again. 39:43 Yeah, they like to chew on things. It's what puppies do. They learn with their mouth and they lose their teeth. And their teeth, yeah. They teeth from basically like nine weeks until about six, seven months old. And all they want to do is chew. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Lots of chew toys are good. Uh-huh. And they'll chew on you, too. 40:08 If you let them, best to not let them go. I always switch. If a puppy puts its mouth on my hand or my arm or anything, I just grab something else and shove it in its mouth. You want to bite? Here's a stick to bite on. Here's a toy to bite on. Here's something you can bite on. Yeah. And if you look up how to stop a puppy from biting you, it says make an ouch noise. That doesn't do any good. We did that and Maggie would just be like, oh, more play now. Let's go. Right. Yeah. I switch them for something that they can have. Uh-huh. Yeah. 40:37 And the other thing that really worked for us is we put white vinegar and apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle. And she wanted to chew the corners of our futon mattress on our

Today I'm talking with Andre at Firefly Farm & Mercantile.  For a 10 percent discount off a Firefly Farm and Mercantile purchase, use code Home Grown.  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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Andre at Firefly Farm and Mercantile. How are you Andre? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. You're in Wisconsin, right? Yeah. We are located right in the Driftless, right about 25 miles east of La Crosse. 00:29 in a little town called Cashton. You live in one of the most beautiful areas I have ever visited. I have been to the Driftless area, and I can't remember the name of the town I went to, but it was gorgeous there. Yeah, we feel pretty lucky. It's, you know, we moved here, kind of sight unseen six years ago. My wife's like, you sure you wanna move here? We haven't been up to see it yet. And I said, I feel, I'm fine. I'm, you know, it's tired of Texas heat, so. 00:57 Oh, yeah. I'm sure Wisconsin is a big change for you from Texas. It is. I was in Texas for a few years, but I was happy to trade in 110 degree summers, though. Yeah. And honestly, the upper Midwest can get kind of nippy and kind of unbearably muggy, too. But as I say, living in Minnesota, spring and summer and fall are why I tolerate the winters in Minnesota. 01:26 Oh, the Four Seasons are so nice. Growing up in New England, I just loved the Four Seasons. You kind of get in those cycles of things. So as you move around the country, and I've lived in Florida and Alabama and then Illinois, I'll say the Four Seasons, I've always loved the Four Seasons. So. Me too. Where in New England did you grow up? I grew up in Connecticut. Okay, I grew up in Maine, so. 01:53 Hi there, buddy. How you doing? Okay, so tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, Firefly Farmer Mercantile, we have a garden shop and farm out here in Cashton. So my love is gardening. And I would say didn't really plan on starting a garden shop when we moved up here, but just sort of it happened. 02:19 We love just heirloom seeds. That's our specialty. And then kind of garden bulbs for all seasons, whether it's winter or summer, spring, fall, everything in between. We raise our own chickens and we raise our own lamb. So we sell those to a lot of restaurants. We do a lot with herbs. We do a lot, it's more specialty items that we grow for some of our local restaurants. Things that maybe no one else wants to grow or things that are just so small scale. They're like... 02:48 It's not really worth our time. So I'll say we're pretty lucky that a few chefs will seek us out and say, Hey, can you grow me like three pounds of this or five pounds of this? And since we have the seeds, why not? What do you mind telling me what kind of special things you grow for them? Well, I will say that I have a request for the most pungent mustard I could get my hands on. Okay. So our wasabina mustard by High Mowing Organics is perfect for that. It gives you that pungent, that heat. 03:18 We have another one, it's called Southern Curled, and that is another great little mustard too. So that's just an example. We have Red Vein Sorrel going in for a couple places. They wanted to have that for the fall, and that's a fun one. You know, and I'm surprised more people don't grow more of the perennial type greens, just because I think there's such a place and a need for them in the local food restaurants. Yeah, and 03:44 Honestly, perennial things are so much easier than annual things. You plant them, they continue to grow, you do very little, I don't know, babying them typically and you're set for years to come. With annual stuff, you have to get the seeds every year or the seedlings, you got to put them in, you got to do all the work, you got to baby them. And then at the end of the season, you're done. It's so frustrating. 04:12 I say that as not the gardener. My husband is the one who loves to garden. He's a lot like you. And I used to help. I don't help now. I don't like it. I don't enjoy it. I don't like being out there when it's hot. I get headaches from heat. So it's just, it's not fun for me. He loves it. And he's, I've said this a billion times this summer because I'm so frustrated with it. We had terrible weather here this spring and the garden is pretty much a no show. It's, we're not. 04:42 We're not getting nearly as much out of it this year as we have the last three years. And he's been so great. He's been doing what he can with what he has. And he's been terribly sad and terribly frustrated, but he's kept a really good attitude. So I'm very proud of my husband this year. Well, it was a trying year for a lot of folks in a lot of areas. June was, you know, May was warm. 05:10 And then June came along and was wet and cold. Yep. So things like you traditionally would love to put out by then tomatoes, peppers, okra seeds, squat, you name it. Um, they were just slow going and it was hard. And then in July we had hot and dry. Um, so that was, you know, that complicated things, but there's things that, you know, gardeners can do to sort of mitigate, um, some of these, and this is what some of the things that we like to. 05:38 talk about and teach down here. You know, one is we actually have a third acre or exhibition vegetable garden. It is one third of an acre and it is all compost. 100% compost underneath where we actually raised up that third acre by about six to 10 inches in places, which is pure compost. And why we did that is our top soil in our field was a lot of sand, but it's also low lying. And so when we get the rains, 06:09 It would actually just stay and get drenched and water soaked for periods at a time. And when we put the compost in, we don't have that problem. It could rain six inches and our beds are just fine to walk on. So it really does make a difference for us folks. But you know, it's one, when I get the common question about raised beds, what do I put in my raised bed? I tell folks just pure compost. Find the best compost you can source and put it in there. You don't need any topsoil to grow, believe it or not. 06:38 Yeah, we have three huge open compost bins on our property. It's three acres. We have lots of room to do that. And we've been adding compost to the garden since we moved in four years ago, but we only have so much compost to add every year and the garden is like a hundred feet by 150 feet. So we're doing, we're doing all the things to amend the soil and fix the soggy pooling problem that we have. 07:08 Mm-hmm. And we started that the spring after we moved in because we moved in in August of 2020. But we haven't been here long enough to do what you've done yet. We just haven't had enough compost to do that kind of depth on it. No, it takes time. And compost is, you know, to make good compost, it's a struggle because if you don't have it covered and you get too much rain, it slows the process down and then it drives the temperatures. You can't, you know, kill your weeds. Yep. 07:37 That's why I tell folks, I said, I know people always get sticker shocked when they go find compost and they start sourcing it. And I just tell them, I said, you know what? Good compost is worth it. You have no weeds. It's worth every penny, yes. Yes. I said, just imagining putting down, you know, I'll say that the three foot by eight foot raised bed seems to be one of the most common sizes. You know, and I tell folks, I said, really, for about 40 bucks, you can put about three of these beds together, three or four of these beds together. 08:07 and have six inches of compost in there. And guess what? You just started off a weed free environment. Yep, exactly. And weed free environment is so important. And I'm gonna say this because we've been dealing with it since we moved in. The place where our garden is was an open field of grasses and weeds and wildflowers when we moved in. And I knew it was gonna be hard. 08:30 I knew it was going to take years to mitigate the weeds. Oh yes. It is taking years to mitigate the weeds and no matter what we do, they come back to the point that we're probably going to take half of it this fall, till everything under and then use something to kill the weeds and hopefully not the bad stuff but the more natural weed killing, I don't know, products and see if that works because we're fighting a losing battle here right now. 09:00 I would caution you on the tilling, and here's why. Okay. Does not think tilling doesn't have its place. You have to till big farms. You have to till big plots of land. We have to do that to a point. No till is great when the soil structure allows it. I'm a big proponent of no till as much as possible. In the garden, so just think about that six inches of topsoil underneath your garden. 09:28 you know, that's a seed bank. And if you get deeper and you get down to seeds that haven't been disturbed in a while, you're pulling up seeds from the last few decades or last century, wherever it case may be, seeds that before you, they plowed them under. So you're bringing all that to the surface. Most seeds are causing you the problem that top one inch or two inches, really just the top inch of soil. And if you bring all those new seeds up, you've now just got to keep exasperating your problem. 09:57 So what do we do instead? Well, I would suggest a few things. One is I love old silage tarps. So I buy silage tarps from our local farm place. I like silage tarps because they're not penetrating for light and they're not penetrating for moisture. And so I can kill very large areas very quickly and smother the weeds underneath. 10:24 So when I have a large area and that may be something I just wanna say I can't kill all the weeds, but I at least wanna knock a lot of them out, I'll cover that for about 30 days if there's a lot of weeds on it. And then I will actually go ahead and just pour, put a little bit of compost on, or if I have to till, I'll call it the top dress, the bed, I may just barely, just a little bit like a half inch just to make it smooth again for planting. And then I'll go in there and... 10:54 and actually go ahead and plant just right on top of that right away. Okay. And that usually does the trick. Um, the other thing you can end up doing, if you're not sure, like, um, coming into the winter months right here, you could apply that smothering right now, and then you can get crops like buckwheat or mustard, things that even do well for the, you know, until it freezes. Um, even in Minnesota, you can put a lot of these things on right in September and October and, uh, at least get a green crop on there for you for the winter. 11:23 and then you have less seeds. And then come spring when you're ready to go, you can say, all right, I gotta go kill this thing. So you can take that same tarp and just smother it again, and then be ready to go. And what happens is as you're smothering that tarp, you're warming up the soil. So you're waking everything up, good or bad. And as you're doing that, as the mustard or the greens, you know, rot away, you actually are bringing up a lot of your organisms that will eat those weeds. 11:51 Eat that greens and then incorporate into the ground and I think that that is It's worth doing now Sometimes you might have a lot of clay and there's other things you can't tilling make sense to put you know to put compost into It I get it But if you have good soil structure already, I would probably encourage you to try that method and said Charles doubting over in England He has a lot of great YouTube videos and I always recommend folks to just check it out He's big believer into the smothering and adding the compost on top 12:20 But even if you can't quite do it large scale, maybe you find a few small beds and you start doing it with that. Like, carrots are a good example. Carrots are, it's really nice to start an area and when I do some carrots, I tend to go six to eight inches deep of compost with paper underneath. And the paper is, it rots away so fast that by the time the carrots get to be that length, it's not a problem. Okay. So. 12:46 All right, you are the most recent person to make me so thankful that I started this podcast almost a year ago, because my husband is going to be so interested in everything you just said, everything. Well, you guys are more than welcome, he's more than welcome to drive out and visit us, so. Yeah, okay, so after all that, we've been talking for almost 13 minutes, and we haven't even gotten to the things I wanted to ask you about. 13:13 And that's fine because I just learned a whole bunch of stuff I didn't know so thank you very much So you guys do you guys grow? The stuff that you sell or do you source it from outside or both? Mostly source so you can't grow that many seeds in one place Cross pollination is a big problem. So we use companies like seed savers out of the core Iowa very popular here in the Midwest 13:41 Yeah, I'm high mowing organics out of Vermont. It's a, it's a small seed label and they're pretty popular. I say across most of us, but they're just strictly all things organic. Seed savers will do organic and then conventional, but their focus is heirlooms organic and high moans about organic and things that will grow for people so they can make a living or for gardeners so they can grow crops and food. 14:07 And we have other labels too that we do Southern Exposure, New Living Sea. They're just, you know, they're mostly small farm operations for the most part. And then our bulbs are sourced from all over the world. We do grow and starting to grow our own dahlias because to try to source really great dahlias is next to impossible for the most part. And it takes when you import dahlias, you go through, it takes about a hundred dahlias to get to really like 50 or 60 good ones. 14:37 And one thing I've learned as I get older, my eyes deceive me a little bit more. And I just don't really, it's harder to focus when you're trying to go through about 4,000 dahlias at that level. We, we, so we'll start growing out things quite a bit and then we're going to bring about 40 dahlias to the market over the next, every year and just rotate things on and off. But most everything is we, our main bulb company is a small family. 15:05 I say small because it's small by some standards, but they have a 300 acre Tulip and Daffodil farm in the Netherlands, which is actually a really small farm for the Netherlands. And that's where I'd say I get quite a bit of my bulbs from. Other ones, you know, they're just sourced from the Canary Islands, from Peru. I mean, you name it, Israel, all places across the world. It's unbelievable where all these bulbs are, where they come from. 15:33 You know, for us, we just go to the store. When I was a kid, I'd go to the nurseries and the garden centers, and they were the greatest place for bulbs. That's where I got my love of putting my hands like through the daffodils or the tulips. Very sensory that way. And I still remember that experience, but as I sort of grew up into my 20s and 30s, that disappeared. You know, there was no more garden centers really stopped carrying a lot of fall bulbs, especially fall bulbs and crates. 15:59 Only because the big-box stores started getting the quick packaging, but you don't know what you're gonna get sometimes So, you know, there's just something when you come to our shop You get you know three or four hundred options and you're actually putting your hands in the bins touching the touching the bulbs that you're gonna bring Home with you. So most people just they just love that because you can't do that anywhere anymore Yeah, um, the sensory thing is interesting. My 16:30 I mean great aunt and uncle, they weren't my parents' siblings or my grandparents' siblings. And they had a chestnut tree, a horse chestnut tree. Oh yes. And it would drop those, you know, when we would be up there for Thanksgiving, there would be horse chestnuts on the ground and the pointy, spiky part would be off of the nut already. And those are really smooth. They're like glass when you touch them. 16:59 I can remember grabbing handfuls of stichmanoy in my pocket and bringing them home and using them almost like a worry stone. And I loved those. I haven't seen one in forever, but it was just one of those things where it was fun to put your hands on them. Yes. And gardening is so much more than just growing food or flowers or just making your house look pretty. You know, it's really this collection of experiences. 