A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Cally at Salt & Fern Bakehaus. You can also follow on Facebook. Market Entry Fund Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 If you're a homesteader who wants to get paid for your content without living on social media, check out SteelSpoonFarm.com. Founder Jen Kibler teaches you how to build a real blog or your email list and use Pinterest for sustainable marketing. Inside her coaching group, Content Seeds Collective, you'll get weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to her Root Seller Resource Library full of tutorials and templates. Join today for just $37 a month and start building a business that doesn't depend on the algorithm. 00:26 A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Sealspoon Farm. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Cally at Salt and Fern Bakehouse in North Mankato, Minnesota. Good morning, Cally. How are you? Good morning. I am really happy to be here. 00:50 I'm glad to have you and I'm really glad that I didn't screw up the introduction because I have been stumbling over my words the last few episodes and I'm like, get it together, Mary. You know how to do this. That's moving for a cup of coffee. Yeah, I'm telling you. It's crazy. um Normally, I would say, how's the weather? But since you're about half an hour for me, I'm guessing the sun has just broken through the rain clouds from this morning. 01:15 It's still pretty cloudy here, unfortunately, but I'm sure the sun will be on its way. know we've got some 50 and 60 degree days coming up. I cannot wait. I am so excited. I am so ready for this winter to be over. Me too. Get me in the garden. Yep. Right there with you. My husband is itching. I said to him, I said, are you going to get seeds planted in the seed trays on the kitchen table this weekend? And he said, there will be no seedlings in the house this year. What? 01:44 And I said, okay, he said, I am starting everything in the greenhouse. Oh my gosh. Do have an exterior greenhouse or like those rollable ones? We have like a, I think it's 25. I don't, I don't know the exact dimensions. It is probably 15 by 30 feet. It is a, it's not one of the hoop houses. It's a hard sided greenhouse. What a dream. 02:12 Yes, I applied for a grant a couple of years ago and got the grant and the grant was to go for a greenhouse. So we are very... that through U of M Extension? It was through the market and entry fund. Okay. I'll have to take a peek at that someday. Yeah, I can send you the link to the website if you would like it. Please. That sounds fantastic. Yep. it's been up. The greenhouse has been up for two seasons now, but... 02:39 He's been leery about starting seeds in there because we had to figure out a way to use the sunlight without using the solar generator panels. And so we put water in IBC totes and we painted the IBC totes black. so starting about now when the sun is out and it's pouring into the greenhouse, it heats up the water and then the water disperses the heat at night. That's brilliant. 03:09 So this is the first year we're brave and we're going to try starting the seeds, you know, in the greenhouse. That's so exciting. What a new journey. We're very lit up about this around here and I'm just keeping everything I have crossed that it works because we sell at the farmer's market in the summer and if those babies die, we have to start again. So keep everything you have crossed for me that this works. 03:36 Absolutely, I will. Are you selling at Mankato or like up in Liss- because you're in Lissour, right? Yeah. Yeah, we sell at the Lissour Farmers Market. I'll have to come give that a peek sometime. Is that usually Saturdays? Yeah, Saturday morning from 8 until noon. 03:52 That sounds so fun. Yep. And it's a very busy, very robust, very friendly group of people who've been there. Oh, yeah. I'm definitely going to have to come give that a peek. Yeah. It's really fun. it's, I don't want to say it's really diverse, but there are definitely some different things. People sell crafts there too. Ooh. Like everything from lotions to artwork? um 04:20 I don't know about artwork, but there's a guy that takes traidel sewing machines and makes them into tractors, makes them look like tractors. There's a guy who does jewelry, like pendants and stuff. And there's a lady who is in her eighties who sells eggs every summer. And there's like three or four people selling baked goods. And that wasn't the case a couple summers ago, but this past summer. 04:49 there were like four or five people selling baked goo

Today I'm talking with Rebecca at Thieving Otter Farm. You can also follow on Facebook. Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 Episode Show Notes Guest: Rebecca Lynch Farm: Thieving Otter Farm Location: Tennessee Host: Mary Lewis In this episode of A Tiny Homestead, Mary chats with Rebecca Lynch of Thieving Otter Farm in Tennessee. What starts with a conversation about unpredictable winter weather quickly turns into a fascinating deep dive into otters, quail, chicken genetics, deer hunting, ADHD superpowers, and planning ahead in homestead life. In This Episode The Story Behind Thieving Otter Farm Rebecca shares the heartwarming story behind her farm’s name. After setting up trail cameras on her wooded six acres, she discovered river otters visiting her creek and pond. Despite their habit of stealing fish, Rebecca could not be happier. From spotting baby otters to watching an entire family swim by, these “fish bandits” inspired the name Thieving Otter Farm. Raising 4,000 Coturnix Quail Rebecca is primarily known for raising Coturnix quail, and she estimates she has around 4,000 birds. She explains: The difference between domestic Coturnix quail and wild bobwhite quail Why Coturnix quail thrive in smaller spaces How they can be ideal for homesteaders in areas with HOA or city restrictions The importance of understanding wildlife conservation when it comes to releasing captive birds Rebecca also shares her journey from casually accepting a dozen quail in 2020 to becoming deeply involved in quail genetics, writing standards, and judging international shows. Developing New Chicken Breeds Rebecca is currently developing two new chicken breeds, with the ambitious goal of becoming only the second woman to have a breed accepted by the American Poultry Association. She discusses: How her first line, affectionately called “Mop Tops,” began with mixed breed birds with crests The selective breeding process for temperament, egg size, body type, and color A second accidental breed that started from a mystery chick that did not match its hatchery label The long, detailed process required to stabilize a breed before applying for APA recognition Her birds are known for sweet temperaments and prolific laying, including large brown eggs. ADHD as a Homesteading Superpower Rebecca was recently diagnosed with ADHD at age 47, and she reflects on how it has shaped her homesteading journey. From raising thousands of quail to out hunting the guys during deer season, she embraces her tendency to dive deep and go all in on new interests. Mary shares similar experiences from her own homestead, including experimenting with rabbits, planting fruit trees, and considering quail after her husband fell down a research rabbit hole. Avian Flu and Planning Ahead The conversation turns to avian influenza and how outbreaks impact egg prices and poultry availability. They discuss: The risks associated with migrating waterfowl Biosecurity challenges with free range systems Strategic planning for adding laying hens before potential outbreaks The importance of thinking one season ahead in homestead life As always, homesteading involves balancing opportunity with responsibility. About Thieving Otter Farm Rebecca raises Coturnix quail and is actively working to develop two new chicken breeds with strong genetics, excellent temperaments, and productive laying ability. You can learn more at: thievingotterfarm.com Sponsor This episode is sponsored by Steel Spoon Farm. Founder Jen Kibler teaches homesteaders how to build a sustainable blog or email list and use Pinterest for long term marketing without relying on social media algorithms. Inside the Content Seeds Collective, members receive weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to the Root Seller Resource Library. Join for $37 per month at SteelSpoonFarm.com. Connect with the Podcast Find more episodes and resources at: atinyhomesteadpodcast.com Follow along on Facebook at: A Tiny Homestead Podcast If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a fellow homesteader and leave a review. It helps more people find these real conversations with farmers, food producers, and makers across the country.

Today I'm talking with Caitlyn at Quirky Quail Acres. Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 If you're a homesteader who wants to get paid for your content without living on social media, check out SteelSpoonFarm.com. Founder Jen Kibler teaches you how to build a real blog or your email list and use Pinterest for sustainable marketing. Inside her coaching group, Content Seeds Collective, you'll get weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to her Root Seller Resource Library full of tutorials and templates. Join today for just $37 a month and start building a business that doesn't depend on the algorithm. 00:26 A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Seals Spoon Farm. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Caitlin at Quirky Quail Acres in North Mankato, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Caitlin. How are you? Hi there. I'm well. How are you? I'm good, except I can't get through an introduction without stumbling all over myself today. I don't know what's going on. 00:57 Um, so I would normally ask about the weather because that's the question I ask on every single podcast episode, but you're only half an hour away from me. So I'm guessing it's sunny outside. Yep. Sunny and feeling balmy compared to yesterday. No doubt. Yesterday was terrible. I mean, it was pretty, but it was cold. Yeah, it hurt. It hurt, especially after tank top weather last weekend. Yeah. 01:24 Yeah, that was really nice. And I knew it was fall, spring, but I was like, I will take it. It's a good reprieve. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. OK, so I again, I'm Caitlin and I am a mom and I work full time and we have our little farm here just outside of North Mankato, Minnesota. We 01:53 He are kind of jack of all trades sort of farm. We raise quail and we raise chickens and we have an orchard and we have a very large garden. Hopefully this year we'll also have a greenhouse. We also tap all of our own maple trees and we make maple syrup. And we also have, we. 02:20 We volunteer at a nearby shelter. So we have three rescue dogs. Um, it's just chaos all the time. It sounds amazing to me. Well, we're right there with you on the big garden and we have 20 apple trees. We have one huge wild plum tree. have some Alden plum trees. We have peach trees. have rhubarb. 02:48 We do have a greenhouse. have chickens, we have a dog and we have five barn cats. So there's a lot of overlap there between you and I. 02:59 I freaking love it. Yeah, no, I wouldn't choose anything different. um I'm so passionate about it. And it's I've never been one to like I don't want to go to the gym to exercise, but I want to be I want to be active all the time. I want to be I want to be moving and working. And I like I like the hard work and I like feeling accomplished at the end of the day. Absolutely. 03:26 So the reason that I asked you to be on the podcast, I have a little tiny ulterior motive and I don't usually. My husband and I have been talking about maybe getting a few quail and seeing how they do. And I'm guessing you know a lot about quail. So can you tell me all about quail today? Yeah, absolutely. So we, we raise Coturnix quail because A, they are the largest variety that 03:56 and that you can own really. um You don't need a special permit like you do for other species of quail because they are considered a domesticated species. uh Whereas for like, bobwhite, you would need a game permit. And also they don't lay as many eggs. um They are smaller birds, so they're not really good meat birds. Generally people raise 04:23 Bob White for dog training and stuff. we're not, again, our dogs are, they're pound dogs there. They'd be useless for that. um Anyway, and Coturnix quail lay about 300 eggs a year. um We don't raise exclusively jumbo because we like to go for a good mix of colors in our birds too, just because it's, you know, it's nice to have a pretty bird that you're raising also. So we 04:53 focus more on um egg and feathering color genetics, but they are highly productive. are their eggs are so nutritious when you compare them side by side with like an equal weight of a chicken egg. The nutritional profile is just phenomenal because they are heavier in the yolk. So then they have all of that additional um 05:22 nutrition to go with that. We find them very, very easy to raise. They were kind of our poultry introductory species. My husband had been wanting to raise birds for some time and I was kind, I knew, I knew that I would be doing the majority of the work and so I kind o

Today I'm talking with Brad at A Better Yard. You can also follow on Facebook. If you use the code atinyhome, you'll get a discount on the price for the first month. Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 If you're a homesteader who wants to get paid for your content without living on social media, check out SteelSpoonFarm.com. Founder Jen Kibler teaches you how to build a real blog or your email list and use Pinterest for sustainable marketing. Inside her coaching group, Content Seeds Collective, you'll get weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to her Root Seller Resource Library full of tutorials and templates. 00:21 Join today for just $37 a month and start building a business that doesn't depend on the algorithm. A tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Seals Spoon Farm. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Brad Tabke, the founder of A Better Yard in Shakopee, I think, Minnesota. Good morning, Brad. How are you? 00:49 Good morning. I am happy to be coming to you from Shakopee. OK. And I forgot to mention that he's also a Minnesota state representative for Shakopee. So ah how is your day? I would ask you about the weather, but since you're only about half an hour, an hour away from me, I know that it's sunny and warm. Warm. Warm is good. It is. It felt so nice. Like I was out this morning already. I had bird feeders to fill and do all that kind of stuff. And so I was out this morning and it was 01:19 gorgeous and I hear we're supposed to get some snow later this week. So that would actually be kind of nice to give some more moisture. That would help a lot. Yes. ah My husband actually cut down an ash tree last weekend and he was out there cutting it up this weekend in a t-shirt and like khaki pants and sneakers. But it's a goofy February. Goofy is the weather's goofy all the time right now. We'll see what happens with that. it yeah it was a gorgeous gorgeous weekend. 01:50 It really was and I was like, why am I warm? And I looked up at the thermostat in the house, it was 75 degrees and the furnace was not on. I was like, oh, duh, when it's warm outside, it's gonna get warmer in the house. Go fig. Exactly. It's a good ambient heating there. Yeah, we've got lots of windows and so the sun was just pouring in the living room and I was like, why am I hot? And I'm like, oh, duh, I know I'm hot. It's not. 02:17 It's February, but it's not February according to the weather. Okay, so you had a group called Minnesota Gardening and you changed the name to a better yard in January. So tell me the history on this. Yeah, so during COVID, it feels like all the stories now start with during COVID XYZ happened. 02:44 We during COVID, I had a bunch of friends who were asking me they wanted to start doing planting vegetables and flowers and those kinds of things and wanted something to do. And so they knew that I was I have a horticulture degree from Iowa State and have been in the landscape industry since I graduated from college. Actually, since I was in middle school working in a greenhouse. And so I have been 03:10 started that out helping just friends. they're like, Brad, we want to pay you to do this. And how do we do that? And I was like, I don't know. I'm not sure oh how we can do all this and make it make sense. And so we were just helping folks. And uh then we set up what we called Minnesota Gardening to grow that and stretch that to be helping with landscapes and helping make sure people knew how to reduce their chemical use and just fundamental things like that, along with 03:38 fruits and vegetables and making sure to grow those kinds of things. And so we started that and was very Minnesota centric. It was very much here in our thing that we wanted to be doing. But then it continued to grow from there. And so it was the focus shifted through COVID and after COVID to focusing on environmental landscape and making sure that people knew how to eliminate chemicals, how to feed pollinators, how important it was. 04:05 that we have a diversity of native and helpful plants in our yards and making sure that those kinds of things, saving water, storing carbon that are important for our future, that those kinds of things are happening. And so we grew beyond just Minnesota and just gardening into focusing on making sure that we're helping to do, you know, little things like helping to reduce the risk of cancer from chemical use and those kinds of things. And so 04:33 We switched to a better yard this year and it's been going really, really well. I'm excite

Today I'm talking with Jen at Steel Spoon Farm. You can also follow on Facebook. Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jen Kibler at Steel Spoon Farm in Ohio. And good morning, Jen. How are you? Good morning. Good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning? Oh, it is beautiful. I think we're on fake spring round two already. It's going to go back to winter again this weekend, but I'll take it. 00:29 Yeah, they were saying this weekend on the news that we would be getting snow this week, but I'm looking at the forecast and I'm like, I think LaSore, Minnesota is going to get rain. I don't think we're going to get snow. Yeah. We had 16 inches dump on us about three weeks ago now. So I'm glad to see the snow piles gone. We actually have grass again. So that's nice, but now it's mud season straight into mud season. So yeah, God love mud season. We have a, we have a dog and 00:59 She freaking loves spring because she can go out and roll in the grass again. But she has these cute little feet and the cute little feet leave cute little dirty footprints all over my floor downstairs. And I'm just like, you know what? I'm not mopping the floor until the weekend. I'm going to it all at once. And then she's going to come in and walk on it again and I'll do it the following weekend because I am not mopping that floor every two hours. We have four. 01:25 and two of them are great Pyrenees, then the other two are black labs. And the Pyrenees, of course, are like horse size. And they just clobbed in so much mud into the kitchen this morning to eat breakfast. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Maggie's a 35 pound, well, maybe pushing 40 pound um Australian shepherd. So she's got these adorable little footprints, but they're not adorable when they're mud on my floor. tell me what tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Steel Spoon Farm. 01:55 So we have kind of everything here. I've had horses my whole life. So I've got my three big old horses that are all retired now. And then we have two little feral mini mules. And I say feral because I've literally never touched the one in the two years she's been here. We'll just take her time. She knickers at me now. She does her little mule money. So we're making progress, but mules and everything has to be on their time. And then we have a little mini pony too named Apple for my daughter. So she's so sweet. 02:24 So we've got them and we have Angora goats and then a bunch of just miscellaneous Nigerian dwarf goats too that are just, you know, they're pets. to sell some of the mohair off the Angoras. Haven't had time to even process it lately because I've been so busy with all my other business things. ah But I do really love spinning when I have the time. I've spun my own yarn, did a bunch of crochet with it. Actually made the shawl that I wore in like our maternity pictures with 02:54 hand spun mohair from our own goats. So that was really neat. um That's a needle felting with it, all kinds of stuff. I've sold it to all kinds of different people online on Etsy and then on my own site too. Everything from fly lure creators, they use the mohair for their fly lures, which was really odd. um To of course the reborn dolls, which is amazing to see how realistic those are, but they've used mohair for those. 03:22 mask makers for theater mass in New York City, all kinds of stuff. So it's amazing to see how far that can stretch just from my little farm to all across the world. is one of the reasons I love this podcast so much because I hadn't even considered the fact that that mohair would be used on the dolls. Yeah, they use it. It was a local lady actually, and she literally plucks one single hair at a time into these silicone doll. 03:51 It's the patience I do not have for that, but she does. And if they have really fine hair, like if she's doing a memorial doll, she actually paints the hair on and uses a paintbrush that's one hair width and paints these tiny little baby hairs on these dolls. It's incredible. And then the mask maker in New York City. This is a crazy crossover, but my husband is a lifetime wrestling fan and 04:19 this guy actually made the masks for mankind, for Mick Foley, mankind, and Undertaker, which are two of his favorites. And here he is buying mohair from my goats to make these theater masks. I thought, what a crazy small world that is. That's not small, that's miniscule world. Yeah, that was very niche. that was super cool. Wow. Wow. I just, every time I talk t

Today I'm talking with Tricia at Silo Springs Farm. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. 00:11 Today I'm talking with Trisha at Silo Springs Farm in Tennessee. Good morning Trisha, how are you? Good morning, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm just going to be honest. The first part, we tried recording this and it didn't work. So we're starting over from scratch. So I'm going to ask the same questions over again. um How is the weather in Tennessee? It is beautiful today. Sun is shining and the ground is drying up. We had a really wet rainy day yesterday and today is looking really pretty. 00:41 I'm actually really glad to hear that you guys got rain because I have a friend that I co-host another podcast with. She lives in Nebraska and they've been under fire danger for oh most of the winter time so far. And she's always lamenting the fact that they really haven't gotten any snow or any rain. And I'm like, oh, if I could just send you some from Minnesota, I would do it. 01:05 It is a gorgeous, sparkly, sunny, warm day in Minnesota today. And it was so cold three weeks ago that I have nothing to complain about. Exactly. It's so pretty. I'm like Mother Nature, stop teasing me because I know we have snow in the forecast later this week. Oh, really? Just a little bit, yeah. Whether we actually get snow or not remains to be seen. I suspect it might be rain because I don't think it's going to get cold enough to snow, but we'll see what happens. 01:34 Yeah. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up raising Highland cows and High Park cows. um Well, it kind of started, it's kind of funny how it got started. My husband was offered a job in Nashville, Tennessee, and we're from the city. We're actually from Alabama and have lived in subdivisions all our lives. And when he uh 02:03 said that he had to move if he accepted this position. I was like, okay, well, we're going to get land and we're going to get us some mini cows. And so that's what we did. We moved to a little uh old farmhouse that had 12 acres and remodeled the farmhouse and got us some cows and just kind of going from there. nice. Your husband is a canine police officer. Is that what you're saying? Yes. uh Okay. have a quick 02:33 offside's question. When you're a canine police officer, does the canine come home with the officer that it works with or how does that work? Yes. He's actually had two dogs and uh one got sick and had to be retired. And so we adopted him and still have him, but his other one comes home with him every day. it's em not really 03:00 good for farm life. He's a GSP and he doesn't get along well with the chickens. He wants to point them and eat them. ah I imagine. So the reason I'm asking is because I know with service dogs that you're not supposed to go up and pet a service dog at the mall. And I'm assuming it's the same thing with a canine officer. You don't just walk up to a canine dog and, you know, an officer dog and pet it. 03:27 Yeah. Well, it's always better to ask, but like his dogs are explosive dogs. Um, and so like they're not on duty. They know when they're sniffing an area that that's when they're working. Um, his old dog, anybody could just walk up and pet him, but this dog, he just gets too ramped up and gets kind of hard to hold onto when people start giving him attention. But yeah, yeah. He lets people pet his. Nice. Okay. I was just curious because I've never known anybody who had, who had that 03:57 job and never never known a canine that was working with police. So I thought I would ask while I had the opportunity. Okay, so your cows you raise them so that you can have babies so you can sell the babies. Is that right? That is right. Yes. Okay. So when is when is calving season for you? Is it coming right up? Well, we usually um have in the spring and then some will have in the fall, we try our best to avoid 04:26 summer calving just because of the flies and the bacteria that's rampant in the summer. So we just actually delivered um our last 2025 calve yesterday and really hoping that we start having some babies in March or April this year. Okay. Wow. The last one for that you that you were expecting in 2025 was just born. Yeah. Well, no, it was we sold it yesterday. Oh, okay. It was born in October, but it went to its 04:56 home in Alabama yesterday. oh I misunderstood. Sorry. All right. So when you, like I said, I don't know anything about how this all works. When you sell the babies, do you know what those babies are going to be used for? Whe

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 In this episode of A Tiny Homestead, Mary welcomes back returning guest Leah from Clear Creek Ranch Mom in Nebraska. Leah has previously appeared on the podcast four times since March 2024, and today’s conversation brings exciting updates. They begin with a little seasonal appreciation, talking about frosty mornings, baby pink sunrises, and the beauty of unobstructed rural views. From there, the conversation turns to what is new. Introducing a New Podcast Mary and Leah recently launched a brand new podcast together: Grit and Grace in the Heartland: Women in Agriculture After thoughtful consideration, Leah said yes to co hosting, and the two have been recording weekly conversations that highlight the voices and stories of women in agriculture. They talk about: Why so many podcasts stop around episode seven and why they are determined to keep going The joy of unscripted, authentic conversation Creating space for women to be heard The power of storytelling in building connection and courage The importance of real human connection in a world increasingly shaped by technology Leah shares how her background in communications and her love of asking questions have shaped her passion for elevating other people’s stories. Why Women’s Voices Matter Grit and Grace in the Heartland focuses on women in agriculture and the many roles they hold. The podcast explores: Identity and authenticity Wearing multiple hats in rural life Leadership, business, ranching, and family Financial literacy and independence for women The deep and often unseen emotional labor of rural women Mary and Leah discuss how meaningful it is to go beyond surface level conversations and create a space where women can share their real stories, including the hard parts. They also reflect on the courage it takes to put yourself out there publicly and the importance of community support, especially in small towns. The Power of Asking and Listening Leah shares stories about the impact of simply noticing people and saying thank you. From fast food employees to store clerks, she talks about how powerful it can be to acknowledge hard work and offer genuine appreciation. The takeaway is simple: If you see something, say something. And not just when it is negative. Kind words and curiosity can change someone’s day, and sometimes even more than that. Stories That Shape Us Mary and Leah also reflect on the women who shaped them, especially their grandmothers. They talk about unconventional women, loneliness, resilience, and the importance of preserving family stories. Every woman has a story worth telling. Every family holds stories that matter. That belief sits at the heart of both podcasts. A Nebraska Favorite The episode wraps up with a lighthearted discussion about Runza, the beloved Nebraska sandwich filled with beef, cabbage, and onions baked inside bread dough. They even share tips for making them at home. Where to Find Leah and the New Podcast You can find Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom on Facebook. Listen to Grit and Grace in the Heartland: Women in Agriculture at: gritandgraceintheheartland.com Find Mary and A Tiny Homestead at: atinyhomesteadpodcast.com Thank you for listening to A Tiny Homestead. If you enjoy the show, please share it with a friend and leave a review. Your support helps more people discover these meaningful rural stories.

