Today I'm talking with Kayla at The Wild Midwest: Heritage Livestock and Native Plants. You can follow on Facebook as well.  If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 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 Kayla at the Wild Midwest Heritage Livestock and Native Plants. Good afternoon, Kayla. Hi, how are you doing? I'm okay. A little crazy, but good. 00:26 I'm excited to talk to you because you're in Illinois and I'm in Minnesota and we're going to talk about native plants. We put in some native plants to Minnesota last summer in the middle of a drought and we forgot that we needed to pay attention to them and they died. I'm very excited to talk about native plants today. Tell me about yourself and what you do. 00:54 the Wild Midwest, that is the business that I own and operate. And so it's currently a side hustle. And I also have a full-time job with a company called Canopy Farm Management, where I work in regenerative and restorative agriculture, especially as it pertains to tree crops and agroforestry. So my two gigs are kind of, they go together well. 01:24 I actually love that I've talked to a couple people in the last two months that have the same kind of symbiotic relationship with their jobby job or their career and their side hustle as it were. Yeah. I mean, do you want me to expand on like the business a little bit? The business that is your side thing, not your job? Yeah. I want to know how you came to doing this actually. 01:54 Okay. So I have my undergraduate degree in animal sciences and I knew that I wanted to do something that was helpful in terms of like conservation of biodiversity and like creating healthy habitats. So I ended up pursuing my master's degree in landscape architecture and during that time 02:24 studying more and more with the intention of trying to figure out how we can live in the world a little bit more harmoniously with the other species that are here as well. I stumbled upon how important native plants were to that whole process. So it became... 02:46 sort of a huge passion of mine, I started attending the Illinois Native Plant Society gatherings and hikes. And I had a seasonal position at the Champaign County Forest Preserve where I got to meet a lovely botanist who helped me learn a ton about the native plants to specifically Champaign County. And it just sort of became... 03:15 I just sort of became completely consumed by it. I started growing my own plants when I was still in grad school. And I think it was 2018 when I grew my first couple hundred plants and had a couple of design projects on the side with some acquaintances and friends. And then it's kind of just grown from there. I graduated in 2020 and 03:43 Due to COVID, it was pretty difficult to find another job. So I did have about close to a year of just working on this business and getting it spun up before I did get other full-time jobs. My full-time job I've been in now for not quite a year yet. So, I mean, I would love to. 04:10 work on the nursery full time and that is the eventual goal. But it's pretty, nurseries in particular are pretty high overhead businesses to run and they're pretty difficult to get off the ground because they just take so much infrastructure and investment. So yeah, we're still very much in the building phase of the business to try to give it some legs. 04:39 you put yourself into starting a business. And many, many people did. 04:48 Yeah, absolutely. And kind of out of necessity for a lot of us. Yeah. We moved in 2020 so we could start our farm to market garden and see what we could do with that. That's what we did. And my husband has a jobby job and he comes home and he putters in the garden and he does the farmer's market on Saturday and we sell stuff in the farm stand on the property. We did the same thing too. And it was time. It was time for that to happen. 05:19 I keep saying that COVID was terrible, horrible for so many people, but amazing for people who didn't lose anyone they loved and who didn't get sick themselves because it gave us time that we didn't have before to think about what we were doing and how we were doing it. Yeah. It was definitely bittersweet in that regard because for me personally, it certainly gave me some challenges. 05:48 debt burden and not having a full-time job was pretty challenging. And thankfully I have my husband who supported me during that time. But yeah, I don't think I, the business would not be as far as it is today if I hadn't have had that time to just solely focus on it. Yep, exactly. So I'm guessing you're probably in your 20s? I'm actually, I mean, my... 06:16 30s. So I'm 33 this year. All right. So did you go to school later than after you graduated high school? I took, it took me about five and a half years to get my undergraduate degree because I maintained a couple of part-time jobs during that time. And then I took a year off between 06:43 I took a couple years off between undergrad and grad school. I had a full-time job at that time. And then, yeah, then I went back to school. I needed a little bit of time to sort of figure out what I wanted my master's degree to be in. Yeah, because that's a huge decision. I don't blame you at all. And also, I commend you for taking on the weight of the student loans because... 07:11 I, if I was graduating high school right now, I don't know that I would feel comfortable doing that at all. My daughter is 34 and she went to school for two years to get a general bachelor's degree, BS degree, something, just to get her core classes out of the way. And I don't even talk to her about whether she's ever going to go back to school because all she does is cry because she's still paying off those loans. 07:39 So I don't say anything about college ever to her because the first time I asked her was like two years after she'd gotten the degree that she went for. And I said, so you're gonna go on and pursue something with this? And she started crying immediately. And I said, why are you crying? And she said, because I'm going to be paying off this money for the rest of my life. And I'm probably never gonna work in a field where it's going to apply anyway. She said, I am so upset about all of it. 08:10 And I said, I will never ask you again. She said, thank you, mom. I appreciate it. So it's hard. It's, I feel like it is so much harder for people now. And even, I don't know, 20 years ago from 20 years ago till now to get a college degree, because it's so freaking expensive. It's ridiculous. I hate everything about it. 08:36 I know, I need to. Okay, now that I've said that, now I've said all that, I always have to tell that story because it just made me so sad for my kid that she was that distraught about her student loans. So tell me what you do regarding the native plants and the stuff that you do. Yeah, so my day-to-day kind of looks, it's a lot of plant care, just keeping the plants alive all. 09:03 Throughout all the changing seasons, they all have their own challenges with the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter. Spring and fall are definitely my most favorable growing season times. Right now in high summer, it's a lot of just constantly checking on plants. Sometimes I'm having to water two to three times a day. 09:29 And then other than that, it's a lot of, you know, just it's running a small business, keeping the website updated, keeping social media updated, doing social media marketing, making sure Google business listing is up to date and organizing plant sales, reaching out to other small businesses to see if we can collaborate in, you know, any number of ways. 09:56 I also do take on design clients and consultation clients. So I'll do one-off consultations where I'll go out to people's yards and they have an hour of my time and they can ask me questions. And then I'll provide a write-up based with my recommendations and some suggested resources for them. So that's kind of our lowest service tier all the way up to me fully designing a property and giving the person. 10:23 the plan and then we also will go in and install and maintain those designs as well. Super cool. Do you love it? Do you love doing that, that part? I do. Yeah. I mean, and I actually do like enjoy the social media marketing as well. And you know, I enjoy all of it, but at the same time, it's a ton of work and I'm just get tired. 10:52 Well, yes, I can understand that because it's physical work and it's brain work. Whichever side you're working on, you're exercising one part of you or the other part of you or both at the same time and it's a lot. It's a lot for someone in their 30s. It's a lot for someone in their 50s. I couldn't do it. I don't want to do it. I think that people like you are amazing and I'm going to stay in my lane and learn from you guys from what you're doing. Yeah. I do feel like I'm crazy. 11:22 a little crazy sometimes. Darlyn, we all are in our own special ways. Everybody is a little bit loopy now and then. So it's okay. You can be crazy. I cheer you on in your insanity. Enjoy. Thank you. Okay. So when you go and do the consults, do people actually take your advice and keep up with whatever it was that you helped them figure out? Or do they just kind of... 11:52 Like it was a thing when they asked you to come, but then they realized what they need to do and they're like, eh, I don't want to do that. Or are they actually committed to continuing? I get a mixture of both. I think a lot of people, a big part of my consultations and just my work with clients in general is trying to encourage people to. 12:17 Decrease the size of projects that they start and that they work on so I recommend I like to recommend a hundred square feet is a pretty reasonable size for a person who has you know, maybe a full-time job, but a little bit of free time to install and maintain on their own in a single season So a lot of my work is just trying to get people to decrease 12:46 the size of projects that they're working on. Cause that's where people get in trouble is they take on a project that's way too big, it gets overwhelming and then they wanna quit because it's not fun anymore and it's just a constant struggle. And there are a good number of people who do take my advice and are super appreciative. And like I just recently went back and saw one that I did a consultation for a couple years ago and their front yard, 13:15 beautiful. I was so happy to see all of like, they had totally redone an entire corner of their front yard with all native plants and it was gorgeous. And then I have some other people that you know, I visited them a year or two ago and I've come back and you know, they've just done a few things that we talked about. But almost everybody makes at least a little bit of forward progress. Okay. 13:43 I was just wondering because I talked to some people on the East Coast for an interview a while ago. And what they do is they go in and they help people start gardens in their yards, even if it's just a small yard. And they do a lot with raised beds because that's their specialty. And when I asked the couple how they came to doing this, the husband said that... 14:09 They would get asked questions all the time about how to start a garden in a small yard or a half acre yard, whatever. They would just out of the goodness of their hearts go and talk to people and teach them and tell them. They would go back to visit and nobody ever did anything. But the minute they started charging for their services, people took it seriously and they would go back and visit and people would have done the work and have these beautiful raised bed gardens. The guy says, 14:37 It's almost like when you put hard-earned money into something, you might want to get something out of that money you spent. And I just laughed. I thought it was very astute of him to say that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I do charge for my consultations. I pretty jealously guard my time because there's not a lot of it. And I want to work with the clients who value me enough to pay me. Now I do some things for free. Like I'll do... 15:06 If somebody sends me some pictures and like a rough square footage, I'll like give them a list of plant recommendations or if I've worked with somebody before and they just have a couple quick questions, I'll do like a phone call and talk to them for free. But yeah, otherwise I've gotten pretty strict about charging for my time. Good, because your time is money. You need to be paid for your brilliance. Thank you. Yes. 15:35 Okay, so I have questions about native plants because I'm guessing that a lot of the stuff that's native in Illinois is probably commonly native in Minnesota. Like I assume that you guys have native coneflower and I guess it's called bee balm. You guys have that in Illinois? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We bought some from people who had it growing in their yard. They... 16:04 They are gardeners. They are really good at what they do. And they work in agriculture. And they do a plant sale every year from their property. So we bought some bee balm and some coneflower and some prairie something. I can't remember what it's called, but it's very pretty. And we put it in on our property. And it was during a drought two years ago. And promptly, 16:32 forgot that, oh gee, we might want to go check on those and water them. Didn't water them and they died because we were dumb. I should have been on my husband about it and I am not the one who gardens. So I didn't think to say, Hey, have you checked those plants we put in? My question is, is if we had put them in and actually paid attention to them and watered them, they should have done fine because they grow everywhere here. Wild. They are basically weeds. 17:02 So I'm assuming if we'd done the things we should have done they would have grown and spread and we would have lots by now 17:10 Yeah, absolutely. So that care during establishment is, there's a couple reasons that projects commonly fail. One is not an adequate care during the first season post-establishment. And if it's a drought year, then you're probably looking at having to water them for basically until the first frost and maybe even a little bit the next spring if it ends up being a dry spring. 17:39 And then the other one, the other common reason for failure is not good weed management. So these plants are tough and they can take care of themselves, but they do need a little bit of a head start, which I recommend for the first week post planting, watering every day. The next week, watering every other day. The next week, go down to twice a week. Then following week, you can start once a week and stay at once a week. 18:09 until you either get good natural rains or the plants go dormant. So I actually really like planting in fall because that means as long as you plant early enough for the plants, you know, probably about six to eight weeks before the first frost, so they have enough time to sink some roots down, you have to water way less than if you do a spring installation because then you have to water all summer long. 18:38 Yes, and had I been thinking about any of this in a clear-headed way at the time that we did it, I would have done it differently now that I know that, oh, if you don't water plants they die. And I knew this, but I just, I don't know, for some reason it just didn't click that just because they grow everywhere doesn't mean that when you rip them out of the ground and then you put them in the ground in a different place, they're going to need some care. Duh. I'm actually not. 19:07 stupid about gardening. We had so much going on, we just completely forgot about them, which sounds terrible. I feel like we murdered plants and that's just sad. I have to, I myself can't even tell you the number of plants that have died under my care. It's just maybe a tray is just out of reach of the sprinkler and I didn't realize it for a couple days and the whole thing crisps out. 19:36 Or, you know, I've planted things that are especially early on when I was doing a lot of experimentation in our own yard that just weren't right for the soil conditions or the sun conditions. So unfortunately, you know, you don't want them to die, they're living things and that kind of feels yucky. But on some level, you kind of do have to kill a fair number of plants to become a good gardener, which I feel like you're probably familiar with. 20:07 It's kind of like you got to kiss a lot of frogs to get to a prince. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Well, we did. We murdered a hundred dollars worth of plants and I was upset about it and then I was like, you know what? We can try it again a year or two from now when we're not quite as swamped with everything else going on. And I think that's going to be next summer. I actually will probably get some plants in end of August versus September. 20:34 you know, native plants and put them in and that way we only have to worry about them for about a month and a half. So, it'll be fine. Yeah. Well, and you know what? It's interesting because I run into that a lot where people think because they're natives, they don't require as good of site prep or as good of establishment care. And I also see this with seed mixes. People are like, 20:58 Oh, they're wildflowers. I'll just throw them out in the grassy area and they'll take over. Well, no, they're not going to be able to compete with established grass as seedlings. So like site prep is another really important piece that gets missed a lot. It's so interesting that you bring that up. We wanted to put in two small wildflower gardens and not the native flowers, just wildflower gardens. 21:28 My husband was thinking that he would just throw the seeds in. And I said, no, no, no, no. I need you to actually get the tractor with the tiller and till out the spaces. And he said, but they're wildflowers. And I said, yes, they are wildflowers. That doesn't mean they can compete with everything that's there already. Plus, how are the seeds going to get down in the dirt? There's a ton of grass there. And he was like, oh, oh, yeah. 21:53 He said, you know, you're actually better at this than I am. I said, I'm better at the thinking through it. Usually I said, you're good at the hard work. We're a good team that way. And he just laughed. He said, yeah, cause you don't have to beat yourself up to get your wildflower garden. I said, no, but I have to redirect you from not getting it started in the first place. We have a very fun relationship and he's really good. When he's kind of poking me and I poke him back, I think he wants me to poke back just because it's fun. 22:23 So we have a good thing going. But anyway, we did till it up and we did do the putting the stuff in the dirt the way it said to on the package. And some of them required winter stratification. So we knew that some of the flowers wouldn't come up the first spring. It would be the second spring. And this is the second spring and those gardens are so, so pretty. They all came up, they're great. So. 22:50 not a total idiot when it comes to gardening, just have terrible moments where I go, oh, I did not do that right. Yeah. And yeah, we all have those for sure. Yeah. So in your business name, the part of it is Heritage Livestock. What's the story with that? Yeah. So that's, that's sort of room that I left myself for expansion. We are looking at 23:18 potentially moving to some property that our family owns and leasing it. It's about 120 acres. Um, and so part of, part of like reintegrating humans in biology in a healthy way, um, is absolutely agriculture and like incorporating. 23:45 biodiversity and native species and appropriate livestock all together in the same space. And that's kind of where my day job especially fits in really beautifully with this. So right now we have, since we live in town, we do live in an area that has pretty lax legislation around poultry. So we have 24:12 flock of Welsh Harlequin ducks with three separate bloodlines that I'm working on crossbreeding. My goal is a duck that is like the ideal small farm duck so they can incubate their eggs and raise their babies themselves. They are good layers, they're good foragers, and they are halfway decent table birds, the boys especially. 24:43 Yeah, my ducks are, so, you know, we have a fairly small yard, but to the extent that we're able, we do rotate them around our different prairie areas within the yard. And so we incorporate our ducks with our native plants and we get eggs from them and we harvest the boys and I will sell some of the excess girls to other people. And that's something that I want to expand with more people, more species of animals 25:13 as the nursery grows, utilizing animals to help me manage spaces because animals will work all day long just for the price of being able to have good food and shelter in terms of weeding and managing plants for you, especially if you are really careful about good fencing and things like that. So I'm really interested in how animals can help me manage my space and how I could share that with other people. 25:42 Okay, I have to ask, are you going to get goats so they can keep whatever brush you have trimmed back? I might get goats. I probably would get sheep first. Okay. Just wondering, I have talked with so many people about goats on this podcast and I say that like I'm sick of it. And I'm not actually sick of it because I learned something different from every person that has. 26:08 goats or sheep or cows or horses or whatever animal they have. But goats are the big thing from my podcast because most people who are into homesteading either have goats, have had goats, or are thinking about getting goats. So that's why I asked. I have a different question. I have a question about your ducks. If you get ducks as ducklings, do they like 26:35 imprint on you and are they friendlier? Can you handle them easier if you need to pick them up? Because our chickens are ridiculous. We did not get them as babies and they fly the run all the time and we have to clip their wing, one wing, so they can't fly out of the run. And they don't like being picked up and they don't listen because chickens do not understand human language. And it's just a total pain in the ass to catch them to clip that one wing. So 27:04 Are ducks different or are they kind of the same as chickens? They are, so this, they're quieter. In terms of like temperament, they're usually quieter than chickens. Now I also have a fairly docile breed, which I chose intentionally. There are some duck breeds that are pretty high strung. But they, in order to imprint, you have to get them like... 27:30 essentially right after they come out of the egg, which is difficult when you buy from breeders or hatcheries, you know, with the shipping and the transport process. They usually are two to three days old by the time that they get to you. Okay. Yeah. Now, I do spend a lot of time with them as babies, so they're pretty accustomed to my presence and I can catch them. They don't love it, but they don't beat me up quite like my chickens used to when I had to handle them. 28:00 Yep, I don't love chickens. I have said this a few times already on the podcast. And the only reason we have chickens is because I love fresh eggs. I love the fact that we have day old eggs at any point in time while we have the chickens. And eggs right from the coop in the pan scrambled taste amazing. Yeah. So that's why we have chickens. My husband on the other hand thinks chickens are great. He thinks that it's a riot to. 28:27 get earthworms out of the garden and throw them in the run and chickens lose their minds. He thinks they're fun. I don't love chickens and I've never had ducks so I don't know if I would like ducks or not. And not really all that important. I was just curious about the difference in temperament between chickens and ducks. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, certainly we enjoy them more than the chickens. And so one thing 28:56 They do have high water needs in terms of, you know, you might not, you don't always necessarily have to provide them with swimming water, but they at least need to dock their heads fully so that they could clear out their sinuses. And they love, they need clean water and they are really good about making water dirty. So it's constantly managing their water, but that's actually a pro for us because 29:23 we take that dirty water and fertilize our nursery stock with it. Um, and so, you know, we are, it's kind of combining two things that way. Yes. I, I, some of the stuff that I love the most about homesteading and about talking with you guys is all the dual purpose and the full circle situations that come up. Absolutely. It, I do this thing. 29:51 with my house where I try to practice no wasted motion. So if I see something in the living room and I'm headed toward the kitchen and the thing belongs in the kitchen, I grab the thing out of the living room and put it in the kitchen. Or if I'm going downstairs and I notice that there's dirty clothes on the floor from the night before, they go downstairs with me. So I don't remember 20 minutes later and have to come back up to get them. No wasted motion as often as I can do. And I feel like it's a thing. 30:18 that people who are into agriculture, livestock, homesteading, crafting things, whatever, they all just innately do it. They just notice it and go, oh, this makes things easier and it's a natural follow through. So why not do it that way? Yeah. So I love that. I think it's great. Yeah. And I feel like finding those little opportunities is also super fun. Yeah. 30:44 It's always funny when you finally notice something that correlates to something else and you put it together in your brain and your brain goes, oh, that's why that works that way. I have this happen to me all the time, the older I get, and I have it happen with words a lot of the time. There are words that are two words that got put together at some point in the past to make the new word. And it doesn't click for me until... 31:12 I was this many days old when I realized the thing about the word. And every time it happens, I'm like, God, I'm an idiot. I've been reading for years. I love words. How did I not know those two things ended up together to make that word? And I feel like it's the same moment when you realize the correlation in your work or your hobbies or your life or whatever it is. 31:35 It's just this light bulb that pops on and you go, oh, I'm so dumb, I should have known that. I should have noticed that before. Yeah. So, okay, so basically your whole life is about 31:54 gardening and regenerative practices and making things work the way they originally worked in nature. Really, that's what it sounds like. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's awesome. I think that's a beautiful way to live your life. Thank you. You're welcome. And that's about it. I try to keep you to half an hour and we're at 32 minutes. So Kayla, thank you for your time and talking with me. 32:23 Absolutely. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Hog Trap Herb & Flower Farm.  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 Jennifer at Hog Trap Herb and Flower Farm, I think is the name of it. I'm sorry, I got stuck there for a second. Good morning, Jennifer, how are you? I'm wonderful, how are you? I'm good. You're in Texas? 00:29 Yes, we are actually in an odd spot. We're in south Texas and we're not really central Texas. We are south of Austin and east of San Antonio. So we're in a non-regional area. So we call it south central Texas. Okay, well I'm in Minnesota and it is like seven, it's not even 70 degrees yet 00:59 And the reason I say this is because we have had the wettest, most miserable spring and early summer ever. So I'm so excited that it's gorgeous out today. Yes, yes, that it helps. But we've had rain, but we've had more storms this year, which has really impacted us a lot a bit. Yeah. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Okay, so I am actually a Texas transplant. I grew up along the Mississippi River. 01:28 Mississippi and Arkansas, lived in DC for 10 years and moved down here to Texas. And then married a cowboy down here and we live on a fifth-generational ranch. We do raise cattle, but we also have some areas to the side where I do some farming for our herbs and flowers. I'm a grandparent. 01:57 and we have a whole bunch of kids and I'm actually transitioning back into teaching and we're pretty active in our community and just outreach and just we stay busy. We really love living life to the fullest and we are constantly always adding to our busy schedules. Very nice, so my first question. 02:23 is I saw on your Facebook page that you have the apparatus to distill your own oils from herbs. What is that called? Oh, I am so excited. So that's kind of a new addition and it's kind of, I've learned to diversify a lot doing this type of work. And so it is a still, it's a distillery. So instead of making moonshine, we're filling a set of stills from raw material. 02:52 Oddly enough, I watched it on a TikTok and I thought, you know what, that seems really easy to do. And I purchased it probably about two months ago and I'm already looking to upgrade to a larger device. And so it's something I've really enjoyed in the spirit. It seems like it could be overwhelming, but it's very, very simple. 03:19 to use and it's just another avenue for us to get our product out into the market. Okay, the reason I asked is because I didn't know if it was called a still because I thought maybe it had a different name because stills are associated with alcohol. Yes. So no, it's a distiller. So what it does is I use depending on what I'm trying to get from the product. It uses steam and so on the it uses a bottom heat which of course 03:48 heats the water and uses the steam that goes up into a column, which then produces either the essential oil in the beginning and then it slowly turns up the hydrosol, which is basically just scented water at that point. You can use it that way or you can just use it for hydrosol and that's when you would just put the material directly into the boiling water and the steam would rise and you would get more of the hydrosol that way. 04:17 Okay, so how much essential oil do you get from like one batch of doing this? Because I'm assuming it's pretty small. It is very small. So it all depends on the, it has, if you have a high quality product or if it's dry material will help, will kind of affect the average, I guess, what you get from it. 04:46 So if I use dry lavender buds, for instance, I could probably use... 04:56 almost a pound and I may get one mil of essential oil. Wow. And how long does it take? Oh, it takes about... So for the essential oil process, you want to grab that first 30 to 40 minutes of the oil. After that, it kind of depletes. It's kind of... Not its pureness, but the aroma effect of it. 05:21 But the remaining time, the other two and a half hours, you're going to get your hydrosol from that. And the longer that it kind of distills, the less quality of a product because it kind of goes away after time. So for the most potent part of the whole process, it's going to be the earlier the better. I usually cut everything about two hours. And I usually get about a quart of hydrosol. 05:51 You could go longer, but it's not as potent as you do the initial batch that you get. Okay, so what do you use the hydrosol in? What do you use it for? Oh, there's a few different ways you can use hydrosol. You can add witch hazel. So if you're doing a lavender or even a rose, if you go to like department stores and beauty supply, you'll see a lot of the rose water. 06:18 And sometimes they'll put like witch hazel in there and use it as a toner for your skin. I also do it, the lavender, and the lavender will help with like inflammation on the skin. This is a safer avenue for smaller children too, because you have to be careful about using the oils on children, but this, because of the water content, is safer for the children. And then you can just also, 06:47 We'll take the hydrosol and we'll add pure grain alcohol as a preservative and you can use it as a room spray or to spray on your linens, just to freshen the air in the car. And then you also just have the regular hydrosol with nothing in it that you can actually use as a culinary. If you wanted to add something to a liquor or to... 07:15 a mocktail or something, you can use that. Because it's just, it's basically you're catching the smell of the herb or whatever material you have. It's like a flavored water without adding like sugars and all those other things too. Super cool. I didn't know anything about that. But it is, it's, there's so many avenues to, to go down the whole distilling process. It's really interesting. 07:44 This is why I love this podcast. I learned something new every single interview. It makes me so freaking happy. Okay, so I wanted to know about the still because I thought about getting one too and then I saw how much they cost and I thought maybe not right now. So what kind of herbs do you grow? What varieties? Oh, so we, I grow everything from your basic. 08:08 I say culinary herbs just because people know them for cooking only. They don't realize there's like herbal benefits, medicinal benefits to those herbs too, but I grow everything from your basic rosemary's to basils, different types of basils, oregano's and whatnot. And I even grow things that are a little bit harder to find that aren't familiar with people like 08:36 whorehounds and we do motherwort here. It's really a variety. Whatever will grow in Texas, I try to grow. And trust me, I have been through the ups and downs of growing herbs in Texas. So I think I've kind of pinpointed what's working. But we also do the floral, like the calendula, which is a great source for different properties and benefits for venus and oil uses too. So. 09:06 Okay. Um, so are we talking acres of herb plants or are we talking not acres? Acres would be wonderful, but unfortunately with irrigation, there's always that problem. So I really kind of concentrate on, um, raised beds, but it's in a large area. So we'll do it around, we do it around the house and the house sits on about five acres. So maybe. 09:36 We're looking about maybe about a half an acre to three fourths of an acre total for everything that's spread out around the house. Yeah, I'd love to get to that point. I did have, I did have for the first three summers we were here, this is the fourth summer, an herb garden that was like, I would say 15 feet by 15 feet. And it was packed with time. 10:05 sage and chives and lemon grass and lemon verbena and a bunch of stuff. And it was gorgeous. And we, I dried a whole lot of it for the winter. And then my husband was like, I'm going to till your herb garden in. And I said, I said, you're going to what? And he said, I'm going to till your herb garden in. And I said, why? He said, because I want to start over. He said, the weeds are really getting bad in there. And 10:34 He's the gardener, I'm not, so I don't actually take care of the herb garden, he does. And he said, I want to start over. And I said, okay, so can I give you a list and we start over? He said, yes, you can, as long as I can till it under. I said, okay. So that was the plan. And then this spring, it rained and rained and rained and rained. So there is no herb garden in the big garden now. The herbs are in the greenhouse and they're doing okay. We had our first batch of... 11:04 however you say it, bruschetta or bruschetta last night with our basil. And it was delicious. So they're doing really well in the greenhouse. Yeah, we just opened a new greenhouse. My husband built it. And so we do start our own seeds here. We order from one company and they are heirloom seeds. So. 11:31 We, it's great because you get such a different variety that I think people get stuck in the rut of what they know and they don't venture outside a different species of that plant. Um, like basil, yes, we all know Genovese basil, but a lot of people don't know about Thai basil. And so- And cinnamon basil. So we, I tried to kind of introduce that to the community. Um, and we do that through- 12:00 markets and then we also we open the greenhouse and we have like a farm store we sell our products that we make as well as seedlings and starts and stuff but I like to kind of open and show them that you can look outside that species and find something that that may taste a little different that grows maybe a little bit different and just kind of educate them outside the box I guess kind of learning. 12:29 Yes, I love that. When people ask us about the stuff we cook with, I'm like, what stuff in particular? Do you mean herbs? Do you mean spices? Do you mean what kind of beef do we get? What do you mean? And a lot of time I get, I don't know as the answer. I'm like, oh, okay. Do you want the long story or the short story? And usually it's a short story. So speaking of basil, we picked up a basil plant. 12:59 years ago. I don't remember the variety but it had big leaves and they were like crinkly almost like um like parsley crinkly. I don't know what it was does this ring any bells for you? It doesn't ring a bell but I would be interested that I when we're done here I'm definitely going to be researching that and seeing what type of basil that was because um that sounds very 13:29 Tasted does it have a flavor that's distinct from the other basils or it just tasted like regular old? Genovese basil, but it was so beautiful So, I don't know what it was and I think it was a variegated color I think it was green and like a little bit of gold. Oh, so I don't know but it was really pretty and it was great And it did Fantastic like it got huge. Oh, well So I've been trying to find it since and have not seen it since 13:59 And the other thing that I was going to say about people stick with the varieties that they know, I didn't think we could grow lemongrass in Minnesota. And they had it for sale at a nursery. And I was like, well, let's try it. The worst that happens is it dies. And lemongrass does really well as long as it's in full sun all day and we get some hot weather in the summer. Yeah. It's funny what... 14:25 This is what I like to tell people. They ask me, well, what will grow well here? Well, pay attention when you go to the nurseries and to these big box stores. They're not gonna sell stuff that won't grow well in the area. You can sit down and you can look at your, you know, your county extension list and get that information too. But when you're wandering around, be kind of mindful of the plants that they're selling because why would they carry something that's not gonna sell? So that's another avenue. 14:53 Like when you're out, say, oh, like you said, I wonder, I didn't think it would grow here. Well, they wouldn't sell it there if they didn't, if it wouldn't grow there. So I think people are like, I don't want to kill another plant. So they're scared to kind of do something different, but it's all, I'm a hands-on learner, so it's, it's experimental and learning about that plant in the process. Um, but yeah, we, uh, we grow lemongrass here as well. 15:21 And one of the distinctions you were talking about growing in full sun, one thing that I tell my customers, full sun and Texas full sun here are two different things. And so you have to really have that understanding and experiment. I say plant it in a pot first, move it around, see whether it likes the best and plant it there. Doesn't always have to be so landscaped. It's where it's going to do the best. Yes. And the other thing in the paying attention vein here, 15:51 is if you're going to buy fruit plants, I'm not, we're not talking about fruit plants today, but it's important. Make sure that you know whether you need to get different varieties of the plant so it will pollinate because my husband bought cherry plants last year and he didn't get a different variety. He got two of the cherry, the winter hardy sweet cherries that will grow in Minnesota. And I was like, 16:19 They're related to apples. They're going to need another variety. And we ended up having to buy a Rainier cherry tree because that was the one that was recommended to cross pollinate. I don't know if you know anything about cherry trees, but Rainiers are one of the most expensive saplings to buy. Yeah, that was fun. Um, I, I, I love him. I love him. He's a great guy, but. 16:47 He loves gardening, but he doesn't love the research. So I end up doing the research. That's my job. Yeah, it's a learning opportunity. That's why it works, right? Yep. So I understand that you grow herbs and you grow flowers. So do you, and you're distilling the oils from the herbs. So do you make things with that? So yeah, again, we make the essential oils with it, but 17:16 So we kind of refocused our whole agenda, I guess, this year. And I want to concentrate on being a little bit more of a supplier to homemakers that do the soaps and that do more homemade items and be a supplier that way, because they already understand the importance of having good, high quality products to put into their product. 17:43 And I just find in general public when we do the markets and stuff, sometimes it's more about, oh, well, I can get it cheaper on Amazon or, you know, I can go down to Walmart and get the same thing. So with the oils, we're just really trying to focus on building our inventory so that we can be that supplier for other homes setters and other people that are interested in that field. 18:12 But also, you know, the products that we make ourselves is we make like the salves and we make the lip balms and we make the candles and stuff with those as well. So I'm not a big soap maker. I can never figure it out. I just, you know, there's just things I just can't do in life and that's one of them for me. So I like just being the outlet for people to come and purchase, purchase just raw materials like that as well. Nice. 18:42 You were saying that people say they can buy the same thing at Walmart or Amazon for cheaper. It is not the same thing. That's your correct. All right. And so we, I try to go into that education part of it, but you lose people very quickly when they're just looking for like a fast grab and go that aren't interested in really learning about, um, what goes behind creating a high quality product. And that's okay. Cause not everybody's into. 19:12 into that aspect of it. So that's why we kind of diversified a little bit and looking at the market being a little bit more of a supplier than the direct sales to the customer. Yep, for sure. Well, I have listeners who do wanna know about why it's not the same. And I would be happy to share my experience about why it's not the same. We do, we make soap, we make lip balms, we make candles. And... 19:41 I did order some essential oils from Amazon. I did not get any at Walmart, but I used to get essential oils at Walmart years ago. And it is not the same. They don't smell like they're supposed to. Unless it's somebody who actually does this as a business, it's not the same. Factory produced is not the same. And we had a batch of soap that just crumbled as it cured. 20:09 because the oil that we used was not good. And it's expensive to make soap. And we were out probably about $50. And I looked at my husband and I said, no more. No more, we are finding a reputable place to order our essential oils from and our fragrance oils from because this is not okay. Right, it is about the quality. I have found, I did a lot of research, you know, when you get the more commercial, 20:37 made oils and stuff. It's not always that oil. There's additives in there. There's like scent boosters. They add things to those, which does affect the quality of the product that you're making as well, like you said, with your soap. So my name is on it. The person that I'm selling to that's making the soap, her name is on that. And they're going to tell that consumer that, oh, well, I know I get my oils from hog traps. 21:06 I want it to be a positive that's attached to our name. I don't want it to be a negative. So quality is extremely important when it comes to our products. Absolutely. I would put a word in the middle of absolutely and lutely, but I'm not gonna do it. So why is it hog trap? So I wish that I really had this great, funny, whimsical story that. 21:32 to tell you, like I wrestled a wild hog over the land or something like that. But honestly, this is my husband's family's ranch and where we put our house, there used to be a hog trap there and that's it. Well, that's okay. Oh, wonderful, cool story. Like I was attacked by a wild hog or, you know, I killed him with my bare hands sort of deal. 22:01 We need to make one up to really entertain people But it's something as simple as we took the hog trap down and we put our house and we're like, hey, let's just call it hog trap So let's go Sometimes the most obvious thing is is the right thing You should you should make up a story a legend about hog trap I'm thinking we like that. Yeah, like that like the ghost hog that comes at night or something like that I think we should we should definitely do do something like that 22:29 That would be fun and funny and you could be like in, you know, a little tiny fine print. You could print the story out and fine print at the bottom, be like, this is not a true story, but it's funny. Exactly. I think that might be another avenue that we can go down, you know. Why not? Anything to market what you're doing that is positive is a great thing. Well, it's definitely an attention getter because we'll be at a market sometimes and even the guys will walk past us, a hog trap, because it's... 22:59 They're thinking, oh, trapping hogs because it's a big thing here. And that kind of makes them stop and kind of read the rest of my sign. And they're like, oh, okay. You're not selling hog traps, selling girl stuff, you know, or whatever. Girl stuff. Yeah. Then the wives are coming over like, why are you in here? And they're like, oh, you know, yeah, it definitely draws attention. I got suckered in honey. Come look at your girl stuff. No, I know that happens a lot. 23:29 Uh-huh. So what flowers do you grow? So we grow most of everything I grow to be a dual purpose. So it's it's pretty, but it's also edible or medicinal in some way. So we grow a lot of calendula, which we make a lot of things with those. And then lots of yarrow because I use those in arrangements as well. Sunflowers, which we. 23:56 like the seeds and then I have my non-dual ones, more like the zinnias, which do really well here, the cosmos and we do grow snapdragons seasonally. And when I make my bouquets, I use those flowers, but I also add herbs into it as well. So you're kind of getting the whole, just a little bit of everything that we grow here. 24:22 Yes, herbs make bouquets smell so good. I put together something last year and I threw some basil in it. Oh, yeah. And when I gave the bouquet to the person that came for the CSA pickup, I was like, if you run your hands through the basil, it will make the house smell good along with the other flowers. And she was like, really? And I said, yep. I said, and your hands will smell like basil for the day too. And she was like, oh, okay. 24:49 Absolutely, kind of provides a little bit of aroma therapy. So if you throw a couple of twigs of rosemary in there, which I adore rosemary, um, and you just brush against it and you smell it, you know, it's a, it's a kind of aroma therapy, you know, uh, effect on you as well. And I don't think people think, uh, herbs as being part of a bouquet because they only see the greenery, but they do flower out like the, the basil will flap. 25:18 Most of it will and so it does provide another kind of beauty about the herb to it as well. Yes, basil flowers remind me of little tiny orchids. They're really, really pretty. I had a question and then I got thinking about the flowers on basils and I forgot my question because this is what I do because I'm a terrible journalist. What was it? I don't know what it was now. So do you love what you do? 25:48 I adore it. So I'll give you a kind of reason why we started it kind of really in 2016. Very, very small. And then of course, over COVID, because I was teaching at the time, a lot of time on my hands, I kicked it into overdrive. But my mother also come down with cancer. So I moved her in to take care of her. And so our whole 26:16 little farm, my little herbal and flower farm is based off healing. And so while taking care of my mom and passing my mom passing away, I kind of have this area out by the house where a lot of the herbs are and I call it the healing garden. I don't think people understand how much you can heal not just by medicinally with herbs, but in flowers, but just being in nature period. 26:46 And so my mom kind of just started that with me. And so we have our little ashes actually buried out there. So when we do classes, I'll take the plants out and we sit at an herb box and we sit at a flower box and you're looking at the dirt, you're looking at the bugs in the dirt, you're connecting back to nature and it's very mindfulness based. You're touching the plant, you're watching the plant flow in the breeze. 27:16 And we're all right there centered around this big magnolia where my mom is buried. And so it's it's we are motto is healing with nature and really in all aspects of it, whether it's medicinal, where it's mindfulness, whether it's just seeing a beautiful bouquet of flowers that's making you feel good about yourself. That's what we center everything around. And I have found such an enormous positive feedback in little town in. 27:46 in Texas where I have seen just an emergence of people really taking time from themselves and connecting back to nature and really enjoying the things that are around them. Awesome. I feel like nature gives you the opportunity to be in the moment they are in. Absolutely. And that's the only moment we have. Right. Is the moment that we're in right now. Absolutely. 28:15 And we just take it for granted. We're such a disposable, fast-paced replacement. Let's go, go, go, multitask. A society, and what we don't realize is all of that that we put on ourselves when we're multitasking, we're wearing ourselves down emotionally, physically, and health-wise. And so it's hard for us to stop and smell the roses, in a way, because we feel like we're not accomplishing anything. 28:45 in reality you are because you're taking care of yourself in a way. Yes, and with any luck the things that you're doing to take care of yourself and make your soul happy ends up helping other people too. Absolutely. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I come across people all the time that they'll come up to me and we'll start this conversation and I tell them the story about... 29:13 healing garden and herbs and stuff and they you can see their face kind of transform into you see the little light bulbs going off and you're like oh that's right oh maybe I should do that and that's they might not buy anything but I've planted that seed I've planted that kind of thing in their mind that um reconnecting with nature kind of going back to that childhood when you used to lay on the ground and make shades out of clouds you know take 29:43 and reconnecting and to me the only way to do that is using nature. We just adore all that nature has to offer. Yes it is. It is like, it's like, I don't have a word, not Prozac, but it's anti-anxiety medicine that is completely natural. Yes, yes it is. But again it's hard for us to let down those expectations of things that we have to do 30:12 complete, you know, there's other things that you can do too. And again, the self care, if gardening is your thing, you know, those are just as important as completing a work assignment. And, you know, being so stressed and all of this stuff, we just got to really kind of take it back in a little bit and reprioritize what's really important to us. 30:38 Absolutely. Yesterday morning I was sitting on my porch looking out the window having my coffee and we have three cats right now. We have our male barn cat, we have our female barn cat, and we have our kitten. And the female barn cat is the mama to the kitten. And the kitten lost all his siblings to new homes. The last one went to a new home two weekends ago and he's about 15 weeks old now. 31:05 He lost his friend he doesn't anybody play with so he's been trying to get mom to play And I was watching this little boy play with her tail yesterday And she kept batting at him like no no and then finally she gave up and just Plumped him to the ground and rolled him over and was playing with him like she was a kitten My heart felt so good watching that happen and that's nature. Yeah, that is they get it You know they get it so we need to get it. We are the we get 31:34 in front of ourselves. We are our worst enemy sometimes because we have these unrealistic expectations and sometimes we just need to dial it back and just let things happen and uh remember while we're here you know and um but I love educating people about that and the mindfulness and being in with the plants and I have seen people really taking what we've taught in classes and stuff and now they're out. 32:03 doing similar things. And it's, I love seeing those little seeds that I've planted kind of bloom into something that they were passionate about, but nobody told them it was okay to pursue. They needed that validation. And so I think they get that if you take the extra time and educate them a little bit and so show some support, then they, they can go off and kind of follow that. 32:31 Yeah, I feel like people forget that they're growing too. It's not just plants that grow, people grow. Right, absolutely. So, I don't know, it's a very new agey kind of morning around here and I say that with the most respect ever because people are like new age stuff is so silly, it's not. But is it new age? I mean really, I think it's this is stuff that people did, 33:00 to these, we went out to Big Bend for a vacation and toward the little ruins of pioneer villages and stuff. And when you step out the back door, right beside the back door, they had herb gardens, but they used it not for culinary, but also for medicinal stuff. I think people back then just appreciated time probably because they worked so hard. So I, you know, I 33:28 In some ways there are a lot of new age things, but I think we're also getting back to more of the roots and stuff that our previous people have done here for hundreds of years. Yeah, I think that we're finally maybe getting a clue, some of us, about the fact that the old-fashioned ways and the new ways of doing things can meet up in the middle and be a beautiful thing. Absolutely. So, that's what I think this morning. 33:57 Jennifer, I try to keep these to half an hour. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me. I appreciate it. Yes, it was wonderful. Thank you so much. Have a fantastic day. You too.

Today I'm talking with Savannah at Simply Rooted. You can also follow on Facebook.  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 Savannah at Simply Rooted. Good afternoon, Savannah. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. You're in Georgia? Yes. We are up in northern Georgia, very close to the North Carolina and Tennessee border. 00:29 Is it warm there? It is warm. Occasionally we will be up in like the 90 degree area, but mostly we stay in like the mid to high 80s. So like on average all summer long? Yeah, I would say so. It definitely gets hotter as summer progresses and that our winters are pretty mild. It's funny like we're all the way up in like the mountains of Georgia, but we're 00:57 technically a, I think it's called like a temperate rainforest here. So we do get a lot of rain in the winter time. Okay. Well, Minnesota, the summer can't make up its mind. What the hell it's doing. We were really, really cool over the weekend. I mean the high on Saturday, I think maybe got to 70. Wow. Maybe. And today it's really muggy and I think it's 75. And then, um, two weeks ago. 01:24 it was hot and the humidity was high. It was just gross. So we never know what we're going to get here. It's like a box of cracker jacks. You never know what the prize is going to be. So anyway, tell me about yourself and what you do at Simply Rooted. Yes. So I actually started Simply Rooted back in April and it really started as a subscription box. I am actually by career a registered nurse. 01:53 And so I work from home and I have my own company at home. I work with attorneys and I review their clients' medical records. But my husband and I, we have eight acres and we're very much into like the homesteading lifestyle, slow living type of thing. So I wanted to create a business kind of around this lifestyle because I'm so passionate about it. And I have a lot of our friends and family ask me, 02:22 about what I do, how I got started. And so I decided to kind of create a subscription box for those who are interested in that more simple living, slow living type of lifestyle. And so it's a quarterly subscription box and it comes in January, April, July and October. And so it's mainly seasonal, but we include products from 02:50 small businesses and small family-owned farms from other country. We put their products in our box and we usually shoot for about six to eight different products every quarter. They all kind of revolve around kind of like that home setting lifestyle, that simple living lifestyle. So, you know, we have non-toxic all-purpose cleaners, tallow body butter, tallow body soap. In this box, we have a peach jam. 03:17 and we have some non-toxic mosquito repellent. In our last box, we had a homestead and cookbook. And so just kind of things like that, kind of to push people towards cooking from scratch, creating a non-toxic home, getting in their garden and planting different things to kind of really push you in that direction. So there's so many people like with prices today that they really, and like just the stress of everyday life and they really just wanna take it slower. 03:45 and enjoy life and not have that stress that they have on a day to day basis. Okay. So I have a question. The in the subscription box is anything made by you or is it just from other crafters that you know? It's mainly from other crafters. We buy it through wholesale. We also have a couple of local people in our community that we get products from as well. 04:11 And then something new that I'm going to add here in the future is have our subscribers send in people that they know in their community and we can feature products from someone in their hometown. Nice. So you're a curator of good things. Yes, definitely. Yep. Fun. I should consider that. 04:38 I should think real hard about that because we do make stuff. We make lip balms and soaps and candles and whatever. And it's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. And I don't mind doing it. It's fine. But I like your idea better. Yeah. And it just gives a way to support the small businesses around the country. And a lot of these products you can't find on Amazon. 05:04 That's kind of like the whole point of it too, is that they're not readily available. And so by supporting these small farms, small businesses, you're supporting their kids and their college fund and all those great things. And then you also get a benefit of it too, if you get these amazing products that are actually good for you. And they come from good ethical people who care about your health as well. Yeah, I love it. That's a fantastic idea. Thank you. So I saw. 05:33 On your Facebook page, one of the latest posts, there's a candle and I can't think of the name of it right now, but I looked at the top and middle and bottom notes of it and all I want to do is wear it as a perfume. Those are some of my favorite scents. It smells so good. I am obsessed. I picked up the candles. It's actually from a family ran business here in my hometown and we have her candles in all of our boxes. 06:01 I picked them up and I'm like, oh my gosh, these smell like they it might be one of my favorite candle scents like ever. What's the name of it again? I can't remember. It's called Golden Hour. That's it. Thank you. Yes. And that's a perfect name for it because that's what I would I would think of. But I love bergamot and I love musk and I love citrus and and honestly the perfume that I wear all the time is an essential oil blend. 06:28 And it's a light musk and a light patchouli. And patchouli is terrible. Like, I don't love patchouli, but this light patchouli essential oil is beautiful, mixed with the soft musk. But there was a perfume out, I can't remember the name of the company, it was many years ago, maybe 15 years ago, that Target sold. I wish I could remember the name of the company. And it had tuberose as one of the... 06:57 the scents. Interesting. And I loved this perfume and it was actually like a like a face powder perfume. It was that texture. It wasn't a liquid or an oil. Okay. And I loved it and they don't sell it anymore. And it's probably a good thing they don't because it probably had all kinds of terrible things in it. I know right. But. 07:20 Those scents are amazing and I didn't even know what tuberose was until I looked at what the scents were and I was like, I need to find out more about this. Right, right. Yeah, I've never heard about you there. Yeah, so and ylang ylang or whatever that is. That was one of them too. But yeah, I love scents when we make our candles. Our whole house smells like whatever candle we're making. 07:45 And those are my favorite days when we do lemon grass candles. I'm high, high for three days on the scent of it. I love that though. You know, it's like, it's good for you too. It's not like it's, you know, causing any sort of damage internally, like some of those, you know, other candle, big candle companies. Yeah. I can't handle, I can't handle it when we do lavender. I love lavender. I do. 08:13 but the scent is so intense, it gives me a headache. It is. So I brace for it. When my husband says, we're doing lavender candles, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna down some Tylenol now before we even get started, because it's gonna hurt. It is, it's definitely a unique scent and it can be very strong, I agree with you. Yep, then we do a coffee scented candle. I love coffee, like I am a coffee fiend. Me too. 08:41 I will drink it, I will smell things that smell like coffee. I just, I love coffee. And when he says it's coffee candle day, I'm like, yes, it's coffee candle day. So there's a whole thing that goes with making things, you know, it's, it's the experience, it's the, the love of doing it. It's knowing that people are going to enjoy it when they buy it from you. That it just makes me so happy. 09:09 Okay, so now I raved about all the smells and scents and stuff. I saw that you have zucchinis right now. Yes, yellow squash, I guess. They are coming out of the garden like crazy. And we also have a ton of cucumbers and we only bought like four cucumber plants. But I think we are at like 60 or 70 cucumbers now that we've come out of the garden. I am so jealous. 09:38 We have nothing but radishes right now and peas because all it's done is rain all spring here. So my husband got the gardens in late because the dirt was soup. So we are very patiently waiting for the garden to finally dry out and start actually putting energy into growing what's in the garden. Yes. Yeah. I, that's hard to do. It's just so wet. Yeah. It's, it's been a hellacious spring here for the first time since we moved in. 10:07 four years ago. And so we're very disappointed because I keep seeing the photos come into my Facebook feed or the memories thing of everything we were pulling out of the garden this time last year and the year before and the year before and I just want to cry. It's not fair. But I'm hoping that we will have an extended autumn and maybe we'll catch up. Right. Yeah. Are you starting all your stuff? 10:34 from seed like indoors or do you just plant right in your garden? We've started a whole bunch from seed. And then we moved that all out to the finished greenhouse that just got finished in May. So the greenhouse is full of plants, but they need to get into the garden to get big. So as soon as we're sure that the garden is not going to be soup every other day, we'll get the stuff from the greenhouse into the garden. 11:04 But you know how this goes, weather is the thing that we all deal with when we're trying to grow things. Yeah, so it's funny, we actually watched this show on Amazon, it's called Clarkson's Farm, and it's about this, I think he's either a millionaire or a billionaire, I think he was on British's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, I think he hosted that show. And he bought like a thousand acre farm and decided he was gonna see what it was like to actually be a farmer. 11:31 And he's had three seasons now and watching how just almost kind of helpless they are with the weather because I mean, they're growing wheat and corn for the masses to sell and make a livelihood off of and it could either they're dealing with rain and drought, cold weather, warm weather, and it's, it's insane how 11:57 you know, these big commercial farmers, all the things they have to go through just to get their crop. Yeah, that's why we are not commercial farmers. I don't ever want to be playing that game. No, me either. Nope. The fact that our garden is basically not producing anything right now is not going to make or break us. It is sad. It is disappointing. Yeah. But we're not going to die because we didn't. 12:25 We didn't grow a big garden and sell the produce. Right. I can't imagine being in a position where our livelihood counted on this. Right, I know. I think about that often too. I'm like, I wanna grow all of our food on our own and I don't wanna lack the grocery stores. Then I'm like, I have to be thankful for the grocery stores because I can't imagine what it's like to not have that as a backup. Uh-huh. 12:52 We here in Minnesota, in LaSore, Minnesota, are very lucky because the town just south of us has a co-op store. They actually buy produce from local growers and then sell it. And so if we don't have a green bean crop, because they died, because they rotted out, we know where we can get really good green beans that someone nearby grew. 13:21 We also sell at the farmer's market whatever we have to sell. And so, so we know the vendors and if we're like our tomato crop went this year, they're going to be like, here, take these. And, you know, at probably a discount, who knows, but we are not without resources here because we live in the land of people who grow crops and grow farm to market gardens and, you know, we're not, we're not. 13:50 there's a bad word coming to mind, I'm not gonna say it. We are not in trouble if we don't grow a single thing in our garden this year. Right, right. Yeah, that's always good to have a community around that. Also does something very similar to you. That's kind of where we live too. A lot of people have gardens and I think especially in like recent years, I see a lot more gardens popping up. And even like our friends and family who never garden before are now having these amazing gardens 14:20 It's really cool to see people going towards that way because I did not grow up gardening. We had houseplants, but I also lived in South Florida where it was super hot. I definitely lived more in the city type of life. So growing up this way, I did not grow up with vegetables and farm fresh produce at all. 14:50 I want to say backyard garden, but it wasn't backyard. It was side yard. Side yard vegetable garden, because my parents had a garden from the minute they moved into our house in Steep Falls, Maine in 1976 when I was like six years old. And so I never didn't have access to homegrown produce. And my grandfather also grew a... 15:15 pretty decent sized produce garden at his place about an hour and a half away. Okay. So all summer long we were eating cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and whatever was growing we had free range to just go pick it and eat it. Yeah. So I did grow up with it and I loved it and I love this life that we're living now except that I don't know if I'm going to have any tomatoes to go pick out of the garden this year. I know. 15:42 If we lived closer, I would totally send you tomatoes because we planted like, I think we planted 20 tomato plants and they are all on the vine ready to go. They're still green, so we're waiting for them to ripen. But very soon here, we will be drowning in tomatoes. Yeah, we were drowning in them last year. Luckily, we canned a whole bunch of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. So I'm not completely up the creek on this. 16:12 You know what I'm saying. There's nothing better than a sun-warmed tomato on a salad. I agree. With a little bit of salt too. So yes, and again, I sound like I'm an evangelist and I'm raving about homegrown produce because I am both. I keep saying I'm not an evangelist. I'm not saying everybody has to do this, but I love that we 16:40 do it. So when I'm talking to someone else who does it, it becomes this this fest of, of, yay, I love doing this and you love doing this. So, yes. Anyway, um, are you, do you have kids? No, we do not have kids. Um, I am 28, my husband's 30. We are in that stage now where we would like to have kids and we're trying for them, but as of yet, we don't have any. Okay. Yeah. Well, 17:09 when you do, they are gonna be some of the luckiest kids ever because their mom has it all together on this being healthy thing. I like to think so, so I mean, we do sourdough, we do as much produce as we can. And I've always like in my 20s, I was in nursing school at the beginning of my 20s and I kind of had this vision for my life. I was like, I have all these things in place that need to be checked off before I will have kids. And I finally feel like I'm 17:38 actually at that point now where like all those things are tucked off. Uh-huh. Yep and that's awesome and I kind of wish I had done that too but I didn't. But I also feel like the most perfect time to have kids is whenever they come. Right, yeah. I agree. So I mean I was very young with my first and I was 32 with my last and it all worked out so. 18:06 Yeah, I just pretty much, you know, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And we're just going to keep living our lives. Yeah. And honestly, if it doesn't happen in the way that it usually happens, there are lots of babies and kids looking to be adopted. Yes, absolutely. And I've had some really good friends who are adopted. 18:32 really great people and have touch base with their birth parents and it's all worked out great. Yeah, that's awesome. So there's options. Yes, lots of options. Yep, and honestly if I was younger and not so tired from already raising four kids to adulthood, I would consider adopting another one, but I think I'm good. I think I have done all the intense mothering I need to do ever. 19:00 Yes, definitely four kids. That's a lot. Yeah, I'm done. I'm 54 years old. I raised four great kids. I've done my job. I'm finished. It's all good. Time to relax. Yes, and can't actually relax because the youngest one still lives with us. But he's an adult and he helps out a ton here on our little quote-unquote farm. So he's a big help. Okay, so what else do you do? 19:29 You do the subscription box, you guys have a garden. What else do you do, anything? The only other thing that I do, which I know I mentioned, is I have my consulting business. So that actually is more of my day-to-day job. And I really enjoy that and I love it. I have the best clients and very interesting cases that we get. And so it's nice too, because I used to be a night shift nurse in the NICU, which I love. 19:57 but working night shift, working weekends, working holidays, is, it was not where I saw my life going at all. And that's kind of where this journey started, was I was thinking, I'm like, how can I make my monthly bills so low to where I don't have to work three, four, five days a week as a nurse and have to put in 60 to 80 hours? 20:23 just have the things that I want. And so I kind of, that's kind of how I also got into that home setting place where, you know, you don't have debt, you don't, you know, spend more than what you make. You live off the land as much as you can, you make your own products. And so I was kind of in that space and that's kind of also what led me to trying to find it, you know, trying to find different things that I can do with my nursing. 20:52 career and my degree. And so that's kind of how I got into consulting. So I can work from home, make my own hours, no more holidays or weekends, which is so nice. But yeah, so that's mainly what I do day to day. And then, you know, right now the garden is just always calling for us in the evening. So we do a lot of that. And then my husband and I always try to every Friday take off from work. 21:19 and we will go to a different waterfall or a different hike or a different swimming hole and kind of explore the area around us. And so we love doing that. And we honestly, we just live a very simple, slow life. Awesome. Awesome, you figured it out before you were 40. I try. Yeah. I'm gonna go back to the subscription boxes for a minute. Yeah. 21:46 How do you find the stuff? I mean, have you been, like, I find you guys to talk to because Facebook is amazing at feeding me more of what I'm interested in. So every day, every hour, there's a new homesteader or a new crafter or a new baker coming from my feed. Do you have that too? I do have that. That's kind of one of the things I love about Facebook and social media is the algebra doesn't point you. 22:12 into that direction. So I was talking to my husband, I'm like, I hate just like aimlessly scrolling on my phone, like I want to learn more more about gardening and cooking and all that stuff. And so that's something I like about Facebook is that it pushes you towards those people. Right now, kind of when I posted about my box at the beginning of the year, had a couple people reach out to me. And so for example, the girl who does our candles, 22:41 We put her candles in all of our boxes and we do like a it's very seasonal. The scent that we pick. But I also purchased off of a website called Fair, which is F.A.I.R.E. And the best way I can describe it is like Etsy, but for wholesale. And so all sorts of creators of different products will post their products on there and then you buy at the wholesale rate. 23:09 So that's how I kind of find a lot of our products. Eventually, you know, this is only our second box that we're doing so far. So eventually I would like to, like I said, reach out to our subscribers and see if they have anyone in their community that has a really great product and we can feature them in a box. So I think slowly over time we'll move away from FAIR and just get a couple of our products from there. But I would really like to support our... 23:39 subscribers community as well. Nice. Okay. I was just wondering, because now that you told me what you do, my brain is just spinning on how would I do something like that? There's lots of subscription box things out there right now. Yeah. It's funny though, because I try to look to see if anyone else did something similar to this. 24:07 And the only thing that I could really find was some people did produce boxes with like actual produce or I saw a lot of meats like frozen meats that would be shipped to your door. But I never could find anything where you would get a mix of different items from small farms, small businesses, family ran. That was like well curated and that would be shipped to you either either every month. 