17:25 It's amazing where a flower or a scent or eating something can just really bring back You know something from your childhood or something about another family member. So Yeah, um, okay. So you mentioned you you import bulbs for daffodils and tulips I have a question for you. Hopefully, you know the answer we put in tulip bulbs and daffodil bulbs Two and a half three years ago And they did great 17:54 when they came up the first spring after we put them in. And now they're not coming up as much and I think it's because the critters under the ground are eating the bulbs. So is there anything that we could put in the ground around the bulbs that would allow the plant to come up through but the critters couldn't eat the bulb because this is driving me crazy? Well, a couple things. So one is your daffodils are probably coming up no problem. Not so much. 18:22 Well then I would maybe say that you might have some... do you have heavier clay soils? We do, but I don't think we do where they are, if that makes any sense. Nothing eats a daffodil. So daffodils, they don't smell good to rodents. So one of the strategies is we'll put daffodils, hyacinths, around in different places where you're trying to deter some of the critters. But you know, it doesn't always do the greatest. 18:50 I find that the Imperial Fertilary, that is really the best one and the alliums do great. Tulips, there's two things happening with your tulips most likely. One is if the tulips aren't, when the tulips don't come back, a lot of tulips, they grow these little things called bulblets. And when you pull up a tulip bulb after the, say you pull it up in August or July when they're done. 19:18 you'd see all these little tiny bulblets right here. And you know, there could be five of them, there could be 20 of them. It just depends on the variety. And hybridizers and growers, they like the bulblets because when you put a bulb in the ground and you're getting, you know, you get some more bulblets going on, it's like, all right, I can take those up and I can go ahead and, you know, grow those. I clone it. I basically grow the same thing out every year and you're kind of on the cycle. While other tulips, they only grow maybe one or two. 19:45 bigger bulblets, so they don't grow as many. And those tend to be the tulips that are more perennial in nature, I would say, where you kind of have to divide them up a lot less. Daffodils, they're not heavy feeders like a tulip. So a daffodil tends to just sort of naturalize in very long drifts, but they don't spread by seeds, so that's why we don't have daffodils popping up all over our forests and prairies everywhere. They're very much about the bulbs. 20:14 So I would say that if you remember where the daffodils were, try digging them up or maybe they got buried a little bit too much sometimes. That can happen. But the tulips, I would venture that either you have something, eat some, they are the deer love the blossoms, the squirrels love the tulip bulbs. Moles really don't eat any of the plant life. They're more interested in protein around the critters that are... 20:43 eating things and driving your lawn nuts, you get things like voles, of course, they'll go after them, but a tulip bulb is pretty deep. So you're not getting too much of those dangers other than maybe like the squirrels trying to dig them up. And you'll know them when they do. But if you try daffodils again, we always tend to mark things where maybe things might be so we can start digging them up. But if you're not getting anything back where the daffodils were, I would probably say they may have rotted. 21:13 That does happen. Yeah. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. I don't want to spend any more money on tulip and daffodil bulbs at this point. So maybe what we'll do this fall is dig them up because I know exactly where they are and see what's going on under there. And maybe we can split some. I don't know. But the daffodils, the daffodils. So when we moved into this property, there was a lot of daffodils everywhere, but they were very... 21:42 dense and they're very, so you got a lot of green but you had no blossoms. So just me and the kids are just digging them up and spreading them out. And, you know, sometimes planting things too densely can be problematic because you have to dig them up faster too. Yeah. Yep. I just, I can't, I cannot justify spending the money on the bulbs this year. It's, it's a little bit of a tight year for us. I'm not going to lie. We're doing everything we can. 22:11 but we thought we were gonna have some supplemental income from the garden, which we don't have. Yeah, it can be challenging. Things like the tulips would be one where, they don't come back the greatest. The darwins do, but the daffodils and crocuses are probably the most reliable in the great pyocene. They're just, they're gonna go no matter what happens. Nothing really likes to bother them. 22:36 So they're always kind of a joy to have in the springtime. But it can be trying times. It's always, as I tell folks, you're just, you know, not unlimited funds when it comes to gardening. Kind of whatever your passion is, grow that and see what happens. Yeah, my passion is peonies and everyone knows it. Oh yes, yes, we love peonies. Yeah, and anytime someone's like, I'm gonna be splitting my peonies. Do you guys wanna come help and take some home? I'm like, yes, when? Yep, yep. 23:06 Because free peonies are good peonies. We have been given so many peony roots over the years and they have all done fabulously. The only problem with peonies is it takes about three years for them to really be established and give you some really beautiful blooms. So it's a waiting game. Big waiting game, because they really, even our bare roots that are harvested when they're dormant. So they go through less trauma than the splitting of 23:35 you know, during the summer, the spring, the fall. And I always tell folks when you do have, when you wanna split and thin things out, I said early spring is typically the best time. Cause then it's active to get the roots in. Fall can work very well too, but you wanna give them enough of a growing season to get some roots established. And they kind of just choose big tubers cause they gotta make it through the winter time when they're doing it. But they're really easy. But yeah, I noticed when, you know, you're doing anything in the summertime, oh. 24:04 three to five years you're gonna be waiting for that blossom to come and then all of a sudden it comes out like in a vengeance like oh where these 40 blossoms come from. And sometimes Mother Nature really surprises you. We put in two peach trees last year, saplings, and one of them has just shot up, has no fruit on it, it's beautiful. My husband's actually gonna have to prune it when it's time to do that. It's so big. The other sapling has 12 peaches on it. We just put it in last year. 24:36 that can happen. It's amazing what the fruits can do. Everything depends on your stock as well. Is it on a semi-dwarf? Is it on a standard? Over in our garden, in our orchard section, we do what's called a permaculture orchard. It goes by the acronym NAP. N stands for Nitrogen Fixing of some sort. A for apple. Then P is for pear, plum, or Asian pear. 25:04 And so we kind of just rotate things in the orchard that way where it's NAP, NAP, NAP. And you know, my wife would say, oh, we don't got enough. None of these trees over here have given us anything. I said, well, those are standards and they take, you know, five to seven years, while our semi dwarfs will take like a year or two years and you finally have fruit. So it just, it all really depends on that root stock. That makes, that does make a big, big difference. 25:27 Yeah, and I have no idea. He picked them up at some store when he was out. So not a clue where he got them or what they are. But he sent me a photo from them. They're way on the back corner of our property. So I haven't been over there yet. And he sent me a photo. I was like, are those peaches? And he texted back. Yeah. He said that one tree has peaches. I was just dumbfounded. I was like, I thought it would take three years before he had peaches. 25:56 Oh no, you know, every tree is a little bit different. There's a little, I prune my trees heavily and we're in a valley, so it is every year. Even my most dependable tree is a zest star tree for the apples, but the other items, we can't do peaches in our valley because we get the frost just at the right time when the peaches wanna start blooming. So that's always a shame, but you know, and we don't do cherries for that reason either, but. 26:24 Hey, we can do Asian pears and a few other things, but fruit should taste good. And I always recommend, they're like, oh, what should I start my garden with? I said, put in some fruit trees. We have a dozen blueberry bushes. We're getting ready to till an area to be acidified so we can get them in the ground. We love blueberries. And the one regret is we didn't do blueberries soon enough, right? Yeah. Because if I did them five years ago successfully, but we did do them, but my dogs decided to dig them up one day. Oh no. 26:52 It was not happy about that. Um, but anyhow, so we were at it again and, uh, you know, we went blueberry picking a few miles away from our house. And it was so just nice. And my wife's like, we gotta get more blueberries for, for our garden. Yeah. The, the, the battle cry or the, uh, clarion call for gardeners everywhere is we need to get more of whatever it is. Yes. You know. 27:19 Right now I am loving our thornless blackberries. So between our orchard, I put shrubs in. We got currants, erroneas, buffalo berry, and right now black thornless blackberries. I have raspberries elsewhere because I don't want them anywhere near my fruit trees to get all, you know, bit up with thorns. So we'll put them elsewhere. But the thornless blackberries are really nice because we're like I need three or four of them and you get clusters. 27:47 of giant blackberries. And it's so nice to go just walking through and you can stop at one bush and you can walk away with like, you know, a couple cups of blackberries and you still have, you know, 10 times that amount on the bush starting to ripen. So that's that's my favorite fruit right now going on in our orchard. What's a buffalo berry? Oh, a buffalo berry is a nitrogen fixing shrub. 28:14 So it actually puts nitrogen back into the ground, so to speak. And the jury's still out on how much it does, how much it doesn't, but I thought, well, I'll just try it. They're not really edible for us. The birds love them. And that's one thing in an orchard is, you know, your winged friends, you really want them around despite, you know, maybe they're going to eat some of your currants or they're going to eat some of your fruit because they take care of like all your pests. So you know, you get the kingbird. 28:43 he's my favorite bird to see in the garden and to see in the orchard because he'll eat more caterpillars and winged pests and any other bird out there than your bluebirds, of course, and your wrens. So the buffalo berry is kind of there and we just do it to feed the birds. So they're not really something for us to eat, but they're native out in the, out further west, out in the Colorado areas. And that's where I got them from a small family who has them. And... 29:13 You know, they do okay. It's not like I'm gonna get a thousand of them, but they're kind of fun. Okay. I'd never heard of Buffalo Berry, so I thought I would ask. We're almost at 30 minutes, and I don't know how much time you have. I mean, I can go for another 15 if you want, but my main question left that I have is how did you get into this? Oh, well, gardening in general? Well, yes, and the business. 29:39 Well, gardening in general, so the family, my family's were gardeners for the most part, growing up and my grand, my grandfather, some of my uncles were big time gardeners. My mom did like to garden. Um, I was really busy all the time. It was raising five boys, so we can be a handful. So it was kind of exposed to gardening. And then my brother passed away at when I was 12 and gardening was sort of a healing activity for me. 30:09 and you can get your hands dirty, you can, it really helped get me through, you know, through that, through that, his death. And so gardening kind of always stuck with me and I learned more about it going into my teenage years and it was just always a joy and I always loved gardening. And I was toying around with an organics counselor, you know, when you become a junior or senior in high school about different career options. And you know, I said, well, I think I'm just going to go. 30:36 start a garden center, maybe go to school for business or this and that, but probably just do a garden center. Yeah, I really enjoyed gardening. She's like, oh, you know, you're so good at athletics and you have a good science and math score. She goes, I really encourage you to think about engineering or just something maybe a little bit, you know, different path. And I went down different paths, of course. And then it was okay. I really enjoyed my careers. But when I left the 31:05 we sort of came up to the driftless area. I was like, gosh, I really, you know, missed the gardening side. And I said, I'm just gonna start a gardening business. We have this old 90 year old barn. It's a perfect place to start some operations. And I really wasn't planning on being open to the public. I just really wanted to have some fun selling seed and bulbs and maybe growing some things around the sale. And, you know, people would just start coming at all hours of the day. Oh, can I come see your farm? Can I come see your garden? 31:33 And we start talking, I start showing. And I told my wife, I said, we just are gonna have to open up our own farm and have a garden shop here. And it's been a joy. It really has been a blessing for us. Wow, that's a great story. You think we may have the same thing happening here next year. We put in a heated greenhouse this May. Oh, lovely. And we're going to be doing bedding plants and hanging. 32:03 hanging flower pots, you know, like you would buy it. Walmart only, ours will probably be better, maybe. And that kind of thing. And we're just gonna have people come in and pick out what they want. You know, they're gonna come into the greenhouse. So I suspect that if all goes well, keep your fingers crossed for us that all goes well next year because this year's been a bitch. 32:27 It'll be really fun to have people come see what that greenhouse has done for us over this winter and next year. Oh, yeah. And I would say that, you know, even think about things that aren't in your area. So I know the hanging baskets are fun and they're exciting. You know, there's a lot of demand, but there's a lot of supply. And I would challenge to think about what makes up your baskets to be sort of the colors people are looking for. But 32:54 to be a little bit more drought tolerant. And one thing I know from a lot of the successful growers, when I bring in hanging baskets or I have them grown for me, I get the bigger baskets. I want the 12 inch or 14 inch baskets, minimum. I do not want the 10 inch, I do not want the eight to nine inch because they dry out so fast. And I tell folks, I said, you know, a hanging basket is really just, these are all kind of temporary baskets. 33:20 for you. You really got to think about the plants that you're going to want to grow, they're going to need more food, they're going to need soil. Every basket you almost get, you almost need to put into a bigger container and you should almost have a permanent container of some sort. So 14 and so as you're going down this path of thinking, you know, some of these items that make them a little bit more low maintenance, you know, you can, you can actually command a bit of a higher price. 33:46 But if you're pointing out these things for people, that they don't have to like come late July and then their baskets are looking like, oh my gosh, there's no soil left, it's all roots. What happened here? It's very common things I hear quite a bit. Yeah, I also was thinking that it would be really fun to have some baskets and the compost or whatever we're gonna put in the bottom of them, whatever growing, there's a word, I can't think of it. Medium. We call it medium, medium. Yeah, medium. 34:15 having them come and pick out the seedlings for the flowers they want in their hanging basket and teaching them how to make one of their own. Oh, absolutely, and then you just sit there, they pack it, and then you grow it out for them in the heat. And there's a lot of fun with that. It's kind of like make your own bouquets and make your own baskets. It really becomes a big deal for them. Yeah, and I'm like the least social person on earth, and I just said that on a podcast. I don't know what I'm thinking. 34:45 No, it's fine. The podcast, I'm not required to be with actual people. I just talk to people. I don't have to be in the same room with them. And I just said that I would like to have a class on how to make a hanging flower basket. I don't know what I'm thinking, but maybe it'll work. Who knows? All right. So anyway, Andre, I don't feel like we talked. 35:08 about a whole lot of the other things that you're doing because I know you're doing other things, but this has been great. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Oh, no, thank you. We appreciate it. We're excited for this upcoming year. We have 2100 seeds that we'll be bringing in and they started arriving this past week, so it's going to be really exciting. Yeah, I love, love, love when seeds come in the mail and I can look at the packets if it's the packet and be like, oh, 35:38 we're going to be buying seeds soon and they probably won't come in a packet, they'll probably come in a bag because we're going to buy bigger amounts. If you buy bigger amounts, yeah, we sometimes will have like 10 pound bags of the wildflower seed. We'll get them in 25, 50, 100 pound sacks and it's always just like daunting to me to think how many seeds are in one of these 25 or 50 pound sacks. There's a lot of seeds in there. So many, yes. And... 36:04 In about four months, it'll be time for garden company catalogs to be coming in the mail, and that's always fun too. It is. Well, thanks for having me, Mary, and appreciate it. Absolutely. I really, really do appreciate you taking the time. Thank you.