Today I'm talking with Amy at Grounded In Maine Podcast. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Amy Bolduc at Grounded in Maine in Virginia. I know that's weird, but that's how it falls. Good morning, Amy. How are you? I am doing fine. Thanks. I know it's such a funny thing. People are like, where are you? Like I'm in Virginia, but why is your podcast Grounded in Maine? Well, because you'll always be. 00:29 Your heart will always be grounded in Maine. That's why. mean, 49 years, not like that's nothing. That's not nothing. Yeah, exactly. Well, what's the weather doing in Virginia this morning? Oh, geez. It's so cold this morning. Like, I'm sure it's not Minnesota cold, but it's still cold. mean, it was 15 degrees when we were walking this morning. um And yesterday, yesterday, it was so yesterday we had 45 mile per hour winds. um And it was not much warmer. 00:59 So but then two weeks ago, I mean, if you're asking about weather, the weather here is so weird. I mean, all of like November, December, it was beautiful, like 40s, probably. And I know I, you know, everyone was like, oh, my gosh, it's so cold. It's snowing, snowing, snowing. And I'm like, well, you know, don't want to say anything because I'm in the south, blah, blah, blah. But then two weeks ago, the weather forecast was looking like we were. 01:27 My weather app was telling me we were going to get up to 21 inches of snow. And I was like, what is this about? ah And then when it actually came, it was like a dusting of snow, but then an inch and a half of freezing rain, ah which I would so I would prefer 21 inches of snow a million times over freezing rain and ice. ah Anyone who's dealt with freezing rain would agree a thousand percent freezing rain is so dangerous. 01:57 Yeah. it's, you know, it just is like, but since then, so last weekend, I, my, my trusty weather app that I've been using for years lied to me and said, you know, maybe, maybe one between one to three inches of snow. I'm like, okay, you know, that's no big deal. But then we got 10 ish inches of snow and it was fluffy snow, which was cool. But then like, when I moved here, I did not get a snow shovel because I was 02:26 You know, last winter we had four inches total, like all winter long, two, two inch storms. And I was like, that is no big deal. And then this year, you know, and then the ice, I was like, I'm not I'm not even shoveling. I literally can't shovel that. But so I have a travel trunk shovel, which it's in two pieces and it's rickety and plastic. I've had it for probably 20 years uh and. 02:54 I ever used it, only when I was working and I got stuck in a snowstorm. But so that's what I've been using. I actually went out yesterday to try to get a real shovel and they were out. Of course. Of course. Because we just got 10 inches of snow. yeah, I mean, the weather is great. And then, know, Tuesday is supposed to be like 60. I like, there's no, I don't think there's like Virginia weather. I think it's just whatever. 03:23 happens, like what it just feels like. 03:28 Yeah, Mother Nature has become extremely bipolar over the last two years. That's a great way to say it. Maybe she's going through menopause too. I don't want to make you jealous, but it's seven, it's, what is it right now? I'm looking at my weather app. It's 27 degrees here in Minnesota in Lesor right now. And it's supposed to be 38 for the high. Tomorrow 45 for the high, Tuesday 38, Wednesday 38. 03:57 Thursday 40, Friday 40. Well, that's like making up for the last two weeks when it was below zero. That's exactly what I was going to say. We had, we had 14 or 15 days in a row where we never got close to freezing to 32 degrees. And it was the longest stretch I've seen in years and it sucked. No question. So anyway, um, that's the weather update. I would do weather update. Um, start with a weather update folks. 04:26 Oh, always do. In case you need to know. Every podcast opens with how's the weather because we're all doing stuff that weather impacts and I figure it's a good way to do it. We're all experiencing weather. We sure are. And when we're trying to grow stuff or, um you know, if we have chickens. Raise animals. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of important to know what we're walking out into. So that leads me to my first question. I saw that your chickens are starting to lay again, beautiful eggs. 04:55 How are the chickens doing and how many do you have? The chickens are good. I have five. I've actually, so I've had one. Miss Lacey never stopped laying. Li

Today I'm talking with Julie at Open Road Ranch. You can also follow on Facebook. The Old Farmer's Almanac www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Julie at Open Road Ranch in Wisconsin. Good morning, Julie. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm wonderful. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather there? Sunny and beautiful. It's so nice to see the sun. Oh, we had that yesterday and the day before. Right now it is inco... 00:28 incredibly overcast in Minnesota, but it's warm. Yes. It's nice, isn't it? Oh my God. This last two weeks of like living in the Arctic tundra. Yeah. I had forgotten how terrible a more than a couple days stint of those temperatures is. Yes. I woke up on like the 13th day and thought to myself, if this doesn't break soon, I don't know what I'm going to do. 00:56 Yes, we just need like a day of sun to remind us or just a windless day or something just to hang on. Yeah, I grew up on the East Coast and I remember the song, the song Oklahoma, where the wind comes rolling off the prairie. Yeah. And I had no concept of that because my house was surrounded by trees. The wind didn't roll across the prairie because there was no prairie. I moved to Minnesota and I learned real quick about wind rolling off the prairie. 01:25 Oh yeah, I just saw the other day someone said the quote, it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the wind, said every farmer ever. Yeah, absolutely. It's just crazy. And I open every podcast with How's the Weather? Because I just feel like we're all in ag and it's important to talk about the weather. Oh yeah. I used to work office jobs and I worked in a basement office with no windows and weather was just, I'd never even thought about it. It could be light out, could be 01:54 night, could be raining. It just didn't really have any effect on my life whatsoever. Now it's everything. Yeah, absolutely. It literally is everything. okay, I don't do a lot of the outside work. My husband is the outside guy. I do a lot of the cooking and the cleaning inside. And even I pay really close attention to the weather because I'm like, I saw it's going to snow tomorrow. Are you set to plow the driveway? 02:22 Or I saw it's going to be minus 40 windchill three nights from now. Are the chickens going to survive in their coop? And he's like, you never really paid attention to this before we moved to Homestead. I said, no, I didn't because I had no reason to pay attention to it. Yeah, you're so into your lives, you know, your animals. It totally changes your perspective and the way that you live your life. And I kind of love it. Yes. 02:50 All right, so tell me all about yourself and what you do. um I am a first generation farmer. I'm a very new farmer. This is our second year in farming. um So all very new, um very new small business owner. um Just learning as I go. We have a small farm in Greenbush, Wisconsin, um is five rented acres of family land. So Tony's folks live up the road and 03:19 our crop farmers corn, soybeans and wheat and they very generously um are renting us five acres to start our farm here and they're very helpful with their farming knowledge and experience just up the road and so it's because of them that we're able to farm and so we have five acres here and looking at right out the window in our backyard we have pasture raised hogs, uh have uh pasture raised sheep and we have some chickens that aren't doing much of anything right now it's mostly for us m 03:48 but I did get three eggs the other day, so that's exciting. we sell our pasture-raised um pork and lamb. And I also make lard products with lard from our pasture-raised hogs because one of my missions when I first began was uh education and also to use as much of the animal as possible. So I dabbled in trying to tan sheepskin hides that didn't go very far, make dog treats out of the organ meats, just different creative ways because these animals give us such a gift. 04:17 you know I hate to see you go in the trash when especially our ancestors you know would be you know grateful for the whole gift and use as much of it as possible and they needed to use as much of it as possible but I hope to still tap into a little bit of that so ah we use the lard from our pasture raised hogs to create um bombs, dish soap, shampoo bars, things like that because lard is just incredible for us and so I also feel strongly about educating people about the wonder of those 04:46 what are often considered waste products that are so wonderful for us and such a gift. Awesome. Tell me about lard dish soap, because I have not heard those words in the same sentence befor

Today I'm talking with Alisha at Ranch Wife Marketing. You can also follow on Facebook. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Alicia at Ranch Wife Marketing in North Dakota. Good afternoon. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm good. How's the weather in South Dakota this afternoon? 00:22 North Dakota, um but it is getting better. We did have a negative 50 wind chills just a day or two ago, but now we're at least above zero. So for us, we can finally go back out in a sweatshirt. Nice. Did I say South Dakota? I swear my brain is not working today. You did. It's okay. Oh, North Dakota, the one above South Dakota. Jeez. uh In Minnesota today, it is really cold. 00:50 I am looking out my bedroom window at uh the tin roof of the bedroom next to me and the snow is all sparkly in the sunshine. It's really beautiful, but it's too cold. Oh yes, I get it. We don't get a ton of snow, not as much as Minnesota. I was born and raised there, so I know how much snow falls there. We're a little drier, so we don't have em as much snow, but we do have a little dusting currently. 01:17 Just out of curiosity, where are you in North Dakota? I'm actually on the North Dakota-South Dakota border. I live about 20 miles from South Dakota. um We live on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation um in a small, tiny town called Selfridge. Okay, cool. Well, for the people who are following along on the podcast about my barn cats, um 01:46 We had a stray barn cat show up here a month ago maybe, and she has been kind of hiding out. She'll come and eat every other day. And we have three kittens that we got a couple months ago. They're about five months old. And today is the first day that I have seen her, seen the stray hanging out with the other kittens in the dog house in the sunshine on the hay bales. And I think she's probably around the same age as the three kittens. So, 02:14 That was the banner moment of my day was seeing this beautiful tortoiseshell stray cat hanging out with the kittens. Oh, that's amazing. We have plenty of cats around here, um both indoor and outdoor. I love seeing all the kittens as they grow up in the summer. Yeah, it's really fun. And this cat showed up out of nowhere. I was like, why is there another cat? We don't have six cats. We have five. 02:42 and my husband happened to get a photo of her and I was like, Oh, I hope she sticks around because she's beautiful. And from my local listeners, we have tons of chicken eggs in our farm stand. Farm stand is heated so the eggs don't freeze and we have lots of eggs in the farm stand for sale every day. So if anybody needs eggs, come on by. And that's it for my updates for my house, my homestead. Alicia, you are 03:11 farmer, but you're also a marketer. So can we talk about both? Yeah. So if my husband listens in, he's going to cringe because we're actually ranchers. worries. Some people call it cattle farming. Some people call it ranching. It's all about where you are in the world. But yeah, so we have a cow-calf ranch. We run about 500 mama cows. 03:37 about 200 heifers. We breed some bulls and sell some bulls as well. And we also have a quarter horse operation. So we have about a hundred horses. We run about a 65 to 75 mare brood band and have about six stallions. So that's kind of our ranch side. Wow. That's a lot. 04:02 Yes. Yeah, it is a larger ranch. as much as I'd love to do the homesteading thing and like have the garden and all the other little animals, we have plenty going on that my husband's always like, no, you don't need to add more to our plate. Yeah, I wish that my husband understood that concept. He's always like, I want to try this. I want to try that. And I'm like, I think we need to get good at the first couple of things before we add more in. 04:30 I know. I really want chickens because I love fresh chicken eggs. And he's just like, just go across to our cousins. They have chickens. Honestly, it's easier if you just get them from somebody else. It really is. um We have 18 chickens and keeping chickens is not hard. I'm not saying don't get chickens. I'm not telling anyone to not ever get chickens because it's not that hard, but you have to make sure that you have bedding in the wintertime. If you live in a winter state, a Northern tier state, 05:00 And you have to clean out their coop at least once a month, if not twice a month in the warmer months because it gets stinky and that's not a fun environment for them to live in. So if you don't want to deal with chicken poop, don't get chickens. Yeah, that's definitely a thing. I have had to babysit the chickens across the way

Today I'm talking with Sara at Santa's Crew LLC. Sara and her dad raise reindeer! www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sarah at Santa's Crew LLC in Wisconsin. Good morning, Sarah. How are you? Good and good morning. How's the weather in Wisconsin this morning? Because it's damn cold in Minnesota. It's very cold here as well. Getting through it. Yeah. um 00:29 I know we shouldn't complain because we had a very long, extended, beautiful fall, but spring can't come soon enough, honestly. Yeah, I don't mind cold weather, but when it's like way, way in the negatives and it causes things to break or have issues, then it's like, okay, now it's maybe a little too cold. Yeah, I am prone to migraines. It runs in my family, and when the temperature drops like this and the air gets dry, 00:56 My head tries to hurt every morning when I get up and I'm like, spring's only a couple months away. I will survive it. Yeah. I would definitely be looking forward to it as well if I were you. Yeah. It's no fun getting up in the morning and you get that little twinge and you're like, okay, so am I going to be down for three days or is this just a few seconds of dry air bothering my nose causing sinus headache? 01:22 It's very frustrating, minor. There are worse things in the world. I'm not worried about it. I just don't enjoy it. So um Sarah talked with me a week or so ago about their dairy farm and she let it slip that she and her dad have a reindeer raising endeavor as well. And I was like, oh, will you come back and talk to me about the reindeer? And she's back. So how in the heck did you guys get involved in raising reindeer? 01:51 Right? It's not something you're, you know, not very common. uh But our neighbor used to have them. And I did go to one of these events one time and, know, it was a lot of fun. I did grow up on a dairy farm. So I grew up around animals and training animals at, you know, going to the fair. So I was familiar with that. And 02:12 we found out he was selling and my dad and I kind of talked. It was kind of spontaneous. It wasn't something like we planned. It was just kind of like the opportunity was there and we're like, let's do it. So we kind of went in partnership. I was 17 at the time. Um, and we started with two baby calves and kind of expand from there was a male and female. So they were calves. We showed them that first year. 02:40 And the following year they would be a breeding pair. So then we had to get another female, um, because during the holiday season is when the males are in rut. So you don't want to bring them out because they're very aggressive. So usually people will bring like females or steers. So then we kind of started with three animals within our first two years. And then, um, the third degree added another one. So then we had three females and kinda, oh um, 03:07 went with that and then we had three breeding females. But yeah, we slowly built it. was, uh yeah, it's very fun. m Reindeer are different than cattle in some ways. They have their similarities but their differences. And growing up with dairy cattle, when I got the reindeer, I'm like, oh, reindeer are much quicker and more nimble than cows. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun. 03:34 And now we've been doing it since 2016, which is crazy to think that time's flying by that fast. do you have a big herd now? We're at eight right now, which is a good size. I don't think we'll get bigger than that um at all. We're pretty with the amount of space we have for them. It seems to work well. It's enough animals for like the holiday season. And then we do have some breeding females. 04:04 So we can kind of get calves. We'll keep a few every once in a while and sometimes we'll sell some to people who don't breed or want, you know, new genetics kind of thing. So other people who have reindeer or want to get into it. we had, let's see, last year we had two, but we were expecting four. We're hoping to have four. We had four breeding females. This year we have five that were in breeding. 04:34 with breeding bulls. And we think the youngest one isn't bred because during the holiday season, we think she was in heat because the steer was kind of trying to jump on her. like, oh, I think she's having a heat. I don't think that one's pregnant. So maybe we'll have four calves. Like, we'll see. um We'll just have to wait and see. How long is gestation for the babies? Oh, two. 05:02 Why am I blanking on the exact? uh Let's see, October is typically when hours are bred and then they calve in springtime around April or May. Why? I'm blanking on the number of days right now though. So

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farm. Learn about how having a coach can change your perspective. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon farm in Montana for like the fifth time, I think. Good morning, Morgan. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. Yeah. What a journey this has been um from Groovy Grazers to Cole Canyon farm to more surprises. feel like 00:26 We have so many pivots you've had to cover, so I can understand why we've been on quite a bit. Well, you're also really listenable and you're really fun and I like you so much, so you make it a joy to talk with you. ah Morgan has been, I don't know how to say it, she found herself a coach. Yeah. And I wanted to talk with Morgan about how that is changing things for her because I feel like coaches give us perspective. 00:53 That we need that our friends give us so tell me about how that's going Yeah, so we talked a little bit about the last episode. I was like alright. I just did this crazy thing I signed up for a coach, I've never signed up for a coach. I've actually never spent I Would say probably more than two three hundred dollars on continued education for myself, and this is thousands of dollars But it's really important that you invest in yourself just as much as much as you invest in your property right so 01:23 um I do some silver and gold stuff with a friend and her name is Diane Graber. She has a homesteading thing that she just launched. So I'm going to have you talk to her about Mary because her and her husband have been doing this for well over a decade. Like, yeah. So she's coming out into her homesteading area as I was coming into my set, you know, my, golden silver era. Like I was just learning about it. Right. And she. 01:52 came into my life about a year ago and she was helping coach me and that was really great, but I just had a lot going on. We covered a lot of what was going on in 2025, know, just lots of pivots changes. And she asked me about, I don't know, two weeks before the class, she was like, hey, jump onto this class, just say yes. It'll change your, change your whole world. I've worked with this woman before in previous adventures that we've done. 02:21 And she's a great person I just reconnected with her after 15 years. So was like, all right, cool. Like I'm, I love meeting people. That's how Mary and I met. If people don't know, she just messaged me on Facebook. Like I love talking to people. So it was one of those things where I was like, fine, I'll jump on. I don't have a problem. It's free, right? Like for me, income is lower in the winter time. It's kind of a squeeze here in Montana. And 02:49 So being free was great. It was something I could commit to. I got on and a coach is a vibe. Let me tell you, like you will not vibe with every coach. You will not like what some coaches say. You will think that it doesn't fit your niche, whatever, be it right. Like coaches are, they attract their vibrational group is what I'm gonna say. Like, sorry. uh 03:18 the wind's bad here, you're going to attract the people that need to be around you. So somehow I landed up, landed in this class and I was listening to it and it was about being a millionaire. And I was like, well, don't, I'm not just try, I don't strive to be a millionaire. And it's not that I think that it's unhumble to be a millionaire. It's just like, for me, 250 K a year would be life-changing enough, let alone 500 K in a year, you know, so. 03:46 For me, was like, all right, I may not vibe with as much the millionaire side of this, but I can get through the whole breakthrough concept of it. So I think there's a lot of like shame around having coaches or being open about having coaches. But there's a reason why in corporate America there's bosses and those bosses have supervisors and supervisors have supervisors. It's a checks and balance because like you were saying, Mary, it's a perspective. 04:16 So I got on, Melanie talked, it was two days. I really liked what she said. I had some really big breakthroughs about throwing spaghetti on the wall. I've said that here on this show before. If you've heard me talk on here before, I've talked about how we love throwing spaghetti at walls. We don't anymore. And all throwing spaghetti at the wall does is it either gets butter on the wall or it gets spaghetti sauce on the wall and it makes a mess. Correct. Yeah. So like... 04:43 In the past, was like, I'm just, and I was real honest about it. Like I didn't try and tell anyone we had every, you know, my ducks were not in a pond and we all knew that they were like in everyone