24:36 every three months, every other month. I could, I still have not found anything similar to that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I haven't heard of anything like what you're doing. I'm just saying there are so many subscription things out there right now that it's kind of nice to hear about somebody doing one like yours. Yeah, yeah. It's really just the whole point is to get people kind of... 25:03 back into their kitchens and cooking for their families, even if it's a quick meal, or even if it's just planting one tomato plant in a pot, doing those little things or making your own detergent or instead of buying the dove soap from the store, you're using our tallow soap. So just different things to kind of get people thinking and using. 25:29 understanding where their products actually come from. That's from a family and not a corporation. And so that's kind of like the whole ethical and the whole principle behind the box. Yeah. I love it. I love that that's the premise because not everybody knows where to find this stuff. That was the other problem that I ran into is I would do research on different products and items and I just could not. It's not like I would type in non-toxic. 25:59 you know, dish soap and you know, all kinds of things come up, but a lot of it is still big brands and big companies and some of their ingredients are still a little bit questionable, whether it's toxic or non toxic. And so I was like, I bet I bet there's so many businesses, small businesses that no one even knows about or you know, the masses don't know about that we could be supporting. And you know, with the subscription box, they also include like a pamphlet. 26:28 and on that pamphlet has each brand, what they stand for, a little bit about them, a little bit about their product or products. And so, you know, my subscribers are more than welcome to repurchase any of their products through those brands. Eventually, I would like to have a kind of a members or subscribers only store where they can repurchase their products all in one place. But for now, I encourage them to 26:58 you know, purchase from the brand that we buy from. And so you're supporting them once, but you're also supporting them potentially multiple times as well. So it's like if you liked the thing in the box and you want more, here's where you get it. Yes, exactly. Awesome, fantastic. I was gonna say, I don't wanna, it's gonna sound like I'm bad mouthing my parents, but I'm actually not. 27:26 It's just this thing that has confused me forever. My mom and dad, my mom is 77, my dad is 80, and my mom will be 78 this month, and my dad will be 81 this month. Go big. And I swear these people have been using margarine instead of butter for years. Uh-huh. I hate margarine. Me too. Okay? Me too. Number one, it's not good for you. Number two, it's not butter. Right. 27:57 And my mom's like, you know, she's like, have you tried using margarine in your cookies? And I'm like, yes. And I don't do it because they go flat. They're not, it's not made for baking with. And she's like, you always bad mouth margarine. I'm like, because it's not good for you. Ants won't even eat it. They'll eat butter, but they won't eat margarine. She's like, but butter, high fat, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, it's from milk. 28:26 cows. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy. Like I like my mom was very much low fat. That's what they that's really what they preached. When we were growing up is low fat, low carb, sugar free, low sugar, all those types of things. And it's funny now, because you know, the studies on red meat and studies on dairy and gluten. 28:52 And what I've realized is a lot of those studies are on commercially processed, commercially highly processed dairy and red meat. They're not done. These studies are not done on locally raised, ethically raised, raw dairy, uh, meat that you raise on your land that's grass fed. You know, a lot of those things are not done on those things. So they say butter is bad, but butter is actually very like it's, I don't want to say it's very good for you, but. 29:22 You need fat, your brain needs that fat and you, you know, the dairy, or sorry, the gluten, the whole gluten thing with being gluten intolerance. And I tell a lot of people, I'm like, there's other options, you know, you have sourdough. You also have different types of wheat berries, such as like einkorn flour. That is an ancient grain, you know, we're given all these. 29:46 highly processed gluten and corn products to eat. And no wonder we're getting sick and no wonder they're saying it's bad for you. If you just go back to the source of the purest form of those ingredients, you're gonna be healthy. You're not gonna be obese and have arthritis and degenerative joint disease and all those things that we talk about are heart failure, heart disease, by eating good quality butter or raw milk or... 30:16 sourdough or kefir, anything like that. So it's so interesting how, I mean, no offense to the older generation, but the older generation is definitely kind of stuck in those ways a little bit. Yeah, and I finally said to my mom, I said, if you want to have margarine on your toast in the morning, have margarine. It's totally fine with me. I am gonna have butter if I have toast, because I want butter. I don't want margarine. 30:45 And so there are all these things that are In quotes bad for you that that my folks do all the time and I'm amazed that they are the ages They are that they've made it this far, you know, yep And and sugar dude. I have tried Maple syrup in my coffee. It's not right. I have tried Honey in my coffee. It's not right. Yeah, I'm the same 31:13 A tablespoon, a teaspoon of sugar in my coffee, regular size coffee mug in the morning, I'm good. Yes. Sugar, sugar is not going to kill you. Butter is not going to kill you. Excess is going to kill you. Right, or highly processed white sugar instead of the cane sugar or tons of turbinado sugar, different options of sugar. 31:43 you know, you and I probably didn't grow up this way. You know, you grew up eating margarine and highly processed white sugar and seed oils and all those things. And so trying to understand us a different way, there's different things you can do is also a challenge as well. Yeah. Turbinado sugar is the most yummy sugar I've ever tasted. It is really good. Yeah. I'm a big coffee person too. So I try to like make. 32:12 my own vanilla syrup and my own caramel syrup instead of buying it, you know, from Amazon or whatever. I think it tastes better too. Yeah. Yep. I think anything that you make yourself tastes better because you made it. Right. You know exactly what's in it. There's no fillers, no preservatives, no dyes. Yep. The only thing that tastes better than what I make is what other people make from scratch for me. Right. I will do that all day long. 32:40 It's so funny, like I make my husband a latte in the morning, so we got an espresso machine. And I'm like, he's like, I wish I could have this every morning, because sometimes I'll sleep in and he'll go to work. He'll be up earlier than I am. I'm like, I can teach you how to make it. And he's like, no, no, no, no, it won't be the same unless you make it for me. Uh huh. Yeah, my husband makes yeast breads. And the reason he makes them is because the first two times I tried to do it, I killed the yeast. And I was like, 33:09 you're better at this than I am you make it. Yeah. Yeah. And I keep telling him that I'm going to try my hand again at making yeast honey wheat bread, honey oat bread, because I love that. Oh yeah. And I've been saying it for months and I haven't done it yet. And he looked at me the day he said, it's summertime, you're not making honey oat bread now. I said, no, I'm not. It's too hot. Yeah. He said, you've been threatening for months to do this. He said, first cold weekend this fall. 33:38 I dare you to make honey oat bread. And I was like, all right, challenge accepted. So probably sometime at the end of September, I will be trying it and I will probably be saying, what did I do wrong? Right. Bread can be tricky. I don't usually have like, I mean, I will make yeast bread, but it's kind of, it's a little difficult, honestly, to get like the rising and letting the yeast like absorb in the water and the sugar and having your house at the right temperature. It can be a little tricky. 34:07 Uh-huh. And he just, he works this magic over it and it's always delicious. I'm like, you should have been a baker. Yeah. And he laughs. He's like, no, because then it would be work and I would hate every second of it. I'm like, okay, fine. Yes, you're right. But boy, he makes some amazing breads in the fall and winter because I don't know what you know about. 34:32 baking breads, but if you bake breads, it makes the house feel warmer, whether the house is actually warmer or not. It feels cozier. And the smell too is so good. So as soon as it gets cold on the weekends, I'm like, will you make a couple loaves of bread? And he's like, yes. Yeah, I was saying the other day as I haven't made sourdough in a while and I'm just like, I don't really want bread in the summer. 35:00 I don't know. There's something about bread in the fall and the winter and it's like that's that is my bread making period. Yeah, I figure the first weekend where I make a big batch of French onion soup, he'll probably want to make bread to go with it. Oh, that's the best. Soup and bread. Oh, man. So yeah, and I I'm not even a huge fan of bread. Like as a general rule, I don't eat bread every day because I don't feel like it's good for me and I don't enjoy it. Right. 35:29 but oh my God, homemade right out of the oven bread. That's the best. Yeah, and it's so funny because people, a lot of people don't even, haven't even experienced that in their whole life. I know, I know, it's insane. It's kind of sad though too that we've like gotten so far from doing those types of things. Like, you know, I, my mom was, she was a great cook. She was amazing cook and I learned so much from her, but we still. 35:59 We bought the bread from the store. She never baked bread. Um, you know, spaghetti noodles from the store. She never cooked your own noodles. And it's just like, we've gotten pushed so far into going to work, working nine to five, coming home, making a quick dinner, putting your kids to bed, and then doing it all over again, that there's no time, like we've almost like our society has created this life where you can't even really do that even if you wanted to, cause we have all these. 36:29 We want and need all these different luxury items. And the more you need and want, the more money you have to go and make, and the more you have to work. And it's like this vicious cycle that you can't ever get away from. Yeah. And then there's no time to actually enjoy the things that you wanted to do in the first place. Right. Yeah. So yeah, it is, it is a vicious cycle. And I'm, I'm not saying that everyone should. 36:58 quit their jobs and go buy a farm. I absolutely am not saying that. I guess what I'm trying to do with this podcast is just share other people's perspectives. And I'm so tempted to find somebody who lives like in the middle of New York City and doesn't do any of the stuff that we're doing and just see if they'll come talk to me on the podcast about what their life is like. Right. 37:28 Right. The thing is I have a feeling that it would come off as snotty and I don't want to do that. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah, I do know what you mean. It's hard. It's hard to because I encounter, you know, people all the time where they will never understand why we do what we do. And that's totally okay. And that's totally fine. And 37:55 there are some people that genuinely love to work and they want to be the CEO and they want to be in the Fortune 500 companies and that's what they genuinely love to do. For me, I thought that's what I wanted and I thought I need to build an empire and I need to do all these things and I need to work and you know, but it's so funny how things change so fast when you realize you just that's not what makes you happy at all. You just want to. 38:25 wake up in the morning and drink a latte on the front porch and go to your garden and pull some weeds and then come back up and make sourdough bread. You know, it's so funny how things change so fast. Yeah, absolutely. You can't know until you know. Right. And if you haven't been exposed to something new, you can't know that's what you want to do in the first place. Exactly. So, yeah. I mean... 38:55 back 20 years ago, 15 years ago, my husband and I were talking about, you know, our life after the kids were grown. And I was like, I would just like to have a house we don't have to repair every six months and a little bit of acreage. Like I would have been happy with an acre. And he said, what do you want to do with that? And I said, I don't want to do anything with the 39:25 I just want to have it so that our neighbors aren't 10 feet away from us. And he said, oh, so the acreage is for me? I said, yes, what do you want to do with it? He said, I want to grow a freaking huge veggie garden. I said, okay, cool. And so from that point on, all the things that we were interested in making happen at this future projected place was what we studied up on, what we learned about how we did our life on our city lot. 39:55 Yeah. And then four years ago, we actually moved to 3.1 acres. That's a big. With a house that we have not had to paint or patch or anything since we've been. It's been great. 40:11 And so we manifested its life. Yeah, we manifested this thing that we're doing now. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm very big into manifesting. I feel like you have to. You have to live like you already have it. Yeah, and we did. We grew a garden on our little tiny 0.10 acre city lot. And that 0.10 acre. 40:37 had a house and a four car garage on it. So you can imagine how small the garden was. Right, right. But we did it and we grew flowers and we grew from scratch and we made things and we did stuff in practice for where we're at now. And I'm so glad we did because I really wouldn't recommend anybody go from zero to a hundred in that situation. That's very overwhelming too. 41:06 It's overwhelming. It is, it's a huge, steep learning curve to go from DoorDash and a loft apartment to a big yard and a dog and a barn and you know. Yeah. It's like, oh, I don't know where I am or what I'm doing now. Right, it's exciting thinking about it. And I kind of had that a little bit too, like we. 41:32 move on to eight acres and I was like, I want a big garden. So we did a 4000 square foot garden. I bought all the seeds, all the stuff and I was like, Oh man, I'm a little overwhelmed now. I'm like, I'm just gonna. So in the preceding years, I just kind of was like, I'm just going to do minimal. I'm gonna learn this and get really good at these few vegetables and then we will add on to it later another time. And so I think a lot of people 42:02 end up quitting before they get started sometimes. And because it's exciting, you want to do it all. Like I'm a very much go big or go home type of person. So if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it like to the extreme and plant a 4,000 square foot garden. But I don't, I definitely don't recommend that. Yeah, I might go big or go home when it comes to the researching and learning about the thing that I want to do. Yeah. 42:29 And that really helps because as I research and learn, it puts it into a more reality perspective for me. And I go, OK, yes, I can do these things to start with. Right. So I love researching. I love reading. I love learning. I love learning, too. I tell my husband, I'm like, I just want to learn a new... Like I was feeling a little bit bored lately because I feel like our garden, this is like our third year in our garden. 42:58 I've really kind of mastered over the last four years cooking from scratch. I always love to cook, but cooking from scratch is obviously, there's a little bit more to it. It takes a little bit more time, a little bit more skill, but I feel like I finally got my sourdough together. I've got all these things together. And so I'm like, well, what's next? So I'm like, ready to learn a new skill. Yeah, that's kind of how the podcast happened. My 43:25 my youngest was going to be moving out and that actually didn't happen. Very long story, not allowed to tell it. Again, very important reasons that he is still living with us and he is a huge help. But I needed a new baby because I thought I was going to be dealing with emptiness syndrome. And it was either sob my eyes out every day or find a new baby. So the podcast became the new baby. And then basically a month and a half after I started 43:55 two months after I started it, he was back. And I was like, I have a schedule now, so here's what I'm doing. If you need me to, if you need time from me, you have to put it on the calendar. You have to let me know. And it took him a month to remember to put things on the calendar. Oh my gosh, yeah. 44:20 One day he was like, I need to go to this doctor's appointment and he can't drive right now. And I was like, um, that sucks because I have this thing that I'm supposed to be doing that I scheduled months ago. And he said, can you reschedule it? And I said, I love you. Yes, of course I can reschedule it, but this is why I need you to check with me before you schedule your stuff too. So it's a learning curve on this grownup. 44:50 relationship now. Yeah, that's definitely interesting that changes in relationships too with your children and trying to find that new thing that you want to do that fulfills you. Yep. Yep. And he was so funny because I told him I

Today I'm talking with Nancy at Nana's Kitchen MN. You can also follow on Facebook.  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 Nancy at Nana's Kitchen, Minnesota. How are you, Nancy? I'm doing good. How are you doing today? I'm good. The MN is for Minnesota, yes? Very good. 00:24 Okay, good. I never know if people want me to use the word that the letters stand for or just the letters. So, nope, we just had to tag it on there when I got my cottage kitchen because believe it or not, there's other Nana kitchens. Well, there's lots of Nana's in the world. So it doesn't surprise me. Yeah, so we had to distinguish ourselves. Okay. Well, tell me about yourself and what you do at Nana's kitchen. I cottage kitchen and I make gluten-free, basically pastries, pies, cookies, 00:54 I also make some that are dairy free. Been baking gluten free for the last 16 years and just have done it for family and stuff like that. People always say, gosh, you're so good. You ought to try to sell them. It's one of those things to kind of get the nerve up to put your neck out there and do it. Yes, I do. Yep. One of my daughters retired from the military, moved nearby, and she's been pushing me, just do it, mom. Just do it, mom. She's my spokesperson. 01:23 She pushed me into it. But anyhow, I enjoy baking. Gluten-free is something you have to learn to do. It doesn't come easy because there are so many different types of flours and stuff like that. I've worked on a technique that works for me and it comes out pretty darn good. You don't know that they're gluten-free products and that was the whole goal. People don't miss the gluten when they eat the product. Awesome. So when did you start? Okay, two things. 01:53 I can't talk this morning. How did you come into this? Like, why? Yeah. And when did you start the actual business part of it? The business I just started doing this year, like in January, I just kind of started putting stuff out on Facebook. Well, my daughter started putting stuff out on Facebook. She's my social media person, like I said. 2008, my oldest granddaughter was diagnosed with celiac disease and she's autistic. And 02:23 With that time it was, huh, what's celiac disease? I hadn't really thought, heard about it. Her mom had kind of, my oldest daughter, had kind of looked into it because of the autism, this connection sometimes with different things causing autism. But we waited, it was like December 2007, so January 2008 we had her go gluten free and it was, I mean, at that point in time there aren't products on the shelves. Like you can go in the store now and there's Char and Glutino and all kinds of different. 02:50 products you can buy that are gluten free. It was very, very limited. So she wanted like, you know, cookies and the things that she would miss. So I started baking those, looking for cookbooks and recipes. And back then it was a lot of gabaazanbee flour and heavier flours, and it was a product, but it didn't taste the same. And over time, flours have evolved. There's different types and brands you can use. And I'm finding different blends, putting different starches together. Finally, just all worked out that I could bake stuff. 03:20 that was palatable and she enjoyed it. So I went from cookies to cakes, all kinds of different things. But as it turns out, her mother then, my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Celiac of May of that same year, 2008. In July of that year, my daughter's younger son, who was seven, was diagnosed with Celiac's disease. Wow. So now we had three of them, which then, my youngest child, I have three daughters and a son. He at that time was 25. 03:49 And he got tested. Actually, the whole family did blood work tests. He has celiac disease. So if my four children, two have celiac, two don't. I have five grandchildren, three have celiac, because then the daughter has another child with another man, the second husband. He has celiac disease. So all three of her children have celiac disease. So it runs in the family. We did DNA testing on 23andMe. I'm a carrier. I don't have it, but I carry it. 04:19 And the percentages of I have it are the same as my daughter and granddaughter and stuff like that. So I'm gluten free as well. But I suspect my mom had it. She had symptoms years ago that hindsight looking back on it, I think she had celiac disease. So that got me started because I had to cook for the grandchild. Wanted to give her baked goodies that tasted like everybody else's that she could watch her friends at school eating cookies and she couldn't have one. So that's how it kind of evolved. 04:48 to process. So I don't, okay, I talked to a lady a while back who has celiac disease and her baby son has it too. And she told me all about how this all works. And I was so thankful that she did because I had no understanding of how bad it can be. 05:14 Her situation is if she even walks into the bakery section of a grocery store, she reacts to the flour in the air. Yeah, I never heard of that. My children, well, what's funny with my children, because I'm an old hippie mom, got married in 74 and my children were born late 70s, early 80s. Everything was whole wheat and wholesome homemade. I made all the bread and everything. Whole wheat, whole wheat, whole wheat, whole wheat. And yet... 05:41 Two of these children now have celiac disease. Is there a correlation there? I don't think so, I think because of the family genetics is why they have celiac disease. But as a child, there was no reaction, there was nothing. I mean, they grew up on it, they were fine. Only as adults, which is really weird that it took effect and exhibited itself as an adult with them. My granddaughter, it was tummy aches and things like that. The grandson had... 06:10 And she was always constipated. Grandson, the same thing. Those are really typical symptoms because the intestines are just not moving. Don't care how much water you give the child. But once they all became gluten free, if they eat gluten, the boys will throw up, like there's no tomorrow. I mean, hours on end throwing up and then their stomach and intestines are sore for days. 06:39 my daughter and granddaughter, it goes the other way. They don't throw up. It goes the other way. But the same thing, it'll go on for hours and then their intestines are just ripped apart for days. But it's funny because nobody reacted to we, proceeding going gluten-free, then once they did and it got out of their system and it came back, wow, do they really feel it? Yeah, it can affect everybody differently and some people can actually go into shock with it. It just depends if you're allergic to it or not. 07:08 You don't need to have a shock going on. Yeah. Okay, so is your gluten free is a very specific term. Yes, it is. I've been told by many, many people that if you're going to say that your food is gluten free, you basically need to not have any kind of gluten in your kitchen. Correct. So is that how you do it? Yes, there's no gluten in my house. 07:33 My husband is not celiac, he's not gluten-free, but he eats gluten-free. Unless we go out somewhere, then he'll order a regular hamburger bun or something like that. But there's no gluten in the house. I don't bake with it, and it's not in the house. He just eats gluten-free because everybody else does around him. I could say I'm a dedicated kitchen. I can't say I'm certified gluten-free because the state has to come in and they're not going to come into your home and certify you gluten-free. Yeah. 08:00 So was it hard for your husband to switch over or was it a fairly simple transition? No, he's fine with it because the products that I make, I mean, you're talking regular meals are not a big deal. Pastas are all gluten-free pasta, not a big deal. He eats it, not a problem. Hamburger buns, I make hamburger buns, he's fine with them. No, it's not a big deal. The baking, I've perfected it such that like cakes and treats and things like that, you can't tell the difference. 08:30 In fact, one of my customers had a birthday cake she wanted me to make for her. I think she posted a review on my website. She was telling me recently, we did an event and she was there and she said, it was either her brother, her brother-in-law, I don't recall now, was a professional cook. He kept tasting the cake and going, this is not gluten-free. Then he would look at the ingredients and go, no, it's not gluten-free. Which is flattering because that's the whole premise. I don't want you to know it's gluten-free. We had someone at an event. 08:59 we offered him cookies and he took a bite of a chocolate chip cookie and he goes, hmm, not bad for a gluten-free cookie and walks off. Well, he's not gluten-free and they taste fine. You wouldn't know they're gluten-free. It was just kind of a catty thing to say, I thought. But you know. There's always one. I know. I know. Always. Always. Somebody's got to ruin it. And this is nobody who even eats it, you know, so why are you taking this cookie sample? Whatever dude. Uh-huh. 09:26 But no, my husband has no problem with it. He knows that the kids can't have it and the grandkids. So no, he's a sport about it. Like I said, if we go out somewhere, then he eats regular. It doesn't phase him, but no, not a problem with it. Awesome. Yeah, good. Good. Okay, so I looked at your website of all your goodies for sale. I should not have looked at it at six o'clock this morning because all I wanted was cake and whoopie pies and stuff. 09:53 And I don't even really have a sweet tooth, but when I see beautiful treats, I can taste them in my head if that makes sense. And I'm just looking at your site going, oh my God, I need to go find her right now. But I didn't. That's far from you. Yeah, I know. You're a new preg. Yep, yep. But I decided that really it was okay. I didn't have to drive to new preg at 6 a.m. and wake you up and be like, hi, I need all the things now. However. 10:21 The photos of your stuff are beautiful. Do you take them or do you have someone take the photos? No, I take them or my daughter takes them. Gorgeous. Just take them here in the house here. Yep. Yeah, we've, you know, iPhones have come a long way. I have a regular Nikon camera that hardly gets out of the cupboard anymore. Everything's on an iPhone, you know? Yeah, it's easier. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And you can look at it right away and mean that it's a digital camera too, but this is so much easier. You can post from it and you know. 10:51 Makes it really easy for you. Yeah, you're very good at your photos. Well, thank you. But I enjoy the baking and I, part of when I started doing this too is I don't want to make the prices crazy expensive for people because you know, as a young mom, I remember taking the kids to events or something and they all want a cookie or they want this and you look at prices sometimes at events because they're always higher it seems like. And it's like we were on such a limited budget. They couldn't always get something or we would. 11:19 So when I started baking this stuff, you know, I've had people tell me, you know, it's gluten free, you can ask for more, you can ask for more. And even at that, the prices that I sell it for, I kind of go, pff, just seems like a lot. But I know that it's not, because I see what other people are pricing out there, you know, but I wanted to make it affordable so people could buy stuff for their kids, the treats and things, you know, and not feel like, well, I can't afford $7 for a cookie or a donut or something, you know. Yeah, pricing- So I tried to price them more reasonably, sorry. Pricing anything, anything that you do, 11:48 is one of the hardest things on earth to do. I actually have a sponsor interested in sponsoring the podcast and I'm trying to figure out what the reasonable price for sponsoring my podcast is. And I went and did a whole bunch of research and I'm like, I have no idea. Didn't help you, did it? Not especially. So I went with what I thought and I'm waiting on the email back and I'm very excited about this. Yeah. 12:16 Even when we started selling our candles and soaps and lip balms and stuff, I was like, I don't know what is reasonable here. Yeah, I know. It's so difficult because you don't want to price yourself out of the market. Nope. You don't want to just be like, well, the market will bear $20 for a bar of soap. So that's what I'm in charge because that's ridiculous. I just, it's so crazy to me, all the pieces and parts of running a business that you have to learn on the fly as you go along. 12:45 Absolutely. Yep. I agree. Yep. Pricing is hard. I mean, I go through what my products cost me, my ingredients, putting it together, you know, and then I know there's formulas you can use for your time and this and that. It's like, well, if I do that, I'm never going to sell anything that's really affordable. No. I'm not doing that. I'm just going by, okay, this is what it cost me to make it. Okay, this is fair to sell it. Forget my time. I'm not worried about it, you know. Yeah. And I also 13:15 which I think you do. Yeah, I do. Your time is a joy. Yeah. The time you put into it is a gift to yourself. It is. And I'm not saying you shouldn't charge for your time because that's part of it, but it's easier to maybe knock some of that down when you enjoy what you're doing. Hold that and you get positive feedback from what you've done. 13:41 Oh my god, those are great. You know, I'm so glad they got to buy it, you know, so the feedback is good, too I don't you know, that's okay Yeah You make two of my favorite things on earth. I love anything pretzels. So your pretzel bites look amazing Oh, thank you and your whoopie pies. I grew up on the East Coast So I know what a whoopie pie is and I know the absolute bliss of biting into one And yours look fantastic 14:11 Well, thank you. And it's funny because I'm from California and whoopie pies are kind of like, well, what's a whoopie pie? And we thought adding it to the menu and I saw their East coast pretty much. I saw a lot of them from Vermont, things like that places, you know, you hear whoopie pies up that way. So we offered them some, I thought people in Minnesota knew what whoopie pies were and surprisingly a majority of them when we've had them in an event kind of go, what's a whoopie pie? Seriously? 14:38 Thought you guys knew what whoopie pies were. So we are selling them at the events. I was just surprised that not more people knew what they were. They do now. But we're going to do different fillings in them. I've got peanut butter and then Irish cream and mint, different fillings that we're going to do seasonal with them. Awesome. Feel free to order them any time you want, Mary. Yeah, I just have to get over and pick them up. I'll meet you halfway. How's that? 15:06 That's a great idea. The Apple Barn in Jordan has whoopie pies that they order from the place in Maine that makes them. Do they really? Okay. Yeah. And those are the ones that I was introduced to as a kid because I grew up in Maine. And when we went there, we lived like five minutes from there. Oh, wow. Four years ago. So we went there and I discovered they had them and they have... 15:32 the different kinds. They have the chocolate with the chocolate filling, they have chocolate with the vanilla filling, they have a whole bunch of different kinds. And I was like, okay, once, just once, I'm going to buy one of each flavor. And we're going to try them. We had three people living in the house at the time. And so we would pick one a day and we cut it into four pieces and I would get half. So I got two quarters. And my husband and my son would try the other quarters. And we decided that the classic whoopie pie, the 16:02 the chocolate cookie with the vanilla filling is the best one. That's what we decided in our house. Yep. Isn't that funny? Yeah. The very basic one, huh? Yup. Yeah. And the thing that I love about Whoopie pies is that the cake, cookies, whatever they are, they're like smooth on the outside cause they're usually wrapped in plastic wrap. So they get that smooth, like sticky coating on them. And then they're like a 16:29 the cakey cookie in between the top and the flat part of the cookie. Yep. Yep. So you get that silky thing on your tongue and then you get the cakey cookie and then you get the filling. And the reason they're called a whoopee pie is because you think whoopee when you eat them, I swear. They do make sticky fingers, I'll tell you that. Well, they're messy. They're messy. They are messy. They are messy. And what's good about when I make them, they're also dairy free as well as gluten free. So anybody can eat them has issues with that. 16:58 Yep. And that's awesome. I have made whoopie pies from scratch once and I probably won't do it again anytime soon. It was probably at least 15 years ago. And it's work. It's a lot of work to make whoopie pies because it's a bunch of steps. Yeah, there's a couple steps to it. You got to make them and then, yep, got to make the filling, put them together. Yeah, yeah. Not horrible, but it's a few steps. 17:22 Yeah, but I was real proud of myself because I did everything and I wrapped them individually in plastic and put them in the fridge so they would do that silky thing that they do. I handed my husband one and said, try this because I need to know if I did it right. He bit into it and he was like, tastes just like the ones we get in Maine. I was like, yes, I did it. Great. There you go. A true labor of love. Yeah. Oh yeah. If I'm going to do something like that, it's because I want to. 17:50 and I want to prove to myself that I can do it. And you did it once. Good, check that off, right? I sure did it. And I think there were 14 of them in the batch when they were done. I think I ate probably eight of them. Oh my. Uh-huh. Well, they were lip smacking good, then it sounds like. Good god, they were amazing, yes. And honestly, I couldn't get whoopie pies at that point. There wasn't anywhere near us 15 years ago to get them. They didn't carry them at the Apple Barn then, I don't think. 18:21 So I was just really craving a whoopie pie and I went out to Google and found a recipe and I was like, I can do this. I can do this, it will curb the craving. It'll be good. So it worked out great. I'll have to go to the Apple Bar and check those out just to compare it by one and then bring it home and compare, you know? Oh yeah, yeah, that would be great. And then your pretzel bites. What kind of flour are you using for the pretzel bites? Well, the flours that I use is my own blend that I figured out and put together. 18:48 And so it's a white rice flour with some starches and stuff. And then there's psyllium in it. There's whey. There's some different things like that in it. And the pretzel bites are great warm. They really need to be warmed up. If you let them sit around like any pretzel bite, they're not as tasty sometimes, you know? So I always, when I sell them to somebody, hey, pop them in the oven, 350 oven for about four or five minutes just to kind of perk them up again, you know? But they're tasty. No, they're a very tasty treat dipped in like, you know, nachos type of sauce, cheese sauce, you know? 19:18 Very good. Yep, they're tasty. Yeah, I love pretzels. I don't know why I love pretzels. I think it's just the salt. Yeah, there's definitely salt on them. Yep, the zisto so it rises and everything. But yeah, they're a tasty little critter. My grandkids love them. I just made some a couple weeks ago with some grandkids that were visiting from California. They got devoured pretty quick. Gone. Yeah, they're gone like a shot. Yep, you make a batch and they're gone. Yep, absolutely. 19:46 Okay, so you mentioned yeast. So you do use yeast in the flour that you work with? In the pretzels. Yes. The pretzels are a yeast and cinnamon rolls are a yeast. Anything that's a bread type of product like that. Yeah. I use yeast in it. It's, it's risen in the, and then kneaded down and it's a different, yeah, go ahead. So yeast does work with all these different flours. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Again, it's just a matter of kind of figuring out which one liquid measurements differ. I take a lot of recipes that are just a regular one and I adapt it. 20:16 But sometimes you have to adapt how much fluid, liquids going in there because starches absorb more than regular wheat flour would. So, most of them that I adapt come out pretty good. Now and again, I'll get one that go, mm, okay, I need to work on that one. But yeah, the yeast flour, the yeast that I use in all the raised type of stuff, pretzels and cinnamon rolls, hamburger buns, all that type of stuff is yeast dough. 20:43 Okay, I didn't know you could use yeast in anything but just regular old wheat flour, so that's good to know. No. Thank you. You can use it with a gluten-free blend. Yep, you can do it. It works out okay. Again, it's not like somebody couldn't take a bag of one-to-one ratio like King Arthur or something unless they do have a bread flour mix, I know, but if you took just a regular all-purpose and tried to use it in place in a recipe you're trying to adapt, it's not going to work. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 21:11 So you are a cottage food producer, you don't have a commercial license, right? Correct. That's correct. Okay, so you are not allowed to ship your stuff just like any other cottage food producer in Minnesota? Kind of sucks, huh? Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah, I know. I know. They keep trying to get it pushed through and the government in Minnesota keeps saying no. Which is interesting because I believe you can mail dog treats through the mail. Yes, you can. Yeah, you can do dog treats to Cottage Kitsch and send them in the mail. So they may change it eventually, you know. 21:40 But then again, some of the stuff I question, like, what I really could ship them would survive it. Like the cupcakes, I can't, not gonna mail a cupcake. You know, I could mail donuts, I could mail cookies, I could mail coffee cake, you know, stuff like that. But not the cupcakes, the icing just not gonna make it. No, and you know they're gonna get shaken and they're gonna get beat up and it's just not gonna work. But cookies, my God, why we can't ship cookies is beyond me. 22:06 It's kind of silly. Well, they change the rules every year, so maybe they'll adapt it. I'm hoping that'd be nice. Yeah, I have talked to a couple of people who are part of the getting the rules submitted to the legislature regarding cottage foods. And they're working so hard to get it through and it just keeps getting shot down. Why? Don't know. 22:32 And I get so frustrated for them because last year they thought that it was going to go through and nope. Yeah, you have to wonder what the snag on it is, why they wouldn't want people to be able to sail through the mail because they can't make money off of it. I don't know. I have no idea what the hangup is. And it also makes me, I don't know, in this very sarcastic way giggle that we can send pet treats through the mail. 23:01 Currently the government doesn't care if our pets die. Right. How nice of them. And I have a dog. I have a dog who is the love of my life and I am really careful about what we give her. So, I mean, I haven't even bothered to try making pet treats for her because she has such a sensitive stomach anyway that I don't want her to get sick because of a treat I tried to make for her. 23:29 Yeah, let alone by one that's coming through the mail right from someone's kitchen. You don't know what they did Yeah, yeah this dog. I swear she loves cheese So anytime we open the shredded cheese bag. Oh, yeah pizza or whatever. She's right under my feet smiling at me Oh, yeah, I have some please that sounds like ours So she gets a pinch of cheese because it would give her more than that She's sick for three weeks three days because her stomach is so screwy. Yeah, and she Absolutely loves whipped cream. Oh 24:00 So if we have any kind of whipped cream in the house, I will spray a little bit on my finger from the can and let her lick it. And she looks at me, wags her tail nubbin because she doesn't have a long tail. She was docked when she was a baby. Okay. And she goes and lays down perfectly happy. What type of dog is she? She's a mini Australian shepherd. Oh, okay. Those are cute. High energy. We were really lucky. She's very. 24:26 She's very go, go, go when she's outside. But if she's in the house, she's pretty good about just wanting to be petted. And then she goes in her crate and takes a nap. And then she asks for things and pets and wants to lick your hand. She's very calm in the house. Well, that's good, good. We lucked out huge. But point being is I clearly talk to people who make things all the time on the podcast. And there's a lady who makes the little bandanas that you put on the dog's collars. 24:57 and she also makes dog treats. And she was talking to me about how she's really excited because now she can ship her dog treats. And I was like, that is awesome. Really, really happy for you. I'll be even happier when we can ship our baked goods too. She was like, yeah, me too. She said, because I do this thing where I make a treat for the human and I make a treat that goes with that treat for the pet. So it's like a set. Yeah. 25:27 And she can't ship the human stuff, but she can ship the pet stuff. Yeah. It's just kind of nuts. Isn't it? Hopefully they do get that straightened out and say, yeah, you know, folks, go ahead. I'm sure there'll be safety procedures that have to be followed, followed to do it. You know, that that's fine. You know, I just wish that somebody in the powers that be would, would say why they keep saying no, because then I might be able to understand why they keep saying no. 25:54 Yeah, it's, yeah, I don't even know who we'd go to to encourage them to it. You know, what, you know, our congressperson or something, you know? Probably our representatives. That's what I'm thinking. Like Angie Craig is ours. I wonder if we went to her and said, hey, can you fight for us on this? You know, I should email her later today and be like, hi, you don't know me from EU. 26:22 This is what I do and these are the people I talk to and could you please maybe share with me why? Yeah Why yeah, I don't know what she'll answer to me, but I could try it. Yeah, I'm hurt. Can it? You know my sort of movement be like we talk about this all the time on my podcast Do you want to come on and chat with me about why there you go and fight her and I like her actually So I do too. I do too. I like Angie Craig very much. She's for the working class guy, you know No, I like her. Yep 26:52 I don't usually get into politics. I don't usually say who I like or don't like, but I do like her. I think I do like her. I'm a neat woman. So there you go. Reach out. Maybe you get some response from her. You know, she seems to be responsive to people. Yeah. And I've never talked to a representative or a Senator on my podcast. That would be a brand new thing for me. There you go. Might be fun. Who knows? It might also be very uncomfortable. I don't know. 27:18 Anyway, we got very far afield there for a minute. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. So what's the reaction? I mean, you said that people really like your positive because it doesn't, it doesn't taste like gluten free. And I don't know what gluten free is supposed to taste like. Well, a lot of the times it's very gritty because if you use a regular rice flour, there's a lot of grit to it. I use a super fine so it's milled really, really. 27:44 almost like regular flour, so the texture when you eat something, you don't get that gritty taste in it. And when products were first being manufactured, the gluten-free cookies that came out, and I remember Glutino made some mock type Oreo, my granddaughter was just ecstatic when we found those, they didn't taste exactly like an Oreo. You could taste the gritty rice flour in it. However, today's gluten-free Oreos that you can buy, you can't tell the difference if you have an Oreo and you have one of the gluten-free ones. 28:11 They've come so far with manufacturing the rice and the products are much better that they use now. So a lot of times, it just depends on the product where you're buying it. Sometimes they still have that grainy taste to them, but not always. It just depends on the company and what they're using. But that's the big thing is like tasting gluten-free, you're going to taste the grit. It just is, there was a grit, regular gluten-free not using a good flour is gritty tasting. Okay. Yeah. All right. So... 28:39 Do you love this? Do you love what you're doing? I do. I've always loved baking. I like seeing people pleased like after they eat it and they go, wow, that was really good. You know, it's like, okay, great, I did it, you know? So no, I enjoy what I do. I've done it for so many years. I've been married for 50 years. So it's a long time to cook and bake birthday cakes and all that kind of stuff, you know. Last 16 years is definitely different than making a regular birthday cake because it transitioned to all the gluten-free stuff. But... 29:06 hey, it works out okay. They come out tasty and yummy and nobody knows the difference. So have you made a birthday cake for someone outside of the family and sold it to them? Yes. The lady that I was mentioning that she said it was either her brother or her brother-in-law. Oh yeah. And she brought it to the party. She was the only one that was gluten-free. And she took it to the party and she also brought cupcakes and she messaged me and she said, oh my God. 29:35 you know, that she couldn't believe how good they were. And her brother, or whoever it was, the person with her, just couldn't believe that this was a gluten-free birthday cake. He just kept looking at the ingredients and going, no. And then eating the cake again. So that to me is validation that, hey, it's pretty darn good, you know? Yeah, because if you're gonna make a birthday cake and have someone buy it from you for a party, as the person who made the cake, you really want it to be good. Well, yeah. Yeah. 30:06 Yeah, because I don't like making things like that to sell. I mean, I make granola and we sell it at the farmers market because granola is granola, whatever. Yeah, right. I like it and other people like it, they buy it. But I don't, I do not have what it takes to make a birthday cake and ask money for it and have it served to a bunch of strangers. I would freak out. 30:29 It's intimidating. Yes, it is. So I was really glad when I got the feedback from her that she liked it and that everybody there liked it. Okay, validation good. It was great. That was good. So cupcakes are easier to make, you know, as far as making stuff and birthday cakes aren't that much harder to make. But yeah, it's putting yourself out there a little bit to do it and hoping that you're not going to get judged negatively on it, you know? Yeah, exactly. And I'm going to step 30:58 thing for a minute. It's so hard when you're a female in this world because you're taught to on one hand don't give a crap about what people think about you and on the other hand worry about what people think about you and that transfers to whatever you make or do or think. Yep. And grow a thick skin but be nice. 31:26 It's like the whole Barbie monologue thing that that America Ferrer or whatever her name is did in the movie last year. It was cute. Yes. It was beautiful. Yeah, it was cute. Yeah, but it's so frustrating because on the one hand, I don't give a whatever I don't give a rip about what people think. But then again, I'm doing this podcast and I want people to listen and enjoy it and think well of it. There you go. 31:54 Is there a middle ground somewhere on anything in this world regarding people's opinions? You know? I know. Yep, absolutely. It's so hard. And every time I do the podcast, every single episode, I say it's so hard about something in the podcast episode. Life is hard, people. Deal with it. It is. Yep. You suck it up and you do it, you know? Yeah. And life is also beautiful. 32:24 So again, we're in that extremes, you know, from one extreme to the other. And I wake up every morning and I'm like, who am I talking to today? Oh, I'm talking to Nancy at Nana's kitchen. And I'm like, I wonder if Nancy's going to be chatty. I wonder if Nancy's going to be in a good mood. I wonder if it's going to be hard getting conversation out of Nancy. And whoever's I'm talking to. Yes. Invariably. 32:50 I get done talking to whoever I'm talking to and I'm like, that was great. I'm so glad I did that. My day is made. I can compare that to when we started doing farmer market venues and the prep going into it and oh my God, is it going to be worth it? And the stress then when it's over, it's like, okay, it came out okay and I made some money. So I understand what you're saying. Yes. Yeah. It's. Yes. 33:16 crazy the things that we do because we need to solve a problem. And then other people find out we're doing it and they're like, I have that problem too. Can I buy the thing you made to fix the problem I have too? And then you feel satisfied that you've provided something to someone. Yeah, exactly. It's a beautiful cycle of help. And it makes me really happy. 33:41 And it's all about me being happy. Obviously, the whole world revolves around me. Well, of course, around each of us has our world revolving around us, right? Mm-hmm, yep. So anyway, thank you, Nancy, for your time today. Well, you are welcome. And your thoughts. It's a joy talking to you. Your thoughts and your words and everything. Yeah, Mary, it was wonderful talking to you. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, thank you. Have a great day. Okay, bye-bye.

Today I'm talking with Jeff at The Heartland Self Reliance Conference. You can also follow on Facebook.  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 Jeff at the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference. Good morning, Jeff. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm well. How are you? I'm great. So I don't know a whole lot about you or what you guys do, so tell me about yourself and the conference. 00:30 I sure will. Well, that's, uh, I'm, I'm known to many out there as the everyday prepper I got originally got started in the preparedness side of things. Uh, but always been into gardening and probably the last 12 years or so, my wife and I have been working towards being more self-sufficient and, uh, we just moved to a new place last year. Gives us some new opportunities. So we're, we're working to get everything going there. And, uh, it's, you know, one of my big things is. 00:59 coming from both sides, homesteading and preparedness, I really realized how the two really need to come together in a lot of ways and both sides need to learn from each other. Yes, absolutely. And the great thing about homesteading is it doesn't have to be a huge property. It can just be a quarter of an acre or a 10th of an acre. You can still. 01:24 grow things, you can still cook from scratch, you can still learn how to take care of yourself. Yeah, and you know, we had, I was just talking to a potential vendor for the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference, and they have a business in urban Cleveland, Ohio, and she was telling me about how many of their customers are. 01:48 actually, you know, in an urban area and they're growing whether it's on their balcony or on a rooftop or wherever they find space there Grown their own food and they they're developing an interest in homesteading Yes, because it's a lifestyle. It's not it's not defined by space or Ownership of lots of room and I love that because we did the same thing back when we lived in town so that's part of 02:14 The reason I started the podcast is because I wanted people to realize and maybe learn that they can grow some of their own stuff and they can make things in their apartment if they want to. My daughter, the apartment she lived in for several years while she was in college, she was able to have, I got her some planters that would fit over the railing on her balcony and she had some... 02:43 peppers, some tomatoes, some other things going there. And I got her a hanging herb basket arrangement that you could put about, if I remember right, about eight different plants in there. And she had that hanging on the side of the railing. And then she had, I think, one or two pots with tomatoes in them. So, you know, there's lots you can do and you're really only limited by your imagination. Mm-hmm, yeah. And... 03:09 Honestly with YouTube and Facebook and all the things on the internet you can learn how to grow anything or how to do anything I am so Happy that I live in this particular time. Oh Yeah, and there's you know, there's the internet really gives us the opportunity to really expand expand our knowledge and the ideas that are out there because that's 03:37 You know, 40 years ago, if somebody told me one day I would be raising hydroponic tomatoes, I would have told them they were crazy or growing hydroponic tomatoes. But that's, we did that a few years ago, just more or less as an experiment. We got everything we needed and we tried it. We haven't done any here at this house yet, but I imagine at some point in the future we'll be doing it again. Yeah. 04:01 I don't know how that works. Could you give me the short version of how hydroponics works? Because we've never done it. Yeah, sure. And you're just putting a combination of things. If I remember correctly, there's some salt and some other stuff that you make a mixture that you put in there with water by nutrients. And basically, we would get a five-gallon bucket. 04:30 and you can go online and you can find these covers. They're like a lid, will fit right over the bucket, but the center of them drops down and has sort of a mesh cup in there. And that's you put the plant in there, use some hydroponic medium. The stuff we were looking to look sort of like using looks sort of like lava rock that you would put down in there and actually plant the plant in there. 04:57 And you just had to make sure that the liquid stayed up where the roots of the plant could get to it. And really you could do anything and it was amazing. You would pull that lid off and look and the mass of roots that had grown down into that bucket, into the liquid was just amazing. Huh, okay. Well, 05:17 It's something to think about for us here. I don't know that we're going to take on any more projects this summer because Oh, come on. You always got to have more projects. Uh, yeah, no, my husband is actually at physical therapy right now because he has a herniated disc. So, so I think that maybe the gardening that we're doing is probably the gardening we're going to be doing this year. That's probably it for now. That may be wise. Mm hmm. So, so tell me your definition of self-reliance. 05:47 My definition of self-reliance is basically, you know, nobody's going to be a hundred percent self-reliant because, you know, basically you're always going to need something. It'd be very hard to be totally self-reliant. But what I'm looking at is just having the ability to get along without having to run to the store every week or some people run there every day and trying to make sure that we are prepared in a way that if... 06:16 if society would shut down for a while, that we're still gonna be able to survive. We're gonna have all the essentials we need. You know, we're obviously not gonna have everything we'd like to have, but if you give it some forethought and you plan ahead, you can easily adjust so you'll know what you can live without. You'll know what's essential that you better stock up on. And I think being able to live a self-reliant lifestyle, 06:46 run into an emergency or we have problems with supply chain or anything else, I think that's the way to go. I think everybody should try to obtain that. Okay. So that's how my husband and I have been living basically since we got together. We always kind of plan for a two-week. 07:08 stint of not being able to get out because we live in Minnesota and it snows and there have been times where we have not been able to get out of our driveway for three days. So, we tend to shop for two weeks at a time, sometimes three. We're lucky enough to have some storage space so we can buy a head on bulk items. But also on the self-reliance part, for me as a woman, 07:37 My self-reliant stuff is that I know how to start a campfire. I don't need my husband or my son to do it. I have fired a.22 rifle twice. I'm not really a gun girl. I don't love it and there's many reasons why, but I can do it and I'm a pretty good shot. Knowing that it's really good to have extra blankets and extra clothes for if the power goes out and it's minus 20 outside. 08:05 You know, those kind of things that aren't necessarily food based, but more, more warmth and heat if we need it kind of stuff. So I think that for us here, self-reliance is about going back to the basics. And if you don't have gas to your stove or electricity to your stove, you can go outside and start a campfire and cook over an open flame. And there is some skill to that. 08:33 The first time I did it, I burned the stuff I was trying to cook. 08:40 So at the conference, do you guys talk about that kind of stuff too? Yeah. And that's, we're also going to have a, I wanted to have a life skills line of classes there because as I go around and talk to people and meet with different groups and do some training, it's, it's just become an obvious that, you know, society has changed, has changed from, from when I was a kid, because, you know, we had shop class and a home mat. 09:08 And people learned a lot of the basics there if they weren't picking them up at home from mom or grandma or dad, grandpa. But a lot of that's gone away. We have people today that can't necessarily read a tape measure. They may not know how to use some of the basic tools. They may not know how to start a fire, sharpen a knife, sharpen an axe. We're also going to have one of my friends who's a member of 09:33 Team Rubicon, he's a sawyer for them. They respond to emergencies. He's going to do a, a class on chainsaw maintenance with a little safety thrown in as well as some app sharpening there. You know, there's just so many basics that, that people don't really know that would benefit them. Figured let's, let's put them in the, to short classes that'll sort of fit in between the other classes and give people the opportunity to pick up on some of that stuff. Yeah. 10:02 that's really important. When we moved here for, well, almost four years ago, I keep saying this, almost four years ago, it will eventually be four years, I promise people. My husband hadn't really used a chainsaw at all and we have a wood burning boiler that heats our house. And so he got ready to go out to use the chainsaw on the big logs we had delivered. 10:31 And I said, what do you know about doing this? And he said, I pulled the cord and I saw the wood and I said, let's back up a minute, please. Because my dad used to do this all the time. I used to help him with the wood. I used to watch what he did. I don't use chainsaws. I don't like them. I'm afraid of them. I don't wanna do it. And if I had to, I would, but I don't want to. So I was like, here's the deal. Number one, you need to be really careful 11:01 because you're gonna get hurt if you don't know what you're doing. Number two, there are safeguards on chainsaws, but that doesn't mean you're safe. Number three, when you kick the wood out of the way, make sure it's not right behind your feet, because if you step back, you're gonna fall with a chainsaw in your hands, things like that. And he didn't know any of this stuff. And I was losing my mind. I was like, okay, I was already nervous enough, but now that I know what you don't know, now I'm really afraid for you. 11:31 So a chainsaw skills class sounds amazing. The other thing I was gonna say is the other part of self-reliance that I learned a long time ago is being able to recognize edible plants if you're out in your yard or in your tree line or hiking in the woods. Because if you can't get to a store or the stores are not open because the computers went down and the world has gone nuts. 11:58 Knowing what you can eat out of your yard or your treeline or within, I don't know, five miles of your house is really important. Do you guys do anything like that? Well, we're hoping to. That's, I need to go and look at the venue there to see what's going to be available in the area. Um, we know some folks who do do classes like that. And my wife has been through a lot of them and, you know, it's really, really difficult. And the best way is to have somebody actually take you out and show you, because it's really difficult. 12:27 to look online or look at a book and then go out and find a plant and be 100% sure that you identified it correctly. But you're right, there are so many things out there. If you would see our garden, we have things that volunteered there when they started growing in the spring that I'm not allowed to till down because they're beneficial. We have some lambs quarter and some other things in there. 12:55 Basically, you know, I spent my whole life whenever I'd see them, I considered them weeds and would go into the destroy mode. But now we're actually using them as part of our diet. Yeah, it's amazing. We had this weed growing in our garden at the old house and it looked like a succulent plant. A succulent is a plant that absorbs water and hangs onto water so the leaves look fat and turned out to be purslane. 13:24 Perslane is amazing. I've talked about this a couple of times already, but it has more nutritional value than spinach. Yeah, and So we tried it we liked it and when it grows in the garden here We don't take it out because it's actually good for you we have a feet trough that we've done experiments on growing several different things in and This year my wife planted cucumbers in it 13:50 and some purse lanes start going in it. So now we have cucumbers with purse lane growing all in between them and under the vines. And it's really amazing because you know, you get the two beneficial plants that are coexisting and thriving. So, you know, people gotta learn what that stuff is and learn how to benefit from it. Yes, yes they do. And hopefully your conference will help with that. 14:20 It must be really, I don't want to say difficult, because difficult is probably the wrong word. It must be a lot to set up this kind of conference because there are so many things that you could have a class on. So what are the classes that you have planned already? Well, we're gonna have, Sean and Beth Doherty are gonna do some classes for us. Their son, Luke, is gonna do a pork processing demonstration for us. 14:49 And then I've got William Bond, the permaculture consultant is going to be there. They haven't quite nailed down which classes he was going to do. But you know, I sat through one of his soil classes back in March and incredible, incredible gentleman and he's got some really great knowledge. And people, it's one thing that people just really don't understand, you know, the ins and outs of soil. 15:18 that's going to be very important. On the preparedness side, there's so many things to go into there, but I want to focus on things that are going to help move towards self-reliance. Things are going to be beneficial for folks. I'm hoping to get a couple of classes in there. Something hit me here about a month ago, and I'm working on finding somebody to teach it, but when I was a kid, 15:49 Now people wouldn't even know how to hold a slingshot. And a slingshot is a great thing to have on hand. You could go out and get food with it. You could actually defend yourself with it if you needed to. But people, that's just something that has sort of slipped through the cracks. I'm also hoping I've got a bow maker. Again, I'm really hoping I can get him there. But we're sort of up against the archery competition time there. So we'll have to see if he has an opening. 16:19 but I've seen him do an incredible class for the kids on archery. And, uh, you know, so in between homesteading and preparedness, I'm just going to try to find things that are going to cover all bases, especially with the homesteading. We want to have some classes that are going to be interesting to people who have been in into it for a while. Then I also want to have classes for folks in urban and rural areas to kind of help them along and point out some of the things they could be doing in there. 16:48 their own conditions there. Fantastic. I actually worry a lot about the people who live in the cities when I think about all this stuff going on in the world. Because my husband and my sons and I used to have long what if discussions when they were younger because they were interested in this stuff. And the big what if that always came up in those discussions is what if we lived in an apartment in the middle of Manhattan? 17:19 And everything went crazy. How would we survive? And my husband and I were like, well, we're still young enough that we would be taking you guys with backpacks and we would be hiking our way out of the city and praying that we actually got out of the city. Because the city is not the place to be in that situation. And so the boys were boys, obviously boys are boys, and they think about shooting things and beating things up. And... 17:49 looting stores to get food and that kind of stuff and of course video games play into that too and They were like we would be fine We know what we're doing and I said I don't think you actually do I don't think you understand that humans are the most unpredictable creatures when panic is is Flowing and you might think you know what that group of people over there are gonna do, but you don't actually know and 18:16 They thought they had it knocked and then COVID happened. And my kids were pretty much grown at that point, four years ago. And my youngest was still here. He is still here. He's 22 now. And he was very concerned about the fact that stores were closing and that people had to wear masks and had to make sure they used hand sanitizer and wash their hands and had to do all these things. 18:46 And I said, darlin', this is your first apocalypse. And he said, this is an apocalypse. Apocalypse is loud. And I said, no. I said, this is a form of an apocalypse. It is something that hasn't happened before and it is impacting the entire world. That's an apocalypse. And he said, huh. I said, yeah, this is probably the quietest apocalypse you will ever encounter. And it really made him. 19:12 stop and think about all his preconceived notions about what he would do if something happened that was out of the ordinary in a big way. And there were many discussions had during that time frame too. 19:28 So, yeah, it's a thing. So, with the conference, tell me when it's scheduled for. 19:37 It is scheduled for May 2nd through the 4th, 2025. It's gonna be at the Harvest Ridge Event Center in Millersburg, Ohio. It's right in the heart of Amish country in Ohio. And Millersburg and the Holmes County area are just such fantastic areas. I mean, this location, you would wanna go there even if there was no conference. There's so many things to see and do there. It's just incredible, great people all around. 20:06 People that follow the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference on Facebook are gonna see me doing some reels. As we get closer to the ticket sales in the first October into the conference, I'll be doing more conference-related things. But over the summer here, I wanna visit some of the establishments in the area, some of the restaurants, some of the other businesses that might support people that are going to the conference. 20:35 And I have, I have sworn to the people who are coming to the conference that I will go out there and vet these locations who have pie or ice cream. Okay. I want to make sure I take care of that. I don't want to let anything slip through the cracks. People got to know where the ice cream and the pies are. What about cookies? Oh yeah, them too. You know, no, no good cookie gets left behind. So. 21:03 Yeah, I want to hit all of them because some of them just have some fantastic stuff there and I want people to know about it so they can take advantage of it when they're there. The best part of road trips is finding the unknown mom and pop places that do it absolutely right. And just down the road from the conference, there's a place called Mama's Diner. They're doing some remodeling there right now. Great food. 21:30 There are so many little places like that throughout the area. I'm going to highlight all of them so people don't have to go out and look for them on their own when they get there. They're going to have a list and they can get their targets set up in advance. So basically they come for the yummies but they stay for the information. Yeah. Boy, you're smart. A hungry person might not learn real well so I think they ought to be happy and get in there and enjoy. 22:00 Well, yes, because why would you want to miss an opportunity like that? No, I get it. It's a really good idea and it's fun. Yeah, and that's, you know, I want the I want people to be aware of what's out there in the community. I also want to get the community engaged so they know that people will be coming to the conference and they'll be ready to welcome them. So can people buy tickets now or do you have a start date for when they can get tickets? No, ticket sales will begin the first of October. 22:30 And we're going to be doing ticketing a little bit different. A lot of events will start ticketing at a certain time and they'll offer, you know, some early bird sales and everything. What we're going to do is starting October 1st, we're going to be on level one of early ticket sales and we're going to offer a designated number of heavily discounted tickets for level one. And 22:56 everybody who gets one of those tickets is also going to be placed into a drawing. And if you get in level one, you're going to be in the drawings for all five levels. Those who buy soon are going to get the heaviest discount and they're going to be in five levels worth of drawings. Awesome! That's great. I'm guessing you're trying to do this so you get the buzz going about the conference. 23:23 but also because some people who are into homesteading and self-reliance and stuff, don't necessarily have a lot of money to spend on a trip like this. That is true. And, you know, and having the opportunity to start that far out and have people work towards it and get some good deals, I think is a good thing. And, you know, from my perspective, I'm renting what is basically a county fairground that's used for an event center. 