Today I'm talking with Irene at Little Blue's Traveling Zoo. 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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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 Irene at Little Blues Traveling Zoo. How are you, Irene? I'm great, how are you, Mary? I'm good. You guys are in Minnesota, yes? Yes. Okay, I wasn't positive, so I thought I should ask. 00:29 So what do you guys do? Well I have a traveling petting zoo which means that I just take my little crew of farm animals around to different parties. We're normally around the twin cities except kind of the area beyond. But we do like birthday parties, community events, church events, festivals, just kind of whatever anyone would want a petting zoo for. Okay and when did you start doing it? I can't talk this morning. And how did you get into it? 01:00 So my dad actually started it when me and my sisters were in college. Probably about four years ago, he started it, like started the idea of it. Um, and I always called it his mid crisis that he just started a petting zoo cause he thought it would be fun. Um, but I got my degree in agriculture education and so I was going to be a high school agriculture teacher. And I did this for my dad one summer cause it was a lot busier than he thought it would be and he has a full time job. So I did it for him one summer and I decided I actually. 01:29 really loved and I wanted to stick with it. And so now I'm doing all of the management side of it as well. And I love it. It's just so much fun. How much has it grown since you started it? It's amazing how much it's grown. We started out in the fall our first year, and so we only did a couple events that fall, which was a lot of fun, but that's all we did. And then that next summer, I think I did like 15 events a month in the summer, which I was ecstatic about. 01:57 And now fast forward two years, this August actually, I have 39 events in August. It's amazing. I just get busier and busier and we have a second truck trailer now too, so we can do twice the amount of events. So it's just been, it's been a wild ride. Okay. And I don't want to get real personal on finances, but how much does it cost to book you guys? So my base price for two hours is $600. And then I have a trip charge of $1.50 per mile from the farm. 02:28 Okay, so it's a lucrative business if you have that many people booked for August. Yeah, I mean animals sure cost a lot to take care of, but it's able to pay for them and pay for my own living expenses, so I feel very blessed. That's amazing. So you guys don't really have a homestead as it were, but you work with livestock and you have a business that serves the public, so I figured that you might fit the bill for my podcast. 02:58 Um, what kind of animals do you, do you take around to show people? So I take goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys, and then I have an alpaca and a mid sized cow. So I usually take all those animals and then either the alpaca or the cow. And is it just you taking them or do you have help? I help. I have my amazing friend Jordan, who I convinced to move up from, uh, Iowa to stay here and do this job with me. 03:27 And so it's both of our full-time job. Okay. So it's the two of you moving the animals from where they live to wherever they're going. Okay. Cause that's a lot of critters to move by yourself. And are the animals with the program, are they, are they on board? Are they happy? Do they love doing what they do? Do you think? Yes, they really are. Cause we have some who don't love it and they stay at home. 03:52 But we have a bunch that love it. I have in particular this one goat, his name is Mr. Waddles. And when we try to leave the farm without him, he just stands at the gate and he just yells. He is so mad. He does not want to be left behind. They love going out. They love the fresh green grass that they get. And they love directing and meeting new people. Awesome. So when you take them places, where... 04:18 Where are the events usually held? I mean, is it outside? Is it inside? Is it both? Yeah, most of them are outside. I have a strong preference for being outside because then we can get a nice breeze going through and it doesn't get as stuffy. But in the winter I do some indoor events and for the indoor events you have to lay down a tarp and then some shavings and all that stuff for the animals. So I prefer being outside but we do indoor events as well. Okay. 04:44 So tell me about the latest event. Like I want to get a feeling for how it goes, how it works. Yeah, my last event was Kai Chai Saga days in Chasago, which is my home turf. So I love doing that one. It's just kind of their city days. And so we get there about 45 minutes ahead of time to set up, pull the truck and trailer up into the park and we have a 30 by 30 foot pen, just six foot panels that we connect to each other and make a big pen. And then we have. 05:13 couple tents we set up to make sure the animals have shade. On really hot days I also have fans and a jetter all set up for the animals. But yeah we just set up their pen, water, hay nets, all that stuff for them. And then once we get started we let 15 to 20 people in the pen at a time and they can brush the animals, pet them, all that good stuff. Okay so what do people think when they come to these events or these birthday parties or whatever it is you're doing? I mean what kind of feedback do you get? 05:42 I get great feedback, which just makes me so happy. The best thing that I can hear that people tell me how friendly and calm and healthy the animals are, because I really do pride ourselves on that animals are our family. It's not like we get baby animals in the spring and get rid of them in the fall. They stay with us their whole life. We just love them and we try to take the best care of them. People love it. They love how calm they are because for a lot of petting zoos, you don't get to actually go inside the pen with the animals. 06:10 unlike with ours where you can come in and brush them and pet them and all that stuff. So that's the most kind of feedback I get is how calm and friendly they are. It just always makes me so happy. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's going to help if you want it to go well. I mean, I don't mean to state the obvious as dumb, but yeah, you want your animals to be comfortable with people and new situations and new places because otherwise it would never work. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, they're exposed to so much different stuff. 06:40 We were at a speedway, like a racetrack, and that was really fun. But they saw monster trucks for the first time. They weren't thrilled at first, but they settled in pretty quick once they realized nothing's going to hurt them. Well, they're better than my dog. I can't take my dog anywhere because all she does is bark at people. She, we got her in 2020, so she was never really socialized to anything because we didn't take her anywhere because we didn't go anywhere. 07:09 And she was a puppy. So when people come to visit, she barks at them for a good five minutes. And then she finally decides that it's safe to sniff their hand. And pretty much once she does that, she settles down. But even in the car or the SUV, we park. And if she's with us, she's in the back seat. And if anybody walks into the parking lot, even 100 feet away, she's barking at them. 07:37 I'm like, you're so dumb. They're number one, they're not going to hurt you and number two, you might like them. But no, she doesn't. She does not people well. They're warning you. Yeah, she does not people well. So yeah, managing to get your farm animals acclimated to all the different things is a trick and it's a skill. And I'm really impressed because we can't get the dog acclimated to anything here. 08:04 My parents have a farm dog and he's definitely not as well behaved as some of the farm animals are. Yeah, it's crazy. Dogs are supposed to be your best friend and apparently she's just me and my husband and my son's best friend and everybody else can just go away. I don't know. She's crazy. Okay, so I have questions but I'm trying to phrase them in a way that doesn't sound obnoxious because they're kind of obnoxious. 08:33 So yeah, I'm stuck. The, okay, do you have rules for when people go in with the animals? Yes, I do. My two main ones that I tell kids is no running and no feeding the animals. Cause when we start getting food involved, my goats can get kind of jumpy and I want them to stay as calm as possible. And we bring pigs as well. I don't want any little fingers near those pigs mouths. Yeah, no. So those are my two main ones. I- 09:02 I found, you know, if you try to tell more than three girls at the gate, kids just stop listening. You know, I don't blame them. Kids have a short attention span. They just want to come in. They want to visit the animals. So I kind of just take to those two. And then you have somebody monitoring everybody in the pen. And if they notice something like, you know, a kid's trying to touch their legs or pull on their tail, you know, you're like, oh, maybe not do that. But generally, it's just a no running and the no feeding. And that serves us pretty well. Okay. So I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked Andrew. 09:32 at the St. Croix Valley Hobby Farm when I interviewed him. He spoke very highly of you guys, and I think you guys have a working relationship somewhere along the line. But I asked him, because he has the hobby farm where he has people come in and visit with the animals. He doesn't, last I knew he didn't take them anywhere. I asked him if he requires people to wash their hands, because during COVID and the bird flu thing that came through back years ago, 10:02 the fares were real hesitant to let people come in and pet the animals. So do you require people to wash their hands or anything? I have hand sanitizer for people to use if they want. I mean, knock on wood, I haven't experienced any disease yet and all of my animals are fully vaccinated. One of the big things too is when we show up to places where they have other animals they didn't tell us about, I'm very clear that we need to be far away from them. 10:29 They don't know what our animals have been through. We don't know what their animals have been through So I try to steer as clear away from that as possible and because we do a lot of stuff in the cities most of the City people they don't have goats or chickens at home, you know, yeah, but so I have the hand sanitizer It's a little too difficult for me to lug around a hand washing kind of station But yeah, I mean knock on wood Sophie haven't had any disease incidents 10:57 Yeah, it's amazing to me how risky it is to bring a new animal onto your farm or into your property. Oh my gosh, yeah. We have to be so picky now. Some of our first animals were rescues. You know, you don't know what their background is like or where they've been. And now, you know, as much as we love to rescue, we just can't really do that anymore, especially with like our goats and our sheep, because we need to know that they came from like a tested herd or a closed herd to make sure that we don't bring anything into our own herd. 11:28 Absolutely. We were really stupid and really lucky a couple of years ago. We had chickens already at our place and we went and got like, I don't know, 10 more bullets. And I didn't even think about the fact that we should have kept them separate for like a week. And so we basically let them in with the other chickens right away and everybody got along. And then I was doing some research, obviously, because I'm... 11:56 about this homesteading thing. And then I started doing the podcast and people are mentioning all the time that they tend to keep new animals in isolation for a little bit. We could have killed the chickens that we already had and had no idea why they died, you know, by doing that. So we're actually going to be culling our flock here soon because they're lazy and they're not giving eggs and they're old. 12:22 Yeah. And they're going to make excellent chicken stock and then we're going to get new chickens next spring. And so when we get new chickens, I think we're just going to get as many as we think we need and call it good for a while. And that way we don't have to worry about introducing any new guys to the group. Yeah, that's a good plan. It is so stressful to introduce new animals. Yeah. And chickens are crazy. They either love each other immediately or they fight. Yeah. Right. And then if there's like even just a little bit of blood on one of the other chickens, they really go for it. 12:52 Yeah, they're destructive little dinosaurs is what they are. They are. I'm not a fan. I don't love chickens. I love the eggs that I get from them, but I just don't love chickens. And it's fine. I don't have to love them because they're not really cuddly anyway. It's not a big deal. Right. Exactly. Okay. So do you have, I mean, I hate to make you pick favorites, but if you can, do you have a favorite event that you've been involved in so far? 13:21 Oh, that's a good question. There are so many that I love. I think one of my favorites is Little Canada's Canadian Days. It's a city in the Twin Cities. And we've been there for three years. So since we started, they've had us, which just makes my heart happy that they keep having us back. I just love the people in that community. It's always a really fun event. And the lady, her name is Sue, who organizes it for us. 13:49 It's just so sweet and so accommodating. She always has the nicest area for the animals, but I really love that one. I love the people in that community. They're always just really excited to see the animals and really grateful. Awesome. Do you have a funniest story about any of the events that you've been at? Um. 14:12 Hmm. It's gotta be something. Kids can say the funniest things, you know, I've definitely got some funny quotes from kids. I had one of my goats, his name is Snoopy and you know, he's a boy goat, but they still have their little udders and this little boy kneeled down behind him and pointed up and he whispered to his friend. He was like, he's got two weenies. 14:40 One of the funniest things I've heard from kids, but I can't think of a specific event that was really funny. I think a lot of like the child cares that we go to just, they make me giggle just from the things that the kids say and how excited they are. Yeah, I love kids. I love kids from like, okay, my favorite age for kids is 15:03 newborn to six months because they're snugly and they're not mobile yet. That's my preference. I love it when they're all snugly and they smell like brand new babies and you get to hold them all the time. I don't want any, I, Lord knows I don't want any more. I'm 54. I've raised four. I'm good, but I love babies. But I think my favorite age is probably from about four to about eight when they're still small and still pretty brand new to the world and they're still absorbing everything. 15:32 And they have no online editor. Whatever they're thinking is going to come out of their mouth. I think. Yeah, exactly. I love some of the older kids too, you know, from like six to 10. I love how chatty they are. They always have so many questions for me about the animals. I did an event last week that was just these boys sat with me with one of those and were asking me just everything about how his horns work, why he's chewing his cud, all this stuff. They were asking about his hooves. And when it was time for them to go, one of the boys looked up at me and he was 16:02 next time you come I want to talk about the sheep and it was just so cute they just love to learn and they're so curious I just love that. They're sponges they soak up everything if if they're asking questions answer them because it'll stick with them forever. Um okay I do have a question about why goats chew their cuds and I have another question about the regulations for all this so let's start with why goats chew their cud because I've talked to a lot of people about goats lately but that has not come up. 16:32 Yeah, well, you know, the kids are always curious when they see them laying down and chewing, they're like, what are they eating? And I just always explain to them that it's their cud that they have a ruminant digestive system like a cow and the sheep have that to my alpaca as well. And so when the food moves into the first chamber, it sits there for a little bit and then they regurgitate it back up into their mouth and they chew it a second time and blow it and it moves it to the second chamber, eventually the third and the fourth and it moves throughout their whole system. But I love telling that to the kids and I'll tell them, you know, 17:02 Especially my alpaca after he's finished swallowing one bite of his cut I'm like, okay now watch his neck and you see as he's regurgitating because he's got such that long neck You can see it moving all the way up through his neck until it comes up into his cheek And they just think that is so cool, you know, cuz they most of them never heard about anything like that before Yeah, I thought it was something to do with how their digestive system works But I just hadn't ever ever talked about it on the podcast and that seems like a cool thing to know 17:29 Um, yeah, so so so ruminants have built in chewing gum basically exactly Although let me tell you it doesn't smell as good. Oh, no. No, no, no, it's disgusting I've I've had the not pleasure of of having that experience of smelling it. It's not great um, okay, so It's not like just anybody can go out and get a couple goats and couple sheep and some rabbits and some ducks and whatever and 17:57 just be like, hey, we have these critters, can we bring them to your party and get paid for it? I know there's regulations and there's all kinds of stuff that has to happen to make this work. So without being nosy, what kind of regulations do you have to meet to be able to do this? Yeah, so to start it, I mean, we had to first just be registered as limited liability company is what we are. And so we had to go through that. 18:22 whole process and then our insurance agent is just the best ever. And so he helps us with all that kind of side of it. Uh, but to do the actual events, a lot of cities require permits. And I always tell my, um, the people who are hiring me that this is up to them to look into. I'm not the one applying for the permit. They're applying for the permit and I'll just give them any information they need. They usually require vaccine records. Um, and they need a rabies certificates. 