Today I'm talking with Addie at Frostbite Family Farm LLC. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Addie at Frostbite Family Farm, LLC in Lonsdale, Minnesota. Good morning, Addie, how are you? Good morning, I'm good, how are you? I'm good. We're having some really gray weather this morning. We are. It's coming after a lot of sunshine though, so I can't complain. 00:25 Yeah, we're supposed to get snow tonight and I'm kind of hoping we do because the cornfield is looking very bare right now and it looks kind of ugly. So fresh coat of snow would be nice. Yes, we have some livestock and it actually gets harder when things warm up and get a little wet. So the dry snow is always a good thing. Yeah, I was just talking to a dairy farmer. I don't if it was this week or last week, but they were saying that it had been 00:54 like really muddy. And I of course assumed that the cows were out in the field and I said, I hear that wet weather is not good for cows feet. And he said, oh no, he said, they're in the barn or they're on a dry lot and it's actually dry. He said, they're fine. He said, but yes, it can wreak havoc with their feet. And I was like, okay, cool. Yeah, that is the difference between large dairies and small ones. So we operate a micro dairy. 01:21 And all of our cows are out in the field. So they have a good space to roam around in, but mud definitely affects them. Yeah. And, okay, I don't want to get too far into dairy stuff because I've interviewed two people about dairies in the last two weeks. But when you say microdairy, how many cows? So right now we have 16 cows. That includes our calves. So we are milking 10 currently twice a day. Okay. And I'm assuming you're not milking 10 cows by hand a day. 01:50 No, we use a surge bucket system. It works really well. My husband and I team up and do it together and it gets done pretty efficiently that way. It kind of keeps it cleaner than hand milking. Yeah. I think the days of hand milking have kind of flown. They've kind of gone away. Unless you just have one cow and you really like milking cows. Right. And even then I'm like, okay, you get a bunch of stuff that kind of flings into it and it's just, they make smaller systems now. 02:20 It's really easy. Okay. So I want to know how your farm got its name, because I love the name. Sure. Yeah, that is always a topic of interest. It's so funny. We picked that name after we didn't start out farming. My husband and I got married and lived in an apartment. And I've always had this love of plants and food and good cooking. And as we had kids, it developed into including health and 02:50 um eating at home and making things ourselves. And we sort of realized over time, like, I think we need to look for some land. I think we want to do some of this ourselves. And we began our land search, but at the same time realizing that neither of us had come from agricultural backgrounds. We decided to try to find people locally that were doing what we wanted to do or close and get to know them. 03:17 and hear their processes. And um apples were a big point of interest for me. I love apple trees and just the amount of food they can supply is amazing. So we found an orchardist in Northern Minnesota who was organic for a really long time. He has this amazing little orchard on acres and acres of planted trees, really well maintained. A lot of them are like the semi-dwarf stock and we would go visit every year with our little kids. 03:46 It was one of the only organic orchards that we had heard of locally. It was about a two hour trip for us, so it was always a big event taking the kids. And as we had gone over a couple of years, we got to know the owner, and he is incredible and would give us so much of his time walking around the orchard telling us all about his trees and the ones he was breeding and the different varieties he chose and why. I just... 04:11 I felt like I could just consume that information all day and he was so gracious with his time and he would walk around and show us, this is the triumph apple. It's a new one I'm trialing. You know, taste it. This is what I like about it. This is what I don't like about it. ah And on one of our trips up there, I mean, he was showing us the inside of his buildings and where he would make cider and all of these things and ah he was like, hold on, you got to come with me to the back of the orchard. He's like, my favorite apples are planted back there. 04:41 And as we took the trek back, he was telling us about the frostbite apple. And it was developed in Minnesota. It's like a great, great grandparent of Honeycrisp a

Today I'm talking with Sara and Nick at Day by Day Dairy. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sarah and Nick at Day by Day Dairy in Wisconsin. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good and good morning. Good morning. 00:21 How is the weather in Wisconsin? Snowy. um looks like it's all trying to melt today, but it's going to be like 40 today. Yeah. Not a warm spell before it gets cold again, but never stays cold too long. I'm your, I'm your neighbor in Minnesota and it's supposed to hit 40 today and 45 tomorrow. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's, I prefer to stay frozen all winter instead of the thawing and I'm like freezing and muddy mess. 00:51 I'm sure it's not good for the cows feet. They go out on a concrete this time of year. We have them on a concrete cow yard and the ones there in the tie stall barn, they go in and out. They'll go in and out for a little while, but then we put them back in the tie stall. So yeah, they don't see too much mud this time of year. Try to keep them clean and dry as best as we can with the weather, you know. Good, good. 01:15 My husband watches videos of farmers and dairy farmers and cattle, know, steer meat, meat farmers on YouTube all the time. And he's watching, he's always watching these shows where the cows' hooves are all messed up from being out on wet pasture. And I'm like, it's so gross. Why do you have to watch these? I, isn't Nate the hoof guy? I watch his videos. He does, he does pasture or um, hoof trimming. Yeah. He does hoof trimming. 01:44 It heat up pasture and uh a freestyle barn cows. So it's kind of a mix, but I don't know why it's satisfying. like watching it. When we let ours out on the pasture, we rotationally graze all of our, all of our heifers. So they're always on fresh grass from probably beginning of May to almost first a week in December, sometimes a second week in November, depending on the weather. And the cows go out in a dry lot that has some. 02:14 green on it, but um just because they have a totally different ration, the milk cows do. We haven't figured out a way yet to perfect that intakes that they eat out and out if we do rotational grazing. yeah, no, definitely, we do get them outside quite a bit when the weather is appropriate. Good. All right. So since I knew I was going be talking to you, there is a song that I learned in school, I think. 02:42 And it's something about day by day, day by day. Oh dear Lord, three things I pray. And I don't know if you guys have ever heard it, but I had to learn it for a musical chorus thing back in probably sixth grade. So it was a long time ago. And so thank you for sending me into the way back machine by your name. And how did you, how did you get your name? Well, we were trying to think of names for a while. 03:09 And I'm like, Oh, what should we do? We had a lot of different like ideas, none of them just felt right. And one morning Nick woke up and he's like, I think, I don't know he said something about taking things day by day or something. Yeah. We're just trying to take it day by day to get to the next day. So then we're like, Hey, day by day dairy. It just kind of happened. Yeah. It just kind of happened like that. Awesome. Um, and also Wisconsin. 03:38 As far as I know, last time I looked it up, which was a few years back, Wisconsin is the or pretty much the state for milk production in the United States. Is that right? think California passes us in fluid milk production, but I think we're still number one in cheese. ah I believe California, because they have... Yeah, go ahead. Is that how you guys got the cheesehead moniker? 04:07 Yes, yes. Yeah, there's like a cheese store. There's so many cheese stores all over. Yeah. Both proximity. Yeah. Oh, yeah. When my husband and I make road trips to go see my folks in Maine, we go through Wisconsin because we drive and there's a uh Dane DeForge exit and there's a cheese shop there. And the first time we drove to Maine, he was like, we have to stop there. He grew up not far from there. 04:35 Well, he didn't grow up far from there. His family is from there. He grew up in Minnesota, but he used to visit family in Wisconsin. And he's like, we have to stop there. And I said, why? And he said, because they have the most wonderful Granny Smith wine, Granny Smith Apple wine. He said, and they have chocolate cheese. And he was raving about this chocolate cheese. And I was like, okay, so is it like fudge? He said, I can't explain it. You just have to try it. And I'm not a fan. 05:05 It is the weirdest like fudgy cheese thing ever and I it smells like fudge but you bite into it and it's really smooth and

Today I'm talking with Haley at Wilson Dairy Farm MD. You can also follow on Facebook. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Haley at Wilson Dairy Farm in Maryland, I think it is. Good afternoon, Hayley, how are you? Good afternoon, I'm great. And yes, you're right, we are in Maryland here, Baltimore County. All right, and you guys are a dairy farm and 00:27 I've actually been really looking forward to this because I don't talk to people who do dairy. I talk to people who do cattle for eating the meat more often. So, uh number one, how's the weather in Maryland today? Today is absolutely gorgeous. We hit 50 degrees and it's been sunny and just a light breeze and it feels like a nice spring day in January. Yeah, oh in Minnesota it is pushing 40 degrees. Everything is melting. There's no wind. 00:56 It's sunny, it's gorgeous. It feels like April, not January. Yes, I'll take it though. Yeah, me too, because I figure two weeks from now it'll be minus 20 with a wind chill of minus 40. Exactly, we don't quite get that cold, but anything under 30 degrees is cold for me. Yeah, it definitely gets cold here in Minnesota for sure. 01:21 We had a night last winter that was pushing minus 50 windchill and I thought you know, maybe the northern tier states aren't as much fun as I as I think they are so I bet All right. So tell me about yourself and about your dairy farm because I am so excited to hear your story Sure. So my name is Haley Wilson. I grew up on a commercial dairy farm My dad milked around 220 Holsteins at our biggest 01:50 So we were a small commercial dairy farm because there are a thousand head dairy farms out west. There's much bigger farms than that. for us, that was a lot. We milked 200 cows a day. It was about three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. We had some family trouble over the property about six years ago. My dad's siblings had all left the farm when they were young. 02:15 like a lot of small family farm disputes go, they came back and they wanted their inheritance. we were in a lawsuit during the COVID timeframe between 2018 and 2021. And um because of COVID, we actually never got to see a jury trial. We had a judge who just decided everything. And because my grandfather's notes that said what he wanted to happen with the land were not notarized, he said none of them could be 02:43 admitted as evidence. So we actually ended up losing everything. had around 350 acres. it was all, yeah, it was all gone to my aunt and uncle who live in Virginia. They're not even local. So that was something we went through a couple of years ago that was really heartbreaking. And there were a lot of emotions surrounding the lawsuit, know, anger, frustration, just disappointment all around. My dad really took it hard. 03:09 And my sister and I kind of felt the weight of the family and we kind of had to figure out how to keep things moving. As far as the dairy cows go, I was able to keep a couple of my nice show animals. I just kind of took them to different dairy farms around the state of Maryland, actually. People were very generous and would house them for me. Just last year, I found this farm about 10 minutes away from my home farm where I grew up. 03:33 and the people who own it were renting it out to a family who were moving and I reached out and everything worked out perfectly. I was able to move in last fall. I brought all of my young animals, so like my little calves and my breeding age heifers, no one who's in milk yet. I brought all them home here about a year ago. And for the last year, I've been working on fixing up the farm and getting a parlor built. 03:58 When you're going to milk more than just two or three cows, you've really got to have the facility for it. And since I planned on shipping milk grade A to a cooperative, like my dad did, I had to have the facility to match their standards. So I just accomplished that here in November, and I'm shipping milk for 25 cows for the last 60 days. So that's catch up to where I'm at. Is it just you? It's just me. 04:24 Yeah, it's just me. My parents live in a house that they rent down the road. My sister has a little farm she does ag tourism business with, but I'm the only one that lives here. So whenever I say we, I mean me and the dogs, me and the animals. We is a me and my animals concept. I um don't have anybody that lives with me or helps me. It's just me. Wow. Haley, I am so impressed and so proud of you. Thank you. 04:53 That is a lot to take on as one person. It is definitely a lot. Once I got a routine, know, things have, it's like anything, you know, once you get

Today I'm talking with Corey at Mystic Roots Homestead - Herbal Simples & Apothecary. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Corey at Mystic Roots Homestead, Herbal, Simples, and Apothecary in Kentucky. Good morning, Corey. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm good. Good. How's the weather there? It is sunny and almost in the 50s in South Central Kentucky today. It's really kind of crazy for it being January. 00:29 Yes, I'm in Minnesota. It is going to be 40 and it is sunny and we have about three or four inches of snow on the ground right now. my goodness. I would love for some snow. had a very, very dry Christmas this year. So does it snow in Kentucky? You guys are pretty south, right? It does. I think in 2015 we had, or no, 2014, we had about eight feet here and I'm closer to the Bowling Green area. I was working at 00:58 I was a dispatcher then actually, and we had so much snow that we had to close the interstate down. It was rough that year, but it does. It's not been bad or equated to a lot in the last few years, but we've kind of been waiting for it. The woolly worms have been telling us it's coming, but it's not showed up. And the woolly worms lied to me this year. I saw seven different woolly worms and all of them had different stripes. 01:27 different width stripes. And I was like, okay, I need some consistency here, guys. And see, we've been all of the persimmons have been given a spoons shovels, but we've not seen it'll probably be here in mid February is when we'll see it. Okay, so for the listener who doesn't understand what we are talking about, woolly worm caterpillars are are black and like a reddish brown. And the ends of the caterpillar are black and the middle is brown, I think. And 01:56 The middle band of the caterpillar tells you how long and how hard the winter is going to be. And all of them I've seen have been different. And the persimmon fruit, if you cut them open, it looks like a spoon or it looks like a fork, right? Or a knife. A knife, okay. if it's spoon, fork, or knife. Okay, so if it's a spoon, it indicates lots of snow. uh If it's a fork, it indicates what? 02:24 It will, I think it's very mild and then the knife it's going to be frigid. It will like, the knife will be cold enough it'll cut through you. Yeah. So it's a very frigid winter. Fork is very mild, but a shovel, you're supposed to be shoveling through that stuff. And that's what we've had, but we've not had it yet. Yup. I understand the last two winters we've had, not counting this one, we had a foot of snow each winter. That was it. And the reason that I wanted to clarify what we were talking about is because not everyone is up on their, 02:53 their weather lore. And if you want to learn about it, the old farmer's almanac talks about this stuff all the time. It'll even tell you when to cut your hair. Yes, it will. It will tell you when to breed your cows. It will tell you everything. We do a lot of stuff based off of the almanac and the cycles. We like it and it works that way. They've been doing it that way for hundreds of years. Why would we change it? Yeah, if it works, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't fix it. Exactly. 03:22 All right. So tell me about your homestead and what you do. We started full on homesteading last year. I've been staying at home for about three years now with the girls and I got a few quail and then I got some ducks and I got some chickens and I started a hatchery. We wanted to gear more towards sustainability and 03:51 I had a lot of hormone issues and we had some fertility issues and I started falling in the rabbit hole of herbalism. And that brought me closer to my spirituality because it allowed me to learn about the land and the things that are provided here that are local that I can forage, but that also heal my body. And that led us into homesteading and it blew up. You fell down the rabbit hole. 04:19 Literally with everything Just right in like Alice Mm-hmm. Yep. Absolutely. That's how it happens. You get sucked in and you and you learn things and you're like what else is there? Yes, and now my family I Usually they come to me for little things. We don't get sick in my house a lot So they're always like what are you doing? What are you using and I'll be like, well, here's some tea and 04:46 I say community herbalist because I just offer consultations to people now at this point and if they want product, I just let them have it. And that gets them an entryway into this and it's an amazing place. It really is. um I am trying so hard to remember to this spring, get um bird netting over my elderberry plants

Today I'm talking with Tracy at O'Connor Family Acres. The Soap BeeZZ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Tracy at O'Connor Family Acres in Le Sueur, Minnesota. It's a hyper local episode. Welcome Tracy, how are you? Hi Mary, thanks for having me. I am doing well today. It seems like it's going to be a little warmer today here, so very excited. And we're supposed to get freezing rain later today too. 00:28 I mean, why wouldn't we? It's Minnesota. So yeah, it's very gray, but that's why we're warmer. so yeah, Tracy's been on the show before. It was a little over a year ago. And we talked about that you had just gotten pigs, mangalitas, mangalitas. Yep. And um that was the newest thing then. And Tracy has been selling her duck eggs in the summertime, all this past summer. 00:58 at our farm stand, at our place. So it's been kind of fun. Yeah, it's been a great collaboration. I really appreciated the opportunity and it's been nice because we, springtime and summer, we are overflowing with duck eggs and then they take the winter off and know, hunker down, I guess. Yeah, about the time they stopped really laying, we had a couple of people stop in and ask if we had duck eggs and I was like, nope, they're on vacation until April. 01:27 It's very true. they yeah we and you can put heat and light in the coop But we kind of let them follow their natural cycle. That's just you know, the way we've we decided to do it. So Yeah, when they lay they lay very proficiently and when they don't they don't so You know, so what else is new on the farm in 2025 because I didn't talk to you on the podcast since December of 2024 01:57 Yeah, so we've really just been expanding the goats. We've had some baby goats this past spring and so they've been doing really well. um Getting kind of a wrangle on what the ideal number of ducks are. So we've been working on that. And then we had baby piglets unexpectedly this fall. I mean, kind of unexpectedly. We knew the boar was in there with her, but... 02:25 We didn't realize she was pregnant. that was a fun uh adventure. And thankfully, our mama pig, Fiona, her name's Fiona, has been doing really well with the piglets. So we have six gorgeous little baby piglets running around. How old are they now? Oh, they would be about two and a half months. OK. Yeah. 02:53 They were right before Halloween. just, yeah, just over about almost two and a half months. And they are so adorable. Like so adorable. I saw the pictures on Facebook that you posted, but I couldn't tell from the pictures how big they were when they were born. Were they the size of your hand or were they bigger than that? Yeah, they were probably the size of two of my hands, I would say. But they were, I mean, they were teeny teeny. 03:23 um And then of course it was October in Minnesota, so we got to pick them up and bring them in the barn and mama did great with that. She was not overly thrilled but was not aggressive, which was great. And then we were able to, after a bit of time, coax her into the barn. um And we had the heat lamp set up in there and they have a big enough paddock where they can 03:49 go to the other side or come back and be under the heat lamp if they want. And they are just, they're doing super great in there. So yeah, looking forward to figuring out what we're going to do with. So what'll be eight pigs now, two adults. We have the male boar and then the female. And then we have the six piglets and of the six, I think only one is male. So all the rest are female as well too. 04:19 Oh wow. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Well, you might be in the market to sell a couple sows in the spring. Exactly. Exactly. I don't think they're called sows until they have babies. don't know what version Yeah, I'd have look. It's... guilt? Are they guilt maybe? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I don't know. I'd have to Google it and I don't... 04:46 want to make the clicky clacky noises on the keyboard right now. So yeah, no, I feel you. Yes, exactly. And then I've been doing soap. Soap has been my new adventure this year. yeah, tell me the story on how that happened because I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I kind of fell into it, which was awesome. So my neighbor has the soapies is the name of the business. 05:12 um And the soap bees has been around for 20 years, over 20 years. So my neighbor, Anne, who is amazing, um was looking to retire and not do soap anymore. um And she asked if I would be interested in taking over the business. And so we made some soap together and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. Absolutely, I would do it. So I have a full time jobby job, um you know

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. Built From Dirt : Farm School www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farm in Montana. Morgan's been on the podcast a few times under a different name. So hello, Morgan, how are you? Hello, I'm doing good. Yes, most of your viewers know me as Groovy Grazers, which we're still doing, but... 00:26 We had talked about last time trying to come up with a farm name. And so we finally figured it out and it's coal Canyon farm. So we're super excited to finally have that done after two years. That's a long time to settle on a permanent name. Yeah. Yeah. It was hard to name the land. We live in a very unique area. We live in canyons, ah but there is a Canyon battlefield. We were trying to take on like not your atypical Montana name, you know? 00:55 It definitely fits. We're excited. We got to come up with our brand next. That's going to be a nightmare. guess trying to get your brand registered here can be really hard and there's not very many like single stick brands left. So that's man. I hope that doesn't take two years, but that's next on her on the chopping block. So I don't know that we have that situation here. When we started our place, we just picked a name, registered it with the state and that was it. 01:21 So the name's okay. I can pick my name without registering that with the state, but I mean, we don't have cattle right now. We have horses um and the sheep don't have to be branded. So it's not like a super big rush, but if I'm going to have horses, especially being in Montana, going missing is not uncommon or they get out. Brand, brand, brand. get it. Okay. Brand. It's okay. Yeah. I'm talking like iron brand and like, 01:51 either freeze dry or hot iron brand um because that's like one of the next big things that you do in Montana. You pick a name and then you figure out your brand and people sell some brands for thousands of dollars if they're a single easy one, but it's only 250 bucks to register with that, I think with the state here. So that's not bad. That's one of the less expensive things to have to do. Okay. Okay. oh 02:19 because I'm looking at a computer and because I know Facebook, was thinking brand as in brand like, Oh yeah. I mean, your brand is so important though when you're a farm, right? Like that's why I built it through Groovy Grazers, even though we didn't have a name because I was like, well, this is how we're going to operate anyways. Like having some type of grazing or deal going on, whether it be sheep or whatever, I just knew we were going to eventually be a farm face. And so I didn't want to wait on that. So yeah, like if you're a farm and you don't, 02:49 have a Facebook page, you don't have an Instagram. mean, TikTok is one of those where I'm back and forth on if you really need it, but Facebook and Instagram for sure, or a website. If you don't wanna do social media, it's really hard, you gotta do more advertising and word of mouth, but having a brand is so important, like your colors, the way your logo is, can you put it on items? Like these are all things that people don't even think about, and that's actually why we did Cold Canyon Farm, and we built our, oh 03:18 Facebook group, it's called Built From Dirt Farm School. Because a lot of people, they don't know how to do this. Yeah, I was going to ask you about the farm page too. I didn't do my weather update. what's, I usually open it with how's the weather. So how's the weather in Montana today? Oh man. So I mean, it dropped from like 34 down to one degree last night and we have like a powder. 03:43 that came so like not feet of snow which can happen here but it's just the swings are ridiculous this year it's not good for the animals how's your weather? we are in a blizzard we are officially under a blizzard warning and you can't see to the road from my house and that's about 200 feet whoa look at this dedication though this is what it takes to like do any type of business right to be honest Mary like the fact that you're here still trying to do this is awesome you don't want to get you down 04:11 Oh no, no, no, no. It always makes me laugh when I see blizzard warning because we've had blizzard warnings before and it hasn't really been a blizzard. This is a blizzard. Like this is a for real Minnesota blizzard. And I'm like, this is great. Our house is warm. We're having roast chicken and winter squash and broccoli for dinner. The dog is fine. chickens are all nice and cozy in their coop. We're fine. We're going to ride out to No problem. 04:40 Yeah