23:53 And I have to, I've made a down payment on that, and I have got to pay the bill six months before the conference. So it's not like I can wait for people to come in the gate. Yeah. I need to get some cash up front there so I can pay for the whole place and make sure this happens. Yeah, and on that note, that's a lot of responsibility and a lot of taking on an unknown. So. 24:22 So why, how did you get into this in the first place? Well, I've had had friends in the prepping world asking me for several years, you know, if I was ever going to do a conference up this way, because the majority there's there's a preparedness and homesteading conference festival down in southern Ohio. Just change your name. Heritage skills are down in Vinton County. And then we also have the Food Independent Summit that's also in in the same area as our conference. 24:51 But getting both preparedness and homesteading up in the area that we're in, people have been asking me, and I think a lot of the folks I know down south just want to come up to see Amish country too. The one thing that always bothered me was the venue, finding the perfect venue. My wife and I were at the Kentucky Sustainability. 25:18 festival they have down in Bowling Green, Kentucky. We were down there last October. I woke up two o'clock in the morning and said, the Harvest Ridge Event Center in Millersburg is the perfect spot. And we got with the folks there and they said they had never heard of what we're doing, but they were more than happy to help us. And then things have just worked out. We've come into, run into so many roadblocks where you think, okay, this is the end of the show right here, we can't go beyond. And then we pray about it a little bit. Next thing you know. 25:47 things are worked out and we're back on track. So at this point where we're committed, there's, I don't believe there's anything to stop us now. So we're just gonna push ahead and get it done. Awesome. I always get a little bit twitchy about the term prepper because people have this perception that preppers are not exactly sane people. Yeah. 26:15 When I come across people who go, oh, preppers, they're crazy. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Preppers are people who prepare for things that are unseen coming down the road toward them. Yes, there are some people who take it to the extreme, but there are people like my husband and I who know that you can get stuck in your house for three days because you can't get out of your driveway because it snowed for two days before that. 26:45 and you're in blizzard conditions and you can't get out to clean out the driveway, let alone drive. So we consider ourselves preppers, but we consider ourselves preparers for things that might happen. And it makes me slightly angry when people are like, Oh, preppers are crazy people. They, they're hoarders and then, and then, and then, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not everyone is the same. 27:15 When I saw that you were the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference, I was like, okay, is this going to be somebody like us who's reasonable in understanding that preparation is key? Or is this going to be someone who is a hoarder and, you know, at the extreme end of prepping? And I'm really glad to know that you're not at the extreme end of prepping because that would have been a totally different conversation today. Well, yeah. And really, it's... 27:42 I get what you mean by extreme, but really, you know, whatever level of preparedness somebody wants to get into is really, really their concern. What's really irritated me over the years is negative connotation, the media, and some of our government officials have put on prepping. And they've, some of them have done the same thing with homesteading as well. And that's why I throw preparedness in there instead of prepping. 28:10 I kind of want to disarm them on being able to use the word term prepping. And I'm hoping that I was afraid prepping would turn some people off. And I just wanted to come in and get a full understanding, you know, prepping homesteading is all about taking care of yourself. And I think that's a wonderful thing. I wish everybody was equipped with the knowledge and all the supplies they needed to be. 28:39 be able to take care of themselves. But the fact of the matter is, a lot of people need help with that, and that's what we wanna do with the conference. Yes, and I wanted to make the distinction because it really does bother me when people just assume that they understand the term you're using, and they may not understand the term you're using because words mean different things to different people. And I am a big... 29:06 Word girl, I love words, I love reading, I love learning by reading. And so when it's a distinction between crazy prepper and reasonable person who is prepared for something coming down the road, I want to make that distinction. Oh yeah. And I always get a kick out of people that, you know, kind of look at you and say the word prepper with a little bit of a sneer or smirk. 29:34 And I just sit back and say, okay, you won't see me at Walmart when a snowstorm's coming in. No, because you won't need to be at Walmart because you already have a plan. We can just sit at home and enjoy life. Mm hmm. Exactly. My parents called me, I don't remember, a couple of winters ago to make sure that we were OK, because they knew we were having terrible weather. And they're in Maine and I'm in Minnesota. And I answered the phone and my dad was like, how you doing? 30:04 And I said, we're doing fine. Generator kicked in when the power went out. Wood burning for, ah, can't talk. Wood burning boiler is doing its job and heating the house and we're having a really good dinner tonight because everything's still working. And he said, that's my girl. You made your heart happy. Oh yeah. And they have the same, almost the same setup that we do. So when things hit the fan. 30:34 There, I usually am pretty sure that my parents with their lovely fortress of a home are safe and they're almost 78 and 81 on the 23rd and 30th of this month. And I used to worry about them. I don't worry about them. They got it knocked, they're set. So there is some real security in being self-reliant and being prepared. 31:03 And I love that you're doing conference about this because people do need to know how to take care of themselves. Well, thank you. And that's what it's all about, helping people, helping get the word out, helping getting people educated on the things that they need to move them towards a self-reliant lifestyle. And that's, you know, we're at the stage now, we're trying to get the word out, so we appreciate anybody who can spread the word. 31:32 If you're on Facebook, get on there and like and follow the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference page. And we're going to be blasting social media trying to get the word out and doing a number of other things we haven't seen other conferences do. But we're going to try to get the word out to as many people as we can. We appreciate anybody can help us do that. How many people do you have room for for this conference? 32:00 Well, you know, that's right now with what everything that we have arranged the facilities we have arranged to get there, we could probably easily do upwards of a thousand. But if we use the entire fairgrounds, we can probably get upwards of three thousand in there. Okay. 32:19 And then those people will go out in the world after they attend the conference and share what they learned and other people will learn from them. So it's a really nice spider web of information going out after the conference. Definitely, and you know that's when you look at the math on that. If you just have every person attends goes out and spreads it to two people and they spread it to two people, you're really getting the word out there. Yep, and that's what we need to do. 32:49 the hub of it to start spreading that out? Well, it's been a lot of fun so far. I'm meeting some really great people. A lot of the great people are right up there in the Millersburg, Ohio area, including the staff at the Harvest Ridge Event Center. And you know, I can't say enough about the event center because it is easily the nicest facility we have ever seen for any event like this. Fun and great. 33:16 All right, Jeff, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're at that point. So thank you for talking with me today. I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you, Mary. Thanks for having me on here and let me talk about something I love. Oh, that's why I do this because I love talking to you guys and you tell me stuff you love and it all works out great. Good deal. All right, have a great day. Thanks, Mary. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Lori at Empty Pockets Ranch. You can also follow on Facebook.  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 Lori at Empty Pockets Ranch. Good morning, Lori. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm good. And I can hear the wind blowing, so it must be sunny and beautiful there. For right now, yes. And you're... 00:30 You're in New York? Yes, I'm in upstate New York. Okay, awesome. All right, well, tell me about Empty Pockets Ranch. Yep, okay. Tell me about Empty Pockets Ranch. Is it called that because if you're going to run a ranch, your pockets are going to be empty? Yes, basically. And it's funny because that's probably like the number one question I get asked by visitors is, why would you call yourself something like that? And I feel like if you're remotely involved in any type of agriculture... 00:59 like you're going to get it. It takes a certain kind of someone to want to do this. You work a bazillion hours a week for hopefully to break even type of thing. So it's just like a running joke amongst so many farmers about having empty pockets. So I was like, this is a nice tongue in cheek way to salute everyone in agriculture because we're all in this together. 01:30 Yeah, I was telling my son that I was going to be talking to you today and the name of your ranch and I said, we should have named our place Go For Broke Acres. It's true though, right? Yup, exactly. It's hard work and it's expensive and it takes time. So I think it feels like all of your resources are sucked dry all the time. Yes, exactly. 01:59 economic mess that we're in. It's so hard to be able to predict the future, what's going to happen, what should you invest in, what should you grow. It's very, I don't know, it's weird times right now. Yeah, that's what everybody I've talked to lately says. They're like, I don't know what's going on with this world, but we're just gonna keep trying to grow food and feed people. And I'm like, good, do that. Right. So I looked at your Facebook page and your website, 02:29 By the way, tried to look at it 10 minutes ago and I couldn't do it. Something about DNS stuff. So you might want to look into that. Yes, it's brand new. So maybe there's some kind of issue. Yeah. I don't know, but wanted to give you a heads up. So look, looked at your Facebook page. You have a gazillion things going on, like you said. So tell me what you guys do. So we started. 02:58 in 2017 with dairy sheep. And I had worked at a big dairy sheep downstate milking. And most people are like, oh, you can milk sheep? And then I say, yeah, you can milk anything with nipples. But I started my own flock after college. I went back to college as an adult later on and getting into cheese making is pretty much impossible. 03:29 Okay. It's so regulated. There's so many rules. Just to get started, I needed about $100,000 worth of upgrades to my barn. So right off the bat, I said, okay, no, can't do that. I had already started to piece together East Frisian sheep. They're not very common in my area of the country. 03:59 wax compared to here. So I had these sheep now and I'm like, all right, these aren't cheap. I went all over the place looking for them. Doing sheep cheese is not going to be an option, at least not at that time. So I'm like, what can I do next? So I bought a soap business. I had never made soap in my life. And I started like experimenting. 04:28 using the sheep milk and soap because goat milk was like all the rage several years ago. But it was getting played out at that point. So I'm like, all right, this is working. And I started doing pretty well with the sheep milk soap because it's different, you know. And we upgraded our farm. We were renting a farm in another town and it was only on four acres. So we had the sheep, we had the livestock guardian dogs. 04:55 And then we moved to this bigger farm that was 94 acres. So I went from four to 94. And then COVID came, like right after we had moved in. I did most of my business downstate on Long Island because that's where the money was. My town up here is pretty poor, rural, like typical agriculture town where they can't justify. 05:24 you know, the added expense of a luxury item like sheet milk. So, so I would take all of my stuff downstate. COVID came and everything was canceled. You couldn't go to markets. You couldn't go anywhere. So we had a three-car garage just sitting here on the property, and it was full of prior owner stuff. So I was like, all right, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm turning this into a farm store. So that's kind of what I did. 05:51 I started filling the store with soaps, like some crafty things that I did. I grew a lot of blueberries. And it just kind of like evolved from there. That year, everything had shut down and I had no idea what I was doing, but I opened the farm to the public. So I started doing festivals here and I had to be in compliance with the Department of Health laws. 06:19 And the Department of Health didn't even really know what the laws were. Um, so it was kind of like, okay, you're outside, everybody, you know, wear a mask, blah, blah, blah, and everything started going well. So that year I decided, okay, like, I'm going to take some stuff that I've seen work in other areas of the country and I'm going to try it out here and see how it goes. So I planted two acres of sunflowers, just hand planted them to see how they would do. 06:48 No one in my area was doing that. And then that was kind of like the kickoff of how things happened. Um, we had a news station come over to do a story and I particularly was not ready for that, but you don't say no. Right. Yeah. Um, they came and they did a feature on the farm. And then after that, it was just like wild. It was the amount of people that were coming here, visiting the farm. And you know, 07:16 Like once you get to that level of popularity and you have to always come up with new things because if you don't, someone down the road is copying you. Well they're probably going to copy you anyway. But you always have to keep new things coming, right, to be able to keep the people coming. So I expanded into now I do a total of seven acres of you pick flowers. So I do zinnias. 07:44 I do sunflowers, I have all kinds of you pick flowers. And then I got the NRCS high tunnel grant last summer and I've really focused on specialty dahlias and it's a super hot market and there's multiple income streams off of the one flower. So you can sell tubers, you can sell cuttings, you sell the cut flowers. And I went for the stupid expensive high end varieties that the florists want. 08:14 So now I can wholesale to florists. I have them come and they cut their own flowers out of the high tunnel of what they want and then they pay me. I've done wedding design work. I do the upick. So, and then I have my own shop which I supply flowers there and then I supply flowers to several other shops in the county. And it's funny because five years ago I didn't even know what a peony was. So. 08:42 It's kind of been a strange turn of events of things you don't necessarily ever expect to do and opportunities just fall into your lap kind of thing. Uh-huh. Congratulations on the grant. Grants are amazing. We got one for a heated greenhouse and I think we got it in October of 23 and just finished the build in May. So I understand about grants. 09:10 It's really weird because sometimes grants are a thing where you have to sit down and really think about your answers and really write in a very professional manner. And sometimes grants are two questions. You answer the questions and by some miracle you get the grant, which is what happened to us. So. Right. And it's so funny because one of my best friends from- It's kind of crazy. Yeah. She does grant writing. So she helps me out with the ones that are tough. 09:39 I mean, I could do it, right? But since I'm pulled in 7,000 directions and my friend does this for a living, I'm like, hey. Sometimes I'm good with the words, so why don't you help me out? And I honestly, if I sat back and totaled it, I probably have gotten upwards of $75,000 of grants. I'm just really good at finding them. I don't know how, they just like come to me and. 10:06 But they help, you know, they absolutely help, especially when you're first getting started and you don't know what you're doing. It's nice to, you know, have some help with it because businesses are expensive, you know. Yes they are and more expensive than you would have guessed most of the time. Yeah. All right. So I have a question. 10:29 How old are you? You don't have to tell me exactly. You can say mid-20s, mid-30s, whatever you'd like to say. Oh, God, I wish I was mid-20s. I just turned 41 in April. Okay, so it's not the boundless energy of 20-year-olds that's keeping you going. So how do you manage to keep this all organized and how do you schedule or plan your day so you get everything done? 10:55 Well, I plan my day one way and then it never goes that way. So I have a toddler too. So that doesn't really help my time management situation. But I do have older kids that are 18 and 16 and they do a lot here. Like they do most of the farm chores. They help me run the store. They do a lot of like the grounds keeping type thing. We don't have employees. We should probably have employees, but. 11:25 I'm very much like why pay someone when I can do it myself kind of thing. So it's just like I'm very you have to be flexible right because like you go out to do one thing and then a rainstorm comes out of nowhere and you're like okay can't do that, pivot on to the next activity. So I kind of just do like what needs to be done and what can wait. Like that's kind of how it is. 11:50 I'm a little behind from my sunflower festival this year in August. It's a big festival. We have like thousands of people that come. And I'm behind on still getting vendors and stuff like that, but I'm like, nah, I have time, you know? Like, the flowers need fertilizing first. So I kind of just roll with the punches type thing. And something's always going to go wrong. Like last Thursday, I came home from my preschoolers' graduation. 12:20 and our store freezer had completely crapped out. I went to the- Oh no. I lost $2,500 worth of prepared dinners that we had just made the day before. And I didn't know if I wanted to like rage throw the freezer or cry, you know? But I'm like, okay, you know what? It's Thursday, we're gonna be busy. I don't have time to like have a mental breakdown over this. So I'm just gonna take care of it and move on. And you know, luckily I have insurance on- 12:49 everything because of you know this is going to happen and I knew it was going to happen at some point but you know these things happen at the most inconvenient of times as well so you just have to like know that that's that's all part of this you know you're going to walk out to the field and your cow is stuck in a fence or did something stupid you know or a sheep like cut themselves like they just do things so I think you have to be able to have that like oh well. 13:18 onto the next type attitude or it's going to be really hard to survive. Without going insane, yeah. Yeah. Oh, if anyone who wants to get into this willingly, there's probably like a mental illness component to all of us because who wants to work like, you know what I mean? Like it really takes a certain kind of person and you really have to love the lifestyle and 13:45 That's why on my post, I try to do as much education as possible because where we live now, we've had a lot of people move up to the country during COVID that thought they wanted to be a farmer. And so they've collected all these farm animals and, you know, want to do a big garden. And then they realized like, wow, this kind of sucks. Like I can't go on vacation. 14:13 I can't just leave for the weekend when I want to, and I could work the entire summer and still have a crop failure. So I think there's like a really steep learning curve for people and you really have to have tough skin to be able to make it in this industry because the chance of things going wrong is way higher than the chance of things going right, if that makes sense. Yes, and having said all that, 14:42 I don't want to scare people away from trying homesteading or farming or whatever because you can dive in whole hog and spend all your money and get all the animals and all the tractors and all the seeds and all seedlings and basically run yourself into the ground in the first six months. Or you can start small. Right. 15:07 You can buy a place with a decent house on it with an acre or so, and you can do a small garden and get your feet wet and your hands dirty. And then you can decide if that's working and then you can make the next step. And if you find that you absolutely love it and you love the chaos and the surprises, then you can sell that place and buy a bigger place if you wanna go bigger. So. 15:34 I understand what you're saying and you are absolutely right, but I also want people to understand that you don't have to start all the way in, if that makes sense. Right. And that's what I did. I mean, there are days where this place is overwhelming to me. I mean, I have a 12,000 square foot barn. I board horses. I have a store. 15:55 I do flowers. I essentially have like six businesses in one. And if I had like jumped into this, I would be in the nuthouse by now because it is, it can be very overwhelming. And that's definitely the best advice is to start small because you don't know what you're going to like too. I felt like I had to grow vegetables because like, oh, you know, you have a farm, you have to grow vegetables. 16:24 After year two, I discovered I absolutely hate growing vegetables. I hate it. I loathed it. I did not enjoy anything about it. So it took me two years to figure that out, that I really didn't like it and I was doing it because I had to. But I did it on a small scale. So I wasn't out a ton of... 16:48 I was out of time, but I wasn't out a ton financially, and then I could repurpose the space for something else. So I think that's a really good idea to start small because you might try something and be like, oh, I really don't like this. So cut it off of the table. Yeah, my husband loves to garden. I have talked about this ad nauseam on the podcast since last August, and I don't. 17:15 I don't love gardening. I don't love weeding. I don't love it. So that's his de-stressor from work. And honestly, if he came home tomorrow from work and said, I can't do my job and the gardens anymore, I would just dance a jig and be like, okay, cool. Let's just plant peonies on the whole property next year. We will have a peony farm. Three years from now, we will be selling peonies like hotcakes. 17:43 He would probably go for that because they grow really well here in Minnesota. Right, right. And they're they're a high value flower. I mean, some of them get seven dollars a stem for you plant them once and they come back every year. And I think that's something to consider, too. Not like I want to like preach everyone go grow flowers. And that's the answer to your problems, because, you know, it's not. But I think like looking at it from a value perspective, too. So. 18:12 where I live now, we have a ton of city people that are moving up, and then we have an influx of Amish coming up from Lancaster because they can't afford the taxes, I guess. And who would have thought that New York taxes would be cheaper than Pennsylvania, but I guess they must be. So now, you can't compete with their pricing. They're selling flats of heirloom tomatoes for $20. Wow. I can't throw them for that. I can't do anything with that. 18:42 So if you're looking to grow for yourself and or if you're looking to grow to sell I think are two different Things too. I mean even to grow for yourself. I don't think I'd $20 a flat I would go two doors down and Pick up a flat some Peter but you know, it's it's a factor to consider too When you say flat like the actual tomatoes not the plants. Yeah 19:12 Oh my god, that is I'm coming to visit them because we can't grow tomatoes that cheap. No, I don't know like how I maybe I don't want to know how. But I mean, if you they don't have the overhead that we you know, that we have. And I mean, I know when I'm pricing things, I'm guilty of undercharging, I'm sure, too. But I'm not taking into effect my weight costs or, you know, whatever. And I, you know, I don't. 19:39 pay myself because my time is free here. But there's a lot of things to consider. If you're going to price appropriately, I'd have to charge $120 a flat for tomatoes where they're charging $20. It's interesting to see the price fluctuations. I think that has helped me a lot in my direction planning too. 20:08 Do I want to compete with this guy two doors down for me? No, because it's not worth my time. I'm out here picking bugs off of tomato plants and it doesn't make sense. So I think that was an important part of how we got to where we're at now. And really, I mean, we started in 2017 originally, but I didn't open any of this and we didn't even move here till 2020. 20:37 So I'm really going on year four and I've pivoted significantly multiple times over the last four years over things that work, things that don't work, things that are gonna be cost effective and things that are not gonna be cost effective. For sure, yep. Okay, so I saw that you do farm camp or day camp. Yes. And tell me about that, is that super fun? Yes, in small doses. 21:06 So we did it last year for the first time and we ran two sessions. I did a session for five to 12 year olds and then I did another session for like 12 to 15 year olds. So I could really tailor it because when you combine them, like you're so busy with the little kids, the older ones get overlooked a little bit. So we do a ton of stuff. So we do like, I do like a mini bouquet making class. 21:35 They get to spend time with the farm animals. They'll collect eggs from the chickens. They spend time with the horses. And then we have this big steer. His name's Oscar. And he comes out and the kids can pet him and spend some time with him. We go over nutrition for livestock, how to properly handle livestock. 22:01 This year we're doing a pottery, a friend of mine from another farm around the way here has pottery classes. So she's going to come over and they're going to make a little farm themed mug with her pottery wheel. So I try to keep them super busy. Mostly our kids that have second homes up here and they're not necessarily exposed to livestock. 22:30 those of us who live on farms are and it's they seem to really enjoy it and I have a lot of the same kids Come back every year. So I try to spin it a little bit different and add new activities or new lessons Like this year. I ordered a ton of predatory insects and even though you're supposed to release them at nighttime I'm gonna just let them release them during the daytime and they'll probably fly to another farm, but whatever, you know 22:58 So I'm trying to like teach them about not spraying your flowers and vegetables if you don't have to, but I do it in a roundabout way with like cool bugs. Neat. So I have talked to a couple other people that have a farm school or a farm camp or whatever in the last couple of months because it's that time of year. And I've asked both of them and the answers were the same. So I'm going to ask you two. 23:25 Does it just warm your heart when the kids that haven't really been exposed to this particular lifestyle come out and they're just like, wow, I didn't even know any of this. Does it just make your heart sing? Oh yeah, because it's, you know, I think I grew up on Long Island and people are like amazed to hear that. But where I grew up on Long Island... 23:52 was farm country. No one thinks of Long Island as farm country, but where I grew up was all wineries, potato farms, vegetable farms. I grew up doing that. I was never really around livestock because there's no cows on Long Island. If you wanted to ride horses, you had to be a millionaire. I guess that hasn't really changed too much. 24:17 So I remember when I first was around livestock, I was like, oh wow, this is so cool. And I'm sure I asked a million ridiculous questions too and people probably thought they were funny. So I remember what it's like firsthand to have that experience. And I think that I'm guilty of it too though because I'm doing this every day. So I can remember a time when I was a little kid and all I wanted was a pony and we couldn't have a pony. 24:46 And now I have horses and sometimes in the wintertime I'm walking them up to pasture and I'm like, oh my God, this sucks, why did I do this? And then I have to step back and think back to that time. Remember, when you were a little kid and this was all that you could think about and this is all that you wanted and now you have it. So I try to relate back to that time when I'm interacting with kids who might not be exposed to the animals and might not be so accustomed to them as I am. 25:15 And I think that it's good for me too, right? Because it takes me back to the point of appreciation. Because sometimes things just become a chore and you're like, ugh, you know, I'd rather eat lunch than be doing this. But I think that's a good reality check for me. Like, hey, this isn't just all work and you can enjoy these animals. And there was a time where this was all you wanted and now you have it, so be grateful. So I think it's humbling for everybody. Yeah. 25:43 I have a couple things. One is about my dad and about me growing up as a kid with my dad and my mom. And one is about friends that visited this weekend. Don't let me forget the friends part because that's a fun story too. I grew up in Maine and my dad's dad, so my grandpa, lived in mid-state Maine, so like an hour and a half from where I grew up. And he had a farm. 26:11 He didn't actually do a farm. He had a barn and an old farmhouse, and he had a big vegetable garden. Down the road from him, family friends had a dairy farm. And so I grew up being around barn kittens and calves and cows and steers because we would go up to visit grandpa and we would stop in and see the tibets while we were there. So the idea of not being exposed to a farmish life 26:41 foreign concept to me because I was introduced to it from the time I was very little. Right. And then I moved from Steep Falls, Maine, where I grew up, to Portland, Maine with my future husband. And I had never really explored a city before. And Portland, Maine is not a big, it wasn't a big city at the time. It was a big city for the state of Maine. And it was so weird to me. 27:08 wandering around that city and learning the landscape and the layout of the city I then lived in. And I can remember telling my dad when I visited him back at the house that I grew up in that I thought that everyone should live, if they grew up in the country or the woods as I did, they should spend time living in a city. And if they grew up in the city, they should have the chance to live in nature. 27:34 And he looked at me and scoffed and said, I don't think anybody who grew up in nature should live in the city. And I said, I think you're wrong. I think that if you are brought up in one environment, it is not bad to try out another. And he said, I don't want to. I said, well, you don't have to. And that was the end of that. It was fine. And then, it has nothing to do with that story. We had friends down to visit this weekend to pick up a... 28:04 couple barn kittens for their pole barn and they hadn't been here in a couple of years and I hadn't really talked to my friend in over a year because she got a job she's she's a lawyer so she's very busy and so they showed up she gave me big hug we sat down she's like so what's going on we haven't talked and I said well I have barn kittens for you and she said one and I said you want to and she was like yes so she took two of the 28:33 the three that were left. So we have no, the four that were left. So we have two kiddies still here. And I said, I started a podcast. She had no idea. Started a podcast and I explained what I was doing. And she said, I see you guys are doing the farm stand and the farmers market down in Lesor in the summer. So I saw that on Facebook and I was like, yeah. And she welled up, her eyes filled up with tears and she was like, Mary. 28:59 I am so proud of you. You guys are doing exactly what you said you wanted to do five years ago. Right. And I said, well, yes, did you think we were gonna buy 3.1 acres with a farmhouse and a pole barn on it and not do anything with it? Yeah. And she said, well, no, she said, but you guys, it's only been, you've only been here four years in August and look at everything you've accomplished. 29:28 And I hadn't really thought about it because we've been doing the things. You know, when you're in the middle of it, you're not really stepping back and going, oh, I'm so proud of myself. We did that thing. Right. And she didn't know about the grant funding the greenhouse that wasn't here the last time she was visiting. And she said, really nice greenhouse. And I said, yes, and it's a damn good thing I got a grant or it wouldn't be there. And she said, what? 29:54 I said, we got a grant for that. I said, not a penny of that came out of our pocket. And then she had a huge grin on her face and she was like, I'm so proud of you. It's so weird being 54 years old and having someone who's only a year or two older than me saying that to me, you know? Right. Yeah. So it plays into the taking it for granted or the not being aware of what is going on. Right. 30:22 Yeah, I mean, and it's easy to do that, right? Because you're so caught up in scrambling, like, oh, I'm behind for planting season. Oh, I gotta get this, and oh, I gotta get that done. But I think it's so easy for us to just overlook and look at what you have accomplished instead of what you haven't or just being so focused on things that need to get done and not maybe looking at the... 30:48 the big picture of things and that kind of thing. So I think it's important to do that too. It's nice when other people...and that happens to me too because this farm was empty for I think it was like nine years before we moved in. And I mean it was a mess. I remember driving by this place all the time and I'm like, oh, that farm is so cool. Why are they letting it...everything was overgrown and just destroyed. 31:16 And when we moved in, we were just so like, OK, let's get this done. And weed whacking fence line for miles just to be able to get the livestock out because the brush was so overgrown. And people will stop in and be like, oh, it's so nice to see this place become a farm again. And it looks so great. And I'm like, it looks great. I'm like, oh. Thank you, but yes. Yeah. 31:45 All I see is work when I look at this place and this needs to be done and that needs to be done. And I wish I had taken pictures of when we first moved in and I don't know why I didn't probably because I was so focused on fixing everything right away. But it would be nice for me to even just like look at what it was and then look at what we've done and be like, oh, you know, we have come a long way. And I think it's important sometimes to pat yourself on the back because Lord knows we all need it. 32:14 Yes, absolutely. And honestly, I'm going to say congratulations for building up something that needs so much work. I'm proud of you because I know what it takes. My husband, when he's at the farmer's market, he has people come up to him and say, wow, you're doing so many things at your farm. And I don't really consider it a farm, but I guess it's a farm. 32:41 because people drive by our place all the time because it's on a connector road from LaSore to the next town over. And we don't even think about the fact that people notice what we're doing because we feel like we're in a bubble here, you know? Right, yeah. And so he comes home from the farmer's market and he was like, some complete stranger walked up to me at the farmer's market today and said, your place looks great. I'm so glad that someone bought it and is doing something with it. 33:10 Isn't it wild how people like pay attention to that kind of stuff? It honestly kind of creeps me out because I feel like no one's really paying attention and I realized they are. Yeah. That's how like we're on a main road here in town, but we're in a like my it's a 55 mile per hour road. So oftentimes people will like slow down and start creeping by and I'm like, oh no, there's an animal out, right? Because what other reason would they be? 33:40 creeping by or stopping or whatever. And sometimes it's just for that, like for people to look and see what we've done. And it's kind of cool, yet a little creepy, but also cool. Yeah, I've really had to get over my being an a fishbowl thing that bugs me. Because when we lived in town almost four years ago now, we were very close with neighbors and we were on a road that 34:10 was very close to the main street in town and I hated every second of it. I felt like I was constantly being asked, what are you doing now? You know? Right. Right. And so I don't like that feeling. I want to be the fish in the bowl looking out. I don't want to be on the receiving end of the people looking at the fish in the bowl. Right. And 34:33 When I started the podcast, my husband said, you realize that you're going to be talking to people and people are going to hear you talk about things. And I was like, yes. He said, that doesn't freak you out. And I said, no. He said, you are the strangest woman I've ever known. He said, and I love you. I was like, okay, good. I said really, to see them, right? Like they're not in your house. They're not in your backyard, you know. So I think it's a different, it's like a different. 35:02 But it still does freak me out when my husband comes home from the farmers market and says somebody came up to me today and said they love the podcast. I'm like, oh my God, people actually listen to it. This is so strange. It's a good problem to have though, isn't it? Yeah, it's just I forget. I don't forget, but it doesn't register in the front of my brain when I release episodes that people are actually going to listen to them and pay attention and learn stuff. 35:29 I don't know. It's this weird disconnect for me that I want people to listen, I want people to learn, but I can't think about it too hard if that makes any sense at all. Yeah, right, because you're having a conversation really. You know, it's like a free-flowing conversation with your people. Yeah. You know, and I think that's interesting and I think it's important for a lot of people who, you know, want to get into it or 35:59 are thinking about getting into it or are not sure. But we saw all these cool pictures on Instagram, and it's kind of like, eh, it's not all Instagram pictures. You know? Like so. No. No, it's not. And the other thing that's tough sometimes is I don't want to be an evangelist for. 36:25 for homesteading and cottage food producing and crafting. I mean, if you wanna do it, here's the stuff that people do and here's the way they do it. And maybe this will help you get started. If you don't wanna do it, I don't expect you to do it. This is not homesteading, cottage food producing and crafting church. This is... 36:51 This is come sit by the campfire and listen to stories about people who are doing things. Yeah. And it's funny because I hate public speaking. It's something I've struggled with my entire life. Me too. Lately, people have asked me to do all these guest speaker spots and I'm like, ugh, ugh, ugh. You know, and I don't want to say no. 37:17 because like I know some things right and if some things that I happen to know can help somebody then I would like to help people. So I've been doing a lot more of them and a lot of it is with the livestock guardian dogs because that whole thing has just become a disaster in itself. And the way I start every single one of these like guest speaker spots is let me tell you why you. 37:45 don't need a livestock party and dog. And people look at me like I'm nuts and I'm like, you know, I'm honest to a fault sometimes, right? But I want to set up everyone to succeed. And these dogs are not for everyone. And somehow they've become the face of the farm here. Like everyone knows my dogs. 38:12 Mostly because they chase people along the side of the question. So it's interesting, you know, like how the dynamic works where sometimes you're honest, but people don't want to hear that honesty either, you know. So I kind of say what I have to say and then people are going to choose to do what they're going to choose to do. 38:42 Regardless. Yes. And you're an East Coast girl. Of course you're honest to a fault. I get that all the time. You don't lie. I'm like, nope. If you ask me if that dress looks good on you and it doesn't, I'm going to say I really like the pattern. I really liked the design. I really liked the way it's cut. I'm never going to tell you. It makes you look terrible, but I'm also not going to, I'm not going to lie, but I'm not going to not lie. So. 39:10 And that, you know, like the main reason I don't lie is because one, I'm not good at it. And I forget. So, so like, I'll tell my kids something sometimes because they're like annoying me. Say something. And then later I forgot that I said it and then they'll catch me in it. And then I'm like, oh, okay. So I just like, don't I don't even bother to try to. 39:39 This is what it is. Like, I'm just saying, you know? Get a dog and don't get a dog. I don't know anymore. Yes, I just don't have the energy to deal with it. No. And honestly, there's a joke about does this, do these jeans make my ass look fat? And the punch line is no, your ass makes your ass look fat? I can't be that blunt, but I am darn close sometimes. Yeah. 40:09 Speaking of the guardian livestock dogs, I really would have loved to have gotten a great Pyrenees because I think that they are big loves and they're beautiful and a great Pyrenees puppy would have been amazing. However, I am not in any way shape or form prepared to raise that dog to 120 pounds. So we ended up getting a mini Australian Shepherd instead. 40:38 She's a herding dog. She doesn't actually have a job because we don't have anything for her to herd. But smartest freaking thing we ever did because she's only 35 pounds. She is very calm when she's in the house. And when she gets outside, she loves to run and play. Smartest choice ever made regarding an animal for us. Yes, yes. But that having been said, I do love the Greeks. 41:04 Pyrenees, I love the Anatolian, whatever they are. Yep. Yeah. So I have the livestock guardian dogs. I don't know if you can hear this dog barking in the background. It's my neighbor's dog over a mile away. He's got a bunch of healers and the dog has been barking the entire time. But I have like herding dogs. And then I have... 41:33 the working livestock dogs and they don't ever intermingle because the livestock dogs will kill the herding dogs like hands down. Really? Oh yeah, yeah because they're not going, they know who they are but the herding dogs are not allowed to actually herd anything. If I were to put a collie or I have an Australian shepherd as well, if I were to put them in there and they were to start moving my sheep, that's a threat. 42:02 to the flock. Oh, yeah. So they would expel the dog immediately. Wow. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot to having the dogs and even I had a real scary incident last about two weeks ago with a customer that was here. And my guard dogs, they're they're into separate 42:32 The gate is right down by the farm store, but it's all electric fenced. Like they're hot wired in like Jurassic Park. They're not getting out. And sometimes customers pull up to the store and they have their pet dogs waiting in the car or whatever. And this always starts an issue, right? Because the pet dogs are tough from inside the car. They start barking. Then my guys come down and it's war of the barks and whatever. 43:01 never really thought too much about it. Two weeks ago, I had a customer come in and she was chit chatting with me inside the store for a bit. I didn't realize she had her husky and her son in the car. So she left or I thought she left and I was checking out another customer and I hear like horrific screaming from outside. It was the kind of screaming where you just drop everything and run because you know it's something bad, right? So I charge out of the 43:31 Her husky is in my pasture and has one of my sheep by the throat. I guess when she had gotten into the car, the dog had slipped out. I've had huskies growing up, they're super prey drive-y. If you have a small animal or something, they're going to probably try to kill it. All of mine were like that. It took the blast from my electric fence, went underneath, was chasing the sheep. 43:58 grabbed one by the throat and my guys were up top. So I saw them, there's five of them in there. I'm like, oh God, they're charging down and we've clocked my lead female at 32 miles an hour alongside the road. So the dog sees that my guard dogs are coming and now the dog's like, oh God. So he runs into my barn. I can't run fast, you know? 44:23 So my dogs get into the barn, they have the dogs surrounded, and they were just gonna rip this dog to pieces. I hopped in the middle, and that was, I probably could have gotten myself ripped up pretty good. And I picked up this dog, I don't know how I did it. I'm 5'2", like I'm not. I lifted this husky up over my head, and my husband had come running in behind me. I threw this dog, I don't know how I did it. 44:50 Maybe it was the adrenaline or whatever. And I threw the dog to my husband. I was like, get this thing out of here. So I checked, you know, I went right to checking my sheep and thankfully they hadn't been shorn yet. And I was late this year, maybe for a reason. So there was damage to the sheep or anything like that. But it really, that was the first incident I've had like that and I've had these dogs for almost nine years. And that was the first. 45:17 like security breach that we've really ever had where the dogs were put to the test, you know? I mean, they talk a good game behind the fence, but I've never had something come in like that and attack, like blatantly attack my sheep. So it was nice to see that push come to shove. All this dog food isn't wasted and

Today I'm talking with Alain at Triskell Bakery. You can also follow on Facebook.  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 Alain at Triskell Bakery. How are you? Hi, good morning. How are you? I'm good. Sorry to make you talk shop on your vacation. No problem. Okay. All right, so tell me about yourself and what you do. 00:30 Yeah, so, well, I'm a baker now. I was a food scientist for all of my career, and I retired last September, and I always wanted to start something from scratch. And I had several options, I had several hobbies, and I ultimately selected baking, because that was... 00:57 passion of mine. I've been baking for about 15 years and you know, I came from a family of baker in France and so I started the bakery in January of this year. January 23rd was my first day and so I you know I posted on on social 01:27 thousand followers from my town and you know, neighboring towns and quickly realized that there was a need for an artisan French baker in Medina, Medina, Ohio, where it is. And it started from there. And yeah, it's taken off fairly quickly. That's amazing. So I have a quick question. In Ohio, do you guys have the cottage food producer? 01:55 thing like Minnesota does? Absolutely. That's exactly how I operate. So back in December, I started an LLC for Triskell Bakery and I looked up the rules and regulations for college law and made sure that I followed those guidelines. So I operate out of my house. I converted 02:24 mixing and my ingredient storage and all the extra equipment that I need. And I essentially used the oven in the kitchen and I've taken over several rooms in the house now. So my dining room is my office and a freezer in there and a refrigerator. So my wife is very gracious. 02:50 That helps a lot. Gracie's spouses are amazing. Absolutely, absolutely. I could not have done this without her support. She still works, she's a marketing project manager for a pet food company. And she's the one who told me, follow your passion. I was ready, I was ready to retire. I'm 57, so I was 56 when I retired, so fairly young. But I had enough seniority that 03:20 I was able to do that. So she's the one who carries the load for, she's the breadwinner and no pun intended. And she carries the family with all the insurance and things like that. Yay, girl power. I love it when women have the chance to do that stuff. She's a rock star. Awesome. 03:47 Okay, so since you've taken over a bunch of your house, does that mean that you might be considering moving into a bigger space? You know, we thought about it and eventually I think this is something that I would like to get, you know, at least a commercial kitchen so I could expand and grow because I'm close to capacity right now. 04:14 And so that's something we've talked about. A couple of options that came up. Ultimately, we decided that we want to go through at least an entire conduit year and see how this progresses and make sure that it's not a flash in a pen and it's something that's sustainable, both from a business standpoint, but also from a financial standpoint for us. We didn't want to go into taking a significant investment at this point. 04:43 So, but in the future, I think this is something that I'd like to do. Not to have a retail place to sell bread. That is clearly not my, my, my, my objective. But, you know, we'll talk a little more about this. I'm sure I, besides selling bread at local stores and farmers market, I also teach classes. So what I'd like to do is to have a commercial space where I can, I can have more equipment. 05:13 and that I could also teach my classes out of. Yeah, yep. Because you'll need the room because you're very popular and people are gonna wanna learn from you. So speaking of classes, I have a question. I have a question about croissants. When you make croissants, we have never attempted that here. My husband loves to bake breads, but we have not attempted croissants yet. Is that? 05:39 Is that like the puff pastry dough? Is that how that works? So croissant is a laminated dough. So that means that there's layers of, yeah, so it's essentially it's a puff pastry but with a commercial yeast. So it's using yeast. So it's, you know, a very simple list of ingredients. It's, you know, very similar to puff pastry, but there's also yeast in 06:09 overnight then I create my butter layer which is Typically deposited on the center of that dough that I stretch and fold until I get multiple layers. So You know you you make what you do You make what you call a butter block butter layer and then the dough is Encasing that butter and then you stretch it and you fold it stretch it fold it you do that about three times 06:36 which creates about 81 layers of butter and dough. And then you stretch that, shape it, proof it, bake it. And it's been very popular here. So when you, I'm asking, because my husband is probably gonna listen to this episode. He doesn't listen to very many of them because he's busy, but because you're a baker, he's gonna wanna listen. So with the butter, is the butter cold when you do that, or is it room temperature? Absolutely. 07:04 Okay, well the butter needs to be cold but pliable. So when I'm, you know, so last night I started on vacation, but I have been baking. Just, you know, just for my neighbors here. It's something I do. So the butter, I make my dough the night before so I made two batches of croissant dough last night. And if they've been proofing overnight so this morning. 07:29 After this call, I'm going to make my butter block. So basically you shape and you use a European butter. So it has a higher fat content, so lower moisture. And that really helps in the proofing and it, not the proofing, but it helps during the baking of creating those layers of butter and dough. So the butter has to be cold, but pliable. So you don't want it to be brittle and you don't want it to be warm. 07:59 because then the butter would melt in those layers of dough. So it's important to keep that butter at the right temperature. So it's about maybe 50 degrees, 50, 55 degrees, when I do the stretch and fold. OK, thank you, because he's going to want to know. I suspect that I have croissants in my future this winter, as soon as he listens to this. He's going to be like, that's not. 08:28 That sounds simple. Yeah, it's not hard at all. It's just time consuming, because you start your, the French call it the trempes, you start your dough the night before, then the next morning you make about a block. You go through your three successive stretches and folds, and then I let that final dough rest again overnight, and then tomorrow morning, 08:57 I'll be stretching it to its final shape and shape the croissants and let them proof and bake them tomorrow morning. So it takes about two days, two, two and a half days. So what you're saying is that tomorrow morning, wherever you're staying is going to smell amazing. Uh huh. Yeah. And I have a German neighbor. She's 85 years old. 09:21 and she loves my croissants. And so I haven't told her it's gonna be a surprise for her. I'm gonna bring her croissant for breakfast tomorrow. Aw, sweet. That is adorable. Okay, so I read in the email you sent me that you are from the Brittany region, is that right? Yeah, that's correct. I was born in France, born and raised, and I went to school in France. So my... 09:49 All my family is from the west coast of France in a region called Brittany. So if you look at France, kind of an hexagon, Brittany is the westernmost region in France. My family comes from the north coast of Brittany, so it's alongside the channel. And when I was a kid, I used to spend my summer at my cousin's bakery. He's my cousin now, but he's my cousin, but his dad owned the bakery at the time. 10:19 So when I was a kid, I used to spend my summer there and go and work with him at night. When I was a little too young, he would shoo me and send me back to bed. But I would help him in the bakery and then go on delivery runs with them because they live, it's a countryside area. It's rural, it's not urban. 10:45 So we would load the van and we would go house to house and farm to farm and sometime it was, all right, you take two baguettes and a large loaf, you go in the kitchen, don't mind the German shepherd, drop the bread on the table and pick up the money and come back. And that's how it was. And so that's what I did when I was a kid, my brothers and my cousins would go to the beach, I would go to the bakery. 11:13 And so, but I was born in Paris and I went to school in Paris. I studied food science. So I was a, you know, food scientist, like I said, and, uh, but yeah. Uh, so, um, French through and through, uh, I've been in the US for 33 years now. Okay. Thank you for all that. The reason that I asked about the Brittany region. 11:38 is because you said hence the name Triskell bakery and I don't know the reference so you want to fill me in on why it's hence Triskell? Absolutely. So a triskell is the logo, you know the three arm logo that's on my website and on my Facebook page, that's called a triskell. So when I was looking for a name for the bakery, I was looking for something that was reminiscent of my origins. 12:08 And so I had several options and I went to my social media and asked my friends, my family, what do you think of the different names that I had? And Triskell was one of the ones that was intriguing. The logo was very compelling, very unique. And Triskell is a Celtic symbol that has been present over 12:35 over centuries, so originated in Ireland and the British Isles and has had multiple meanings across generation. The one that I'm most familiar with is birth, life and death. There's other meanings as well. So I thought the logo was very compelling as a logo for a business. The name was easy to pronounce for Americans. 13:04 compelling for me as a Frenchman from the region of Brittany and all my family over there thinks it's wonderful that I chose Triskell as a business name. Awesome. Thank you. Because I was like the only Triskell I know about is in pagan stuff. And I was like, I don't think it's a pagan reference. So I need to know. Okay. Awesome. So tell me about your classes. How? Actually, no, don't tell me about your classes yet. 13:33 How much bread are you producing and selling a week? Because I'm really curious. We're a cottage-brew producer. OK, so right now, I do the farmers market in Medina, which is Medina, Ohio, which is located about one hour south of Cleveland. So we are between Akron and Cleveland, roughly, just to give you a location. So from a bread product, I make bread for the farmers market. 14:02 The preparing for this is a two day ordeal. I feed my starter on Wednesday night. I shape the bread on, I make the dough and shape the bread on Thursday. Then I start the croissants on Thursday, shape them on Friday. And then Friday evening is when I start baking everything. So I make about between 25 and 30 loafs of sourdough bread, either sourdough bread or 14:31 I also make little Brazilian cheese bites, cheesy bread. You can find it in stores. In Brazil, it's called Pão de Queijo. And I traveled there. I worked there for Smucker's back in early 2000. And this is a little recipe that people in Medina love. So I make that as well. And I make about 100%. So between 14:59 croissant, pain au chocolat, the Pound de Queijo, bites, I make about 250 of those, and the sourdough. Yeah, that's quite a bit. So it's a, you know, I start baking, you know, I heat up my oven around eight, nine o'clock on Friday night, start baking around 10, I'm done with the sourdough about maybe one o'clock in the morning, and then after that, it's the Pound de Queijo and then the croissant lastly. 15:29 I want the croissants to be as fresh and crunchy as possible. And sometimes they are still a little warm when I get to the farmers market. Wow. So you don't sleep the night before the farmers market. I don't. It's a yeah, I pull probably 30 hour to 36 hours straight when I do the farmers market. So I think I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to do all this. And I do it all by myself. So 15:59 It's very time consuming, but I love it. And I think I might scale back a little bit next year. And there are some farmers markets in the winter as well. We have a couple of greenhouses here, one's called Boilips, and I do that farmers market in the winter. It's more like every other week or once a month. Oh, so you sleep in the wintertime. That's helpful. Yeah, exactly. 16:27 So and then to make my sourdough, so the process is I'm using Dutch ovens. So because that I want that nice opening of the ear on the sourdough to have the microblisters on the side and to have this kind of like gelatinous shiny surface of the bread. So it's not only I want the bread to taste good, but I also want it to look good. So I use Dutch oven for the first part of the baking process. 16:56 And then halfway through the baking process, I removed the lid, which enables the bread to start developing color and the crust. And since we have a fairly wide and deep tall oven at home, it's a commercial. It's like a wolf or Viking, but it's to do quite a few loaves at once, which is the only way I could do this. Yes. And 17:24 I understand about you want them to look good too because we eat with our eyes first. Absolutely. Absolutely. So one little thing that I do is, I don't know if you saw some of the pictures of the bread that I make, but I have little stencils that I put on the bread before it goes in the Dutch oven, before it bakes, and I sprinkle some flour through the stencil. So then I remove the stencil and I have either the Eiffel Tower or a 17:54 uh... you know stock of uh... of weeds or uh... even my logo or or the gazebo of our town center so it's kind of a way to differentiate and uh... you know to give a little bit of that uh... uh... differentiation you know aspect of of my bread and and and people react to it pretty well at the market they want to start with like oh do you have one with the Eiffel Tower or do you have one with the 18:23 So my sister-in-law has helped me a lot with a lot of, you know, setting up the bakery and doing all those things. And so she's made all those signs for me. That's fun. Okay. It is fun. Okay. So I still want to get to your classes, but I keep coming up with other questions that don't have to do with classes. We will get there eventually. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. So you learned a lot of this as a young kid. 18:53 Did you go to any culinary school at all or have you just learned this on your own? It's learned on my own. It has been, you know, I was gifted a bread machine back in 2006, 2007. And so I started with that. And then I realized quickly that I didn't meet my, my, my, my ideal of a, of a, you know, advertising loaf of bread. 19:20 So then I started using it just to make the dough and then shaped it and baked it in the oven. Still was not happy. Then we started investing into, you know, KitchenAid mixers. And then I bought my first sourdough starter, which was a San Francisco sourdough starter, back in 2009, I think. So my starter is about 15 years old. And then I never went back. So, and I learned from 19:50 You know from failures and it's really how I've have grown in in in making bread is trying and taking notes some help from some you know bakers and some people that some authors there's there's a great. How do book called the perfect loaf gentleman by the name of Mauricio Leo and. 20:17 friend of them online and he's been giving me some advice as well as sharing some of the tools that he uses in his bakery. So I've not attended a culinary school and it's been all about learning myself and practicing 20:43 especially making baguettes and making, well actually everything, sourdough baguettes as well as croissants. It took me a while to get to to the quality that I have now and it was sometimes frustrating but you know you just like everything you once you persevere eventually you'll get some results that you're happy with. Yep, it's funny that you mentioned that you got the 21:12 the bread maker machine back whenever you got it. My husband started out making yeast breads using a KitchenAid mixer to do the kneading. Two years ago, he made a honey oat bread and he had cleaned off our island and everything to get ready. He started making the bread and I said, you're not using the mixer. He said, 21:39 It doesn't need it the way I want it to. He said, I'm just going to do it with my hands. And, and I was like, Oh, okay. Fine. Use your hands. He said, I'm not being prissy. He said, it just doesn't, it just doesn't do it the way that I do it. And I said, have at it. You are the bread maker. Enjoy. And he's so funny because when he's making bread, he hums. 22:05 He's so happy to be baking that he hums under his breath. It is adorable. You know, it's funny because even when I, after the farmers market, I need a couple of days to recoup. So usually my weekend is a Sunday and Monday. And we're lucky enough to have a little cottage alongside a small lake here in Ohio. So that's, we come down here and regroup and re-jump, you know, refresh. But when I go back, 22:34 I'm excited, I'm ready to do it again. I'm ready to, just the process of feeding my starter first thing in the morning. I make coffee, I feed the dogs, I feed my starter. And then I decide like, what am I gonna do today? And sometimes it's making bread for the neighbor or it's just practicing testing a new recipe. And sometimes I've got people reaching out to me and say, oh, I'd love to learn how to make eggs. And say, huh, I've never made those. 23:04 Because I, you know, like I said, don't have a culinary background. So my portfolio of product is expanding, but it's still fairly limited. Okay. And with that, let's get into your classes. Do you hold them in your home? No, no, I don't. That's one thing that we decided my wife and I, like our home is outside of, you know, doing the making the bread is we keep it private. 23:34 So people ask if they could pick up bread from the house and say, no, I'll find places where people can go and find bread. So back in January, so very sweet was it, for a second, I was having breakfast with a friend at a little cafe in town, and they have a little kitchen which is set up for classes like this. And the owner was talking with us, and my friend said, oh, Alain could, 24:02 teach classes there and the, you know, the, the owners are years parked up and said, Oh, you, you know, you, you, you, I don't, I had done a few classes with a school with my, with my children and, but I had never done something like that. So it's like, yeah, I could. So pretty much simultaneously between starting the bakery, starting to sell bread. 24:28 and I started planning classes all at the same time. So March 2nd was the first class that I held. I did a couple of dry runs and just to make sure I had the material that I had the content of the class. I put together a little presentation which I joked that I thought my PowerPoint days were over. And it was, that's how it started. So, 24:56 I hold classes mostly at a little cafe on the square called Cool Beans Cafe. And so we take six to eight students at once. The class is about a hundred dollars per student and it's a three hour class. But since the process is a two and a half, three day process, it's a little bit like TV magic. So I started the process two days earlier. 25:25 So I make the dough or I make the detente. I prepare the dough. So when we do croissants, onto class with a dough that's ready to be shaped and proofed and baked. So students will go home with some croissants that they've shaped themselves. A batch from scratch during the class. And I teach them making the stretch and fold. 25:56 making the top, making the bottom layer. And then we go through a couple of stretches and fold. And then we develop and they take home as well, though that they continue on shaping the next day. And then they send me pictures of the croissant they make as a result of the class. And it's amazing. Some of those are absolutely fantastic. And I think everybody's enjoyed the class so far. 26:24 And so that's all the croissant. For the sourdough, it's a little different. So I start the dough a couple of days before, and I shape it so that when we come to class, there's already some loaves that are shaped. So that's where they learn to, the scoring of the bread, they decorate it with the stencils that they bring. But we also start a, I also shape the dough that, so that when I come to class, that dough is to be divided and shaped. So, 26:53 they learned the pre-shaping and shaping process of a boule, a batard, and then a baguette as well. And so the bread that they decorate, we bake, they take that home, and then they have, so in the vannette, it's the baskets where the sourdough is proofed. 27:22 Each of the students go home with one of those baskets. They get an apron, they get a dough scraper, a bench knife, the slats they use to slash the bread. So they go home with quite a bit. And we also start a batch from scratch during that class to learn the gluten development and doing autolyse and doing all those things that I teach. 27:51 But that bread is not done by the time the class is over. So I take it home, I finish it, and I donate that bread to a cafe in Medina that serves free food for people who don't have much. Super cool. This is an aspect also of the bakery that people have actively invested in. 28:18 I donate a lot. I donate back to my community and through donation and charity and people have been reacting very positively to that. I say this to everybody who makes my heart bigger than my chest. I love you. You're doing a fantastic thing. What's the atmosphere like in the classes? Is it like chatting and laughing and giggly and people making mistakes or not making mistakes? How does it go? 28:46 Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. So the classes that I do at Cool Beans, it's a little more, they are paying customers, so they pay a lot of attention, right? So, and they do remarkable work. I'm amazed at the quality of what they do in a very short amount of time. But it's also fun. And I include some stories about my childhood and some of the language bloopers that I did when I first came to the US. 29:16 But then I also do classes in people's home. So if people have like five, six friends, they can book the class and I go to their home. And at that point, usually it's a little more, it has more room for fun. So sometimes it's a breakfast, but they have mimosa or sometimes it's an evening and they have wine and charcuterie. So it's very fun. 29:45 and sometimes they are friends and family. I've done some for birthday parties, a surprise birthday party for a man who did that for his wife. That was a great class. And then we have another one also in, it's called Parlor Farms. I've friended the two owners, Tony and Jamie, and they have a beautiful home, beautiful kitchen, and they invite some friends and family and neighbors, and we do classes there. 30:15 And yeah, so the classes are really fun. It's probably my favorite part of what I do. And I do a few corporates as well. I do some for, there's a restaurant in town that focus on individuals who are recovering from addiction. So they've asked me if I would teach classes there. So it's a charity, it's a nonprofit. So, you know, I... 30:44 I give them a little discount and I teach their cooks their sourdough croissants and baguettes. And I just finished a class last week, a series of three classes with them and I'll do it again because it's rewarding. I didn't go into this retirement job to make money and to be rich. 31:14 matters to me and just the aspect of giving back to my community and connecting with people. I see Bred as a way to connect people together and luckily it's been very successful so far. Awesome. All right. So to recap all of this, the reason I asked you to be on the podcast is because I thought that you had started it as kind of a passion project, a hobby, whatever. 31:45 And I assumed that you were a cottage food producer because I didn't think you had a standalone bakery. And you kind of fit my things that I like to do regarding the podcast. And the reason that you fit is because you are a cottage food producer, but you are doing big things in that title, I guess, that label. So 32:14 People who are interested in baking or making canned goods or whatever, if your state has a cottage food registration, you should be able to take the thing you love making, make it and sell it and make some money from it. And I want people to know that because I didn't know until a few years ago that I could do it. And I've been making granola because it's easy. 32:43 And we sell it, we sell it at the farmer's market and people are paying $12 a bag for like not even a pound of granola. And that's to cover my cost and my time and stuff. And I kind of feel bad about it, but I also feel like not everyone wants the fancy factory made granola from the store. And that's even more expensive than what I make. So yeah. 33:12 Anyone who wants to do this and has the drive and determination to do it can do it. Yeah. So that's why I wanted to talk to you. So in all of this, I really appreciate your time. I'm going to let you go because I'm sure you'd like to go hang out with your family while you're on vacation. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It's funny you mentioned something about the price and people 33:40 people tell me you don't charge enough for your bread, you don't charge enough for your croissants. And it might be true, but I see the bread almost as a business card now, because people, when they come and buy the bread, I mentioned that I also teach classes, and the reaction more often than not is, oh, you do? It's like, I could teach you to make exactly this. And then usually they take my card, and very often I hear back from them, and now I'm booked. 34:09 I'm booking already into November and December. Wow. It's been a journey, but it has exceeded mine and my wife's expectation. This is really, it's me, I'm the front of the business, but like I said, I couldn't do it without my wife's support. My kids are getting involved as well now. So now it's been a great ride. I don't read. 34:39 regret having retired at all. But you said something about people, if you wanna do it, start it. I was interviewed a while back and someone, the interviewer asked me, would you have a tip for someone who wants to start something like this? And I said, do it and start it. If you fail, you learn from it. And next time you have another idea, try it again. And that's the advice I would give anybody who's listening. 35:09 Yes, and it goes along with my thing about make the big ask. If there's something you want to know, if there's someone you want to talk to, if you want to learn from someone, ask because the worst you're going to get is no. And if you want to start something like you're starting with this, the worst that's going to happen is it doesn't go anywhere and you try something else. Exactly. Absolutely. So that's how I see it. 35:36 All right. Thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. I appreciate it. Have a great day. It was great talking to you.