18:50 and the stuff that I always have on hand for them. But that's the biggest one is that a lot of cities require permits. But other than that, I do not need a USDA license. My type of petting zoo does not require that. I think if you, I might be wrong on this, but I think if you have people coming to you, you might need that. But since I just do the traveling stuff, I haven't needed to apply for that. And so unless that changes, I don't need that part of it. 19:19 The biggest thing is just the permits for us. Okay, cool. And then the other question regarding insurance. God forbid something goes wrong, someone gets hurt or your animals get hurt. Is it the person that is hiring you to bring your animals to the place that is hit with the insurance claim or is it you or is it both? 19:46 You know, I haven't encountered that situation yet. Thank goodness. Yeah. But I think it will depend on the kind of events too, because me going to a daycare is a lot different than if I'm going to a huge city event where I'm interacting with the public. Yeah. So I think that would kind of make sense. But I think that both of us would really have to work on that together. A lot of the schools that I work for, they always have contracts for me. They're pretty much the only ones that ever get contracts to me. 20:15 where we're working out those kind of details if something happened, you know, like my insurance would kick in and we would take care of that. So I think generally it would come to me and my insurance guy. But luckily we haven't had to deal with that yet. Yeah, there's just there's so many rules and regulations for businesses that I'm always curious to see what's involved in something like yours versus something like us with our 20:45 produce from. And we had to change, well, we didn't have to. We were gently persuaded by our awesome insurance guy to switch to farm insurance instead of homeowners insurance because it covers different things and it also covers the home under that policy. So for anybody listening and looking to get into a business, always, always, always talk to your insurance person about what you're doing. 21:15 what needs to happen with insurance because it is not a great feeling to have something happen and realize that you are not covered Right. Oh man. I owe my insurance guy so much. He he knows what he's doing and that's the important thing Absolutely Don't don't ever stick with the same insurance person either if you don't get along and you don't see eye-to-eye with your your insurance company 21:41 You don't have to stick with them. Find someone that you actually like and click with because it makes it so much easier. Absolutely. And I mean, everybody can do how they wanna do it, but we just found that the person that we dealt with was great about explaining things in not legalese, but in layman's terms so that it was just easier to understand what the policy covered. Yep. 22:12 Because Wiggly's is a lot of double-speak. It's a lot of words that you may not be familiar with. There's some Latin in there. And if you're not a word nerd, you may not understand what's being put in front of you. A lot of that just goes right over my head. Yeah, yeah. If you're not in the business, you aren't necessarily going to understand everything that you're handed at an insurance meeting. So, and it's not because we're stupid. It's just that that's not our specialty. Exactly. 22:41 So yeah, it's important. And limited liability company or corporation for anybody who doesn't know, that's what LLC stands for. When you hear a company name with LLC at the end, that's what that LLC stands for. 22:57 So, okay, let me think. I don't know what else to ask you. Like I'm out of my depth here. Uh, yeah, I'm stuck. Is there anything else you would like to talk about or share? Um, 23:18 No, I mean, all of my animals, they live on our family farm. It's about 10 acres. And we have like 52 animals now, but that's including chickens and all that stuff. Yeah. But yeah, 10 acres works really well for us. We have full-sized horses that take up like four or five of the acres, and then a couple acres for the little animals. But yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love doing the traveling stuff. I would very dip into the... 23:46 having people come to our farm territory. I'm not interested in that. That seems like a ton more work. And more liability, yep. Exactly, and my parents live there, you know, so that wouldn't be, I love doing the traveling stuff and it's been lucrative for us, so very blessed. Awesome, I do have a question. I just thought of while you were talking. Do you guys have merchandise? Do you have like t-shirts or hats or, I don't know, magnets or whatever? 24:16 Yeah, we have coloring books. And my mom actually, she has a boutique in town. And so she also makes like sweatshirts and t shirts with those machines that can do that stuff. And so she makes our little blues merch for us. And so we do get that to people sometimes too, which is a lot of fun. It's fun to see people wear the little blues merch. Yeah. 24:43 Yeah, we don't like we're not actively like putting that stuff out there. Um, maybe one day we will, but when people ask, we make them some stuff. Oh, okay. All right. And, um, the trailer or trailers that you transport the animals in, do you have a logo or are they fancy painted trailers? So people know what's being, who's being moved. The trailer, not, but one of our trucks has a wrap on it with 25:11 It says Little Blues Traveling Zoo. It is gorgeous with cutouts of the animals and it's super fun. I love it We'd love to get a wrap for the truck But the second truck is a bit older and we're hoping to upgrade in the next couple years And so when we upgrade we'll do the wrap on the new one as well So when you're driving down the road do people honk at you if you're driving the one with the wrap? 25:36 I get a lot of stares. I get a lot of looks, a lot of excited kids in the back seat of cars looking. And then a lot of people also recognize me or they know that my dad and so they'll see the business and know that's what he does. So they'll wave at me as they're driving by. So that's really fun. I love that. Do you feel like a minor celebrity in your area? Sometimes I do. Yeah. 26:03 I bet little kids you see the truck that has the logo and stuff on it. I bet they're like, what is that? Is that an ice cream truck? I love when we pull up to an event and there's already kids around and they're just like, it's the petting zoo! Yeah, kids love animals. I mean I have met maybe two kids in my whole life who were skittish around animals and once they realized that they were okay, they were great with it. My neighbor who 26:33 lived across the street from us back when we lived in Jordan, Minnesota. She had a little girl and I think it was the youngest one. And we had cats and she came over with her kids and the littlest one started crying as soon as she saw the cat. And I was like, oh no, no, it's okay. And the lady who lived across the street, she was like, she's really afraid of cats. 27:01 I said, why? And she said, I have no idea. She said, none of the kids really like cats, but the youngest one nod into it. And I think she finally, the youngest finally did get brave enough to pet one of the cats, but you could just tell she was like, I don't like this at all. So she's the only, she's the only kid I've ever met who was that anxious about a cat. 27:27 Yeah, you know, some of them are just so nervous and sometimes at events there's kids who are they're too afraid they don't want to come in the pen they're really anxious about it. But after sitting outside the pen because they'll just sit out there and look at the animals, you know, five minutes they start to get more interested and more brave. And then my favorite is seeing kids like that come into the pen and just like blossom. They just get so excited and they get more comfortable. They're not nervous of the animals anymore. 27:54 a lot of times they'll choose like one animal to be like a favorite and they'll just stick by that animal. And it just makes me so happy to share them with kids who don't get to see these kinds of creatures very much and watch them become more comfortable and not as scared. Yeah. I can't imagine life without some kind of pet or... 28:18 Or a livestock animal, I mean we don't really have livestock animals. We have barn cats and chickens That's about as far as we go with livestock But but growing up we always had a cat or a dog or both I mean, I don't remember a time when we didn't have a pet and The idea of not having a pet if you're a family with kids is just foreign to me. I don't get it. Mm-hmm Well, I think animals and having pets could teach a lot to children about responsibility and empathy 28:48 All that good stuff, respect. 28:52 Yeah, I mean, their pets are in your care. And if you're part of a family that has pets, I feel like everyone in the family should be involved in the care of that animal. And I don't care if it's a toddler, toddlers can get a kibble for the cats or the dog or whatever. And they love to do it. I had a job when I was younger as a camp counselor for a farm camp. 29:22 one of the things the kids would do is help feed the animals and give the animal the water. And the little toddlers would do it and they just love it. They love that responsibility and like knowing that they're like taking care of something. No. Yes. I love it when two-year-olds say, I do it. Yes. It's one of my favorite things ever. And then they say, no, I don't want to do it by the time they hit 13, 14. So. Exactly. 29:49 What happened to the excitement and the grin and the smile and the I do it part? That was great. Bring that back. Well, Irene, I really love the idea of what you're doing. And if I had small children, I would maybe entertain the idea of having you guys bring your critters to my place for a birthday party, but I don't have small children anymore, so I have grown up now. Maybe we'll see you at a public event. 30:16 Could be, never know. Stranger things have happened. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me though, Irene, all joking aside, this has been great. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me, Mary. It's been fun. All right. Have a great day. You too.

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 - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This 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... 00:29 I 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. 00:57 Like 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. 01:26 And 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. 01:47 little 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, 02:17 convert 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. 02:35 That'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. 03:04 And 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. 03:32 I 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. 04:02 know 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. 04:28 books, 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 04:56 just 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... 05:25 How 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. 05:55 I 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. 06:25 with 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. 06:52 It'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. 07:21 and 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. 07:52 Yes, 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? 08:20 Yeah, 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. 08:49 Oh 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... 09:15 learn 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. 09:43 and 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 10:12 It'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. 10:39 No, 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. 11:09 That'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. 11:38 and 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. 12:06 And, 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... 12:35 The 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. 13:03 And 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. 13:32 leafy 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. 14:00 And 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. 14:31 Oh 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. 14:58 Nice, 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. 15:19 women 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. 15:49 It 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. 16:19 Yes, 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. 16:48 If 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. 17:15 Oh, 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... 17:41 home 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. 18:11 And 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. 18:38 was 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. 19:06 it 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. 19:34 Yes, 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. 20:04 because 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. 20:33 just 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. 21:03 So 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. 21:32 If 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. 22:02 So, 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 22:30 Sometimes 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 22:56 And 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... 23:24 Even 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. 23:51 Yeah, 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. 24:20 You 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. 24:50 If 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. 25:19 at 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, 25:49 just 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. 26:13 the 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. 26:41 And 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. 27:08 Yeah, 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. 27:38 No, 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. 28:06 I'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 28:34 As 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 29:02 dig 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. 29:30 Isn'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. 30:00 Yep, 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. 30:29 Yes. 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. 30:58 Himalayan 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. 31:28 basil, 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. 31:49 Oh 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. 32:18 I 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.