Today I'm talking with Christie author of Moonlight Elk. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Christie Green, the author of Moonlight Elk, One Woman's Hunt for Food and Freedom. Christie is in New Mexico this morning. How are you, Christie? Good morning. I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. 00:25 You are so welcome and thank you for visiting. love it when I get to people who are into nature and also write books about it. um What's the weather like in New Mexico this morning? Well, it's unfortunately very warm and sunny and dry. We've had unseasonably uh mild weather. It's been in the high fifties and we haven't had uh much snow for a number of weeks. So it's really precarious here. It's not good when we don't have snowpack. 00:54 But we're hoping for some form of moisture, at least in the new year. We'll see. I will keep my fingers crossed for you. And I wish I could send you all the rain we got this morning. Oh, man. I do, too. I have a friend up in North Dakota, and they get snow and those cold temperatures. And I wish they could just push it down here. Yeah, it was so weird. I was looking at my Facebook memories, because I look at them every morning, because I sit down with my coffee and scroll through Facebook to find people to talk to. 01:23 looked at my memories and a year or so ago it was raining on this date as well. I'm like, okay, so is December 18th a rain day? Hmm. Yeah, interesting. It seems like it would be too cold up there for rain, but moisture is moisture. Yeah, I'm, I have an appointment tomorrow at 9 45 in the morning, half an hour from here and it's all wet out there. The temps are supposed to drop. 01:50 hard this afternoon and it's supposed to snow a little bit on top of whatever freezes. And it's not supposed to warm back up until tomorrow afternoon. like, I may not make that appointment. We'll see how the roads are. Go slow. Yeah. Making appointments in the Northern tier States in December or January, February is a real iffy game a lot of the time. 02:15 But it's fine. I love winter. Winter is my favorite. Well, fall is my favorite season, but I love winter because it's when we all kind of cocoon and get cozy and eat really good food. So that's right. That's right. All right. So Christy, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, I am 55 years old and I am originally from Alaska and now I live in San Diego, New Mexico. I've been here for 02:44 let's see, 28 years or so. And pretty much my whole career as I'm a landscape architect and I'm also an author and a designer and my work revolves around food and cultivating connection to each other and to place through the catalyst of food. And so in my work as a landscape architect, I focused on 03:10 building soil, harvesting water, and growing heirloom varieties of food for people, like in the homes, but also in larger kind of contexts like housing developments and public spaces. And then I also work with native plants and um doing like passive water harvesting landform grading techniques like berms on swales and bio-swales and things like that. And then uh I am a hunter. uh 03:39 As some people say, an adult onset hunter, started hunting when I was 40. And the original intent was to harvest my own meat, right? So I was growing all this food for myself and for other people. And I thought, well, what about, you know, meat? Why couldn't I hunt as well, you know, to fully round out this sort of self-sufficient way of gathering food. 04:08 I thought I was going to get food, so to speak, and what I ended up finding was this revelatory new relationship to place and to myself, really, through the animals and through the hunt. So I started writing about those experiences with the animals here in New Mexico and other places too, but mostly here in the West with elk and deer and turkey. And these stories ended up 04:37 becoming this compilation of braided essays and then a whole braid of a book, which is Moonlight Up, which was published last September. Very nice. um You said self-revelatory regarding hunting. give me a couple examples of that. Well, what I didn't realize, so I'm a mother and at the time my daughter was five and I was always, you know, 05:05 responsible and on. Like had to be home, you know, make food, go pick up my daughter from school, you know, attend a business, you know, very scheduled, loaded life in terms of obligations, you know, and all of those I loved, but em I didn't realize how off balance I was in terms of my own unscheduled time and the freedom that that uh 05:33 affords like the feeling of bein

Today I'm talking with Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Joel Salaton at Polyface Farms in Virginia in the United States. Good morning, Joel. How are you? Good morning. I'm very good. Thank you very much. What's the weather like there today? ah Well, last night it was down about 00:29 15 degrees today. I think it's supposed to be a high of maybe 34, 35. And then drop down into 20s tonight. Tomorrow's going to be warm. It's going to be about a high of like 50 tomorrow. So. We're going to be warmer than you are in Minnesota today. It's supposed to hit 45 degrees today. Oh, wow. That's cool. That doesn't happen very often that we're warmer than Virginia. 00:58 Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, uh, it, it's, we, we've been in a really, really cold, I mean, the river's frozen over. It's, uh, we've been in a really cold, uh, cold dip here lately. Yeah. I think the whole United States has been at some point in the last week and a half. It's been, it's been unbearably cold here. And I'm really looking forward to getting back into what we would consider to be temperate degrees here. Um. 01:27 So I saw that Polyphase Farms is closed for the next week or so. Do you guys close for the holidays? Yeah, we do. We close for about two weeks. And that you got to realize much of many of our staff, we have a very, very young staff here. And so often they like to go to family over the holidays and things and New Year. we just, it's just the easiest thing is to just close for two weeks and 01:58 Um, just keep a, you know, keep a kind of a core here to do chores and feed cows and gather eggs and kind of hold the ship together, uh, for, for a couple of weeks and let everybody, uh, just enjoy. And then, and then those people that, put their hands up and say, I'll stay through Christmas. Then obviously they get there. They get there two weeks. One guy already took us two weeks back at Thanksgiving. And, and then, you know, they, they, they, 02:28 stagger out, you know, through January. you know, usually by the, by mid February, we're back at full staff and up and running, but these two weeks were pretty, were pretty core. That's fabulous. And it gives you and your wife and your son a chance to maybe spend some time together as a family. Yeah, some, although I'm a bit of a scrooge, you know, we've done this all our lives and, um, the, uh 02:58 The holidays, you know, the work stays. So we end up picking up the slack because we live here. don't have to go see family. know, we're here. so we pick up a lot of extra work during the holidays. I'm actually, what I've started doing in the last few years is the holidays oh with the crew kind of down to core level. 03:26 and not doing, not biting off any great big projects. That's when I do my writing. So yesterday I started on my next book and I'm almost done with the third chapter. I got two chapters done yesterday. got, em I was trying to get my third one done this morning before this, but I didn't quite get it done. I have to finish after our call here, but I'm hoping to get this knocked out here in the next couple of weeks. 03:56 And we'll be up and running. you have a working title yet? Oh yeah. The title is food emancipation. Oh, awesome. Cause we need that real bad right now. We do. We, we need it desperately. And, you know, this, I consider this, told Teresa this morning, this is probably going to be my, my single biggest contribution, I think to the culture. And of course she said, well, 04:26 It's taking your whole life to get to this, you know, to get to this point. but, uh, this, this, the food freedom, the food freedom, I think is the biggest issue we've got now agriculturally, oh uh, and, and in the food system. And, um, so, um, 04:50 I'm really digging into it. I'm excited about it. In fact, I couldn't even sleep last night. got two chapters done and, um, um, I'm really excited about it and glad to be jumping in. The big thing with a book, hard part, the hard part is starting. And, uh, so yesterday when I got that first chapter done, I was, I say, you know, I was on a roll and, uh, and now I'm, I'm just really excited about. 05:20 about knocking it out. Yeah, somebody told me a trick once that if you're stuck at the beginning, start in the middle. Like literally just get the words on paper and then you can move it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. So, know, I have an outline, have an outline. And so I've got, you know, kind of the chapter, the chapter ideas, chapter titles, and, know, they'll, they'll change and they'll morph an

Today I'm talking with Shannon and Allen at Hellfire Homestead. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Shannon and Alan at Hellfire Homestead in New Hampshire. Good evening, you guys. How are you? Very good, actually, despite freezing. Is it super cold in New Hampshire right now? Yeah, we could kind of a little, 00:25 cold snap going on so that makes for frozen water bottles and water buckets which is always a nightmare but yeah Minnesota's pretty cold too but not as cold as it's gonna be Saturday the high for Saturday where I live is gonna be minus one oh my gosh and it's probably coming your way three or four days later so you I've given you a heads up oh 00:50 Yeah, I know it's really hard with livestock because they've got to have fresh water whether you want to go out and break the ice and put water in or not. Yep. And we have quite a few different animals here. Okay. Well, tell me the first question I have is why is it called Hellfire Homestead? So, mean, oddly enough, it was sort of to weed out people that would be turned off by that name. 01:18 I think, and feel free to interrupt me, dear. But I feel that like in recent years, you know, with the influx of TikTok and other various social media, not only is there a lot of information that's absolutely wrong about homesteading, survivalism, bushcraft, et cetera, but a lot of people into it are not multi-generational. And there's a lot of returning to sort of like bad 01:48 Um, bad themes, I guess I should say as far as what we perceive to be gender roles in home setting and things like that on top of, uh, just a lot of bad information in general, which I mean, as somebody who grew up in New Hampshire and my family's been out here since the 1700s, um, ah I learned generationally how to can, um, how to keep meat clean. Um, hunting was big in parts of my family. Um, 02:18 And I just sort of like grew up in the woods, like a wild feral child. ah So, you know, and then you, you know, you log on to like TikTok and you see like 25 year old kids like canning with, ah you know, jars they got, you know, spaghetti jars they got from the grocery store and saying this is viable. And it's like, no, that will kill you if not ruin your entire harvest. There's a reason our grandparents use ball jars. ah 02:46 So that was part of it. And another part of it is that people are incredibly interested in what it is we do. 02:54 just on the day to day, like they're interested in the farm, they're interested in the fact that we fill our own freezer with our own meat. They're interested in the fact that we do process the hides of the animals that we eat and kill. We have sheep. ah So, some of us being online was to satisfy the curiosity of our friends, but also to kind of counter some of these like... 03:20 these ridiculous ideas that people who are not even generational farmers are starting to promote as good. Uh huh. Good. I'm glad that you're, you're like standing up for that because you're right. There's a lot of crap on the internet about what's safe, what isn't, what you can do, what you can't do. And I was grown up the same. I was brought up, sorry, not grown up, brought up the same way you were Shannon. I spent so much time in the, uh, the woods and the swamp behind my house growing up in Maine. 03:50 And I'm 56, there were no computers, were no tablets, there were no cell phones. Mom said, you ate a good breakfast, go play, don't come back till dark. And that's what we did. Yeah, was Gen X. So my parents were basically like, get outside, you're on your own until it starts getting dark. Yeah, me too. And I couldn't necessarily do that with my kids when I finally managed to find a husband who wasn't terrible and managed to stay with him. 04:19 and lived in town because there weren't really any woods for them to go play in. So we would take them on the weekends and go hike trails in the area. 04:30 Yeah, my son that way too. we, you know, when I was, it took a while to get a farm in my first marriage. Um, and we lived in the city. We actually lived in Concord, New Hampshire. Um, so like keeping that rural, that like, you know, that aspect of like self sustainability was a little bit harder. Um, but you know, we did things like, you know, from a very young age, he was taught gun safety from a very young age. He was taught at least some of the basics of. 04:58 killing and cleaning your own food. And then as we got our own farm with my ex-husband, we started raising rabbits and doing things like that. So, I mean, that's definitely uh something that he's held onto. And hopefully I can pass on to my grandchildr

Today I'm talking with Marcus at Hope Hill Homestead. Route 2 Revolution www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Marcus at Hope Hill Homestead in New Hampshire. Good morning, Marcus. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How are you? I'm good. I'm very excited to find out what you do, but tell me how the weather is in New Hampshire this morning. Well, when I was dropping my kids off at their little 00:28 uh school, little farm school, little private Catholic farm school. It was two degrees. Okay. Is it sunny? it cloudy? What? It's partly sunny, cloudy. Okay. so, but there's some snow on the ground and everything is frozen here. um It is, I think it's 22 degrees outside here. 00:56 In Minnesota, it's very overcast. Our yard light, we live on three acres, so we have a light that lights up the door yard at night. It was still on at 7.30 this morning and the sun was supposed to be up. I was like, oh, it is very overcast. And they are predicting rain this afternoon. Oh no. So you're going have some hard driving conditions pretty soon. Yes. And my husband actually has an appointment at two. So I was like, please be careful when you go. 01:26 True. Yeah, I don't love it when the weather does this flip floppy thing because it's been really, really cold here and we've had snow at least a trace every day for over a week and now it's going to rain. Yeah, it just makes a big mess. yeah, we did the driveway and like, for example, I had an oil truck try to come deliver oil to me and we burn wood and we have like oil as a backup and sometimes if the fireplace goes out, the stove goes out in the night, then you... 01:55 the heat kicks back on and I wanted to make sure I had the oil tank full because we live up on a dirt road, a driveway is a dirt road that goes up pretty steep and uh at some points the oil company will say we won't even attempt to go up your driveway because it's dangerous. uh yeah, yesterday he tried to, a few days ago they tried to get up, they couldn't make it up and I'm like, oh please God, please let them help him get up and then they came today and he delivered it. So now we're, hopefully we're set for the winter. 02:25 because it's really important when you live on a homestead, as we all know who do. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at your place. Yeah, so we live on, me and my wife and my four kids, live on 10 acres and we have some sheep and we have some chicken and I also from home, I'm a work at home parent here and I 02:54 I make furniture, but I also make like little A-frame cabins and greenhouses. That's primarily what I do now. I make these kind of these smaller concept cabin structures that people use for like Airbnb or just for, you know, their backyard sleeping cabins or whatever. Yeah. And as far as like the homesteading part, we just started milking some sheep this last spring, the first time we milked. um 03:24 That's been interesting and we made cheese. We were in the process of trying to become more self-sufficient, but as you know, you got to take little steps and sometimes with every two steps you take, you take one step back. Yes, you do. Sometimes you don't even go forward again. We did that with rabbits. 03:48 We're not doing rabbits again, I don't think. We keep talking about it, but I don't think we're gonna do it again. just not, it is not worth the return for us. So with the sheep, I already knew that you could milk sheep, but are they good with that or do you have to like train them to be okay Well, you know, there's a couple breeds that are very good milkers. So we have some East Phrasians and 04:14 The East Fraser's sheeps, can produce up to a couple gallons each one a day. And a lot of people don't know that about um sheep that you can milk them. we love our sheep and we've had sheep for the last, well, we had to get rid of our herd a few years ago because we just didn't have enough pasture and it was getting too expensive and we had young kids and it all together was hard. so we... um 04:43 We got rid of our sheep and our goats for a little bit. And then we just had the chance to get back the same sheep that we got rid of, returned to us um because they had young children. They couldn't take care of them. And luckily they were, one of them was in milk. And uh so we just kept on milking and it was fantastic. And sheep's milk, if anybody has tried goat milk, there's a little bit of a taste with goat milk. It doesn't taste like cow's milk, but sheep's milk. 05:11 actually taste just like cow's milk, I would say even better than cow's milk. And it's actually better for you. It has a hig

Today I'm talking with Christeen at Rustic Haven Homestead. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. 00:12 Today I'm talking with Christine at Rustic Haven Homestead in Washington State. Good morning, Christine. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. oh What is the weather like there? 00:30 Right now it's eight o'clock in the morning, so we're just getting our day started and it's super foggy and trying to rain. 00:40 That sounds about right for Washington state. Yes. Well, in Minnesota, it is bright and sunshiny. We got a little bit of snow overnight on top of the snow we got over the weekend. So it's very shiny outside because the snow is reflecting the sunlight. It's beautiful out. I love that. I can't wait for it to snow, but we still have a few more weeks of rain. Yeah, when. 01:05 I don't know anything about Washington state's climate except that you guys get a lot of rain. So does it get cold, cold there? It does. um Depending on where you live in Washington, that'll depend on how much snow you get. I have kind of been all over. So up in Skagit County by like Mount Baker, you get a ton of snow. And down here by Olympia so far, we don't get a lot of snow, but there's a lot of ice. 01:36 Okay. Yeah. I don't love it when there's ice. My husband drives all over the place for his job and the days when it's freezing rain, I'm just like, please be careful. Right. I don't mind driving in the snow and stuff like that just because I'm used to it from living up in Skagit County, which I didn't really grow up in. For the most part, I was born and raised in North Carolina where they put ice like 02:05 um, ice salt down instead of sand. Here they do sand. And so it's a little bit different on that front. But I've noticed that in certain areas of Washington, the roads aren't kept as well as others. So up in Skagit County, they worked really hard to make sure everything was maintained. Down here, it's like they're very short staffed. 02:32 And so the roads don't get cleared and when they do get cleared, it's clean cleared. So it's very scary. And if you don't grow up in an environment where you're actually driving in the snow and the ice, you become a danger to others. Yes. And that happens every fall here in Minnesota. That first snowstorm, there are more people who end up in the ditch than really should end up in the ditch. Yeah. And so... 03:02 I work in the medical field. have for almost 20 years and so I'm just like, just stay home. It's okay. Just stay home. If you can, don't be on the roads. Yes. Yep. Okay. is more important than your life. Oh, absolutely. You're, you're absolutely a hundred percent right. And other people's lives too, while we're talking about it. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your version of your homestead. Okay. So. 03:32 My name is Christine and I have grown up with my grandparents canning and baking everything and doing everything from scratch. My mama, she lived to be almost 100 and had a full-time garden, worked in the medical field. She worked in the hospital until she was in her 80s. And so she taught me a lot about canning. 03:59 vegetables and how to grow a garden and all of that aspect. And then whenever I was probably 30, I started getting into sourdough and learning all of that process, which has been quite fascinating actually. um But I met my spouse and we have started our own little homestead. We have all kinds of animals and 04:30 honestly all kinds of kids. uh Blended family of seven, so we have five kids between the two of us and they love to ride our goats like their horses. And it's fun to watch them get chased by chickens sometimes, but we have kind of just moved everything into a very simple life and hopefully in the next couple of years we can start homeschooling as well. 04:59 Very nice. That sounds like a beautiful life that you're building. We're trying really hard. We have a few acres and em within that we are pretty self-sustainable for the most part. 05:15 Okay, awesome. So what animals do you have? Because I always ask that question. So we have about 100 chickens. We have turkeys and geese and about 20 ducks. We have six pigs and four goats. And then we have five dogs. And so it all meshes well with our five children. I was going to say a dog for every kid. Yes. 05:45 Are the other dogs all different breeds or do you guys have a favorite breed? They are all different. So we have a 50 50 split Shepski. So he's Siberian Husky and German Shepherd. And then we have a purebred German Shepherd. We have a purebred chocolate lab. We have a purebred Belgian Malmois. An

Today I'm talking with Santa Claus! Hope you enjoy our chat, and a small peek into the North Pole. Merry Christmas! patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I have the supreme pleasure of talking with Santa Claus at the North Pole. Good morning, Santa. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm doing very well. How are you? I'm good. Is it cold at the North Pole? Oh, it's always cold at the North Pole, but we adapt pretty well. Yeah, it's a- 00:27 It's very cold in Minnesota where I am this morning. We are not even at freezing yet. True. We call that the South Pole. Exactly. So in our summers there, you need to come to Minnesota in June. It's beautiful. Yes, absolutely. All right. So tell me a little bit about the North Pole because I, my questions for, for 00:56 the North Pole is, you always listening to Christmas music? Oh, not necessarily. I enjoy a nice variety. mean, Christmas music certainly keeps us focused on what we're doing, but I like some jazz music every once in a while. Of course, there is a nice crossover with Vince Guaraldi. I love his stuff. Very nice. And what I mean... 01:20 I don't even know what to ask you. This is, this is crazy. I might actually, I might actually be nervous talking to Santa Claus. So is your, is your home decor, is it all Christmas stuff all the time? We have some areas that are off limits to anything Christmas because Mrs. Claus, she's very supportive, but sometimes she just needs to have something that is devoid of it. 01:47 Just to have a variety, just to break things up a little bit. She enjoys her Coca-Cola room and she enjoys her shabby chic room and there's lots of rooms in the castle. So she has many options and I give her carte blanche because happy wife, happy life. Absolutely. So is the home a castle? Does Santa Claus live in a castle? 02:13 Oh, we, we have what you might call a compound actually. There's a whole village, not just the castle, but the ancillary areas where the reindeer live, where the elves have their home quarters, et cetera, et cetera. So just about any facility you might imagine that we need, we have, and it's protected by a great big dome so that we can't be seen by anybody who might want to find us. I love it. I love it. That's amazing. um 02:43 So tell me about your reindeer. Are they the same reindeer all the time? Are they immortal or do you have baby reindeer sometimes? 02:54 Oh, we have a, we have the A team that everybody seems to know, although I do challenge the children to try and name them. Uh, they, they always miss two or three. The most famous example is Don Durr, not Don Ur. Uh, Don Ur is something else. Don Durr is the name of that reindeer. And then the B team and the C team. they, they are immortal, but we do have some grandparent reindeers and. 03:21 The beyond the first famous nine, there are two more teams of reindeer right now. So two more, 16 more reindeer. And they have fun names like chat and Shlomo and all of, all of the other reindeer. Shlomo. Okay. I hadn't heard that one before. Right. Well, and then they're all different, but they don't see a lot of action, but they're there just in case. I usually use them when I make visits down south. 03:50 Uh, so that the A team stay in their peak strength. Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Cause I'm sure that even if you're an immortal reindeer, you probably do get tired. Oh, sure. They need their naps and they're, they're bedded by time and they're, they're good diets and such. So you don't want to wear them out. They can still get sore hooves. Oh my, we don't want that. That's not good. Okay. So, um, what is your. 04:19 Well, number one, does Santa Claus like eggnog? Sure. I enjoy eggnog. Definitely the virgin types. You don't need anything tipsy. I'm always driving. Yep. So maybe, so maybe milk is better. Sure. You can put anything out. It's the thought that counts. And I really appreciate the children who think of us and the reindeer as well. It's nice to put out things for them. They love things. 04:49 that make crunchy sounds. So red bell peppers, maybe some zucchini, some cucumbers, things that crunch. They love making the crunching sounds. So those are always welcome and appreciated as well. they like apples? Oh, sure. If it crunches, they munches. Okay. And then, so I'm assuming that you like all cookies, but you have a favorite. 05:14 Oh yes, again, it's the thought that counts. appreciate whatever the children put out for me, milk, eggnog, a glass of water. It's all fine. And I do have my favorite, it's white chocolate macadamia nut, but cookies are cookies. They're like pizza. Nothing can go wrong if you put out pizza an