Today I'm talking with Kelly at The Fiddlin' Farmstead with an update on her Valais Black Nose sheep babies! You can also follow on Facebook.  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 Kelly at the Fiddlin' Farmstead, and Kelly was my, I think, third guest back in August, and she was the third episode released back in August. How are you, Kelly? How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. 00:29 I'm good. So, Kelly raises Valet Black Nose sheep. And back when we talked in August, you were working on having full bread. I guess that's the right word. Valet Black Nose sheep. Is that what was going on then? Yes, I think we were in the process of purchasing a purebred ram. Okay. So what's happened since then? Because I know, but I know you're excited to talk about it. 00:58 We had our first purebred lambs and they are everything and more that I had hoped for. I couldn't be more just tickled by them. So that was super exciting. How many did they did you end up having? We ended up with three. They both had twins. Unfortunately, the little ram lamb on my second ewe didn't end up making it. He was just tiny, stillborn. So we ended up with. 01:27 three ewe lambs total. Okay, awesome. So are you going to keep all three or are you gonna sell a couple? No, we've been working on listing a couple of them. We ended up with a bottle baby again as well that lived in my house for a couple months. So she's a tough one to let go, we'll probably end up keeping her. But yeah, I think it just went so smoothly having a ram here. We're hoping to do the same breeding again next year. 01:57 Okay. And are you going to, is it going to be the same, the same number of ewes bred or are you going to be breeding more? Yes, it'll just be the same too this year because our bottle baby, you know, our ram would be a herciter. And then we have two polypay ewes as well that we've been experimenting breeding. That would be a first generation valley. So half polypay, half valley. Okay. And 02:26 I read something about that blend that there's a reason you wanted to do that. Yeah, I got into it. Well, with the Valley, their personalities and their friendliness just really caught my attention for somebody like me who was not very experienced with livestock. With the Polypay cross, their milk supply and their fiber is excellent. So my idea was to kind of create a perfect homestead sheep with those qualities you want for production. 02:55 Also the friendliness and well-maneu-rism. And they're also a polled breed, the polype, and because polled is a dominant gene, this cross will always be polled. It won't have horns, which also makes people more comfortable on the smaller homestead. Okay, do the valet ones have horns? Oh yes, they have massive horns. And they, you know, they're not mean with them by any means, but when they come run into greet you, they really get you in the back of the leg sometimes, and they get caught in the fences. 03:25 all the fun that comes with organs. Okay. All right. So for those who haven't listened to the original interview with Kelly, tell me, you were saying something about there are very few full-bred belay sheep in the United States and something about the country that they originated from. So can you refresh my memory? Yeah, so we come, they come from Switzerland. The UK had a breeding program. They were able to import 03:54 the actual animals were in the US, we were not allowed to. So we worked out something with the United Kingdom to purchase frozen semen. That's where the breeding up comes in. Artificial laparoscopic insemination. Lately, though, we've been able to import embryos as well. So there are more purebreds. They actually call the embryo ones pure blooded. But there's a lot more of them in the US now than there was two years ago. 04:22 just because of the availability of the embryos, more rams live here. So they're not quite as uncommon as they were a couple years ago. A lot of people really got into the program, but they're still hard to come across, that's for sure. OK, and why couldn't the actual sheep be imported? Because of disease resistance. It's kind of a closed. 04:52 with, I think with sheep, I'm not sure what other livestock that applies to, but mainly to keep disease out of the US. Yeah. And plus, I'm assuming that it's very stressful on the animal to be put on a boat or on a plane and shipped here. And that would make them vulnerable to being sick on top of being vulnerable to being sick with things they haven't been exposed to before. 05:18 Right. We had a similar situation with the valley. A lot of people are still transporting them around the country. So when we brought in the poly pay is actually with some more valleys last fall, they ended up having a detour from where they started all the way to southern US and then up to Minnesota. And it took so long to get here that they did come not feeling well. They had no cops and stuff that we had to treat. And it's just really hard on an animal to, you know, live in a. 05:47 confinement like that and travel. And all the noises and all the movement that they don't understand. Yeah. I mean, it's hard on a puppy when you pick them up from somewhere that's half an hour away, put them in a kennel or a crate, put them in the back of your vehicle, and drive for half an hour, because the only place they've ever been to is the vet, and it's typically five minutes away. So I can't imagine what it's like for 06:15 for a cow or a sheep or a goat. 06:20 Yeah, even a puppy's five-minute trip to the vet can be a handful. Oh yeah, exactly. Because they just, they don't understand and they haven't had enough experience with being in a vehicle to know that they're safe. So yeah, it's stressful and the last thing you want for livestock is to stress them out. So you do it as little as possible. Absolutely. Yep. Okay. I was talking with some people. Well, I've talked with a few people since I talked with you. 06:50 Um, like over a hundred. Not. Not all of them have sheep, but some of them have had sheep and they've been telling me that the wool market in the United States is not great. So, so what are the valet sheep used for? Are they for milk? Are they for wool? Are they for meat? Right now they are basically just a, a fancy pet for, you know, to mow the lawn. Um, 07:20 The wool market, I mean I think anything agricultural is a really tough market right now. I think people are finding more unique ways to utilize their fiber. I had just connected with a lady who is purchasing a wool pellet machine to actually break the wool down into pellets and it's supposed to be really good for plants. You know, it retains moisture, helps the soil, house plants, gardens, all that kind of stuff. 07:47 So there's definitely alternatives to just sewing the fiber, but it is, it's really hard to, unless you have the time to, you know, go from start of the animal to a finished yarn. Then there's not a whole lot of market for it, no? Yeah. I was very surprised when I heard this from the second person. I was like, you are the second person to tell me this. And I went out and did some research and I was like, oh, okay. 08:17 I guess my son's hope of getting a real wool cloak at some point might be not as likely. You can definitely still find it. There's so many advantages to sheep other than the lack of a market for wool. That's been just really fitting for us. So there's definitely still wool out there. You could probably get some for free. You just gotta learn to spin it. 08:41 and card it and clean it and all the pieces and parts. Spin it. Oh yes. It's a very long process, but I think it's a beautiful one to, you know, tradition to keep alive. Yeah, we, I've mentioned this before on the podcast, we went to a historical reenactment kind of thing event and there was a lady there who has been spinning wool for years and she had her spinning wheel which was beautiful. 09:11 And she had the carding tool and she was teaching people about how you card the wool, how you clean it, how you spin it, and how it's not soft once it's yarn. It's not soft. It's kind of scratchy. It is, yes. And I knew that, but I knew my son didn't know that because it was, geez, probably 10 years ago at least. And he was fascinated watching her spin that clump of wool into a piece of yarn. He was like, 09:40 Oh, it's amazing when I had learned to do that after we started with alpacas. And the wool is a lot more coarse, especially the valley fiber in itself is, but I have kind of a reaction to the itchiness of wool myself, which is why we started with the alpacas. Their fiber when you spin it is very, very soft and very luxurious. Mm-hmm. I have not. No, no, I have not actually. Um, I have. 10:10 Pet a llama but not an alpaca and their fur is different. Yes, llama is very different too. Now the thing with the Valle fiber that intrigued me because of its coarseness, it's actually one of the best fibers for felting. And felting is a much easier way to process fiber into a finished project. You can fill purses, hats, bags, blankets. I also recently connected with a lady who 10:39 when you shear the animal, you try to take it off in one big piece, and she felts the bottom of it into like what would be a pelt, but without harming the animal, without the skin. Yeah. And it's just, it's beautiful with the valley that get like really curly locks that, you know, get like 12 inches long. Wow, okay. Twice a year you shear them, so it's, I have my ram's fiber actually in a tote, hoping that she'll teach me how to do that one of these days here. That would be great. 11:09 Okay, so tell me about the babies, because I gotta hear about the babies. Are they friendly, was it amazing seeing them be born? Would you see them be born? So I started working back in December, and this has just been really bizarre for me because I've been a stay at home mom and you know, farmer for so many years. So I set up a camera, Wi-Fi, so it could peek on them at work and I actually, I think that the first, you must have lambed literally the moment I left work until I got home, which was only about a seven minute drive. 11:39 I got home, I looked out and I just saw these little legs behind her. I thought, oh my gosh, they're here. So the second one lambed in the middle of the night and I did run out to help her back in March. It's so cold. They quickly became so curious and so friendly. We would allow them and they used to be in our main yard with their dogs and cats and other animals. And they got to the point where when my dogs would run along the fence, as cars went by or people came by. 12:06 They would run along behind them and chase them. Like they were barking at the object too. They run up to my kids and play. They follow you around everywhere. And it's not really different, my bottle baby that was inside versus the ones that were dam raised. They're just naturally curious and friendly. Okay, I have a question about your dogs. You told me before, but I don't remember what breed of dogs you have. I have a smooth collie. 12:35 hurting dog, but he, the only thing he likes to hurt is tractors and big machinery. Um, and then we have a livestock guardian dog that is a cross between a collie and a great Pyrenees. Oh, wow. Okay. And she is amazing. Um, she just adores the baby animals when she even gets a whiff that there's a new animal here or hears a little baby outside her butt wigs, the whole back end of her, she's very calm and gentle with them and, uh, yeah, I couldn't ask for a greater farm dog, really. 13:05 Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about because our barn cat last fall, last September, had kittens and she had them in the barn. And we have Maggie, the mini Australian shepherd dog that I talk about all the freaking time. And she kept the kittens in the pole barn until they got curious enough to climb out underneath the door because there's a place where the cats can get out under the door. And Maggie saw the kittens and she sat down. 13:33 She did like that point thing that pointer dogs do, except she was sitting, and her whole rear end was just wiggling on the ground. She doesn't have a tail, she's got a docked tail. And tongue hanging out, smiling like dog, smiling just waiting for the kittens to come over. And that was awesome. Floof, the barn cat, got pregnant again, because we're stupid and waited too long to get her spayed. And she had babies back in... 14:03 very first part of April and she had them in the pole barn again. And Maggie could smell the kittens on our hands when we would pet them when we were out there, but they weren't coming out of the pole barn yet. So she knew there was a new set of babies in the pole barn. And I'm telling you the minute one of those kittens stuck its head under the door and meowed, she sat right down and waited patiently with her rear end, just wagon on the ground for the next batch of friends to come visit. 14:33 So I was very curious to see how your dogs were with the baby lambs. They're good, Pop. They are really great with them. We got chicks recently too, and Dolly the livestock dog. She's the same way even with the squeaky baby chickens. She'll hover over them, wave her tail and make sure the other dogs and cats don't get too close. So I'm happy for that because with lambs, foxes are one of their main predators. Of course, along with neighborhood escapee dogs. 15:02 you know, coyotes and stuff. But we have a lot of foxes around here, so that's always been a concern of mine. So it's great to have, you know, that dog here to keep them safe and. Yeah, absolutely. It just, it surprised me that Maggie was so excited to see the babies and so motherly to them because she's never gonna have. With that breed too, yeah. She's been spayed. She's never gonna have babies. She's never gonna be a mom, but. 15:30 I think she probably would have been a really good mom based on how she is with her cat babies. Yeah, that's what I thought too. And we did introduce her to a baby rabbit, which was a big mistake because rabbits are prey animals. They don't like dogs. That poor baby rabbit, Maggie was so curious and I was holding it and I put it down near her nose and that rabbit went, Oh, I'm stupid. I shouldn't have done that. So no more introducing Maggie to anything. That's a prey. 16:00 animal because they can have a heart attack and die. Oh, yeah, and that's not fair. Well, yeah, it's nice to have a dog that's friendly around them too, though. Yeah, she loves anything little. Yeah, and she hasn't really been around any big animals. She's met her, she's remet her parent dogs because we took her over to visit from where we got her and she had no idea what to do with those dogs. We got her during COVID so she was never around. 16:30 other dogs and she's barely around other people during COVID so she's not the most socialized creature on the earth with people. So it's just weird to me how some dogs see something smaller and they're like attack and eat it and some other dogs are like oh it's a baby I need to be gentle. Yeah that is bizarre isn't it? Yeah so I don't know whatever. Got my Maggie conversation in for the day. There you go. I love her so much. 16:59 And love having barn kittens, but I'm really not looking forward to more. I don't want any more barn kittens. We're going to try to get flu spayed here very soon. Yeah. It's tough to control when it, when it gets. Yeah. I don't need a, what is it called? Uh, there's a word for a bunch of cats. A colony. I don't need a colony of cats. I'm good. So anyway, uh, so what did your kids think of the baby lambs? 17:28 They adore them as well. It was nice this time they were old enough to really help out with the bottle baby, you know, with feedings and such. They've been working on, if we do keep the bottle baby, we named her Luna. The valley names all the lambs a different letter every year and this year was L, so we found moon names. We have Luna, Larissa, and Leda. I think that's how you pronounce it. But they run around with them. They've been trying to halter train them and they've been. 17:57 really enjoyed the friendliness as well. They were excited when we started with alpacas, but they could never really have this kind of a relationship with the alpacas. Yes, because the alpacas get bigger than sheep, right? Yes, and even when they're little, they're not easy to, and with alpacas, especially baby males, you don't want to make them friendly and bond with you because they can hurt you later on in life. Mm-hmm, yep. Alpacas have... 18:24 Alpacas have super long legs when they're born, right? Yes, we had our baby alpaca last time I talked to you, I think. I think so, yeah. Okay, I think she had just been born. And yet they're basically like a baby deer, you know, stand up right away and start running around and they're pretty much all legs. Yeah, they're super cute too. So we still have her here and she's actually the baby alpaca that was born last year. 18:54 also obsessive over babies that are born here. Oh, funny. She'll just stand and stare at the babies and try to get close and just looks at them with this look of awe and then the lambs follow around and she'll run around and play with them. And we actually were looking to sell alpacas and just focus on the sheep. But it's they're a tough one to sell. They're so great with the lambs. Yeah. And they can also help protect against foxes too when my dog can't be outside. Really? Oh, yes. 19:23 Do they yell? Do they kick? What do they do? They'll stomp on them. Some places actually have alpacas specifically as protectors for their sheep, keep the fox away. Not all of them have the personality to do so. But yeah, I know when we had our boys, we had to be careful of friends spread over smaller dogs. They would try to stomp on people's dogs. It was like openness. Let's not do that. Yeah, no, that's probably not a great plan. 19:52 Yeah, they fit in well together. We just end up with a lot of fiber between all those animals. I'm sure you do. You're swimming, swimming in it. So what I don't this is going to sound stupid, but it's the only question I think to ask about this. What is the end game for the valet sheep? I mean, what's what's your goal with this? So, yeah, I was going to get into that, too. Naturally, you know, just like with alpacas, the more. 20:19 availability, the prices aren't going to be as crazy. And I'm really hoping that they do become more of a normal shape that you see. I was pretty impressed. You know, I make milk based soaps and lotions and such. And I was decently impressed with the size of the udders on my valley when they land. It's not anything like a dairy goat or even the polypate you that I have. It's not that big of production. But again, depending on your demand and what you use it for, if I'm just making soap. 20:49 I think they'd be great to milk too because with that friendliness comes the ease of milking them. You don't need to lock them up or put them on a milk stand. They basically just stay in there. So that's kind of my goal is to keep the farm business going as far as milk products. I really wanted to dive into cheese making eventually. Another reason I prefer sheep over other livestock is the nutrient values of sheep milk is... 21:17 far surpasses any other livestock. Okay. So there's that factor in it too. I think they're just a great, you know, I guess I would say dual purpose, but also if people raise them for meat, could be a good triple purpose animal to have. Sure. Hoping kind of just to work on Luna as far as getting her out to shows. And I've always wanted to utilize, you know, like at nursing homes and hospitals 21:47 that type of route. Yeah. And then eventually have our little flock of sheep to mow the grass and enjoy. Yeah. Are you OK? I have two questions. Are you intending to grow the herd bigger or to keep at your place? Or are you going to just keep doing a few and selling some and maybe keeping one? I think for now, we're going to keep it a small flock. With our acreage being smaller and. 22:14 Just with our lives being busy right now with two little kids too in sports. Eventually I would love to have a larger farm and a whole flock of these sheep. Okay. And when you, when you take them places, when that happens, are you teaching about them as well as just letting people experience them? Yep, absolutely. Um, people are quite fascinated by them. Um, Luna, because it was cold out, I didn't get to bring her around as much as I would have liked to. 22:43 But we'd go through drive-throughs together often. People just adored her. You know, they get the long curly locks right away and they're just really sweet sheep. But yeah, I love telling people about them and I work in assisted living as well and just the reactions that people get when I bring up that I raise sheep and have lambs. I just think there's so much that could be done with them as far as enrichment for, you know, other humans. Yeah. 23:11 I was going to say I was a Girl Scout co-leader for a couple of years. And I suspect that if you have any Girl Scout troops in your area, if you talk to the leaders about the fact that you have these sheep, they would love to have the girls learn about them. Oh yeah, absolutely. And it's really hard to find unusual, interesting things to expose the girls in the troops to. 23:41 cold process lye soap at the time. So we had the girls come over to our garage and he showed them how you do that. And they were interested and they each took home a bar of soap that had already cured. And one of the girls came back to me and she was like, do you have any more of that soap? And I was like, yes ma'am. She's like, can I get into the bar? I was like, yes, you can. And so they learned that from us. I had a friend who knew knot tying. 24:11 real knots like the ones you use when you're sailing and things like that. And so they taught the girls some basic knot tying skills. And then there was a guy that we knew who had an orchard and he also keeps honeybees. So we took them up to show them how the honey is extracted from the hive with the centrifuge thing. And they were into that too. They thought that was super cool. Oh, yeah. 24:38 But we did not take them to see belay sheep because there aren't any belay sheep around here. Right, and that's the bonus about them. They're so friendly. People get to actually touch them too, and I think that can be very therapeutic. I used to teach kids with fiber processing as well, and that was always fun to educate. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know. I'm sure there are so many places you could take them to. 25:06 to show them off to people and teach people about them. And I think it's super that you did this, you're doing this. And I know back when I talked to you in August, you were so excited about having babies. Yes. And I'm so glad you took the time to come back and talk with me about it. Yeah, thanks for having me back. Absolutely. All right, well, kiss Luna for me. I will. And have a great afternoon next to you time. Yep, thank you. All right, bye. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Mackenna at Nothing But Knots by Mackenna.  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. 00:16 Today I'm talking with Mackenna at Nothing But Knots. Good morning Mackenna, how are you? I'm doing good, how are you? I'm good, tell me about yourself and what you do. So my name is Mackenna, I run Nothing But Knots by Mackenna. I've been doing it for about three years now as an actual business, but I've kind of been crocheting my entire life actually. 00:42 I learned when I was super young, was taught by my great aunts and my grandmother. And I just kind of picked it up when quarantine happened again. And then I decided after about a year that I wanted to make a business out of it. Okay. So did you choose crocheting because no one was knitting or have you tried knitting too? I have tried knitting. It's just mainly that I can't quite get it down. 01:12 I'm not super, uh, like- 01:17 Like able to do things with two hands at the same time kind of thing and with needles with knitting You have to use two needles and crochet is just one hook So it's a little bit easier for me to multitask when it's just with one Like one hook Yep, I understand I I tried knitting when I was younger and the thing that made me not want to knit is the sound of the needles Clacking I yes 01:45 Yes, I totally understand that too. When you're so used to it being a very quiet hobby, hearing the needles touching each other can be kind of overwhelming. Yeah, I just didn't like it. And then I learned about crocheting and learned how to do the chain stitch, you know, just one after another after another. I was like, okay, I can do this. And then went on to the single crochet and actually the turn and then the single 02:14 Oh, I can do that. And then I read about the double crochet and tried that and then triple and then the other things. And I was like, oh my God, I love this. It's quiet. I can do it while I'm watching a TV show in January. When it's cold out, it's great. I am a big fan of crocheting. Okay. Especially if you're making a blanket, you could just curl up with that blanket that you're in the process of making. When it's cold outside, it's perfect. 02:38 Yeah, it's a great way to stay warm if your house is not, if your house is drafty for sure. Our old house was drafty, so I loved doing that. And a scarf is so fast to make if you're crocheting. I couldn't believe how fast the scarf came together. Oh yeah, I tried to make, that's when I tried knitting for the first time was trying to do a scarf and I was like, man, this is really taking forever. I could knock out a scarf with crochet and like. 03:06 Couple hours and here I am three days later still working on this knitted scarf. Yeah, I think the hardest thing with crocheting is keeping the tension correct. Because when I first started, I did a scarf and it had spots that were narrower than they should have been by just a little bit because the tension wasn't right. And I also did the washcloth, the crocheted cotton yarn washcloth. 03:35 the one corner was always too tight, so they weren't square, and it drove me crazy. I finally figured it out, but the tension is probably the thing that you need to learn how to get correct, I think. Yes, I am on the same page with you there. I mean, it's the same with crochet and knitting, but crochet is a lot easier to keep your attention, because you have one hand free, essentially, at all times. Yep, exactly. 04:01 Okay, so now that we've raved about crocheting, because I love it, you love it, I haven't done it in a long time, but I love doing it when I'm doing it. So what do you make? Because I saw your Facebook page photos and the little bear with like the blanket that comes down for the body, that's very cute. Oh, thank you. Right now, I mainly specialize in making bags and baby blankets. 04:26 I get a lot of custom orders from my co-workers for baby blankets. I'm currently working on one for my son and I have a niece coming in September so she'll be getting a blanket as well. Besides that, I've kind of been venturing into wearables so like sweaters, hats, that kind of thing, obviously some scarves. 04:56 quite found my niche really for it is like stuffed animals and stuff. Everyone wants a stuffed animal. Everyone wants me to make like those lovies like the bears with the blankets attached to them. I am not a huge fan of sewing things together. So if I can find a no sew pattern where I can just kind of crochet everything together, that's where I what I like to do. But a lot of people want like super complicated. 05:26 stuffed animals and I'm trying, I love the look at them. I love like making the pieces, but it's putting them all together that I really struggle with. Yeah, because it's not the thing you've been doing. It's an added in thing to learn how to do. I get it. Mm-hmm. And honestly, you're a new mom. You have a seven week old baby. You've got a lot going on right now. 05:50 Oh yeah, I haven't really had quite a lot of time lately, obviously, to crochet, but I try to sneak it in during his naps or once I put him down for bed I try to crochet for a little bit before I go to bed myself. Yeah, and as we all know, I mean I've had three babies, I know that sleep is a commodity when you have a brand new baby. So if you're tired and you're trying to learn a new thing it makes it even more frustrating. 06:19 Especially when you're trying to count stitches. It's like a project where you have to have a specific number It's definitely pretty hard Yeah, if you're if you're sleep-deprived it just it will drive you bonkers trying to keep it all straight Okay, so So you said you started crocheting when you were little um Who taught you so I have 06:47 some wonderful women in my family and my great aunts are the ones who mainly taught me how to crochet so they're my mom's aunts and then my dad's mom my grandmother also crocheted at the same time so she kind of taught me like the actual stitches my aunts mainly just taught me like chains we called them dog leashes at the time because that's pretty much all i could do was just chain 07:17 And then I started doing like the simple like single crochet and a half double crochet. Like I said, I lost it for a while. You get busy as you get older. Started my first job, all this kind of stuff. Life happened. And then everyone was off work for quarantine when COVID happened and I needed something to do instead of just sitting here doing nothing. 07:43 So I kind of just retaught myself how to do everything, watched a couple YouTube videos, and now I'm to the point where I can kind of just make up a pattern off the top of my head and it somehow by magic turns out. So I got lucky in that aspect. Yeah, I've done that too. I think it's wonderful that you had amazing women in your family to teach 08:13 I learned from YouTube videos. And yeah, that is very common nowadays. And I have to get I have to give it to the people that can make videos because I don't have the patience to make a video and try to teach someone how to do it through a video. I'd rather be right next to someone. Yeah, because watching it, you have to reverse it in your head. Mm hmm. The hand placement, you know, because you're looking at it. 08:41 their right hand is where your left hand is, you know, what I mean? Yeah, yeah, no, I totally understand. And so it's, it's, if you can't do that in your head, you can't learn that way. The other thing that that's interesting with crocheting is that reading written instructions, it's, it's really hard to learn how to crochet reading it. Seeing someone do it is the trick, I think. 09:11 Yeah, you definitely, if I had any like suggestions, I would definitely say start with videos first and then go to patterns and like reading patterns because like you said, if you don't know the terminology like very well and you're still learning, reading a pattern is going to be so difficult for a beginner if you don't know the stitches like abbreviations. Yep. Yep. I was, I was 09:40 learning the next thing after the chain stitch and I was reading what I thought was a simple pattern. I got like two sentences into this thing. I was like, I have no idea what they're talking about. I need to go find videos. I can't understand this. It's a different language and I don't know it yet. Okay. So how is the business going? Is it like a hobby that turned into a business? Is it a real business? 10:09 And by real, I mean, do you have to pay quarterly taxes on the money you make? That kind of thing. Oh, no. Okay. So it really is a hobby that started out and like, it started out as a hobby. And I was like, I got a couple people saying, oh, you could like sell this stuff. Or when they like, I'd be willing to just like give people something and they were like, oh no, I'm going to pay you for it. 10:38 You put in a lot of hard work to this. And then once I had a couple people saying, oh, I'd rather just pay for it for you to do it that way. You're getting something out of it. I was like, oh, well, maybe more people would be interested in this and be willing to buy things from me. It's not an actual business at the moment. I would love for it to be an actual business maybe later down the road. Right now, it's just a side hustle kind of thing. 11:08 making like a little bit of extra money here and there. But I mainly do like markets or like craft shows. So that's like my main source of income when it comes to crochet and my business. But it's not like a legal, like pay taxes business. It's more so like a. 11:33 I just wanted to give it a name. I just felt weird just going to these markets and it just being me. I felt like I needed a name to go with it, so it felt a little more official to me. Yeah, and you came up with a really great logo. I love that. Thank you. Yeah, anyone who wants to see it, I'm going to put the link to the Facebook page so people can see your logo. It's adorable. So I haven't really crocheted in years because we've been... 12:01 I'm mildly busy with starting a brand new home almost four years ago and growing things and getting a puppy and getting chickens and barn cats and stuff like that. But in talking to you, that little niggling thing in the back of my head is telling me that this winter when it's cold, I would be really smart to pick up some cotton yarn and make some washcloths to sell at next year's farmers markets because we sell at the farmers 12:30 and I hadn't even thought about it. So I might be doing some crocheting this winter. Thank you. I appreciate the inspiration because it's not that hard. I know how to do it. I just haven't done it. Do you have a favorite brand for your yarn or are you just good with whatever yarn you pick up? I kind of like all yarn. I go mainly based off of like how it feels, but 12:59 The brand I like the most for when I do like larger, larger like products or projects like the blankets or a wearable like a sweater is the Karen one pound yarn because it comes in a one pound ball of yarn and even though a lot of like this like these bigger skeins of yarn are 13:29 It's like $11.99. You can get it at Joann's or Michael's or really, I assume you can get it at any craft store. I haven't tried like a Hobby Lobby or anything, but they last and the yarn is sturdy. I don't have to worry about when my ends get weaved in at the end of a project, any of it coming out, because it's just a nice thick but soft worsted, which is like the basic 13:59 weight for yarn. That's pretty much what all acrylic is. You can get different weights of yarn, but the most popular is the size four. And it's just, it comes in a big skein, it's soft, and I just like the pricing that it is for the size that it comes in. And if I remember correctly, that brand has some really pretty colors for baby blankets. 14:29 Oh yes they do. They have some vibrant colors, they have more natural tones, like they pretty much have, if you can think of the color they probably have it. Mm-hmm. Yep. I really like that and I really like lion heart, is it lion? Lion heart? Lion something? Lion brand? Red lion? I don't remember. Lion is in the name, but I really like that for scarves because it's not as heavy. 14:57 But it's thick and it's soft. It's so soft. And my kids, I made scarves for my kids when they were young and they loved them. They would wrap the scarf around their neck and squish their chin into the yarn to feel it. Yeah, it's a great yarn. Yep, and I really like the... I think it's sugar and spice cotton yarn for the... Oh, the sugar and cream, yeah. Something like that, yeah. 15:26 for the for the washcloth because yeah that's what I used to make my sorry my coasters yep yeah and do you start your coasters or not I personally don't um I I don't I don't have any experience starting anything like any any of my projects so I don't like to if it if I did I was 15:53 afraid it would take away from the absorbency of the cotton, like as a coaster. I've seen other people do it and I get why they do it because it makes it like firm, it makes so it doesn't, it's not like super floppy when you like take like go to use it. But I'm afraid it's going to take away from the absorbency and um. 16:14 My coasters are pretty like probably not like top five of my best sellers at markets and I haven't had a complaint yet or someone asked me to start them. So, I mean, if someone asked me, I would, but at the moment I'm not going to knock what's working. Yeah. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Um, I would never want to use one of your coasters to actually set my coffee cup on. 16:39 because I would absolutely slop my coffee on it and I would be sad because the stain would never come out because your coasters are really pretty. Well, thank you. I mean, I've had some people say the same thing, but I tell them all the time, things are washable. I understand not wanting to stain it, but that's kind of the whole point of them. Get them dirty. They're washable. 17:04 I've been using the same set of coasters that I made for myself for about two years now and they're still their vibrant color even after washing them. So I say get them dirty. I always tell people they're going to get dirty no matter what, whether it's going to be from condensation or a spill. They're going to get dirty, they're washable and their colors don't fade, especially if you use that Lily Sugar and Cream Cotton Yarn. Okay. 17:34 Good to know, because I really like nice things. I like nice things that people make. I like nice things like glasses that are beautiful, vases that are beautiful, but I don't typically buy them because I'm like, invariably, I am going to ruin that thing that was so pretty when I started with it. And I also have a younger sister and shared a room with her until I moved out. 18:03 at 18 years old and she had a way of breaking all my nice things. So I got trained to not have nice things. You know the line about this is why we cannot have nice things. Yeah. And so I tend to get things that are utilitarian, that the function is more important than the fashion of it. So that's just me. 18:31 But anybody who needs coasters, you should talk to McKenna, because they're very pretty. Thank you so much. Yeah, I love what you're doing. I think it's beautiful. And I know the work that goes into creating the things that you're creating. And it takes time, and it takes patience. 18:49 So I think that whatever you are charging for your goods, I think that it's at worth every penny because I know the work that goes into what you're doing. Yeah, that's something people don't realize a lot of the time if they don't work on the craft or they don't have like a hobby that's like crochet. 19:15 they don't realize, like you said, the time, the patience, and even sometimes the money that goes into them. And then they're like, wow, that's a really high price for something kind of small or something like that. But it's like the same with people that like do like the soldering of like the glass and making all like the glassware, pottery, anything like that. They think, oh, it's like, it seems so easy. Why is it so expensive? It's just 19:45 You guys gotta realize how much time and effort and practice goes into these things. Yes, handmade means time. Handmade requires time. Factories can create a blanket in an eighth of the time it's going to take you, if not a sixteenth of the time it's going to take you. Oh yeah. So. 20:10 It's a very fine distinction and it needs to be made. So you mentioned Joanne Fabrics. I freaking love Joanne Fabrics. I haven't been in one in quite a while. But number one, I love the inspiration that smacks you in the face when you walk in the door. And number two, I don't know if they still do this, but they used to have amazing coupons and sales. Do they still do that? 20:40 Oh yeah, I have the app for Joann's, so I get like 20% off coupons all the time. Sometimes they run like 60% off on sales, especially in the yarn section. I obviously take advantage of that a lot, a lot. But I also take advantage of all their other sales that they have. But yes, they do have some pretty amazing sales. 21:09 compared to Michael's sometimes I used to shop at Michael's all the time for all my yarn and then I rediscovered Joanne fabrics and It has just like boosted my yarn supply like Tenfold almost like they have so many more options for not alone like colors, but also brands at Joanne's It's it's just a whole different ballgame over there 21:38 Oh yeah, I don't dare to walk into a yarn aisle at Joanne's right now because I would buy 17,000 colors. One of the things that drew me to crocheting is that there's so many fun colors. Yes, there are. I mean, I love sage green. I love navy blue. I love cornflower blue. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's just a lighter, brighter shade of navy. 22:08 And I don't really have a lot of color in my house. My house is cream and coffee colors. And I keep saying to my husband, I'm gonna go to Joanne's and buy a whole bunch of crazy colors and make some things to hang because it's colorful. He's like, you are not, you love the color scheme of our house. And I'm like, yes, but we need some color, my goodness. So I should not have talked to you today. Now I'm gonna make a run to Joanne's this weekend. Yeah. 22:36 I'm the same way. I like I'm a big sage green fan as well. I that's probably one of my favorite colors Um, and the problem is is if i'm making stuff for myself, it's all in that same color scheme like greens Browns like a very neutral tone, but I love seeing people's work where it's like vibrant colors And I keep telling myself mckenna Make something for yourself in a vibrant color, but then i'm like, I don't know 23:05 it doesn't really match everything else, you know? So I'm in the same boat as you, where I wanna make a little bit more, like add more vibrant colors to my collection. Yeah, I asked my husband a month ago, I said, so, I said, we've been here almost four years. I said, next year, are we gonna paint? Cause the house was remodeled before I moved in and it was perfect. And of course we've lived here, so we've gotten dings in the walls and. 23:34 There's just things that need to be touched up and trying to match paint is a pain in the butt. Oh yeah. And he said, do you want to paint your kitchen sage green? And I said, I want to make the cabinets sage green, not the cabinet cabinets. The cabinets are cream, I like them. The only cabinets, the only feature original to the house are these pantry cabinets and they painted them the coffee color that is the other. 24:02 color besides cream for the color scheme for the house. And these are the original cabinets. They left the shelves in with the contact paper on them. Oh yeah. And they left the hooks for coffee mugs in them. So I will never change the inside because I love that the nostalgia for this old farmhouse is still there. But I said I would really love to paint the cabinets sage green and that would be fine with cream. 24:29 And he was like, yeah, he said, we could do that. He said, do you want to paint the accent wall in the living room sage green? And I was like, no, I want to paint it a coffee color just like it is now. He said, oh, good. So people's preferences for colors are very, very specific. And that's totally fine to each their own. I just. 24:56 I love it when Joann's would put their yarn on sale in the clearance section because you could get three skeins of yarn for three bucks. I don't know if that's the case now, but you used to be able to. And I didn't care what colors they were because I was just going to make scarves for the kids and the kids loved all the crazy colors. 25:17 Yeah, I recently had a pretty large custom order for some pillows that were shaped like cannabis leaves. And I got super lucky that all the colors that this lady had picked out were all in the clearance section and all the brand that I use anyways for that kind of project for like a pillow. And I got super lucky. 25:47 10 skeins of yarn for each skein was like $2 each. So I barely spent like 30 bucks. It was great. I loved their deals there. Yeah, it helps, especially if you're new or you're on a budget. So we have about five minutes left before we get to 30 minutes. I try to keep these to half an hour. If someone was going to get into crocheting, like they have never crocheted in their lives. 26:15 What would you suggest for first steps and ways to make it less expensive if they decide they don't like it? I would always say YouTube is gonna be your best friend and don't stick to one person's like channel for videos and like tips and tricks because everybody does something differently. I would definitely say look at multiple different channels or 26:44 If you're not into a specific channel, just multiple different videos for sure would help because there's different terms between the US and the UK. So you want to get familiar with both of those because if you're reading a pattern, it might change. They might say, oh, this is in UK terms and a double crochet in UK is the same thing as a single crochet in the US. So definitely. 27:11 watch a lot of different videos. Don't skip to the- don't watch like all the same person. I- I mean all- you can always go back to those videos and watch more of that person's videos, but I would definitely say watch more than one. And when it comes to supplies, shop, like we've been talking about, sale yarn, do some like you said washcloths, coasters, anything like that, and then once you kind of got the hang of it, then invest in that more expensive yarn. 27:42 It's just all personal preference. And if you're looking for hooks, there's even stuff, you can go to thrift stores and possibly find hooks and yarn and all that kind of stuff to make it a little bit less expensive. Amazon is great. You can buy like a whole kit where it has like 10 different sizes of hooks and maybe some sample sizes of yarn as well as stitch markers. 28:09 Tapestry needles for like 20 bucks for a whole kit. So I mean Just shop around the first thing you see is not always gonna be the best thing look at reviews You don't have to have the most expensive hooks to start off. I started off with like dollar store plastic crochet hooks you don't need Furl brand which is like a really really nice brand like almost fifteen dollars per a hook 28:39 You don't need that when you begin and even now I don't use those and I've been doing it for A quite a long time. I don't Definitely just just shop around You don't need the most expensive things cheap things Cheap hooks do the same work as expensive hooks. They more expensive ones might be a little more comfortable in your hand But when you're just beginning It it's not it's not that big of a deal and take breaks when you crochet take breaks I don't know how 29:09 how much my hand hurt because I don't I didn't think of that when I first started. Take breaks, stretch your hands out. Trust me, it's going to be worth it in the long run. Yeah, mine, my hands hurt when I did it too. I remember that now. Okay, the other things that I would chime in with is join some of the Facebook groups for crocheting or the forums online because people are so willing to help you if you get stuck. Yeah, especially with patterns. 29:38 I'm in a group where they take a picture of the row that they're on or the round that they're on and they're like, hey, I don't quite understand this. People are so willing to explain it to you. Yeah. And then the other thing I was going to say is you can find yarn on Craigslist and on Facebook Marketplace that people are just trying to get rid of. I had somebody message me. 30:07 And it wasn't because of those, but someone messaged me who knew that I crocheted and said, I have a garbage bag size bag of all different kinds of yarns. Do you want it? Yeah, I've had that happen to me too, where they're just like, I just wanna get rid of it. You can have it. I don't want anything for it. I ended up, the only problem with that is sometimes it's just like kind of older yarn. But still, you're getting it for free. 30:34 go through it, see if there's anything you would like, and then maybe pass it on to the next person, that's what I did. Whatever I didn't use, I passed on to the next person and they passed it on and it just kind of was like a big chain of free yarn. Yeah, and yard sales, and Goodwill, and really, there is yarn everywhere in the entire world, sitting there waiting for you to decide you wanna try to make something with it. Exactly. So. 31:02 All right, Mackenna, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a great time talking to you. Yeah, I love talking about crafting. I think it's really fun. Don't leave me when I stop recording because I need your file to upload, okay? Okay. All right, thanks. Bye. Bye-bye.

Today I'm talking with Cindy and Mike at Rustic Roots.  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 Cindy and someone else in the background. I don't know who it is yet. At Ruster Groots Farm. Good morning, Cindy. Good morning. It's my husband, Mike. Hi, Mike. Sorry, I didn't know you were going to be part of this. Awesome. 00:29 Fantastic. All right. So tell me about yourselves and Rustic Roots Farm. Rustic Roots, sorry. Rustic Roots Greenery. We started a small greenhouse a few years ago and now we've built up. We found a used one for sale and bought it and put it up. We sold a couple of our cows to help pay for it. I don't know. It's fantastic. 00:58 Go ahead. All right. Mm-hmm. So for years, she wanted a greenhouse. And for a long time, I did a lot of the plants. And one year, she just couldn't handle me getting rid of the little helpless seedlings that we were thinning out. So she decided to keep them and took over our entire living room. So 2020, with the COVID and the COVID-19 pandemic, 01:24 Um, the kids getting kicked out of school, um, finally, after about eight or nine years of, uh, begging, we decided to have a, uh, arts and crafts and science program. And we built a greenhouse. About a eight by 12 or eight by 14 on the pad in front of our house with the kids with, um, rough cut lumber and glass panes and just basically things that we had around. And then we. 01:51 rolled it around to the south side of our house. And that first year she filled it. So the second year we doubled the size of that greenhouse and Cindy took that as a challenge. So she filled it again. Um, then I had a friend sent me a link to some people selling a 30 by 70 greenhouse about three or four hours away. And I'd been looking into. 02:19 I'm building a different greenhouse for a while and I've really been, I was really getting into the geothermal and some of the different ways to make greenhouses cheaper to heat and operate. And so we went down and we bought this greenhouse from some people that do the same thing. They sell garden starts. And then September of 22, we started our... 02:46 construction of our brand new greenhouse or brand new to us. And we dug a 20 by 60 foot hole in our front yard and filled it with 2000 feet of perforated pipe. And we built a climate battery style geothermal and then we plunked a greenhouse on top of it. He says we, but really he built, I just helped a little. You guys sound a lot like me and my husband. Um, we, I applied for a grant to. 03:16 to fund a heated greenhouse last year. And we actually got the grant, which dumbfounded me because I didn't think we had a hope in hell of getting it. And I was like, so do you want to build a heated greenhouse, honey? And he was like, I do. We can't afford to. I said, we can now. And he said, did we get the grant? I said, we did. I said, it's got to be finished, complete, by May 31 of 2024. 03:45 Can you make that happen? Because we didn't get the money until November of 2023. And he said yes. Oh, wow. And I said, OK, you better pray for good weather in the spring, because otherwise this is not going to work. And it was finished, I think, the weekend before May 31. Oh, nice. So yeah, go ahead. We applied for a grant. But what we learned is the grant money is only for brand new greenhouses. You can't. 04:14 You can't utilize that money to buy a used greenhouse or anything like that. Yes. We had to buy all the, the, we had to buy all the supplies new or they had to be in really, really good condition. Yeah. Almost new. So yeah, there's definitely some parameters that you have to meet. Yeah. We had a, we had a drought, um, 2022 and we had a small cow herd that we were running. 04:44 And basically it was a decision of, do we want to buy hay and rent pasture? Or what do we do? And we ended up selling the majority of our cows and calves. And we took that money and that's basically how we funded our greenhouse. Yup. You gotta find a way one way or another, because if otherwise it just doesn't happen. And the other thing is, is that animals are expensive to feed. I mean, people who have dogs and cats. 05:13 As house pets, they know how much money they spend to feed their pets. And it is just exponentially more expensive, the bigger the animal gets. And the more it's livestock, not a pet. So it's hard. And I don't blame you. It's the weather has been insane the last couple of years. You're in Nebraska, right? Yep. We're in a, we're in the panhandle in Nebraska. We're. 05:38 We're actually closer to the capital of Wyoming and Colorado than we are the capital of Nebraska. So we're about three hours from Rapid City, three hours from Cheyenne, Wyoming, and about four hours from Denver, Colorado. Yeah. And we're in Minnesota. And you guys pretty much have had the same weather we've had as far as I know. The last two summers have been rainy in the spring and then not a drop of water to be found at the end of June, July. 06:08 Well, yeah, end of June, July, August, and end of September. Last summer, my husband watered every night for at least an hour and a half from the well. Yep. Well, we kind of had the opposite problem last year. Last year was actually an extremely wet year for us. Oh, okay. Um, typically we only average about 15 inches of rain a year. Um, last year we had between 30 and 40 inches. Um, but like, like I say, in 22, we had. 06:37 well below normal, probably more like 12 inches of rain. Yeah, so my original statement stands, the weather has been absolutely bonkers. Yup. Yes. I don't know if you guys know what's going on in Minnesota right now, but we have major damaging flooding going on in the lower half of the state right now. Yeah, you got a dam that's no longer a dam, too. Yeah, I'm about half an hour from there. Oh, wow. Yup. Yeah, that was... 07:06 Not great. And my husband actually works in the city where that is going on. So the detours that he's had to find to get from Lusor, which is where we live, to Mankato and back has been crazy. And our road out front of our home is basically a two lane county road and it is one of the detours. So 07:31 Usually, you know, a couple cars go by, it can be another 20 minutes, a couple cars go by. If it's harvest season, lots of tractors and semis full of corn going by. For the last two days until this morning, it has just been car after car after car and people honking their horns and screeching their brakes. I'm like, we did not move back to the city. I know we didn't. That's right. 07:58 So it's eased up this morning because the major highway nearby is back open again, which is a blessing because I really did not miss the sound of the cars. Yeah, I didn't miss the sound of cars all the time at all when we moved here because we used to live in town and it was constant noise. And boy, I got reminded why we moved. Yeah. So anyway, all that having been said. 08:27 awesome thing about the big greenhouse. And I think it's funny that Mike tells stories just like my husband tells stories. That's awesome. He's like, yeah, she wanted, and I begrudgingly said sure, blah, blah, blah. But underneath- Well, I know they say to, you know, you need to thin the seedlings and pick the best ones and everything, but I'm like, they're all growing perfectly fine. You don't need to thin them out and throw them away. You just put them in dirt and there they go. Yeah. 08:54 But underneath the husband's stories is that I love her, I want her to be happy. How can I make her happy? So it just makes me giggle when I hear other people's husbands tell stories about them because it's the same tone of voice every time. Well, I felt so bad for him because the second year we had the little greenhouse and I had so many in the living room and I kind of took over part of our computer room with plant 09:24 We were just outgrowing things and he went outside in March and it was snowing, kind of sleeting outside and he was putting together the other greenhouse, just like kind of tacking it on the end of the other one, just so we'd have room for all of them. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm right there with you, Cindy, because we used to, now we have the greenhouse, we don't have to anymore. Yay. But every year for the last 20 something years. 09:54 we have started our seedlings in the house on the kitchen table. And the kitchen table was actually a living room table in the old house, we didn't have any room for a kitchen table anywhere. And so my living room table would be covered with seedling trays and seedlings growing like crazy. And then when we moved here, we have an eat-in kitchen. So where the kitchen table sits, we actually added another folding table behind the kitchen table. 10:22 And that was completely covered with seedlings. And it didn't bother my husband, but I love to cook. And part of the reason I was so thrilled about this place when we bought it in 2020 is because it had a place to actually sit in the kitchen at a kitchen table and have coffee or lunch or dinner. And every spring, there's no place to do that because the table is covered. So... 10:48 This spring, I was like, this is the last spring my kitchen table is going to have to be covered in baby plants. Yay! You'll get your house back. My husband looked at me, he said, you're going to miss them. He said, you're going to be begging me to bring in basil babies just so you can watch them grow. I was like, all right, yeah, maybe. But at least it'll only be a couple, not two tables worth of seedlings anymore. But anyway, all that. 11:17 being said, because this is very much a giggle fest, but I'd really like to know what you guys are doing with all these plants. Are you selling them as bedding plants? Are you selling them from your property? Do you wholesale? How are you moving them? I started my first year, it was kind of an accident. Like Mike said, I just took all the thinned seedlings and planted them. I ended up with 350 tomato plants. 11:42 Yep. And normally we only used about 40 to 50 in our garden. So I'm like, what do I do with all of the rest of them? I didn't think that far ahead, but you know, it was amazing. They grew, they stayed alive. So I just kind of put an ad on Facebook and sold them for a couple bucks piece in town and just to whoever in the area. And they went in like 24 hours. 12:11 So that was eye-opening. For us, I garden, I can everything. Tomatoes were really a staple in our garden. So I make sauces and can the tomatoes just plain and whatever. So going to places around here, it was extremely expensive to buy the amount of plants we needed. And 12:39 The cheapest place to get them at the time was like Menards. You can get a little four pack of tomato seedlings, but you know, they were four inch tall plants. And between the hail and a shorter growing season up here, there was no way to make it work. So that's kind of why we started doing the seedlings to begin with. But in the... 13:07 After the first year we sold and they went so quickly, the second year was a little more on purpose. I started a few other things and... I sold them at the co-op that year. Okay. Yep, yep. There's a farmers co-op in town. They let me set up some tables and bring in some plants and they just sold for a percentage and that went really well. 13:37 The next year we partnered up with Valor General Store in Hemingford and was able to sell it at both stores there. 13:51 So, and then this last year was just at Valor, but Valor and Facebook. We sell some at the house, but we sell a lot of them in town. It's, we're, we're seven miles out of Hammingford, but we're, we're two miles off the highway on a pretty terrible dirt slash mud road. So, um, it's hard to get people to come out to the greenhouse and buy, but, uh, we got a pretty good relationship with the folks that run the hardware store. So we sell in there. And then. 14:21 It's a ton of work because they're closed Sunday and Monday. So every, every Saturday evening we go up with a pickup and stock trailer and bring an entire trailer load of plants home, put them back in the greenhouse and kind of nurse them back to health from being inside and then turn around on Tuesday morning and haul it all back. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's gotta be just kind of a bummer to have to do that. 14:50 Well, and it's funny up here, you know, I have people starting in April. Well, when are you bringing your plants in? I'm like, you know, we can't plant till like June 1st, right? Our frost dates the 25th of May, you know, which really turns into the first week of June. So. Yeah, but people don't, people don't know. I mean, my husband, the first spring we were here in the new house, planted seeds in February. And I said, what, I said, what are you doing? 15:20 Yeah. I said, they're going to die before you can get them out. They're going to be so leggy and root bound and we don't have room to repot them and keep them in the house. There's no place to put the bigger pots. He was like, I'm just dying to get started. He said, I'm so sick of not having anything green. Well, hey, it sounds like the man needs to get into flowers. They take forever. Oh yeah. We are growing. Cindy started. 15:48 What was your seed in the ground issue about? January 17th. Yeah, no. And I think I need to start a little earlier because my flowers didn't bloom on time. Oh, and you were doing this in the greenhouse? Well, no. No, in the house? It was in the house, but I had so many going that I ended up taking over part of his woodshed. He's got a little room off the side of his garage that is sort of insulated. 16:17 And it was easier to heat. So yeah, I took over a little more of his life. We built vertical originally when we were doing it in the house, we built vertical racks and we're using basically 10 by 20 trays and there's five, I think five shelves, um, and then there's three sets of lights per shelf. And then there's two of those racks. Well, we just moved those to the wood shop and she's got a table out there. And. 16:46 soil and then she can plant everything and then what we were doing is she would transplant and then as the season progressed we would then move it to the greenhouse in like four-inch cups. Yeah, yep. When you're growing from seed it is a never-ending battle of transplanting them from the little tiny cells to the next size up. 17:14 until you can get them outside in the ground if that's what you're doing, because that's what we do. If you're just putting them in pots to sell them, then you gotta keep doing the thing with transplanting because they keep getting bigger. So yeah, it's a constant, constant, never-ending job. So my question is, I don't wanna ask a rude question, but are you... 17:41 Are you seeing success with this? Are you, is it worth it to you? Are you making a profit on this? Well, this year we had trouble the last couple of years with soil. We would end up with a volunteer tomato plants coming out of soil. Yeah. Or too many bugs coming out of some really name brand soils. I don't want to knock anybody, but it was frustrating. So we had to find some special soil. 18:11 and ended up being Iowa or sorry, Ohio. My bad. He dealt with it. I didn't. So see how that works. But to get it here, we couldn't find any truckers coming west with an empty load. So the soil ended up being the same price as the shipping. And I just, it's frustrating 18:41 preferred to keep using the soil I was using. It was a little more affordable. Anyway, we had to raise prices for that. It just seems like everything was more expensive this year in general. And the store, you know, they were fine with it and people still supported us really well. I was very grateful. So by Memorial Day... 19:11 weekend, we had finally broke even on soil and seed costs. Good. So, so, so is there any room to be ahead of the game on this this year? Is that where it sits? So basically, in my opinion, we've for the three years we've done this, we broke even, you know, even with some investments and things like that, which is fine for me, in my opinion, to get a business going. You know, if you can. 19:41 breakeven and cover your costs and continue to expand a little bit. Um, one of our most successful things is that we partnered with, um, the recycling center in a town about 30 miles away. And so all of our cups and flats and all those things are all recycled. We don't have to buy any of that. Which really helps the price. Yes. And keeps it out of the landfill. Yeah. 20:09 The part I hate is seeing a bunch of these corporations, you know, Walmart, the farm store and then the next town over, they just, they throw all the plastics in the dumpster. Or you know, they can't reuse them. It's just frustrating. I'd rather reuse something and it not be so pretty than to think of it, you know, not quite riding away the way it should in a landfill. 20:38 Well, the other thing Cindy always said when we started this is gardening shouldn't be expensive. Right. It shouldn't be expensive to raise a garden for your family. So, you know, yeah, we could charge more and we could do this. But at the end of the day, we also want it to be affordable for people. And that's why, you know, we've had offers in the past from some of the hardware stores to buy out our inventory, you know, but they're just going to take it to town and mark it up. 21:06 we would rather sell it ourselves instead of sell on wholesale. Yes, that makes sense. Yeah, it's not all about making money. In fact, I work at a feedlot a few miles west of our place and I've been there about nine years and my boss, he'd just shake his head at me every time I'd start telling my stories about the greenhouse endeavors and he goes, well, does that pay for your time? And I'm like, no. 21:33 And he's like, you're just crazy. You're crazy. The guy's all kind of got a kick out of it. Every time we'd start talking about, oh, I got, you know, 250, you know, plants transplanted this week and, and they're like, man, well, how many more you got to go? And I swore about 3,500 more. Yeah. But you love it. So you are, you are getting a return on it because you feel good when you do it. 22:02 Yes. And that's why I asked because I wanted to know if it was about money or if it was about the fact that you love it because if it's just about money, at some point you will be like, I'm not doing this anymore. Exactly. Exactly. Because it's not, it's... The other thing is too, the way that we have built this is everything's paid for, right? So there's no stress about paying the bills or paying the payment. 22:31 you know, and at any time, you know, Cindy kind of stressed about the greenhouse. And I said, if nothing else, we can completely stop the plants and just garden inside of it, you know, it's, it's paid for it's not a big deal. I just stressed because I even told our tax lady that we, we sold the beef cows we had, which wasn't many, but we sold the, the pears we had to invest into this greenhouse and I'm like, 22:58 I feel like I'm going crazy because at the time the prices for cattle were high and I just think you can at least make a good chunk off of a cow every year, but can I come near that with plants? I guess you can, but there's a lot of expense in it too. So yeah, kind of a toss up. Yeah. But 23:26 There's an old saying about if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life and work is a very different definition in that phrasing. And you love the work. So if you love the work and you're breaking even, then you're probably doing a great thing. My husband gardens because he loves to garden. Like it's an avid passion for him. It's how he de-stresses from his job. 23:53 And he loves his job. He just got a new job last year. Loves it. But it has stresses too. Every corporate job has stresses. So every spring, well, actually every January, he starts talking about planning the next year's garden because that's how he calms down. Yes. So, I don't know. I think everybody needs a thing that they do that brings them joy. 24:22 brings them peace and hopefully helps other people too. That's what I think. Yeah. I like it. I start itching around Christmas time. I'm like, we need plants. We need green. We need something. So January 17th, I finally got my first tray of seedlings started. I feel content. 24:51 when I start doing that finally. This time of year she's ready to be done. Yep and that's where Mike kind of steps up then because I'm like okay I'm good, I'm planted out let's and he loves the gardening part so I go out and help where I can but this is really his time of year. He loves getting out there and just his quiet time in the garden. 25:18 Yeah. It's his happy place. I think that's the reason why Kyle really likes to garden too, because I just leave him to it. I can't even make a suggestion these days without getting the look, you know. And I'm like, do you want me to shut up? I don't need to make any suggestions. I can just be quiet. He's like, what's the suggestion? It might be important. I'm like this. And sometimes it is sometimes like I hadn't thought of that. Thank you. And other times he's like, I got it. I'm like, okay, no problem. 25:48 So I am very happy to cook whatever comes out of the garden if it needs cooking with dinner. I am very happy to help with canning. I am very happy to eat fresh radishes and cucumbers and tomatoes when they're coming in. I don't want to be in the garden with him. That is his baby and he can go take care of that baby. I'm good with that. 26:13 There you go. So do you guys do other things besides this greenhouse nursery thing? Yeah. Go ahead. What kind of things are we talking? Well you build things, so are you a carpenter? No, I'm actually a welder for BNSF Railway. Okay. I work at a big locomotive diesel shop. 26:41 head of the welding department there. That's, that's my full-time job. That's your jobby job. Yes. Okay. Yup. On top of that, we do, I don't know, we got too much broke stuff around here that I fix. I fixed broke things for other people. We were crazy enough to have milk cows. So we milk and make cheese and do all kinds of things like that. We'd, uh, apparently we don't sit still very well. 27:10 Oh, okay. Well, you do need to take a break now and then I hope you actually do get sleep. Occasionally. Until he stresses about the garden, you know, or the greenhouse freezing. He gets himself up a few times a night through the winter and it's like, stop, just stop it. So what's interesting is since we built it, so we built it, we started September of 22. We got it basically going by March. 27:40 23. So from the time we got it going until now, it's only froze twice inside of it. So we had two nights of, it was 27 and 25 below. And I don't have a propane heater yet. I just got some diesel shop heaters for backup. But 28:02 I got up and it was 25 below outside and it was 18 above in my greenhouse, which is depressing because it froze. But it's a little impressive because with no other heat other than the geothermal, it was 18 above in there. That is impressive. Yeah. And it's just a plastic hoop house, you know? Yeah, we run two layers of air inflated plastic. That's all we're running. Wow. That's amazing. 28:33 Well, it's a thousand dollars to put plastic on it. And at the time we were building it, I figured it'd be 15 or 20,000 to get, uh, twin wall panels to put on it. So it was just a, it was a cost thing. You know, we had X number of dollars after, you know, we sold cows and we had some money saved. So we had a budget and that's what we went with. And I've been, I've been pretty happy with it so far. Um, that air inflation helps too. We. 28:59 we live in a very windy environment so it keeps the plastic from whipping quite as much but I've been really impressed with that geothermal. Yeah we we thought about it for the one that we just put up but it would have been expensive to dig for it you know we would have had we would have had to rent somebody's machinery and time to do that so ours is actually a hard-sided 29:30 wood and the polycarbonate panels and the tin roof and back on it. And we haven't, we haven't actually done anything else. It's built, it is a greenhouse at this point. Um, my husband is going to be putting in installation this winter. It has electricity to it. And I think the plan is, is that we're going to get this thing. I don't know the name of it. It's like a battery. 29:59 but it's like a generator too. So you can actually plug things into it. Your cell phone chargers, electric things that need to be plugged in, blah, blah, blah. And we're going to get solar panels so that we can use solar for that battery. And then we'll have some kind of heat source that that battery powers to blow warm air around the greenhouse. And we have no idea if any of this is going to work. Not a clue. 30:29 And I said to my husband, what if it doesn't work? And he said, well, he said, we will have a greenhouse. We just won't have a heated greenhouse. I was like, okay, that's fine. But we're really hoping that it works because I really, really want tomatoes in January that we grew. That's my one tiny little hope that we might be able to have homegrown tomatoes in January because I was telling someone else, there is a company that grows 30:59 Better Boy Tomatoes in Minnesota in hot houses. And they are the closest thing to the tomatoes that we take out of our garden in August that I can get in January in our area. Oh neat. So, I really would love to have tomatoes. I really would love to have cucumbers because I will eat a cucumber a day when they're coming in. I love them. And he said, I don't know about the cucumbers. I said, okay, well, we can try. And we want them. 31:28 When our greenhouse frosted, we had, uh, they were 12 or 14 foot, uh, tomatoes in there. They were calling them ceiling fans were clipping them off. Oh, and they died. They were, they were loaded. I was getting ready to can waiting for them all to set on and. We had a sun gold cherry tomatoes out there. And then I had a bunch of, uh, Rutgers for, uh, slicing tomatoes out there. And then we had. Uh. 31:57 We were eating fresh green beans out of there. I had whole beans in there. Um, we had zucchini out there. Um, we, we still have strawberries out there. They survived the frost. So I couldn't believe that. Well, they're right by the outlet for the geothermal. Did, did either one of you just cry when you realized everything grows? Yeah. Yes. I was a little upset. Yeah. I would be sobbing. That would, that would be so. 32:26 sad and not, not, not. Yeah. Oh, the worst part is I lost a whole bunch of houseplants out there. Yeah. Well, it was getting a little crowded in the house with all of his houseplant babies. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, we have like 10 things of each in here. Why don't we excavate eight of each out to the greenhouse and they can grow happy out there. And he had a rubber tree. Rubber plant. A rubber plant. Uh huh. 32:56 It kept getting like, I was afraid it was going to get knocked over. Everybody kept brushing up against it when they walked by and it was right in the way. There's no really good place to put it. So I took it out to the greenhouse and I felt so bad because it died really quick. I thought I had to hunt for another one for him. 33:20 Oh, it's so sad. I mean, I cry when animals die, but man, if I had a greenhouse full like that and everything froze, I would sob for that too. Yeah, I did. It's frustrating. All right, guys. Well, we're at over half an hour and I try to keep these at half an hour. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. And when I stop recording, don't leave because I need your file to upload from your site, okay? Okay. All right. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. 33:50 Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers MT. 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 Morgan at Groovy Grazer's MT, and I'm assuming the MT stands for Montana, but I could be wrong. Good morning, Morgan. 00:22 Good morning. Yes, it is Montana. We're hoping to be another state. So we like to kind of divide it out. So this is our Montana location, which would be our original location. Okay, that makes sense. Well, tell me about yourself and Groovy Grazers. Yeah, so I'm an Air Force veteran. I spent about two years in and then I got out in Okinawa, Japan when I had my son. And it did set off some genetic disorders. So that's kind of how Groovy Grazers came about. 