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 00:00 This 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. 00:26 The 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. 00:56 St. 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. 01:24 And 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. 01:54 and 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 02:23 begin 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. 02:52 to 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 03:20 who 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... 03:49 found 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. 04:19 I 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. 04:48 Legally, they're different because of the contain. So basically hemp is defined as less than 0.3% of delta-9-THC. 05:13 cannabinoid 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. 05:43 properties 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 06:13 a 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. 06:41 And 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. 07:07 So 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. 07:29 And 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. 07:54 Yeah. 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. 08:24 kind 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. 08:53 into 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 09:22 space 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 09:49 on 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. 10:19 what 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. 10:48 the 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 11:18 they'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... 11:47 Do 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. 12:17 Did 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. 12:46 And 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. 13:17 you 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. 13:47 is 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. 14:17 And 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. 14:46 in 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. 15:14 This 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 15:44 2025. 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. 16:14 Currently, 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. 16:44 Now 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. 17:13 program. 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. 17:42 Sure. 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 18:11 So 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. 18:40 My 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... 19:05 I 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, 19:35 They'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. 20:04 But 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 20:33 you 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. 21:00 And 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? 21:31 It'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. 21:59 at 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. 22:29 And 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. 22:58 And 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 23:25 two 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... 23:53 You 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... 24:18 the 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. 24:44 that 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. 25:14 And 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 25:42 but 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. 26:12 And 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, 26:40 The 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, 27:10 maybe 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. 27:40 and 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, 28:08 It 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. 28:37 and 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. 29:06 That'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. 29:36 the 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. 30:06 But 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. 30:35 Um, 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. 31:03 And, 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. 31:26 With 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. 31:55 So 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. 32:24 Each 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. 32:53 tends 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. 33:22 But 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. 33:48 Well, 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. 34:14 No, 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? 34:42 I 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. 35:12 And 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 35:41 It 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. 36:10 Minnesota 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. 36:41 five 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. 37:10 history. 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.

Today I'm talking with Sam at the Civic Garden Center. 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 00:00 This 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. 00:30 Yeah, 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. 00:57 And 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. 01:27 The 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... 01:51 We 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... 02:15 Our 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... 02:44 our 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. 03:14 And 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. 03:44 here 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. 04:15 Yeah, 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. 04:42 for 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... 05:12 Many 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. 05:41 And 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. 06:11 Some 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 06:40 Some 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. 07:08 Our 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. 07:37 They 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. 08:04 black 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. 08:31 Yep, 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... 09:00 Maybe 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. 09:29 Absolutely. 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 09:59 hundreds 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. 10:29 We 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. 10:58 coming 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. 11:28 Anything 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. 11:57 the 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 12:24 through 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... 12:53 Throughout 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. 13:22 Oftentimes 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. 13:51 babies 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. 14:18 A 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. 14:48 definitely 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. 15:17 their 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. 15:43 Yeah, 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. 16:08 Yeah, 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. 16:34 often 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... 17:02 Wednesday 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. 17:28 especially 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. 17:57 And, 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. 18:25 So 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... 18:53 I'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. 19:22 That 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. 19:52 throughout 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. 20:19 And 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. 20:46 food 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. 21:15 not 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. 21:43 As 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. 22:11 And 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. 22:40 you 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 23:09 gets 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. 23:39 Unfortunately, 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. 24:03 where 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 24:32 gardens 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 25:02 some 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, 25:31 really 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... 26:00 Big 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... 26:29 really 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. 26:58 as 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... 27:24 handful 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. 27:50 Yeah, 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. 28:19 and 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 28:48 And 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. 29:17 Starting 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. 29:45 Okay, 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. 30:14 buy 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.

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. 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 00:00 This 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? 00:28 Good 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 00:57 First 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. 01:26 We 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, 01:56 couple 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. 02:24 a 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 02:54 some 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. 03:23 This 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. 03:50 So, 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. 04:14 All 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. 04:38 It'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. 05:07 really 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. 05:36 and 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. 06:05 When 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. 06:35 Graveyard 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 07:05 And 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 07:33 Dead 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, 08:03 down 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. 08:32 So 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. 09:01 And 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. 09:31 So 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 10:00 It'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. 10:29 A 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, 10:55 you 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 11:23 that 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. 11:49 shroud 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... 12:13 So 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. 12:25 Yes, 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. 12:51 where 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. 13:19 So 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. 13:49 Um, 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. 14:19 Cremation 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. 14:48 an 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. 14:55 Okay, 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 15:21 They'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 15:50 in 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. 16:18 But 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. 16:46 can 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. 17:16 I 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 17:45 become 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. 18:13 Yeah, 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. 18:43 Okay. 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 19:12 Markers 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, 19:42 I 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. 20:10 I 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. 20:39 This 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. 21:07 quote 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, 21:35 We'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, 22:03 their 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. 22:33 because 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. 22:58 But 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, 23:27 It'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. 23:55 but 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 24:25 panicked 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. 24:55 a 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 25:24 try 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 25:54 and 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. 26:23 And 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. 26:51 But 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 27:22 especially 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. 27:52 But 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, 28:17 is 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. 28:46 We'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. 29:15 It'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, 29:43 in 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. 30:07 And 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. 30:36 The 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 31:05 you'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. 31:32 Yeah, 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? 32:03 All 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. 32:32 every 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. 33:01 Um, 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. 33:32 Yep, 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. 34:01 not 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. 34:27 If 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. 34:51 Yeah, 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 35:20 It'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. 35:49 you 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. 36:11 Yeah. 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 36:41 pissed 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? 37:05 And 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. 37:32 And 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. 38:01 they 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. 38:28 I'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. 38:58 They'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. 39:28 Families 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, 39:59 environmentally 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 40:28 aging 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. 40:54 the 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- 41:22 they 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, 41:52 He 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 42:21 questioning 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, 42:49 It 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. 43:17 They 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. 43:44 Let 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. 44:13 If 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. 44:42 A lot of times

Today I'm talking with Nicole at Little Strawberry Patch Homestead. 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 00:00 This 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. 00:27 Homestead, 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. 00:56 We 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. 01:25 been 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... 01:53 I'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. 02:21 Yep. 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 02:50 your 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. 03:13 And 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. 03:43 quail 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. 04:12 meat 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. 04:42 So 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. 05:09 So 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. 05:36 I 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? 06:01 I 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. 06:31 it 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 07:01 I 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. 07:29 There'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. 07:54 that'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. 08:24 So 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. 08:52 all 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... 09:19 We 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. 09:49 You 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. 10:19 Yeah, 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. 10:45 there 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. 11:09 There'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 11:34 it'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. 12:04 I 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. 12:32 But 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... 13:01 why 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... 13:28 Our 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. 13:55 You 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? 14:25 It 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. 14:51 And 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. 15:20 Yes, 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. 15:48 So 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. 16:15 Let'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? 16:40 I 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... 17:06 I 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... 17:35 getting 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? 18:04 Well, 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. 18:29 So 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. 18:54 quack 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. 19:23 Yeah, 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. 19:53 that'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. 20:20 in 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. 20:48 and 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. 21:11 So 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. 21:39 And 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. 22:08 If 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. 22:37 That'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. 23:05 It'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. 23:35 as 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. 24:05 It 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. 24:35 And 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. 25:04 Oh, 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. 25:34 I 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... 26:02 Every 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. 26:30 when 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. 27:01 And 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. 27:28 my 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. 27:56 So 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. 28:26 Yeah. 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 28:56 couple 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. 29:26 Because 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... 29:55 loft 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... 30:24 radishes 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. 30:52 So 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. 31:20 So, 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.