Today I'm talking with Jessica at The Homemade Mess. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jessica at the Homemade Mess in South Dakota. Good morning, Jessica. How are you? Good morning. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so glad you had time. Hi. It's really hard this time of year starting in September. Harvest season has begun and then the holidays hit. And I'm like, okay, who's going to be available to talk to me? Yes. 00:30 30 minutes isn't a hard time to carve out of the day. Well, it is and it isn't. It just depends. It depends on what people have going on and what time they have available. And things come up and they can't make it. And I'm just like, ah-ha! And it's not 10 o'clock at night? Yeah, I don't do... I try really hard not to record past 6 o'clock at night because I am not on my game at past 6 o'clock at night. Yes. That seems to be the only me time is after 10 o'clock. 00:59 Nothing else is there. Well, that's because you're a mom and you're a home sweater and you're busy and you're a teacher. Yes, I am. OK, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am I live in central South Dakota and I grew up in North Dakota. I did have did grow up on a ranch. And so when I married my husband, I always had these big dreams. I was going to I was going to marry a rodeo guy. Right. And then I fell in love with a fisherman. 01:29 So we, love him to death and we, um, he really isn't into the homesteading, the animals, the, he's a fishing and hunting guy and that's, that's what he does. And so, um, we moved, he's not my husband's alignment. And so we moved to a really small town. Um, there was no Walmart. So I said, we're not moving there. We compromised and we moved there. And so, um, 01:53 We, I really didn't have land. I do have some horses and I do barrel race as well. And so I didn't have land. And then up until probably a year ago, a little over a year ago, uh we found like our dream place and it was like, God willing it happened and it worked out. And so we really are like living out our dream now. I do also teach. I teach in a very small town. have 11 kids in my class. And then I'm a full time or full time teacher. I'm a mom. And then from after that, after 02:23 whatever time I have left is when I do my social media business. um I actually started it in late June of 2025, so like not very many months ago. um And I kind of blew up, um which is I'm very grateful, but um I don't really know what I'm doing on social media quite yet, which might, the half a million followers might seem like I do, but I'm just living on a prayer and winging it over here. But um we live day by day. We don't really know. 02:52 I don't really know what I'm doing in life yet, so here we are. You are in one of the most wonderful and most frustrating spots of life right now because winging it is really fun, but it can also be really scary. Yes. Yes. Especially being like, nobody prepares you for motherhood. You could Google all you want, but then you become a mom and you have no idea what you're doing. So I'm like trying to figure that out. 03:20 trying to figure out my social media business and trying to be a good mom and be a good wife and take care of all the hundred thousand animals I decided to accumulate and it's busy. Yeah, just just be a good human and everything else will fall into place. Yeah. Okay. I have a couple questions regarding your your answer to my first question. um How many kids do you have? Just have the one. I just have the one. Yep. He's 18 months. Oh my that is a very busy busy time. Yes, very busy. 03:49 And then did you teach at a bigger school before you moved? I did, yes. I taught in a very large school district. I taught in a school district that had 12 just elementary schools. So it was about 20 to 30,000 people in elementary. So I taught in a very large district. And then I came down here and I had nine kids last year. I didn't know what to do with my time. 04:15 So how many kids were in the class size before this new place? About 30. Oh, wow. So this is a huge change for you. Yes. Yeah. also, before that, I taught in really big district. And then I taught over on um like a um meeting reservation school. And then I taught where I'm at now. So there was a little bit of steps taken before I got to where I'm at now. 04:45 Yeah, very large class sizes. Do you enjoy the smaller class size more because you can give the kids more attention one on one? Yeah, I do. It comes with its challenges as well, though. The small school district also comes with a school, so it comes with a small community. The small community was hard fo

Today I'm talking with Becca at Moon Ridge Acres. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15% off your registration costs. 00:29 And that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Becca at Moonridge Acres. I think it's the name of your place in Alberta, Canada. Good morning, Becca. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Is Moonridge Acres the right name? That is correct. Yeah. Okay. And do you, you have a separate page for that or not on Facebook? 00:59 I actually do have a separate page for it, but I don't really use it very much. um just, I'm spread a little too thin, but eventually I would like to do it and have it be more, you know, promotional for the horses. But right now it's just kind of sitting there. Okay, cool. I looked at your personal profile. was like, I know she has a business name, but I couldn't remember it. And I was like, oh yeah, Mooner Jakers. Okay, cool. So how's the weather in Canada this morning? 01:29 It is brisk. Brisk is what I would call it. It's, I think we were at minus 11 last night, that's Celsius. So I don't know what that works out to in Fahrenheit. I'm still, I'm trying to get the conversion in my head, but it's not going super well. So yeah, it's cool. It's one of the cooler mornings that we've had so far. And honestly, this is a really great fall. It's been really nice. So I can't complain. 01:59 Is it sunny there? Sunny? Yeah, it is. is sunny. It's, uh, Alberta's kind of known for being cold, but sunny. So you, you get one, one evil and one good thing. You know, the sun is nice. Cause when it's dreary and cloudy, that's just depressing. Yeah. Um, yesterday all day, looked like, um, dusk cause it was rainy and cloudy all day yesterday. um 02:28 And I was okay with that because the weatherman was predicting that we were going to wake up to one to three inches of snow this morning. And I was excited. Oh, wow. And I got up and we got like half an inch of snow. I was like, it's going to be another one of those winters where they hype the hell out of the forecast. And then we get nothing. I swear every single year, like in the last like four years, they were like, this is going to be the worst winter ever. And then it's fine. 02:55 Like, I'm not sure if they get more clicks on that. Like, maybe they make more ad revenue by saying it's going to be terrible. I'm not sure. I have no idea, but I was in my five-year-old pram of mind of, okay, it's going to be the first really nice snow. It's going to be beautiful when I wake up. And oh no. No. I was also excited because my dog loves the first real snowfall of a couple inches because she goes out and rolls in it. 03:23 And I was so excited for her to go out the door and be all crazy. And now I was like, okay, well, this was not the day already. No, they seem to be doing that a lot. told us Calgary, which is just a boat three hours south of us, they got a decent dump. Like I think it was 10 inches or not 10 inches, sorry, 10 centimeters. ah And they said it was coming our way and to expect a big storm and nothing. 03:52 Yup, I don't believe the weather people anymore. The weather is what it is doing outside my window right now. And right now, it is really windy. It is 28 degrees and I would call it brisk. So I think we're probably in the same, the same. I think so. think Fahrenheit to Celsius, believe 20 is zero Celsius. So we're minus 11 Celsius. So that's gotta be like. 04:21 I want to say around like the, in the single digits of Fahrenheit, I think. So we're having kind of the same weather day. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you've been on the podcast twice. They have been wonderful conversations. And just to catch people up, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Uh, so I breed miniature horses, um, here in Alberta and we breed for 04:48 show purposes um and we show them and my, you know, my whole social media is all about promoting the breed and hopefully getting more people to get into them and see that miniature horses are truly awesome little creatures. I really, really love them. ah And yeah, tha

Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15% off your registration costs. 00:29 And that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm in Montana, right? Yes, Billings, Montana. Yeah. I've talked to a couple of people in Alberta in the last few days and I keep thinking Alberta. I'm like, no, she's not in Canada. She's in the States. Okay. How are you ma'am? 01:00 I am doing wonderful this morning and yourself? I'm good. How's the weather where you are? It's it's a little chilly, but not as bad as it could be. Okay. It is definitely chilly here. We got sleet for the first time this season this morning and it has all melted away already and the sun is peeking out. So it's, uh, it's looking like it's going to be a pretty day, but it sure didn't look that way at three o'clock this morning when I got up, when I got up for no apparent reason. It was. 01:28 pouring rain here at 3 a.m. Oh no, we haven't had a lot of moisture. I've been pretty lucky on that. I do have my wool out, but it's like mainly for mornings and evenings and then you just don't want to get caught out before the temps go back down. yeah, it's been a beautiful extended fall here. It sounds like it has been there too, so that's good. 01:55 Okay, so Chelsea was a guest on the show back in May and she was telling me all about her regenerative urban farm or urban regenerative farm. said it in the wrong order. So give me a quick update on who you are and what you do, Oh, well, I am someone that just took their health into their own hand and it led me here and now I like to grow lots of things and 02:24 have chickens and I just added rabbits. eh And the attempts of creating a decentralized intentional community that's focused around edible landscaping and self-sufficiency and personal growth. Okay, I have a question about decentralized. Is that the same thing as hyper local community? 02:54 I have absolutely no idea. just said decentralized because we won't live together. Okay. Cause with everything that's been going on in the States right now, I've talked to a couple of people on different aspects of the whole snap fiasco and what we don't, we don't use snap, but I definitely was on wick when I had my first baby. And, I think maybe way back. 03:22 My first husband and I might have had to use food stamps and it wasn't a card then it was actual like paper vouchers. But, but SNAP is really, really important, but more important than SNAP, think is number one, not finding yourself in a position where if SNAP goes away, you're, there's a bad word, you're in trouble. And that learning to cook helps with that planning ahead. 03:51 and trying to get things stored away in your pantry or your cabinet for an emergency is really important. And your local growers is really important because farmers in my experience really want to help. I can tell you right now, someone had pulled into my driveway and said, do you have eggs? I'm on the SNAP program. I don't have any food. Can I just have some eggs? I would have given them eggs. Yeah. I mean, it's hard because for me, you know, 04:19 grew up, was a welfare kid, you know, like I didn't have a great childhood. And, know, even when I raised my children, I had to utilize that even though I still worked full time, you know, I went to college full time, uh, online and when I was working full time and raising two kids by myself, and I definitely used food stamps, but I still had to go sit outside of food banks, you know, on the weekends and in some way forage. 04:48 or additional resources while raising two boys. So I get it. I get using resources, but I also understand that being dependent on them makes you a slave. Exactly. And you don't want to be a slave. And let me just clarify, there is absolutely no shame in utilizing the resources that are available to you that taxpayer money pays for, especially if you're one of the taxpayers paying for it. 05:19 But I also, you know, as, someone who has lived lots of lives, one of th

Today I'm talking with Amanda at Lala and Justin’s Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. The tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Amanda at Lala and Justin's Homestead in Vermont. Good morning, Amanda, how are you? Good, how are you Mary? I'm good, how's the weather in Vermont this morning? Chilly, we got our first freeze. 00:56 Um, well, our first day that the bowls in the barn, the ice bowls were all frozen. So that was a fun morning, topping out dishes, but it's to be expected. It's Vermont. So as my dad says, it's all part of it. Yep. Yep. It's, uh, it's very gray here in Minnesota this morning. It's chilly and there's almost no breeze at all. It's very quiet outside, which is weird. We usually have some kind of wind blowing. 01:24 Okay, so I want to know why it's called Lala and Justin's Homestead first. Well, Lala um was a nickname given to me by my stepdad. And when I got into rabbits, he helped me a lot with like building nest boxes and building cage areas and different things that I needed help building. And he always called me Lala. So 01:52 When I started the rabbitry back up, um as an adult, I decided to honor him and call it Lola's Lovely Lops. And Justin's my partner, so he gets to tag along. Well, yeah, and he probably helps, which is really nice. um Is your stepfather still with us? No, he passed away five, he's been five years since he's been gone. Okay. Well, what a great way to honor his memory. That's, that's fabulous. 02:20 Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you guys do. Um, sorry. Um, so I'm- Did I make you cry? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 02:37 It's just... I just miss him. That's all. Yeah, yeah, it's so hard. It's hard around the holidays. Oh, for sure, yeah. And the way that I deal with people who have passed... The way I deal with it is I try to remember the really fun stuff that made me laugh and then it makes me laugh and it kind of counteracts the crying a little bit. Yeah, he was hilarious. So there's a lot to laugh about. 03:05 Yeah, and you're carrying on his memory by doing something you love to do. So that's a beautiful thing. And how much do you love raising rabbits? I mean, come on. I've been raising them since I was 10. I absolutely adore them. Yeah. one of my favorite animals in the whole entire world, other than my dogs. Okay. So are you okay? Yeah, I've got it back. Okay, good. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. 03:35 So we are a family of four. We have a point four or five acre property and we raise the rabbits garden. We do a lot of foraging. like, I'm very into mycology and mushrooms. um So we've been taking on teaching ourselves different types of edible mushrooms for the past, I'd say 12 years or so we've been learning about mushrooms. 04:05 And I'd eventually like to get into herbs and learning about that. But I would like to find a mentor before I step into that because there's just so much to learn. But yeah, we're a small family and we raise the rabbit meat. I do a lot of bartering with people for rabbit. And I get most of my beef and chicken from other people that raise so that. 04:30 That's a good trade. It's a good barter system we have going in our community. And we started that back in 2020 with the bartering because of the shortages and stuff. So I just got deeper into the rabbits at that time. And I have way more than I intended now. So rabbit math is not much different from chicken math. take it. Oh, I think it's a little worse. Okay. 04:56 But it's enjoyable, so it's okay. don't have anything bred right now. I have one that's due today. And, she was due yesterday and she hasn't had her litter yet. But other than that, I don't have anything bred because I haven't decided if I want to have babies in the cold, cold months yet. But I have a few that I was thinking of breeding this week so that I could have them born during my Christmas break from work. So. Yeah. And it's addictive. Those baby bunnies are so cute. 05:25 Oh, they

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 And that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. The tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch in Nebraska. Good morning, Leah. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Always good to visit with you. Yes. And as I told you before we started, I love you. You are wonderful. uh 00:58 What's the weather like in Nebraska this morning? Oh, goodness. So if you didn't know, my first major in college was actually meteorology. I was planning to be a weather girl. And so I love to study the weather. It is foggy and dreary. I'm supposed to be 60 today, but if you follow the old wives' tales, I mean, I keep seeing these early foggy mornings, TNS up for precipitation in 90 days. I don't know. Winter has not arrived yet, but 01:27 It'll be interesting to see what ends up happening. We've had such a beautiful fall. We have here in Minnesota too. And I thought we were going to be looking at an early cold snap, but it's been gorgeous. And we had our first, um, Sneet. We call it Sneet here, snow and sleet mixed together. We had that three or four days ago and it did it early in the morning and then it was gone by noon. Nice. 01:54 It's been, it's been foggy here every morning for the last four mornings. So I don't know. This, this climate change thing is freaky. I don't really love it, but it's okay. We'll see how it goes. And honestly, my husband drives all over creation for his job. So the less ice and snow on the road, guess is better than more ice and snow on the road. story. Yep. Yeah. Let's check like in February and see how things are looking. 02:24 Yeah. Well, I'm sure we're going to get snow. I just don't think we're going to get a lot. The last two winters here where we live, we haven't even seen a foot of snow total for the winter. Yep. Same. I always uh judge the snow by in my diary how many times we had to scoot bunks for the feeder calves in the mornings. And the feeder calves are with us until, well, somewhere around the week after Valentine's Day when we usually sell them. so I always know what kind of winter it's. 02:53 It's been, we didn't have to shovel at all last winter at all. Okay. All right. So Leah's been a guest on this show three times already because she's brilliant and I love talking with her and she is a rancher, a fifth generation rancher, right? Yes, ma'am. And sixth generation waiting in the wings. Oh, there's a baby come in. uh No, the girls fight our daughters. Yep. Yep. Yep. The ranch will be left. 03:23 to these wonderful girls when the time is right and they can do with it as they choose. But I love that fact. Good. And hopefully they'll marry really good, strong, smart men who can help them run the ranch. Yes, ma'am. That is the prayer when I go to bed every night is marrying the right man, not because of what I want him to do, but how I want him to be no matter what occupation he's in. 03:53 Yes, absolutely. need, okay, I'm gonna step on the soap box for a minute because I don't usually, but I'm going to right now. We need our children who are adults to hook up with the right person so that they can have a really long and lasting love and that they work together as partners because I've been married three times. This current marriage is my third marriage and we just celebrated our 20 something. 04:22 I can't remember right now. I married in 2002. And it's longest marriage out of any of the three that I've had. And my husband and I are very different people. I mean, very different. His priorities and my priorities on things are very far apart sometimes, but our core values are the same. And so if you can find someone with the same core values, you can work through almost anything. Amen, sister. Yeah. 04:51 So um when we last talked in September, so this is a really quick turnaround for you to come back. I'm very happy about that. We talked about beef prices. And one of the things that you told me is that you guys were going to have to decide how many of the baby, ah well, not baby, but

Today I'm talking with Bryna at Drunken Duck Farm & Rescue. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. Use the code HOME 15 to save 15% off your ticket price. atinyhomestead.com/support Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Brina at Drunken Duck Farm and Sanctuary in Ohio. Good morning, Brina. How are you? I'm great. How are you doing today? I'm good. Tell me what the weather's like in Ohio. 00:54 Well, it's a little cold, but it's sunny. So we will 100 % take it, ah especially because where our farm is, we're at the end of the power line and we lost electricity this morning. So it's a little cold in the house. Oh, I hope you get it back soon. Oh, yeah. This happens to us probably about 30 to 40 times during the winter. Might be time to invest in a generator that kicks on when the power goes out. We have one of those. They're really great. 01:24 That is on our wish list for this year. Good, because it's so helpful. When we were looking for our property, we didn't know that the property we would end up with uh would have a generator that kicks on when the power goes out. And at our house, we have a well. So when the power goes out, there's no water. And we were very excited to find out about the generator just automatically sending power to the house. It's amazing. It is one of the most wonderful things about this place. 01:54 Okay, well, the weather here is very gray and I think it's probably 37 degrees outside and they are predicting snow tonight. oh wonderful. Congratulations. Yeah. And I'm in Minnesota. So that stands to reason that we would have some snow in November. I'm excited. I always love the first snow. The last one I'm like, are you kidding me? But the first snow, I, I'm just beside myself. I'm like a five year old. 02:20 So I'm a little, I'm actually originally from near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. So I'm very pro snow. During the winter, I am always excited for snow and I am disappointed in rain because for us ice and really frozen mud is like the worst thing we can ever want for on our farm. So when it snows, I get so excited because we have snow and not ice. Yeah, absolutely. And 02:50 I get excited because I associate snow with cozy homes because I grew up in the woods in Maine and we had, my parents had a lovely little ranch home surrounded by pine trees and it would snow, we had windows in every room and we would just kind of hang out by the wood stove and watch snow fall and be cozy. Yeah, I really, I want to say probably fall and winter time are my favorite time. Yeah, mine too, absolutely. Okay, so. 03:18 I have to know why is it called Drunken Duck Farm and Sanctuary? Okay, so it's a little bit of a longer story. That's okay. When I originally moved onto the property, was leasing. I hadn't rented or anything. mean, was, let me try that again. I was leasing and there was two houses on the property. There was a converted barn that got turned into a two-bedroom, one-bath house that the owner had and then an old 03:48 a 1890s house, three bedrooms, one bath that I went ahead and I rented out and I had a small yard around it. And by that time I was already rescuing a few rabbits, not that many. And I had some chickens, once again, not that many. But what I wanted the property for is I was a brewer, a home brewer. And I wanted the property to be able to grow my own grapes, raise my own honey. 04:15 my own hops because at that time I was actually traveling the world teaching brewing classes and workshops and I did a lot with boy scouts teaching them about the science behind brewing and making their own root beer and stuff like that. And so when I had it, uh I called my little brewing farm the Drunken Duck Farm. 04:37 And I was doing a lot of home brewing and I would give the spent grains after I would make a beer and I'd give that to the animals and they loved it. It's really good for them. Well, unfortunately, the person who owned the property, it was right before COVID and she really wasn't taking really great condition of the animals. And when COVID hit, she was work from home. 05:01 And I was not, I was considered an uh essential

Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt about food security. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. Use the code HOME 15 to save 15% off your ticket price. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt in Alberta, Canada. Good morning, Dawn, how are you? Good morning, I'm doing really well. How about yourself? I'm great. I'm so happy you could take the time to talk with me today. Absolutely. I'm very happy too. Anytime. I love talking about this stuff. 00:59 Good. How's the weather in Alberta? Well, we had a little bit of snow last night. So just a little skiff. It's not too cold. actually still, even though it snowed, I'm a crazy woman, even though it snowed, I still wore my sandals to go into town for a cup of coffee this morning. I'm excited for you. think that's great because that will wake you up for sure. Absolutely, for sure. 01:23 Okay, it is really beautifully sunny here. The breeze is very light and I think it's probably 45 degrees outside in Minnesota. Beautiful, beautiful, nice. Yeah. So Dawn is a homesteading coach and I wanted to have Dawn back. She'd been on the podcast before to talk about growing food and about preserving food and about how to not get caught up short. 01:48 if there's an emergency like we had in the States here over the last month with the SNAP benefits. And has told me all kinds of cool things before, but I'm going to open this up to Dawn to tell me about growing food. So tell me about growing food, Dawn. For sure. So I just want to back it up a little bit. So my understanding is that you have the SNAP program down there. You've got little cards that the government issues that that's how some people get their food and that's been cut off. Is that what's happened? 02:17 how they get some extra food, you know, for like low income people. Right, which again is honestly in some ways a beautiful thing because, you know, everyone should have access to food. However, having said that, if you're relying on a card and you're relying on the government for your food, that's a problem because just like you just saw when that card doesn't have dollars on it to get food, what are you gonna do? Right? Yes. That's where it's at. And so that's where I wanna take this today is 02:46 let's we the people have the power to make the change for ourselves. And so when you think of a package of seed, I'm going to use an example of a package of lettuce seeds. So if you go to the store and you buy a package of lettuce seed, maybe it costs you $2 for a package of lettuce seed. Now, if you take that seed and you plant it in your backyard and everyone, most people, 95 % of people have space of some kind, whether it's a balcony. 03:14 whether it's a backyard, whether it's a space, there's lots of community gardens around in different towns and cities. So find a piece of dirt or find some pots and you take that $2 package of seed, you plant it in some soil and you can be creative. You don't have to, it doesn't have to be an expensive venture. There's soil everywhere. So you dig up some soil, you put it in any kind of container, your old ice cream pail, I don't care, put some drainage holes in the bottom, plant some seeds. 03:42 water it and you're going to get lettuce and the amount of lettuce that you're going to get out of that little $2 package of seed is going to, if you were to buy that lettuce in the grocery store, it would probably cost you 10, 12, 15, $20, right? By the time you're harvesting over and over and over again. So you're taking your $2 and you're turning it into 20. And so that's where I'm saying is we, people have the power to look after ourselves. If we all grow whatever we can, 04:12 in the space we have serving ourselves, we would have less hunger issues actually globally if everyone did this in the world. I completely agree and that's why I wanted you to talk about it because you're a Homestead coach and you teach people how to do this. Yeah, absolutely. So just give me one second. Yeah. 04:39 I just have to write something now. um So yeah, I teach homesteading. I teach