00:50 was I left my corporate America job making over, you know, $100,000. I was like, I'm going to do something different. And then we got some goats because we needed to like refresh our land. Goats are good land rebuilders. A lot of people don't understand that they can rebuild the land. So it just started with three goats and we were just sitting there one night, me and my husband, and I was like, man, these guys are just burning hay. They're kind of like horses or, you know, just kind of an ornament right now. They got to do something. 01:20 So it started originally with grazing because in the south, and that's where I came from, I moved from Arizona up to Montana, but I lived in Homesteaded in Louisiana and I lived in Texas. And I've seen them do this like massive grazing, but they've done it with meat goats. So I was like, okay, we're gonna try it. And that's kinda how it started. It went from grazing to birthday parties and events to kind of being like a community-based thing. So it's really got a lot of facets to it as a business and as like, 01:50 accompany what we do but the main thing is just go birthday parties right now. Fun! So how does that work? How do the goats interact at the birthday parties and is it for little kids or up to 18 or for grown-ups too? Anyone can have a goat party. I actually did a 34 year old males party this month and part of it was 02:15 He had goats growing up. So some of it is nostalgia, right? For the adults. Tonight we're doing St. John's United. They're a really big nonprofit. A lot of people know them. They're, I believe, worldwide. So we're doing it. So it kind of varies in who and what and where I've done. Dispensary grand openings, because it is legal here. We're doing a kid event at the park. So it... 02:41 There's really not like a person, right? If you ask who can do goat parties, it's anyone, but what do the goats do? Well, I mean, they're Nigerian dwarfs, so they're cute in general, right? They're like max 50 pounds, but I bring the babies. So I just rehomed my 10 to 12 week old. I think every 12 week, I'd have to count back. We had a few babies, but I would take them with, and the kids can hold them, the adults can hold them. You can take pictures with them, just watch them, right? 03:09 Sometimes kids will just sit there and watch them because they're really interesting creatures. A lot of the event is me talking and interacting with the public, which is really my favorite. So, you know, being disabled and not having a lot of things to do and being at home on 20 acres, you don't get out a lot. So a lot of it is me interacting with these people and explaining to them weird facts about goats and why we got into this and how it works and then them getting full range of touching them. 03:38 and exploring them. I love when the kids touch the horns and they look at, you know, their eyes, and I'll even show them their teeth. It's just a hands-on learning experience. And that's really what the whole party is about, is letting the kids touch something that maybe they wouldn't. I mean, not very many people have 20 acres or even goats per se, so it's something that they may never get to do. And so to allow them to do it to the fullest extent is kind of what Groovy Grazers is about, is like free or like... 04:06 I don't know how to explain it, hands-on learning, like free play. Like you play with the goats, you see what they do and you see how they interact and then the kids will ask you questions naturally. It's kind of a really cool interaction between the kids and goats. Super fun. No one has told me the, whatever you said, the facts. Oh yeah. Tell me some facts. Tell me some crazy facts about goats. Okay. So my favorite is land, right? Because in Montana... 04:34 our soil where we're at, I'm in Laurel, which is right outside of Billings. It's kind of a bedroom town for Billings. We're really high in alkaline, right? Alkaline isn't good to garden in. It's really hard to garden in actually. And you have to rebuild your soil. So I tell people, they're like, man, goats are annoying. And I'm like, yeah, well, do you have weeds in your yard? And they're like, yeah, my horses don't either or the people that bale hay. 05:01 Those are especially my favorite, because we talked to a lot of other farmers out here in Montana. It's a pretty rural area, right? And so I get to tell them, I'm like, well, hey, you need goats, because goats naturally eat. And then they process like 90% of the seeds, so they digest them fully. And then the other like eight to 9%, I'm probably a little off of my percentages, they're rendered unviable, so they're not gonna sprout. So you're talking about an animal that comes in and cleans up your field. 05:31 The other really cool thing is they're ruminants like cows. Um, so they chew cud, right? So I love that. They love seeing that, right? They love being able to watch the goats chew. You were saying. Yeah. So the, I mean, just the interaction of the goats, right? Them being ruminants and them chewing their cud. The kids think it is the most hilarious thing ever, right? Because they've seen cows do it, but cows' cud smells really different compared to goat cud. 06:01 And so they love watching it. They also love learning that the ruminant is on the left side, right? So on the goat, which if you're looking at the head, it's on your left side. If you're looking at the goat, it's gonna be on the right. So a lot of people say R for ruminant. I just know it the different way because that's how I was taught. So I love letting the kids or adults put their ears up to the goat's side. When I have little baby goats, that's easy, they just pick them up, you know? 06:26 And they're like, wow, you can hear it gurgling and talking. I'm like, yeah, it's digesting. So there's so much hands-on. They can see almost a full 360 around them with their eyes. That's why their eyes are on the side of their head and they're shaped differently. My husband knows the actual name of the shape that their eye is, and he's got some of the cool facts. They also produce cashmere. Not a lot of people know that. I didn't know that actually. My boyfriend, or husband, we just... 06:54 got married, she basically was like, did you know that they produce cashmere? Cause I'm obsessed with crocheting. Cause my mom taught me how and I said, no. So even me who crochet didn't even know that cashmere came from goats. You know, so I think there's a lot that we don't know about them. Also Nigerian dwarfs are 50, they're like 50 50. They're more of a cream breed, which is what I have. I know people are like, you're nuts. You milk a Nigerian dwarf, you only get a quart of milk. Max, today I have a dough that produces two quarts. 07:24 And I'm like, yeah, but it tastes really good. Most people don't know that because the Nigerian dwarves produce less, that it is a higher fat content. It's actually about 10% more than most other breeds. I mean, these are just like my best facts. I can keep going for days. I absolutely am obsessed with goats. Yeah. I actually have a question. I was watching a show, a vet show, and I think it was dogs. Dogs have uterine f*****. 07:54 horns so they develop babies on both sides. I was a vet tech. That is correct. Do goats do have that too? Yes they do. So that was something I actually learned. So anyone that has goats listening to this you need to go on a Facebook and type goat emergency into your search bar and join that group. Because it's just farmers being farmers and you do have some vets on there but they're just giving advice for free right? 08:21 So on there, I learned that because goats can have babies or kids, which is what they're called, that develop in each horn at different stages. It's super rare, but that's how I learned that goats have uterine horns. And I know that dogs do because I used to help. I was a veterinary technician in Louisiana and we used to perform surgeries. And I remember looking at the horns and him telling me all about that. So that was something that when I went to goats, 08:51 I thought was really interesting that they also have uterine horns too. So they have two separate uteruses almost because from what I was reading, they can have different developmental stages if they're releasing extra eggs, right? Which isn't, they're not supposed to do, but yeah, they do. Isn't that crazy? It is. Nature is nuts. I don't understand what... 09:17 in the world, nature was thinking when it decided to do the things it does. And if you're a God person, I don't understand what God was doing. I don't have to understand. I'm not, I'm not religious. So for me, it's nature. Yeah. I look at the way things happen and the way things get messed up and the way things turn out right. And I'm just astounded every time. Yeah, absolutely. Ghosts have taught me a lot about nature, right? Like it's kind of a cut, cut throat. 09:46 Farming, we're a small farm, right? Well, I don't know. If you ask my neighbors who don't like our homestead, because we're the only homesteader on our entire street, which we're on a smaller street, right? They don't like the farm, but if you ask other people, like we're a small farm, we only have 20 goats. And we can't afford shrinkage. So when you're talking like natural things that happen and not understanding them. 10:13 goats, you know, everyone told me, oh man, goats just love to drop dead and I didn't have any issues for a really long time. And I was like, that's not true. You know, but then I bred and I lost one, um, giving birth and then I just lost one this Friday to worms. And it's just crazy to me that you can let a goat out in the pasture in the morning and they look perfectly fine. I mean, she's running around acting like a little, you know, goat being playful and 10:40 not wanting to go in the pen and having to be chased and eating her food. And then at the end of the night, they're, you know, no longer with you. And so that's what I find crazy is that goats can come and go really quickly in that sense. And sometimes there's no rhyme or reason. And that's with all farming, you know. And so when you get into farming, especially I think with what you're saying is that we learn firsthand just that like there is. 11:07 sometimes no reason for the things that happen in nature. Or you have to really dig, like you don't understand, like goats needing B12. So my goats right now have a heavy worm load and they're anemic, so I'm having to give them iron, B12 and organic apple cider vinegar. Isn't that crazy? Like you're just giving them vitamins. So it's just downing to me that that's just, it's just that simple of a fix for a goat, you know? It's that simple sometimes in nature. 11:37 But then other times it requires antibiotics and it's a lot harder. Yeah, and sometimes nothing works, which is the saddest thing ever. It's so hard. I mean, I keep saying it's so hard. It should be my catchphrase for the entire podcast. It's so hard losing crops and animals because you put all this love and all this work and all this time into the thing you're trying to grow, whether it's plants or animals. You do... 12:04 everything you can, you do all the studying, you do all the work, and sometimes it just doesn't work. It doesn't. And we've experienced that. And I take it so personally, right? When my animals are sick or something. We've spent, I have spent hours actually researching goats need copper. So when people go to the feed store, something I've had to do a lot with Groovy Gracers is education. 12:30 Right? So really groovy grazers is the goats, but there's education involved. So we are a less waste farm at the end of the day. I want to teach people how to do that. So when we, I don't even say we're organic because I can't afford the shrinkage in animals, which is loss, right? Like I had to decide to no longer be organic this weekend because it was either lose four goats or give them an antibiotic. And you know what? They're getting antibiotics. 12:58 Oh, well, I'll just not milk them or I won't, you know, for an extended period because we do watch what we put in our body. But we try to teach people that it is so hard, but it's worth it, right? Pour your heart out into this. Do what you need to do, but know that it can be done on any scale. So when you're having the goats and you're having to make choices with them, sometimes it feels weird, right? And you try everything you can and they still end up dead. But sometimes it works really well. 13:28 So I tell people like, yes, farming is hard, but it's worth it, right? You're growing your own food. You're growing everything on your own. I know what goes into my animals. I know what's coming out of them, right? So like needing copper, that's something they have to have. They have to have selenium and iodine, we're deficient. So you have to do your own research. Like this is a lifestyle, it's not a hobby. I try to tell people like, if you're going to do some type of farming, 13:58 small scale, one acre, it's a lifestyle now. You have to indulge in all the information you can get from other farmers because you don't really, I can't call it that, you know, for some of the things I need. And that's one of the, you know, the problems that a lot of farmers I think run into is that they wanna give up because it can be hard. So like, yeah, it's totally hard, but it's worth it. You can find the things that you need. Just do a little bit of research, right? I go to like five different feed stores. 14:26 If I need to to get all the vitamins I need. Goats need a lot of vitamins. They're a vitamin-based animal. Like, did you even know that? That's another cool fact. If goats' vitamins are off, then they get sick really easily. So- Yeah, yeah, I did know that, but I'm sure that my listeners do not know that. So thank you. Yeah, I didn't know that, right? When I got into this, I was shocked. Do you, so do you have goats, Mary, then? I don't, but I love them. 14:53 And I have done a bunch of reading on what it would take to have goats at our place. And I can't afford to feed them. I don't have any place for them to graze. Okay, so Nigerian dwarfs. Let's talk about it then because this is a really cool subject. We haul water. I am not hauling water for full sized goats at all because of the fact that it's a lot of water. 15:22 And we, I don't drive the water truck. My partner does because I just, I'm not there yet, right? So when I went into home studying, I never had to haul water. So this was different when I moved to Montana and it's common here. So we looked and looked and looked and the same thing you're talking about, right? Feed, I'm on just my disability right now, right? Groovy Grazers brings in enough money to pay the bills for the goats thankfully now, but in the beginning it didn't. That was why. 15:52 The Groovy Graziers was created. Nigerian Dwarfs are only eating three pounds a day. Compared to six to nine pounds that your Nubians, your Boars, Kikos, Alpines would eat. That's why I went with the Nigerian Dwarf. Also because they're a dual breed. They're meat and they're milk. So end of the world, tinfoil hat, right? Veterans, sometimes I wear it. It's okay. That's why I got the Nigerian Dwarfs in the end of the world type situation. I have everything I need. 16:22 I have a goat that doesn't consume a lot of water. I have a goat that only eats three pounds. So in the winter time, in the harsh winter, they eat more than three pounds here because we got down to negative 40 this last winter. So obviously they eat more in the winter time, but they need very basic needs. So you could essentially, yeah, you probably could have a few Nigerian dwarfs, but you would have to supplement with hay. 16:48 which is okay because if you're milking them, then they would probably benefit you enough, right? So it's all a, like, what is your end goal? And that's what I had to look at, right? When I was getting my breed. So the Nigerian Dwarfs ate less, drank less, but also provided milk that was higher in fat content. I wasn't really a goat milk person, I'll be honest. 17:10 But I do like my goat's milk. So that's what I learned the vitamins is if your vitamins are off, it's a muscular taste in the milk along with how your cooling process. So maybe, you know, if you have an acre, you could technically have three goats. I have a lady she bought goats for me. And she has them in her backyard. She's not in city limits. She's right on the outskirts of it. There's actually a herd of 150 boars across the street from her, but they have a house with a small yard. 17:39 And she has three little withers back there and she gives them hay and they couldn't even keep up with her yard actually because it was growing so well from the manure because goat's poop is ready manure. It's not hot. So it automatically starts absorbing me into the ground. So they're a rebuilder. So I don't know, maybe take a look at it again and look at Nigerian Dwarfs. Like I encourage listeners don't be put off by the size of your land or how much you might have to graze because... 18:06 If the goat only needs three pounds a day and you need at least a minimum of three goats, most people on an acre can do it. But you have to look at the benefits. This lady didn't want to milk. She just wanted lawn mowers, so therefore we went with withers. If she wanted to milk, I would have had her put, use does and then you wouldn't keep a buck. So you would have to pay for the breeding services for your does. So there's a lot of planning that I think goes into each homestead. 18:35 And a lot of people just aren't aware that these miniature goats eat far less than the large size Yeah, and I appreciate everything you just said and it makes me want to look into it more However, I would have to convince my husband that it would be a good idea to get goats and I don't think he's into it Right now. No, maybe maybe what I can do is do some more research over the winter and then hit him in about I don't know February and be like 19:01 Could we get a couple goats this year? Well, and tell him right when he was about to go mo, hey, you could be doing something else like golfing or whatever his hobby is instead of doing this. That was like kind of our grazing catch slogan. It was like, go do something else. Let us do the hard work with the goats. But there is a lot that goes into goat owning. I mean, the vitamins is a big ordeal. And if we weren't milking them. 19:28 I don't think they would be as fruitful for us as they are for the farm. Because yes, we want to get rid of the sweet clover that we have in the fields and they'll eventually graze that out. But we do plan on forever keeping goats because of how much of a duality they bring to the farm. And I think that's important, right? And even though we have 20 acres, 10 of it is grazing the other 10 is forest and gold. 19:55 Because we're kind of on the rims and so I try to explain to people that like anyone can can do do it But how much work do you want to do? You know with us being me and my husband are both? Hyper mobile therefore we have some like physical disabilities and so I tell people like we have ten acres But anyone can do it you can do it regardless if you're mobile or not as mobile It just depends on how much extra work you want to do so like when I have to clean stalls 20:24 it takes me a lot longer, but that's okay. I still get it done. So everyone's, I mean, really honestly, everyone's homestead is so wildly different. It is even hard to like give advice. People will ask me for advice on their goats and their homestead, and I'm like, it all depends even on soil and your location and weather. And so I encourage like your listeners, you know, understand that we're in the middle of Montana. We're in rural, rural Montana, and we have 20:54 extreme highs and lows. We hit 90 two days ago, but less than four months ago, we were in the negative still with snow on the ground. And so in Minnesota, it's not a whole lot different, but in Florida, it might be. Yeah. And so yeah, for you, we're pretty kind of on the same plane. But yeah, Texas, man, was this a learning curve coming from the south up to here? It's a short growing season. You have to be really picky. 21:21 There's a lot more planning and a lot less errors I feel like I can make in Montana. So it's definitely more of like a moderate homesteader type state when you're getting into lots of mistakes, lots of learning curves with plants and animals, but it's all worth it in the end. Yep. So I don't wanna run out of time. When did you get into this? What brought you to doing this in the first place? 21:49 So about a year ago, it's actually kind of funny, our in-laws that live on the property, they weren't really a fan when I moved in. And so instead of building like a fence, I said, let's put a goat barn up. And it creates this like peaceful. So I mean, the goats are funny, like how they came onto the farm was just to create kind of privacy. And then they just turned into a passion and a hobby. So this happened about last. 22:17 Let's see, I moved in last Mother's Day, not this last. So I've been here for about a year. So we've done all this in a year. We've done it really quickly. Um, I probably had goats about eight months, nine months. Um, I got them a few months after I moved in, but I, I don't know. They're like my little animal. I'm just really obsessed with them. So I spent months reading, um, while owning them and like slowly building the herd up. So we started with three and now we're at 20, 21. I think I just bought two mini Lomachas. 22:45 So, and I bought another goat. So yeah, it's always like, but I mean, trinket is right with goats. There's, there is that on the homestead. So you have to kind of go through and learn. It's been a hard year for a lot of farmers too. So yeah, we're slowly building, but I don't know if we're going to expand much more. I mean, 20 to 25 goats is a lot. That's a lot of hoves to trim. Yes. And they have to want to cooperate too. 23:13 Yeah, they do. And thankfully, ours are pretty good about it because I stay on top of it and I trim hoes from the time they're five weeks old upwards. So they're pretty used to it. But yeah, I mean, it takes a lot of time. So I mean, if we could add like four more days into my week, I probably would get more animals. But right now, I think we're capped. Well, I think if everybody could add four more days into their week, people will be doing a lot more fun things with their time or what they're interested in with their time. Yeah. 23:42 There's no life when you have a homestead. Your homestead is your life. We don't leave the farm much. 23:51 Yeah, I understand. We don't either. I shouldn't say that. My husband has a jobby job. That's what we call the job that pays the bills. Yeah. So he's gone during the day during the week to his job. But we don't go on vacation because we have chickens and we have a dog and we have barn cats. And we really made a plan years ago that when we could buy a place like we bought in 2020. 24:19 that we wanted it to be a place that felt like being on vacation. Yes. And it does because what we want to do on vacation is go to people's farms and see what they're doing and what they're making and how they're doing it. Now we're just doing it. So it's, it's really fun. And the other thing is that we lucked out and our home that we bought was completely remodeled before we bought it. Oh, wow. 24:46 So it's been such a joy to live in a place, and I'm going to jinx it, where we haven't had to paint every fall because the house we lived in before had plaster and lath walls. And so they would crack because the house would shift. So we'd have to mud the walls and paint. We haven't had to put in a new toilet. We haven't had to do any of the stuff we had to do at the old house. 25:11 So it's been living, it's been like living at an Airbnb except we own it. Yeah. And that's, that's minus. Yeah. And we get to be outside on three acres. It's just, it's been such a joy. And so I'm not at all upset about the fact that we don't do vacations because we live where we vacation. That's us too. Like we have a rock. I'm sure you've seen it on my Facebook posts and the viewers can go look too. 25:40 on our Facebook, but we can see into Park City. And so we can just walk five minutes into the forest and then we're in a whole different location. And so yeah, we don't really leave the land a lot. I mean, I do for doctor's appointments and stuff. So for the most part, I'm here. This is where everyone wants to come to. I mean, if my friends are like, Katie, wanna hang out? I'm like, yeah, do you want me to come to your house? And I'm like, in my head, I'm like, please don't. I have too many farm tours. I'd rather you just come here. 26:09 you know, and but all my friends want to come here, it's a little slice of heaven, kind of tucked away. And then, you know, you can just sit outside and relax and that we have a cool breeze most of the time. And so living I mean, three acres that I tell people all the time, three acres is like, ideal. I had five acres when I was in Louisiana. And that was a little too much if I just had chickens, because we just had chickens and dogs and cats. 26:37 you know, cause there was nothing to take care of, like the lawn. And so three acres, you can do so much on it. Like you can get into rabbits, you can get into quail, you can get into all sorts of things. I, thankfully my partner loves animals. He doesn't say no. Since I've moved in, I've brought three dogs, a cat, in on top and like probably 20 chickens. I think we're up to like 35 chickens. 27:05 and three guineas, but I just bring animals in and he's okay with it. But I do pay the fee bill. So the fee bill is my part of the contribution for the house. I think that's why it's okay. But yeah, three, that's really cool. 2020 was a good time to buy. My partner bought this before. It sure was a good time to buy. Yeah, I think he bought his in 2019. So like right before COVID. 27:32 He already had the 20 acres when I met him and we actually live in a tiny house. So it's a two loft tiny house. Yeah. So my son lives on one side of the loft. We live in the other, it's only 450 square feet on the bottom. And the, and the other, we live in a pole, pole barn house. The other portion of the house, which is 1000 square feet is a shop. And so like I blow glass and he's a metal worker. So we'll do that in the winter time in here. And then we're going to convert. 28:00 some of it into an indoor garden too. So even though our house is tiny, we don't really spend a lot of time, which it sounds like you guys are the same summertime. You got to get outside because winter time you have to hibernate. There's no option. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. I didn't know you blow glass. Do you want to come back like in a month or so and talk to me about that? Because this is also a podcast for people who make things. Because I know nothing about blowing glass. I just know that I'm fascinated by it when I see people do it. 28:30 It's super cool. So I only apprenticed for six months, but I have my own torch. Um, and I was doing it on my own. I was blowing glass on top of my full time job. Um, and I do borrow glass. So it's like Pyrex. So it's going to be like, um, more of like your bongs, your glasses, your shot glasses, like the really, it's really cool. It's not soft glass, soft glass is a lot of waiting for everything to cool down. But yeah, I would totally love to come back and like. 28:59 I could even bring one of my glass-blowing friends to or have you talk to Brennan. There's so many different things, but that's cool. It sounds like you have a lot of facets to your farm. You have two podcasts and you do a little bit of home. Well, you do a lot of home setting, it sounds like, because you have the chickens and I'm sure massive gardens. So you're busy. Yeah, we do. We do, yes. And honestly, my husband is the gardener. 29:22 Aren't they always mine too? Loves it and I do not I will cook anything for him out of the garden, but I don't love Gardening. I love all the techie stuff, which is terrible because you know, we live on a homestead I could have done this from my house and in town where we lived before. Yeah My son who is living with us. He's 22. He handles chores, which is wonderful Yeah, and and I handle making sure that they get fed 29:52 and they have clean clothes, they have clean folded clothes. And I do the marketing and the finding out things from my husband. And he's like, when he's like, we have a new bug in the garden, can you look up this thing? And he sends me a picture. I love it. I'm like, yeah, I can find out what to do. And now that I have the other podcast with the Master Gardener, I literally have someone who can answer any question about gardening ever known to man, which is great. 30:18 She's fantastic and I'm so thrilled that she's doing it with me. Yeah. Master gardeners are just knowledge, man. Watching knowledge. I wanted to go and take my master gardening, like go through the process of it. Um, we're organic living soil. Uh, so before we did Groovy Grazers because Montana, it is recreationally and, um, medicinally legal cannabis. That's what my partner grew before. 30:47 So when we sold, he sold that business, we ended up doing Groovy Grazers because we like having a small business. And so he is the gardener also. He knows about all of the organic living soil. You feed the soil and then you get what you need out of it. And so he taught me a lot about gardening. I didn't know so much about gardening. I'm the animal person. I was on and off of vet tech in multiple states. 31:15 I've done a lot of that. So animals, I can troubleshoot. I can give them the shots. I can handle the sickness. When it comes to the garden, I'm like, you need to look at this. I don't know what I did. So COVID, I actually killed like $1,000 worth of houseplants within the first like, you know, two to three months because I was stuck inside and I used to work on the computer. I was sales reps and so I was at home working. And so I tried and that's kind of what started. I... 31:43 could finally grow something and it was cannabis and I did it really well and so that's kind of where my gardening is and so this year I am gardening on a hugel and it's so interesting. You'll have to ask your master gardener about it because they are cool. Andy, my partner, showed me them. 32:03 and you get more gardening space and it's a big organic living soil bed. And so I planned out my garden this year, but there's certain things you can't put in there, right? Strawberries can't go in there, they don't like it. So I've been learning all of it. And so knowledge, it's just cool to see, you know, where you can lead, even though everyone has their place. Like you don't do a lot of stuff outside, but you do the important stuff inside. You provide the meal, nourishment is huge. 32:30 If they didn't eat, they wouldn't be able to do what they did. Your son doing chores is awesome. I have a nine-year-old son, and I hope he doesn't move out at 18. He stays a little bit longer because he's so helpful on the farm, and he's a key role, right? He's a key player in the farm. Everyone has their role, and that's why I say all the time, homesteads are like little clocks. Everyone's a cog in the clock that works, and if one is off, then the whole farm is off. 33:00 I mean, there's no shame doing the tech stuff. I'm tech dumb, like just not able to do it. And I'm young, right? I'm 30. My bosses hated in corporate America. They're like, oh, thank goodness you can sell stuff because you're terrible on the computer. You make so many errors. And I'm like, yeah, because I want to be outside, you know? So it's funny, whereas like my son, he likes to be inside. He likes the techie things. He's the one that, you know, can take pictures and makes his own music to go with our videos and stuff. 33:30 sometimes and so it's cool to see that like everyone's homestead has that cog feature, right? Everyone has a role in it. So I would be really interested to see like the other roles in homesteads. I'll have to go and listen to your podcast. I've been listening to it and it's interesting. I've learned a lot. I think just talking and listening to other people you learn quite a bit. It's better than reading. 33:56 Honestly, I'm gonna I'm gonna say this again. I keep ending up repeating myself on stuff on the podcast episodes, but it's relevant I really never liked podcasts. It's not how I learn best. I don't learn audibly. I learn reading okay, yeah from reading and Since I started doing the podcast I've listened to more other people's podcasts in the last year than ever before because I wanted to know how they sound and how they 34:24 paste their podcast and what kind of things they do. And so now my husband walks up and starts to say something to me and I just point at my ear and he's like, oh, hang on. And I go and stop what I'm listening to and I pop one out and I'm like, yes. He's like, you are constantly listening to podcasts. I'm like, I know, it's crazy. But I didn't like listening to podcasts before. I didn't know I was going to be doing a podcast at this time last year. 34:54 And I have what my dad calls got to know itis, which is basically perpetual curiosity. I am a lifelong learner. So when this idea popped in and I ran it by my husband and he said, go for it, try it. I thought that I'd do two episodes and nobody would listen and it would be done and that I would not be good at it and that I wouldn't enjoy it and that it would just be weird. And I actually do love it. And it didn't die. 35:23 I just passed 4,000 downloads since last August. Wow, congrats. Yeah, which doesn't seem like a lot, but for this particular situation, I feel like that's a big step, you know? No, that is. Like, we got contacted by Q2 out here, which is a local news station. The first day I posted that we were grazing, and I remember looking at Andy and I was like, wow, people really believe in what we're doing. Like, this is cool, you know, because... 35:53 I didn't know I thought I was going to flop but I needed income. I needed my goats to at least get paid for because I'm still going through my VA reading process. I'm not at that 100% that we all need to be at. I totally need to be there. It's just taking two years. These last years have been trials emotionally of wanting to get there and knowing that I will get there but then also having to find my place. I just can't sit at home. I'm a busybody. 36:21 I have to move around all the time. As you see, I'm a busy lady. And I love it that way. And then I had another news station, and I've been on the news quite a few times, but I didn't have like your intentions, right? I didn't have the intentions of being this popular gold lady in town, right? Like people recognize me. It's really weird. When people do it. I mean, I'm flattered. And I like I like tell them thank you. And I'm, you know, thank you for supporting my dream. Because we'll eventually nonprofit, we're going to work on that. 36:50 next year, but it was just a small little idea and it turned into a big thing just like yours, right? Like you've hit $4,000. I never expected to even book a party, let alone be booked out. I'm booked out two to three weeks most of the time on my parties. And like, I mean, I only do two, like we're not talking like days and days of work, because I do days and days of work on the farm. I only do two parties. So four hours a week. That's what my body can handle, right? 37:20 being disabled, I have to work around that. But having those parties constantly booked is like, I don't know, I don't even post sometimes that I'm looking to book parties and I have messages constantly flowing in about it. And you're just shocked, right? That people believe in you. And I think that's part of it, right? Like when you started your podcast, you're like, no one's going to listen. But then people do. It's like the same when people are like, I'm going to homestead. Like, I encourage all of your listeners, if you're a homesteader, 37:46 Find a way to use your homestead to bring in income. Yeah. We should all be doing it. And if we're not, like message me, I won't charge you at all. Like tell me what your farm is about and I'll try and think of an idea. I sold accounting software for a big company. I've heard so many different businesses, that was my job. And I love empowering people. I love the fact that your podcast does that. You're empowering other homesteaders to learn from other people. 38:14 You're gardening, right? Having a master gardener, that's like awesome. That's unbelievable knowledge you can provide to your listeners. So really like you're doing a really big thing for us homesteaders. You're providing a way for us to talk about our own stories. I've gone online and I've read Reddit, I've read forums and stuff, but nothing is better than listening. I wasn't a podcast person either. But when I got into blowing glass, I was like, all right, I can't listen to music. 38:40 for six hours on end because it repeats. I only have so many favorites, you know? But you can listen to podcasts, but the amount of knowledge that I've learned, it's insane, right? Like what I always tell people, and again, tinfoil hat, right? Like it's not about stopping the government, it's about how are you going to survive a collapse of our government? Which to me, translate to homesteading, right? Providing for my own family. 39:08 And so that was like part of the push for it. I think everyone right now should be finding something outside of corporate America and should be really pushing to be their own boss because what's gonna happen when corporate America is not there. So we should all be thinking about the bigger picture. Yeah, it's scary, right? Nobody wants to think about 10 years from now. I sure don't, but I do because I have children. And like you, you have

Today I'm talking with Samantha at Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 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 Samantha at Runamuck Acres Conservation Farm. Good morning, Samantha, how are you? I'm very good, thank you, good morning. I'm in Minnesota, you're in Maine, and everybody who's listening to the podcast already knows this, but I grew up in Steep Falls, Maine. 00:30 Oh wow, that's cool. Which is like half an hour or northwest of Portland, Maine. So I know what Maine's like and I think it's beautiful and I can't afford to move back because it's gotten so much more expensive to live there. So I'm really happy that you get to live in Maine. I think that's fantastic. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Let's see, so I'm a farmer, writer and conservationist. 00:59 I own a 53 acre farm and ecological reserve in New Portland, Maine, which is nowhere near the city of Portland. It is about two hours north near the Western Mountains. Okay. Yeah. All right. So what do you do at your place? We raise chickens for eggs. We have a one acre market garden. We have maybe... 01:26 an acre or so fruit trees that we've put in since we got here. And I raise a small flock of sheep, which we rotationally graze on our 10 acre pasture out back. Awesome. So why is it why is it conservation farm? How does that play in? Yeah. So I built my business on bees with a bent for bee friendly farming. And it's kind of morphed along the way and become more 01:55 geared towards beneficial insects and soil microbial life. And so that's what we are working to conserve. We're working to conserve wildlife through the wellbeing of pollinators and beneficial insects and soil life to benefit the whole ecosystem. Fantastic. Last night as I was heading up to read, because I read before I go to sleep, my husband texted me a photo of a queen bumblebee. 02:25 that had landed on one of the logs or the logs that they were cutting up for our wood burning boiler. And I was like, is it a honeybee? Because I couldn't tell from the picture. I knew it was a bee. I just didn't know what it was. And he was like, no, it's a queen bumblebee. And she just happened to land there. And he was like, I'm going to stop and take a photo because this doesn't happen very often. Right. Yeah. She must have emerged from her family nest and be going off to start her own. 02:54 Yeah, I don't know. Usually it's earlier in the season. So I don't know why she blessed him with a visit. But it was pretty cool to get a photo. I'm going to post it on Facebook later today. So, okay. So you before we started recording, you said it's your sixth anniversary at being at the place you're at now? Yeah, we call it our farm-aversary. We've been here for six years officially today. Okay, tell me the story. Tell me how you how you ended up where you are. 03:23 It was very long and arduous. I was a landless farmer for these eight years. I had gotten divorced and I really just refused to give up on farming. It was kind of the way, the only way I felt that I could become a homeowner and provide a home for my family. So I used the skills that I had and it took a long time to build my income from agriculture. 03:51 I raised bees because everybody will have a hive on their property if they don't have to manage them. So I had apiaries all over the area and that allowed me to build my income to the point where I could justify to a financial institution investment in real estate. So and then at that point we weren't able to qualify with a traditional 04:16 financial institution. So I ended up going to the USDA as a beginning farmer and the farm service agency classifies a beginning farmer as someone who has been farming for less than 10 years. So at that point I was at eight years or so and I was like, oh geez, if I'm going to do this, I better do it now. So I didn't want to go that way, but because nothing else was lining up, I was like, okay, this is my last chance. I'm going to give it a shot and then I may have to give up farming. 04:46 Mm-hmm. So we did we went we were able to qualify it took 270 days to close on a property I went after this other property first and so we were in Closing process with that one for six months before we finally found out that the house wasn't going to pass an inspection and to save my loan I 05:10 I had to scramble and look for another property in the area that might qualify, and I ended up here. Okay. For those who don't know, Samantha has a Facebook page, and I started watching or, I don't know, following her Facebook page. It's got to be three years ago, I think. When did you do all this? I was in search of a farm. 05:37 It must have been seven or eight years ago now, because it's been six years since I bought this place. Yeah, so I've been following your Facebook page and your story for over six years. That's amazing. And I was so curious to see what would happen and how you would figure this out. Yeah, I was looking a lot of noise. 05:57 Yeah, so did you blog about it at the time? Cause I know you have a blog on your website. Yeah, I was blogging about it. Um, and then just to get the word out in the community, I was writing articles to local papers, I had graphics that I had made up that I was plastering all over Facebook. I put up flyers, just trying to connect with someone who might either be willing to rent to own or lease or even, you know, sell if I could make the finances happen, um, a farm that I could take over. 06:25 Yes, so if anybody is interested in the whole, let's call it a saga of Sam finding her farm, go check out the blog because I remember your post just being heart-wrenching and then exciting and then heart-wrenching and then exciting again. So the whole journey was like that. It was just 06:51 Yeah, and congratulations because it doesn't always happen that way. So, so good job. It's so hard to be tenacious and determined and not lose hope. Oh, it really is. And I definitely considered many times, you know, whether or not I should give up. And people told me I should give up. Can you imagine that people say into your face that you should give up this, this dream that has consumed your whole life and your everything. And they, they're like, you should just walk away from it. And yeah, I couldn't do it. 07:22 Yeah, and it's one thing if strangers say that to you. It's another someone who actually loves you and cares about you and has your best interested heart to say it. Yeah, you really have to consider what they're saying in that moment, and like, maybe I'm wrong. Yep, exactly. Because the people who love you absolutely do not want to hurt you, but they also don't wanna see you drive the car into the brick wall in front of you. That's right. If you don't have to. 07:51 So I'm glad it wasn't a brick wall. I'm glad that it was an open field for you to drive your tractor through safely. So that's good. All right, so I'm assuming that the farm, and I could be wrong, is supporting itself as much as it can. Is that correct? I make all of my income here on this property, yes. But that wasn't always the case. Like in the first couple of years, it did not. 08:19 Did it? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Right after my divorce, I was living in an apartment. The only way I could call myself a farmer was because I had those outlying apiaries. I was working at Johnny's selected seeds in their call center, sitting in a cubicle full time at that point and then farming part time. So I did that for three years and then I was able to go down to part time at Johnny's and farm full time. So I kind of swapped things around a bit. 08:49 And then after I got here, I eased myself off of Johnny's and off of, you know, um, outside income. And I've been able to scrape by here on, on the farm. Awesome. Um, so did you leave Johnny's on good terms because I hear they're a great company. I love Johnny's. They have a lot of really fantastic people there. We, I think the 09:19 was mutual. I think I had outgrown them at that point. I learned so much working there, just rubbing elbows with these great minds of these other farmers. But I think it was mutual. I was ready to be here. And so I was taking, I was calling in more and more often, and they weren't impressed with that. And they had new management in the call center. So I didn't have the same level of appreciation and support that I had had from my former manager. So yeah, so it was mutual. 09:49 They already see me go and I was ready to go. Good. Because we order seeds from them every spring, like specific seeds, because we love them. And I was, I was going to be heartbroken if they're terrible to work for. So I thought I would ask. Corporate, then, then you would think they're a corporate office. And so it's just like any other corporate business, their seeds are unbeatable though. And their service is excellent. Mm hmm. Yep. 10:17 I love the fact that I live in Minnesota, but I can order seeds from Maine. It just makes my heart bubble, you know? Okay. So, I'm not sure what else to ask you. Oh, the one-mile trail that you have. I read about that on either your website or Facebook page. I can't remember. What's the deal with that? 10:41 So in our, we have 53 acres. 13 of those acres are up front and that's what I'm farming on basically, like three acres right around the house and then the 10 acre pasture out back. And then beyond that is 40 acres that we have contracted to the government for wildlife conservation. We had a couple of different habitats back there that passed their... 11:08 assessment with the state biologist. We had the NRCS come out here and the different ecological services came to walk the property to see if it would qualify. And so in that acreage there is an ETB trail that was already there and there's a bunch of different trails that go down to a creek and around to this northern large grove. We have a remote campsite back there too. So I've kept that 11:37 open and accessible for the local community to be able to go back there and walk or bike or bird watch or camp. Wonderful. You said NRCS. What is that? The Nature Resource Conservancy Service. Okay. I just, not everybody knows the acronyms and the window. Yeah, I had to think about it there. 12:05 So if anyone's interested, that's what that stands for. I'm biased because I grew up in Maine, so I grew up playing in the Maine woods. I know what it's like there. But I feel like Maine has one of the most wonderful, I don't know, public conservation situations. And I could be wrong, Minnesota is pretty good too. But I feel like Maine just really honors the fact that they are so blessed with all of the forest. 12:35 I think we're all really proud of it. Yeah. It's this beautiful wilderness. Basically anywhere up above like Central Maine is just wilderness. And it's still like that just like from, you know, the frontier days. And it's wonderful. And you can really go and get lost there. And we have so many beautiful ponds and rivers and lakes and gorgeous mountains. And if you've ever visited Maine, I say this all the time. I'm going to say it again. 13:04 You've ever visited Maine and you've only ever visited the coast. You haven't seen. You haven't seen if you haven't seen our mountains, if you haven't seen Bigelow, oh my God, you haven't seen Katahdin you gotta come back. Yeah. And it's such a huge, um, I mean, it's not the biggest state, but there's just so much wrapped in the state. Yeah. 13:28 It's gorgeous. Every time I say I'm from Maine, people are like, Oh, I visited. It's so pretty. And I'm like, yes, try, try living there and then leaving. You won't want to. So, but Minnesota is really pretty too. I've heard. Yeah. I would want to visit for sure. Yeah. It's, it's really weird. Minnesota is like three different growing zones. North is zone three. Mid-state is zone four. 13:58 and southern Minnesota is now zone five. Wow. And it's so bizarre to me because I don't swim in the area that we're in because the water gets so hot and it's so shallow that there's green algae on top of everything. Oh yeah, yeah, ew. But I keep hearing that way up north, the waters are clearer because it doesn't get as hot up there. I understand. And like people talk about... 14:25 big hills here. They don't talk about mountains. And I went somewhere further north than I lived quite a while ago. And so I was like, and this is our mountain. And I just laughed. I was like, that is not a mountain, guys. Sorry. And I'm like, what do you mean? And I'm like, let me take you east about 1500 miles and we'll start seeing mountains. That would be fine. 14:56 It's funny because the Minnesota River is about four miles west of my house. East of my house. Hang on. East of my house. Sorry. I'm looking toward, I'm looking south, so I had it backwards. But anyway, Minnesota River is four miles east of my house and it is flooded beyond recognition. It will hit its highest flood stage today or tomorrow in the history of keeping records. Goodness. And the area that I live in. 15:24 is River Valley, but we are just far enough that everything's flat. Like we moved just far enough away from the river. We're not in that diagonal slope down to the river. And so right now we can still get out of our town by car, but it was questionable yesterday whether we would be able to get out of our town by car. That's amazing. So Minnesota is really, really. 15:51 interesting geographically because it's so different geographically in every area of Minnesota. It's just crazy. So you'd have to visit more than one place there too, really. Oh, absolutely. And Minnesota is very much farming country. I mean, it's where we are at soybeans and corn and winter rye and alfalfa fields everywhere. Yeah. 16:19 But the further north you go, it's like Maine, and it's very, very forested. And so everybody, well, not everybody, because not everybody can afford it, but many, many people have their cabin up north that they go to every weekend in the summer. I see, I see. And so it's like the bottom half of Minnesota is prairie land and farming land, and the northern half of Minnesota is camping, fishing, cabining. 16:48 Hiking, that stuff. So I really didn't, I made a very lateral move when I moved here because the only thing missing is the mountains and the ocean and I didn't get the mountains and the ocean very often anyway. So, so thankfully it wasn't hard on me in that way to move here over 30 years ago. That's good. It would be a hard transition, I'm sure. Yes. And 17:15 The other thing I will tell you is if you grow up in Maine, you know that when you go to the grocery store or the laundromat or the library, any public service place with people, people talk, complete strangers just start up conversations in line. We do. In Minnesota, people are very to themselves. And it was super hard the first year I was here because I was so used to. 17:43 striking up a conversation with a complete stranger in line. And people looked at me like I was nuts. Oh no. Why are you talking to me? I don't even know who you are. And people are very nice, but they were confused as to why this complete stranger with a New England accent was chatting them up. So that was the culture shock. That was the hard part. Yeah, I'd have a hard time with it. 18:11 Yeah, I did. It was rough. It was really rough. So tell me again, you have livestock. What is it again? So we have laying hens and sheep right now. Usually we have some honey bees, but this year is the first year in 15 years that I have no bees. Did the rain last year cause issues? Because I heard it rained and rained and rained and rained. Honestly, I think it was. 18:38 neglect. Like I just don't have the time for bees like I used to when I, you know, before I bought the farm. I had 30 hives when I bought this place. And I thought that's what I was going to do. But then I got here and there's just so much other stuff I need to tend. And I wanted to have vegetables to feed my family, but also to feed my community. So I'm in the beehive one day, and I'm looking across at the garden, which needed to be planted also. And I had to really 19:05 way, like do I want vegetables or do I want this high value honey to bring in the money? And I'm like, I really want to be able to feed my family. So I backed off on the bees and we had for a while we had four hives or two hives or back up to six hives, I think. And then it just kind of got down to one. And this year I'm not investing in them. 19:30 anything in livestock. I'm trying to get finances squared away. We had a really tough year last year with all the rain. So I didn't make any investments. So just no bees this year. They died over the winter and I still have tons of equipment. So I think next year I'll probably get one or two new colonies. Yeah. My dad tried to grow his garden last year. He's in Whitefield, Maine. 19:59 Every time I talk to them, because I talk to them once a week, I'd be like, how's your garden? And he'd say, what garden? Oh no. He put it in, but it just didn't work. It didn't do hardly anything. And this year, we've had tons of rain here. And I talked to him yesterday and I said, you know how you said you didn't really get anything out of your garden last year because of the rain? And he said, yeah. I said, we're now in the boat that you were paddling last year. 20:29 That's terrible. It sucks. I mean, I hate to say it that way, but it sucks. This is the first year in four years since we moved in that we have not had lettuces and stuff to sell at the farmer's market by this time. Yeah, I feel for you. Last year, I couldn't grow anything. I tried, I had to close the farm stand to prioritize the CSA. I didn't even get zucchini. Yeah. 20:56 Yep, that's where we're at. We had little baby zucchinis at this time last year and I was eating them in salads, you know Because the little baby ones are yummy. Yeah But yeah, so yeah, I understand your your pain from last year because we're feeling it now And and not only that it didn't sound like Maine had a lot of river flooding and where I'm at Our rivers are just way out of their banks right now 21:24 So it's been real interesting watching the local news. Over the last few days, I'm like, man, is it gonna get to where we are? And it's not, we're too far from the river, but boy, it is really high. Okay, so back to bees for a minute. Is it hard to raise bees? Is it like a high maintenance thing once you get them established? It really is. And I know when I was... 21:51 I was president of the Somerset Beekeepers for six years before I had bought the farm. And I was doing a lot of bee schools at that point. And all the old timers would come to our beekeeper clubs and they'd talk about how it was 30 or 40 years ago. And they could just have these hives in the yard. They didn't ever have to touch them. And they were just always there doing their thing. And it's not like that anymore. We have. 22:18 pests that have been introduced to the honeybees, we have climate issues, we have habitat encroachment. They really need to be managed intensively. Like when they need attention, you gotta be able to drop everything and go intend the bees. And I don't have that ability anymore. Okay, I didn't know if it was really high maintenance because like we have chickens. 22:45 They get let out of their coop in the morning. They're let out into their run because we don't want them eating our garden. What is in our garden right now? And, uh, and then at night they get fed, they get put back in the coop. Yeah, it's easy peasy, right? It's super easy. They get watered every day. They give us eggs. It's a wonderful working relationship. Yeah. But. 23:09 I've talked to a few beekeepers and I keep hearing about all the little detail-y things that are going on. And I'm like, man, I would love to have a couple hives, but I don't want to, I don't want to have to take care of them because it sounds like it's really high maintenance and time intensive. Yeah, it really is. And the, the startup is expensive and if you can get a harvest of honey, it is a high value commodity and people will pay for it. Yeah. But getting to that point is tricky. 23:39 Yeah, I'd rather have somebody who is already doing it bring a couple hives out, put them where they think they'll do best and they come check on them and they take care of them. Then we get a couple jars of honey at the end of it. That would be great. Give me a couple jars of honey to rent my space for your bees. That would be great. And then there was another question I had about bees and I'm completely spacing what it was. I don't remember. Oh well, it doesn't matter. 24:09 And then you have sheep. Do you have sheep that have wool or do you have the hair sheep that aren't wool? I have wool sheep. They're thin sheep, which actually have next to skin quality wool. So it's super soft and luxurious not that itchy scratchy wool that some sheep have. And they're also a meat animal and I just learned I've had these sheep for, I think I'm going into my fifth season now. 24:36 And I just learned that they are actually able to be milked, like for family needs. You couldn't do like a large scale commercial thing with them, but definitely to feed my own family, I could be out there milking those sheep. Have you done it yet? No, I think maybe next year. Like I've kind of held off on milking anything because that early morning block of the day is when I do my writing. And I don't wanna give it up. So I haven't done any milking. 25:05 But we've always had state assistance, honestly, because I've been a single mom, I'm a low income household, I had two kids in the house, so I've had assistance from the state for food. But my second son is gonna be turning 18 soon, so now I'm more concerned with being able to provide even more for myself because I'm expecting to lose those benefits. Yep. 25:32 So I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about taking on milking. Yeah, I was just gonna, I, you're gonna have to message me and let me know how it goes because I don't know how, I know goats can be trained to stand still to be milked and I'm assuming that sheep can too, but if they haven't ever been milked, that's going to be a circus. Yeah. I think I'll have to pick one of my, I have a couple who are very receptive to being mick handled. 26:00 And there are some who are less receptive. So I'll pick one of the ones who I know will let me manage them that way. And I'll see how it goes. It may be that I have to start with one of the new lambs and work our way up with it. That's what I was gonna ask you next, is do you breed your sheep? I sure do, yeah. Because it's nice to have something that I'm taking from. I don't use the wool to make yarn with. I should, but I don't. 26:28 have a facility near me and I just haven't made that leap yet. So I've been using it to mulch in the garden. Um, the meat, we take a harvest every fall. Um, and that's what my household eats. We, we eat a lot of lamb. I sell some of it. Um, so quite a bit of it went out to my CSA members last fall. And then this year I'll put some on my farm stand to sell that way. Hopefully that will cover the cost of my processing bees. Yeah. 26:56 But yeah, I don't do it myself. Yeah, it's a lot of work. And to make it pretty, you gotta be practiced. Right. So it's not like just butchering a deer and you butcher it the way you wanna cook it. You gotta make it pretty so people will buy it. Exactly, and they're accustomed to certain things, you know, they're accustomed to it looking a certain way. And there's also like the legality issue in order for me to sell it to 27:25 the community, I have to get it processed at a USDA inspected facility. Yep. Yeah. The government's gotta have a hand in it. And I don't mean that to sound snotty. It, again, I get in so much. I have such a quandary about talking about the government on this podcast, because I think that we need government for a lot of important reasons. I also think that. 27:51 They make us trip over our own feet over the most simple things ever. Yeah, they tend to complicate things. And so when the USDA comes up, I'm like, I don't want people to die because somebody screwed something up. So I guess it's important. But, but I feel like we should be able to butcher animals on our property, sell from our property and we deal with what happens next. You know? Right. You assume that responsibility for your own self. 28:20 Yeah, we have LLC insurance. I think that if someone gets sick, we would probably be able to make a claim on that and we'd probably be okay. I don't know. Has never happened and we don't butcher our chickens because they're laying hens. They're not a dual breed, so we don't use them for meat. So we don't have to worry about that, but it's just, it's so, I don't know, bothersome. I'm not even sure it's frustrating. It's just bothersome. 28:47 that people who are doing things and trying to feed their community can't do it without the government having their fingers in it. It drives me crazy sometimes. And what's the excited thing? They've got the all these corporate interests in there who want to make it seem difficult or dangerous for us to do that stuff at home because then we have to give our money to the food industry. 29:12 And then there's also the government who thinks they're keeping us safe. And yes, to some degree they are keeping us safe, but at the same time, they're also forcing us to align ourselves with these corporate interests. And that's. Yeah. Especially when you have no interest in doing that. It's so that part is very frustrating. Um, so, so that we end this on a lighter note, cause I tried to keep these to half an hour. Um, do you love what you're doing? I'm guessing you probably do. 29:41 Absolutely. Every day is a gift. Good. Cause you worked awfully hard to get to where you're at. I know you did because I follow it along because I love what you're doing. Yeah. I wake up every day excited to start a new day. Who can, who can say that? Me. I get up and I'm like, I get to interview Samantha today. That's what I thought this morning. Thank you. But I'm also not. 30:09 Busting my body up to sit here and talk with you guys doing the hard work. So I'm trying I'm trying real hard to to promote you guys because I'm not I'm not the one who busts my my ass on this stuff. My husband's a gardener and My son does the chores. So like I said on a podcast recording yesterday I make sure that the boys get fed and that they have clean folded laundry and 30:35 That's pretty much my job. And I make sure to remind them to be careful, to drink water. And if they don't have water, I bring it out to them, that kind of stuff. I'm the one kind of behind the scenes marketing us and making sure that my husband and my son don't die. So I figured that's a good job. Yeah. Yup. But to the people who are doing the hard work, I am so impressed every time I hear a new story. 31:06 Well, thank you. And I love talking with you guys. You're so generous with your time and your thoughts, and you're so ingenious on the way you come up with things to get around a problem. So many stories I've heard, and they were like, we couldn't make it go this way, so we went out around Robin Hood's barn and figured out another way, and we made it work that way. I love that. I love those stories. 31:31 Just do what we got to do to make it work. Yep, absolutely. All right, Samantha, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Have a great day. You too. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Roxanne at LilyFire Farms. You can follow on Facebook a well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises 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 Roxanne at Lily Fire Farms. Good afternoon, Roxanne, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well, how are you? I'm good, so did farm school go well this morning? We did not have farm school. It actually ended a week or so ago. 00:30 Oh, okay. I thought it was a summer. No, we have a spring session and we're looking at scheduling a summer session, but I do give myself some downtime in between just because I can't do week after week after week during our busy season for, you know, farm projects and gardening and all of that. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, well, tell me about yourself and Lily Fire Farms. Oh my goodness, where do I start? So. 00:59 I guess what you want to know about me is that I'm a mom and obviously a farmer. And we have our little farm here, like you said, Lollipire Farms, that we run it as a business and we're trying to grow and be that kind of resource for our community for what I would personally, of course I'm biased, but what I would consider to be kind of food the way nature intended it to be. 01:24 meaning that we follow organic principles. We're not organic certified, but we follow the organic mindset. You know, we don't use chemicals. If we can help it, I will obviously occasionally pull out a chemical dewormer if I need to for our goats, since those are, you know, extra picky. And, you know, I'd rather not lose any animals, but we try and go natural methods as often as possible. We pasture raise everything or free range here. We have poultry, we have chickens, turkeys, ducks. 01:54 We'll be getting geese next week just for fun for predator protection. We have goats Cows we have pigs We have a couple of sheep. We have a couple horses Just for you know, what's a farm without a horse kind of? So, yeah Yeah, what yeah exactly. So you're an agriculture zoo is what you are in a way. Yeah, uh-huh Okay, and I 02:23 asked about farm school at the beginning because I thought it was all summer long. So tell me about farm school too. Yeah. So we farm school plus other things we offer what I would call on-farm educational opportunities or community experiences, that sort of thing, where we have farm school that so far that's been a six-week program where we take each week and we kind of cover what's hard to do. And these kids work so hard and their parents too to absorb all this information. 02:52 It's basically all of the multiple facets of running a farm like this, slammed into those six weeks with that organic-minded, rotational grazing, regenerative agriculture kind of focus. So like we meet the animals, we learn what quote unquote jobs they all do. You know, like we call our pigs our rototillers because they're helping us clear land and they'll clear the garden later. And you know, the sheep are the lawn mowers, that kind of thing. We cover parasitology and nutrition. 03:21 and how those are connected and it connects to pasture management and how it connects to, I mean, all of the pieces of, you know, like I said, running the farm, rotational grazing, all of that. I do have, this year we're doing it a little differently. I have a, I'll call it a grow along gardening program. And so it's once a month classes from, when did we start? May until September. 03:47 And so that's basically like come and learn crash course of how to grow your own vegetables and a little bit of the fruits. And we do it as this once a month this year. So that way like you came in May and you know we're starting seeds and it's a little late, but that's okay. We start seeds, we plant some stuff in the class garden here, you know, and then the next one we'll be doing pruning and plant supporting and you know kind of as the garden progresses it's going to match whatever is growing in your garden. 04:16 And of course we offer field trips and hatching eggs. And we've had field trips here and we kind of try and cover the base of basically however it is that we can help connect our community back to these foods that we're providing for them. We kind of have a few different angles for that, like you mentioned with the classes and all of that. 04:46 I will put it this way. It's meant to be farm school for kids. By the time we get about halfway through it tends to be the parents that are really you can see the wheels are turning and they'll start asking some really good questions. They participate too. So I call both the kids and my parents. I call them my farm kids while they're here. So I have Awesome. I haven't Great. Yeah. I haven't done any like adult farm school classes. 05:13 But I have had every year, I've been doing it, this was our third year so far, and every time I've had at least one family come, if not more than one, where they say, I ask everybody first week, why'd you sign up for farm school? What is it that you're hoping to take away from here? Because we have that luxury of being able to kind of make sure that we cater to your interests and yours a little bit within our topics. And every year I have at least a couple families that they're either actively looking for land to start farming on their own. 05:42 Or they've just gotten there and they're like, well, we were hoping we could kind of come get this crash course and then we know we're kind of getting off to a good start because you've been doing this and you know what works and what doesn't and kind of have that good start. So that's always really, it's a really gratifying feeling for me when I, when I have those families and it's, you know, they'll come back to me later in the summer or the following year and they'll be like, hey, we're doing this. Thank you again for firm school. It was so great to learn this. And 06:09 know, we don't feel so lost getting our first goats or starting this or whatever it might be. 06:15 That's amazing, fantastic. Okay, so are you, did I see that you're in New York? Yes, upstate New York. Or not quite upstate, I don't know how you wanna call it. To anybody outside of New York, upstate means anything but New York City. When you live in New York, I would technically be Western New York. Okay, got it. It's kinda like Minnesota. Minnesota is either up north at the cabin or the Twin Cities. Those are the two things that you hear about the most for locations, so. 06:45 Okay, I had a thought while you were talking and a horn honked really loud outside and distracted me. Oh, I didn't mean it. You probably wouldn't because I have headphones on and a noise reducing mic. Perfect. However, it's going to be distracting. We have had flooding happening all around us because of the heavy rains we got for eight days in a row. Oh, boy. And a dam failed in a city that's about- Oh, my goodness. 07:14 half an hour southwest of us. So our little cute tarred two lane country road is now a detour for a lot of the major roads here. So I have been listening to cars go zoom in by all morning and I hadn't even thought about the fact that people are going to be stupid because they're not familiar with the area. So I've been hearing brakes screeching and horns honking and I'm like, did we move back to the city? This is crazy. 07:44 So if I seem distracted, that's why it's been a nutty couple of days here. No problem. Okay. So you have farm school, which is great. And I am so impressed with what you're doing because people really do, I think, need to learn how to grow at least some basic nutritional food if they have the room to do it because we all learn during COVID supply chain issues happen. 08:14 Absolutely. So do you sell your produce on property or at farmers markets or anything? So I have not sold any produce, the fruits and veggies specifically, just because we have a small garden here that's just for us. And my reason for that is because the area that I'm in, I've had a lot of people in town tell me that I am convenient country because I'm 15 minutes from 08:44 downtown in our city. So, you know, I'm 10 minutes from the airport. So it's not like I'm out in the middle of nowhere, where like, if you need to go to the grocery store, it's a 30 minute drive, like it's five minutes to the grocery stores, like three of them within five or 10 minutes, it's, it's quite close. And so I live in an area where there are some farms within like 15 minutes of me. And you know, it'll be like, there's a beef farm a couple miles from me. There's another pig farm. 09:14 I want to say about 15 minutes west of me. And so there's kind of these little same-as-mine small farms that we do a little bit of this and that. We're not going to feed our community entirely, unfortunately. We couldn't replace the grocery store between us. But I'm really in an area where there's very limited availability for what I'll call the good meat, the pasture raised. It's not the factory farmed. It's not in Styrofoam and shrink wrap at the grocery store. 09:42 And so since I'm in such a pocket of, you know, we have CSAs, we have fruits and vegetables, you know, some bigger farms that are 20, 30 minutes that, you know, they're big enough now, multi-generational, that they have drop zones in different towns, et cetera. And so, like you said, people need to grow their own. My, my personal philosophy has always been that if you have the room, like you said, if you have the room and the physical capability, you should grow your own food. If you can do any farming and raise your own chickens, for example. 10:11 you should do that. And then if you can farm enough and sell extra, you should do that. And the reason that I kind of follow that mentality here is that, you know, we live in a suburban area. Most people have a backyard or a balcony in their apartment or something where they could grow something. And so I feel like personally, if I could change the world, if I could have a magic wish to change the world, everybody would grow their own produce and they can do that on their quarter acre, half acre yards throughout our town. 10:40 but they can't have their own livestock. And so I feel like my first focus needs to be growing what I'm doing here and being that resource for the livestock. You know, my pipe dream down the road is to have a little micro dairy here. And those are the kinds of things that you can't do on a half acre in your backyard around here in this town. And so I will provide what you are literally, like legally incapable of providing for yourself otherwise. And then it's that idea of 11:09 you know, let's work together to put food on your table as opposed to like, you know, it bugs me that we have door dash these days for McDonald's, like drive-throughs are no longer fast enough and convenient enough. We now need to have it delivered. And I think that speaks volumes to the direction we've gone. And I feel like by providing the meat and encouraging these garden classes and farm school and all of that, I'm trying to kind of help reach as many as I can back towards what you're saying. 