Today I'm talking with Charlotte Smith about Farm Marketing Mindset. 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 00:00 This 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. 00:30 That 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. 00:56 And 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. 01:25 These 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. 01:55 Perferred 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 02:24 I 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... 02:52 I 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. 03:20 Figure 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. 03:50 I'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. 04:15 podcast 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. 04:41 go 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. 05:10 because 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. 05:40 kills 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. 06:09 and 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. 06:34 We 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. 07:03 to 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. 07:33 that 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. 08:00 in 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. 08:30 everywhere 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 08:59 feed 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 09:29 Excel 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. 09:57 They'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. 10:25 dot 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. 10:53 And 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. 11:24 We 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 11:54 farm 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. 12:24 She 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... 12:54 still 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. 13:23 tons 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. 13:52 And 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... 14:21 What 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. 14:49 experience 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. 15:16 Many 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 15:41 a 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. 16:10 in 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. 16:36 In 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. 17:04 instead 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. 17:33 Feeding, 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. 18:03 And 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. 18:32 the 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. 19:02 What 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. 19:31 I 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. 19:59 But 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. 20:27 Well, 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. 20:56 Yeah, 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 21:26 I 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. 21:51 Thank 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. 22:20 during 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. 22:49 So 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. 23:18 email 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. 23:47 email 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. 24:14 social 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. 24:44 So 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. 25:13 in 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, 25:42 It 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. 26:11 along 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. 26:41 There'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. 27:11 It 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. 27:41 Okay, 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. 28:12 And 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. 28:41 will 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. 29:10 And 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. 29:35 I 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... 30:05 He'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. 30:34 there'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. 31:01 Why 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. 31:31 support 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 32:00 I 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. 32:29 for 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. 32:57 instead 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... 33:25 have, 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. 33:55 things 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. 34:23 And 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. 34:53 expect 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. 35:18 I 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.

Today I'm talking with Madeline at Pleasant Valley Acres. 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 00:00 This 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? 00:27 Yeah, 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 00:54 He 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. 01:17 I 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. 01:47 They 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. 02:15 People 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. 02:44 I'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. 03:13 125 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. 03:34 Okay. 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 04:02 I 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. 04:31 standard 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 05:02 edge 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... 05:27 you 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. 05:53 you 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. 06:23 Yes, 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. 06:46 So 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. 07:14 and 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. 07:43 registered 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. 08:10 Well, 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. 08:40 type 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. 09:08 goat 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. 09:38 We 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. 10:06 Yes, 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. 10:33 It 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, 11:02 We 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? 11:32 I 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. 12:02 I 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 12:30 I'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 12:58 I 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. 13:27 Friendliness 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. 13:55 they 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. 14:08 Yeah. 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. 14:37 more 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. 15:05 You 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. 15:34 They'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. 16:02 I'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. 16:30 And 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. 16:58 And 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. 17:27 once, 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... 17:53 You 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? 18:09 Oh, 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 18:39 They'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. 19:08 which 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. 19:35 Is 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. 20:04 We 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. 20:33 local 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. 21:01 but 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 21:26 I 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... 21:55 days 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. 22:24 I 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. 22:54 who 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. 23:16 And 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. 23:46 Part 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. 24:16 the 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? 24:43 so 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. 25:11 But 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. 25:37 Number 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. 26:06 It'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. 26:35 I'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. 27:05 Yearlings, 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. 27:35 which 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. 28:04 I 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. 28:32 I 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. 29:00 Okay, 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. 29:29 I 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. 29:59 Okay, 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, 30:28 thumped 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. 30:57 No, 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 31:23 there 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 31:53 Yeah, 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. 32:17 Recorded 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

Today I'm talking with Tamara at Windy River Eco Farm. You can follow along on Facebook as well. 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 00:00 This 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. 00:29 Okay, 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 00:59 I 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. 01:29 Make 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 01:58 Um, 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, 02:25 with 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. 02:54 I 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 03:24 you 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. 03:53 Your 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. 04:22 I 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. 04:52 That 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. 05:19 but 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, 05:49 because 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. 06:16 And 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 06:46 had 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. 07:14 I 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. 07:43 And 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. 08:10 a 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. 08:39 but 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, 09:09 everything. 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, 09:36 clover 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. 10:05 It'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. 10:32 Since 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... 10:58 purchased 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. 11:23 Yeah, 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? 11:50 I 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. 12:19 and 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. 12:48 And 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. 13:17 probably 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, 13:44 you'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. 14:14 I 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. 14:42 in 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? 15:11 Yeah, 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. 15:39 you 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. 16:06 Okay, 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. 16:33 for 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. 17:02 decide 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%. 17:29 that 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. 17:57 And 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. 18:27 like 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. 18:55 he 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. 19:21 And 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, 19:49 It'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. 20:18 And 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. 20:47 was 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. 21:17 So 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. 21:45 you 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. 22:16 pick 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. 22:45 you 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. 23:12 It'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. 23:41 That 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. 24:09 And 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 24:38 caught 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. 25:07 especially, 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... 25:31 But 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. 26:01 I 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... 26:29 of 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. 26:55 Absolutely. 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... 27:22 We 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. 27:51 And 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. 28:21 Tomatoes 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 28:49 do 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. 29:18 We'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. 29:30 Yeah, 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 29:56 then 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. 30:24 didn'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. 30:51 you 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. 31:21 garlic, 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. 31:46 cut 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. 32:14 grow 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. 32:44 and 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. 33:12 But 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. 33:39 He 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. 34:07 So 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. 34:34 And 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. 35:04 They 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. 35:33 one 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. 36:00 It'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. 36:30 Yes. 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. 36:53 and 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. 37:23 And 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. 37:53 and 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. 38:21 you'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. 38:47 And 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. 39:17 where, 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 39:44 pay 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 40:14 to 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. 40:44 lame 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. 41:11 it'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 41:41 And 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

Today I'm talking with Aaron and Julia at The Canny Couple. You can follow along on Facebook as well. 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 00:00 This 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. 00:26 So 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. 00:55 side 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. 01:23 Most 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 01:52 Where 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. 02:20 involves 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. 02:49 western 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... 03:18 I 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. 03:48 And 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. 04:18 um, 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. 04:46 And 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. 05:15 apples 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. 05:41 toward 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. 06:10 Yeah, 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. 06:40 Haven'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. 07:10 Cause 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. 07:39 We 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, 08:10 In 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. 08:40 It'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. 09:10 And 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. 09:38 to 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. 10:07 We 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. 10:36 proponents 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. 11:03 So 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 11:33 you 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. 12:00 A 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. 12:25 That'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? 12:55 Eight 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. 13:25 established 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... 13:52 We 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. 14:19 There'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. 14:44 I'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. 15:08 that 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. 15:37 when 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... 16:03 We 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. 16:33 And 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. 17:02 We'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. 17:28 Um, 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. 17:55 in 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. 18:24 Um, 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. 18:53 I 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... 19:21 They 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 19:47 Where 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... 20:17 You 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, 20:45 Okay, 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. 21:12 We 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? 21:41 that 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. 22:11 Um, 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. 22:40 more 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. 23:08 Everybody 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 23:32 work 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. 23:51 So 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? 24:08 So 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. 24:37 short 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. 25:05 We 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. 25:36 We 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. 26:03 we 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. 26:32 processes 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. 27:01 with 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... 27:29 Within 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. 27:45 It'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. 28:07 Um, 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. 28:35 Inside 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. 29:05 And 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. 29:35 And 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. 29:58 I 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. 30:28 Yeah, 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. 30:56 and 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. 31:26 You 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. 31:55 changed 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. 32:25 debt 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. 32:55 It 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. 33:23 and 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. 33:51 so 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. 34:21 Like 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. 34:51 It'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. 35:20 And 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. 35:48 I 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 36:18 think, 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. 36:48 And 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, 37:17 If 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. 37:46 We 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. 38:14 We 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. 38:42 And 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. 39:09 So 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. 39:38 There'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. 40:02 probably 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, 40:32 you'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, 41:01 Then 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. 41:28 This 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. 41:58 And 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, 42:27 the 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. 42:52 And 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