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers in Montana. Good morning, my friend. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. It's a wonderful morning after getting to see the Northern Lights. Did you get to see them? It was so weird. I got up at like... 00:57 1130 when my husband came to bed last night because I had to go potty and uh I went outside on my porch for some reason. I don't usually usually just come back to bed and I was looking out the window. I could see this red orangey color off in the distance. I did not have my glasses on and I was like, oh no, what's on fire over there? Yeah. And I was going to put my glasses on when I came upstairs and look out the bedroom window and I was like, if it's on fire, it's too far away to impact us. And I went to bed. I went to sleep. 01:27 Got up this morning and looked at the local Facebook page for our town and somebody had posted, what's the red glow on the west side of town? And people were posting so many pictures in the comments and I was like, I missed it. Well, I mean, you kind of saw it. I saw the red, my husband got pictures and he got the blues and greens. Wow. So up here it was red and green. Yeah. 01:55 And it was bright. And you know, I always wanted to see the Northern Lights. I was on my bucket list. I thought I was going to have to go to Alaska. I mean, I really wouldn't have had to move up to Montana to even see them at this point. But they were red and green last night and dancing. They'll dance too. It looks like almost like glitter in the sky to the naked eye. But the fact that you're able to see the actual red and green without the camera lens is pretty crazy because that's like 02:24 Alaska, you know, style Northern Lights where you can see them dance in the sky. So we, guess you're supposed to again see them tonight. So we're really excited. We'll go out again. Last night we had cloud cover and that ruins all of it. course. And you'll be surprised people in Minneapolis and St. Paul here in Minnesota actually could see them even with all the light pollution. Yeah, that is wild to me. I had friends that were in, you know, Billings because we're kind of on the outskirts. 02:54 And they were posting pictures of a two full blown light pollution. And normally it has to be pretty pitch, you know, pitch outside to be able to capture it in a long exposure. was capturing it without a long exposure. I mean, cool, but also scary tinfoil hat, you know, style thing where I'm like, my husband jokes around. He's like, should we be putting tinfoil hats on now when we go outside to look at these? And we couldn't help but really laugh at that because it is. 03:23 It is from the sun having solar flares that we're able to see these. Yeah, exactly. And it's really cool and it's really pretty. But yes, it's concerning. So I'm assuming the weather is pretty good there. If you were met, you managed to see it last night. Yeah, it's you know, it's a weird year this year. There's we haven't knock on wood, like really just everyone should knock on wood for me right now. We haven't had any serious snowfall. We have like a real light dusting one day. 03:52 and it stayed for like a few hours. But to see like other parts of the country that normally don't get snow before us are getting snow is a little strange. We always joke that Montana is going to be the banana belt, but weather's been really good here, which has been nice because we've been really productive since we last talked. Like a lot of building has gone on. We've done miles of electric fence. mean, so I, I'm enjoying the nice weather and that it's not harsh yet because 04:21 It's going to be, guess, according to the farmer's almanac, um a pretty cold but not snowy year. And I'll take that because last year was the opposite. It was extremely snowy and not as cold, if that makes sense. yeah. Yeah. It's so weird here in Minnesota because uh supposedly the weather

Today I'm talking with Kristin at Mother Clucking Eggs. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Food Econ is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Kristen at Mother Clucking Eggs in Duluth, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Kristen. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. Is it gray up in the north there? It is a very gloomy day. Yeah. Typical November in the Northern tier states. It is. 00:59 Yeah, we're gray and it rained a little bit and it's breezy and it's cold. We just got the wood boiler going. Yes, I know. This weekend looks like it's going get down to the 20s. So I'm not quite ready for that, but yes. Yeah, we might get snowflakes. I know. Ready or not. 01:21 Well, it is November what, ninth today? Yes, seventh. Seventh, sorry. I'm way ahead of myself. um The running joke in my family is that my birthday is November 4th and my daughter's is November 14th. And so we have a running bet as to whether it will snow by my birthday, in between my birthday and her birthday, or after her birthday. And we're going to get snow here before her birthday. You think so? 01:51 Yeah, I think so. And she lives in Florida, so she won't see any snow, most likely. Oh my gosh. Lucky. Yup. It's really weird having a kid who lives in the South because she grew up, she grew up partly in Maine and partly here in Minnesota. And then she ended up in Florida. So, right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and mother clucking eggs, which is mother clucking fun to say. My mom did not like when I named it that. 02:21 Um, she did not appreciate, but I think it's kind of funny. is funny. So we moved out to the country, um, six years ago and I was obsessed with goats, specifically Nigerian dwarf goats. So, um, that was my first order of business was to get some goats. So I have two of those. And, um, then the next spring I. 02:48 decided to get some chickens and I started with six and now I don't know what happened but I'm up to 44. Oh chicken math got you. It got me good. Okay so what else do you have anything? Two dogs, two kids and a husband. That is a good way to round it out I think. Yeah yes. Okay I have to ask what kind of dogs do you have? A golden retriever and a silver lab. 03:16 So they're not necessarily livestock guardian dogs, although you may be using them that way. Yes, I do want a Great Pyrenees very badly, but my husband says that we cannot have a third dog. So I said um then we could maybe get a donkey, but he said no. A dog would be easier than a donkey. 03:36 I know. I know. I agree. 03:41 Well, anyone who's listened to my podcast for over two years now knows we have a dog and I talk about her a lot. I really talked about her a lot in the beginning, but I try not to talk about her as much now. Her name is Maggie. She's an Australian shepherd and she only weighs 36 pounds. Oh my gosh. Little. She's a little Australian shepherd. She was billed as a mini Australian shepherd, but having talked to people who raise Australian shepherds, 04:09 I have been corrected. There is no such thing as a mini or a toy. They're just all Australian shepherds of varying sizes. Oh, I didn't know that either. So there's some, some dispute going on in the Australian shepherd world about what they're called. love her to pieces and she is definitely not a livestock guardian dog. She loves every critter that comes on the property except for possums. Oh. 04:38 Okay. She thinks possums are cats until she realizes that they're possums and then she's like, oh, and she does this really deep in her throat growl. And that's when I know there's a possum outside because she sees them outside the window. Does she kill them? No, because she's never she's never been up close with one. Okay. There was one in the doghouse and she saw it and she thought it was one of our cats who she loves. And she went 05:07 tail wagging up to the doghouse realized it was not one of our cats and her hackles went up and she was just barking at it. My husband had to drag her in the house. Oh my gosh. And then he killed it instead of her killi

Today I'm talking with Megan McGovern at Stone Soup Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefruitycon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Megan McGovern at Stone Soup Farm in Oregon. Is that right? No, I'm in a little town called Ferndale, Washington, which is about as far north west in the United States you can get without being in the ocean or Canada. 00:59 I was one state away. I screwed up. I'm sorry. uh Good um afternoon, Megan. How are you? Good. I'm doing great. Thanks. Good. um So how's the weather there? um You know, the nice thing about Washington, and we love it here, we are right on the, it's a beautiful place. We're in between mountains on the East and they are just gorgeous mountains. And on the West, about eight miles of us, there is ocean. 01:27 So we have everything we have. could literally if you were doing like a design theme, you could have, you know, Western house in a little log cabin or you could have a cabin in the woods or you could have beach house. It's really fantastic here. And the best part is that it never gets really cold and it never gets really hot. So in the winter never gets dips below freezing a few times, never gets a hard freeze or much snow, a couple inches here and there. Summer never gets above 75, 80 degrees. 01:57 The winter is dark and gloomy and they call it the big dark. In the summer, you've got daylight till almost 10 o'clock at night. You can't even go watch fireworks, 4th of July, because it never gets dark. In the winter, it's dark at 430 and doesn't get light till 815 and we're right heading into that. And it rains every day all day long. And this weekend, this whole week has been dark and gloomy and overcast and sad. Makes me miss summer already and it's only November. 02:26 As I sounds like November. We're kind of in the same boat today. It's drizzly and it's gray and I think it's like 45 degrees outside in Minnesota. Yeah, but it gets cold there. also not only cold, you have sunny days occasionally though, right? Oh, we have lots of beautiful, bright, crisp. 02:46 Yeah, bright blue sunny days, you bright blue sky sunny days. Yes, absolutely. But today is not one of them. my my husband happens to have a doctor's appointment here in an hour. So he's home today. And he just got the wood burning boiler started for the first time this season. 03:05 Yeah, yeah, we're about to start. Same thing. I love that thing. It saves us so much money in the wintertime, because as long as we're willing to do the work, the wood is paid for. Well, we have a very old not OK, not very old by Minnesota standards, but we have a farmhouse that's been a farm since the 1920s. And one of our little buildings outside was built as a place for farmhands to sleep in the 1940s. And my two adults 03:34 sons are both ones in college and ones just graduated and they're both moving home for a while to save money and they want to live in this little outbuilding. It is not insulated. It is not warm. It is basically a barn and they're trying to keep warm with a little propane stove and it's not working. We might need to upgrade to wood for a while or something because it's or I could insulate but you know that's work. So we'll see. 03:59 Whatever you're do you better get on it. No kidding the bar cats are sleeping on their beds right now to get everybody keep warm. yeah, exactly All right. So tell me a little bit about your farm we Honestly, we did not set out to be farmers Although I have always loved food and the food supply and figuring out where my food came from but we have 04:26 three kids who are all gluten-free and dairy-free for health reasons. And so we need to be very strict about what we eat. And my middle son, he's in college right now, but he needed room to roam. He could not be contained in a suburban household. And he's the kid that when you go to the park, he's the one that all the other moms are pointing at the tallest tree and saying, whose kid is that? 04:54 and it would be mine. And so when we, we had to move to Washington for m

Today I'm talking with Michelle at Home Sweet Home Bakery. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Michelle Chesser at Home Sweet Home Baker in Missouri. Good morning, Michelle. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm okay. I'm getting better. I've been sick for three weeks and I've mentioned it on the podcast and I actually feel maybe 80%. 00:26 from the zero I was at two, three Tuesdays ago. So I think I'm getting better. How is the weather in Missouri today? We finally got fall and I love it. I love the changing of the season. So it's chilly. have our, we started a fire for the first time this weekend. So bring it on. I am right there with you because I am north of you in Minnesota and I was listening to the weather for the week on our local news channel this morning and the cutie patootie boy. 00:56 who does the weather, said that we might get our first mixed precipitation like sleet, snow flurries and rain on Saturday this weekend. And I was like, yes, finally. Wow, that's early. That's too early for me. Well, my birthday is tomorrow and my daughter's is the 14th and we are 20 years and 10 days apart. And every year there's an unspoken bet as to whether we'll get snow before my birthday. 01:25 or in between my birthday and her birthday or after her birthday. So I think we are going to get snow in between. She's in Florida, so she won't be getting any snow. Well, happy birthday. Thank you. uh Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do. Well, I've started my bakery about 17 years ago for young children. 01:50 and I wanted to find a way that they could grow up working, have a good work ethic. And so we started taking, we grew a garden and started taking vegetables to the farmer's market. And eventually we just started eating all our vegetables and I've always loved baking. So one year we took cupcakes to the farmer's market and we just grew from there and we added things and 02:19 When we added cinnamon rolls, it got crazy. And eventually we built a home on our property and added a commercial kitchen in our home. So we have a home kitchen and then we have a commercial kitchen right next to it. And that was to bake for a coffee shop, a local coffee shop in town. So I baked for them for eight years and just finished doing that in March. 02:48 So now I teach other home bakers just how to grow and how to survive and balance everything. 02:59 Wow. Okay. So you started out as a cottage food producer and now you teach. that the beginning to where you are now? Yes. And I still bake. I still bake and sell not as much, but I still I'm in the trenches and I'm, you know, the holidays are coming up and I'm going to be full force baking. Awesome. I love stories like yours where you go from, we're going to try a thing and then it becomes a real thing, like a much bigger thing. uh 03:28 Are you by any chance going to be coming to Minnesota for the cottage foodie con thing in April of 2026? absolutely am. And my husband is originally from Minnesota. He spent some of his childhood there. So when I told him it was in Minnesota, he's like, we're going, we're going. So I will be there. Yes. 03:51 Awesome. I will not be there. However, cottage fruity con is the new sponsor from my podcast. Awesome Yes, I will actually have a little thing at the beginning of this episode when it comes out on Wednesday morning talking about what cottage foodie con is but Matt the guy that that started it is a fantastic person I don't know if you've met him. I don't if you talk to him, but if you get the chance to when you're there 04:16 go say hi and tell him Mary sent you because he's super sweet. He's a really nice guy. Yes. I talked with him online and that was the first time I met him and I was blown away. He's really nice and really helpful and he knew his stuff. So I'm really excited about going and I'm looking forward to it. Good. I was hoping that you were going to say yes because I really wanted to break this news in 04:42 conversation, not just with a little blurb at the beginning of the podcast. uh I'm so excited for him and I'm really excited that you're going because I think you're going to find out things that you didn't know and you've doing this for a while. But there's always stuff to learn that you didn't even think of. oh So anyone who's listening, if you're interested in going and learning about being what Michelle has been and i

Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms in Florida. Good morning, Mimi. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Florida? It's nice. It's fall weather and it's not hot. It's really nice and cool. 00:27 So we're really excited about the new weather right now. I'm in Minnesota and it is as gray as it can possibly be and it is cold and they're saying rain today. Well, it is still sunshine in Florida. It's really nice at the farm with the nice cool weather coming in. It makes it much easier to work on the farm for sure. Oh, it always does. We love cool days in Minnesota in the summer because in the summer, 00:57 It can get as hot as it gets in Florida and it can be just as muggy as it gets in Florida. So I understand what you're saying. um So when you say it's cool, like how cool is it there? 70, 65 to 70 right now. Okay. Well, we have had frost every morning for the last three mornings. So my definition of cool is a little bit colder than yours. Yes. Yes. 01:23 But I'm not mad about it. Fall is my favorite season. So I am tickled that we in mid fall. It's been beautiful. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and wholesome whatever the heck it is. I forget the name because I've been sick. I'm sorry. Tell me about your place. No problem. started the place. I grew up in a farm back home and I really wanted to go back into the farm. We started uh a little homestead. 01:52 but the region in Vernon and it's about 11 acres and we have a few animals. have goats, we have a lot of chickens and we do have some pigs and we're growing, you know, steadily growing our flock and we're excited about it because it's pretty flat uh area. It has different, um we kind of parsing in our four areas region so we can move our flock. 02:22 around ah and then we also putting on a putting on one of the lot a house there so we're excited about that to be permanently at the farm and operating so it's uh that's overall uh the farm we also building a pond so that we can have our ducks and other you know animals being able to enjoy a pond as well. 02:50 Very nice. So what made you want to get into this? Because I grew up on a farm, I wanted to always go back to that root and being able to raise my own animals and being able to grow vegetables or food source in a natural way like it used to be, know, non-GMO, pasture-raised animals so that 03:19 we have that wholesomeness and then being able to have more of um a source of food that we love raising and being able to. uh 03:36 offer that same type of uh experience to other people too and enjoy a natural made food source. oh so I'm glad that you mentioned that because not everyone who has a homestead or a farm sells their products that they produce from the farm. But is that was that the plan when you started this? Yes and no. We also have uh some of our people, the people I know in community 04:06 They also expressed the want to have naturally, you know, a reliable food. So we started selling our uh products to some friends and family and then expanding now to the other market. So that's how it falls from, you know, being able to share the things that we oh 04:35 we raise and then trying to expand it to a bigger market right now. Okay. So that leads me to my next question. Do people come to your place to buy your produce and your other products or do you sell it like a farmer's market or are you looking to get into grocery stores? Some people do come at the farm to pick up the items. I also bring them to some farm swap. 05:03 and we're trying to also get them to farmers market. Okay, awesome. Awesome. So how long have you been doing it? About a year now. We've been doing the farm. We're in our second year going in. Okay, do you love it? Yes. Yes. 05:29 It's like, you know, it brings me back to my childhood where, you know, we do chores, we attend the land and we attend to the animals. So it's basically bringing back to our childhood. Yeah. And you're not the first person to tell me that. And the thing that comes up a lot on this podcast is memories and childhood and play. And I am not saying that homesteading is just playing. 05:59 because it's not, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of work. But the reward is to be able to say, I pour my, you know, all my energy into this and I'm able to have a food that I know where it came from. uh That's the reward. And then being able to just have something to do and enjoy uh building, enjoy attending to the animals, all that is part of the experience

Today I'm talking with Rebecca at AQuack AndaCluck Farm. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Rebecca at a Quack and a Cluck farm in Illinois. Good morning, Rebecca. How are you? Good morning. Doing good. Good. Well, how's the weather there? Because it's been raining since last night here in Minnesota. Well, we didn't get rain until this morning and now it's drizzling and cold. 00:28 Yeah, and I hate to sound like a farmer, but we need the rain, so I guess it's okay. Yeah, we definitely do. Definitely. It's really dry. It's been dry. It's needed. um Okay, so the first question I have for you is how you came up with a quack and a cluck for the name. You know, honestly, 00:51 I sat and I thought about it for a very long time. And one thing that I did was, you know, kind of come up with some names and I Google search just to make sure, you know, nobody else had any of them. didn't want to, you know, take somebody else's name. And it just kind of hit me. I'm like, well, we got chickens and we got ducks. They make noises. There we go. And so I just, it just kind of came together. It worked out great. 01:20 I love it. And the only thing that's hard for me as the podcast host is that I have to make sure I pronounce cluck very carefully. Yeah. Yeah. There was another lady who had a name like yours and it was something it had clucking in it. And I I practiced for a whole day in my head and out loud saying clucking. So I didn't screw it up. uh Yeah. You know, and it 01:50 It only takes just a little bit of a tweak in there for it to sound like something completely different. Yeah. And that's the one word that I never ever say on the podcast because I don't want people to be alienated. So, right. So every time I find somebody with a name that ends in UCK, I'm like, OK, Mary Evelyn, be careful of how you say this word. Right. Yes. Very enunciate. Yes. So is that chicks that I hear in the background? It is. Yes. 02:20 um This is our first year of doing fall hatches. um I'm not so sure that I like doing it. uh Of course, it's partly because my chickens are like, no, we're out. So it's been kind of random on what's hatching and what we're able to hatch. Okay. 02:45 Well, it's a lovely sound. think that chick peeps are beautiful to hear. do not, I'm gonna step off to the side for a second. The peeps that they sell at Easter, I hate them. I don't like them. Every year I try one and I go, God, those are gross. But baby chicken peeps, the sound are just beautiful. So. Yes, I agree. And on that side note of yours, I do not like those peeps. 03:15 I want to like them and my son always ends up getting some because he loves them and he's like try again so I eat one and I'm like it's just straight sugar it's gross. They're cute they are cute I'll give them that it's just that texture is just I can't get past that. either I don't like them and my husband just laughs at me he's like you love marshmallows. 03:42 And I'm spoiled. I have had homemade marshmallows before. Homemade marshmallows are fantastic. And Peeps got nothing on them. No, no. And once you have the homemade marshmallows, you can't even look at it or even taste, you know, the store-bought marshmallows the same. They just don't taste the same to me. No, they absolutely do not. There is a place up in Duluth, I think it is. I interviewed the lady that owns it and she makes homemade marshmallows and she sent 04:12 I actually ordered some from her. had to try them. And she sent me a package and I opened them the day I got them and they were gone. There were like 12 in the bag. And I ate probably eight of them. I saved four. Two for my husband, two for my son. Because I'm a good mom and I am a good wife. I wish it was the same here. I make something like that and it doesn't even really have time to set up before the kids are reaching in and taking them out and eating them. 04:41 It's like same day they're gone. yeah, absolutely. OK, so let's let's bring it back in the line about homesteading. Tell me about yourself and what you do at a quack and a clog farm. Well, we we are trying to be a little bit more self-sufficient. um So we have lots of chickens, plenty of chickens. A lot of them, though, are also 05:11 ones that we're trying to preserve, trying to bring back, like the Pavlovaskan chicken breed. I have heard it pronounced, you know, a little bit different. So I may not be saying it right to everybody, but I've heard it both ways. The Sebastopol geese. We also have like Mandarin ducks and Australian spotted. um 05:42 We have, we milk our cow or I'm sorry, we are working on a milking cow. We're leaning

Today I'm talking with Susan at Momma Dragon's Homestead. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Susan at Mama Dragon's Homestead in Maryland, of all places. Good morning, Susan, how are you? Good morning, I'm doing well. How are you? Well, let's be honest, you and I are both coming off of a two-week sickness. And if I sound rough, it's because I have had the most 00:26 ridiculously miserable head cold upper respiratory thing since two Tuesdays ago. And how long have you had it? It's been about the same. I'm on week three and doing so much better than I was before. My tonsils decided that they were going to get huge on me. So but it's something that my kids brought home for sure. Yeah, my kid went to see his girlfriend and she had been sick and I didn't know she'd been sick. 00:54 And I think he brought it home from her place. So I'm kind of mildly displeased with him, but I love him. And so I'm just like, eh, it could have been my husband bringing it home from work. can't find anybody to blame. I just have to be miserable. So if Susan sounds snorky or I sound snorky, that's why. And listener, if you are smart, 01:19 try to make sure you wash your hands and if you feel okay about it wear a mask when you go out in public because it is going around. Yeah it is. It's gross you do not want this. It has been so bad. Okay so first off I'm so happy that you're you're well enough to chat with me and second off why is it mama dragons homestead? um I really really love dragons. um 01:47 I was definitely uh kind of a horse girl growing up. But then like in middle school, was like, you know what? I'm going to just make these look like dragons now. dragons have just been something that I've loved for most of my life. And I'm an artist as well. So I draw a lot of dragons. uh I didn't want uh my homestead to be uh 02:17 a name that I already have online elsewhere or anything. I tried to make it kind of, well, I love dragons. So I'm a mama. Here's dragons. Mama dragon. Well, it's attention getting because I saw it on Facebook and I was like, hmm, what is this? Does she raise dragons? Do they exist? My kids, my kids are all grown. But if you had figured out a way to find dragon eggs, hatch them and raise dragons, they would have been all over that. Oh, if I 02:46 you'll be the first to know because I'm all about that. Yeah, the book that got my youngest hooked on reading was Aragon and he talked about dragon eggs incessantly for months after he read that book. I actually have read that one too. think I was um in middle school as well when I read that one. ah But my first uh big dragon series book was Anna Caffrey's Dragon Riders of Fern. Mine too. 03:14 love that series. Absolutely love it. Me too. And what I didn't know when I started, the first one I read, we're going to get into books for a minute, was The White Dragon because I didn't know there were other books before that one. And that's the one that got me sucked in. And then as a young adult, I learned that there were so many more. And then I think she's died now. think Emma Caffrey has passed. So there will be no more Pern books. And I'm kind of sad about it. 03:44 She did collaborate with her son. So her son has, they've got books that they've done together and some that he's done. So there's still some Anne McCaffrey magic out there. I may have to dig into it. I haven't read one in a long time. Okay. Well, anyone who's a reader and loves dragons and loves words, go find the Pern series because it is fabulous. So I don't want to get into books too much because I am a word nerd and a 04:12 book geek and we could spend two hours and that's not what this podcast is about. keep joking that I need to start a book podcast and I just don't have the time right now to invest in a second podcast. So maybe if I do do one in a year or so, I'll have to have you come back and we'll talk books. But what do you do at Mama Dragon's Homestead? What are you guys going on there? um So we just started out. This is 04:40 This is my first year homesteading and I literally took a nose dive into it. um And in February, me and my kids started planting our little garden. had pumpkins, corn, uh tomato, every tomato. planted way too many tomatoes. um Zucchini, we got that all going and I felt like really hopeful for it. I'm actually terrible at keeping any kind of plant thing alive. So the fact that uh 05:09 it was working was really exciting and encouraging for me. And then I was going to be getting into canning. um But on Mother's Day, I got four chicks, four little chicks. And um I'm sure you know how chicken math works. Fo

Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hooves & Honey Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hoves, and Honey Farms in California. Good afternoon, Paula. How are you? Good afternoon. How are you? I'm good. It looks like it's sunny there. Oh, yeah. It's nice and warm down here today. Oh, well, I think it's not even 50 degrees in Minnesota where I am. 00:29 Oh, wow, that's cold already. Yeah, fall is on the way. It's really sunny though. So if you don't think about it too hard, it still looks like summertime outside. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do at your place. So my husband and I bought some land about 15 years ago. 00:54 It kind of started, my husband at the age of 32 was diagnosed with cancer and the cause of it from what the doctors could understand was more environmental causes. Basically the water, the food, all the stuff, all the toxins and everything. So we kind of decided that we wanted to grow our own food, just kind of live a healthier lifestyle, so to speak. 01:23 Um, so we got some land and we started small with cattle and pigs and then just slowly over the years, um, we've just kind of expanded things and that's kind of how we got started. How long ago was this? About 15 years ago. And how's your husband now? He's great. He is cancer free and has been, I mean, since it went away about 01:52 14 years ago. Awesome. So whatever you guys did helped. Yes, hopefully. It never comes back. Good. It looks like you have a lot going on. So do you grow produce? Do you grow animals? Do you grow both? Well, right now we grow animals. We have some fruit trees and stuff growing that we've been slowly planting over the years to just kind of get everything ready. uh 02:20 We don't actually live on that farm that we are starting, but we literally make the drive every single weekend. We live in Southern California and we bought up in Northern California. Oh, okay. We have a foreman that lives on the property and he takes care of the animals during the week. then usually Jeff and I try to make a three or a four day weekend trip out of it. And we drive up and down. 02:49 and help take care of the animals, make sure everything's up to date, make sure they have their food, their pens are secured, run all the errands, and then we get to play with them and have some fun. So it's like work and vacation mixed together? Yes. Okay, what kind of animals do you have there? So right now we have mini Hereford cows, and then we have our pigs. 03:18 which we have uh Magna-Listas. ah And then we have about 40 chickens. And we've got what else? Oh, we have a lot of Nigerian goats that we um have started breeding about two years ago. We kind of dabbled into the goat world. We've always just done the pigs, the chickens and the cows and up by our property. We have a lot of poison oak, which my husband is highly allergic to. oh 03:48 We decided to bring in some goats to help try to clear it and then we just kind of fell in love with the breed and we slowly grown them over the last two years. So um now we breed them and sell them. 04:06 Okay. So I was going to ask you if the animals earn their keep. The goats do. Oh yes, the goats do and the, uh, the cattle do as well. So we kind of run them through a cycle. We have, let the grass kind of grow back. We let the cows go through and graze first, and then we'll kind of run the goats behind them to pick up cause cows are kind of a little bit more picky about what they eat. Yeah. And so the goats will go behind them and kind of get what they didn't get. And then. 04:35 We'll send the pigs through afterwards and they pretty much take everything down to the dirt. And do you let the chickens go out there too or is that a whole different thing? We do have them out right now. uh We're training our, we got some rescue puppies. We have two great Pyrenees, they're not puppies actually, that we got. And one of them we rescued uh from a guy on Craigslist. 05:02 who was getting rid of her for free because she was killing his chickens. uh And we're like, that's okay, we don't need her for chickens, we needed her for the goats. ah So she's done a phenomenal job with the goats, but she doesn't like the chickens. So we have a huge run area where they're kind of fenced off so she can't get to them. And then we have another great Pyrenees named Clyde that we rescued about six months ago. 05:32 uh And we're working with him to make him be with the chicken so that, you know, he protects them. ah Which he's,

Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow & Bloom. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow and Bloom in Bismarck, North Dakota. Good morning, Lulu. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather there? Really cloudy, really humid over here. 00:25 Oh, well, it's really nippy here in Minnesota this morning for the first time in over a week. Thank God. It's been very, very hot this past week. Yeah, we should be getting some good weather this weekend though. So I'm excited about that. I'm really happy for you. It's supposed to rain here this weekend and that's okay too, because we could use it. And that sounds really funny coming out of my face because, you know, I didn't grow up as a homesteader. 00:53 And so every time I say we need the rain, I sound like a farmer. totally understand. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Lulu. So my name is Lulu and I'm the owner of Furrow and Bloom. And I started a micro farmstead um in little North Dakota. What we kind of do is like we grow 01:23 vegetables. um We raise rabbits. That was how we started on a fourth of an acre. And um we recently started to reach out to the community and provide some of our products. And there was a demand for a refillery store. So we started kind of taking on the responsibility of that. So we're just kind of growing and taking orders like that. Awesome. 01:52 And I know that you actually produce almost everything that you put out in the world. And so how in the world do you have time for all of that? So I have to really sit down and make time for it. I work as an administrative assistant for a neuropathic doctor here in town. So that takes up a majority of my time, obviously. 02:19 Um, but then I do have a passion for baking. That's kind of how I got into the whole homesteading life. And I learned how to make sourdough probably about four or five years ago now. Um, so because I enjoy it so much, I make time for it. It started off just with me baking breads for our family. But then I started gifting it out. People started to really want it. And now. 02:48 I um sell that as part of our farmstead. 02:54 Okay. And what else do you make and sell? So I actually sell ravioli. So when it comes to food, it's bread and raviolis. um That's mainly what I put out and jams. And I try to source all the things here in town as much as I can. And also just like use the community as a, um I guess like a support system. Cause a lot of stuff we actually get 03:23 donated or we go and pick up when people no longer need something or just want to get rid of it. So we do use a lot of things like that oh to make our products. Okay, so here's my big question for you. In Minnesota, we have a lot of regulations on how we can do things like you're doing. 03:46 And in our case, we can't really do pop-ups at businesses unless there's more than three people who are going to be involved, three businesses, three pop-up businesses at the business. Is that how it is for you or can you just like get hold of a business and say, can I use your parking lot for five hours? Yeah. So the laws, the cottage laws specifically here in North Dakota and Bismarck kind of changed over the years when I first started out. 04:14 Um, cottage bakers were not allowed to bake at all. Like there was no cottage food, um, really allowed without getting permits and pulling all the right licenses. It has now kind of become, I guess, more accessible because there's such a big farm life and like rancher life, um, in the area. And a lot of them. 04:42 don't want to pay, you know, extra licensing because they already have their permits and do all these other things. So a lot of people kind of banded together and the cottage law did change. Before you were only allowed to like bake in an inspected kitchen apart from your home. Now it's a little bit different. You're able to actually bake in your home. You don't need a whole separate kitchen to do that. So the laws definitely have changed over the years. I feel like they're more forgiving. ah When it comes to selling, 05:11 I personally reach out to businesses and I set up. I don't have other vendors with me. That's never been like something that's been an issue here. As long as you have like the owner's approval, you can basically set up anywhere. And a lot of the town is really friendly. So if I was to ever reach out to anyone in the area, I think they would let me set up. 05:37 That's super because that is not how we're allowed to do it here in

Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm in North Carolina, is that right? West Virginia. West Virginia. I'm in Minnesota. I am a Yankee. It is all the same to me. Sorry about that. No problem at all. Good morning, Sean. How are you? I'm doing well. Good morning to you as well. How are you? 00:28 I'm good. I'm going to start this off by saying I have a head cold. So if there's sniffles in the recording, it's me and I'm sorry. How is the weather in uh West Virginia? It's honestly pretty good. It was pretty dry and hot there for a while. we last week, I think we got like an inch and a half of rain one day and weather's weather's starting to cool down in the mornings and everything. Everything's starting to feel like normal fall again. How's the weather up there? 00:54 It's a little nippy. I think it's maybe 60 degrees and it's breezy and bright and sunny. Oh, wow. Yeah, we've had a couple cool mornings dipped down into the high 30s. I actually had to start a fire the other morning. So it was it's it we've had some brisk ones, but overall, it's pretty nice. Yeah, even if I wanted to start a fire right now, I can't. Our furnace is dead and we have a wood boiler, wood burning boiler that hooks into our furnace with a blower. 01:23 And so right now it's about 65 degrees in my house and probably will be for a couple more days, but then we're getting it fixed. Oh nice, well that's good. And just in time for the cool season. Oh, of course, of course. That's what always happens. If the furnace is going to go out, it's going to be in the fall. And if the AC is going to go out, it's going to be in the spring. Yep, that's exactly right. 01:46 Yeah, exactly. Because Murphy is an optimist and God love Murphy. I have bad things to say about Murphy, so we're not going to go there. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. So ah I'm an author and farmer from West Virginia. I farm a one acre property with my wife. We farm rabbits and chicken and chickens and quail. um Prior to that, I spent 12 years working for the federal government and uh 02:14 we bought this property, started farming on it to feed ourselves first and then we sell anything that's left over to the community and then we also have some giving initiatives where we give back, whether it be farm products or uh pantry items uh to the people that need it most in our community. Fantastic. So are you strictly rabbit, chicken and quail or do you have a garden too? 02:41 We do have a garden. So we grow a lot of produce, we grow a lot of fruit. We use all of our rabbit manure as the only fertilizer for all of our crops and everything. So the rabbit manure is kind of where life begins for everything. It feeds everything that feeds us, including the rabbits. And it's kind of a closed system. But yeah, we also grow wildflowers and um any sales of things like wildflowers. 03:07 A portion of those proceeds go to purchase pantry items that stock are giving initiative, which is called Farm for Better. 03:15 Awesome does farm for better have uh a website or a Facebook page or anything? Yeah, so it's it's just part of our normal website, which is CarltonHillsFarm.com slash farm for better Okay, cool because I'm sure that people want to go check it out because they're gonna be like poor Where can I find stuff about that? um Okay, so tell me tell me how you got in this because I looked at your website and you're about page and there's a story there So tell me the story 03:41 There is a story there. So um I worked in the federal government for about 12 years and my wife worked a high pressure director role in the private sector for about just as long. And we got to the point where we felt like we were part of all these extractive relationships. The job took more than it gave. The families took more than they gave. And so we just felt like we were being consumed bit by bit by bit. And so when we looked at our lives, 04:11 We decided that we didn't want to be in debt. We didn't want to have mortgages. We didn't want to owe anybody anything. And that included our time, our emotion, and whatever that may be. So we took steps to start growing and raising our own food so we could step away from those systems and kind of build our own system on the margins of the one that failed us. 04:33 Okay, and how has that gone for you? mean, are you guys okay? Are you ahead of the game? Are you treading water? How is it going? It's g

Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box in North Carolina. Good morning, Deborah. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? How's the weather in North Carolina today? Actually, it's cooler than it has been. It's been staying right around 86. 00:27 And we're getting a cold front on Northeastern. So it's a little bit cooler today, probably mid seventies, but the sun's out. So no, actually it's not supposed to start raining until I think late Friday into Saturday. And then Saturday is supposed to be, you know, pretty heavy rain. oh My daughter lives in Florida and she's on the Miami side. So I think she's probably going to be okay. 00:57 but if she was on the other side, she'd probably be getting rain right now. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and Sproutside the Box. Well, my sister and I started the business um back in February and our initial thought was to purchase a farm and tower farm. So we purchased a tower and started growing aeroponically and 01:26 It was just amazing the vegetables that the tower produces. so then I thought, well, you know, it only had like 28 ports. So unless you purchase a quantity, you really wouldn't have anything em much to say for like a business or a farm stand. And so at that point, we decided we needed something a little bit. 01:54 faster with a faster turnaround time and we came upon a website for microgreens through Donnie DeLillo for Donnie Greens microgreens. Anyway, so we took that class and we began growing microgreens and it's evolved rapidly. um We deliver to homes, we do home subscriptions and 02:24 So we deliver in a 30 mile radius and we also have, we've branched out into salads. And so now we have a big clientele for our salads and it's just expanding from there. Right now we're actually looking for land so that we can put a tower farm and the microgreens with a barn dominium on one spot. So that's where we're at today. 02:54 So much fun. Okay, so I have questions. The tower garden is the thing where it's a bunch of tubes and they have holes in them and you put a thing in and it has dirt and then you put those seeds in the dirt. Is that how that works? No. Okay, tell me. With this one it has a base that holds the water with a pump and it has one tube with 03:23 seven pots and each pot has four openings. So in our case, when we first got the tower, we didn't know how to grow seedlings. And so we purchased the seedlings with the tower. And it came in one package one day, we put it together in a matter of 20 minutes, maybe tops. And we have the seedlings in there in the pump going, you know, within 03:52 a couple hours and you add nutrients to it and then it's on a timer. So it waters itself. You don't have to do anything. that's pretty neat. What kind of space footprint does it take up? Like how tall, how wide? um It's probably, I would say six feet tall with everything. We also have a caster, um like a little 04:21 bench that it sits on so that we can roll it around if we need to change positions for a better sun. And then it's probably about maybe two and a half feet around. So it doesn't take up much space. And you can have one in the house, they have a smaller version that goes in the house. But ours was out on our deck. And so we just grew from February to April. 04:51 We just watched it grow. We went out and sat down and watched it grow. We were growing microgreens in the meantime in the house, but not outside. Do you buy your towers exclusively from one company? Actually, we only have the one tower right now, oh but we did buy that from uh Tower Gardens. They were out of Asheville, North Carolina. 05:20 and they're very, very nice people. They have a greenhouse that ah services two five-star restaurants and a golf course. And so they have a huge farm. ah And that's really what I was looking to do. ah But microgreens were a faster turnaround time with pretty decent profit margin. 05:48 Yeah, microgreens are like a 10 day turnaround, right? Yeah, some of them are even seven days, three days germination, four days to five days under the lights. So anywhere from seven to 10 days, depending on what you're growing. 06:03 Okay, that's what I thought. The reason I'm asking is we're looking at starting some of our own in our heated greenhouse in Minnesota. And we're no competition for you because you're in North Carolina and we're in Minnesota. I don't know if there's a market for them here in the area that I live in. I live about an hour southwest of Minneapolis

Today I'm talking with Matt Rosen at Cottage Foodie Con. You can follow on Facebook as well. "CottageFoodieCon will be an annual premier event dedicated to supporting and empowering small-scale food entrepreneurs operating under cottage food laws. This conference serves as a vital hub for cottage food producers, policymakers, educators, and industry professionals to connect, learn, and grow. Through a combination of keynote speeches, workshops, networking opportunities, and an exhibitor trade show. The conference will foster business development, regulatory compliance, and innovation in the cottage food sector." Use Promo Code: CFCON25 and get 25% OFF (expires 10/31/25) www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Matt at The Cottage Foodie in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Good morning, Matt, how are you? I'm doing fantastic, Mary. How are you? Good. See what I did there? I didn't say your last name. Do you want to explain it really quick? Yeah. So I question my family. 00:26 Lineage so whether or not they are pronouncing our last name correctly because it's spelled just like Rosen R O S E N But it's actually pronounced rosine like there should be a Z in there or maybe two E's uh So yeah, so it's uh I respond to both Okay. Hey you probably works to does people or hey cookie guy. That's what seems to be uh Most popular here over the last five or so years since I started my college food business, so 00:56 Yeah. And uh your business is sergeant shortbread and it's really hard to screw that up. So the spelling is a little tricky. A lot of people mix up the spelling of sergeant. went with the, uh of course, spending 23 years in the military. went with the military version of sergeant, not the S A R G E N T that some people want to spell it. But, uh, so it's easy to pronounce, hard to spell. Yeah. I grew up thinking the English language was super simple. 01:26 And then I looked at other languages and went, no, we're just as messy as everybody else's languages. So, has been on my show twice, I think already. And he came back to chat with me this morning about the fact that he has spearheaded the Cottage Food Econ that's coming up in April of 2026. So tell me what you got going on, Matt. 01:52 Yeah, so it's a cottage food conference designed specifically for cottage foodies uh or cottage food entrepreneurs. And the premise behind it is like the classes and the sessions and everything about this conference is geared towards uh the business side of running a cottage food business. 02:15 A lot of people ask me like, can you have a cottage food conference? Every state, how can it be national? Every state is different and all these products. I'm like, easy. I'm just going to teach you the business side of running a cottage food business. And I'm not going to teach you how to make sourdough. You probably already know how to do that. And I'm not going to teach you about the laws in Tennessee. You should already know those because you're a cottage food producer in Tennessee. If you're not from Tennessee, you could care less what the laws are in Tennessee. 02:44 So yeah, so that's the premise behind uh the conference is that it's designed to help cottage food entrepreneurs with the business side of running a cottage food business. things like one of the classes is food photography using your iPhone. As we all know as cottage food entrepreneurs, we don't have enormous budgets to hire somebody to take professional pictures. So just starting out, we'll teach you how to do 03:13 great pictures and it's taught by a photographer. oh So she's going to teach us how to take, you know, she used the lighting and the angles and ah things like that. So it's going to be a hands-on workshop. So people are going to get to take picture. It might not be their exact product of what they're taking a picture of, but it's going to give them the idea of like what the angle should be and um whether you want direct lighting or maybe you want to pull a shade. If it's really sunny out, you might want to pull the shade so it's not quite as bright. So 03:42 Yeah, teaching things like that social media. We've got a few classes on social media uh One of them how to win at social media without being an influencer. So Yeah, and it's we have speakers coming in from gosh all over the country from California, Missouri, Colorado, Florida Pennsylvania Wisconsin and of course right here in the great state of Minnesota Fantastic so I have lots of questions the first one 04:11 The first one is what are the dates in April for this? It's April 23rd through the 25th. So it's a Thursday through Saturday. Okay. An

Today I'm talking with Erin at Erin's Acre. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Erin at Erin's Acre in, I want to say around Faribault, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Erin. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing, Mary? I'm doing good. Is Faribault close enough? Faribault is close enough, yes. We do have an example address. Cool. 00:26 Alrighty, I know how the weather is because we're in the same state. It's been a lovely day. It is a lovely day. It's very warm for October 2nd. Yeah, I would just assume it not be, but we're going to have that next week, supposedly. So that would be nice. I see a 34 degree out there next week is a low. So we are coming to an end. Yeah, I saw that too. And I was like, well, there goes the good basil that's left in the garden. Right. And in my farm, uh my flowers run 00:56 July, I guarantee July through September and you know, any extra days into October are just bonus for me. The first, the first frost will take me out. I don't have, um, hoop, hoop tunnels or anything like that. I'm everything's outside. And so that, that first frost will take me out and I grow a lot of dahlias. so usually by the second week of October, I'm ready for, let's move on to the next, the next phase here and start clean up and getting ready for next year. Yes, ma'am. Um, 01:25 I have a question about dahlias, but I usually say, tell me a little bit about yourself and your place. But first the question about dahlias. Okay. When do you have to have those out of the ground? When do you have to dig the bulbs out? So after the first frost, you can start cleanup as far as, you know, cutting down the dead greenery stuff that's on the top. They do recommend a real hard freeze to put that tuber into the dormant state. And then you dig. 01:55 You know, Minnesota weather in October can be all over the place. It's freezing rain. We've had snow. I've had to dig snow off to dig the tail, your tubers up. Um, but you know, a real hard freeze, um, is great. And then if you can get some warm days to do the digging and pull them up after that is the best. And then the other question I have is, will they bloom until the first frost or do they kind of have a life cycle where they're kind of done? They do slow down. think, um, you know, our temperatures. 02:24 Those cooler nights will slow them down and just the hours of daylight too. And I'm sure you've noticed we're really losing daylight fast right now But they will keep going I've got oh I've got one variety called Baron Katie and she is my first to bloom and my last she will Keep turning out blooms until the last last last moment. Okay. Well, we grew dahlias two summers ago just as a shit and giggles thing, you know grins and giggles and uh 02:54 I didn't love them as much as people seem to. They were pretty, but they're not my thing. And so my husband said to me that September, October, he said, do want me to dig the bulbs out? And I said, nah, I'm probably never going to grow them again. And he said, are you sure? And I said, yes. He said, what about the gladiola? It's because you have to dig gladiola bulbs out too. And that was the year we tried those too. And I said, nah, just leave them. said, you really like. 03:22 He said, you really like perennials, don't you? said, yes, I do. They are a lot of work. Yeah. And we don't really have a good place to store them. I mean, I could probably figure it out, but I'm just like, it's expensive. It's an expensive hobby. And I also wasn't really excited about the gall situation with, you know, if they have gall on their, their roots. It's hard to cut, to cull and cut what you've been saving. Yeah. 03:50 Yep. So I was like, it is way too persnickety for me. am not, I'm not into it. So we didn't do it, but they were very pretty. got the cafe au lait one and that was really, really pretty, but I don't know. I like peonies. Peonies are easy. You throw them in the ground. Three years later, they're producing beautiful flowers. Well, that's what's, know, with flower farming, everything, Betty kind of finds their niche, niche of what they enjoy and what they can handle. oh 04:20 Yeah, I've got a lot of dahlias. Yeah, I think that they're gorgeous. And if you are obsessed, please be obsessed because people love them. But I don't want to grow them. I'm not into it. It's not my thing. I'm bad at it. So I'm just going to let you do it. All right. So now that we've talked about dahlias, clearly you grow flowers. So tell me a little bit about yourself and about Erin's acre. Sure. So I did not grow up on the farm. I'm a transplan