11:37 We all know that it's smart to grow our own food. We need to more collectively, we need to be doing that. So any of the pork and stuff we have, the pork, the chicken, the eggs, I do an online farm store, virtual farm store, if you will. Do not do markets just because it's tremendously inconvenient to try and run a farm by yourself and also. Sorry, yeah, it's really, it's tough to try and run a farm by yourself and then. 12:05 you know, also be at a market at six in the morning because like who's going to do farm chores if you're sitting at a market all day, um, you know, and dragging the kids along and there's just a lot of chaos with that and transporting, you know, frozen pork, refrigerated eggs. It's a whole different game than taking produce. And it just works out better to just do the virtual farm store. Customers order what they want. They pay for it online or have a cash box if they want to bring cash with them. Um, you know, but they order and I have a little pickup spot and. 12:33 little pickup fridge down at the road and it's just a beautiful system to me. We started doing it when everything was still the you know the no contact covid stuff and so it's like that's just beautiful. I can just go drop it and carry on with my day and you know I don't have to sit and wait for somebody to be here at an exact time to hand them their stuff. I can just here you go curbside pickup let's make it work. Yep absolutely we have a farm stand on our property and that's why I love it because they just come in and they pick out what they want and leave the cash in the box and 13:03 It's awesome. So you were saying whatever you can legally grow or do or whatever. What are the regulations for for selling eggs and meat for you? Because in Minnesota, as long as the people come to our property to pick up eggs from us, from our chickens or if we had meat chickens and we butchered them here, they could just buy it from here. There's nothing that says that they can't. 13:32 So what is it like in New York for you? That's a great question. So there's a lot of nuances that if you want to buy, I think a lot of people are familiar with a whole hog or a quarter cow or something like that, the bulk purchasing, those kinds of things, they have to be done by a butcher. I think there is some tiny little loophole of the farmer butchering themselves. But I think it's a good idea to have 14:00 I don't have that kind of time, so I never bothered to look into it. But generally, I have to go to the butcher for that. I have to pre-sell it. So like I can't take a cow and if I only have three quarters of it sold, technically, I'm not supposed to take that cow to the slaughter yet because I haven't sold that last quarter. It needs to have a customer, you know, an actual owner has transferred ownership in that way. And then it's the farmer, I'm just providing the service, taking it in. 14:30 know, just the cuts like just a pack of bacon or just the pork chops or whatever. Those have to go through the USDA inspected butcher. I'm not sure I would assume that's similar for where you are or where anybody is honestly. But yeah, so that makes it a little easier for me because then I can still just get it butchered and put together if you will a quarter pig or whatever and then sell it after the fact that I can just, you know. 14:58 sell it when I sell it kind of thing. Meat chickens, I can butcher them here up to what is it? I want to say up to a thousand birds per year. So if I do meat chickens and I do Thanksgiving turkeys, there's a conversion there. So I can't do a thousand bodies if you will, because one turkey counts as four chickens or whatever. It's a weird bunch of annoying math. But yeah, we can butcher those up to a thousand chickens. 15:28 on farm and I can sell those at a market or I believe that those can go to if there was like a small grocery store that wanted to carry them I could put them there. Any of the pork that's going through the butcher that has to go through a USDA butcher in order to go to a grocery store anything like that. Eggs can be on farm or at the farmers market. There is no as far as I'm aware there's no real inspection or anything for. 15:56 like the small stores, if you were partnering with another farm, like I know a beef farm that's nearby that she had offered that I could put my eggs in their cooler and they'll sell them there because they don't have chicken eggs for their customers. So there's kind of some flexibility there, but generally I haven't really worried about the retail sales and whatnot just because I don't. 16:25 I don't want to say I don't believe in it. Because I still frequent the grocery store now and then too, but I just, I feel like it's kind of more the right direction for the world to go that we go back to buying direct from the farms. And so I'm not going to go jump through hoops to make sure that I can sell it somewhere else. I'm going to do what I do to sell it here off the farm. And so I think it's the same as yours as far as as long as I'm... 16:52 doing it here, selling it direct from the farm, direct to consumer, then that's okay. If we were to cross into, I'm not doing it yet, but if we were to do raw milk, that one is really particular. It has to be on the farm only, cannot be sold through any retail outlets or anything like that. Yeah, that's what it's like here too. 17:14 The reason I asked is because every state seems to have at least one or two things is different from every other state. So I try to ask when people are dealing with this stuff. Fair enough. Yeah, there are some nuances. So what brought you to this? Why are you doing this? How did you get into this? That's a really great question too, because ever since I was a kid, I wanted a farm. 17:41 without having any clue what kind of farming I was going to do because I did not grow up in farming at all. I grew up spending a couple of weeks every summer at my grandparents' house where they had a big old garden and my grandfather had honeybees, which I forgot to mention we do have honeybees here too. I kind of got used to that and you go pick it fresh out the garden and as my grandma says, you pick the beans and it's like one for me, one for the basket. 18:09 you know, and doing the canning and that kind of thing with them and cooking with her and really that homesteading kind of feel without them having any livestock or anything. But I always told her I was going to buy the sheep farm that was next to her and I was going to live there and that would be my little farm. And I don't know why, but I've always had that in my head. You know, grew up, went to college, met a guy that I don't even remember having the conversation with him, but he also always wanted to be a farmer since he was a kid. 18:36 You know, we just happened to cross paths the right way. Um, and so it was just always our dream to, you know, move out of the suburbs, buy land, um, and do a farm. And we, we initially bought this property, um, to homestead and specifically not sell it to anybody. We just wanted our own little like micro ecosystem, grow our own grain, do our own hay, the whole nine. Um, and that's what we really wanted here. When we had first moved, of course we did the stupid thing of not. 19:05 Donating things before we moved we moved all of our crap and then donated it as we unpacked So, you know the other side of the coin there As we were doing that we were posting it at our local by nothing group on Facebook And so we had people coming and you know picking up like the extra nightstand you don't need in this bag of clothes And whatever and almost every single person that came up the driveway to pick stuff up. They would see our chickens out there Because we got chickens within I don't know four or five months of moving in I think it was super quick 19:33 And so people would see our birds and they're like, oh, do you sell eggs? And we said, no, we, you know, they're only like two months old at the time. Like they're not even laying, but no, we don't, we don't have any eggs for sale. And they said, well, if you ever have extras, you know, down the road, then, you know, please send me a message. I'd love to buy them. I don't know where to get farm fresh eggs around here. 19:53 you know, and we just kept getting those kinds of things. We had somebody come pick something up and she's like, would you ever consider raising meat birds? Like I will pay you just to raise them for me because I can't do them where I am, but I want pasture raised chicken and I can't find it. And so that was really kind of our clue into this. Like I said, in our area, there are not a lot of farms. I'm pretty much right in the center of our town itself. You know, the sign says Child Life Center, but as... 20:23 As we kind of kept doing this, you know, get rid of our junk thing, we just started to really feel like, you know, we were researching it and looking into it. We're like, wow, these people are not kidding. Like where do you get pasture-based chicken around here without driving, you know, 30 minutes out of your way somewhere? And so it really just kind of started to feel like maybe we got, you know, planted on this property not just to homestead for ourselves. 20:54 you know, we can provide these products to these people that are asking for them. So we should. And so we just went for it, started up the LLC and we've just grown from there. So you had an already established demand for what you were doing before you even moved in. In a, in a really unexpected way, I guess. Yeah, we did. That is so lucky. That's so lucky. That's great. Um, okay. 21:23 So tell me again when you moved there, tell me how long you've been there. So we've been here since 2020. We dealt with a nice long closing during, you know, COVID and all of that. And we officially started the farm business in August of 2021. Okay. Do you love it? I mean, it's been four years. So in your four years of getting it started and meeting your neighbors and finding out there was a market for what you were doing, 21:53 and all the things, are you at the point where you love it? 22:00 It's a trick question, isn't it? A little bit, yeah, but I ask everybody. Yeah, you know, I mean, there's the usual of, you know, you get certain days or certain weather and you're like, ugh, why am I doing this? I should just shut it down. I should quit, you know, because nobody really likes having to chop up ice water in the winter in livestock troughs. And nobody likes having to, you know, if the equipment goes down, well, guess what? You still gotta get water and feed to the animals. And so if you're hauling it little by little on a wagon or something, then that's what you're doing. 22:30 You know, there are moments where it's hard, of course, and I think any farmer listening can relate to that, and kind of you have to just get through it. But I guess I'll word it this way. I don't know that I've ever asked myself the question, do I love what I'm doing? But I will word it as, I love the life that we're living here. You know, and I'll take the bad with the good. I've had my moments of, this is tough. 22:55 I've had my moments of that existential crisis of like, should I keep doing this? This is a lot of work for one person and, you know, trying to do all the fencing and the expanding and clearing land and all of that. It's a boatload of work. But at the same time, I can't see myself doing anything else at this point anymore. I thought about that for a while that I was like, if I shut down the farm business, if I took it back to just, you know, back it down to homesteading only. 23:25 What would I do as my job? I don't know. I don't know what I would want to do. I don't want to go sit in an office all day. I don't want to go be a cashier at the grocery store. You know, I just, I would pick what I'm doing every day, day in and day out, the good, the bad, the ugly. I would take all of it over, you know, corporate America, for sure. I do not miss that world. Yeah, okay. 23:51 I'm going to say it out loud, I probably shouldn't, but I think anybody who's worked in corporate America and then ends up doing what you're doing and what we're doing here would agree with you 100%. Working in an office is not a natural state of being for a human being. It shouldn't be. I agree. 100% agree. As I sit at my computer and talk to you at a desk. Weird. But... 24:21 But I chose this and I see it as not really work. It is something that I love to do. And I feel like work has this connotation of going to a job you don't like to make money so that you can go home and maybe eke out the time to do things you do like. 24:44 And my job, I love this job. I don't make any money at this job yet. I'm almost to the point where I can monetize the podcast and then maybe I'll have a little bit of money coming in. But it's a job and I love it. And when I talk with you and all the other people that I've talked with, I learn so much from you. And all the listeners learn so much from you. And that's what I wanted when I started this. 25:13 I love when I say, do you love what you're doing? It's either this long pause because no one's really thought about it. And the answer usually comes down to, yes, I love the choice that I've made. I've yet to ask someone and they're like, no, I've decided I hate it and I'm going to quit. You know? Right. But I always ask because it's always phrased differently. It's always a different reason why the person loves the life they've chosen. 25:41 So I will always ask because I want to know. So anyway, what else? Do you have kids? I do. I have two of them. Are they young? Are they teenagers? Are they grown? We're elementary age. And are they involved with the stuff on the farm? Whether they like it or not, yes. OK, do you think that they do enjoy some of it? So they were really little. 26:11 The one was about three and a half, the other was about five and a half when we moved here. Just getting here and having a bigger backyard in their minds to run around in was like a dream come true, right? My son especially, he's a runner, so he can go. We're surrounded by woods. He's got a really clear fear of the woods, not fear, but he had an innate, this is the stopping point. He's loved it because it's a three or five acre open space that he can just go. I know he's not going to get lost anywhere. 26:40 So that's been great for him. And then as everything's grown, like my kids were so excited when we got those first chickens, it lined up to be really close to their birthdays. And so I was like, guys, do you want chicks for your birthday? And they were like, yes. So while we're doing the hatchery order for our first things, I took each kid and I sat down at the computer and I scrolled for what must have been hours of like, what do you want for chickens? And my one daughter was like, 27:11 I want the blue eggs. I gotta have blue egg chickens. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's find blue egg chickens. Here's your options. We narrowed it down what the feathers look like. She picked out her chickens. She's thrilled. My son did the same. We picked out chickens. He's thrilled. So I think that was kind of the clue in of like, okay, good, we're raising farm kids here. As time has gone on, they have claimed this animal or that as quote unquote theirs. 27:35 the one goat for whatever reason my daughter claimed as hers. It was one of the first ones we got and I'm like, um, it's mine, but sure you can call it yours if you want, whatever. But you know, fast forward a couple of years and this spring when that goat had her kids, my daughter was in there as the goat kitted. She wanted to take a video of it, but like, she's watching, you know, the slimy mess that is kidding. And she's just right in there coaching her like, come on pancake, good girl, you can do it. It's the cutest thing. 28:04 My son has shown an affinity and a love for when we have to stack hay bales or any of this build muscle kind of stuff. He's at that age now where he wants to be the tough guy. They might be a little grudging sometime when we have to go do chores and it's raining, but when we have good weather especially, then they're eager to do it. 28:32 And it's been amazing to see things like, you know, I'll say, hey guys, we've got to get going on chores and, and, you know, like it's time to go outside. We're done with breakfast and all of that. And like, let's go do chores. And they'll be like, okay. And they run out and they know the routine that they just, they grab the buckets. They start scooping food for the chickens, for the pigs and whatever. And like, they just know what they're doing. You know, I know that if, if something happened or if I wasn't here or whatever, and somebody else had to do the chores, like my kids have done that, that they'll tell people this is what it's got to be. And this is what we're doing. And. 29:02 It's just so cool to see these little kids, how do I want to word it, that in certain moments they show up as the farmer. And it's the coolest thing to see. So they do enjoy it. And honestly, I'm sure that mom doesn't really like going out and doing the chores when it's cold and snowy or cold or any either. I do not. So they're no different than a grownup doing it. Right. 29:32 No, I can't blame them. I can't blame them. And you know, I have asked them outright within the last probably six months. Just out of curiosity, like, do you like being a farm kid? You know, would you rather be no because we homeschool and so it's obviously a whole different game here. Versus public school and you know, it's not like I'm making them work and then go sit school for six hours and then come home and do more chores and So it's a totally different feel to life. But it's like, do you like our life here? Do you like what we're doing? And they're both like 30:01 yeah, I don't want to go to public school. I want to keep doing this. It's like perfect. That's all I needed to know. I love that you asked them because there are lots of parents who wouldn't have thought to ask. I mean, it's not like I'm going to ditch the farm and move. No, but you wanted to check in with them. Right. And I would maybe structure our days a little differently. Like we only live a couple miles from my parents. And so there might 30:31 You know, there might have been a conversation of like, well, maybe you're going to go, they're both retired. Like maybe you guys are going to go hang out at their house for a couple hours, more than one day a week. Kind of, you know what I mean? And, and we could kind of shift that of like, you know, just the way we structure our day was really, that was why I asked the question was like, if I need to do the chores without them, I'm going to do it at a different time of day than if they're going to help me with it. And then at the same time, there was still that conversation in my own head with myself of. 31:01 You know, we didn't move here so that we could all be separate. We didn't buy a farm so that the kids wouldn't have to do the chores. And it's not that they have to do the chores, it's that we want them to do the chores because they do have such a good work ethic from it. I see a huge difference in my kids and even among other homeschooled kids, because there tends to be a difference between, you know, public schooled kids and homeschooled kids, and then there's a different group of the farming and the homesteading kids. 31:27 They have a different work ethic. They don't give a hoot about video games, you know? Like their idea of fun, I keep asking them, guys, why do we have so many toys? Because their idea of fun is literally catching a little tiny toad and making it a habitat or playing swords with sticks that they find on the ground or just picking it up and it's a walking stick and we're just walking around the grass. It's like, wow, they don't need anything. They just, they're one with nature now. 31:53 Even if they didn't like being farm kids per se, I might change what their chores were, but we're never leaving this just because I can see how good it's been for them. Yeah, and they will never outgrow the wanting to play with toys from nature. There was a big fat toad on our quote unquote patio. We have a cement pad that sits in front of our door. 32:23 so that you could put like a picnic table or something out there. We just haven't gotten to it because all it's done is rain here. Um, but anyway, big fat toad out there this morning at the bottom of the steps. And I texted my son, he's 22 and he was doing something in his room. And I said, there's a big fat toad on the, on the pad outside. And within seconds he was downstairs to check out the toad because he loves frogs and he loves toads and he's not elementary school age. 32:51 And he has always loved snakes and frogs and lizards. He would have a lizard if I would let him, but it's mine and my husband's house. We are his parents and I don't want a lizard in my house. So we don't have a lizard in my house. I don't want one for a pet. I really don't. We have a dog, we're good. We don't need any more pets in the house. But point is, if kids are raised around nature and taught... 33:19 to love that life, it lasts their entire lifetime. So I think it's great. And I'm obviously the converted, you're preaching to the choir. I agree with everything you're saying. But I think that, I don't want to make anybody mad here. I think that when kids are raised in the city, like in the city, I don't mean small town, I mean like downtown Chicago or New York City or whatever. 33:49 They don't have the opportunities to be exposed to toads and frogs and birds and whatever nature. And it's a shame. It really is a shame. Oh, I agree. So that's where I'm at with it. And if you're raising your kids in a big city and they're happy, good, you're doing the right thing. But that's not how I wanted to do it because it's not how I was raised. So 34:17 It's really hard on this podcast because I just want to be like pro nature, pro grow your own food, pro everything that I believe in. But then I have to remember that not everybody does it the way that I do. So you know what though, you're doing a great thing because you know, like you said, people hear this and other people listening can learn things. And I hope, you know, it's not my place to say per se. But if I could dream of one thing that would come from people listening to me in particular in here, I would hope that a whole bunch of other little farms are doing farm schools 34:48 Because we had field trips with a school. We have a couple of schools that I have sold hatching eggs to for the last couple of years for the life cycle units. And so the one school was like, hey, can we do field trips too? And really connect the kids to this is where your hatching eggs came from. And now the chicks are going back to this farm. And it was the sweetest thing of how many kids gave me a hug when they were leaving. And how many kids were like, you know, I want to be a farmer when I grow up. 35:17 as they're getting back on the bus. I had kids that were saying, okay, you know, like, we'll see you next year in first grade. I'm like, oh my God, please come back. That would be so fun. But, you know, it- Your heart, your heart was probably five times too big for your chest cavity. It sure was, but it was just, it was that, as the guy at the school that, you know, coordinated all of this, he said, you know, most of these kids, this is the first time they've ever been to a farm. You know, they're really- 35:44 They're not exactly, it's a fairly rural-ish area, suburban sort of rural area where these kids are coming from. But at the same time, he's like, most of these kids, they're not getting out into that kind of area. They're not getting out. And I mean, even the parks are very structured with the equipment and they're in the suburbs, right? So there's always houses around and it doesn't feel like you're going to the woods. Whereas my property... 36:10 The buses, if I wasn't standing in the road, the buses would buzz right by us because you can't tell that there's nobody here. And so it was just the coolest thing to really kind of do what you're saying of give these kids this opportunity to realize this is amazing. It's so worth it. Yes. And the other thing is that the air smells different where you are versus where they live. Right. 36:39 And I don't mean it's stinky because you have animals. I mean, it just smells cleaner and different to where they are. And I feel like that's important too because people like to travel to experience different things. And different things can be as simple as the smell of the air being different. Oh, I agree. I agree. So... 37:08 So you're giving them, you're literally giving them a culturally different experience when they come to the farm. That's a good way to word it. Yeah. So you're doing a great thing. And I think that's wonderful. And I'm so glad I had the chance to talk to you today. Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time. It's been over half an hour. So I'm going to let you go. Thank you again. 37:35 And we're going to have to chat a year from now, because I want to see where you're at. All right, sounds great. All right, thanks Roxanne. Yeah, thank you for having me. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Debra at Harvest Creek Farm & Retreat. 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 chatting with Debra at Harvest Creek Farm and Retreat. How are you, Debra? I am doing wonderful today. Thank you, Mary, for inviting me today. 00:22 Oh, you are very welcome. I need you guys to talk to me or I don't have a podcast. So thank you for being willing to come visit. Tell me about yourself and Harvest Creek Farm and Retreat. Well, we started about three years ago and my husband and I were just looking for about five acres. We live in a subdivision and I wanted to have some chickens and I wanted to grow some vegetables and fruit trees. And well, you know what HOAs are like. 00:50 We would try to find about five acres. Well, we came across this 15 acre parcel that used to be a farm decades ago. And so we slowly but surely, it had completely grown up. It was woods, forest. So over the next about a year or so, it was literally just excavation and taking down trees and just trying to get back the pasture again. It was so overgrown. And so we started working on that. 01:20 put in a little vegetable garden that first year and it did amazing. So we started growing vegetables and we had our chickens and ended up buying four or five more acres adjacent to our property. So now we have 20 acres and it is just exploded and we have now built a pavilion on it. We have a vacation cottage that people love to come and stay and we've left, we left quite a few woods and put the cottage near that. 01:50 So people have a place to just come and relax and get away from city life. Yet we're only minutes from the main city of Lenoir City. So it's just been an incredible project. As all farmers know, it is tireless. You never get caught up. And so we've had help here and there that we've hired. But basically my husband, myself, and some friends really have been helping us here and there. But now we are officially 02:19 A You Pick Flower Farm. Nice. Okay. So, you're in Tennessee and how many years ago was this that you started it, that you bought it? Three years ago. Okay. Yeah. All right. Awesome. I want to talk about the flower farm for sure. Yeah. But I also want to talk about the work involved. Did you get your chickens? 02:44 So yes, we had chickens for, I think it was about 18 months and we started doing a lot of traveling. We've actually joined the Tennessee Agri-Tourism Association. Oh yeah. Yeah, we've been going to those conferences and getting more involved in that. So as you know, you just can't leave animals. No. It just got to a point where the chickens were not going to be our focus. So we were able to have them adopted by some friends. And so they're happy. They did not get beheaded. 03:13 Good. Yes. And so now we do not have any animals on the farm. Eventually, we'd love to get some horses. I actually lived in a farm in Australia on a stud ranch for some time. And so that's always in my heart. So eventually we'll get horses. But right now we're focusing on the flowers. Okay. You lived in Australia on a what ranch? A stud farm, a stud ranch. Stud, stud ranch. All I heard was said. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. Sorry. 03:43 Okay, Stud Ranch, that makes more sense, thank you. Okay, so you have the flower farm. Do you do events around the flowers? Do you sell the flowers? What's involved in the flower part of the business? So we actually ended up putting a farm store at the bottom of our property to sell our vegetables and to sell our flowers, which has now become this beautiful little boutique farm store that we carry honey, not from our own property, that we purchase honey from. 04:13 and we have flowers, other flowers and gifts and candles and soaps and things like that and wind chimes and garden theme that people love to just stop by. We just started that last month and so now they will come to the farm store and they will sign up for their you pick time and then they'll go out and they'll start picking flowers. So yes we have a pavilion and because we're part of the 04:40 We have a minimum 15 acres and we're part of the agritourism association. We can have events under, under that. So we will eventually do weddings and have lots of other fun events here. Awesome. I just, I just chatted a week or so ago with a lady who lives a couple of towns up from me and she has a flower place too. It's freedom, freedom, forge flower farm or something like that. 05:09 And she does events. She's got three planned this summer. And it sounded like so much fun. But I'm not so big on the pollinators that go with the flowers. I mean, I love them. They do their job. They're important. But I don't really want to be walking through the flowers and get popped by a bee. So not really my thing to go to. However, I love 05:34 I love, love, love flowers. I mean, when we moved here four years ago, the first thing we did was get peony roots in and tulip bulbs in and daffodil bulbs in because there was nothing here. The only flowers here were hostas. And hostas don't count for me as a flower because they're not my favorite and they love shade. And the only place to grow them was on the backside of our house, which is where the only door in and out of the house is. 06:04 So everything else, which is grasses and wildflowers, there was no anything here for cutting flowers, as it were. You've really transformed your place. We have, oh my goodness. Isn't it? It's a lot. It's a lot of planning. It's a lot of thinking through. It's a lot of knowing, or if you don't know, learning, what will grow where. Yes, trial and error all the way. 06:34 What I have never in my life had more appreciation for farmers. The dependence on the weather, the dependence on what kind of pests are going to come that particular season. Some seasons are stronger than others. What do I use this year? It's like you finally see your apple trees coming in and these beautiful sweet apples and then you go out the next day and they're all gone. That happened to us last year. We still don't know what happened. There was not. 07:02 even one on the ground. They were gone. Do you have deer in your area? Yes, there are a few deer, but they were in a location. There's no way they could have reached the top of those trees. They're tall. So quite interesting, but you don't know. You just have to go with the flow and the breaks come sometimes and sometimes the difficult challenges arise and you just ride through them. 07:30 because there's going to be a sweet season coming. Yes, and you have to either laugh or cry and either one is perfectly acceptable. Exactly. We had a whole bunch of lovely apple blooms this spring. There is not a single baby apple on any of our trees because we had a huge windstorm when the trees bloomed and they took the flowers, gone. Nothing to pollinate. Devastating, isn't it? It's... 07:59 It's my dad, my dad would say it's such a pissa because he's from New England and it really is. It's such a disappointment. Yes. But there's always next year and we had some apples last year so we actually got to try them. They were fantastic. So there's always another season coming and that's, I think that's what all of us who grow produce rely on. Definitely. Yeah. It's not the easiest thing on earth. 08:27 It's also not the hardest thing on earth either. Right. Right. And I think that's why we really chose flowers, too, because we because we have so much land here. We ended up doing a flower trail. And so people can go to different zones over it throughout the farm. And so they can just go for a hike, basically, and pick flowers. While they're hiking, we did not concentrate all our flowers in one garden. We spread them. 08:55 over the entire 20 acres on trails. And fortunately, we've had plenty of sun in each of those locations. And we've measured and we're almost a mile of zinnias. Wow. It's pretty incredible. I think we can probably take the Guinness World Book of Records on that one. I think that's a lot of zinnias. Do you guys have a drone? Do you have any way to take aerial footage of your gardens? 09:22 Thank you for that reminder. We do have a friend that does that. And yes, yes, yes, they're in full bloom right now. We totally need to do that. Thank you, Mary. Yes, do that, because I want to see them. I ask because I'm selfish. I want to see this. And then the other question I have for you is since you grow flowers and you clearly love growing flowers and you know how much happiness flowers bring to people, I'm not. If you don't do this, I'm not telling you you have to, but something to consider. 09:52 Do you donate flowers to, I don't know, hospitals for patients or to nursing homes or any of that? This is our first year and they just came to the Zoom two weeks ago. So that is a fabulous idea. Yes, I will definitely look into that. I love that. Yeah, I, they're okay. Where we used to live before we moved here, there was an 10:18 what they wouldn't have called 100 years ago or 80 years ago an old folks home. And now it's called assisted living or whatever for folks who are older and need some help. And they would get bouquets from the local florists, just extra flowers that the florists weren't going to use. And they would give them to the people who live there to have in their rooms. What a beauty. It just spurs things up. 10:48 I was like, she's grown a lot of flowers. I wonder. I think I have a new assignment now. Definitely. Wonderful idea. Yeah. And I mean, man, if I was 85 years old and could not really get out in nature, I would be thrilled to have a bouquet of flowers brought to my room. That would make me really happy. Yeah. I'm not there yet, so we're good. Right. Yeah. Good job for that. Well, we actually have a lady that lives just kind of in our property when we bought the 11:17 We bought it from her and she really didn't want to move. So we sectioned off a half an acre for her so she could stay. And so 81 years old. And so every time I do the bouquets, because I also do wedding bouquets, just did my daughter's wedding. So I took her one of the bouquets and you're right. At that age, it means the world to them. Yeah, super cool that she got to stay. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, worked out great. Awesome. 11:47 Okay, so what kind of flowers you grow besides zinnias? Because I love every flower I've ever met. Right, we have astur and then we also have some dahlias in and then I have two huge sunflower fields. Okay and is that all? Is that all you grow? So in the fall I will get my ranoculus and my peonies and my anemones in. So that's here. You know it's always in stages. 12:17 Usually I'm not failing. So we're gonna get really good at this before we start adding anything else Okay, you mentioned my absolute favorite flower on earth peonies. Have you grown them before? Well, my mother grew them. So I'm originally from Canada and she had a garden she had she did roses and What else did she have? But just flip my mind Azaleas and Rhododendrons and 12:46 She did peonies. She had quite a few in her garden. The weather up there was better, so I'm not sure how peonies will do in the South yet. Yeah, I was going to say, I have been growing peonies in my yard one way or another for about 20 years. And the things that I can tell you about peonies, if you would like to know, is the first year, the first spring after you plant the roots, or rhizomes or whatever they are. 13:16 They won't really do anything. They will just, they will grow. They will have the green leaves and everything, but they probably will not bloom. Second year, second spring, you might get a couple blooms. Third year is when they do really well because they've gotten themselves established. Ah, good to know. Yep, and the thing that people have always told me is the first year is sleep, second year is creep, third year is leap. Isn't that the truth? Yeah, I see it. 13:43 trees all the time when we've bought those emerald green trees, you know, yeah. Sometimes you're thinking, what's going on? They're not growing. And then boom, three years later. But it's such a reminder that farming is patience. It sure is. Oh, you just, the reward is down the road. But patience and yeah, giving God all the way through it is, there's a result at the end. Yep. 14:10 And then the other question I have is how cold does it get in the winter time for you in Tennessee? We had, we've had a couple of rough winters. It has gone down to occasionally eight degrees, which is quite rare for here. It's not, it doesn't usually do that. It usually sits around, you know, 32 degrees, sometimes 28 in the winter in January or so. So it doesn't get biting cold, but the past two years have definitely changed. It's gotten 14:39 and we've lost a lot of plants because of that. And also, as you mentioned with your apple tree, all the blooms, the wind came along and blew them away. We had last year, all our fruit trees were blooming and we had a late, very late cold snap and it killed all the blooms. Yep, I hate that. Yeah. Okay, the reason I asked how cold it gets is because the peonies need time to sleep in the wintertime and they needed to be chilly. 15:09 So as long as it gets to the freezing mark or slightly below, you might have some good luck with peonies. I don't know. Okay. I will not plant a whole field then. I will plant a small garden of them. Thank you. Bye. Yeah. I would hate for you to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on the stock and then have them not do well. That would be terrible. Have you done any ranunculus? I have not. I don't even know what it looks like. 15:38 They're like a little mini rose almost, puffy. They're beautiful, but they're fragile. So I'm a little hesitant, but I'm going to give them a try. Well, you can start small with that too and see what happens. Exactly. We put in, we tried two springs ago, three springs ago. I can't remember now. We wanted to try growing the crocus that puts out the saffron. Oh, I've not heard of that. 16:07 because I read that you could grow it in Minnesota. Well, you might be able to grow it in Minnesota, but I think that the voles, the little rodents, ate the bulbs, because we didn't get any crocuses in there. But we got the regular crocuses. Oh my goodness. And we only bought like 12 bulbs, because I was like, I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on these, not knowing how they're going to do. And really glad we didn't spend hundreds of dollars on the... 16:36 the saffron crocus producing thingies because it would have been a really bad situation. So sometimes you try and sometimes it doesn't work and sometimes you try and it turns out great. Yeah, exactly. And it's quite shocking. We get excited in the spring or kind of in the winter when you know spring's on its way and you can't stop. You start buying all these seeds and bulbs and it's like we've spent. 17:01 thousands of dollars here. You know, because it's exciting and it's fun to buy all that kind of stuff. But boy, you've got to really watch your budget or it can be crazy. Yes, you will go broke trying to grow beautiful things. Yes. We haven't gone broke yet, but we've thought about going broke buying beautiful things. So, okay, so how hot does it get in Tennessee in the summertime? 17:29 We are in the nineties this week and coming week it's forecasted for 95. So the average has been over the years. It's between 85 and 90 throughout the summer. It's definitely way higher this year. We've not experienced nineties like this in June. It's unusual. So, and I'm just hearing that all across the country, different people that I speak to different regions, they're all have new challenges and just 17:57 unusual weather patterns. So you just don't know. Next week it could be in the 70s. Yeah, this weather has been absolute insanity. We got a foot of snow for the entire winter where I live and we usually get three or four feet. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. And then this last two weeks we've had nothing but rain. Yesterday was the first day in eight days where it was sunny and 18:27 Oh my goodness. And that is a very unusual pattern, isn't it? Yeah, that doesn't, that's not, that usually happens like at the end of April into May here. And today's June, what, 24th, 25th? Yeah. Yeah. So, no, this is, it's nutty and I don't love it. And I'm, okay, I've said this a billion times. I'm going to say it again. We grow a farm to market garden here. And, 18:56 for the last three springs. By now, we've had lettuces to sell, we've had spinach and chard and kale. We have nothing to sell right now because we got stuff in and then it just rained. And everything in the garden right now is just stalled out. It's still alive, it's still growing, but it's just really, really slow. And it just reminds you, you can't promise people and customers anything with these. No. 19:25 friends right now. And you say that you grew lettuce. I don't know why I have been so challenged with lettuce. I grow it. It's gorgeous. I pick it and it's bitter. What am I doing? I'll tell you exactly why. If you've had really hot days, lettuce gets bitter if it's too hot out. Oh my gosh. Okay. So there's no doubt that like, I guess just a greenhouse is the only way. Yep. Okay. Yep. 19:54 I won't eat lettuce out of our garden past the end of June because it's just too hot. And it does. It gets that real icky, bitter taste to it. And it looks wonderful. It looks like the most delicious lettuce ever known to man, but you bite into it and you're like, this is awful. It's too hot. That's what it is. All right. Thank you so much for that. Yep. 20:18 Lettuce likes it to be warm during the day and cool at night. It's more of a cold weather crop than a hot middle of the summer crop. So similar to spinach, I guess. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Yep. And kale doesn't matter because honest to God, nobody actually loves kale. No, right? Yes. I'm sure there are people who do, but most of the people I've talked to are like, eh, kale's something, yeah. 20:44 You throw in the pan and wilt to go with your stir fry, because then it tastes like everything else. Yeah, I see. And I am not actually the gardener in my household. My husband is. But I used to garden with him. I just don't love it enough to keep doing it. But he is an avid gardener. So when people bring things up like that, I know the answers. But it's not because I'm still doing the gardening. 21:13 Right. Well, you're doing what you love. And I think it's wonderful you're doing these podcasts. I was able to go in and listen to some of the past ones and I was learning some stuff that other people are sharing and they tried this and that didn't work and then they tried this and that's just, yeah, it's great. Thank you for doing these podcasts. Oh, you are absolutely welcome. I just needed something to do that I was interested in. So it's no skin off my brow to do these. 21:43 I was going to say, because I'm nuts, I am absolutely crazy. I have started another podcast with a friend of mine who is a master gardener in Minnesota. And that one has three episodes out. It's called Mary and the Master Gardener. And I'm not the master gardener. She is. Her name is Liz. So if you want to learn things about gardening, it's not necessarily just gardening in Minnesota. It's gardening wherever. That's wonderful. 22:12 So I can send you the link if you want it later. But it's fun, and we're doing two more episodes on Wednesday to be released on Friday. One's going to be about herbs, and one's going to be about composting. Oh, definitely in on that. We do have quite a big herb garden, too, and we're selling those as you pick. Mm-hmm. 22:34 I love herbs. I love going and picking out herb seedlings. I love growing the babies on my kitchen table in March. I love being able to go cut fresh basil for bruschetta or the stuff you put on pasta. Garlic and basil and olive oil. Pesto? Yes, that. Thank you. 23:01 Yes. I was like, I know the word. Where is it? We have to find some pine nuts, Mary. Oh, that too. Yes. Yes. And oh my goodness, pine nuts are so expensive right now. They are. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. I'm going to have to figure out how to do my own. I'm going to have to find a pine tree and harvest my own pine nuts because this is not okay. Fascinating how they do come from that. I want to learn. 23:27 You can never stop learning, can you? Like, I mean, literally there is so much that we can learn from others and from podcasts and books and YouTube, and you never stop learning. There's so much. I think that my brain would explode if all the gardening things I've ever wanted to know were in it. Yes, so true. Well then, like, I've got to ask the gardeners. And I gotta. 23:51 I gotta warn Liz not to tell me everything or my head will explode because she's brilliant. She knows so much about gardening. I know maybe an eighth of what she knows. Maybe. Right. So, but either way, how are your flowers doing? I mean, when did you get stuff in this year? We got them in the last week of April. This week they exploded. 24:20 So we have, so we're open this Friday for you to pick. There are millions. I mean, I'm not being dramatic. There are so many flowers and they're so beautiful. And the bugs thankfully have not harmed any of the flowers. We were praying for rain. You could see the bottom of the leaves because we've planted so many. They were starting to dry out because we've been in the nineties with no rain. Yeah. 24:49 the rain came and it was a soaking rain and it was just what we needed. And I put on Facebook, thank you Lord for the rain last night. And all these people were liking it. So a lot of the farmers in the area was just like, Oh, everything is so thirsty. So they are doing now that they've also had that drink of water. They are stunning. We do have a lot of photos on Facebook and on our website. Nice. Yeah. Um, as I was telling you, before we started recording, it's been doing nothing but rain here. 25:19 So I would love to just like send you bucket fulls of water from the state of Minnesota because we don't need anymore. And I'm sure just like suddenly your weather is going to change again. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I figure we'll be back in a drought by August, but right now we are nowhere near a drought. Right. Wow. Amazing. And it's so everything that we growers do is dependent on what falls out of the sky or what 25:49 doesn't. Back in April, we were in a drought and had been since last year. And we'd get a little bit of rain and everybody's like, oh, thank God it rained and we need the rain. And then basically the whole month of, well, the end of the month of May and almost all of June, we have gotten rain almost every day. Oh my gosh. That is just a drastic change. 26:16 Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's just it's not great. It's If you're in a drought and you have a well you can water your plants If you're not in a drought if you're in the exact opposite of a drought You can't suck the water back out of the ground. Mm-hmm So I would almost rather be in a drought and be able to water what needs to be watered Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, it's it's like in the wintertime in the wintertime if it's too cold 26:45 you can throw on 7,000 layers of clothes and be warm. In the summertime, if it's too hot, you can't be any more naked than naked. It's the same situation. You're right. So it's been incredibly frustrating. My husband has been getting more and more frustrated as it's rained more and more. Yeah. And I looked at him the other day. I said, are you OK? And he's like, 27:14 I'm letting it go. He said, I am, he said, I have been so frustrated with this. He said, I'm letting it go. We have the greenhouse. We have lots of stuff growing in the greenhouse because it's not soaked. Right. He said, as soon as this weather breaks, I will be able to get all that stuff that's been growing into the actual garden and it will do fine. I said, well, look at you being a grownup. He's like, I can't fight the weather. I know. 27:39 And it's so interesting because my husband, Randy, he's been like completely the opposite with the weather. It's been a drought here for a while. And so we bought a huge tank. Well, he bought it and put it on the back of his side by side. He drives around with a hose watering almost a mile of flowers. And of course, 40 gallons doesn't go very far. 100 gallons, maybe it is. And so he's back filling it up again. He's like, oh, I need this rain. God love that man. Yeah. 28:09 Yeah, and that's for my flowers. So sweet, you know, you can just, oh, well, honey, I guess you're croc died. But no, no. He faithfully helps me through all of it. It's it's a joint effort. It takes both of us for sure. He loves you. There's no question in my mind. He loves you. Yes, I do know that. It's a wonderful thing. Yes. All right, ma'am, I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap this up because we're almost at 30 minutes. 28:37 I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and I hope that your you pick goes really, really well. Thank you so much. I love this time sharing with you today. I loved talking with you about flowers. Yeah. All right. Have a great day, Debra. Thanks. You too, Mary.

Today I'm talking with Amanda at BlueSky Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 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 Amanda at Blue Sky Homestead. How are you, Amanda? I'm well. How are you? I'm great. It is really sunny and beautiful here today. So tell me about yourself and Blue Sky Homestead. So... 00:31 I just, um, so Blue Sky Homes had started just not even, probably not even a year ago. I would say about 10 months ago. I started venturing into more homemaking. I'm a stay at home mom. I work on a horse farm part time in the mornings, but other than that I'm home. So I started venturing more into. 01:00 cooking from scratch and the sourdoughs. I got married this past September and my husband lives on a little five acre farm. So we have goats and chickens, which I do not grow up around at all. Didn't have gardens, didn't have animals, except for cats and some dogs. But other than that, nothing. So it was like a, kind of like a culture shock to me really because I've never been around animals like that. 01:29 So, so I decided like maybe I can make my own little website and post things that I'm learning and share it with other people that are new to it and don't know much about it because that's still kind of where I'm always learning. But it's been fun. I still want to venture out into more like holistic things. 01:59 I like, I can't do like perfumes and stuff. Those chemicals really gave me migraines, like really bad. I had to get rid of everything. So I want to start venturing eventually, candle making, like incense and stuff like that, that doesn't cause and doesn't have all those nasty chemicals in them that really destruct your whole body. So. 02:29 I mean, that's where I want to head into, but for right now, I'm still in the works. Okay. Well, speaking of perfumes, giving you migraines, me too. You're taught, you're preaching to the choir. Me too. Oh, really? I know a lot of people and they, like my daughter, she doesn't believe me. She's about to be 16. She buys all Victoria's Secret and bath and body wash and I'm like, get it out of the house. 02:57 You want to know why I have a migraine all the time? Cut that stuff out for a little while and see how you feel. Yeah. Well, he's a teenager though, so. Yep, and you don't want to stomp on him, but you also don't want to have a headache all day every day either. Oh my gosh, yes. So the last time I was at a public entertainment event, it was a chorus thing for my youngest son, and the... 03:27 The high school has had, we don't live there anymore, they still have a really nice auditorium that they built. And we went and I was there for maybe 20 minutes and all the perfumes and all the deodorants and all the colognes, I couldn't even think my head hurt so bad and I didn't have a headache when I walked in. So it does cause issues for people who are sensitive to it. So crazy because I never used to be like that. 03:55 Or I did and I didn't realize it was comics or not because I didn't know anything about this kind of stuff until now, really. So I would, it was, it would really be bad because my husband and I would like, we don't really have date nights. So the one time that we would have a date night, I'd get all dolled up and looking nice. And I would put on my perfume and we would get ready to go. And I'd be in the car driving. And 04:24 All of a sudden my nose felt like stuffy and my head just started. I was like, Oh man, this is not going to be a good night because my head is starting to hurt and I don't know why. Yep. So it was a whole thing where I was reading books and was in a podcast. And I'm like, wow, like that could really be a thing. So I had like 20 different perfumes from like different places. And I just actually gave them all to my oldest stepdaughter cause 04:53 She doesn't care about stuff that doesn't affect her. So I'm like, here you go, you can take them. But it's amazing that just, well, even body lotions. And I was shocked when I learned about how that really can affect your everyday living, honestly. I got rid of all my plugins. I don't use Debreze anymore. So the only perfume that I really found that does not affect me is, it's a brand by Skylark. 05:22 So it's a little crazy. It's a roll-on. They do self-sprays, but when I found it, I initially just got a roll-on. And it's a cream, and I don't have migraines when I wear that. Because I do like perfumes and stuff, so I miss wearing them. But this Skyler line is the only line that I have found so far that has clean ingredients that do not have that effect on me at all. 05:52 is you can put essential oils that you like the scent of on your skin as long as it's in a carrier oil like a sweet almond or an olive oil or coconut oil. The coconut oil that isn't the room temperature hardening kind, I think it's called fractionated coconut oil. Yeah. Okay. I wear a roll-on essential oil blend if I want to wear perfume. And it does not cause any headaches because it's just... 06:22 the natural oils. There's no alcohol, no fixatives, no nothing. It means that you have to put it on more often because it does wear off faster. Yeah, yeah. I do buy oils at Whole Foods. There's little, I wouldn't say there's natural oils. They're like, they're natural oils, like a must. Yep. So there's, it's a clean set. So I have a few of those. There's small ones and there's some of them, but I don't wear them too often just because they're crazy, but. 06:52 Yeah, I have found some alternatives, but being able to like manage and make my own and you know do it that way and to share would be really fun. And candles, I can't do candles. I can do soy based candles. That doesn't give me migraines. And when I say migraines, it's so bad that I can't function. I can't go and do anything. So literally ruins my day. So the soy based candles 07:20 have that effect on me, I don't know. And I do check ingredients because of the phyllates and all those kinds of things that make it bad. But so I wanna do candles and keep all that nasty chemicals out that really damper your day. Yep, I understand. The other thing I was gonna say, since you wanna do candles, is you could do wax melts. And 07:48 That way you don't actually get the smoke from the candle either. That is true. I do like, I do like the wax for sure. Yeah, we make those. They're fab, they're fabulous. We love them. Oh really? Yeah. That's awesome. It's just the candle wax, you know, you just put her into a, I messed that up completely. You just pour it into the little molds and let it set up and then you just put them in the wax melters and they melt and they smell just like candles, but no smoke. 08:17 Yeah, I do like those. I thought, look, I'm in like a couple candle Facebook groups just to get an idea of how the difficultness of making candles and I've watched YouTube videos. YouTube videos, they don't seem so difficult. I mean, it's just the fractioning of everything, I guess that makes it scary. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, once you do it a couple of times, it won't bother you at all. You won't be afraid of it anymore. We 08:45 We started making candles last spring and loved it. Love it. And we still have tons of candles. We sell them at the farmer's market and we're starting to get down on our inventory. So we'll be making candles again here in a few weeks. Yeah, that's awesome. And the whole house smells amazing when you make them. That's what I miss about candles and those because I love a good smelling and my house is always clean and stuff, but like there's no smell. 09:15 At least to me, it means that I live there, and it means the way the house smells. But I love walking into the house and it smells really pretty. Yeah. So I've been missing that. Yeah. My house always smells like whatever we cooked last because we cook a lot from scratch. So, so it's not just something in the microwave and there's no scent. Um, my husband, my husband cooked up hash browns this morning and the food, the kitchen is right below my bedroom, which is where I record the podcast. 09:43 and all I can smell right now is hash browns. I'm like, oh my God, okay. So yes, anyway, we could talk about smells and candles and stuff all day. All day. So what, you said you have chickens and what else on the homestead? Yeah, so we have two sister goats. We did have a male first. Like when I moved in with my husband, he had a male, his name was Fromms. His oldest daughter named him. 10:13 and she was small, but he had, he came down with some kind of brain anemone or some kind of brain thing that literally came out of nowhere. So we tried to help him and the penicillin and stuff and he had just, he passed away very quickly. So we have like this huge hill that we had fenced in for him. So we ended up getting two, two sister goats. 10:42 Two years ago, no, probably three years ago now, but yeah, they're nice. They'll come to you if you have food. That's it. And then when you'll be able to pet them, they don't run to you and want to like be pet all the time. Like I wanted, I wanted goats to love on and they are not lovable girls. I'm sorry if you have food. But, so I mean, they keep the hill that we have, like chewed down so we don't have to like motor anything. They. 11:11 I've been there best of life up there in the woods. But yeah, so then we do have chickens. I started incubating my own chickens three years ago. It's a lot of work to do that, but I love chickens. I just love them. So I have 10 chickens. I did have 11. One, I don't understand chickens and when they die, like what happened? You were completely fine an hour ago and then you're just. 11:40 fall over dad, I don't get it. But this one was in the middle of the yard. It wouldn't move. So I thought it was injured, but it wasn't. And so it's, I had a little bit of blood on its mouth. So I thought maybe a one of the rooster, my rooster attacked it or something. So I put it, put it in by itself. It was walking. It was, it seemed fine. So I was like, okay, put my other chicken in with it the next day, just for some company and the next day it was. 12:11 I don't know what was wrong with it. It's just I hate when things die. So I feel so sad. Yeah, nature is cruel sometimes. Yeah, I just wish I could understand why they just fall over. Don't get back up. Yeah, and I mean, you could take it to the vet and have them do a necropsy and see what caused it, but that's a lot of money to find out that. 12:39 It died from something and it doesn't matter because it's still dead. It's not like they can fix it. So yeah. But I still have 10 chickens, but I think I so I hatched five and I bought three off of my friends who I believe she ordered them. So these chickens are massive. I don't remember what they're called. I can look it up. But they're. 13:07 Two of them are black with turquoise, like a shimmer to it when the sun hits on. Their legs are big. They look, they're literally tiny dinosaurs. They hover over, they tower over my other chickens and my other rooster. They're just massive. But I believe I have more roosters than hens, so I have to figure that out. They're also in their own little cliques. So my original rooster and hen, those two are together constantly. They're inseparable. 13:37 And then the three that I cut from my friend, they are a little gang of themselves. So they stay to themselves. And then the other ones that I hatch myself, they stay to themselves. So they don't mesh well. I don't know how to get them together. I'll put them all in the coop together for like a day or two. And, but they, when they're out rearranging, they want nothing to do with each other. They just stick to their own people, I guess. They're clicky. They're mean girls. 14:05 Yeah, I don't but I do have more roosters than hens. So I'm gonna have to probably get rid of some before they start fighting each other Yes, my black ones are really pretty. They're really pretty Yeah, we have black ones, but they don't have a blues or a greenish blue shimmer to them. They have Coys kind of shimmer. I do have a red one with like um, black mixed in there kind of hmm But yeah 14:35 Yeah, our black ones have like a reddish sheen to the black, like a brown red. Oh, wow. They're really pretty. That's pretty. Okay. So do you grow any produce on the homestead? So my husband actually built me a produce stand because I'm like, I want to start selling off our property, our vegetables and stuff because we eat them, but we eat them, but we still always have much more than what we eat. So I'd like to be able to share it with the community. So it's not. 15:04 fully done, so I'll build my shelves. So our garden, I'm still trying to love gardening. I really am. I'm not a fan. I don't like pulling weeds. I don't, I just don't. But this year I covered my entire garden with the black fabric, which I don't like the fabric. The weeds still grow underneath of it. It doesn't kill it. It just grows underneath. So I'm still like where my plants are. 15:31 I still have to like push my hand underneath and like grab the weeds that are like around it, but it's not anywhere near as painful as it was past years. But I have it completely covered. It just holds cut out where my plants are. So I have tomatoes and peppers. I have a spaghetti squash. I have a watermelon and a zucchini, I believe it is. 15:54 We don't, we eat vegetables, but we don't eat a lot of vegetables. We eat more meat and potatoes than anything, but, oh, and I do have asparagus, which I messed up for like the last two years. I didn't know. I didn't know that you were supposed to like cut it. Like I, I was thought when it would grow, it would have spheres automatically, but this one grew and has like those feathers. And I let it go to seed and then. 16:23 the next year, it wasn't looking like spheres. I'm like, where are these spheres that look like, it's very, it looks like a big tree. Yeah. And so I finally YouTubeed it just a few weeks ago, actually, and I let it go again, like too long. So I guess this fall, I'm supposed to cut it completely and then cover it. And then next season is when they'll come up into spheres. Yeah. I had no idea. 16:52 When did you put them in? I seriously I put them in like two years ago. And she was like, they won't come up this spring. They'll come up next spring. And I'm like, well, there's no asparagus spheres here. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I literally thought it would just be spheres that would come up out of the ground. But it didn't help. Yeah. So I literally been wasting two years of buying produce or buying asparagus from other produce stands because I didn't know what I was doing. 17:21 Well, if it makes you feel any better You really wouldn't have gotten a lot the first year after you put them in or the second year because it takes about three years for them to get Established to where you're getting more than you know eight or ten So and the reason I tell you this because when we moved here four years ago, we put in asparagus crowns In the spring after we moved in in August so like nine months later and 17:51 This is the first year that we've really gotten a lot of asparagus out of the garden. So it takes three, three and a half years for them to get back together. Okay, so that technically should be right on track then. Yep. So, and yeah, you're supposed to cut them. We do it in the fall, but yeah, you're supposed to cut them back after they've done their thing in the springtime. Yeah, because it's like falling over, it's so heavy, it literally looks like trees that are growing in my... 18:21 He made a thing out of skids. Yeah. What is it called? A raised bed? Yeah. So he made one of those for the asparagus. We did, we did carrots one year. So it didn't, they didn't produce very much at all. And then we did potatoes last year and those bugs got in them and just told most of them. So we did it again this year. We're hoping. Potato bugs are the worst ever. They really are. I had no idea. 18:50 They're actual potato bugs. But, and I was like, oh, the potatoes are dead. They're gone. Yeah. They were eaten. Yeah. They will strip them completely. Yeah. So I've been on top of those so far so good, but there, I haven't seen anything coming out of the ground yet anyway. So, but I mean, other than that, I try to just take the things that I know that we eat because of the peppers, I use green peppers and red peppers and all those for a lot of meals. 19:20 Um, so I'll just freeze them. Um, and then I have them for like the rest of the year and the tomatoes last year, I didn't can them, I just throw them in the, all in the freezer. So I was like, this is getting bored. Tomatoes, I just throw them in a freezer or a vacuum seal bag and put it in the freezer. So now my freezer is still like full. The floor of my freezer is still full of tomatoes. So I have to follow them out and probably just make some sauce with some sort and can it. 19:50 Yeah. We have half a cow coming the first week of July. And so I have to clean out a freezer for that. Okay. I'm excited for that. We've never had, we never bought a half cow at a butcher before. So we're excited. Yeah. It's, it's a really good way to have beef year round. That's not going to cost you an arm and a leg. It's a huge outlay at the beginning. 20:19 But you are getting filet mignon and really nice steaks for exactly the same price as your burger and you roast and all that because that's how that works out. It's a great way to do it. Yeah, I feel like it's a huge money saver for sure. It is and it's security. As long as your freezers are working, you have beef for a year. I was going to say about the peppers. Did you know that you can oven roast your peppers? 20:48 and then put them in ziplocks and then they're already cooked for sauces and stuff. No, I didn't. I never thought about that. Yeah, all you gotta do is chop them up the size you want them, put some olive oil in the bottom of a cookie sheet, you know, with the edges. This is, I'm not saying this right, not a flat cookie sheet, a cookie sheet that's got the edges so that the oil doesn't spill out. And then you can season it with whatever you want to season it with. You roast them until they get soft. 21:18 And then you can put them in a ziplock and freeze them. You push all the air out or you can use your seal meal and it does it for you. But they're good for a couple of years in the freezer. Yeah. That's what I like about freezing. Um, and I do vacuum seal and stuff, but I don't, I, yeah, I don't, I like freezing stuff to last the rest of the year when it's not in season. Yep. Um, I'm still trying so I can, we had to get. 21:45 We have mulberry bushes out back also, so we picked mulberries. I made a mason jar of jelly of that. We picked blueberries the past Saturday. We got a lot. And then everybody scattered when it came to like having to wash them, pull their stems out, sort through them. I was spent my Saturday night till like 10 o'clock and I'm really anal about things too, so I probably wouldn't have done it the way that I wanted it to be done anyway. But now I was standing at the sink for like. 22:15 like three hours just going through and stemming and getting out the bad ones. And then my husband comes in and he's like, you're still in here? I'm like, leave me alone. It's a process that I have to do. And he was like, well, you know, I would have used all the bad ones, even just for jelly, you're, you're putting it through the processor. I'm like, leave me alone. Yeah. Not using it. I'm going to give it to my chicken. So leave me, leave me be. I'm doing my job. Yes. Yeah. 22:43 Exactly. So I'm going to start doing some blueberry jam or jellies, which actually my first year doing jellies, it lasted a full year. Like it lasted. I still have a jar from last summer, this summer. And so I don't ever buy jelly ever at the Sourcher store because it was super expensive anyway. We don't ever buy jelly or jam anymore either because we started canning two summers ago and made tons of jams and jellies. 23:12 We made peach butter. You know like apple butter? Do you know what apple butter is? Oh yes, I love apple butter. We made peach butter instead and we still have like 10 jars, jelly jars of peach butter in our pantry right now from two seasons ago. Oh my gosh, I never heard of peach butter. It's really yummy. Yeah, it's thick like apple butter, but it's delicious. Well, peach season is coming up soon I believe, so maybe I'll try that. 23:41 Yeah, you just cook the peaches down like you into like almost like an applesauce texture and do your sugar and your pectin and whatever and tada you have peach butter and I didn't even know. I call it peach butter because it reminds me of apple butter. I don't know if peach butter is actually a thing. I have no idea. But anyway. Well, you just trademarked that. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that you are in Pennsylvania. I didn't mention that at the beginning. I usually try to try to pin that down with people. 24:10 So it's Lancaster, PA, but I live in, my aunt is in Conestoga, but I don't live in the little town of Conestoga. Brighton, Lancaster is like on the border. So we live in a very quiet area and I love it because it's so quiet. My kids are young and they're like, it's boring out here. There's nothing to do. So I mean, they have a park across the street, like it's a nature preserve. 24:38 And they can run over there. Like I'm a worry work. So I'm like, take the walkie talkies and our phones and don't go too far. But they go into playing the creek yesterday. They were gone for like two hours. I started panicking. I'm like, they went on a trail back in the world. So they never been on before. I was not without me anyway. And so I was getting a little worried, but they made it back and they had finally found a little waterfall. And. 25:07 some other teenagers down there that were playing with them. So I just get worried. So it is much different than it was back when I was a kid where you could walk anywhere you wanted. You didn't have to worry about so much. Yes, and you're right. But I'm gonna tell you, I grew up in the woods of Maine, okay, the state of Maine. When I was a kid, we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have walkie talkies, we didn't have any of that stuff. Because I'm 54, those things weren't available then. Yeah. 25:37 And there's nothing better for kids than to just let them go and use their imaginations and make forts in the trees and count the minnows in the creek and all that stuff that the kids miss out on so much now. So good on you. Good job, mom. I know, they really do. Yeah. I love being able to let them go even though I'm like, don't go. My son is 12 and then I have two nine-year-olds and those are the ones that are just like my son, my oldest son. He's... 26:06 He's so adventurous. He just loves to explore and I just have to get out of my head. So he tells me, just stop it. I'm going to be okay. I'm going to come back. I wish she went to the United States in 2020 and it just muscles up my head. Yeah, when I was 12, I would take my bike and ride out to the creek and spend five hours on this flat rock that stuck out into the creek. And I would be out there with a book and just in the quiet and listening to birds and reading. 26:35 And I would come home and my mom would be like, so how far did you get in your book? And she'd look, because I dog-eared the pages because I was a terrible steward of books back then. She's like, wow, you did a lot of reading today. And I'm like, yep. And I saw three deer, and I saw a fox, and I saw a cardinal, and I heard the birds singing, and I saw some fish. And she's like, oh, so you weren't just reading the whole time. I'm like, no. Of course I wasn't. My oldest daughter will do that. So we have an overlook, which I will not let my kids go without an adult, because you have literally 27:05 fall off, you're done. Yeah. I don't let them go to the Overlook where my daughter will go. Um, and she'll take her book and it might be ridiculous, but I make her either take a knife or pepper spray just to ease my mind and that's what she does. Every time she wants to go out, but she does the same thing. She'll go out there for like about two, an hour or two and take her book. Set out the Overlook and read her books and stuff. So yeah, I love. 27:32 that they have that so close to home because like you said, kids don't know anything about the woods anymore. It's just not a thing unless you live in like the country or you have it close by. Mm hmm. Yeah. We ended up taking our kids camping two summers in a row because we wanted them to actually understand that you could pitch a tent, sleep in it and then spend the day outside. And it was lovely. It was also very, very cold. 28:00 The first time we went, it was end of May and it was unseasonably cold. And the day we went was fine and we were all in sleeping bags that night. And then, oh my God, it was like 40 degrees when we got up in the morning. Oh my gosh. Getting up out of a nice warm sleeping bag into 40 degree weather is not, it's a rude awakening. It really is. Yeah. Oh my gosh. 28:26 But it was still fun. We got the fire going and had a hot chocolate and coffee made with a percolator on the fire thing. It was great. They were like, you can make coffee and hot chocolate in the woods? Yes, yes you can. Yeah. So yes, I feel like a lot of kids these days are living vicariously through other people's videos of doing the things. 28:56 And you've got to experience it. You've got to actually do it to know what it's like. Yeah, totally. I totally agree with that. So anyway, we've spent like almost half an hour just not really talking about anything you're doing on the homestead, but talking about how good it is to raise kids with nature and freedom. And that's OK, too. So why is it Blue Sky Homestead? Well, I was. 29:25 really having a hard time finding a name. And so honestly, I was, at my husband, I tried to get him involved in helping me and he was either like, nah, I don't like it, it's too much or then he would shoot out ideas. I'm like, well, I don't like that either. So I actually used chat GPT to find my name because I put in everything that I wanted to do. 29:55 what my interests were as far as using the name for. And it came out with a bunch of names. And I'm like, I really like this one, and I like this one, and I like this one. So I had to narrow it down. So my daughter's middle name is actually Sky. And my favorite color is blue. So I'm like, when I saw that one, I'm like, huh, I kinda like that because there's a significant there, my daughter's middle name. And so it just sucked. And my husband was like, yeah, I like that. So. 30:23 And I didn't even realize the sky part of it until like a couple weeks in. I'm like, Oh, well, let's take this middle name. So I'm glad I, I chose that one. Well, when, when I read it, I, I got a feeling instantly of just peacefulness. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. So it was awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, Amanda, I am really happy that you took the time to talk with me today. And I appreciate it. And. 30:51 Keep raising those kids in the woods is the best thing for them. Yes, I will do that for sure. Alright, thanks so much. Yeah, thank you for having me. Bye. Bye bye.