Today I'm talking with Andrea and Renata at Tandi Family Farms. You can follow along on Facebook as well. 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 00:00 This 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. 00:29 Like 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. 00:54 Kind 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... 01:22 In 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. 01:53 That'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. 02:20 And 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. 02:49 It'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. 03:16 So 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. 03:45 They 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. 04:12 for 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. 04:40 Oh, 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. 05:10 And 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. 05:31 Fantastic. 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. 06:00 They 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... 06:28 So 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. 06:58 were 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? 07:25 Oh, 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. 07:56 Okay. 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 08:25 for 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. 08:55 Okay. 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. 09:21 my 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. 09:50 So 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. 10:13 Yes, 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. 10:41 My 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. 11:11 And 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 11:41 There'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. 12:09 whatever 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. 12:38 So 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... 13:07 an 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. 13:37 how 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. 14:06 So 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. 14:35 where 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. 15:02 handed 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. 15:27 I'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. 15:56 and 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. 16:25 eat 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... 16:53 fed 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. 17:18 Unfortunately, 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. 17:49 and 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. 18:16 If 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. 18:45 And 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, 19:16 garlic, 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. 19:45 Yeah, 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. 20:13 I 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. 20:42 You 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. 21:08 You 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. 21:37 And 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. 22:07 bacon 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. 22:37 We 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. 23:06 Or 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 23:33 I 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. 24:02 But 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. 24:31 Food 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. 24:54 one 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. 25:23 Okay, 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. 25:53 Oh, 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. 26:20 Yeah, 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. 26:50 for 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. 27:19 other 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. 27:44 There 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. 28:13 Okay, 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 28:42 day 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. 29:10 He 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. 29:40 You 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. 30:03 A 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. 30:31 Scotty 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. 31:01 Great. All right. Have a great afternoon. You too. You too. Bye. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Kate Herford at New Generation Homesteader - Homestead Business with Kate. You can follow along on Facebook as well. 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 00:00 This 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 Kate again from New Generation Homestead. Good evening, or good morning, Kate, how are you? I'm very well, thank you, Mary. 00:26 The reason I said again is because Kate and I recorded a podcast episode months ago and my platform ate it. It's gone. I can't find it. So Kate was kind enough to come back and chat with me again. So Kate, you have been on vacation, right? Oh yes. Yes. I took three weeks. My partner was part of a support crew for an off-road. 00:54 racing event up in central Australia, if anyone knows where Australia at all is rock, or they call it Uluru. And up near there, there was an off-road race that's held once a year. And I thought, well, if you're going, I'm going too, not going to miss out. And so we spent three weeks touring up to central Australia and then around Uluru and the gorges and that sort of 01:24 which is a very off-road track in central Australia as well. It was a lot of fun. Good, I'm glad you had a chance to maybe let down a little bit, because I know you're really busy with your business. So, tell me about yourself and what you do at New Generation Homesteader. Okay, so I am a mom of two boys, and then I'm stepmom to three. So we've had five kids in the house at various times. 01:52 And I started New Generation Homesteader during the COVID lockdowns because I realized that we need to be more in control of our own food supply. So I started gardening and wanting to connect with people who had the same values as me. And it took me ages to find the word homesteader. And then when I did, I went, oh my gosh, this is where I want to be. I've been a business coach for a number of 02:22 Just my niche had changed a little bit, but nothing really set my soul on fire. And when I came to the homesteading area and I started looking up all the different homesteading pages and YouTubers and that sort of stuff, I went, oh, these people have the same values as me. But what I did find was a lot of people were really exhausted and burnt out and they're really struggling to make ends meet. And I thought, well, as a business coach, how can I help? 02:52 And the new generation homesteader was born because it's about getting back to the old ways of doing things and that's your homesteading and being more self-sufficient. But looking at earning an income in the new space, which is in that digital space, creating a course or a membership. At the moment I've got a resale rights program which actually teaches women how to create their own digital business and you know it's very quick and easy to set up. 03:21 So I just wanted to go down that path because the whole idea is to relax and have that time in the homestead. And if you've got little kids to be able to do that without really stressing about the bills and all the costs associated with homesteading, it was like, well, how can I help people to start their own digital business and bring in money even when they're sleeping? And so the new generation homesteader, doing things the old way. 03:51 but earning money the new way as well. Yeah, I didn't ask you this last time. How did you get into being a coach? Look, many years ago, I started up doing Tupperware when I was traveling Australia with my ex-husband and when my boys were one and three. And it was 2008, the global financial crisis hit and I'd taken two years leave from my job 04:21 my ex-husband had just got a redundancy. And so the financial crisis hit and we lost quite a bit of money and I had to, you know, work as we were traveling. There's a whole story wrapped in around that that's quite trauma based in that I wanted to have that experience with my kids, but I didn't. I ended up working government jobs and doing Tupperware on the side. And I love the Tupperware. 04:50 It was with women and it gave me a sense of purpose and they lifted me up. But when we got home, I got back into other government jobs and then the marriage broke down and I just realized I wanted more and you know, someone offered me, uh, uh, it was a opportunity for a health product and I took that and had great results and from there I just went, okay, I want to help other people with their health and wellness. 05:20 And that led into, you know, coaching and it just sort of morphed from there. But it was, I struggled to find what my niche, what made me happy. And I think it took me a few years and COVID and lockdowns and stuff to actually go homesteading. I actually want to be in this space and help people to get their land and to have that money coming in without stressing about it, because as a single mom, I was, you know, 05:49 working really hard to buy a new house and set things up. And then my new partner, my current partner, Bernsy, he's been brilliant. He's just supported me the whole way. And he told me to quit my government job and just go for it with the business coaching. And so that's how it came to be. Just wanting to show my kids to do something different. And one of my boys currently has an online business as well. 06:18 which is fantastic. I love that. That's great. I saw a picture of your current partner. He is very handsome. Yes, he is. He's got his beard. Really funny story. When we met, like he, over here we have a Bush range, Ned Kelly, and you know, back in the day, he had the big, big beard. And you know, so I met him when he had this big. 06:45 He'd let it go for a year and hadn't trimmed it at all. And I normally don't go for people with beards. It's never been one of the things that has attracted me to a man. But we were in the same hockey club and he was running out the back at the pre-season training and he kept saying to me, come on, keep going. And he was really supportive. And he ended up, he was the coach of my two boys and his two boys. 07:14 And so one thing led to another, and I had to organize an event for the hockey club, and I found out it was his 40th birthday. And being a single dad, and he had five kids at home himself at that time, as a single dad. And so I changed the evening to his 40th birthday party, and one thing led to another, and we're together still eight years later. 07:44 Nice. That is a great story. I love that. I love it when people meet and it just works out, you know? It's so fun to hear origin stories of relationships that last. Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, I actually moved in with him three months after going out because he got injured on the hockey pitch. I saw that he was taking a shot and he could run down the, we're talking field hockey here. 08:14 down the pitch and he got tripped up and tore all the ligaments from his shoulder and had to have surgery. And the funny thing about the beard is the surgeon said the beard has to come off and he said well I'm not doing the surgery. And I said but your son Finn has an operation in three weeks time. How are you ever going to be able to lift him if you don't have a shoulder that's you know really sturdy? 08:41 And so the beard came off and I had to move in because he couldn't do anything. And I never moved out. So three months going out. It's like, that's a big, that's a big thing. Yeah, that's, that's a little fast, but it was for a good reason. So, so good. Okay. So, um, I'm going to go back to the homesteading thing. I have a question about Australia. Are there a lot of people doing homesteading in Australia? 09:10 A lot of people probably don't call it homesteading. There are now groups that are really growing and they are the homesteading groups here in Australia. We sort of call it farming more than anything or people haven't identified that that's what homesteading is, having your little backyard garden and some chickens and if they've got a little bit more land they might have animals. So it's a growing term and in a lot of areas the small farmlets 09:40 um you know the one two five ten you know 20 acre properties they're big money now like we're talking a friend just moved into her property and i think it was four or five acres and i think it was up around the nine hundred thousand dollars um and that was in in u.s terms that's probably around six hundred thousand dollars for a four acre four four or five acre property 10:09 So we have big prices on properties for people to homestead, just on Little Acre Ridge. But they're in high demand and that's why the prices are so high. Yeah, the housing boom that happened here after 2020 during COVID really spiked prices here on land as well. And we were lucky enough to buy ours in 2020 before that happened. 10:39 because if we had waited even six months, we would not be living where we're living now. Yeah, yeah, it's just crazy. It's sort of an off-grid property group that I'm part of, and I'm watching some of the people advertise the land that they have to sell through that group. And there's a couple of properties that are around the three to 400,000 Australian, which is two and a half. 11:09 250,000-ish for the US, but they're in areas that insurance would be very hard to get, very expensive because they're in that bush area, a high fire danger, that sort of thing. We've got the problem here with insurance that they are now charging way, way more for small lots, especially if they've got any woodlands on it. 11:39 And, you know, it can be several thousand dollars a year for insurance. And I have not, I think I know what's at play here. It's to try and stop people from being self-sufficient, but that's stopping a lot of people. It's not just the price. It's also what it's going to cost them insurance wise. Yeah. All right. It's really interesting because. 12:03 As I talk to people I find out that this is like a worldwide thing not just a US thing. Insurance prices have jumped here too on everything. Land prices have jumped. Grocery prices are ridiculously expensive. Like if you are a young person with a part-time job trying to live in an apartment with three or four of your friends, 12:28 You're probably not eating much right now because food prices are astronomical right now here. Same here. And I think, or if they are eating stuff, it's the two minute noodles and all the processed food that is cheap, but really not good for them. Yeah. Or they're going home to their parents and having dinner at their parents' house. Yeah. We do that for our kids on a Tuesday night. They come around and have a feast, whatever that is. 12:58 Yeah, I just, it's really hard. I don't know how people are actually managing. I mean, you can move out into the country and find reasonable rent, but then there's generally not jobs as well. So you've got to have something to be able to offer. And that's where the online space comes in because you can actually, you know, work from anywhere. We know that because we all had to do it during COVID. It's just... 13:26 how can you create something that will light you up and put food on the table, money in the bank so that you can survive? Uh-huh, exactly. So you just brought it right back around to my next question. How are you helping people? How does your business work? Okay, so I help women, homesteading women to actually start their digital business. So I've got different platforms that I use 13:55 The first thing I do is look at what is it that lights you up? What is it, what are the skills that you have that other people want? Because I think if you look at a lot of the bigger homesteaders like Polyface Farm, they're doing a huge promotion at the moment because they've got courses and an academy or something happening where they are, they've done all these courses that are teaching homesteaders how to do things. 