Today I'm talking with Emily at Tiffin Community Kitchen. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Emily at Tiffin Community Kitchen in Tiffin, Ohio. Good morning, Emily. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning? ah Wonderful. It's actually going to be 85 today. That's awesome. It's going to be 90 something in Minnesota. 00:29 And I'm done. I'm going to be really happy to see this break this weekend. Yeah, it's time. It's October. It's time. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what Tiffin Community, whatever it is, Okay. All right. So my name is Emily Reilly. um joined the, it's actually a nonprofit that runs the Community Kitchen, the Farmers Markets, and the Community Gardens. 00:57 So it's Seneca County common ground and it's the nonprofit and I'm the executive director of it. Um, I joined with them in January of this year. So I've only been with them for, was it like 10 months, 10 months now. Um, so Aaron Gerlach, who is the reverend of the Episcopal church here, who started this whole program. Um, he had this huge vision. So once the kitchen was built, then they needed someone to. 01:26 actually take what his vision was and um actually start putting it into motion. So that's what I'm here to do. So I oversee the community kitchen, which is a our mission is to support and improve local food ecosystems. um The kitchen has successfully delivered um kitchen training um and we're directly supporting our local workforce to help strengthen it. um 01:56 I also run the farmers market, um which we operate every single weekend. It's awesome. It's fabulous. I love it. I've never ran a farmers market until this time. But my background is event services and hospitality. So it kind of falls right in line with everything I enjoy doing. um And then the community gardens, which I'm not a gardener, but I oversee that part as well. And it's great because we're able to put garden boxes throughout um Seneca County. 02:26 So people can go and grab their locally sourced tomatoes and cherry tomatoes and green peppers and all that kind of stuff and not have to pay for it. Because sometimes it's not affordable for everybody and we always want to make everything affordable. So that's what the nonprofit kind of is helping um develop in Seneca County. That is fabulous. I love that all three parts are one. 02:54 you know, that they all feed each other. ah So where is Tiffin? What's the nearest big city? ah So it would be between Columbus and Cleveland. Okay. I have probably driven by Tiffin on my drives from Minnesota to Maine to see my parents. Yep. So, okay. Is Tiffin a small town? Is it a suburb? Is it, what is it? Yes. Tiffin is a small community. It's a rural community. 03:22 So, you know, you have Tiffin and then you have a bunch of rural towns around it. Like you have Hopewell and Bascom, New Regal, Cary, Old Fort. So Tiffin is like the center, kind of like a little city um with all these smaller towns around it. And we're a huge farming community. So we are very rural. It's cornfield after cornfield and then you hit soybeans. it's, you know, that's why I love doing the farmer's markets because you have. 03:50 all these locally sourced vegetables and baked goods that are coming in um that you sometimes don't get ah in the cities. I lived in Columbus for eight years, loved it, but I miss living in a rural environment. Yeah, I can't imagine living in a big city again. I don't ever want to if I don't have to. um So if it's a rural area, then 04:19 How is this helping? Because I would think that people in a rural area would already have these things covered. me why it got started. So why it got started is because um we want to make sure everything is accessible. at the farmers market, actually offer, you can use your EBT and SNAP benefits. We also accept the senior coupons and WIC coupons. All that is accepted at the local farmers market, which makes it 04:48 a little more accessible for families that don't have a lot of income, don't have a lot of money to spend on this stuff. And we also provide training. So we have taken, we took a group of 12 people from the community kitchen to the local farmers market, showed them how the shop use their EBT benefits. Then they came back to the kitchen and they got to learn how to cook what they purchased. And I think that is one of the missing pieces um in this 05:17 in this community and actually in the world now that people don't know how to take fresh products, fresh produce and take it home and cook it because we're in a generatio

Today I'm talking with Marissa at Careful Creations Bake Shop. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Marissa at Careful Creations Bake Shop in Mankato, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Marissa. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What a beautiful day we're having in Minnesota today. Oh gosh, yeah. I see that they're predicting snow the first four or five days of November. oh 00:29 So I mean I'm used to that with just moving back from Sioux Falls. We barely got snow last year. So this will be a nice change for us Yeah, the last two winters have not been too bad for snow in Minnesota Just so you know, so you may luck out again and not have a whole lot of Oh, man, my youngest children will be disappointed with no snow then 00:54 Yeah, I don't know. This weather's been nuts. And that's why I always start the podcast off with, how's the weather? But because you're right down the road for me, I was like, oh, it's a gorgeous day for both of us. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am 28. I'm married. I'm a military wife. I have four kids. My husband and my eight-year-old daughter both have 01:24 tree nut allergies. My eight-year-old, also has sunflower allergies. my goal has always been to make the environment safe for them. And when we go to the store, we can't really buy any baked goods because everything has some sort of manufactured on or near 01:53 nuts, then 90 % of store products do have sunflower of some sort. creating my own bakery company and business has been a dream come true because now I can keep my loved ones safe and other people's loved ones safe. love that you would not believe how many people I have talked to in the last two years. 02:21 who had a need for themselves, figured out how to fill that need and then were like, oh, I can help other people who have the same need. I love everybody in this community so much. Yeah, it's a whole new ball game for me, but I am definitely excited to be able to provide those special dietary needs for my clientele and customers. 02:48 Mm-hmm. So how have you been getting the word out because you just started the business a little bit ago? So this morning at about five o'clock, we actually launched our website that is also on my Facebook page. We have a public group. We have a public page. And also here in Mankato, we have been taking advantage of the free public 03:17 bulletin boards and we have putting flyers out as well. And then Friday we receive our business cards so we'll be able to hand those out as well. Awesome. Tell me the website address if you know it off the top of your head now and then you can tell me at the end too. It is www.careful-creations-bake-shop.com. Okay, awesome. And I'll ask you again at the end so people can catch it at the end too. 03:48 So, so what are you I know nothing about tree nut allergies or sunflower allergies because I haven't had that in my family at all. So are you just avoiding making things with nuts or have you found some kind of substitution for them? So we completely avoid them altogether. There are things where we do substitute. So if like it is something for example 04:16 My favorite thing to make is butter chicken, but traditional butter chicken requires cashews, and that is the deadliest for my husband. So when I make it, I actually leave it out completely. I just add a little bit of extra butter to make it a little nicer. Butter makes everything better. Oh yes. But most of the time we just avoid. 04:43 If there are recipes where we need to substitute, we usually use flax seed or we go ahead and use chia seeds. Okay, yeah. Can you use pumpkin seeds? Yes. Sometimes we will use pumpkin seeds. They're a little nuttier than sunflower seeds, which I personally like, but some people just don't like that. So we, if like, 05:13 One of our recipes calls for a tree nut. You know, we just ask, hey, you know, do you have an allergy to this? Do you like the flavor of it? And if the customer states that they'd prefer that we leave it out, we work around. Awesome. I'm actually going to pull up your website because I had questions about your menu and I need the web to be able to do that. So hang on just a second. 05:43 Okay. Oh, there's the menu right there. Sourdough or yeast breads and muffins and cookies, quick breads, tortillas and English muffins. So that's awesome. But can people just request a certain kind of muffin or cookie or are going to have a like a? Are you going to have a list of things that you would make, you know, just regularly? Yep. So those are kind of just going to be lik

Today I'm talking with Ruby at Red Feather Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Ruby at Red Feather Farm in Ohio. Good morning, Ruby. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning? It's actually kind of chilly, but sunshiny, so I'll take it. At least it's not 100 degrees. Yeah, we're looking at 90 tomorrow or Saturday in Minnesota. Oh man. We had that over the... 00:29 past weekend and it was miserable. I'm so excited for fall. Me too. And I'm going to update everybody on the weather here and then I'll tell you why I me too on fall and then I get questions. The weather here is bright and sunny and I think it's 65 degrees and there's a light breeze, but they're saying hot and really windy all weekend, which means that a lot of the stuff we wanted to get done outside isn't going to happen because we can't do it with high wind. Oh, great. 00:58 So indoor things this weekend, which is good because we have lots of indoor things to take care of because it's end of summer season. You know how this goes, right? Oh, yes. Yeah. And ah the reason I said me too is because fall is my absolute favorite season. am so excited to get into soup season and sweater season and candle season. I'm thrilled. Oh, me too. That's my favorite. I love soup. It's so easy too. 01:25 Yeah, I was looking to see if we had any canned beans, not like we canned them, but store-bought canned beans, because I was thinking chili sounded good next week. And uh we don't have any, but we have the beans in a bag, you know, the dry beans. So I will be soaking beans at some point next week so we can make chili and cornbread, because that sounds wonderful. Oh, yes. I'm ready, ma'am. 01:50 I'm so ready. All right. So tell me about yourself, a little bit about yourself and about, um, red feather farm. Well, my name is Ruby and me and my husband started red feather farm. I'd say somewhere like 2015. And basically it started out with, we named it after we raised red Angus beef cattle and we raised boar goats. both red. And then we raised all kinds of poultry. I. 02:19 pastured them and sold them that way to customers. And we've kind of evolved a little bit and I've completely gone in a different direction. But basically now I guess you could call me a homesteader. I think most of my followers on social media know I hate that word because nobody knows what it means. But we have dove into basically producing all of our own food for our family and some other families and 02:46 Red Feather Farm is now just kind of my social media presence where I am teaching and trying to empower people that are either just waking up and trying to escape the matrix of being dependent on grocery stores or people that have been doing it a little, a long time like me. And just be encouraged and know that this is a great life. It's hard. You've got to be willing to work hard and preserving your own food and growing it is not that scary. It's not that serious and we got to quit being afraid of it. 03:16 So it's kind of, it's been kind of fun doing this social media thing and teaching other people. I've taught a lot of people how to can and all that good stuff. yeah, that's okay. Fantastic. And you're right. It's, it's not hard to preserve food or it's not scary to preserve food or any, or make soap or any of the things that we do as homesteaders, but it is hard work and it's not convenient. And the reason that 03:46 people like stores is because it's convenient. You go, you buy the thing you need. You don't have to buy the stuff to make the thing you need. Right. And then make the thing you need. so yeah, I think I'm going to define home studying as number one, a lifestyle is not necessarily having a hundred acres and 40 cows and 20 goats and 50 chickens. It's for me, it is being able to make things that I need. 04:15 out of the things that I have available to me with my own hands and my own mind. I like that. That's how I see it. I kind of, I'm having a hard time too with the homesteading versus farming versus ranching because everyone who is in whichever realm of it, you know, if you're talking to a rancher, they're a rancher, they're not a farmer. If you're talking to a farmer, they're a farmer, not a rancher. If they're, if they're a homesteader, 04:44 They're neither a farmer or a rancher. And, and really, I think that they all fall under the heading of wanting to do good in the world, to grow our own food, to take care of ourselves and be independent. That's kind of how I see it. Yeah. And I have an interesting perspective because I'

Today I'm talking with Andrea at The Forbidden Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Andrea at The Forbidden Farm in New Jersey. Good morning, Andrea. How are you? Good morning. How are you today? I'm good. How's the weather in New Jersey this morning? It is actually bright and sunny and it was supposed to rain. Oh, well it's bright and sunny in Minnesota too, but it's nippy. I think it's maybe 57 degrees outside. 00:29 Already? uh My brother was from Minnesota. Oh cool. Where did he live? Don't even tell me I went. Like one time went to the Mall of America, which was amazing. That was it. Okay. All right. Cool. So he must have lived somewhere nearby. Yes. that's where the mall is. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Awesome. So 00:55 Tell me a little bit about yourself and why it's called the Forbidden Farm. Well, you know, that's a little secret, so I got to keep that to myself. Oh. I started out running an environmental company for 20 some years. And when I left that company, I came home and literally decided I really I just had a little temper tantrum, was stomping my feet and said, I'm going to get goats and make soap. 01:25 So that was May, June, I LLC'd my company. And then from there, I had my first event on, I started out in my, my sunroom, um, making all my products and doing stuff out of the house with my middle son, Dean. He was the big help in the beginning. We made all our soap together, just him and I mostly. then 01:51 we decided to branch into like fairs, like wineries and stuff like that. During this timeframe, my mother uh was diagnosed with dementia. So we had um set her up in one of um the nursing homes actually ends up being right across the street from my now shop. ah And then she came to live with us. 02:19 So I had to move the stuff into the basement. So we continued doing that. We had our first event in September of last year on a Sunday at Terra Nono Winery, which was amazing. It was so much fun, had a huge setup, never done anything like this. And that was on Sunday and Thursday, I ended up getting the shop, which was insane. All within like a three month timeframe. 02:48 all again while my mother was going downhill. So it was a huge struggle. ah family, everybody pulled together. uh Sadly, my mother passed and we buried her and then opened up the shop the next day, which was a struggle. But the community has been amazing. Like everybody, like I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don't hold anything back. 03:17 authentically myself from the day you meet me, probably too much so, but you know, open book. I'm like that too. And right now I feel like there's a lot of wearing your hat on your sleeve because things are just so crazy in the world. really feel like you have to. Yeah. I talked to my daughter who lives in Florida for three hours on the phone the other day and 03:42 We both teared up at least six times in three hours over things that we were talking about that are impacting the world right now. And I ended up with a terrible migraine from it because I'm one of those people where if I try to like stem the tears, it makes my head hurt. Me too. Oh my God. I was like, I love talking with her, but I wish it had been more positive. And we tried. We tried really hard to find positive lights in things, but it's just so hard right now. 04:10 Sometimes you can't, it is hard. So I need to clarify here. So you have a shop where you sell things that you make, is that right? I have a shop and cafe. Okay. And then do you still have your goats? I do. Okay. So do you live on like acreage or do you just have No, the farm is outside of where 04:40 We live, it's not in Vineland. Okay. So I'm trying to get to this. uh So my podcast is conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers and crafters. So you sort of are doing homesteading, yes? Yes. Well, I am getting closer and closer to like creating, cause I'm looking for, cause obviously you'll know, they always say to everybody thinks you need. 05:09 like 10 plus acres of land to do, I feel a good five acres is a solid like amount to create your whole homestead on, least in my head. So I'm actually uh the beginning of next month looking at a piece of property that has the acreage that I want, a house and a building for possibly like the shop because we, 05:35 Even I'm also a real estate agent, but I'm working with one of the agents in my company because I'm like, I don't want to play agent. You'd be my agent. She's like, I think this would be perfect because you'll have everything all in one. So we're not running around everywhere doing like,

Today I'm talking with Jenn at Bright Acres Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jen at Bright Acres Homestead in Florida. Good morning, Jen. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Well, thanks. How about yourself? Well, I'm good. I have a runny nose that's been driving me crazy. Oh, yes. And so if I'm sniffly, that's why. ahh How is the weather in Florida this morning? 00:29 It is doing all right. We've had some really nice cooler mornings lately, but by midday it's back in the 90s. It's crazy. The swings are crazy. Yeah. Where are you in Florida? We are just south of Tallahassee, right on the Gulf. Okay. Yep. So you get the ocean breezes. 00:49 I kind of feel like the Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America, whatever you want to call it these days, is like a dust bowl for allergies. Okay. Yeah. It's kind of wild. It's different than living on the East Coast for sure. Yeah. My parents still live in Maine. I grew up in Maine and my dad is always talking about how the winters are so much warmer now because of number one, global warming. But number two, because of global warming, the oceans are staying warmer so they get the 01:20 the insulation of the warmth of the ocean in the wintertime. And every time he explains this to me, I'm like, you've told me this a thousand times. And he's like, yes. And I'm like, I still don't quite understand how it works. And he said, does anybody really understand how nature works? And I'm like, no, if we did, I would be much richer. 01:39 Um, is, it is overcast in Minnesota again this morning and we were fog locked for the second day this morning. could not see more than eighth of a mile down the road and my husband had to go to work and I was like, please be careful. Please. Yes. Yes. Completely understandable. Do not want to lose that man. And, and, and every time it gets foggy like this, I'm like, please don't let somebody hit him or please don't let him hit somebody. Oh, I totally understand the fog. 02:08 It happens here too, especially like down the road from us, because there's such a change between we're right near what we the Springs. And so like the Springs are, you know, the river runs through town and it's much cooler. And then you have like the Gulf, which is very warm. And so it creates like this, I don't know what you want to call it, but like this tunnel where the two collide and the fog is crazy. um So it's kind of wild. 02:35 Yeah, I don't like it. I really don't. I like to be able to see a mile away. It makes me happy. I want to take a moment before we dive in to thank you and all my other guests that have been on the show and my listeners because this podcast is one of my favorite things I've ever done and I appreciate everyone's time so much. I love that. Happy to be here. Good. I'm happy to have you. So tell me a little bit about yourself and Bright Acres Homestead and I love the name. 03:05 Oh, thank you. um So we see my husband and I, guess way back before we even knew each other, always both really loved farms. I remember my parents used to tease me at some point I'd live on a farm and I'd have all the things. um And my husband also felt the same way. His family kind of grew up that way. A lot of canning and they've lived in Florida before it was even a state way back in the day. so 03:33 There's a lot of tradition there. And so between the two of us, after we met, we always had this dream of, let's do it. And so we're kind of living that dream. We both have real jobs on the side, of course. And so I should say real jobs for most of the time. This is the on the side deal, but it's been pretty incredible. We have 27 acres and we have 11 cows and five. 04:00 pigs and we garden pretty much year round in Florida as possible. so, um you know, having three to four gardens a year, depending on the season um and just really enjoying, you know, living off the land and all the things that come with it. um It's been pretty awesome, especially for our kids, for them being able to have responsibilities outside and see that, you know, working hard is, has fruits of labor, right? um 04:28 with all the things that we put on our plates at dinner and that we're able to offer up as gifts or just started selling in our shop, which is pretty cool. Okay. Thank you. I have a very specific question. even wrote it down on a notebook so I wouldn't forget. planted Roselle plants? Oh yeah. What are they? What is that? So Roselle, it's a Roselle hibiscus. It's a type of flowering plant. 04:57 And after it flowers, it produces ah what's called a calyx, which is fruit. And inside

Today I'm talking with Swan at Hairy Farmpit Girls. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com 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 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Talking with Swan at Harry Farm Pit Girls. And if you laugh, that's okay. So did I. And I know she's in the South somewhere. Where are you, Swan? I am in Bowman, Georgia, which is just kind of, um, East, uh, Athens, Georgia. Okay. Cool. So it's the northeast corner of Georgia. All right. 00:29 That makes a lot of sense. That helps. How's the weather there this morning? I think that we're going to get into the mid 80s. So, you know, it's a little warm. It hasn't actually been too bad. I think it's probably about 70 something right now. So it's the delightful time of day. Give it about another hour and we'll be scorched again. Well, how cool do you guys get in January? Well, we have a little pond on our property and in January and 00:58 February in the summer upon freezes all the way over. Um, I'm not willing to walk out to the middle of it, but I can stand on the sides. Um, so it gets to, I think about we've only been here for about four and a half years, but it gets to the twenties and the teens a little bit. Um, just a few times, but for the most part, we, during the day, we typically stay at the coldest above snowing temperature. Okay. Awesome. I just, I've never been further south than, uh, 01:29 I think Maryland. So I have no idea what it's like in the south in the wintertime. I don't think anybody's ever considered Maryland south. it's not, but that's as far south as I've ever gotten, you know, in the United States. So the weather here in Minnesota this morning is cool and overcast to the point that we are actually fog locked on my property. can't see an eighth of a mile away. Oh, wow. Wow. That's incredible. 01:58 Yep, my son calls it uncanny valley when this happens because it makes you feel like you're the only person on earth. 02:07 My son, whenever we have a foggy morning, which we don't really have right now in this time of year, but he calls it, he's five. So he says it's froggy outside and we have always uh decided to never correct him from saying, from calling fog frog. So he says it's froggy or he can't see through the frog outside. So. Oh yeah. We call it froggy. We also call, we also call humidity humdidity. 02:35 We call it a humidititty. It's the South. Yup. And there's one other I was thinking of when you brought that up. And of course it's gone because I have over 50 brain and I think of things that are funny and then by the time I get to say them out of my mouth, they're out of my brain and I can't find them again. I'll do that exact same thing and I have under 50 things. So. Yeah. It's just, I think it's just the way that we live now. 03:02 Yeah, there's just too much information and your brain can't possibly sort it as fast as say AI can. Ugh. So anyway, uh we've tried to do a podcast twice before and had terrible technical difficulties. So Swan is back for the third time, hopefully the charm, so that we can actually talk with Swan about what she and her wife do in Georgia. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do Swan. 03:29 All right, well, we have a little 12 acre farm out here. um We are called the Harry Farfit Girls. And we started off just as we started off at a different farm down in South Georgia. Whenever we started building that farm, we had come from the city and we started building that farm. I just started writing about it on social media, particularly on Facebook. um 03:53 So just watch, letting people like kind of watch our journey. Cause I know that not everybody could do what we were doing. And so just wanted to share it and I didn't want to bog all of my other friends down with like 4,000 photos of chickens. So I figured out if the internet wanted to see 4,000 photos of chickens, they could come and see them all the time with a social media page. So at first I just started writing about it and then we got pretty popular cause I have a little bit of a sense of humor. 04:22 So we added a product. started raising goats and making goat milk soap and lotion and do with farmers markets and little shops around South Georgia. um And then we got more and more popular and we were able to buy a second farm up in North Georgia and move all of our stuff to online. So now we make soaps. m We make soap, goat milk soap still. But also um I've got a lot of people that just have gotten 04:49 have fallen in love with our animals over the past decade. We've been sharing for a little over 10 years. Oh, it's actually going be 11 years in January. We've been sharing this journey for 11 years now. And so now