Today I'm talking with Janae at Graham Fam Farm LLC. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 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 Janae at Gram Fam Farm LLC. Good morning, Janae. Good morning. How are you, Mary? I'm great. I'm so excited to talk with you. Tell me about yourself and what you guys do. 00:25 Well, great. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So I started Gram Fam Farm. Let's see. We officially started about 10 years ago, but we got our company up and running about three years ago. And we grow weeds, what people would call them, and use them for medicinal purposes. So we like to forage and gather and grow our own medicinal plants. And we use them to make all sorts of herbal products and like to teach people about natural holistic 00:53 healing and living and how they can use the plants growing all around them to make medicine for them and their family. Awesome. You are exactly the person I want to talk to today. I know a little bit about like essential oils. Like I know that when I have a migraine, if I open up my bottle of lavender essential oil and smell it, it takes the edge off the pain of a migraine. I know that clove oil can help with tooth pain, like toothache pain. 01:23 I know that mints can help with joint pain, but that's about all I really know. So are you a certified herbalist? Is that correct? So certifications are, I'm not certified and certifications are kind of wonky. A lot of people will claim that they're certified and it allows them more credibility in the industry, but there actually isn't just a standard certification for herbalists. So a lot of herbalists that tend to say they're certified, it may mean nothing. 01:51 So I have experience of 10 years with it. I'm a first-generation herbalist, but I am definitely not certified through any group or anything like that. Okay. I was wondering if certified meant anything because I'm going to say this and I really don't want anybody to come down on me about it, but probably we'll have a hard time with it. I know that when we sell our essential oil blends at the farmers market, we have to label them with what oils we use. 02:22 and we have to name whatever the thing is. I have like something I use for bug repellent and we call it bug off because it's funny, but we're not allowed to say what the oils are good for because the FDA frowns upon that. And so here's where I get confused because there are companies that sell herbal 02:51 things to help with ailments and they're allowed to say what it's for. So why can't I do it or why can't you do it that way but companies can? Do you know? Well, the FDA hasn't hit them yet. Pretty much you're not supposed to make any sort of claim at all about the viability of herbal products or what herbal products are used to cure, I'm doing air quotes, right? Or heal, I'm doing air quotes. You're not supposed to do any of that. 03:21 You can say, it is recommended for this and we recommend it for this. And that's where herbalists like to err on the side of because, I mean, we're not doctors. And so I like to make it very clear, I'm not a doctor. I'm an herbalist. This is an herbal recommendation. This is what I recommend to clients. Recommend is one of the best things, but one of the best terms you can use when you're talking about the benefits of herbal medicine. But as soon as the FDA gets a hold of it, they like to kick out anything natural, unfortunately. 03:52 Yeah, and it's so silly because we did this a long time ago. Yeah, we've forgotten. A lot of people have forgotten about it. The truth's been hidden, you know, and I think it would kill, I don't think it would kill the pharmaceutical industry. Yes. And it's unfortunate that we as human beings pay so much money for manmade things and corrupted things. When I can go out to my garden, pick mint. 04:22 and steep it in a sweet almond oil or an olive oil or a coconut oil, put it on my ankle that is sore because I twisted it, which is not true. I did not twist my ankle. I'm saying if I did. And it will actually help take away some of the ache. Yeah, because it's a hardcore anti-inflammatory. It's the same thing with dandelion. The root is used as an anti-cancer. The astringent properties of it alone are amazing. Same thing with red clover. Red clover is a blood cleanser. 04:50 These things are recommended to treat things like cancer, which actually doesn't need to be cut out of your body, despite what doctors claim herbalists don't think that that's recommended at all. In fact, your body can take care of it itself. It just needs to be given the right conditions to then be able to heal itself. These are a lot of, call them folklore, whatever you will, but these are a lot of remedies that have been used for generations to take away a lot of ailments. People either forgotten about them or they've been intentionally hidden. 05:19 And unfortunately, it's to make money. It's frustrating. And that's the mildest word I can use at the moment on this podcast. Um, so how did you get into this, Janaye? Well, you know, um, when my first son was very young, even right before he, he was born when I was pregnant, I just didn't like, I started looking into a lot of stuff, going down a lot of rabbit holes and I didn't like any of the products that were available on the market as prenatals. 05:46 I was just not a fan of them. They had a lot of crap in there. And so as my kids started to pop out, right, and grow, I started to look into the different sort of alternative treatments and alternative therapies. And it started out honestly, besides the prenatals, with diaper rash bomb. I mean, I was so sick of, I was a working mom at that time. I was in law school and I was so sick of what they were putting on my kiddo at daycare. And I just, I hated it. And so I created my own, you know, diaper rash bomb and I said, put this on him, you know. 06:16 It's got all the good stuff in there without all the bad. And I, I created it out of necessity because I couldn't find anything on the market as a working mom that I trusted. I didn't know anyone who was using herbal products at that time. Um, and so I just was like, you know what, I need to create my own. And so I started to dabble at first and just create the products that me and my family required. Sunscreen was another one that we definitely required. Um, and an alternative sunscreen. And so I just. 06:42 started off out of necessity and eventually it grew into something more and became bigger and bigger and I had people started off with family, hey, can I get some of that? Hey, can you give me this as a birthday present or a Christmas present? And then eventually I started to sell the things that I made and it just kind of blossomed from there. Okay. Yeah. We made, we tried making some sunblock or whatever last year, have never made it before, found a what I thought would work recipe, tweaked it a titch. 07:11 and put it in like little lip balm tubes. Yeah. So it's more like a salve than a lotion. And a couple of the vendors at the farmers market that we know, we asked them if they would try it and let us know how it works. It worked for us, but we wanted other people to try it. And the lady that is one of the organizers for the farmers market came back a week later and said, do you have more? Cause she was using it on her kids. And 07:38 It wasn't stinky. It wasn't oily. It actually stayed on their skin and it cut the sunburn down by half. And I didn't expect it to completely block sunburn, you know, totally. But I figured if she was smart, like most people are with their kids, she would not have them out in the burning sun all day. It is a deterrent is not a cure for sunburn. And she loved it. And I have to get some more to her probably next weekend. 08:08 So you can make this stuff, you can acquire the ingredients, you can forage for it, you can buy it, you can create a thing, and it does work. Yeah, yeah. I mean, moderation is key, right? In everything. Too much of anything is bad for you. Too much water will kill you, right? Same thing with sun. And so people are like, oh, you know, I was outside for 12 hours, you know, and this didn't work. Well, 08:32 yeah, you were outside way too long. Why don't you put on some clothing over the area that's getting exposed to the sun for that amount of time? And it's the same thing with herbal products. It's the same thing with any product you have. Too much of anything is a bad thing. And so you have to be smart. You have to be logical and you have to be reasonable about it. But there are really good natural ingredients that can be used to block a lot of the harmful UV rays when you are out there for a shorter period of time. And if you reapply, it's going to, like you said, block up to half. 09:00 Um, yeah, we've come up with a really good blend. We sell it online. We teach people how to make it for free on YouTube. We do YouTube videos, TikTok videos. We teach others how to make our products for free. And, you know, that's the thing is people say, you know, I can't believe online you're charging $60 for a tincture. Well, I had to grow the plants myself. Then I had to dry them myself. Then I had to steep it for four to six weeks, at least six weeks, I usually say. And then I had to strain it, bottle it, put a label on it. And, and I'm kind of a one band show here, right? Me and my family. So. 09:29 It's worth the money you pay for the natural ingredients you get out of it. And it'll, it'll work a long time. I mean, people don't even bat an eyelash about paying hundreds of dollars for, you know, pharmaceutical, it's going to last them for 30 days, but they won't pay 60 bucks for a tincture that's going to last them 30 to 90 days. So it's, I think people need to, um, come to a realization of what it takes to make natural products, you know, not on this large scale, uh, conglomerate like a Walmart, but you know, with small individual. 09:58 sole proprietors or LLCs making these products. And look, the information's coming to you for free on how you can make them yourself. But if you want to buy ours, then you know it's handmade. And there's something to be said about a handmade product that you can guarantee where the ingredients are coming from. Yes, and handmade always takes more time than a factory will. Definitely, and it's better product. You know, it's a higher end product. We can guarantee it. We're physically looking at it. You know, we are making sure that it is what we expect it to be. 10:29 Yes. And for anybody listening, if you want to find Janaye's products, type in Gram Fam Farm on Google because her stuff will come up everywhere. I did it this morning. Awesome. Yeah. I typed in your business name and I was like, wow, it's two pages in and I'm still seeing Janaye's label or company or whatever. I was like, wow, your Google algorithm is fantastic. 10:58 Thank you. We've been working on it for a long time. Maybe it definitely was not that way two years ago. Yeah. Yep. So I have a question about herbalist versus nutritionist because herbs are fantastic. I'm actually quite sad right now because my herb garden is non-existent at this moment. It got tilled in because my husband decided that he wanted to move it. 11:28 And we didn't have anywhere to put any cuttings from the herbs over the winter because I live in Minnesota and it's cold here and I don't have enough natural light to keep them going in the house right now. So my herb garden is kaput. I think there's basil and thyme in the greenhouse that just went up. And that's it. But I know that herbs have many, many stellar qualities for the body, whether it's eating them or using them in topical things or whatever. 11:58 Do fruits and vegetables, like cherries are supposed to be good for your joints. Spinach is supposed to be good for iron. Do fruits and vegetables count in this herbalist thing or is that more a nutritionist thing? Yeah, I mean, definitely. You want to make sure the quality of your products always a big deal, but we like to say we're naturalists and I am an herbalist. So you're supposed to be getting all your vitamins and minerals from food. 12:26 A lot of people like to say, oh, if you're not drinking quality water, we love distilled water because it pulls out toxins in the body and you're supposed to be eating good enough food where your vitamins and minerals are coming from the food you eat. So if you live an overall healthy lifestyle, then that lifestyle includes fruits and vegetables, whole foods, fresh foods, and a lot of which can be herbs because there's a lot of culinary, you know, there's some herbalists that just practice medicinal culinary. 12:53 art and only focus on the herbs you can eat in the culinary palette. We focus on a bit more and go into tincture and salve and infusions and decoction, different things like that. But I mean, you're supposed to use them all hand in hand. A lot of what we eat and what we know as food today is not actually food. We've grown up with it thinking that it's food, but it's not. A lot of it's just crap. 13:19 products and it's causing our body to be crappy, unfortunately, and not allowing it to work properly. So I mean, if you take the herbal idea to heart, then you should be eating healthy foods along with that and trying to stay... It's very funny. We hear a lot of the time, don't eat frozen foods or stay away from sugar. It really is important. You really are what you eat. And a lot of people wouldn't require... 13:45 the herbal products that we sell for these cleanses and for these detoxifiers if they were eating properly, if they were eating better food. You'd be surprised at how much breath work goes into a healthy body as well, just what oxygen does to the cells and how it can replenish the body. And I mean, you've got flax seed that has natural collagen in it. So I think that when you look at herbalism or when you look at naturalism and you look at all of these Ayurveda, right? 14:13 all of these different alternative healing practices, they really all go hand in hand. And basically what it is, is it's trying to get people back to that natural living idea where, you know, you're not grabbing for food that's been in the freezer and it's got all these preservatives in it. You know, you're not grabbing for just like boxed mac and cheese. And it's not to say we don't have that. I've got two kids. I've got a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old. So I go there just as much as others do too. But the idea is to get your body used to eating. 14:42 natural holistic foods as often as possible. And you'll notice that your body can reset itself. Your body can heal itself. It can reset itself. It can be as healthy as you'll allow it to be. And a lot of that is the environment in which you're in. A lot of people don't even think about the products they're putting on their body and in their hair and in your deodorant and your toothpaste, your hair sprays. There's a lot of crap in there that's not allowing your body to ever reset. 15:10 and thrive and get back to this natural state of well-being. Because your body is naturally supposed to be in a state of well-being. Yes, and makeup too is part of that that list you just made. Definitely. Definitely. Makeup has so much crap in there and people wonder, Janaye, why is your skin so nice? Well, I don't put makeup on it. I don't put a lot of crap on it. And over time, your skin will start to reset itself. What they've got going on in these 15:39 is really harming your skin and making you look less attractive when you take it off, which makes you want to use it even more. If you're caught up in that cycle of, oh, I'm just trying to look as beautiful as I can. Well, as soon as you take that stuff off, it's already done so much detriment to your skin that your skin looks worse every time you use it, unfortunately. So give yourself, give your skin room to breathe and it'll go back to a state of balance. Yeah, absolutely. And I can remember... 16:07 When I was in my early 20s, I went home to visit my family. And my sister is not even a year young. No, she's 15 months younger than I am. And she was never without a full face of makeup, ever. And I mean everything. Every layer she could put on, it was on. And she came out of the shower in her bathrobe, no makeup, no nothing. And I was like, my God, you are so beautiful without makeup. 16:37 And she was, she was gorgeous. And she's like, no, I'm not. And I said, no, you really are. And she couldn't, she couldn't see it. Right, right. It gets you into a numbing state. It's almost like you can never be pretty enough if you start going down that makeup route, you know? People don't get used to the moles and marks they naturally have on their skin, you know? And they start to... 17:02 get this really disoriented perception on what beauty actually is. And that's what happens when you start to go down that rabbit hole. I mean, hey, I was there. I definitely was there. I was an NFL cheerleader for a long time and I know what that's like to just be caked and caked in makeup. I grew up a dancer. I was caked and caked in makeup. And when I had my daughter and I started to think about, you know, she's so pretty. Why would I want her to think that she needs makeup to be beautiful? It made me think, well, then I need to stop wearing makeup every day. 17:33 because she's just gonna start looking into what I'm doing and looking at my example. And I was thinking, why do I wear makeup? And it really is a self-confidence thing. We've gotta be confident in ourselves in order to make that change and then allow others to see the natural beauty that resides in every one of us. Yes, and honestly, if you use a lip balm that is made from natural ingredients, like from a local maker, if you have one, like you and like me. 18:03 And if you use, I think it's cherry juice that will give like a pink to your cheekbones. Yes. And I don't know what you would use for eyeliner or mascara if you wanted it, or eyeshadow if you wanted it. But honestly, just having that little pink in your cheeks and the shine on your lips, that brightens you up, but you're not layering a bunch of stuff on your skin. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's... 18:28 It's shocking what you can do if you just add some oil. Like almond oil is one of the best things. Jojoba oil, it's actually very close to our natural oil on our face. It's spelled J-O-J-O-B-A. It's one of the best ones you can use. And if you'll get yourself normal vitamin D from the sun, you'll find that your body naturally has that peak in your cheeks, right? You go outside and you'll naturally get that. And I think a lot of people underestimate exercise as well. If you will allow your body to create endorphins, it will bring that subtle color. 18:57 to your skin in those certain areas. And that's where they first even got the idea of makeup. It's because people that were naturally healthy and working out and doing all of these different things, they naturally just have this glow about them. And that's your body's endorphins. And that's like collagen you're getting from food. That's not your body being so toxic and then just adding crap on there to try to make that. Your body will naturally look like that. And we all... 19:21 People don't believe it. They're just like, oh yeah, well naturally you're pretty. No, no, I work to be as healthy as possible. And when you're a healthy person, you start to exude beauty. It's just a natural thing that starts to come to you because your body's naturally created to do that. And your skin, when it has its elasticity that you naturally are able to allow it to maintain because you're not doing things to your body that provide literally reduced elasticity, which is what happens when you put it on a lot of makeup. 19:49 and allow your skin to breathe, these things naturally come about. You'll be shocked. I was shocked as well when I was allowing my skin to heal and allowing, seeing what I actually looked like without makeup for six straight months. That was a very real shock to me. I was like, oh my gosh, my skin is just better. My elasticity is better, right? You eat a plum and it's just, that helps with your elasticity and your collagen. Same thing with like blackberries and blueberries. If people would naturally eat these foods you're supposed to eat, 20:18 then they'll see their skin and their body perk up. Yes, and natural foods taste good. I love plums. Yeah. And I love blackberries. Yeah, it's shocking. You know, our palates have really been taken over. 20:35 by conglomerations, unfortunately. They've been taken over by them. And when you start to actually give your palate, you know, balsamic and just different tastes in spicy foods, a lot of spicy foods are super healthy when it comes to cancer, like cayenne and different things like that, that actually breaks up these blockages in your lymphatic system. And that's really where cancer starts. It's your body's, this is an herbalist, this is an herbalist for you, not a doctor again, but it's your body's defense system. It's really just trying to protect the organs from what it sees as toxic. 21:04 parts, toxicities coming in through your body and a lot of it's from the products people are using and the crap people are drinking. 21:12 Yeah. Yeah. So you guys have a big event coming up. Yes. In July. Yes. Yes. Roots and Remedies. Roots and Remedies 2024. It's been a dream of mine for a long time. I'm so, so stoked to see it coming together. It's a big herbal holistic retreat. We started off with nine professionals coming in. We now have 11 professionals coming in, some of which are doctors. We've got herbalists, we've got Ayurvedic healers, we've got 21:42 Reiki masters actually, it's very cool. Sound bowl therapy, sound healing, we've got a drum circle. I mean, I literally tried to pull in every alternative healer I could around this area that had any sort of reputation and get them all in one place to be able to answer questions about natural living, alternative healing options. Just kind of give Missouri. 22:06 And we've now actually expanded it to virtual tickets as well, just with all the interest. But give everyone an idea of how easy it is and all the different options that are available to be more natural and allow your body to be in that state of calmness so then it's able to reset itself. I'm very excited about it. Uh-huh. I saw one of your videos where you were in a car. 22:31 lately, I think, and you had just gotten word that someone is going to be at this event that you were so excited about. Yeah, yeah, I was so stoked. Dr. Soren is going to be there. Dr. Sergi Soren, he's really known for Ayurvedic healing and Ayurvedic medicine around Missouri. He actually has traveled all over the world, especially the United States, and I was stoked to see that he's going to be coming. His father was also supposed to be there. I had learned about that. 22:57 first, but he actually can't. But Dr. Sergius-Oren's gonna be there. I'm so excited. He just brings a lot of clout to this event. He's just very well known. So did you just reach out and ask if he would come or did he hear about it and approach you? Yeah, so before I started, first I wanted to start it off as just an herbal retreat. And then I thought, you know, why don't we bring in alternate. 23:23 alternative healers of different types. And so I reached out to Dr. Soren. I'd already heard about him and known his clout in the industry. And he was very, very excited. I was very stoked by his reaction to my request to have him come. And it's just exciting because Missouri is such this little hotspot. A lot of people are moving into this area from the coasts. And so it's starting to just be this more almost like up and coming natural alternative healing. 23:50 hotspot like Mecca if you will and I'm excited to be a part of that and on the forefront of it. I am super excited for you and I'm going to tell you exactly why. You did the big ask. The big ask is scary. It is scary to reach out and ask for something you really really want knowing that it could be a note. Yep. Yep. That's exactly it. Yep. I'm going to tell everybody 24:20 a bucket list thing or something you want to do or someone you want to talk to, ask the worst that you're going to get is no. Definitely. I mean, you've got to be your number one biggest fan first, right? And you've got to be confident enough in yourself and in your skill set to be able to ask. And that was something I struggled with for a long time is I felt... 24:45 not reputable. And maybe it was because I didn't have the certification, right? I didn't go to a school for it and get their certification for it. I'm doing kind of robot arms with it, you know, because I think people think of that with our traditional schooling method. It's like, well, if you don't go to some kind of school, or if you don't have some sort of paper certificate, you're really a nobody. That's not how it is. That's not how it is with herbalism at all. A ton of it is experience of others and learning from that experience and going to those that have practiced it for such a long time and learning from their skill set. 25:14 and ensuring of course proper identification of plants, but it doesn't require schooling in order to do that. You know? Yeah. 25:25 Yep. The reason that I was so emphatic about Do The Big Ask is because I just started this podcast back in August last year. Not knowing what I was doing, not a clue how to do this, figured it out on the fly. It's now June of 2024. So I started August of 2023. And back a few months ago, I emailed Polyface Farm. 25:52 and was like, I would love to have someone from Polyphase Farm chat with me on my podcast about what you're doing. And I didn't necessarily think that I would have Joel Saliton talking with me. I thought maybe he had a marketing person or a promotions person that would do that. Got an email back directly from Joel saying he would be honored and delighted to be a guest on my podcast. And he was, and it's already released. It's like 10 episodes back at least now. And I was just dumbfounded that he said yes. 26:21 because that was a huge confidence thing for me, because I was like, he's never gonna wanna talk to me. I'm nobody, just like you were just talking about. Yeah, I think that one, that's awesome. Congratulations, Joel's great. I think that everyone in this alternative sphere, in this alternative atmosphere, that's trying to get people almost woken up, right? Shake them out of their cyclical habit of just doing what... 26:47 media tells them to do, they're all really excited to give a voice to this area, right? And tell people, look, you don't have to follow the traditional route that everyone else is. In fact, the life expectancy is declining. So if you keep following that, it's almost like, where are we going? And so when you actually reach out to these alternative practitioners or people that are doing it differently, they're more than happy to give a voice to this area and bring 27:15 attention to it because really what it needs is attention. You know, you've got all the information there now. You just need to get the word out. And that can be difficult on social media, right? They silence a lot of things, a lot of things that I do violate, quote unquote, community guidelines. And I, you know, I've had a lot of people say, when you get it back, it's amazing what they say to you. They say like, you know, there's a certain set of facts that we all agreed are true. It's almost like what? And if you go outside those certain set of facts, it's hard to down, can you please? 27:44 It's hard to get that information out there. And it's great to see that people want to spread that information. If you have some sort of pedestal where you can get that information out there, they love to be on that. And they love to just tell people about how easy it is to make these little small changes. Yeah. And it's all about little tiny baby steps. It really is. I didn't know anything about anything. Thirty years ago, I just I had a daughter and I was like, wow, 28:14 my child is going to have a better life than I did. And I'm not knocking my family or my parents. My parents raised me really well. They had a garden. My mom cooked from scratch, the whole bit. But you want your children to have better than you had, if that's possible. And just started learning things, just off and on. Like, how does this work? What could be better? How do I do it? And now I'm 54 and running a podcast, or producing a podcast that... 28:44 teaches people things about all kinds of things, like growing gardens, like growing animals, like using herbs for bettering your health, like all the things that I've talked to people about in the last 70-something episodes I've done since last August. And it's not even just about sharing it with the listeners. Part of the reason I do this is because I want to know. Yes? 29:11 So when people like you say yes, I'm like, oh my God, I'm so excited because she knows things I don't know. Well, that's, I mean, that's what the community is all about, right? It's about creating, bringing people together that have these different skill sets and have these different expertises that they've spent all this time like cultivating these knowledge, these different knowledge bases and then bringing them to the people and having us all figured out together because I mean, there's strength in numbers, right? And we've heard that forever, but there really is strength in numbers. 29:40 The more of us that are awake and aware of the possibilities on how we can live, that's a little different, then the stronger this movement's going to get, the stronger it's going to be because then we come together and we create almost this like alternative community and that's where like the bartering system and different things come in. I mean, this world we're living in is absolutely crazy. I think that it's brought a lot of people to homesteading and to natural living and animal husbandry and all these different things that, I don't know, seemed a little... 30:09 backwoods for some people back in the day, you know, when I was first doing it, or like preppers, that stigma of preppers. Well, now, you know, it's really become a reality with like war and different things happening. And so I think that it's allowed the movement to get stronger and get gain more credibility. And people are really thinking, wait, this is actually a better way to live. This does allow me more freedom. And it's not an anarchic idea or tearing down anything that already exists. It's just really a shifting away from that. 30:38 opening up these new possibilities. And so I think that that's what shocks people most often is it's like, no, these are all your other options. Oh my gosh, I have other options. Oh, that's fantastic. You know, and it just gives people self empowerment and power and self sustainability and freedom. Honestly, 31:07 I do not want grocery stores to go away. Our garden is not even fully planted yet because it's been raining here in Minnesota mostly every day for the last three weeks. The garden was soup two weekends ago. It was a mess. And so we have some stuff in, but not nearly enough. And I'm not quite sure that we're going to be canning as many things as we did last summer, this summer. So. 31:34 I'm really happy that the grocery store does exist. I'm really happy that farmers markets are available because we're probably going to end up buying stuff at our farmers market where we sell things this year because some of the things may not grow. It's just so wet. So I guess what I'm saying is there's a place for almost everything. It's just a matter of finding where you fit in the spaces you want to be in, I think. 32:00 Yeah, definitely. Right. And there's a there's a perfect timing for everything as well. Right. Like divine timing. And as these alternative avenues open up more and become more popular and available to those that are interested in them, it will get easier to source locally and to find these local outlets. If you will. You know, when you are running low and your garden isn't, you know, performing as well as you'd hoped. Right. And your potato harvest gets all messed up. There's there's all these different what ifs. But when you get 32:29 a solid group of individuals either around you or within your reach who also have similar resources available to them, then it gets a lot easier to be able to obtain the natural products you want to obtain. A lot easier and just, it's exciting. I never thought we'd be here. Let me be honest with you. I never thought we'd be here. I never thought that we would be growing Grand Fan Farm into something when I first started it out. I didn't even know it was going to be called Grand Fan Farm, but it's exciting. 32:57 It's exciting to see the movement. It's exciting to see that these natural products work. It makes you feel so powerful when you know that you can create literal medicine, you know, that fights like joint pain, right? And arthritis, people that have dealt with that forever, just little hacks that you had no information on to begin with, like popping knuckles. I love, love, love, love. 33:21 breaking down old wives' tales. I love that. It's one of my favorite things to do when people are like, oh, one of them, for example, is like popping your knuckles. You know, you're supposed to pop your knuckles, actually. You're supposed to pop all the things in your body that will pop and it keeps the buildup from occurring and keeps people from having surgeries, unnecessary surgeries and limited mobility. You're supposed to move your body around and just little tiny habits that if you can get worked into that younger generation. 33:47 then that will get worked into the next generation and the next and then we'll pretty soon be able to just dispel a lot of these myths, if you will, or old wives tales that somehow got started and just continue on and keep us going down the wrong direction, unfortunately. It is so funny that you bring up cracking knuckles. My son does it all the time, so loudly. It sounds like 22 gunshots, like the caliber 22. Oh yeah. And he does it. 34:16 He does it and I look over and he looks at me and grins and does it again. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to ignore this because it's, it's a creepy sound. I don't love it. It's first. And he just keeps doing it until I'm like, could you please, I think you've done it enough, please stop. And then he does it two more times and then giggles and stops. I'm like, and you're right. It doesn't do any damage. It's fine, but it just drives me crazy. And he does it just to, just to get me, which is okay. Um, the other thing, the other thing that I love about. 34:45 making things is when someone comes to you and says, I bought your product or a friend gave me your product or I tried a sample and I love it and it actually helped me. That makes me so happy when it happens for us. Definitely, definitely. Because you're almost like, I don't know, every time someone says it, I just get more and more stoked. You already know it works, but... 35:12 Then the fact that it works again for somebody and again for somebody and again for somebody, it's just like, let's go. It's such an exciting feeling and you feel that you gave them a lifetime skill, right? Especially when they learn it. I love when people will come to my classes and learn stuff. That's one of my favorite things. You know that I love when my products work for people and most of my customers are recurring customers that have told their friends and family and that's always exciting. But I love when they learn it on their own and people are like, why do you teach them that? Because then they're not going to buy your products. 35:41 Well, that's not really the point. The point is to spread herbal medicine, right? And to spread the knowledge of alternative healing practices and alternative living. And it just, it makes the collective better, you know? And so I love when my products work for people and it makes me excited because I know I've got a good product out there on the market, but I absolutely am thrilled when someone learns it. I had a lady email me the other day, she was a secretary to local school, and she said to me, you know, I attended your class, you know, a few months back. 36:11 I made a tincture for my husband's joint pain and, or no, I'm sorry, it was his high blood pressure and she made a tincture for that. And she has seen his high blood pressure, his blood pressure go down and he is normal out and is completely normal now. And that for me is the ultimate win. It's because I've empowered someone to be able to take control of their health and their family's health into their own hands. Like that's so huge. And I just can't imagine the impact. If it impacted her enough. 36:39 to be able to reach out to me via email and send me a long email, then I know it's made her feel incredibly worthy of controlling her own health and her life, in fact, because it really does ripple out from there. I think a lot of people feel enslaved, enslaved to the system, enslaved to the system of medicine and pharmaceuticals and doctors. People listen to what their doctor says without ever questioning it most of the time. And I say this all the time, there's idiots in every profession. 37:09 And that's no disrespect, it's reality. I'm a lawyer by trade. There's idiots in every profession and we really need to take it upon ourselves to question these experts and to question those who have received knowledge about medicine and different things. We really need to question it and hold them accountable. Because if we're not holding people accountable, people get lax, you know, and people get lazy. And then we become enslaved to a system where we've got the highest infant mortality rate in the, of all. 37:37 countries in our system. So that's kind of where we are. And so when I see people getting more empowered, then they're going to start questioning what their doctor says, right? And that's not to say, you know, if you're acute injuries, you break your arm, don't go to the doctor. Doctors are necessary, just like grocery stores that we talked about earlier. But for these chronic conditions, I mean, to continue these same things over and over again, just shoving ourselves full of pharmaceuticals that are just leading to, you know, pharma cocktails that are just people into just... 38:06 all sorts of messes, I think that we need to take a step back and question, hey, maybe I should look at my lifestyle choices, right? Maybe I should look at the

Today I'm talking with Kelsey at Sweet Briar Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 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 Kelsey at Sweetbriar Farm. Good afternoon, Kelsey. How are you? I'm good. How are you, Mary? I'm good. It's been kind of a crazy day here, but I'm ready. So tell me about yourself and everything you guys do at Sweetbriar Farm. Oh, boy. Well... 00:29 My husband, Mike and I run our small family farm together. We have five kids and our farm is tiny. We're just under six acres and we got started here about 10 years ago. Okay, and what do you guys do on your farm? Well, right now we're getting into produce season. So... 00:57 Mike is the one with the green thumb, and he grows all different kinds of tomatoes and beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, squashes, the works. And then in addition to produce, we have livestock. So we raise dexter cattle, which are the smallest standard breed of cattle. And in addition to our dexers, I have a small herd of Nubian goats. 01:27 Our oldest child has her own herd of one mini Nubian goat and we've got some chickens too for laying hens. Okay. So, this is a question I always ask, what made you guys decide to do this? Well, I think it's something that Mike grew up with. He grew up gardening and being involved with agriculture. So that's something that was very familiar to him. 01:56 For me, it was a bigger leap. I grew up in a subdivision on the west side of Michigan and I had little tiny dogs growing up. But my grandfather used to have a dairy farm with like a hundred head of Holsteins. And he sold the farm before I was born, but I grew up hearing stories about the farm and how cool it was. So I think it's something that always kind of... 02:25 just simmered in the back of my mind about how much fun it would be to be a kid on a farm. So after Mike and I moved in together and got married and were able to, you know, have a place of our own with a little bit of space, we, you know, he put in his big garden and we started with chickens. That was back, gosh, 2009. Yeah. So 15 years ago, we first started. And I thought he was crazy. 02:54 but it sounded like fun. So yeah, we just do it because we enjoy it. That's the best kind of crazy. And I love that your husband is the one who has the green thumb because my husband is the avid gardener as well. I have a green thumb, I can grow plants. I've done it before, I will do it again. But he is the one who loves to get out there and work in the dirt. And it's the way he de-stresses from his jobby job, his regular job. 03:23 That's awesome. Yeah, it's really nice when a couple can compliment each other because if we depended on me to grow our food and plant form, we would be very hungry. Yes, and I'm the one that gets depended on to actually cook the food that comes out of the garden. I am all good with that because I love to cook. So it works out great. Yep, it's wonderful when our skills that we're good at compliment the other ones. Absolutely. 03:53 Yeah. So you said you have kids? Yeah. Yup. We have five children. We just had number five in January. Um, so our oldest is 12. Uh, she's our daughter and then the rest are boys. So we have a 12 year old daughter and then our boys are 10, eight, six, and four months. Geez. You are a busy mama and a busy dad. Yes. Yeah. They definitely keep us happy. 04:23 Yeah, it's funny how much in common you and I have because my oldest is a daughter and all three of the younger ones are boys. Oh really? So yeah, we're batting a thousand on quinkanings here. Okay, so do you guys just do this for yourselves or do you try to make the farm profitable to support itself? I think our goals have changed over the years. 04:52 produce for ourselves and then anything extra we'd sell. And then we kind of swung to the other end where we were producing to make money and to make the farm a growing business and then we'd eat the extras. And I think now we're kind of swinging back towards the middle point where we want our farm to be able to sustain itself. 05:20 We still want to be able to produce food for a small number of other people, you know, to kind of make it a self-sustaining thing because for many years, all our extra money we were investing into the farm. And now it's time that it needs to pay for itself or things need to not be part of our farm. So. Yes. We are right there with you. 05:47 It's really funny when you start this thing, this project, this dream, you're like, we're going to do all the things and the farm is going to support itself and we're just going to be happy doing the work. And then you find out that that's not necessarily true and you're still happy doing the work, but the money isn't coming as easily as you maybe thought it would. We are in that same boat. And the other thing that's really strange. 06:16 is my husband does the farmers market on Saturdays in Lesor where we live. And in Minnesota, I don't remember where you guys are. Where are you again? We're in northern lower Michigan. Yeah. So you're north west east of us a little bit. Quite a bit actually. But anyway, he does the farmers market and sometimes he comes home with $25 and sometimes he comes home with over $250 and there's no rhyme or reason to it. 06:46 So it's a very up and down kind of business to be in. And so I think that we just all get into this and we love it, but then we realize that you have to adapt every waking moment of the day as to what is going on. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely true. As far as a business model to where it could be something that we could quit our day jobs, I don't know how we'd get there. 07:15 I don't see a path for us in Michigan where that's possible. At our scale, I don't see it happening. Yeah. If you're not a quote unquote commercial farmer, it's really hard to make it support itself. That's all there is to it. And my husband actually did quit his job two marches ago. Oh wow. 07:41 And part of it was he had had enough. He had been at the same place for almost 30 years. He was incredibly unhappy there, had been unhappy there since I'd met him, which was 20 years before. And he just came home one day and said, I need to not be at this place anymore. I need a mental health break. And I said, okay. I said, so you're gonna quit your job? And he said, I am. 08:08 I said, okay, what's next? And he said, we're gonna make this place go. And I said, oh my God, okay. Now bear in mind that this place is a three acre property with a really nice home on it and a big old pole barn and a old one car garage that is our woodshed and now has a farm stand and a heated greenhouse built. So we have all the things now. 08:36 make it go better than we had last year. This summer is now all rain in Minnesota, so our gardens are very slow taking off this year. All our plans for making it go bigger and better this summer may be delayed by the weather. That happens because we're growers, we're farmers. Yeah. 09:03 five months of mental health break and loved every moment of it. And then got himself a new jobby job back in November because we needed to have income. So what I'm telling you is don't give up the dream and you're doing the adjusting thing just like we have. So just keep dancing the dance because it's worth it. I think so. I can't imagine our lives without the farm. I think it's been incredibly positive for us. 09:32 Mike and I as a couple to have like a team project, like something we both do together. Because before that, I think we had independent hobbies that we did in the same places, but not necessarily things that we did together. It's really good for our communication skills too, yelling at each other, working livestock. Yes, I could see that happening. Hello, Mike. I wasn't sure if you were there or not. Yeah, I'm just listening in. Okay. 10:01 When toddlers play, it's called parallel play because they're doing their own thing next to each other. And that's what I think you're saying is that you and Mike were doing parallel things, but not intersecting things. Yeah, yep. We like to spend a lot of time out in nature. So we'd go to his family's property out in the woods and he would pretend he was a lumberjack and... 10:27 I would take the dogs on hikes so we'd be in the same places, but yeah, doing parallel things. Yep. Makes sense. So what is your... I'm so distracted. I'm sorry. What is your favorite thing about your lifestyle? 10:46 Hmm. I think it makes me feel powerful. Not overly powerful, but empowered in a way that I hadn't experienced before. So if I can walk a thousand pound bull on a halter, or if I'm brave enough to climb into a pig pen and give an 800 pound boar an injection of an antibiotic because he's, you know. 11:16 got a cough or something. Like if I'm able and brave enough to do those things, like what else can I do? What else could I encounter in my day-to-day life that could possibly be more intimidating than that? You're braver than I am. Well, it's, I don't know, you'll be surprised what you can do when it has to get done, right? Right. So I... 11:44 I think the other thing is like our small farm, the impact on our small community too. You know, we, as far as like our produce stand that we have, we sell our produce very cheap and it's clean, it's healthy. So we have a positive impact on our small community as well. And we get that feedback from people that, you know, we interact with in our front yard. 12:15 Um, you know, as far as the farm life goes, that's one of my favorite things is, you know, paying it forward, I guess, a little bit to the, to the community. Yeah. And that's something, um, we've been able to parlay, uh, some of the money we've made from the YouTube channel to donating to the local food bank. And, um, like during COVID, when it was difficult to get certain things, you know, like we had our eggs out, um, on the farm stand, you know, just, uh, 12:45 If you can and take a dozen to donate to a neighbor or something, because it was just hard. The community where we live is like a very low economic, like there's like a hundred percent of the students in our school district get free lunches. You know, there's, it's a depressed area and there's a lot of food insecurity. So it's really nice to be able to help. 13:14 alleviate that even just a little bit. Yes, we donate stuff to the food shelf every summer from the garden too. And the first summer we were here, we just wanted to get the hundreds of pounds of zucchini out of my kitchen. So we knew the people who run the food shelf were like, you guys want zucchini? I mean, everybody has zucchini right now, but do you want it? And the president of the... 13:40 Food Shelf was like, I will take any produce you want to hand me because we have people to feed and they will take it. And ended up taking boxes of squash and cucumbers and tomatoes down to the Food Shelf. And at the end of the summer, Galen, he's the one who was the president at the time and I think he still is, came. 14:07 to see us and just thanked us profusely for sharing our overabundance. And we thanked him for getting it out of my house. So we gained, they gained. I understand what you're saying. It's really nice to be able to help your community and your neighbors eat. Yes, absolutely. But it was really nice to get those squashes out of my kitchen too. I was very happy to see them go. Yeah, it doesn't take very much of a garden to overwhelm a kitchen. 14:36 No, no it does not. And we only have three acres, you guys have six. And a good percentage of an acre is garden here. So when we grow, we grow. It's not like the little backyard kitchen garden. It's a big garden. So when the weather is good, we are swimming in produce from mid-June until September. So yeah. 15:04 I understand what you're telling me. We are living parallel lives here except that you guys are younger than my husband and I am. I'm quite sure. We're in our mid-50s. I don't think you guys are there yet. I'm 41. Yeah. I'm just a little younger. Yeah. I think anyone can do this, but you've got to want to do it. 15:28 And I would not recommend starting this particular stage of your life when you're starting your 65-year-old stage of your life because it's hard work. I tell people, especially getting into livestock, you have to hate money. Yeah, because you won't have any for a little while at least. Exactly. Yeah. Thank God it's not actually all about money. I mean, it is. You have to make money to survive in this world. But... 15:58 But it's not all about money. You also have to have things that make you happy. And a lot of the time, the jobby job is not to make you happy. It is to give you money in the bank. Right. Yep. And that's why we have jobs. Exactly. So are the, I mean, not the four month old, because I'm assuming that one's a little too small to be helping out on the farm yet. But do the kids help? I mean, you said your daughter has a herd of one mini goat. 16:27 the other kids play to? Yes, yeah, they're all a huge help, especially this last year when I was pregnant and couldn't do nearly as much. So our daughter makes sure everybody has hay in the morning and at night, and our oldest son makes sure everybody has water. Our middle son is in charge of the cats and the dog and the eggs. And our six-year-old 16:55 feeds our bottle baby goat and every day he goes out and meets Pearl in the backyard and gives her a bottle. So sweet. Have you gotten photos of him doing that? Yeah, yeah. We've put some shorts up on our YouTube channel and Facebook pages. It is super adorable. There is nothing better than little kids with baby animals, I swear to God. It's just so fun. 17:22 There's nothing cuter than my 22 year old with a bunch of kittens trying to lick his feet and get in his lap too. And he's a grown man. So baby animals are adorable. I love them. It is wonderful. Yeah. We don't have big animals on the farm here because we don't have room for them to graze. If we had more acreage, we probably would have goats. We would probably have a couple of sheep and we might have a couple of many cows. But. 17:49 There's just no place for them to be able to graze. And as you guys know, feed for goats and sheep and cows is extremely expensive right now. Yeah, nothing's cheap. So I can't afford to feed the animals that I would love to have someday after I'm old and gray. Well, grayer than I am now, but older than I am now. So, okay. 18:19 I'm trying to think. What is the least favorite thing about what you're doing? Because if you got a favorite, you must have a least favorite. Well, I think our least favorite thing is just left the farm a few weeks ago. We raised pigs for about three years. We bred five years. We bred and raised pigs and the last pigs just left the farm in May. And you're not sorry to have seen them go? Not yet. 18:47 We've still got freezers full of pork and we don't have pigs right now. So I think we're happy with that. I don't know if we'll change our minds when the freezers are empty. I don't think I'll ever breed pigs again. It was fun while we did it, but it's a daily, twice a day chore and you can't leave the farm for vacation with them. 19:15 If you're just raising feeder pigs, that's a different story. You can sell feeders and stuff like that, but when you have breeding stock, you can't let them sell feed or they'll get too fat. It's a lot more peaceful now that they're gone. Yeah. I have read more than once about mama pigs being not very good at being mamas because they... 19:41 they aren't paying attention and sometimes they step on the babies or they roll over on the babies and the babies get hurt or they die. Did you guys go through that? Yeah, we've lost lots of piglets from those actions of rolling and crushing and stepping. We tried to do it without ferroing crates. Well, we never use ferroing crates, but we just didn't really have a good setup for it. 20:11 We tried to do it outside with a three-sided shed. The weather here in Michigan in the spring is unpredictable. When it gets cold, the piglets need to stay warm and they get too close to mom and mom's not paying attention. Then, yeah, she'll crush them. If we had a litter of 12, we'd usually average around eight piglets that would survive, which is pretty good. It's sad, but we were always hoping for that number. 20:42 Yes, and the truth of the matter is, is that there's always something sad right around the corner if you are on a farm or a homestead or a farmstead or however you want to say it because things die. Yeah, our veterinarian says if you have livestock, you have dead stock, which is a good way to sum it up. Yes, I had never heard that in all my life until I started watching a YouTube channel. 21:10 woman, young woman named Katie Van Slyke has this YouTube channel and she has her parents raise cattle and they both, her parents and her and her husband raise horses. And she said it on one of her videos and I don't know how come I never heard, if you have livestock you will eventually have dead stock, but it was the first time I'd heard it and I was like... 21:36 No truer words have ever been spoken. That is perfect. So yeah, and it's really hard. I have talked about this a lot on the other episodes I've done with people because the first time it happens, it crushes you. You will cry your eyes out. Second time it happens, you're still sad. You might tear up. Tenth time it happens, you're like, well, this is how it is here. And you do everything you can. 22:05 to take care of your animals and make sure you're doing the right things, but you can only control so many things. 22:16 So it's hard. It is. Yeah. Some days farming just sucks. Yeah. Thank God there are good days that make up for it. Yeah. There's more good days than bad days. Yep. I've been sweating this constant rain we've been having in Minnesota for the last month, month almost daily rain. We feel like we're living in... 22:42 Washington State or Oregon right now because it's been raining almost every day. And I said to my husband I need an update on the gardens and the greenhouse stuff in the greenhouse because I'm feeling like we are going to fail this year. And he came in last night and he said here's the update and I said okay. He said the tomatoes in the garden are bouncing back they're starting to grow again because they stalled out and they were yellow you know leaves were starting to yellow. 23:10 He said, the peas have blooms. I was like, great. He said, we have green beans coming up. I was like, great. He said, all the stuff in the greenhouse is growing like crazy. And I said, okay. He said, honey, you can take a deep breath now. We're probably gonna have produce in about three weeks. I said, oh, okay, good. I have been so worried about all of this for a month. I didn't realize how much I was holding my breath until he gave me the update. 23:38 So even with produce, it's not even about just losing livestock. If you're afraid you're going to lose your produce, your potential produce, that will drive you insane too. Yeah. We've had a rough few years in a row with pumpkins. Three years in a row. Yeah. Dry, cold springs. Spend a thousand dollars on seed and then basically lose the crap because of drought. Yeah. Yep. 24:08 There's a reason that the big operations have crop insurance. Right, yep. 24:18 I don't know if there's crop insurance for small operations. I should probably look into that. I don't think there is, but. You could check with your USDA office. I don't know if there's a size limit. I think we've always figured it was too small of potatoes for us to worry about, but it's different for everyone. Yeah, I have no idea because I've... 24:43 This is what happens. I get talking to people on the podcast and I'm like, Oh, I hadn't thought about that yet. I should probably look into that. I do this all the time. My husband gets home from work and we're having dinner. I was like, I talked to so and so today and he says, how did that go? And I say, I got reminded that I hadn't thought of this thing yet. You want to look into that or do you want me to look into that? You guys are so helpful. I really appreciate it. 25:09 So, okay, I am so distracted. Why is it called Sweet Briar Farm? Well, our home was built in 1880, and it was built by one family, and the house stayed in that family's possession until we bought the house in 2012. And there were pictures that they left for us of the house right around 1900. 25:39 And it had this sign on the front of the house, Sweetbriar Farm. And when we purchased the house, that same sign was hanging on the side of our pole barn. So it's been Sweetbriar Farm for almost 145 years, 144 years. So it didn't feel right to change it. Yeah, no. Have you looked into the family that owned it before you did? We've met the, you know, the remaining. 26:09 brothers, basically, who sold us the house through the estate of their father who passed. So we've met them and they've told us a little bit about the history of the farm. And I've read some, there's some local history books in our local library. So there, you know, people have been farming here basically since probably the 1870s. It used to be a stockyard. I know they used to raise Guernsey cattle here. 26:38 And at one point there was a big apple orchard. And our house was even featured on a, like a brochure to attract settlers to the area. I love that. That's so great. Yeah, it's really cool. So it's neat to kind of get to be stewards of a historical place, a place with history that at least we know the story of. 27:07 Which is fun. Yeah, we had a guy pull into our driveway the first or second summer we were here. We've been here almost four years. And we were out working in the garden. He just pulled in, got out, and we didn't know who he was. We were like, who is this? And he came over and introduced himself. And he said, my father used to own this place. And we were like, oh, what can you tell us about it? And he said, over there was an actual barn, not a pole barn. 27:37 but a barn barn. So we have a pole barn now. And I said, like the rounded roof barn? And he's like, yeah, I think so. He said, I don't think it was the diagonal kind. It was the rounded one. And I said, so what did he grow? And he said, well, where you're standing in your garden right now used to be all pumpkin patch. And I was like, OK, do you know how long ago it stopped being a pumpkin patch? And he said, 40 years ago. 28:06 He said no one has grown a garden in this spot since then. So basically our garden hadn't had anything grown on it except wildflowers and weeds and grass for 40 years. 28:25 And that makes for some really, really good soil when you're getting ready to put in a garden. So we were very excited to hear that because when we put the offer in on this place, we didn't have a soil tester with us, so we couldn't check the pH, we couldn't check anything. And we basically were crossing our fingers that the soil would be good to get the garden in. And we lucked out huge. 28:52 So it's really nice when people know the history because then you can find out. Yeah. We were very excited and also found out that the guy, the guy who had stopped in to tell us about his dad owning the place 40 years ago or 50 years ago, whatever it was, had honeybees and he only lives like three miles away. So his honeybees pollinate our plants. 29:20 That reminds me, actually the worst thing on the farm, at least favorite, is my bees. Oh, okay. So what's up with your bees? Oh, no, it started as a hobby and it grew too big and it's my least favorite chore on the farm. I would rather have the pigs back. So if you don't love it, is it still worth doing it? 29:48 Uh, it's, it's, it's the liquid gold that I'm after. Yeah. That's what makes it worth it. So what do you not like about it? Is it just, is it just a hassle to have to maintain the hives? Yeah. And it's, well, it's heavy lifting and, and I call myself a lazy beekeeper. So I have yet to be in a bee hive. I just, um, 30:15 let them kind of go natural and then I add honey boxes as I need. So that means that they swarm. So I ended the year last year with 12 hives, 6 survived the winter, and then all 6 of the hives swarmed, but I'm able to catch them easily because they go into one of my apple trees. The problem is that right when they swarm, I'm always doing some other... 30:43 farm job and I have to stop what I'm doing to go catch a swarm. So they're just a pain in the butt. Yeah, they pick the most inconvenient time to decide they're going to vacate their premises. Yes. And usually it seems like they swarm just before a thunderstorm rolls in or something. You can, in certain times of the year, I walk outside in the morning and I say it feels like a swarmy day and sure enough, I'll have a swarm later on in the afternoon. And yeah. 31:12 I'm dealing with that. Okay, well, we're past half an hour, but I have one more question. If you were talking to somebody you happen to meet at the grocery store or the farmer's market or wherever, and you were talking to them about what you do, and they were like, we want to do that too, what advice would you give them? 31:38 I think some of the best advice we saw or received was start with the smallest amount of infrastructure you need to get started. Don't go crazy buying fancy brand new everything. Buy used equipment. Start with the minimum you need to get going because I think every single year might change is. 32:06 I think we went 10 years in a row and every year he changed the chicken coop. And we finally got a chicken coop we like now and he's constantly changing the hay feeders and the fence lines and the shelters for the animals. Like he's constantly perfecting everything. And if we had dropped a ton of money, you know, buying something fancy and brand new, it almost certainly wouldn't have been what we wanted. Yeah. So start small, start simple and then change it as you go. Yeah. 32:36 And then the other thing would be like if you're trying, you know, want to do farmers markets or anything, something like that. Uh, it putting in a garden is, is cheap to do. Um, I mean, you could hire somebody to road until an acre or whatever, if you don't have the means to do it yourself, but you know, seed is, you know, for tomatoes or whatever, very cheap. Um, and easy to do anybody can do it. 33:06 Um, still to this day, our produce is the most profitable thing on the farm. I mean, we use produce money to pay for hay. So, um, it's, it's, it's easy to do. Um, if you're not afraid of, you know, doing a little back bending and, and picking and stuff like that, but, um, yeah, start, start, start with a produce stand and work your way into chickens. And. 33:36 larger livestock as you as you as you feel. Yeah, that sounds about right. That's what we're doing. All right, guys, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good evening. You too. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Ed, Emily and Corey at Highland Ledge Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 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 to Ed and Emily and Corey at Highland Ledge Farm. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning. We're great. I'm good. Tell me all about yourselves and Highland Ledge Farm. 00:27 We're a small business that produces all, makes all of our own jams, mustards, vinegars, simple syrups, and short breads. And we travel to different fairs, markets. 00:47 Okay, so how did you, how did that happen? How did you start it? 00:54 So we started a long time ago. Emily used to do fares and such recently, I guess about six years now. I think, yeah. I retired and decided to help Emily with her business. And so we put a little more effort into marketing 01:24 all that sort of thing, productizing, and kind of kicked off the business as it is today. Okay, so, okay, I don't know what to ask. Okay, so let me let me tell you, we're we're on 37 acres up on top of a mountain in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Okay. We go to about 70 fare. 01:53 fairs and season and vend retail there. We also service about a dozen stores with wholesale. We sell products too as well. We do all our own labels, all our own packaging. Most of the fruit and such comes from the farm or locally. 02:22 Uh, we do most of our food prep cooking packaging in the winter because in the summer we're involved with selling it. 02:33 Okay. So do you travel outside of New England? Not yet. But we're looking at some shows that might be good for us outside of New England. Okay. And do you ship your goods? Yes, we do. We have a website that's active purchasing and shipping from the website. Okay. So here in Minnesota, we have a thing called 03:02 cottage food registration where we can make baked goods or jams or jellies or canned goods and sell them without having to be licensed as a commercial seller. So does Massachusetts have that or do you have to be a commercial? Massachusetts and in fact New Hampshire, Vermont, New York are the states we sell in. All of those states and locations. 03:31 All those states have cottage food definitions. In Massachusetts, to be a cottage food manufacturer, you have to have, it can only be non-potentially hazardous, NPF foods. Or it's also now it's called non-temperature sensitive. You can only do those foods, but you still have to be licensed and inspected. 04:01 Okay. The only restriction is we're not allowed to sell wholesale outside of the state. Okay so every single state has a different set of laws regarding this, I swear. Well it's all based on the FDA. 04:24 rules. I forget how exactly it's tied, but typically to get a commercial license, you have to be inspected to state standards, which typically mirror the FDA standards. The CAUTI's license relieves some of the requirements of the FDA standards if you promise not to do a wholesale outside the state. Yeah, okay. So, people, some people, 04:52 have a perception that when you work for yourself, it's easier. And I don't hold that perception because we started a small business last summer and we were busy all the time. So, do you guys put in 80 hour weeks? Yeah, I don't know where people get the idea that we're not busy. So, typically if we are awake, we could be doing business. 05:22 So anything can happen. Somebody could call, we need to get this, we need to get that. Somebody has a show for one weekend, we're open, so we have to scramble to get the paperwork in. So the business just happens, it's part of our regular life. It's not a separate thing. I think there's two or three different kinds of people like us that have their own business. There's the people who just wanna make 05:52 couple of bucks under the table. And they go to all of these events. And there's people like. 06:04 who have enough money to be able to do it right and they have a fancy set up and so on and so forth. And there's people like us, right in the middle, who wanna do it right, who take the time to get the... 06:24 paperwork and the permits and have made a good booth presentation and just keep trying and trying and trying to make it grow and that's that's the way it is I mean you see you see people all the time at shows and you can tell that they're not licensed 06:54 but they're doing something with their time and stuff like that, but just they aren't spending a lot of time doing it. For people like us who use foods, who do stuff and care about how it tastes and things like that, it's like an 80 hour a week job. Yeah. 07:20 because you're living it, you're living it and breathing it and maybe sleeping it. It's, it's, I wouldn't give it up for anything, but it's, it's not always easy at all. Yeah. So, you know, that's what I think about it. We wouldn't do it if we didn't love it. Well, yes. 07:49 That's what a lot of people say, but they aren't really living it. I think it's fun. I think it's not fun, but it's funny when I'm like, okay, I'm taking today off. I am not doing any work today. And then I spend six hours doing work. Yeah. You know, there's always something that you got to do, you know, cleaning up, preparing for a new show. 08:18 organizing the shed that we keep our jars in. Someone local place an order so you got to do a delivery or someone non-local place an order so you got to go to the post office after packaging everything up. So I didn't mention we do local deliveries. If you're within 20 miles of us we deliver it to you directly so. Yeah and that that takes time too out of your day so. Yeah. 08:47 It does. And you know, it's always every year we sit down and say 08:56 What are we going to change this year? How can we do better than last year? And every year it gets better. Yeah. But, you know, I think we had six jams when we started. That was it. No, not going to do anymore. Uh-huh. And what are you up to? 14 jams. Four mustards. Four vinegars. 09:26 Four syrups, cookies. Shortbread cookies. We got a plethora of sliced and dried fruits. Drink mix concoctions that we put together. It keeps growing. Yeah, it's amazing how this particular kind of business just does that on its own. It's like it just takes off and you can't stop it. Yeah. 09:55 Exactly. Okay. You know, I don't know if I'd want to stop it completely. 10:06 Yeah, because it's a social life too. I mean, yeah. Everybody I know does something for the business. Every every place I go has something to do with the business. You know, it's just the way it is. Yeah, it's a big community. We make friends with other vendors, the vendor coordinators. And we recognize people from. 10:32 different states going to all these different shows who are just having fun with their summer or spring and fall. We're like, Hey, we saw you. And they're like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what's the relationship here with you guys? Is it Ed and Emily married and Corey's a daughter or what? Okay. All right. Cool. I wasn't sure and I wanted to, I wanted to make sure I found out. 10:59 So there's a saying about if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. And I love that saying, but I also have a little bit of a beef with it because I think no matter what you're doing, whether you love it or it's a jobby job, it's work. I think that the saying means that if you love it, it's good fun work. So is that where you guys are at with this? Yes. 11:26 Yeah, I the first year that we haven't wanted to change anything. Yay. Yes, I know it's it's all the products are going where they're supposed to go. And you know, the ones we don't like are kind of dropping off and we're not remaking them. It's our show. Shows are getting better. 11:55 We're getting called to do shows, which is really kind of weird. Fantastic. Yes. I think though that... 12:13 in this business, you kind of have to find a niche. Mm-hmm. I mean, I know jam's jam, but you have to find a niche where that jam is gonna sell the way you want it to sell. And you fill up your show dates the best you can, but you try and do the... 12:42 bulk of them in a certain venue. For instance, Renaissance Fairs. I love those. We do about five of those a year. And they are our best sellers. And I have so much fun going to them. I love interacting with the customers. The vendors are. 13:10 not just the vendors, the actors, they're hilarious. And they always bring friends with them. It's a lot of fun to do. But you know, that takes care of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Massachusetts for us as far as those things go. 13:38 We do a lot of Scottish games or we try to. We haven't always gotten to them. But, you know, that's our venues. Yep. And a particular note, I hope it's on topic, but most of the states we go to, except for Massachusetts, the state regulates how we behave as a cottage vendor. 14:08 In Massachusetts, though, every town is allowed to permit you. Okay. For a health permit? So we have to obtain permits to sell, so we, to give samples and sell food. And every town we go to in Massachusetts. Wow. At significant cost. So we've. 14:35 We actually prefer to do fairs outside of Massachusetts because of that. Yeah. And that's unfortunate since you live in Massachusetts, it doesn't seem right. I know. That's, it's kind of weird. Yeah. Um, I have a question about last year, last season. Did you guys notice that people weren't quite as free with their expendable fundage to spend on your stuff? So last year was, was about. 15:05 20% down from the previous year. We attributed it not as a spending tightness, but because of the weather was consistently, it consistently rained every weekend last year. They wouldn't come out to the show. So we felt like it was more attributable to that than spending aversion. Okay, we just started our small business last April. 15:35 and we were selling at the farmers market and selling on property here, produce and stuff. And people in Minnesota had pretty decent weekends last year here in our area. But this inflation thing was kicking everyone's heiny from here to Timbuktu. So people didn't really want to spend a lot of money on extras as it were. 16:04 seems to be the way that could be what we found out about produce is that when COVID happened the next year everybody had their own garden yep and they didn't need as much produce you know I would suggest you supplement produce with things like honey, jams, eggs 16:32 things like that and see if that helps. Yeah, and we are going to be doing that this year, but we were brand new last year and didn't know what the hell we were doing. So it was like, let's throw everything out there and see what sticks. Yeah, I remember. I remember. That's not the way to do it. Yeah, I remember doing produce and saying, how the heck do people usually do this every week? Yeah. I was just stuffing bags of lettuce like crazy. 17:00 Yeah. It's like, how do they do this all week, every week? Yeah. The first year is just trying to figure out what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. The first year, like you said, you didn't know what you're doing. And so it's interesting you mentioned that. So we have, there's, there's a difference between packaged food sales and produce sales. 17:28 You can go to a farmer's market and sell produce every week. But for packaged food like jams, et cetera, because it's not an immediate consumable, people store it. So we only do well at those shop-most markets on the first one. And maybe the next to the last or something like that. Because people are buying the jam they want and it's pretty much the same people that come. 17:58 There's not a lot of diversity in the crowd, not the diversity that most people talk of. I mean, so we don't do farmers markets anymore because they don't do it. Also the interesting thing in Massachusetts is the regulatory agency for the farmers markets is different than the regulatory agency for the food. 18:23 So of course it is. I know. So they have, they have, we, we during COVID it was terrible because the, the agricultural people and the health, which is different than the board of health people, food safety were at odds about what the rules were. And we had to cancel lots of shows because they couldn't figure it out. Because they weren't allowing sampling. At the. 18:53 The agriculture people was not allowing sampling. Uh-huh. So I'll tell you a funny situation. We were signed up to go to a fair where we could sample because it was regulated by the Board of Health, but they combined it with a food fair and the agriculture group would not allow sampling. Not down and drag out. And sampling is a killer. I mean, we have to have sampling. We would not be able to survive without sampling. We get people to taste it. 19:23 we got 80% chance of a sale. 19:26 But if they're just looking at the jars on the table, they're not gonna buy that much. Nope, and it doesn't matter how pretty the label is or the jam inside the jar is. If they can't taste it, they don't wanna take the chance. Absolutely right. And we have to remember, when we do shows, especially for that, we are a food commodity. We're not a staple. That's why for us it's interesting, our wholesale business and our retail, our retail business is a commodity. 19:56 our wholesale business is we're trying to be a staple, a grocer. Yeah. So it's, there's a whole different attitude and a whole different way we go about that the labels have to stand alone. So you really have to pay attention to your labeling and your cost in the wholesale market and the commodity retail market. It doesn't matter. I mean, you can go in there with a handwritten label and if it's good, you know, people taste it, they'll buy it. 20:22 Yeah. And honestly, packaging is a killer in cost. I can't believe how much it costs us to label the stuff that we did last year. So I'll tell you what I did. If you can afford the initial investment. 20:39 We bought our own label machine and our own label printer. And so we buy the rolls of labels that we want from a place that sells just the labels. And we do our own production, our own design, our own artwork, work, et cetera. You can go on your website and see the results of that. I think it's pretty good. It's about three quarters to a half of the cost. What? That's. 21:08 printing our own labels versus... Oh yeah, yeah. Three quarters of what you would get. If we had contracted out, because we have a lot of people that send out for their labels. Yeah. And we do it for about 75% of their cost. Nice. In fact, we've gotten so good and efficient at it that I've offered to make labels, people have looked at us making their labels for them. Yeah, and Ed does our labels and they're fantastic. 21:37 Yeah. Um, and I don't, okay. I feel like we're kind of ragging on the stuff of running a business and I don't want to discourage people from trying to start a business. I think. Yeah. Yeah. What you're saying is true. We, we are kind of ragging on it, but we wouldn't do it if we weren't doing something we enjoyed. Right. Yeah. In every business there's widgets. 22:07 you know, those little things that have to be just so. Labels is one of them. Jarz is one of them. Display is one of them. And... 22:19 That's what we do. And we're talking about it because that's what you do. We all want to know how another person handles that kind of little widget. And yeah, you know that it shouldn't discourage people. No, I mean, they should, they should see someone doing stuff like us and say, I'd like to do that. I have a better idea for a label. And ask us. 22:49 How do you do that? What do you use? I've met people, food business for the farmers is supposedly a huge business in this state. 23:09 I know someone who spent a year plus just talking about how their label is going to be designed. And I'm going like, I have to eat. I can't wait that long for that stuff. I just, you know, some people put too much into it. I get a great deal of satisfaction when we go to a fair. 23:39 or a show or something and somebody says, oh, look at the nice labels and blah, blah, blah. We put our labels or have UPCs on them. They have the FDA required ingredients list and nutrition labels. I put all that stuff on there. It's just great when people go to a fair and see us, it's just the three of us. Yet our stuff looks very professional, very nice art wise, at least I think. 24:08 Yeah, and some a lot of people think that we don't make it because of that. Yeah, I've had people. Yeah, I've had people say, you don't make this. Yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah, I do. Ask her what she's going to be doing in two days. But like people are like, oh, I'm so sorry, but I want to try a sample. And I'm like, listen, samples are the best part of my day because I get to see you be happy with something that I did. 24:37 Oh, I'd love to give it out. I love samples. That's my favorite part is giving people samples. We make spicy jams as well. So I like giving samples of the spicy for the obvious reasons. I like to see how people react to that. But I just love getting the feedback from people directly on what it tastes like, what they think. That's one of the good things about our businesses is that we get immediate feedback. 25:06 And people are always asking, what would I do with this? Because say the jams, they're like, what would I do with this besides toast? I'm like, I wish that I had a whiteboard behind me that I could just wheel out of all these things you could do with things. But it gets me conversing with people and I get to just the interaction with everybody in different communities and different ways that. 25:34 all these people do the same thing. Yeah. And. I mean, that's absolutely, for me, that's the number one thing. Number two thing is actually the money and make the selling stuff. But just interacting with the people's, it's just kind of cool. I just cannot understand people at fairs, craft shows, whatever, just sitting there behind their table doing nothing. 26:06 someone comes up they say hello and that's it. So we're very active we have to be careful we're not too active we're very active with the customers in promoting. You want to sell your cookies? Sell your cookies but sell them in a good way I mean you know these cookies are so good you aren't going to believe it you might want to get a jar of jam in order to put on top of the cookies. Yes. 26:35 They sell. You know, when you do things like that, but when you say, here's a cookie, you know, people say, eh, I don't know. You know, and that's it. I don't know, when we get samples of cookies, they just buy the cookie. Ha ha ha. 26:54 Well, yes, because you never know where you're going to get those cookies again. You should buy them while they're in front of you. Yeah. Yep. Okay. I, I have, I have a minor suggestion you might want to consider about when people say, what can I use the jam for besides toast? You guys have a website. You can put a page on your website with ideas for people to use your jam. Yep. We could. And we. 27:21 thought of that and we will do that as soon as we get around. That has actually been the plan for a while now. I've been contemplating making a recipe book for like five years now and I haven't gotten to it. You gotta have the time. You do. And the thing is, is that Ed and I are getting older. And we just... 27:51 We've got all these great ideas. And we say, Kourt, you can do this. Kourt, you can do this. And it's like, there's always so much I can do, help. Yep, yep, exactly. And when somebody says we're getting older, my first thought is, aren't we all? It's not that bad. I mean, I still love what I'm doing. Good. 28:21 Good. Okay. I have one more question for you and then I will probably wrap it up. Um, Ed sounds like he might not be from New England and Emily, and Emily sounds like she is for sure. So am I right? You're right. Yep. Corey and I are from Vermont, extreme Northern Vermont. They're right up here in the Canadian border. I was, I'm from Virginia. Yep. Okay. 28:49 He did a lot of business with the Navy, and he went from place to place to place. We finally got together and stuff like that. That's how we started working together, living together, loving together, stuff like that. Yeah, I wasn't in the Navy. I was an engineer for shipbuilding, general dynamics. Okay, yeah. 29:11 I grew up in Maine, so I'm very aware of New England accents. And I was like, I don't think Ed's from around there to start with. Yeah. So it's funny because I've lived in New England. I mean, I lived in Maine for 11 years. Yup. I worked at Bath Ironworks in Maine, so. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Yup. I don't think I have an accent. What are you talking about? A little bit. Just a little bit. It's not real obvious. It's funny. If I go visit. 29:41 somewhere in the south. I come back and for a couple of weeks I'm worse. Yeah, he says peony and cement. Uh-huh. Yeah, my grandpa. Yep, northern people think it's kind of hilarious to hear that. It's like watching the Beverly Hillbillies for a while. No. Not that bad. It is to me, but anyway, so... 30:11 Yeah, he's not from New England. He's not from around there. My, my grandma, well, my mom's parents lived in Illinois. And so my mom was raised until she was 19, living in Illinois. And then she married my dad and moved to Maine with him because that's where he was from. So I grew up listening to my mom talk with a very Midwestern, kind of Southern drawlish accent. And my dad. 30:41 with his Down East Maine accent. And I ended up right in between. I really don't feel like I have an accent at all. So it's very weird. But again, I'm very aware of people's accents because my dad makes fun of me now because I don't sound like I grew up in Maine at all. Yeah, you do have a bit of a Midwestern little. Little bit. But it's not terribly obvious. A friend of mine, every time I say the word 31:10 now I'm going to overthink it, room or roof. He's like, what are you talking about, Corey? Why, why are you going into a rum? Funny stuff like that. Yeah. And they say route up here. They say route. Yeah. But it's route. That's something that we can talk to our customers about too. Uh huh. 31:36 They pick it up and they say it and they say this and the other thing. And we know what they're talking about. So I don't know if you caught it. We were talking about the theme things we go to. We go in garb, in costume. Sure. Yep. We've been in kilts and all that kind of stuff. At least I do. When we've got a place to go that takes that stuff. Like Scottish games, rent fairs, those are full garb. Those are fun. 32:06 It's super fun. Of course, you don't want to wear wool when it's 90 degrees out, but there you go. No, no you do not. We, we, you know, people may not understand and think and be intimidated when they meet someone who looks professional, who does everything, seems, seems they do everything right and things like that, but everybody had to start it. 32:36 same place, the beginning, and do the best they can and each year improve it a little. Yes. Each year improve it a little. Dive into it. Have fun. Do it. Do it your way. And that's one of the best parts of having your own business is you get to do it your way. Yes. And that's what you're saying is that that's why it's called growing a business. Yes. So. But. 33:05 Anyway, guys, this was really fun. I didn't know I was going to get to talk to three people in one shot today. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you. This is fun. Thank you. Have a fantastic day in beautiful Massachusetts. You as well. You too. All right, thanks. Bye.