14:24 and you've got Melissa Norris. Yes. You know, all of the big names, they have books, they have courses that you can do, and people seem to get pulled off. They go, yeah, but they've already got courses. But the thing is, have you bought them? Do you relate to that person? And often people who want to get into digital business don't realize that... 14:54 Not everyone is going to buy from the big guys because those people are so far ahead of them that it's a little bit daunting to get into that network. And often they want to, you know, connect with someone who's just a couple of steps ahead of them because they can feel there's, they're more like them. There's some sort of rapport because they're just a couple of steps ahead. So for me, it's really about 15:24 helping them get into the mindset that the skills and experience they have is really valuable. And yes, there are people who want to work with them and will... I think it's about helping women to understand that the value they have, the knowledge they have in their skills and experience, and it doesn't have to actually be homesteading. People want to know 15:54 how they do things. And by putting together a course or it could be a checklist, you know, you might be a homeschooling mom. How many more women are wanting to homeschool their kids? What can you provide in an ebook or documents or a curriculum that's a particular subject? What can you provide that people might wanna buy? And it's simply around then creating that product 16:23 and putting it out to the marketplace on social media and through digital means. But a lot of women are really, well, I don't have anything of value, I'm not worth anything. So a lot of starting a business is mindset. And if you've been following along on my personal page and a little bit on my business page, I've really had some breakthroughs of my own. You're always learning and developing and that's what business is. You start where you are and just, 16:52 continue to grow and when you find your audience, that's when miracles happen because you're able to connect with people who are like you and you can help them. And we just sort of work through what is the best way for you to be able to help others? What is it that you will find easy to do to start with? And also understanding that when you start out, 17:21 You don't have to be successful right at the start. Like if you've only got five hours a week to put into a digital business, then you're gonna be slow when you're getting the income coming in. If you can put in 20 hours a week, yes, hopefully you can go quicker. But it's all around finding what is it that you wanna do and let's find the process that works for you and... 17:49 give yourself permission to learn and grow and not expect results right at the start because if you do go, oh, I need to get to $10,000 a month, then often you put too much pressure on yourself and it won't happen. You've got to build up, you've got to earn your first $100 and then your first $500 and then $1,000 and step into the person that's going to be 18:18 the business owner or the CEO of the business that you want to create. And I think that's where I went wrong. And it took me a while to discover. I thought I could go zero to 10 K months right at the start. And I wasn't the person that knew how to earn 10,000 K a month. I'm I've had to learn that. So I think, um, that's where you've got to give yourself permission to. 18:47 learn and grow into the business that you want to create. Sure. The other thing that I always thought was that business was beyond me. Having a business was beyond me because of all the background stuff, the financing and the paperwork and the understanding everything. And you don't have to understand everything at the beginning. 19:16 You just have to know what you want to do and you have to find people who can answer your questions. That's what I learned. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I mean, you know, we were discussing beforehand that, you know, what you've achieved in 12 months with your podcast, which is fantastic. There's always more to learn. And that's what you've got to understand. It's start with what 19:45 add the next thing to it. What is it you need to learn? Now the digital space, you can get into that very, at minimal cost because, you know, if you go and open up a business where you're selling a product and you have a storefront, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars involved in rent and insurance and staffing and setting it up so that you can actually sell. And then there's getting the products. It's a huge investment. Whereas, 20:15 With a digital business, you can start up with $1,000 to $2,000. And I say that because you could start cheaper. But what I'm talking about is having a coach and a mentor who's done what you want to do and being able to tap into their skills. And that's where my coaching program, once you get into the program, you're in it for life and can come to the coaching sessions each time they help. 20:43 And I think that's really important. They're the programs that I'm in myself because there's always something more to learn. And if you don't know what you don't know, how are you gonna find out? And you can do it all for free. As people who, especially in the homesteading space, it's funny, I've seen arguments on some Instagram posts, I'm not paying to do this. Homesteading should be free. 21:10 and you should be sharing all your knowledge. And it's like, but I don't have time to check out all these YouTube videos and try and learn what I wanna do. I want someone to show me and teach me and give me feedback. And so that's where if you wanna do it quickly, then get a mentor and a coach, because that way you find out all the little idiosyncrasies that you wouldn't know if you... 21:40 just went and looked at YouTube. So, and you know, you know that I gave you a couple of tips with your podcast and that's really helped, you know, some of the things with your podcast. If you don't have a mentor, you don't get their wisdom from, you know, the investment they've made in their own training. And I've done, I've probably invested about a thousand, a hundred thousand dollars into my training. So you're getting lots of 22:09 different perspectives from different coaches. That's what you want when you start your business. Pick my brain. What do you know that I need to know? Yep, and people, Kate is brilliant. She gave me some tips after we stopped recording the episode that went bye bye, we don't know what happened to it, on what I should do for the podcast. And it really, really helped and they were like little tiny tweaks. So. 22:37 Kate is a brilliant woman and if you want to learn about the eSpace, go check out her website. It's pretty cool. I was going to say, I am definitely doing the in the digital space thing regarding homesteading because I'm doing a podcast. My husband is doing the actual hard work of gardening and we just put up a greenhouse and he's been getting that ready for the winter. 23:06 So I'm doing all the techie stuff and he's doing all the not techie stuff outside. But because I'm doing the podcast, people keep coming up to him at the farmer's market and saying, I love the podcast. It is so bizarre to me because I know I'm doing the podcast so that people will listen and learn. But to have people come up to him at the farmer's market and tell him without any preamble, I love the podcast and they are just, 23:36 effusive in their excitement. It's so funny to me. I have this disconnect with the fact that I'm doing this podcast, but that people are listening to the podcast. Does that make any sense? It does. It does. And I think, you know, when you get into business, you've got to understand that you will have some raving fans, which is what you want. You want these people who go, 24:03 They, you want them to consume everything that you do and like your posts and show up and chat. And, and when you've got those fans, they will go into bat for you. If someone on social media, um, says something that they don't agree with about you. So having those raving fans is amazing. And you just never know where they're going to show up. I, um, I've got two funny stories. I was sitting at a, uh, a local. 24:33 um business event and this girl was sitting next to me and she goes I know you like I don't think so anyway turned out that I've done um so a series of videos I started out uh coaching stepmums and in that space because I blended our families and I thought well you know you need a bit of help there she was a single woman who had watched one of my videos 25:00 on stepmumming and she'd saved it because she liked what I was doing and like that was bizarre, not even in the stepmum space and we happened to sit together at a local function, like that was a bit weird. But then I had, I attended the Off Grid Festival here in Australia a couple of months ago and this lady who had found me on social media actually turned up and said, oh hi, and she lives 25:29 minutes from me and she just she had been watching what I was doing and the current business offer I've got she has opted in, ordered, done and she's working her way through it. So it's really weird that you don't know who you are going to impact, you don't know how they're going to react what you're doing, you've just got to know that your people will find you. 25:57 and they're going to be so excited and they're going to see you as their best friend. You don't even know them. Yep. But that's the power of being in business. And that's what you wanna be able to do. You want to be able to connect with people so they see you as the person that's helped them transform, learned something new, whatever it is, it's that personal connection. 26:27 And I think that's amazing that you've got people coming up to your husband because they obviously know that you're connected and they'd probably love to meet you in person too. Yeah, I need to get my little hiney down to one of the farmer's markets before summer's over. So the other thing that I wanted to get into is the green house thing. We built a green house this past May, it's now August, and it's going to be a heated green house. 26:56 this winter. We're working on getting it insulated and how we're going to heat it. We think we're going to use a wood stove and water actually. We're going to use the heat from the wood stove in copper piping wrapped around the wood stove that will then heat water in the big old white square container things that hold like 275 gallons of water. There's a name for them, but I can't think of it right now. IBCs? So it will radiate heat. Yeah, I think so. IBCs, yes. 27:25 and it will radiate heat overnight. And so we have been talking constantly here this summer about how we're going to make this greenhouse that's a hard side of greenhouse. It's beautiful, it's 40 feet by 20 feet, I think. Heated for the winter so we can grow things that don't need to be pollinated. Like lettuces and chard and spinach, spinach, spinach, I don't know what I'm saying. Spinach, you know, that stuff. 27:55 so that we can sell it to people who want homegrown food in the wintertime. And also we're going to grow bedding plants so that people can buy our baby plants for their own gardens next year. And we're going to grow hanging baskets that have flowers in them for Mother's Day. Wow. So, so there's lots of really exciting new things happening. 28:25 talk on the podcast with people, they tell me what they're doing and I get new ideas. And that's really important to me because we're still fairly new at this actual 3.1 acre homesteading what are we doing thing. But the people that I interview also tell me they've gone back and listened to previous podcast episodes and they've learned so much too. 28:50 I love this, the symbiotic relationship I have with my listeners makes me so happy. Yeah. And I think that's the thing you actually never stopped learning. And I think if you, if you think you've learned all you need to learn, then you're not going to grow as a person. And. 29:16 We can always learn from all sorts of different people, even if it's you learn what you don't want to do. Um, and you know, it's like that in business. I've tried various things. I know what I don't want to do. Same with homesteading. Now for me, I actually dismantled a, uh, trellis area in my garden bed yesterday. Why? Because it. 29:44 grew beautifully the first year I had it. It was fantastic. But all the trees in the neighbor's property have just grown up and they're three or four meters over the fence. And that particular garden bed no longer gets any sun whatsoever. So disappointed because it's three feet by probably 15 feet. And it's, you know, it was one of my biggest garden beds but there's nothing that will grow now. So I've just... 30:13 converted it to a compost area and I have put a couple of fruit trees that should get summer sun because the sun will be higher in the sky. But I've had to undo stuff because it just wasn't working. And now I've got to work out how can the rest of my garden be productive given that the neighbours trees are sort of blocking that as well. What can I do? So you're always looking for different ideas because as your plants grow, you're 30:43 So do you. Yeah, exactly. And I said to someone the other day on one of the recordings, I said, I said, if you stop learning, you might as well start digging the six foot grave. You're going to be laid in because you're dead. If you're not learning, you're not growing. That means you're dead. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. And you know, the last four weeks, I think I have learned more about me. Just. 31:13 keeping, I set myself a challenge to do 30 K in 90 days with a new program. I'm, I'm testing it because you know, the lady who's running it said, um, you know, you can do it in two hours a day. And I went, Oh yeah, you know, it sounds really great. That's what I want to be doing. I'll test it out for my audience. And I've been reporting every day on my Facebook page. Now within the first week, I, I got my first sale and it was. 31:42 My investment was recouped, so that was brilliant. But in, in posting every day, it's really highlighted to me things about my energy and how some days I'm energetic and some days I'm not. And the revelation has been that I have been in my masculine energy, my entire life. That the feminine energy, um, I have 32:11 I've put down. And that has explained so much about how I operate as a person and in business. And had I not challenged myself to do a post every day, I never would have learnt this. And I think we have to get uncomfortable. I've done some very, very vulnerable posts on my socials. 32:40 and people have really resonated with it because it's stuff that most people don't talk about, but I've just gone there and well, you know, this is what's happening. And so I know that that growing and learning process is going to hold me in good stead with the growth in my business moving forward because now I can adjust what I'm doing so that it's more about, it's more feminine. 33:08 and it connects better with the females I want to work with. But we've got to be uncomfortable with new growth. I mean, growing and learning, there's no comfort in that. It's confronting, we always get stuck in perfectionism and thinking we have to get everything right before we put it out. And it's just not the truth. We have to learn and grow at the same time. If we wait till we're ready to do things, you will... 33:37 never ever do things. Absolutely. Amen, sister. I was going to say back at the beginning you were talking about just starting. And yes, if you want to do something, you have to take that first step. If you don't take the first step, you will never move into the thing you want to do. 34:06 how they got into the YouTube channel that they do, basically talking about their frugal, self sustainable lifestyle as homesteaders. And I said, how did you get into doing YouTube about it? And the husband laughed and said, I don't even remember how I got into it. It just happened, I just did it. And after I got to talking with them, I was like, see, that's the thing. 34:35 Why not? Why not just do it? And also, I want to, I also want to say that it's a whole lot easier to take that first step when you don't have small children under your feet when you're in your 20s or 30s. Small children require a lot of attention and love and work. So if you're in your 20s and 30s, 35:01 You really gotta be disciplined on your time if you wanna do something like whatever it is you wanna do. You've got to be able to block time. Yes. So if you're in that stage of life, don't beat yourself up about the fact that you wanna start a business, but you're not ready, because that's a different thing than being stalled out. That's right, yeah. And I think the thing is, when you're looking at starting a business, you think you have to allocate all this time. 35:30 And that was what I actually found, that a lot of my mentors were all males, and they're into the hustle and grind, and you know, you've just got to do it and work until you've got things right. And I've realized that that's what I didn't want to do. And I got into the business side of things because I wanted to be there for my kids. The problem was, I did the hustle and grind, and I wasn't there for my kids. 35:59 wasn't present in my business, wasn't present with the kids. It's like, oh, mommy's just gotta do this. I'll be with you in a minute. And two hours later, they're stuck in front of the TV and I still haven't achieved things. It's about, can I do something in an hour here, half an hour here and half an hour there? And so there's two hours in a day in bits and pieces where you can make small steps moving forward. It doesn't have to be, we've gotta get out of this. 36:27 mindset that a business, our business, isn't a 9 to 5 job. It's a business that we want to do around the rest of the family so that you can be present doing both. And if you find those hours through the day, even if it is 7 days a week, if that's, you know, it's not a lot of, you know, half an hour here, half an hour there on the weekend, but 36:56 If you consistently do that over time, instead of waiting 10 years and then going, oh my God, now I've got to work eight hours a day to do it, you're going to be a lot further along. When you even do an hour a day or two hours a day throughout your day, not this, I have to do nine to five to work. It's so different and it's a really different mindset to shift because we've been sold that nine to five is the only way to earn money. 37:26 Yes. And I think that's what I was trying to say, but I think you said it a lot better than I did. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I don't really have a whole lot more questions for you. I just wanted to have you back and revisit some of the things that we talked about in the first one that went away. I'm so sad about the first interview going away because it was really good. I had listened to it back and I loved it. And then I found out it was gone. And I was like, where did it go? 37:56 Like that happened to me the other day on a coaching call with one of my clients and was in the group coaching and this one client had been able to show up and man, it was amazing. You know, she got some aha moments out of it and put pieces of a business together. It was incredible. And I went to, you know, download the recording and stuff and I went, oh my God, it's not there. 38:25 I had a glitch in the middle of it and I thought that we'd just re-recorded it, but it didn't, it went. And sometimes our best stuff is just made for the person who actually gets to be there and do it. Maybe that was just it. I don't know, but computers have gremlins just like everybody, everything has gremlins. So sometimes things just don't work correctly. Hopefully this one will work great. 38:52 So don't leave me after I stop recording because I need your file to upload from your end. I keep meaning to tell people this at the beginning and then usually I do and then I forget. So Kate, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me. I appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed this and I hope that some listeners, it's given them the kick that they need to go, come on, let's just do it. Let's just start that business and give it a go and see what happens. 39:22 And you know, they can you can connect with me new generation homesteader on Facebook, Insta and YouTube Just search up that okay to effort and you'll find me And even if you don't want to start a business go listen to Kate's voice because it's so beautiful I could listen to her talk all day Thank you All right, Kate. Have a great day. Thank you very much you two