Today I'm talking with Regina at Farmgirl Farmstead. 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 Regina at Farm Girl Farmstead. Good morning, Regina. How are you? Good morning. I'm excellent yourself. I'm good. I keep doing this thing where I introduce people and then I stutter through the rest of it and I don't know what is going on with me, but that's okay. 00:29 So tell me about yourself and Farm Girl Farmstead. All right. Well, I am 65 and a half years old. About three years ago before I retired, I decided I wanted to have a farmstead. I spent most of my life raising four kids and I raised three kids and I raised two tiny grandkids for about a year and a half. And I was like, when I get out of the classroom of learning and I actually have time to have a farmstead, 00:58 I'm going to start one. So three years ago I started, but I was still working full time as a supervisor, so I didn't have a lot of time to commit. But then I retired in December. I just worked two days a week remote, and now the Farmstead Dream is coming true. I mean, it's happening, it's happening fast because I did a lot of research prior to get into the full time. And it's almost self-sustaining with the products that I sell. 01:27 But my goal is next year, because it would be my, this year was my first real year of running a full time. Next year I hope to make a profit. Awesome, congratulations on retiring and starting your next season of life. That's amazing. So I have many questions. I was looking at your Facebook page and it looks like you're located in a neighborhood. Is that correct? Absolutely, I'm an urban farmer. 01:55 I have a tenth of an acre and I'm surrounded by the medical field right across the alley from me is ear, nose and throat within a block is a hospital, four blocks is another hospital. So I have a big population of buyers because I'm so visual where I am. Okay. So tell me and tell the listeners how you are. 02:22 utilizing what little space you have to produce lots. Okay, I gotcha. Well, the way that the homestead pays for itself is I start vegetable plants downstairs in the basement. I think I have 38 grow lights, we pot breakers like four times a day. And so this year I grew 5,000 plants from seed. Last year just like 500, just cause I wasn't retired yet. I sell those for $2 each. And I think I have about 02:51 150 left. So that's how the farmstead pays for itself. And I plant everything that we eat. We have dwarf apple trees, dwarf plum trees, a ton of grapes, strawberries, and I sell strawberry plants too. Every vegetable that we like to eat I plant. And that way we can be self-sustaining. I have a friend who has 55 hens, so she provides me eggs, 03:22 like three or four hens and see if something I want to do. I grew up, we raised chickens grown up in California and San Diego. Cause I don't want to jump in and then be like some people who are like, no, let's get rid of them. So I make sure it's something I can and I do want to do. And then also we planted mulberry trees too cause my 29 year old granddaughter loves mulberries but we plant everything that we love. 03:49 I'm hoping to do a beehive next year. There's classes locally and none of my neighbors spray. Nobody sprays anything. I don't use any chemicals. So I wouldn't have to worry about a loss of a beehive due to neighbors. Well, that's helpful. That's great. Yes. Okay, so when you started growing stuff, you grew 5,000 seedlings in your basement with grow light this spring. 04:18 Yep, yep, this spring. I started in January. As soon as I got back from Georgia visiting grandkids, I started in January because I knew with only 38 grow lights, I have to do succession after succession. So some went to the big greenhouse. It's only like 8 by 12, the small ones, 6 by 8. And I'd have a heater in there if the weather dipped, but they would rotate to the big greenhouse or the small greenhouse. And yeah, successfully 5,000. My goal was 8,000. 04:48 But with just me, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do 8,000. That's a lot to handle, yes. So do you grow anything outside? Like you have the fruit trees and stuff. But when you, okay, I asked that whole thing wrong. Let me start again. When you started growing things outside on your property, did you have to amend the soil because you were in the city? Absolutely, yeah. And when we first moved here, and I would say we, but I'm single. 05:18 When I first moved here, I rented the house. That was nine years ago. And the first spring, my landlord said, hey, what do you think about ornamental grasses in the front? And I said, hold on, let me grab my sketch pad. He's like, you drew something up. And in the backyard, I drew all these raised beds. And he's like, oh. I said, I just want permission to do it. If you say no, I'm fine with it. This is your house. And I will take care of everything. I don't expect you to pay for it. 05:47 He looked at it and he said, you can do it. He came the next weekend, brought a rototiller and tilled everything, came the next weekend, built all the beds, came the next weekend, filled in all the dirt. And he would not let me pay him for anything. But we have both. I build an outdoor compost and we have an electric indoor composter. And we bring all the coffee grounds. My granddaughter brings coffee grounds from work. And I pick them up at Dylan's from Starbucks. 06:17 And I mean, we compost everything that's organic so we can put it into our soil. I did buy five cubic yards of compost from a local place last fall. That was a lot of compost, but my soil now is amazing. It used to be so compacted. There was no life in it. You could not find a worm. Now, anytime I try to dig something up, I'm like, 06:42 Sorry, worm, sorry, didn't mean to bother you. It's just, it's the healthiest soil, it's just beautiful. Awesome. Regina, I have to say it. I love you. You are proving my point about the fact that anyone can do this on a small piece of property. Exactly. And you can make it go. Yes, yes. And you know, I'm 65 and a half. I would say a half because I'm almost at 66 and I've always had a high level of energy, but I have... 07:12 visions and they're written down in goals and I make new goals every day and Sometimes I don't make some of those goals but a ton of them I do and that's the ones I celebrate not what I didn't get Done, but what I did accomplish and that's Yeah Absolutely, that that's how you should do it because then you have hope that you can get some more things accomplished later Yes, it's it's plans for the future. It's great. Yeah 07:39 The other reason I'm excited about talking with you is because we had a tenth of an acre as well where we used to live and we made our entire backyard gardens. And so I understand completely what you're talking about. And we now have a hard-sided greenhouse that just was finished a couple of weekends ago. And it's 18 by 40, I think, are the measurements. And so... 08:06 So my husband and I have big, big, big plans and dreams for next year because it's going to be heated. So we're going to try doing bedding plants too for people. Oh, I love, oh my gosh. And they just sell themselves. I market them on the marketplace and then have a sign on the corner and word of mouth gets people, they come back from last year or the year before, they send friends, they're like, hey, Darcy sent me. And I mean, it's just, it's... 08:34 growing itself with me putting like maybe $10 a week into marketing during my busy season and that's it. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know if the city that you live in is a food desert, but a lot of cities end up being food deserts. So is it? Yeah, absolutely. And we don't even have a grocery store close. There's a committee trying to build one about four blocks away where one used to be. 09:03 and they asked if I would help provide vegetables to sell in it. And I told them if I can fit it into my yard, I sure will. I won't be able to, you know, be the only supplier because I never want to be big like that, but I will absolutely be a part of that. Yeah. And yeah, not a lot of people garden here. There's a couple of community gardens, people, I don't know. I don't know why. I think maybe they think they can't do it. 09:30 Yeah, and I mean, if you've never done it before, it can be really daunting. Oh, yeah. There's a large, steep learning curve if you're starting from scratch on how to grow food. Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't want to discourage anybody. It's a really fun learning curve, but you've got to want to do it and you've got to have the time to put into it. Yeah. And it's like anything we're going to, if it's something new. 09:58 We're always gonna be learning with gardening. We're always learning and we're always gonna have our failures, but if we look at what we did and did well, that's what keeps us motivated, keeps us going. Cause I've already made my list of things that I did well this year and things that I have not. And we'll learn from that next year, take those have nots and put them on. We got it. Got it done. Yeah, for sure. It's really funny. 10:25 We live about four and a half miles from the nearest town, which isn't that far. And we are surrounded by cornfield right now. And the corn's coming up. It's about, I would bet it's about eight inches, 10 inches tall right now. And we put in some stuff before all the rain hit weeks ago. I'm in Minnesota. I don't know if you know what the weather's been in our area, but we've just been pounded with rain. But... 10:54 A volunteer lettuce plant came up and we're having grilled ham and cheese sandwiches tonight. I was thinking about it. I was like, what can we have with grilled ham and cheese? I'm going to have my son go out and grab that lettuce because it's big enough to have as a salad. Yes. We're just going to have a basic lettuce salad from the garden with our sandwiches. I love it. This is the first year I actually grew lettuce. 11:21 and spinach and it grew so well. I'm like begging my grown kids, please, please cut it, take some, please. Because before I'd get like one lettuce, because I didn't have time to focus, but this year I had so much. I'm like, please, please, this is so expensive at the store and it's so good, it's organic. Then I take my granddaughter, she's 29. We, when we bought the house, we cohabitate, we share everything. I raised her, put her through college, so, and we get along so well. 11:51 But she's a vegetarian. I'm like, if I see you buy bagelettes one more time while we have all this lettuce, she's like, I know, I keep forgetting. So, first ever growing so much lettuce and because we eat a lot of vegetables, we eat a lot of fruits, we try to grow or I try to grow everything that we'll eat. Yeah. And I mean, you're already doing it. You might as well reap the benefits of it. Exactly. Yeah. 12:18 Because I didn't start with the idea of selling plants to other people. I wanted to give us healthy foods and to reduce our, because I only spend $40 a week on my groceries. I buy my own groceries. I spend $40 a week. And I was like, I'm going to garden because gardening is going to be a big part of keeping that bill at a minimum and eating as healthy as I can. Yes. And with the inflation prices that have happened in the last year, that's a great plan. Yes. 12:46 three grandkids here for three weeks from Georgia. There was six, eight, and 14. And we went shopping the day after they got here. So we went shopping Monday. I was like, good Lord. Grocery bill is like, good night nurse. That's crazy. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I am, I'm offended at the fact that we live in America and it's the land of milk and honey. I said this the other day too on a podcast. 13:16 interview and a lot of people quite literally cannot afford to eat now in the last year and a half. Agreed. Absolutely agreed. And actually, it's been that way for a long time. When I was middle management at Boys and Girls Club, probably 30 years ago, we'd have kids on Friday night who are like, Mr. Regina, do you have anything I can eat? I'm like, did you eat? Did you eat lunch at school? 13:42 On the weekends, they'd be like, I haven't eaten anything all day. So we started a program where we cooked real meals every weekend for every kid who showed up. So it's been that way for so long, but I think people are just realizing it. I mean, for some people, it's always been like that. It's been a hardship just to feed your kids or to eat. But now it's for everybody now. Yeah. 14:04 Now I love you even more because of what you just said. And yes, I knew that there were lots of people who couldn't afford to eat before the last year and a half. But like people who are making okay money at their job are having to make choices about where they spend their money more than they did before because it's a choice of whether the car payment gets made or they eat. Exactly. Absolutely. 14:33 It's ridiculous. I hate everything about this situation as it stands right now. Me too. I thought after COVID was over and through and the trucking crisis, I thought that prices would go down kind of where they need to be, but that just didn't happen. Yeah, we'll be donating produce to our local food shelf this summer. And we did last summer, and we did the year before that, and we did the year before that. We moved here almost four years ago. 15:02 So every summer we've had the big garden, we've donated zucchini and tomatoes and cucumbers and stuff to the food shelf because we have so much and we're so blessed that I'm like, we need to take that big old box down the food shelf right now. Yep. Yeah. In the front yard, we, we changed that to a growing area. So I always plant tomatoes and peppers out there. So anybody, any neighbor, anybody walk them by who wants them, they can just pick them. 15:31 So it's kind of like a little community food station. 15:40 Yep. Awesome. 15:45 Are you still with me? Yeah, I'm still here. Okay. It just got really quiet. And usually when it does that, I think that it's cut out on me. We have a farm stand on our property where we sell produce as well. And we don't have cameras. We don't monitor it hard because our theory is if somebody takes produce without paying for it, they need it more than we do. Yeah. And I shouldn't broadcast the fact that we don't monitor it because now people just come and take stuff. 16:14 It's an honor system and we just hope that people who can afford to pay for what they take do. Yeah. And if they need it, then they can have it. Yeah. I do that too. I do a lot of self-service. I was out there nine to five or 96 every day, but then when it started slowing down, I started doing the self-service Venmo cash app. I have a cash box. And I think I only had one person who didn't actually pay for their stuff. And that was my whole idea too. 16:43 They must need it more than me. And one guy hit me up on Marketplace. He's like, I don't have any money. Do you think I get plans? I'm like, absolutely. I said, let me know what you want and let's meet. And you can absolutely have him. He's like, I really don't have any place to plan them. I'm homeless. But I'll find a place. I said, let's do it. Nice. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. He doesn't have a home, but he has this want or this need to grow food. 17:10 And I'm just like, that's where it all starts. That's where everything starts to pivot and change for somebody. When they have these little grains of ideas and put those into motion, then it grows and it grows. And then all of a sudden, his whole life has changed because he wants to do this one thing that's going to move him forward and provide food for him. You're literally planting seeds, literally and figuratively planting seeds for his life. Oh, thank you. Yeah. 17:39 So what's your favorite favorite thing about what you're doing? Do you have one favorite thing or is it just all your favorite? I think it's that I get to wear overalls all the time. 17:52 When I picked up my grandkids in Georgia, my six-year-old granddaughter who's very, very fancy, she's like, Nana, are you wearing overalls? I'm like, yes, ma'am. I said I brought a pair for tomorrow, a pair for the next day. So every day when she gets up, she's like, you have overalls. I'm like, this is what I wear. I call it my pants purse because I always got people on one side for squirrels that eat out of our hands. Then everything I need is in my pockets. And I don't have to worry about what. 18:20 what I'm wearing, how I present myself, that's just who I am. And when people come to buy things and they have overalls on, we talk about overalls, it's just so sweet and just so simple. What's your favorite brand of overalls? Cause I need a pair. I like the old Navy ones because they have some slouch in them, they have some give in them, and they have the boyfriend cut, so they're just a little bit higher and they have a lot of pockets. But when I'm down in the dirt, 18:48 I don't wear those, any of those. I wear the key, K-E-Y, they're older ones. Just because they have all the pockets to hang your tools in. If I get mud on them, and I will, then I'm not worried, because I have a lot of overalls. So I wear all the, let's see, other ones I have. I got them from the grain store. Found one pair at a yard sale. I was like, what? A bag of clothes for $5? Yes, ma'am. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I like the ones from the Sparm store because they're just built better. 19:18 But then my city, I say going to town ones, even though I live in the city, right in the middle, those are my old Navy ones because they're a little bit more feminine and not so muddy. Well, you got to spruce up a little bit now and then just to feel better. So your farm girl farmstead uniform is overalls. I love that. Exactly. Yeah. And one time a guy came and he's like, my friend said you always wear overalls. 19:44 I'd been out there from nine in the morning to six at night. He came at seven and I had just changed. I went out and he's like, where's your overalls? I'm like, I'm so sorry. I said, I just changed. I was just exhausted and dirty. He's like, they said you always wear overalls. He said like eight times. I knew that that was gonna be my image. That was gonna be my uniform because that's what people expected. And they, I don't know, it just makes them happy when I have overalls on. Great. Do you have different color overalls or are they just denim? All denim. 20:14 because you know, yeah, you know, I'm retired. I'm on a budget. I'm gonna have to find out your size and find some really crazy looking overalls and ship them to you from Amazon. That has some, but I'm like, oh, I can't pay that much for overalls. I've been looking at. Yeah. Yeah, you should get some with flowers on them. Oh, I see those and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna have to wait because you know, when I knew my grandkids were coming, I'm spending a lot of money this month. 20:43 Yeah, so that's where my budget's being thrown to. But yeah, well, I wear the same size as my age, 18. I'm 18, so that's a giveaway. I'll have to look and see what I can find. I'm so tempted to buy you some really fun overalls just for Grins and Giggles. I bought some off a big blue box store. I bought them online and they got here and they were a whole different size than what they should be. 21:08 and you had to put your own clasp on them. Like, what is this? This is worse than math trying to figure that out. Yeah. No, they need to be ready to wear. Yes, yes, exactly. See, I wear Levi's jeans and tank top and a t-shirt over the tank top and really cute socks. I bought these socks a year and a half ago. They're little ankle socks and they look like the rag wool socks, but they're not. And calaboutes all the time. That's my... 21:38 That's my uniform here at our place. And mostly because I really like being comfy and I don't have to like pack away winter clothes and bring out summer clothes and pack away summer clothes and bring out winter clothes because it all works. It's all year round. Yes, yeah. That's my big thing is being comfortable. It's always been, I've never been into fashion. I've never cared about my nails just because I was always in dirt. Anywhere I can be in dirt, I'd be in dirt. I just don't care about that. I just wanna be comfortable. 22:08 And, you know, I want to look clean, of course, I share every day, but I just want to be comfortable. I don't want to wear what I want to wear. You know, I had to wear when I worked for the state of Kansas, I had to wear what I needed to wear, but now I just want to wear what I want to wear. Yeah, there's a woman on Facebook, her name is Casey. I think her last name is Heister, H-E-I-S-T-E-R. And she's a girly girl. She wears the most beautiful dresses. 22:36 and she gardens in them and she shoots guns in them and she actually has like videos and photos of herself in these really beautiful dresses. That's so cool. I love that. And she's beautiful. Yeah. I love it too. But I really don't move as easily in a dress as I do in jeans and I am always doing something. I'm cooking or I'm chasing after the dog or I'm outside. 23:04 I don't own a dress. I haven't owned a dress in forever. So I watch her and I'm like, I love her for what she's chosen for her life. And you were mentioning pockets and the overalls. I don't carry a purse ever. I always wear some kind of jacket. It doesn't matter if it's 90 degrees out. I have a light jacket that has pockets because my jacket is my purse. 23:32 Partly because I don't ever forget my jacket, but I have literally walked out of places without the bag that I brought with me. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I just slide my debit card in the top pocket if we're going somewhere, my ID if I'm driving, and off we go. Yeah, I have a wallet. I actually carry a wallet just like a man and it's always in my back pocket because it's just easier and I know where everything is. Absolutely. I wish that I could wear dresses because I like long flowy garden dresses. 24:03 the medical center that butts up to the alley. Their break room is right there. And every time they come over, they're like, oh my gosh, we watch you all the time. It's just so awesome over here. We wanna be over here. So it's like I'm being watched for 10 hours a day. So if I was wearing a dress, I'd probably, I don't know, it wouldn't be pretty. Yep. And like you said, you have earned the right to make your choices to be comfortable in your clothing choices and what you're wearing. 24:33 Absolutely. Yeah, now I have to donate a ton of clothes because I haven't touched most of it since I retired. Well, someone will benefit who needs them. So that's great. Absolutely. Okay, so what's your least favorite thing about what you do? That the time is limited every day. Because if I could be out there for like 30 hours in a row, I would do it. I love being outside. I love being in the dirt. I love 25:02 Starting a seat. I love deadheading. I love everything. I just hate that Time is so limited Yeah, there's never enough hours in the day. I don't think it matters what you're doing There's just not enough and you have to sleep at some point. Yeah. Oh and I hate aphids I'm again this week. We every week we're at war somewhere different in the yard with aphids Okay, tell me 25:29 We don't really have trouble with aphids and we never really have even at the old house. What is it that aphids are a problem for? Right now they're on the calendulum. Last week they were on the grapevines. We have a ton of grapes. And then they were on the daisies first. And so we use neem oil and I've listened to your podcast. You use neem oil too. Yep. And that takes care of them. But I'm like, good night. Every time I turn around there's somewhere else. I'm like, I thought I got rid of you guys. I hate aphids. 25:59 But do they eat the plants? Is that the problem? Yeah, they suck the juice out of the plants. And last year I was like, oh, there's ants on there. The ants are going to take care of those aphids and eat them. Well, my granddaughter, the one I spoke about, she's a biology major. She's like, no, they're harvesting the sugar off the aphids. They are profiting from the aphids. They're not going to kill them. They're going to try to keep them alive. So I had to start using neem oil. 26:24 Yeah, it seems like a lot of insects do not appreciate neem oil at all. I like that. Yeah, it works. I saw it on something on a YouTube video years ago and I was like, huh, it's not going to hurt my dog. It's not going to hurt the barn cats. It's not going to hurt the chickens if by chance they get into it and it doesn't hurt the plants. So let's try that. 26:51 if you do it in the morning or after they all go to bed. That was my big thing, the pollinators. But yeah, and I think you had mentioned on one of the podcasts that you used it on the apple trees. Like, oh, I never heard that because we have two dwarf apple trees. So I started using it on the apple trees too. Yeah, we started that last year because we had little, we had a couple of tiny little apples developed two falls ago on one of the trees. 27:20 They're fairly new trees. We just put them in three and a half, four years ago. And they had the, the yuck on the inside from the moth larva that get into apples. Yes. And I was trying to find a way to not have that happen again. And I saw something about that you could use neem oil once that the little baby apples developed from the blooms. And I said to my husband, I said, do we have any neem oil left in the spray bottle thing? And he was like, yeah. I said, 27:50 Can we try spraying the apples with that and see if it helps? Like spray the base of the tree and spray the actual apples. And he's like, I will try anything at this point. I was like, okay. So we did. And we ended up with probably a hundred honey gold apples last fall. That's amazing. That is amazing. And they were small, but they're dwarf stock trees and they were young trees. We didn't expect them to be big apples. Yeah. 28:17 And I don't like them. I don't like Golden Delicious Apples and Honey Gold's taste a lot like Golden Delicious Apples to me. But my husband loves Golden Delicious Apples. So he was thrilled that we got them. That's funny. I think we planted one Gala and one Fuji because those are our favorites. And how are they, you don't know how they're doing yet. You won't know for a while. This is their second full year. 28:44 So you're supposed to get apples within two, three years. So we should have apples next year. Okay. One of them bloom this year, but I don't see any apples on there. Yeah. It's after the blooms. Cause that's when I heard you say to use the email. I'm like, man. So next year. Yep. Um, we don't, I don't know if, uh, Gayle's or the other one you said would grow here because we're further north than you. Oh yeah. You're a little north. 29:14 Yeah, but the ones that we have are the honey golds. We have two honeycrisp trees that are, they were saplings when we bought them two years ago. So they're finally starting to branch out. So we're hoping to have apples next, not this coming, but fall of 2025 from those. And we have Regents and we have Harrelson. 29:39 And we have a couple old varieties that I can't think of the names of right now. We have like 16 or 18 trees. Wow. That's so, so hopefully within a couple of years, we'll actually have enough apples that we can sell them and we can donate some of those to the food shelf. I love that. I love your heart. I'm trying. I I'm trying so hard to figure out ways to make this place support itself. And also without. 30:07 without charging any money to people, support the community as well. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a balance. It is. Absolutely. Like my prices on my vegetable plants, three years ago, was $2. Last year, $2. This year, $2. And I told everybody, and that's even my perennial flowers that I grow, I told everybody next year I plan on keeping it at $2, but I said I need y'all to return your pots though, because my goal is not to put any money out for pots and... 30:36 no more plastic out into the world, that's new. I just want to reuse. And so everybody's been fantastic about returning pots, pots that didn't come from me. But because people are like, we went to this store, it was this much for one tomato plant? They're like, that's why we always come back to you. You're organic, it's $2. You did all the work. We don't know where the seeds came from, what they were sprayed with. We know what yours were sprayed with, nothing. Uh-huh, yep. You're doing a good thing. 31:05 Regarding the pots and the baskets and things, the plastic, somebody on Facebook Marketplace last week had a whole bunch of nursery pots, the plastic ones, one and two gallon ones, for free. She got them from the nursery and she was like, I need these gone, come get them. And I was like, pick us, we'll take them. So my husband and my son drove down and brought home like 30. 31:34 of these pots. And because we now have the greenhouse, we need those size pots for plants. And I put out the call on Facebook, you know, on my friend page. I was like, if anyone has hanging plant pots from their, the stuff that they got this year that they want to get rid of, let us know. And one of my good friends who lives nearby, she's like, I have three, we'll bring them all over. And I said, okay, great. 32:00 So I'm putting out the call for the ones that people are just going to throw away because we need them. We want to grow hanging potted plants in the greenhouse next spring. And the landfill does not need them. That's my whole... I don't want to buy any more new ones. And when we put that call out, all of a sudden we start getting what we need. Last weekend, I have a friend who works on the weekends at an auction house. They had an old greenhouse that they wouldn't let anybody go into because it was in bad repair. 32:30 Tell me what you want. She got me, I think, 2,000 pots. She got me 12 of the real heavy, heavy plastic trays that have the drain holes in it. These are trays that will never, ever break. She got me a ton, probably about 40 hanging hooks to hang plants in the greenhouses. And she's like, $2. I'm like, I am not paying you just $2. I said, it was your time, your wear, and these are valuable to me. So I over, over, overpaid her. 32:58 but I didn't overpay her for, you know, I made sure it wasn't too much for my budget, but I gave her a lot more than she wanted. But when you put that call out, all of a sudden, everybody's showing up and dropping off stuff at your porch or your greenhouse. Yes, because if you don't open your mouth, nobody knows what you need. Exactly, or they think she probably has plenty, she's been doing this for a while, I'm just gonna throw it away, nope. Everybody shows up, they'll be like, hey, I just dropped something at your greenhouse. I'm like, yes, or the medical center next door, 33:28 they walk over when they see me out there like, where was I come when you're out? Cause you like talk about plants and boy, do I like to talk about plants. You're educating the medical field. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're just, they're a blessing. They're just so sweet. One of my plants, when I saw last week, one of the ladies over there sent an email to everybody in the building and said, Hey, Farm Girl Farm said this is a price this week. And a ton of people came over. So I sent her, I walked over. 33:56 bouquet of flowers for her from the garden. Awesome. We're doing that, yeah. I was gonna say before before I cut you loose because we're at we're over half an hour now but I still have questions. Do you, what do you grow for flowers? You said calendula, what else? Well this is the first year I've ever grown flowers that weren't just for me so I grew dahlias from seed. First year I ever did it. 34:25 I think about 40 for me and then I sold the rest and I started Status and oh my gosh, that was probably 100% germination rate. Planted what I needed because I want to try bouquets this year just because when the vegetable plant season ends, it gives me something else to sell. Oh gosh, I started Black Eyed Susan's, yarrow from the seeds that I saved and purple cone flower because I like perennials. I don't like to waste money. Everything came up except for rosemary. 34:54 I hate rosemary. It hates me back. I tried a lot of fashion plantings and everyone did not make it, not one. But yeah, I started so many flowers, but I put on my list for next year not to plant as many flowers, Regina. We should have planted more vegetables and herbs in all that flower space, but I love flowers. I just think they're beautiful. 35:19 Well, don't eradicate the flower growing. Just grow slightly less and you'll be good. Yeah, but I also did a lot of research this winter because I wanted to learn about dahlias. I've never grown them. And I didn't want to buy them, the tubers, because they weren't in my budget. So I bought the seeds and wow. And then I learned that when you pull up that tuber or tubers in the fall, it's going to be whatever the color of that flower was, that's going to be the color of your next flower. 35:47 But the seeds will be so many different colors. And that's how they come up with all these new varieties. When they plant seeds, all of a sudden they have this one. They take it and they breed just that one. So I said, so, you know, I always educate people, this is what you're gonna get. When you dig it up, make sure you dig it up, save those seeds, same, I mean, zinnias, every, zinnias are my favorite. I always have so many seeds every year. But I love, I love flowers. Yeah, zinnias are really fun because they're easy. Yes, yes. 36:17 And there's so many different colors and they're great for bouquets. Mm-hmm. They have a long base life. Yeah. We have, we have some growing. Yeah. They're so forgiving. If you forget to water them for a couple of days or a week, they're like, we're still here. We're not going anywhere. They grow like a weed. Exactly. A pretty weed. Absolutely. All right. Well, Regina, I am so excited that you took the time to chat with me today because you proved. 36:47 My thing I've been saying on the podcast for almost 10 months now, I think, that anyone can grow produce and flowers and herbs on a small city lot. Yes, ma'am. And you can get that soil amended. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, I did buy this house five years ago. I told you I was renting it initially. Yep. Then I ended up buying it. So it's mine. Yay. Yeah. That's awesome. 37:16 Thank you. And I bought it before, excuse me, before the housing market went crazy. Oh, even better. Yes. Good. All right. Regina, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it. You're welcome, Mary. And thank you. You have a wonderful day. Okay. Have a great, have a great day. Thank you. Bye bye.

Today I'm talking with Terry at Red Dragonfly Animal Rescue. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 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 Terry at Red Dragon Fly Animal Rescue. How are you, Terry? I am doing great, Mary. Good. Tell me about yourself and what you do. So we have a large animal rescue in the Panhandle of Florida. 00:28 Um, we rescue horses, donkeys, cows. Um, every, every single rescue has a different story of how they wound up on our, on our farm. Um, we also have Muscovy ducks and roosters that have been dropped off because people have found them in their front yard and don't know what to do with them. Um, we're trying to provide a service for animals that have been neglected, abandoned. Um, the equine that have been put into the slaughter pipeline. 00:58 which is just devastating. So I know people ask me, you know you can't save them all and I know I can't, but I feel like if I can just make a difference in a few lives and save what I can that I think I found my purpose. Okay, so what brought you to this? So in 2021, we purchased a small five acre lot in Southwest Florida. And we have... 01:27 We had a business up in New England and we thought, okay, so this is where we kind of want our last chapter to be. I'm originally from Florida. My husband's originally from Connecticut, but he was on board to relocate. And at the end of 2021, we didn't know what we wanted to do with this piece of land. We know we thought a farm, we thought animals, we thought, you know, we had somewhat of a vision, but it wasn't clear to be, you know, fully transparent. 01:56 So my husband called me, I think it was like November, December of 2021 and said, listen, I met this rancher and he's got these baby cows that he's gonna take to slaughter. And I was like, why? And he said, well, he has too many cows and too many males and he's, one's a male, one's a female. Female, he doesn't even know who the mom is. So I said, no, let's bring them to the farm. So I learned how to do barbed wire for the first time in my life. 02:25 Um, we fenced in two and a half acres and we had six week old calves. Mary, they cried for their moms on that. Oh yeah. Oh, it broke my heart and we weren't living there, but I was there. I was there every hour. Um, and then six months, not even six months, I'm going to say maybe a couple months later, we got a call that a petting zoo was closing and they had this donkey and, um, that's the story that we were given. 02:55 I'm still not 100% sure. I think he was a displaced donkey that nobody wanted. So we transported him to the farm and we thought, oh, donkeys are pasture mates. They're gonna protect the cows. Not this donkey. This donkey wanted to attack the cows. So we had to separate them. They each got their own pasture, their own pole barn, their feed stations, their hay. And I thought, okay, I could do this. And I started doing research. I signed up for 03:25 FEMA classes that have, and this is all free, and a lot of folks don't know this, they're available online. They bring teachers to, it's usually like community centers. I was the only lay person in the room. We did a two or three day course. I flew up to Long Island, and it was all first responders on how to deal with animals in a disaster, whether it's a natural disaster or unnatural disaster. So you know, the fires in... 03:54 wildfires in California and I didn't know Hurricane Ian was coming to southwest Florida, but what do you do with animals in these situations? What do you, you know, who, who's there to help you? Who has transportation? Where can we relocate them to? So I started to reach out to folks in southwest Florida. I think they kind of had their own established network, and then Hurricane Ian came. We were super lucky, Mary, super lucky that the animals survived. 04:21 And the house that we also had near them survived, but not much else survived. I'm sure you saw pictures of, of post-hurricane and the devastation and the, the loss of lives. And it was just, we thought better of maybe not staying there. Um, my husband rides dirt bikes as his mental therapy, and he found some trails up in the Panhandle of Florida. So we came up here on a weekend and he was like, this is gorgeous. Um, and better yet. 04:51 affordable. So I said, I will relocate. Here's my thing. I need to live where the animals are. And I want to do this full time as much as we can full time. So I got our 501 C3, which was no easy feat. We transported the animals. We bought a 25 acre. We went from a 2400 square foot house to a 900 square foot barnaminium. 05:21 and we promised each other that 80% of our time will be spent outside with the animals. And it is. Since 20, we bought this property last year. Since then, we've rescued two female donkeys that were in the auction cycle. They were both pregnant. We did not know when we brought them here. They came up last year. 05:47 Coffee delivered April 21st, a healthy baby. We think she may be a henny, the vet's coming out next month maybe to do some blood work. What is that? What's a henny? It's a cross between a female donkey and a male horse. So when they're thrown into these auctions, and a lot of folks don't know what happens in these auctions, but these equine are put into these horrible situations. They're put in these lots that are very, very small, confined. 06:17 They're not fed good feed, they're given poor hay, and then they're paraded in front of people because it's all to make money. At the end of the day, Mary, it's all to make money. And these horses are in horrible, horrible conditions. These donkeys are in horrible condition. You know, they're not, they're not taken care of because it's, nobody's going to keep them on an auction cycle or in one of these fold-over laws for any extended period of time. So it was a kill pen up in North Carolina. 06:46 that I reached out to and I brought them home on August 8th. They delivered April 21st and April 30th. We don't know if she was exposed to a horse or a donkey. She just, the baby seems really big to me compared to the other baby donkey. So I was like, I want blood work. Not that it matters. They are sterile. She won't be able to reproduce and that's the, you know, the only thing. Mules or hinnies. 07:14 sized by the same size as a horse. They're much stronger. They're much durable. They're super smart. So I'm excited. We'll see what we have. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's funny when mules happen because sometimes they're absolutely gorgeous and sometimes the funniest looking thing you've ever seen. My husband says, so this is going to date us. I think it was a kazoo. 07:43 the cartoon when we were younger that had that helmet on. He's like, she looks like she's wearing a helmet. So, we'll see. And then January, the most recent rescues, besides the ducks and the roosters, were five horses from a kill pen in Tennessee that were in horrible, horrible condition. We signed up for two blind horses. The blind horses will never be sold at auction. You know that they're- 08:13 They're going to be loaded on that cattle trailer and they're going to be hauled, you know, across the border, um, to slaughter. And it's a very inhumane, very brutal way that they transport them. I do want to mention, I'd love for the audience to look it up. It's called the SAFE Act. It's HR 3475. And, um, it's to, uh, it's to stop the transportation of equine. 08:43 for slaughter. So we used to have slaughters statewide or stateside. I'm sorry. It was legal to slaughter horses and donkeys here. And then I want to say 2017, they abolished that. But they didn't abolish the fact that we can still throw them on trailers, drive them pregnant babies, it doesn't matter, shove them into these cattle trailers and and 09:08 put them on the road for 20 hours, 24 hours, whatever it takes to get them across the border to Canada or Mexico. I think that if we can ever pass that bill, that would be amazing. So the horses came very sick. They had something called strangles, which is a very highly contagious upper respiratory infection. Our farm was put under quarantine by the state. We had the state inspector come every week. 09:35 We had to keep them away from the rest of the rescues. And I had to suit up to give them their medicine, to feed them, to three times a day. It was a very, very long two months. I would do it over again in a heartbeat because there's two blind horses that we promised to rescue turned into five when the driver showed up with 13. And some of the other rescues didn't show up to take what they. 10:04 committed to taking my husband. And this is one of the reasons I love him so much. I kept saying, he kept saying, we don't have room. We don't have room. And I said, there, he's not gonna take him back to Tennessee. He's not. So he just untied them and I'm sorry, I get emotional. That's okay. They are the best horses ever. We have. 10:32 One, unfortunately, after two months passed away, and that was harder than I expected. And then two have, one's a thoroughbred. Actually, the vet's assistant, we had them at halters, and she noticed right away, she said, I think she's a thoroughbred. They tattooed them on their upper lip so you don't have any markings on them. And sure enough, Maggie has her tattoo, but she has an injured eye. So who's going to buy her at auction? 11:02 Um, Winston also has an injured eye and a huge, beautiful gelding protects the mares and then the other two blind girls. We think it was ovidus, which is a common, unfortunately, bacteria that horses get. And eventually to lose their vision. I had the farrier out here the other day and they all stood for him like perfect. So, you know, they were somebody's horse. I just don't think folks know what happens. 11:30 when they take their horses to auction. I, you know, they just really, Mary, they have no idea what these horses are gonna go through. Yeah, yep. I don't wanna cut you off, but I have a couple questions out of all of that. Number one, you said that it was, well, I don't know what you said, but it sounds like it was rough getting the 501C3 thing. 12:00 Is that because you have to, how does it work? Is it that you have to justify why you want to become that? So you have to have a purpose or a reason or a vision or a mission, whatever you want to call it. I was super worried because everything I read, and I've tried to self-educate as much as I can. In a previous life, I was a pharmaceutical rep and I'm used to studying and learning and I think it's what keeps my head going. 12:29 My focus now is animals, so, and how am I going to help them? So I like dove in, how am I going to get this 501c3? Because that's how we're going to get donations when folks could write them off, when, you know, the grants, what can I apply for? And everything I read, Mary, scared me because it said if you don't get it right the first time, the IRS could tell you we're not going to honor the 501c3 for a year or for however long. 12:56 So I reached out to a law firm in Fort Myers that specialized in it. Not inexpensive at all. So it took- Not inexpensive, is that what you said? Not inexpensive, very, very inexpensive. So I made payments. I got on a payment plan and I said, this is what I can afford. Each month, can we progress? And it took us a year. And in July of 2023, 13:26 I got the official 501C3 and then I registered for my number in the state of Florida. So if you look us up under any charity, Red Dragonfly Animal Rescue is completely legit. We have our vendor credentials, so I can go to Tractor Supply, I can go to the feed store, Ace and I don't have to pay taxes. So there's a lot of benefits to it that folks may not know. 13:52 And I just finished, I did a very detailed business plan of where I see us, you know, for the rest of this year. And then where I see us in 24 months and 36 months and 48 months. Um, and now that I have that complete, my next step is to get a grant writer. Um, which I'm now just starting to investigate, but I feel like that will be. We have 25 acres, not all of it is cleared. 14:21 We've started to clear on our own and it's time and it's expensive. Fences are expensive, no climb is expensive, and then you're trying to do all this while still maintaining the rescues, you know, still giving them veterinarian care, obviously good feed, everything that they need. And I think grants will definitely help us. 14:48 that you have to have to do this. And I was like, oh my God, that's got to get really expensive, really fast. It does. And I, um, I always say my animals will eat before I do. Um, I still work remotely because there it's, it's just such an expense to keep it going that it, I don't. I don't foresee that changing until we can get into this grant world. And, and, um, and I know there's a lot of grants out there because I've researched it. Um, 15:16 And I know like tractors, even, you know, private companies have grants. I just need to expand that more, focus more on that and get my applications out, my business plan out and grow that part of it. Yes, the great thing about grants is there are lots of them. The bad part about grants is there's lots of people who would like to get their hands on the lots of grants. Right. 15:42 Exactly. Everything I read says be detailed, be detailed. So I'm trying to be as detailed as I can. And I can talk about this Mary all day long. Like I, this is when, you know, I told you I was a pharmaceutical rep when I was young, I was a flight attendant, I worked with my husband's business. You know when you find your purpose, you really, it's in your heart. It's not, I tell people it's the hardest job I've ever done physically and emotionally. 16:12 And I've raised kids, I've done all that. But the fulfillment you get out of all that hard work, I've never, there's nothing you can compare it to. Yeah, you found your passion. This is what you want to be doing and what you think that you were meant to be doing. This is your calling. Absolutely, absolutely. And on that note, I think that what you're doing is amazing. 16:40 and I think that there's a reason for it. But I'm sure that you get pushback from people about why are you doing this? 16:49 Okay, so what I was saying is I think that what you're doing is amazing and I think it's important, but I'm sure that you probably get pushback from people about why are you doing this? Oh yes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Why am I doing this? Besides my own purpose and my own goals? I think these animals need it. I think people need to be educated. I think people just don't know. 17:19 they don't realize, for example, where these donkeys could wind up. Oscar's Place is a great sanctuary in California that I've reached out to and I've communicated, and I've tried to learn from other sanctuaries and learning from other rescues. We've done some University of Florida veterinarians classes online on how to handle large animals and really get to learn more about them. I feel like if more people were aware, 17:48 of what these animals go through, I think people would say, no, we're not going to do this. Let's stop this. Let's not transport them. Let's, you know, let's find them. There's one retirement home for horses in the state of Florida in Gainesville. They have 300 acres and they're full and they try to, you know, limit who they take only working horses. People buy a horse for their kids and they think we're going to have a trail horse and then they lose their sight. 18:17 And that's it, we're done. I don't want them on my feed, Bill. It's still a living, breathing creature. I've had quite a few people visit the rescue. I try and do one-on-one. Like we had a little boy yesterday who's homeschooled, who came out. We did a special project. So I'm trying to do natural mosquito control in Florida. So we went and gathered gambusia fish from a retaining pond to put in the horse troughs that eat the mosquito larvae. 18:46 But it was my opportunity at age nine, he's not gonna really understand what these horses go through and how he could make a difference. But his mom did and she was shocked. She was like, I had no idea. And these are folks that are professionals, are educated, consider themselves knowledgeable. It's just, for lack of a better word, a seedy or shady side of the horse business and the donkey business. 19:15 the cattle industry that folks don't know. I'm never gonna tell anybody what to eat, what not to eat, that is not my place. There's humane ways to do it. There's ways that you're not, you know, putting 800 chickens in a 12 by 12 room, you know, feeding them antibiotics to get them to grow so you can sell more chickens. You could do it in a humane way. You could. 19:43 you could have cattle in a humane way. You could have dairy farms in a humane way without dragging those babies away from mamas right away. I think it's all education and opening our eyes and maybe going back to simpler times when it wasn't more money, more things, more... I think that's my why, is to educate people. Okay. All right, that seems reasonable to me. 20:13 Um, I have, I have another question. What's the, what's the insect that I'm hearing in the background? Um, so you hear crickets at night when the sun sets, you hear frogs, but you may hear roosters. Yeah. Okay. So we, yeah. So we, um, we just rescued cowboy, um, who's a beautiful, beautiful rooster who wound up in a very, um, in a historical district in a town nearby us. And. 20:42 the lady found this on the internet, I guess, or somebody gave her her phone number and she called me and she's like, I have him in my bathroom and I don't think I can keep him in my bathroom. I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's a good idea. So she came out a couple of days later and she was so funny because she had gotten attached to the rooster and she was like, what if he doesn't get along? What if he runs away? I said, well, we have 25 acres and we're gonna feed him. 21:11 I don't think he'll run away. And we have probably about, I don't know, how many Muscovy ducks and we have other roosters. He has taken the charge and I think he's part duck. He keeps all the ducks together every night and then the ducks will go down to the pond and he gets very upset and then he kind of hangs his head and goes inside the barn like he's done his job and can't help them anymore. So I think you hear cowboys, what I think you hear. 21:37 Yeah, I just, it sounds like cicadas and I didn't know if you guys had the cicadas down there this year. And I know you guys had one of the years, right? We don't. Oh. No, we don't have it here in Minnesota, but we will at some point, but not this year. No, I think you hear the crickets, the frogs, and probably cowboy. Okay, I think it's crickets. We don't have any crickets here yet. They don't really start singing until end of June, usually. We have some big ones. 22:07 I don't know the difference between crickets and grasshoppers, but we have a lot of them. Yeah, we'll have both soon. The mosquitoes just arrived yesterday, so that's lovely. So muskoby ducks are the best bug-eating ducks because I know you have a homestead, correct? We do. Okay. So your challenge is to keep them out of your produce or plants that they love to eat. 22:36 and I'm trying to gambush a fish. I don't know if you have any standing water, but they'll eat the larvae. Yeah, we have. It's funny because last summer we had no standing water, therefore we had no mosquitoes. And it has rained for a week straight here off and on. And it's been a very wet spring. And so I stepped outside this morning to grab the dog and got bit twice by mosquitoes. I was like, oh, great. 23:05 they're back. But we don't have any standing water on our property, but there's a wildlife preserve land piece down the road. And the Minnesota River is like three and a half miles from us. So I don't think that doing anything is really going to get rid of the mosquitoes that come to our place. 23:35 vicious. They're just vicious. I did a walk around last night. I do a walk around and check all the gates and the donkeys are very bright and have figured out how to open the gates so we put chains on them too. Horseflies all of a sudden, like ginormous horseflies. So I went inside and I'm like, why? We too have had a lot of water and behind the property we have Florida swamp. And that's where they lay their eggs is in that marshy, you know, 24:04 And I'm like, how do you even control that? Mm-hmm. You don't and bugs are bugs. There's always going to be bugs. Yep. And then there's great new dragonflies. 24:20 Yes, yes. The dragonflies will help here in a couple of weeks. They'll be back too. Good. And we have really beautiful ones. We have like these blue, like cross between blue and green dragonflies. And every time I see them, I'm just like, I just have to watch you for a while. They're so pretty. I completely understand. And that's one of the joys of having a homestead or a farm is that... 24:47 you get to stop and look at the things that are around you. It slows you down. I came from a very fast paced life and there's always gonna be work to be done on the farm. Like I've made my peace with that, but when I'm feeling stressed, I grab a brush and I just head out to one of the paddocks and I'm like, we're gonna brush you today, we're gonna spend some time and it just kinda slows you down. 25:16 Yeah, and it's a one task thing. You're focused on that for the time that you're doing it. It's great. I love, I don't have any animals other than the dog and the barn cats and chickens. So I don't have a horse or a donkey to go brush out, but I do have two male adults who I need to keep fed in the house. And so... 25:41 Cooking is my zen. It's where I have one task that I'm focused on for the time that I'm doing it. I get it. Yeah, I think everybody needs something they love to do where they're just doing that one thing for at least 20 minutes. That's what I think. Yeah, yeah. 26:01 So I don't know how old you are, which means that I don't know how long you want to continue to do this animal rescue thing. So this is our final chapter. In my late 50s, my husband's a year older than me. And I've talked to the kids, we have together four grown boys of, you know, who would think about taking this over? Because I want it to be a legacy if at all possible. 26:30 If there's some, and this is going to sound horrible and I don't want it to sound horrible. If for some reason this stops after I stop on this planet, I've told them all, if you can't rehome them, they cannot go to auction, they cannot be sold off, they cannot, I almost rather them be euthanized with me because it's just, I got them out of this situation. Let's not put them back in that situation. 27:00 Yes, and it's a hard thing to think about. It's a hard thing to talk about. No, it's something that crosses our minds. I'm not 25 anymore. Somebody reached out to us, and I said, at this time, I can't make a commitment. But let's see where we are in a couple of years. She's in her 60s. She's got a donkey sanctuary in Texas. And all her kids told her, we want no part of this. We don't want it. We don't like it. 27:29 So she wants to re-home, I think she's got 12 donkeys, she wants to re-home them before she passes on, or at least have a sanctuary or rescue that says, I can take the majority of them, or, you know, she wants that to be set before she moves on. So it's a big commitment. It's an obligation. You have these, you know, living, breathing creatures that completely depend on you. So, you know, if the right person comes along, 27:57 I think we were the right people to buy this property. The folks that sold this property were older. They had built it as an equine. They had a couple horses on it for their daughter. And they wanted the right folks to buy it. They still come visit us. They come visit us every month. And they're, you know, they asked me to name one of the baby donkeys after. So I could see that. I can see us passing on this. 28:26 Hopefully one of the kids, but if not somebody that wants to embrace it and continue this mission because it's not easy. No, no. I am not doing it and I know damn well it's not easy. Running any kind of rescue or sanctuary or refuge for animals is a huge undertaking and kudos to you for doing it because I could not do it. I... 28:53 I am not young enough, I am not patient enough, and I am not determined enough to do what you're doing. I am determined enough to talk to you about what you're doing though, so that's good news. Because you're helping me spread my passion and you're helping me spread the information and the education that folks need to learn about. Yeah, exactly. And that's what the podcast is all about. It's about letting people hear about what other people are doing, whether it's growing 29:23 I don't know, raising animals for food or whatever they're doing because you guys are brilliant people doing amazing things and there's so little chance for you to get the word out to the public and I want people to know. Thank you. I appreciate this from the bottom of my heart. We had a booth at the Florida State Fair in November for a few days. 29:48 just to raise awareness. And we're trying to figure out, we're trying to figure out different things. How are we gonna raise awareness? How are we going to promote the cause? How are we gonna get more support? And I met some really great people. My husband's like, we're doing what? And I'm like, let's make some t-shirts and let's share our story. And I actually met a couple of people that are volunteers at the rescue now that I could not let, you know, they come out every other Saturday and they help me bathe horses and... 30:18 They help me spray and they help me drag fields and you know, it's all about networking. I really think it's all about networking. But life is about networking. Yes, because one person cannot do anything alone. Except maybe use the bathroom. That's a good time to be alone. But other than that, if you're doing something, many hands make light work. Absolutely. And I feel like, I was going to say, I feel like the more love the animals feel, the better for them. 30:48 Yeah. So I was going to ask you at the beginning, but I got sidetracked. So I was listening to your story. How come it's a red dragonfly animal rescue? How did you name it? My sister and I were walking in the little farm that we had in southwest Florida, and there was red dragonflies everywhere. And I thought I've never seen a red dragonfly that I remember. And my sister was kind of like, this is strange. So, of course, we took out our phones and we're like this. Somebody is sending us a sign. And yeah. 31:16 The story behind the red dragonfly is when you see it, if you're going through a moment of despair or hard times, it's a sign that there's better times coming. Just hang in there, better times are coming. And it was like an epiphany. It was like, this is it. You know, cause I had talked about, my dad had recently passed away. Let's name it after him. Let's name it, you know, maybe after a location. And the minute I saw what that meant, to me, it was a given. And it's become our mission statement. 31:45 You know, we are going to take these animals from really bad situations and show them love and kindness and, you know, care and nutrition and give them what they deserve. Those horses that we rescued, I say this to everybody who comes on the farm, those horses we rescued in January have every reason to be aggressive, to be mean, to be, you know, 32:14 act up, they are the sweetest. One of them, I think, thinks is a dog because he always licks me when I go into the paddock. I think they appreciate and they know the difference between the situation they were in and what they've come into. And I feel like, you know, the red dragonfly just is that symbol that I want folks to know what we're offering these animals. 32:41 Yeah, I love that. I didn't even know red dragonflies existed. So again, learn something new. And I'm talking to people on the podcast. Mary, you're going to go outside and you're going to see all your blue green and there'll be a red one. I promise you because I was like, wow. And I believe in, I believe in science. I believe that the universe sends you signs to tell you the right place at the right time. And the last father's day was hard for me. 33:08 And I took a walk, we're up against the Apalachicola State Forest, and my son came to visit me, and we took a walk through there. And there was red dragonflies everywhere. I mean, he's the one that's with that mom. And I said, I know. We're where we need to be. I'm where I need to be. Yeah. And you're right. I think that your horses do understand because, and I've talked about this before, but I'm going to share it again, because it's what I do. I share the stories over and over again. 33:36 We adopted a cat from the Humane Society. And they told us that he was two years old and that he was feral, stray, and would never be friendly, ever. And basically take him home, leave him in his carrier, give him some food and water, and let him be in his carrier for a day, like 24 hours, and then let him out wherever he's going to live. And leave him alone, basically. We want him for a barn cat. 34:06 And this cat is in love with us now, because we feed him and we let him come to us and we pet him. He hates being held. He will growl the entire time. So I think you're right. I think that animals know that if they've been mistreated, if you can build trust with them, they will become friendly and kind. Trust. I think that's the key word, Mary. I think it's... 34:36 you showed that cat that he could trust you. Yeah. And we named him Satan because he was full of Spitfire when we got him. He was not a happy boy. So his name is Satan, but I call him Lucy in my head for Lucifer because Lucy seems nicer than Satan. I like that a lot. How long have you had him? 35:05 Three years now? Yeah. It doesn't happen overnight. No, and my son was the one who really bonded with him and it took him about three months for the cat to be nice to him. That's about right. So it was pretty quick. It was a pretty quick term. Yeah. And when I... Yeah, he's a lovely kitty. I'm sure he is. When what? When I say they're super nice and non-aggressive. It's not that I haven't been kicked. 35:35 and I haven't been pushed and I haven't been because they still get scared, they still get spooked, especially the blind horses. It's not all super, but that's how they communicate. When you try and hold him, hold Lucy, and he doesn't wanna be held, that's how he tells you. I'm gonna growl at you to show you I don't have hands to push you away. That's the way he shares with you that, okay, you can feed me, you can pet me, but this is where I'm gonna draw the line. 36:04 Yeah, I don't hold him. I don't want to get scratched and he's telling me that he doesn't want to be held and I respect that. My son however, he likes holding him and playing with him and the cat puts up with it. He hasn't actually scratched him yet. So we're good. Good. Good. But yeah, it's I don't know. I feel like I'm gonna sound like a Pollyanna for a minute. I feel like if people would just be kind and 36:34 follow the people's lead that they're trying to know and same thing with the animals, things would be a lot better. I am going to put a caveat on that in that there are people who will lead you down paths you don't want to go. But if people could just not be mean and try to understand the other person's experience before they put their experience on top of it. 37:02 maybe the world would be a better place. Absolutely. I could not agree with you more. Walk a mile in somebody's shoes before you pass judgment. It's so easy for us to be short with each other. You know, summer's here, it's hot, the kids are running around. You can have an excuse to be mean. You can have an excuse to be short every single day. Every single day. It's choosing not to be and working on it. 37:32 Yeah, I, my husband thinks that I am a terribly soft hearted person and he thinks that it's a good thing, but that's what he thinks. And it's because when I was a kid, I was teased a lot. I am, I was very tall, very quickly. I did not come into a womanly figure until I got pregnant with my first kid. I had pitch black hair, bright blue eyes and very pale skin. This did not go over well in school. 38:00 And I got teased a lot and I hated every minute of it. And my way of coping with it was to try to consider the other person's life and where they were coming from. Because I couldn't be mean and I wasn't big enough to fight back. So my coping mechanism was they must have a really terrible life at home or something must be wrong. And I think it molded who I became as an adult because when I see people acting in a not so great way, 38:29 I'm like, huh, they must be having a bad day. I wonder what's going on. I wonder who they're married to. Or I wonder what's at work. Yeah, or do they have a really bad headache and it's making them cranky or something? Because that's how I dealt with it as a kid. And my husband is like, you always are willing to give people to benefit of the doubt. And I'm like, until I don't. Yeah. Once I'm done, I'm done, but I'm gonna try. With me as well. 38:59 I used to pack extra lunches for my kids and tell them, I want you to sit with a kid that doesn't have a friend. I need you to sit with a kid who's sitting alone in the lunchroom. Mark my words, just sit with that kid. And my three boys have developed lifelong relationships because they chose to sit next to somebody that maybe nobody else would for whatever reason. They look different, they smell different. Kids are mean. They are, they are mean. 39:27 I do believe the adults that we are today, there were hints of it in the beginning and I think we are formed into who we are today by things that happened in our childhood. And I have friends that, you know, as adult friends, I never talked about this really out loud about the rescue and animals that kept going. Is this a phase? Are we going through a phase? I'll support you, Terry. 39:56 I kept saying, no, my mom and my sister, who obviously have known me my whole life, not surprised in the least. And they laugh and they're like, you were the kid that would make dad stop to pick up the turtle and get it across the road. You were the kid in fifth grade that said, I'll take the hamster home. My mom won't care. You were the kid that showed up in the backyard with, you know, six ducks because you found them on the side of the pond and you couldn't find their mom. And it's just who I've been my whole life. 40:27 So this to me is just a natural, I'm an adult, I can make my own decisions because I don't have my parents to ask, can I keep the dog? Can I keep the cat? Can I keep the duck? I have my own finances and I have an incredibly supportive husband. I don't think he would choose this lifestyle if he was giving his, but he's the first one to say, where do you need the next fence? What do you need me to clear? Where do you need me? And he's... 40:56 know, he'll halt your horse and he'll help me lead them and he'll do whatever without and I can't ask for more. I really can't. You are blessed because not every husband would do that. I know. I know. All right, Terri. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. I appreciate you, Terri. Thank you. I was like... 41:23 We're at like 42 minutes, so I'm gonna let you go. I'm sure you have work to do. Yeah, that's okay. It's always worth it. All right. Yes, there is. All right, Terri, thank you again. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye.