A Tiny Homestead

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

Today I'm talking with Jim at Vinestops. 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. 00:11 Today I'm talking with Jim at Vine Stops in New York. How are you, Jim? I'm good, how are you? I'm good. How was the weather in New York? It's beautiful today. We're in that part of the season where one day it's beautiful and the next day it's starting to turn super cold. So it's going into flu season, I guess. Yay, that's exciting. 00:37 I am actually, my bedroom is where I record at my desk in my room. And uh my bedroom, it feels like a refrigerator this morning because when I went to bed last night, I had to have the AC on and uh my husband didn't turn it off when he came downstairs this morning and shut the door. So I am almost shivering talking to you in my room. Yeah, we do that all the time. We love it. We like the cold, so we're okay with that. 01:05 For sleeping, it's great, but for sitting at a desk with my hands needed to move the mouse and stuff, it's not awesome. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you have going here. So obviously, my name is Jim. We bought this farm during COVID and it kind of changed our lives significantly. was 01:31 in the corporate world and also in the film industry and some law enforcement experience. so that was kind of everything I did, you know, seven days a week was somewhere in that realm. And then COVID hit, obviously all of our lives had changed, but we had the opportunity to buy this small 1800s gentleman's horse farm, about 10 acres. uh And it was where I grew up. And so I wanted to come back closer to my mom anyway, because she was getting sick. 02:02 Yeah. So he said, you know what, let's do it and rehab it. Because my wife grew up on a farm in Oklahoma, so she always had horses and she always wanted to get them again. So we decided to do it. And very quickly, we went from that fast paced or I did anyway, that fast paced life to kind of country life. You know, we bought chickens and then I started like, you know, I put a little stand on the side of the road and we started selling our extra eggs and then 02:29 You the whole chicken math thing happened. You start with six, you go to 10, 20, then you're fluctuating back and forth. And next thing you know, have 150 plus chickens in our yard. And, uh, and then, you know, towards the last year of COVID, uh, which was the, this is the year that we purchased it. Um, we put it, when we bought it, we put in about, I don't know, 50 fruit trees. And we, just wanted to start kind of a hobby farm. You know, I didn't do the whole homesteading thing yet. 02:58 and I just wanted to kind of grow extra. So we had some fresh food because I was frustrated with what we were getting in the supermarkets. know, if like when the egg crisis happened, you couldn't find eggs anywhere. And when you can find them, they were like $10, $15, you know, a dozen. was just ridiculous. And so I eventually, I just started changing. I started eating so much more from my garden and from my trees. 03:23 spending less and not going to the supermarket and all my health numbers, my doctor's office, they all started getting better. And I like really realized like, holy cow, know, that all that fast food and that crap put into my body, it really does make a difference. And so kind of the homesteading was born, you know, of having the passion of, you know, growing my own stuff and then, you know, running a farm stand on the the on the front of the driveway. So, you know, after 03:53 after that was kind of successful the first year. The next year I doubled everything, the size of everything, added more fruit trees, bought more chickens. And then my farm stand that I made kind of fell apart. And it was funny. So I was like, all right, I got to buy a farm stand because like, I need something that's gonna last. And 04:18 I went to go look for one and I couldn't find anybody that sells farmsteads like Home Depot, Lowe's, Tractor Supply, even on Amazon. know, when I was like, you know, where can I buy a farm stand or, you know, farm stands and nothing came up. And I was like, huh. So I took some time and uh I refined the farmstead I had and I was doing a lot of research what people were doing, like farmstead groups and uh social media groups and whatnot. And I just. 04:47 developed my own and started testing it out to see what the pros and cons of it were. And I ended up getting into designer and I said, hey, can you build me this on paper that would be structurally sound and good quality? And so we did that and that's how my farm stand was born. Nice. Okay. I have a question that d

Today I'm talking with Elizabeth Ries at Home To 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 Elizabeth Ries at um three different places, I guess. Well, four actually. You've got Twin Cities Live, you've got My Talk 107.1, you've got... 00:22 HomeToHomeStead.com and you've got bestofthenest.com and Elizabeth is in Minneapolis. So good morning, Elizabeth. How are you? Good morning, Mary. It's nice to be back with you today. Thanks for asking me. You're so welcome. I loved our chat back in March of 2024. That's how long it's been. It's been a while. Yup. And I was really nervous because I'd only been broadcasting for like six months at that point. And I still had no idea what I was doing. And I listened back to it I was like, God, I'm so glad I'm more comfortable now. 00:50 It is, a lot of it is just getting the reps in. I think that that is a huge thing with broadcasting or interviewing or asking questions. It's just the more you do, it's just like anything. It's a skill and the more you do it, the better you get at it. And I hope you look back on those early days fondly and think about how far you've come because I thought you did a great job that time. So I can imagine it's only going to be better today. 01:15 Thank you, and I do look back. I went back and listened to the very first episode of, I can't think, a Tiny Homestead podcast. And it wasn't awful. Like when I listened to it back the first time, I was like, ugh. And I listened to it back about six months ago, and I was like, you know, it really wasn't that bad. People learned things, it was a fun chat, I'm okay. So, I don't want to get too far into... 01:42 what you do because you did a huge intro on the episode that we did before. And if people want to know all about Elizabeth's professional life, you can go listen to the original episode. The OG. Yeah, exactly. The OG Elizabeth Ries But you are the co-host for Twin Cities Live. You and Marjorie Punnett do a show together on what station is it? Well, we had a radio show together on MyTalk107.1. uh 02:11 for a couple of years. And then um we both ended that because we moved on to different things. Oh, you're not doing that anymore. Right. And then the podcast is called Best to the Nest. So Marjorie and I teamed up for the podcast and we kind of joke that it's like the show within the show. It's the conversations that we were having during the commercial breaks about life and home and family and relationships and all those things that then we brought into the podcast. But I do still get to fill in over at MyTalk. 02:40 pretty regularly and it's always fun to show up. They just got new studios, so now I really like going over there. uh It's all bright and shiny in there. It's nice. Okay, so I want to, I got questions about your homesteading stuff in your city home, because you don't have a homestead. You live on a city lot, right? Yes. Yes, I do. I am on a city lot. on about about a third of an acre in the city of Minneapolis. 03:07 Prior to living in this house, we've been in this house for six years. Prior to that, we were on 0.13 of an acre in the city of Minneapolis and really did a lot of the same things that we do here. Yeah. So did you do a garden this year? I did a garden. I have the garden going. And um I have four raised beds in the backyard. Two of them are like four feet wide by, um I think they're 10 or 12 feet long. 03:37 however long my husband made them. And those are wooden raised beds. This year I added an arched, a cattle panel arch trellis between the two of them, which has been really, really fun. And I'd wanted to do it for a long time. And then finally, you know, spent the $75 and has sent my dad to tractor supply with his pickup so that he could make himself useful during retirement and bring me the cattle panels. then- That's what dads are for. That's what dads are for. That's why dads get pickup trucks. That's exactly it. And then um 04:05 I have two of the, like they're those Veggo garden raised beds. They're that metal and I've really liked those too. Those are really easy to put together. And then I do a lot of trellising. So I have trellises kind of growing up everywhere so that I can maximize my space. So it's definitely not huge. It's not overwhelming, but it's amazing how much food you can get out of a small garden. 04:35 Sure. And growing up instead of out is so efficient on a small piece of property. Yes. And it's just easier and it's pretty. That's the other thing I like about it. It's just, you know, I don't have a picture perfect manicured garden. um But wh

Today I'm talking with Gentry at Southern Charm Up North: Tales of a Maine Magnolia. 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 Gentry at Southern Charm Up North, Tales of a Maine Magnolia in Maine. How are you, Gentry? I'm great, Mary. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. I saw the name of your page on Facebook and I was like, oh, she sounds like a fun one to chat with. I hope so. 00:30 So how's the weather in Maine this morning or this afternoon? Well, actually, I'm in Mississippi today. How are you? Okay. I am. But I think the weather's probably better in Maine. Okay. Well, how was it in Mississippi? It's hot. We had a rainstorm this morning, which we desperately needed, and I know we did. So can't complain about that. But now it's muggy. It's that typical Mississippi humidity. 00:59 We're experiencing the same thing in Minnesota this morning. I'm sorry, this afternoon. I keep thinking it's 10 o'clock in the morning. It's 1 o'clock in the afternoon. It is supposed to hit 95, I think, today here. And the dew point is above 60. So needless to say, the dog and I are hanging out with the freestanding air conditioners in the house today. Do not blame me about that. 01:23 Yep. And if she barks, it's because somebody pulled up to our farm stand because we have eggs out there that people want to buy. So. Oh, I love fresh eggs. I wish I was there. Yeah. Yeah. Our chickens have done really well this summer and we have not been able to keep eggs in the farm stand for any more than 24 hours. Once they go out there. It's been really funny. Wow. So tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do. Well, I am living between 01:53 two states, two worlds really. We live in Mississippi. I was actually born and raised in North Carolina and I've lived different places, but primarily the South. I've lived in Mississippi for, I guess, 27 years now. And about two and a half, three years ago, I was getting remarried, lots of life changes. And I told my fiance, I said, I'm going to live in Maine. 02:21 He just kind of looked at me and said, oh, okay. And so we went up and he asked me, he said, have you ever been? And I said, no. And he said, don't you think we should go check it out first? And so we went up there. I had a broken ankle at the time. So was on a knee scooter, couldn't do anything, but just sit and look while he got to go explore and do all the fun stuff. And we went back about six months later, maybe, and made the offer on the house. 02:50 and bought the house. So my heart is always there even when I'm here in Mississippi. um And I started my blog in the Maine Magnolia just as a way of kind of interweaving those two worlds and sharing with my friends there and my friends here um and just people that I've met all over, you know, what it's like to transition between 03:19 dramatically different states um but still find the similarities and the things that you can call home in both. Well yeah and people are people and food is food and home is a home and you know I don't know that it matters exactly where you live as long as you actually live where you live. Exactly. So. Just did a blog post this morning about the importance of being present and 03:46 That's being present wherever you are and whatever the circumstances are at that given moment, but finding your why, your reason, your joy in whatever situation you're in. Yeah. Otherwise, why are you here? know? Right. Exactly. Hang on one second. 04:09 I had a tickle in my throat and I didn't want to cough in your ear. uh So having moved from Maine to Minnesota when I was 22 and I'm 50, almost 56 now, and you moving from Mississippi to Maine, how was that for you? Because growing up in Maine, I have a very special place in my heart for that state. But I also know that Mainers are very, very direct people and they communicate. 04:38 very clearly and a lot. So how was it for you? They do. It's different. know, they, I think we're first not quite sure how to take me and because I'm, I'm just me. I show up and I'm how y'all, what are you doing? And, um, but I think the biggest concern because Mainers are very protective of their world, you know, in their peace. And, um, 05:08 They're very independent, ah very self-sufficient. I think their biggest fear with tourism is that people are coming in to change what they love about their home. I think when they realized that there was nothing I wanted to change, it was those very things that drew me there, then they quickly accepted me. mean, they love to laugh at some of 05:35 my sayings or the way I talk sometimes, or my shoes. I do like a little bling and the bling is not normally, you k

Today I'm talking with Aaron at Appalachian Highlands Farmers Magazine. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Aaron at Appalachian Highlands Farmers Magazine, and you are where? I'm in Bristol, Virginia. Okay. Welcome, Aaron. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I appreciate being here. So how's the weather there? It is... 00:29 study in a little bit chilly. You're lucky. It is very muggy in Minnesota. That's where I am. This is about as this is the first couple of days we haven't had rain since I've been here. uh Oh, okay. So are you new to there or what's up with that? I've been here about two years. Um, I'm a transplant from Southern California, um, and still moved out here just to retire. And then I figured out I can't retire. 00:59 So I started getting busy again. Yeah, my husband and I are both in our mid fifties and anytime retirement comes up in conversation, we just do that very sardonic laugh and go, we're never retiring because it's not going to do us any good to retire. Yeah. And it's also not good for your brain to sit off that much, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. My dad retired over 10 years ago. He is now 80. 01:28 I think and He acts like he's 50. He lives like he's 50. You would never know. He was 83 years old. So I'm very proud of All right, so tell me a little bit about yourself and about your magazine Okay, well I was gonna mention that I'm planning out here from Southern California in the mountains of Southern California About 5,000 so I come from a kind of a rural 01:58 not rural really, it's urban forest I guess you could call it, it's a little town called Crestline, California. um I spent most of my career in the printing business and when I say print I mean magazines, newspapers, that type of thing. um My education is actually graphic communication, kind dawned into the print business and ended up consulting with authors. 02:25 These are the things that I like the San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego New New York Review, and people like that. About, you know, how they used to go out and do their layout design. So, later on in the managing, I my little hometown newspaper at the time. It was called the Alpenhorn Nude. It addressed my town. And I worked there. 02:54 for a while and I just wanted to it. was definitely going to buy it from after that fence fell through and I moved away to Montana for five years and I came back and it turns out somebody had bought it from the old owner and he was not doing well with it and so I was joking, strictly a joke. I wrote up the contracts for me purchasing it and was supposed to just be something funny. 03:24 And I said, no, I'll buy it for $295. 03:29 And that was how much they that's how much money they were in the black for the year. Uh huh. So he's he he's didn't even look at it. He just said, you know what, where's this? Where do I Wow. Right. And I ended up publishing that newspaper and upgrading the branding on it. It had already been changed to to a new name, which was the Alpine Mountain here in this case. 03:58 It was just a typical little newspaper, a real small town newspaper. Nothing's honestly known, no stories or anything like that. No politics. So then I retired, moved out here, got calls from a son of mine back in California who owns stable farmer's markets, some private farmer's markets. And he said, you know what, I want you to do my marketing for me. 04:26 So what I want to do is create a farmer's market newspaper. Okay. And I said, sir, I'll do that. I put one together, you know, a mock up of one and pricing, I'll be distribute distributing that. And when he thought it was going to cost him 20 grams, was looking for alternatives. So I said, well, why don't you do an online news? You know, the money. And so that was the 04:56 impetus for creating something called the California, well, it's called the farmer market times. And it's at ca farmers market.com. And it's just mainly just really a marketing tool to promote each farm. But it's best media, news and stuff. And so I thought, you know, I live out here in the middle of the last year where everyone's farming, farming culture. 05:26 I was eating on a call. I buy my meat from a place around the corner. It just occurred to me. that's kind of what I do. it turns out, there should be some kind of a really neat thing. I haven't made any money on it. But the whole idea is that once it's mastered, I can duplicate that anywhere in the country if I want to. 05:56 All I got to have is somebody that wants to do the reporting or get any storage. Um, and I can create like a franchise out of it. And like I said, I haven't

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers for an Autumn update. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Groovy Grazers in Montana. Good morning, friend. How are you? Good morning, good morning. It's starting to feel like fall here, which is always exciting after a hot summer. So I'm super excited to be here today. Oh, honey, tell me it's starting to feel like fall. 00:28 Our heat is not working and it was 63 degrees in the house Saturday and Sunday. Oh my goodness. Afternoon. And our furnace is broken. We found out because we turned it on and it didn't work. So it was rather nippy this past weekend and I actually made granola to heat up the kitchen and blow some warm air to the living room. 00:55 and made apple crisp with our own apples. Ooh, apple crisp is my favorite. We're gluten free, so there's a lot of fall treats that I miss. And I'm going to try and recreate. I'm going to get a little more adventurous. Last time we talked, we talked about sourdough and making various things with that. So I'm kind of excited for this fall because I think I can be included in the pumpkin spice treats that we all love. 01:22 Yeah, I am not a pumpkin spice fan. I like pumpkin pie and I like pumpkin bread, but the whole pumpkin spice thing, I'm not into it. I don't know why. I'm not really, I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin spice per se, except for like a few drinks, but like, I'm not even an eggnog person. I don't know. I'm just not a normal person, I guess, when it comes to like the drinks. I like a Thai latte over pumpkin spice. I mean, any day. 01:51 Yeah, I actually freaking love eggnog. So we're kind of opposite on this, but that's fine. But the important part of my statement regarding the apple crisp is that it was made with our apples from our trees. Honey gold, our honey gold tree actually produced at least 150 apples this year. Wow. I remember you were excited to see the numbers that it was going to bring and you were slightly worried it was not going to bring a bunch of apples. So that's a 02:20 That's a lot of apples, a hundred apples over, you Yeah, over 150. Wow, that's a good producing tree. And I think that's really important with what we're going to talk about today. Did you buy the home with that tree? No, they were actually given to us as a housewarming present from an orchard guy that we know. That's even better because that's first year producing over a hundred. That's big amount. I took a 02:47 Master Gardening since we last spoke. I just did the course to kind of like freshen up and learn about Montana because I am not a Montana native. Yeah. And it's really hard when you go, especially here to plant trees. So we've planted two trees now. We planted a Liberty Apple tree and we planted some type of pear and neither took, but we have really bad alkaline soil and I've learned more history about our soil. 03:15 And so to even put a tree, think we'd have to do some major soil reworking and pulling out material and putting it back in. Yeah. I've kind of given up slightly on the tree idea for a minute, just until we have a better location. Yeah. And it's, it's hard because you never know what's going to grow where until you try it. And, and just as a caveat, took five years from putting in those apple saplings to get the apples. 03:45 Five years, wow. Okay, so I mean, that's still not bad though for a five-year-old tree when you look at production. mean, the amount of apples that I'm sure you're gonna get to put away, you'll get to make many apple crisps, I'm sure all the way through the winter. So did you can any of it? No, we're actually selling some of them to the community at the farmers market. You've been doing the farmers market. How's that going? 04:14 Um, it's been really good. We live in a fairly small town. think our town has like 6,000 people, maybe 10,000. And so it's hit or miss and it depends on what other festivals or the state fair or the Renaissance festival are going on. If there's other things going on, the farmer's market is slower. But the beginning of the summer is always really good because there's nothing really going on in June and the first part of July. 04:44 Yeah, that's kind of the same here. I mean, our seasons are a little different, obviously, but like the beginning of farmer market season, everyone's so excited to get out of the house. And I live not rural Montana, like kind of rural, but not really for now. We are looking at moving and going more rural. And that's something that we've had to consider is like, what does our profits look like if we move farther away from the town that most p

Today I'm talking with Glade at Family Farm Beef Box. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Glade at Family Farm Beef Box in Nebraska. Good morning, Glade. How are you? Well, hello, Mary. I'm doing quite well. Thank you. How is the weather in Nebraska this morning? You know, we are just starting to feel a little bit of that chill, like it's getting towards fall and... 00:29 I'm excited about a couple things such as harvest and football and a freeze that's gonna kill all these flies. 00:39 Yeah, us too here in Minnesota. was 41 degrees when I looked at 5 a.m. today. So it's definitely winding down on the heat and I'm so glad because it's been a hot, hot summer here in Minnesota. I don't know what Nebraska was like, but Minnesota was kind of not a fun summer. Yeah, we were pretty blessed in Nebraska. It really was fairly nice and fairly, we got some rains when we needed it. 01:08 So I can't complain too much that much, I sure don't have any problem enjoying fall weather. Yeah. Fall is my favorite season, followed by spring, followed by winter, followed by summer, because I do not love high summer. I hate it. So, okay. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. My name is Glade Smith. I'm a husband of one wife. I'm a father of 01:38 seven children. I am a multi-generational cattle producer and I am a leading marketer of breeding stock for right livestock and the owner and founder of Family Farm Beef Box. Okay, awesome. How many generations back on the cattle? So my my grand, it'd be my grandfather three generations ago. 02:06 He moved to this area just down the road from where I'm sitting. uh He was born in 1896 and moved to this area. It seems interesting to be able to say he moved here with wagons pulled by mules over to where our general area. My wife's family, uh her roots go a little bit deeper. She'd be the ninth generation farming on the same general. 02:34 close to the same area where she's from. I've got a ways to go to keep up with my wife. Okay. Tell me about the beef box. Very good. No problem. Yeah. A family farm beef box is a conveniently sized share of an entire beef. It's been dry aged and hand cut and raised right here in central Nebraska. Think of it as just a smaller version of a half a beef. It works well for, for say a couple that 03:01 used to buy a half a beef, but now their kids are grown and they just don't need that much anymore. So you get a nice sampling of some steaks and ground beef and roast, but still the dry age quality that you grew to love when you purchased a half a beef. And we do ship that beef across the country every Monday and work with those customers as far as allowing them to subscribe and get a box every one, two or three months, or we let them try just a single box. 03:31 And we do offer a little options as far as a smaller package or a more bulk option. So that's what we strive for with our little beef business and try to focus on getting to know the people that we're actually sending the beef to. That's something that's important to us is trying to build relationships with these people. And a cute little story that from when I started Family Farm Beef Box, 04:00 It's been about eight years ago now. And honestly, goodness, what spurred it was I'd been farming and ranching and we'd grown enough to be able to grow the balance sheet, to be able to borrow some more money, to grow the business, to borrow some more money. I got to be fortunate enough that I had quite a bit of money borrowed and several bad things happened in the farming world. And I couldn't pay the bank back and I was underwater and the bank told me. 04:27 I say I was fortunate enough because it forced me to grow and learn and be creative in other ways. The bank told me that all the money I made was going to go towards debt. And so what I did was I told my banker, said, well, I know what better beef tastes like. And I know how to make friends with people in real life. And if I could use this social media thing to figure out how to make friends with other people. 04:56 I could share some beef with them and if I could get a price that was similar to an ice grocery store, I'd be able to make a little money. And so that was, that was my whole plan. And I went from there and I, didn't even use social media. I had no use for it, but my wife did. And I knew there was other people on it who used it a lot. And so I thought, well, that's where the people is location, location, location. That's, that's the location that matters now. And so. 05:26 I got online with my wife's social media, her Facebook account, and she let me send ou

Today I'm talking with Blaze at Bad Baxter Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Blaise at Bad Baxter Farm in Oklahoma. Good morning, Blaise. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Oklahoma this morning? It's cooling off. So I think I'm the only one that's not happy about it, to be honest. 00:26 I am so thrilled that it is cooling down in Minnesota this week. I cannot tell you, I am giddy. I'm going to make sourdough bread on Wednesday or Thursday because the high is only supposed to be like 62. And I heard on one of your other podcasts that you have a mass amount of tomatoes to process. um Well, we thought we did until the blight decided that it was going to arrive and stop the plant. 00:56 We still have tomatoes coming in, but we are not going to have as many as we really thought we were. just pray for me the next summer is better because last year sucked. This year has been half better than that. So maybe next year it'll be good again. Yeah, I'm harvesting or I'm actually processing some enchilada sauce this morning. And I think we're pulling ours early just because of the cool down and they've kind of slowed. 01:22 slowed their roll a bit, but my husband was talking about it. We felt like we grew plenty this year and I just don't think you can ever grow enough tomatoes. We grew over 250 plants. We should be literally stacking crates of tomatoes right now and that is not happening. And I have so many bad words in my head about it, but I will not utter any of them on the podcast because they don't do that. So I am very disappointed. I'm very sad about the whole thing, but it'll be fine. 01:51 We have probably five or six gallon size ziplocks of frozen cut up tomatoes to can in October when it's actually cold out so we can open the windows. Yeah. So we will have some pasta sauce this winter, but we definitely haven't been able to provide for our community the way we're hoping to. Yeah. So I could go on and on. I don't want to, or I will just cry. I might anyway. It's always a learning experience. 02:22 Yeah, it's been rough. I didn't realize how sad I am about it. Wow. Okay, so here we go again. Mary cries on the podcast again. I'm sorry, I brought up your tomatoes. It's okay. The ones we got were beautiful and they taste great. So at least we have some that is the upside this year. So I have two questions about your name and the name of your place. Is Blaze a nickname? 02:52 Um, it's been my lifelong nickname. actually, uh, when I lived in California way back in the day, I was a hair salon owner and that was the color of my hair color. So when I was in beauty college, everybody started calling me plays. Okay. it's back. All right. And then why is it bad Baxter farm? Oh my gosh. I have so many different feelings about our farm name, but, um, when we moved to Oklahoma, I just. 03:20 I thought, I guess I really regret using the word farm to be honest, now that I know more, know what I know. But, um, at the time we had decided to move from California to Oklahoma. Part of it was health related and, um, I first. 03:37 I got certified as a nutrition coach through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and decided that down that rabbit hole, I wanted to grow and be responsible for all of my own food as much as possible. um so I kind of just named it Bad Baxter Farm just because I felt like we were going to be learning everything the hard way. And I just felt like there was so much misinformation and bad information out there that... 04:03 We were making a lot of mistakes. And so when we decided to like kind of start documenting our journey, I just figured I would call it bad Baxter farm because we were making a lot of bad choices and I didn't want everybody to have to do the same thing. Well, it's attention grabbing. that's, that's helpful. Thank you. I guess we should have called ourselves homestead. I have a lot of friends that I mentor now and I'm constantly like, don't use the word farm, like come up with, know, and I have a friend that she just recently, um, 04:31 built a home and got some acreage and she named hers um Anchored Acres. And so I'm always like, gosh, I really wish I would have chose something a little bit different than farm because I don't feel like that highlights us as much as homestead or farmstead or something else would have. But I think we're pretty stuck with it at this point. Yeah. And you're not alone in wanting to rename your place because we named ours a tiny homestead before we even saw the place. We had a little tiny 05:02 City lot back five years ago and we h

Today I'm talking with Dawn at Homesteading-ish. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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. 00:11 Today I'm talking with Dawn at Homesteading-ish in West Virginia. Good afternoon, Dawn. How are you? Great. It's nice to be here. Oh, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. So you are not the, I don't know, founder of Homesteading-ish. You are part of Homesteading-ish. So tell me what Homesteading-ish is. uh 00:39 um So I'm actually one of the organizers for the event. There are a couple of us that got together and decided that we wanted to bring something different to our community and trying to help people establish a homestead, know what to do, kind of help them build those foundational skills that they need in order to live off the land or be more sustainable, to work on things that they would like to do to help support their family, providing 01:08 food or um whatever other things they might need in order to make their homestead work. So we put our heads together and kind of decided that we would go this route by bringing some non-traditional resources to the table and bringing people from not just the talking head and university world but from real life experience to the table that could have an influence over how people view homesteading and small farm life. um So 01:37 That's how it was kind of born. uh it last year was our first year. It was a fantastic event. We had a great turnout. And one of the things we love the most is that we really wanted to bring a more intimate environment. Um, we were able to really bring people together, let them talk with one another, meet one-on-one, actually have real life conversations in real time with people that are living a lifestyle that they are seeking to be better at. So we were able to do that. 02:08 oh This year, I hope we're going to be able to bring that same kind of intimate atmosphere, the same kind of energy, the same kind of feeling to the table where people are really going to get to get into the bones of what they're doing and why they want to do it and how they can accomplish all of their goals. Awesome. And when you're referring to last year, last year was the inaugural conference for Homosteading-ish. 02:33 It was, it was our very first one. So we were excited that it was so well received to be able to bring it back again a second year. Okay. So when I, when I interviewed Troy last year, cause Troy is the one that, that kind of kicked this all off from what I've been told. He was just getting ready for the first conference and he was very, very, very excited and a little bit nervous. I am not sure that. 03:01 I'm not sure that he really knew what he got himself into, number one, and how it was going to go, number two. That's kind of what was coming through. And so how did last year go? it, was it well received? Were there a lot of attendees, that kind of thing? So we were all a little bit nervous last year, not really knowing what we were going to get ourselves into and what people were going to think or how the event was going to go. But honestly, um there was 03:31 It almost was, I hate to even say it, but it was almost flawless. It went so well. We had a lot of people that came from all across the country, people from as far away as California down to Florida. um I think at one point we had at least a dozen states that were represented at the conference. A lot of people were really hungry to receive the information that we were trying to invest in them. 03:57 people came and they loved it. They were screaming to come back and hoped that we would do it a second time. Again, it goes back to that kind of we brought people to a place where it felt like home, where they were comfortable and they could ask the hard questions and get the hard answers and dig a little deeper into topics that they were interested in and actually get to speak with our presenters one-on-one. In some instances, we had a lot of opportunity for them to be able to mingle with each other and really 04:26 You know, talk to people that were like minded be able to just make connections with people around here. The chairman of our board says that more gets done before and after the meeting than during the actual meeting. And so people were able to make meaningful connections with one another and then have those conversations even before or after the conference in order to follow up on topics that they were interested in or get more. 04:53 connected with someone that knew more than they did about something that they were working on. So was really, really great. We had a great turnout. People were really very interested in hearing from

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom about why beef is astronomically expensive right now, and some alternatives to get you through. 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 Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom in Nebraska. I was gonna say Arizona, I don't know why. And Leah's been a guest a couple of times on the podcast and she's here today to talk to us about the cost of beef right now. So good morning, Leah, how are you? 00:27 Good morning, Mary. Always good to visit with you. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for coming back. I love talking with you because you are. My dad would call you a no bullshit lady. You are. You are very, very forward and straightforward. And I almost blunt. Almost. I hate the word blunt because people tell me I'm blunt all the time. And I'm like, that's so mean. But you're very, very shoot from the hip. And I love that about you. 00:55 And if Maggie barks in the background, I'm sorry, we've got the farm stand open, we've got tomatoes in there and people keep pulling in for tomatoes. So. And it's International Dog Day, so she should have her moment. It is. Yeah, I didn't post on Facebook about Maggie for International Dog Day or whatever it is because I forgot that that's what it was. Yeah, I did too. I'll have to do it later. Be like, my dog's the best dog. I will die on that hill. 01:23 So, um Leah, you are a cattle rancher, right? Yes, ma'am. And you're in Nebraska, and you know as well as I do that beef prices have become astronomically expensive. And since you're a cattle rancher, I thought maybe you could give us all a little insight on what is going on with that. Yeah. Well, 01:48 It's a long and complicated story. Like many things that go on within our food chain. And even in 2025, the story in Nebraska has been a bit complicated. So when we had our cattle branding the first Saturday in May, I always call that our celebration, our first big celebration of the year. We brand those calves and get ready to turn the cows and calves out to grass. 02:17 But that day was anything but celebration. We were in a terrible drought in early May. And I have a couple of photos that I took that morning. One of the photos my daughter took of me. And I look at that picture of myself. I don't like it because the somberness was all over my face on what would typically be a joyful occasion. And it was me really evaluating the pasture conditions. we have been in drought. 02:46 on and off, some pretty significant drought really, since 2019, which was the last year of overabundant rainfall. If you want to back up even further across the Great Plains to 2012, we had what was called a flash drought across the Great Plains. What we saw then was the beginning of many ranchers starting to cut down on their herd inventory. 03:16 So 2012 was that drought. It was terrible in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. And Nebraska was plenty bad as well. And we included had to make some very difficult decisions that year as late summer came evaluating our pasture conditions and our feed and stock to see if we had cattle. 03:39 feed that would provide for those cattle and thankfully we did, but we knew if 2013 didn't improve, we were going to have to start selling down to manage our pastures well. Thankfully that turned the corner here, but that persistent drought did not get better in many places. And as fluctuations in inputs continued to plague ranchers, what we really saw as 2013 and beyond to the 04:09 it's really been the last 10 years, ranchers tightening those inventories. Couple that with the fact that ranchers continue to age and land transition plans have not been great. Ranchers don't have a child to pass that operation to and kids inherit and sell off and not necessarily not selling it into production for future ranching. 04:38 So the resulting effect is smaller numbers because of drought, shrinking numbers of ranches, which translates into shrinking numbers of cattle, cows in particular, which are the pipeline, if you will, for what becomes the beef in the stores, they're the mamas, make this all happen. And we won't even really get into the challenges of imports and tariffs and unrest. 05:08 and uh consumers making different choices about what they want to eat as far as their protein choices and those challenges, but the perfect storm of conditions. So here we are in 2025. Cattle inventory continues to shrink. We are historically at the lowest number in a very long time in the United States. That includes cows, the pipeline. 05:37 as well as the cattle in the finishing operations to be butchered to go to the grocery stores, historically lo

Today I'm talking with Kerry Adams about music, and why it's important on the homestead. 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 Kerry Adams at Lagoon Records. think it is in Michigan. Good morning, Kerry. How are you? Good morning. I'm fabulous. How are you, Mary? I'm good. So again, it's going to seem weird that I asked somebody who's into music to be on the podcast about homesteading, but music is a craft. 00:28 And music is a big part, has been a big part of Homesteaders for a long, long time. So tell me about yourself because people then understand why I asked you to be on the show. Wow. That's a big question. Well, yes. I've been doing this for about 50 years. So I started back in the Jurassic era and it's, I'm a guitarist or producer. I used to be on tour. 00:55 I managed a couple of different artists when we were on tour and I'd be their guitarist. um I've owned three recording studios. I still have one now. um And to me, the music is not a whole lot different than eh cooking the vegetables that you grow or being a painting artist or whatever. It's all art and it all kind of comes from the same place. So I love to play and I love to cook. So it comes from the same side of the brain, I guess. 01:23 Um, so yeah, I've been doing this since I was a kid. My dad was an amateur guitarist. Um, my sister was a published, uh, pencil and ink artist. So I guess it's kind of in the family a bit. Um, so that's my thing. That's what I know how to do uh and cook. know how to cook seven days a week for my family. And we try to do shopping locally and, and 01:51 I don't have enough property to grow enough vegetables and stuff to feed my family. So we do a lot of shopping locally and farmers markets and things like that. And to me, it's all kind of the same thing. And I've seen a number of your podcasts and I think they're very cool. So I'm honored to be here today. Thank you. Well, thank you for saying my podcast is very cool. I love it, too. uh So you said that you think it's something to do with the brain that actually leads me to it's something that I believe, too. 02:21 My dad was a bio med tech for years and he just turned, he just turned 83 in July and he's been retired for quite a while. And I know that you worked for Ford as an engineer and I feel like engineering or wrenching on machines is something that goes with music. 02:47 See, that's, uh, you know, we, I don't know that people know this, but we've kind of known each other for awhile. Um, you're one of the few people, there were old engineers that used to tell me, well, you know, if you're an engineer and musician, that's two different sides of your brain and they'll never connect. You can't do both well. Um, I believe engineering is artistic. Um, it's creative. Like any of those things. Um, if you look at engineering and you say, okay, I got, I either have some new widget I want to design or I have some problem to solve. 03:17 Yes, there's mathematics, there's trusted formulas, things you do. But before you even do that, you have to look at a problem and go, okay, what would be the best way to handle this? And so the artistic part is being creative before you even start a project. I think it all, even engineering comes from the same place and the same side of the brain. But having done that for 35 years and being a musician for 50, I think they're actually more similar than they are different. 03:47 Yeah, my dad played guitar for a long time and he is a natural tenor singing voice and his voice is beautiful. I don't know if you heard him sing a long time, but when I did hear him sing, it was gorgeous. So I think that music and engineering are tied together and I will die on that hill. Well, thank you. There's not a lot of people ascribed to that, but it's true, I believe. Yeah, I've known enough people who who wrench on machines, whether it's cars or 04:17 radios or copiers or whatever that have some musical talent that I really think there's a tie in there. So anyway, em I am assuming that back many, many, many years ago when people were starting farms that guitars were not exactly easy to come by. And that's why there's something called the flat top box. Yep. 04:45 Yes. Um, some of those instruments actually, speaking of being artistic and creative, some of those, uh, if you look at some of the early stuff from the twenties and thirties down in the Delta, which is where a lot of this music came from, um, it, you will see everything from, uh, a, a wash bucket with a stick and a single string. And mean, all those kinds of sort of cliche looking things, um, a lot of this stuff, and there was three string guitars and fo

Today I'm talking with Matt at Matt The Garden Guy. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Matt the Garden Guy in Wisconsin. Good morning, Matt. How are you? Hey, good. How you been? I'm good. Is the weather any improved in Wisconsin today? I mean, it's been raining like crazy. Fortunately, all that rain that hit Milwaukee and that flooding missed me, but 00:28 We've been getting rain like crazy every day and you know the bugs are destroying everything but I think the rain is holding off now. I woke up this morning and the sun was actually out and I was like, oh hello! Nice of you to stop in! It's not here yet, it's still cloudy and 70, I'm just still waiting for it to rain again but yeah we need the sun badly. Yeah, my husband dumped out the uh... 00:56 the rain gauge last night and he came in and he said, we got six and a half inches of rain from Saturday until yesterday. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. It's been terrible. I don't want to engage. Sorry. My range actually broke, so I got to try to fix it. So I'm like getting no nothing coming in, but yeah, you don't have any empirical data to work with. 01:22 I know. I'm kind of like, need to know how much rain I got, but it's a lot. That's all I got to say. Yeah. Last summer we had a terrible, horrible, no good growing season. this year it started out pretty good, but with all the rain and it's been so hot that we haven't been able to keep on. Our garden is slowly giving up the ghost. And I'm like, second year in a row, next year better. 01:50 We kind of, we kind of started out the same way. um, we, we, planted everything, but then we got some weird cold weather and then some really hot weather. like, I planted a bunch of beets and carrots and all of that and it came up, but then didn't do anything. but then like it started to, sorry, reseeded and then it started exploding. like I try to get. 02:18 I tried to do at least three harvests a year. So I started early as possible and, know, cover it up with frost blankets or things like that. And this year we're only going to get probably two. So, but that's okay. Um, my husband planted over 250 tomato plants. Whoa. And we thought we were going to be rolling in, in tomatoes by now, but because of all the rain and because it's so hot, we're starting to get the blight already. 02:47 And once that happens, we're screwed. so, and so, um, yeah, our hopes for raking in some money on tomato sales this year are now kind of down the tubes too. And I'm like, are you sure we're in the right gardening thing? You know, it's funny you say tomatoes. So like my wife looked at me, I think earlier, I know we were at our friend's house over the weekend and she's like, yeah, we don't have a lot of tomatoes. said, um, 03:13 We cut down our crop by half. So last year we had 10 plants. only got, well, we got six this year. She's like, Oh, that makes sense. Because like our, our like, I don't know, my, my, my dream or whatever last couple of years is really, you know, know, canning my stuff and then going downstairs and getting it. like that's been consuming all of our. 03:37 tomatoes and all that. But I also want to sell stuff too, but we're not able to do that because we just don't have enough plants outside right now. yeah, it was funny when you say that, you you guys have that many and I'm like, yeah, we had the same conversation, but it was the opposite. We didn't plant as many as we normally do. And then my wife is like, well, how can we not have any tomatoes? Well, because I cut it in half almost because you asked me to. It's really hard gardening with your spouse. 04:07 And I use the term gardening loosely because I'm not the gardener. husband. But I help him. I help him plan and I help him with, you know, he'll say, I'm thinking about getting this variety. I look it up and find out what's required. And I tell him, and then we make a decision together. he's the, he's the boots on the ground guy and I'm the logistical planning part. So she does all of our harvesting. 04:36 because so I'm, I'm colorblind. So for me, it's hard to really tell when those tomatoes are really ready to pull. I just, I just gave up. she does all the harvesting, but she lets, you know, the planning, the planting, the, know, I've been trying to take on the role of helping like store the stuff or do something with it. Cause a lot of times she was just cutting them up and freezing it. like, we got to look at other ways, but yeah, I like how 05:05 I like how spouses and that do get involved. For the most part, my wife likes gardening, but she can care less. She just wants to reap the

Today I'm talking with Nancy and Sylvia at Family Tree Food & Stories. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you use my link, https://amzn.to/4lDqg06, to buy the book, My Family Tree, Food & Stories: Your Personal Journal of Favorite and Memorable Foods, Recipes, and Stories to Remember and Share, I will receive a small commission. 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 00:01 Today I'm talking with Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely. What a wonderful last name. Thank you. Family Tree Food and Stories. Sylvia is in Kentucky. Kentucky, you got it. Nancy is in Florida. There you go. So good morning ladies. How are you? Good morning to you and so good to be with you. I love your voice. Thank Doing good. Yeah. Thank you. 00:28 I always feel weird when people say that because I don't hear it the way other people hear it, but that is totally fine. And what a lovely compliment. Thank you. Sure. All right. So what's the weather like in Florida, Nancy? It is warm and a little sticky. It's August, but that said, we have lovely air conditioning inside. So the weather inside is beautiful. It's sunny outside. And what's the weather like in Kentucky, Sylvia? 00:54 I might say a big ditto. It's about 95. It's very hot. The weather's supposed to break. I wish I was in Minnesota where my son lives in Duluth. It'd be a little cooler. He says it's cooler up there. But it's coming our way. So that's good news. Yes. Fall is definitely coming. I heard geese honking the other day and our trees are just starting. The maples are just starting to change. Wow. That's early. 01:20 And it's been cooler at night. mean, the last couple of nights it's been warm because we've had rain and thunderstorms, but it's coming. And I'm not sad to see the summer go. It has been so hot and so muggy here. That's what Ross says too, up in Duluth. But you're around the Minneapolis St. Paul area. Is that where you are? I am an hour southwest of Minneapolis. Okay. All right. 01:44 Yep. I am where the Jolly Green Giant started out. yeah, that's right. how cool. That's right. We did some work on that, didn't we, Nancy? It's been several episodes ago. And frozen foods for sure. Yeah, exactly. ho ho, Green Giant. Well, you just gave me a perfect opening. Tell me about yourselves and what you guys do. All right, Nancy, you want to go first? Sure. So I'm Nancy May and I'm the co-host of 02:13 Family Tree Food and Stories podcast. And we are also the co-author of a book called My Family Tree Food and Stories, which is a book that shows you how to take all your family recipes or the recipes that you love, whether it's family or not, and write the stories related to the recipes. Some are good, some are like, yeah, you know, those flops actually make good stories and good fodder for future conversations too. And there's always a way to fix a recipe and a meal. But let me see. 02:42 I am not the best cook in the world, but I keep trying and that's half the fun. But food is an outlet to be creative and bring family and friends together at the table. In fact, we just had a nice gathering of some friends at our home the other night and somebody said, oh, well, I don't cook at home for friends. Why not? Because I much rather do that than meet somebody at a restaurant because that way you actually know who they are as people in your home and whether you want to invite them back or not. 03:11 So that's kind of our, we like them or do we not like them? And let me piggyback onto that. I'll tell how we came together, Nancy. That could be an interesting thing. How did Florida marry Kentucky? We came together because of a local podcaster here. 03:31 in Lexington, Kentucky, which is where I am based. And he introduced us in the rest of his history. We just started clicking together. I mean, I guess that's kind of the best word for it. We compliment each other beautifully. I don't cook. I so admire, I own a restaurant, Azura Restaurant and Patio here in Lexington. It's high-end restaurant, lots of seafood, steak, and that kind of thing serves the local racetrack. And that's where 03:59 My husband and I love the community of the restaurant. That's why we got into it. The stories that come in a restaurant and come together are just amazing. So I've enjoyed my journey with Nancy. We are coming up on a year, I guess, of our podcast. And our book has been out there for a little more than a year. So yeah, real exciting. I love it. Congratulations on almost a year. And what's the book? What's the name of the book? It's called My Family, Tree Food and Stories. 04:26 And it's on Amazon and it's a journal slash memory book really of being able to look at your family history in your trees. And really how do you pair those stories around meals that you had with grandma or grandpa or mom or dad or your sister or brother or even just friends who have

Today I'm talking with Mark at Raised Bed & Container Gardening with Mark. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 to Mark at the Raised Bed and Container Gardening with Mark. And Mark is in North Carolina. Good afternoon, Mark. How are you? Good afternoon, Mary. It's good to be with you. It's good to have you. I love talking to people in North Carolina because you guys have the sweetest Southern drawl. 00:28 Well, sometimes I, my kids tell me I talk pretty country sometimes. It's really sweet and it's very easy to understand. Sometimes the drawl is so thick that I'm like, excuse me, what did you say? So it's great when I get somebody who sounds like sweet tea and a rocking chair on a front porch. makes me very happy. You said the weather has been raining there. Yeah, we've had a good bit of rain. We've had. 00:56 We had a really hot stretch during the summer and then some rains came in and it's kind of been cool for the last couple of weeks. as my grandfather would say, we had a zizzly zazzly this morning. It was, you could hear the rain just sizzling as it hit the ground. yes. I remember being a kid in Maine and we had a dirt road for a while and then they tarred it. 01:22 The first time it rained after they tired it in like August, it was so hot. I could hear it steam. I could hear that noise you're talking about, but I never heard it called a Zizzle Zazzle before. That's great. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, I am a, I'm a newspaper editor is my day job. I'm a sportscaster, which is one of the things I do for fun. And I, I'm a gardener pretty much, I guess it's in, it's kind of in the blood and 01:52 I particularly enjoy growing tomatoes. That's my big thing. My favorite food in the world is tomatoes. So a good tomato right off the vine is just the best thing in the world. So I stay really busy. Okay. How's your tomato season been? We had a really good season, but it came all at once and it was just... 02:20 Within two weeks and everything was done. don't recall having a season like that in the last few years, but it just, everything produced. They all ripened almost at the same time. We had some smaller like black cherry tomatoes that they lasted a little bit longer, but when the rains hit, it kind of ruined them. whatever was left there, they were done. Just got too much rain at one time. you know, sometimes those little tomatoes will 02:50 If they're near full grown, they'll pop open if you get too much rain. split. Yeah. Yeah. Our tomato season just really kicked in about two weeks ago and my husband planted over 250 tomato plants in the spring. So we are going to be swimming in tomatoes in a week. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Now what kind of tomatoes do you like to grow? He grows. Of course you asked me this and usually I can reel them off top of my head and now I'm like, what does he grow? 03:19 He grows early girls. grows, he tries to get sweet one million cherry tomatoes, but I think he just got sweet 100s this year. And the San Marzano tomatoes. I love San Marzano's. I have trouble though. I don't ever get any size on them. I wind up with a lot of kind of maybe they'll grow in two and a half, three inches long. 03:48 and be almost hollow inside. And I'm not really sure what's happening with mine on those. They taste great. They cook up well, but there's just not a lot of it. I'm not the gardener, but what I can tell you that I've observed with ours is that if it rains moderately and it's sunny reasonably, it seems to help them have more flesh on the inside. Okay. Because they need the water, but they need the heat too. 04:16 Yeah. The, uh, mean, San Marzano probably is my favorite tomato. It's such a good cooking tomato too, but it's got such a good taste because you just got all that flesh too. It's a, it's a good fleshy tomato. It makes something new. Go ahead. I'm sorry. It makes a killer sauce. Oh, it does. It does. Absolutely. Absolutely. I tried a new tomato this year. It was, I just out of curiosity. It's, 04:46 It was an Amish paste tomato and I bought the plants at the farmer's market and I paid a lot more than I wanted to for them, but I wanted to try them and they turned out really well. I'm saving seeds, so I'm hoping to have those next year, but they were a big thick plum tomato and it was about twice the size of the San Marzano, but really, really thick. we used to grow, or my 05:16 My father-in-law would grow something, he called it a hot dog tomato. And it was longer than a San Marzano and just there, you know how you got a little bit of a globe at the bottom of the San Marzano, not

Today I'm talking with Erika at Taste The Local Difference. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Erika at Taste the Local Difference. Good morning, Erika. How are you? Good morning. I am doing great. How are you? I'm good. Where are you located? I am in Michigan, just south of Ann Arbor. Okay. 00:26 Awesome. I'm going to be talking to an old friend on Monday morning for the podcast who lives right near Ann Arbor. So that's kind of funny. That's great. Yeah. What a small world. Yeah. He, he's a musician and he's, uh, older than me. I'm, I'm 55 and I know he's at least 10 years old than I am. So he remembers when, um, music was something you got on records and eight tracks and it should be really fun. Wow. That's cool. Very cool. Yeah. It'll be really fun. I'm excited. 00:56 Um, so what's the weather like in Michigan this morning? Thankfully, it is actually pretty beautiful. It has been quite hot and humid lately, so it's, it was nice. took a nice little walk this morning around my neighborhood and it was, it does seem to be getting a little bit cooler, but you know, what are you going to do? It's August. It's pretty normal for this time of year. Oh, for sure. And it's coming. 01:21 fall is coming. heard geese calling the other day. Some of our maple trees are starting to turn and that could just be the weather stress, but I really think we might be looking at an earlier fall. So that would be welcome after this very hot summer we've had. I'm in Minnesota, so it's been hot here too. Yeah, definitely. When I got up this morning, my husband had opened the kitchen window and the living room windows because our AC is broken. 01:50 Oh goodness. was awake at like 4.30 this morning because I get up early and I got my coffee and I was sitting in my living room, sipping my coffee and scrolling Facebook as I do. Everybody does these days. And I could hear the crickets chirping because the windows were open. It was just such a lovely way to start my day. Yeah, that sounds great. It really was because usually the windows are closed because the AC is running and you don't want to let the mugginess in. 02:18 when you're running an AC. So there's a blessing to our AC being out. I'm okay with it. It's true. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your role with Taste the Local Difference and what Taste the Local Difference is and what you guys do. Yeah. So I am the Director of Impact here. Which I love. I love that title. 02:41 Thanks. love it too. And, uh, so what we do is we do marketing for farms and local food and beverage businesses. And that also encompasses things like agritourism, farmers markets, restaurants, food trucks, et cetera, know, distilleries, craft beverage, anything along those lines. And, um, this is our 21st year. So. 03:09 We started in Michigan, but we work with businesses nationwide. We also have Michigan's food and farm directory, which is really cool. And we are just big believers in local food and local food systems, local food economies, and really uplifting the people who grow and make food and beverage for other folks to. 03:36 enjoy. And so we really like to be able to help them with marketing education and primarily marketing services. So folks can come to us for their websites, their e-commerce, you know, to do full branding, like if they need, you know, a logo and a brand kit, we do marketing strategy, email marketing setup, social media, pretty much the whole gamut if it's under marketing and 04:05 Then what my role overseas is, um, I do a lot of the marketing education here as well. So I just was teaching a webinar last night for one of our partners. And, uh, we also do what are called food systems impact partnerships. And so I will work with folks that are from like nonprofits. 04:30 governmental organizations, economic development agencies, universities, et cetera. And we partner with them to help support the folks that they work with. So a lot of times these are organizations that are supporting farmers or small food producers. And they will work with us to help either like subsidize marketing. 04:57 what is called in the industry, like technical assistance, which is basically marketing services and or marketing education. So that's what I do. So like right after this, I have a call with somebody who is in Vermont at a nonprofit that helps farmers and they have a farmer education program. So that call will be all about seeing, you know, if there's a way that we can partner together to help support the folks that they work with. 05:24 Okay, since you mentioned that, how much time do you have? Because I do

Today I'm talking with Helana at Her Wholesome Homestead Life. 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 Helana at Wholesome Homestead, and I don't know what state you're in. I'm in Michigan. In Michigan. So good morning, Helana. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. I'm really excited to have you talk with me because you said that you're new at the homesteading thing. 00:28 So first off, how's the weather in Michigan this morning? It's beautiful this morning. It's been really hot here lately, but yesterday we got a nice rainy day, so we definitely needed that. So yeah, today is beautiful. Here too in Minnesota. I mean, I'm kind of your lateral neighbor. We're a couple states apart, but good morning neighbor. It's sunny and it's cool. Thank goodness. So it's a great day. I love it. Our weather lady said that she wanted to call it a top 10 weather day today. 00:57 Yes, I can agree with that today. Yeah, so I hear a little one in the background cooing. Do you have a new baby? Um, yes, he's only a couple months old so he's new Nice and you have another one, right? Yes. I have a daughter who is a toddler Okay. Well, hopefully they'll let you chat with me without making too much noise Notice how I heard the baby cooing and I turned my voice down. That's really funny 01:25 Okay, so tell me about what you do at your homestead. So I am just getting started as we talked about. So basically I just have a garden and this is our second year doing it. So we're in a learning curve with what grows well here. So that's been fun. And then I've also dabbled in making sourdough bread. That's definitely what got me started in the whole homesteading thing. Like they always say, once you start doing sourdough. 01:54 You kind of go down that road of getting into everything else. So yeah. How is it going with the sourdough? The reason I ask is I have two sourdough starters on my counter downstairs and they didn't rise for like four days, even though I fed them and they're a good month old at least. And I was like, what am I doing wrong? 02:17 And then the temperature in the house went up and I fed them and they doubled. And I was like, oh, it's too cool in my house. That's what's going on. So how are you doing with it? I'm doing well. My sourdough starter, I started in February of 2023. So it's two years old now. And yeah, they're definitely very finicky with the temperature in your house. I've always found that if I feed it and I put it in the microwave, 02:45 and just let it stay in there. Then I usually have better luck with it rising when it should and all of that. I'm going to have to try that trick this winter because I know it's not going to be warm enough in the house. just know it. I always feel like such a dork when I notice that it's doubled in size the way it's supposed to. It's risen double. Because my sourdough for some reason, I started it from scratch. I built this thing. 03:10 There's so many big bubbles that you can see on the side of the jar on the inside. And every time I see that, I just have this big note of happiness ring in my head because it works. Yes. It's so exciting when it goes how it should because it's definitely a craft. And especially when you are making like a loaf, that's definitely a craft and a learning curve to like getting the bulk fermentation and everything right. Yeah. And it takes such a long time. 03:39 If your loaf comes out like a brick, all you want to do is cry. Yes. It's awful. I haven't had that happen. I've only made one loaf and it wasn't a brick, but it was definitely bagel texture. Yeah. And it tasted great and I love bagels. So I was quite pleased that I didn't come out with a brick. As long as it's edible, that's all that matters, right? Yeah. Yeah. They always say just bake it anyway and see what happens. And I'm like, I'm gonna stick to that. That's good advice. 04:07 So what made you get into homesteading? Like what was the impetus that sent you down this path? Honestly, it was when I was on maternity leave with my first child. I just like started going down the rabbit hole of being more natural living and trying to make as much as I can myself. So I know exactly what's in everything so that I feel more confident feeding it to my children and my family. So that's kind of what. 04:34 started the whole thing and like I said it started with the sourdough and it just kind of blossomed from there. I'm really proud of you and you're not the first person to tell me that they got into this because they were having kids because kids change your whole perspective on the world they really truly do. They do for sure. Yeah I had my daughter ma

Today I'm talking with Stephanie Hansen at StephaniesDish. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Stephanie Hansen at Stephanie's Dish in Minnesota. She's local, yay. I love it when people are local. And good morning, Stephanie. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. And I would normally ask about the weather, but I'm guessing you're in Minneapolis area? I am in Ely, Minnesota today. Oh, you're way up there. 00:29 of the true North cabin cookbook. It's where I wrote it. Um, we have a summer home here that's on an island in a middle of a lake. And so I kind of do the reverse commute and go back and forth. My husband stays up here most of the summer with our 92 year old mother-in-law. Oh, okay. So you're way up there. So how's the weather up North? It's nice. It's nice today. A little rain's coming in, but it's been a weird summer though. Uh, 00:57 lots of smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I'm a gardener and the garden has started out real slow. I'm finally starting to get beans and cucumbers and tomatoes and those kinds of things, but just kind of a weird summer. Second one in a row. Yay. I'm so sick of it. I'm praying. Like I spent the winter praying that this year would be moderate and it's been better than last year, but it hasn't been the three summers ago summer that was so beautiful. So 01:27 I don't know. We're all just going to do what we do. it's funny how it seems like September is like the old August where it's super hot and dry. That's also, summer is extended in some ways, but maybe starts later. Yeah. don't know. Climate change, global warming, weather patterns of 01:51 Billions of years, who knows? Either way, we're just all going to still keep trying to grow things because that's what we do. I'm in Lassour and it is sunny and cool. Thank goodness because our compressor on our air conditioner died yesterday. Oh, I did that last week. Got a new air conditioner and furnace and a home equity loan. Yeah, that's what we're looking at too. You're in Lassour, the home of the green giant. 02:21 Yes. And Sprout. Yes. Yes. We have the new billboard up that has the green giant and Sprout on it. I was driving back and forth to Jordan when they took the old sign down and put the new sign up. And every day there'd just be a little bit more of each character building on each other. That's great. It's fun. And it's so silly because every small town has something like that. 02:46 I didn't know that the Jolly Green Giant started out in LaSore. I had no idea and we were driving down here for the move. I was like, oh, oh, okay. And I had no idea that the guy that started the Mayo Clinic lived in a small house in town in LaSore too. Yup. So there's a lot of history here. And I grew up, I grew up on the East coast. So when I moved to Minnesota, like 30 something years ago, 03:14 I was like, ah, there's no history here. My history back home beats the history in Minnesota. And then when I started learning about Minnesota, I was like, um, I'm going to have to amend my opinion. Yeah, no offense, but it's very, uh, common to get sort of the East coast, West coast vibes of the Midwest. And then people come here and they're like, Oh, this isn't just flyover country. And particularly when you think about like the food scene. 03:43 We are the bread basket. know, much of the grain is grown in the Midwest. Much of the animal husbandry happens in the Midwest and a cheese making culture happens in the Midwest. So while we laud the fancy restaurants from both coasts, when it comes to like actual food production, we're doing pretty good. absolutely. And I'm not dissing on Minnesota. I've lived here a long time. It is beautiful. 04:11 And I had the choice five years ago when we were looking for a new home to decide whether I wanted to move back to Maine. And I was like, I don't want to. It's expensive. I'm already settled in this state. I know how to behave myself now. I'm just going to stay here. So it all worked out fine, but very disappointed to find out that we're going to have to drop probably five to $6,000 on a new air conditioner here in the next week or two. That is not a welcome Monday morning surprise. No, but 04:41 The good news, well, you're kind of, I mean, we're probably gonna get, cause state fair always gets super hot. For me, like getting the furnace done now, I was like, well, at least it won't be 30 below when I realized my furnace doesn't work. Yeah, we've done that before too. That is not a fun surprise either. Okay, so now that I've bitched about my AC problem, cause I knew I was going to, tell me a little bit about yourself, Ste

Today I'm talking with Dave Jackson at the School of Podcasting. You can follow on Facebook as well. “The School of Podcasting” Is a podcast that helps you discover the power of podcasting. It helps you avoid the common mistakes that podcasters make. From planning, producing, and promoting your podcast along with all the tools and techniques. If you're looking to start a podcast or a veteran podcaster, you can catch some great insights with this free podcast." "The School of Podcasting is for the person looking to launch their own podcast. They want to do it right the first time. They want to be seen as an expert, reach a global audience, make more sales, know their audience, meet like-minded people, and grow their community. I have great step-by-step tutorials that will show you how to use podcast software titles like Audacity (a free software package), Adobe Audition, Sound Forge, and more. These tutorials walk you through the entire podcasting process." If you use my affiliate link to join the School of Podcasting, I will receive a small commission. 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 Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting in Akron, Good afternoon, Dave. How are you? Mary, I'm doing great. Happy to be here. Good. I'm so glad you could come talk to me. And I'm going to preface this whole thing by saying that it probably seems odd that I invited basically a podcast coach to 00:29 visit with me on a tiny homestead, but some of my guests have asked, you know, have asked me about how to get started because they've expressed interest in wanting to start a podcast of their own. And so it does tie in also because podcasting is a craft and I talk to crafters and it's an art. It takes practice and it takes creativity. So it's an art and a craft. So having said all that. 00:56 Why, Dave, is a podcast a great way to promote a small business? Well, there's a few reasons. Number one, I always say when you start off, like time everything you do. And that way you can say, oh, wow, this took, you know, 10 hours to do a one hour podcast. And then you can go, do I have 10 hours a week to do a podcast? And if not, either make it shorter, or you're not doing a weekly show you're doing every other week or whatever it is. 01:24 So when you can come up with a schedule that you do on a regular basis, you become part of their routine. Like I listen to a show every Friday night. They drop it somewhere around two in the afternoon. And by six o'clock, I know it's going to be there. And I'm off to, this is how I party. I go to Walmart and I do grocery shopping. So, you know, that's how I'm rocking out on a Friday night. But I'm also listening to Adam Curry and Dave Jones on Podcasting 2.0. So you become part of their routine. And I've had people say, 01:52 because I publish every Monday morning and they're like, Dave, you're with me on the way, you know, you're with me on the way to the feed store. Or one guy said, I shower with you every Monday. And I go, that sounds a little weird, but okay. So that's one. So you're seen as reliable. And then when you give them content that they can use, they're like, oh, I, I like her. She's really helpful. He's great or whatever it is. And then if you can make a point with a story about whatever you're in your life, then they kind of get to know you. 02:22 So now you've got the whole no like and trust factor going. And so when you say, oh, I've got this new soap or I've got these new fragrances or whatever it is you're selling, they're like, oh, I'm going to check that out because you kind of start this law of reciprocity, which just basically means I've scratched your back with my podcast. Now you scratch my back by buying my stuff. But it is one of those things. know one time when I was married, I had a 16 year old. 02:50 who was dying to get his driver's license. And I found out within 20 feet of that kid, hey, can we go driving? Hey, can we go driving? And so I always say, in that example, I said, when you start a podcast, you need the passion of a 16 year old wanting to get their license. And so I had people email me, they're like, oh, I have one of those too. She almost killed me last week, you know, that kind of thing. So it's just a way for your potential customers to get to know you. And then 03:17 sometimes behind the scenes stuff, you're like, Hey, we're trying this, this new product, we're not sure if it's going to work. I know the there's a software company called Evernote, and they had a podcast where you had the CEO, the main marketing person, and I think the community manager all doing this podcast together. And how often can you send in

Today I'm talking with Mark Lawley at Practical Prepping. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Mark Lawley at Practical Prepping in Alabama. Good morning, Mark. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Doing well. How's the weather there this morning? This morning, it is fairly nice. We're at 83 degrees right now, which is a whole lot better than that 98 we were at last week. 00:30 Oh yeah, no doubt. It is exceedingly muggy in Minnesota this morning to the point that we had ground fog in our door yard this morning. We have had the exact same thing. I just looked over here at the weather station and we've got 76 % humidity here right now. Yeah, it's so gross. I can't wait until mid-September. Yeah, I'm ready for Thanksgiving. 00:55 I'm not quite there because I really do want our tomatoes to keep producing because we are going to be swimming in tomatoes by midweek next week. Well, we have some grandsons playing football and it's just not some, there's something not right about sitting at a football game wearing a t-shirt. You need to be wearing a jacket. And so I'm looking for football weather at least. Yeah. It's been. 01:21 I mean, I don't want to spend 20 minutes talking about the weather because it's boring, but the last two years have just been insane. And I really, really, really would like Mother Nature to become more moderate for next growing season because it has really messed with our farm. Yes. And not just the growing seasons and such, but you look around at some of the things that have happened this year. The floods, the earthquakes, the 01:50 The fires, the wildfires are somewhat normal. We're accustomed to having those. But we've been having more floods. We've been having, and in places that never flood, we've had hurricanes 200 miles inland that have caused floods, caused major power outages that have lasted four to six weeks in some areas. 02:16 And that's one of the reasons that we are trying to get people to be prepared. Yes, absolutely. And since we're talking about the weather, that actually was a really good lead-in to this particular episode. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, I'm retired law enforcement and have a long history of being involved in disaster relief. 02:46 I talk disaster relief, I've been on many disaster relief scenes coming in, in a number of capacities. And one of the capacities is chainsaw teams and mud out teams and such as that to help folks to recover afterwards. And what we actually do is we teach people how to be prepared for life's emergencies. That's what we do. Yep. 03:16 And really what we do from a prepping standpoint and you do from a homesteading standpoint is we live like our great grandparents and grandparents did in a lot of areas. Now, they didn't have all the modern conveniences that we have, but they prepared food for the winter. They had tools if something happened. 03:41 I have a house on the old home place where my dad grew up and where I grew up as a small kid. And when dad grew up, that was a working farm. When I grew up, it was a hobby farm. you didn't, if something broke, you didn't just jump in the truck and run to the store. You had to have on site what you needed to fix it or to deal with it. And it was just life for them. And so what we try to do. 04:12 is pretty much have everything that we could need. Well, to give you an example, last year I had a limb fall, poked a hole through the roof. So I got my ladder out, I got my things out, I went up there and I patched the roof. And about six months later we had a new roof put up. But I had those things to be able to do that. Something breaks, I want what I need here. And I learned some of that from my dad. 04:39 You need to have whatever you need to fix a problem at home. If it breaks at 10 o'clock on Tuesday, on, Saturday night. And that's plumbing, that's electrical, that's whatever. But I also have the skills to do those things. Yeah. I'm going to jump in just for a second. I am so baffled by the fact that so many young people don't have. 05:09 this information, you know, as part of their upbringing because I'm 55. Okay. My dad just turned 82 on July 30th and he acts like he's 55 still and he still acts like he needs to be ready for anything coming down the road. And he does, everybody does. Right. And they taught my siblings and I how to prepare for things that we couldn't see coming. Right. 05:39 And I taught my kids because they watched me do it when they were growing up. how in heck did we lose this? Well, we're two generations into soft. Let me call it that. We're two generations into being

Today I'm talking with Miss Jenny at Wild Roots Nature School. 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 Miss Jenny at Wild Roots Nature School in Indiana. Good afternoon, Miss Jenny. How are you? I'm wonderful. Hi, Mary. It's such a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you. The reason I'm calling Miss Jenny Miss Jenny is because I'm sure that's what her little 00:28 humans call her at school. Or Miss Jimmy. Those that can't quite pronounce Miss Jenny, they'll say Miss Jimmy. I love it. love what you're doing because I love little kids. Teenagers are a whole different ball game, but little kids are adorable. Yes, they are. My little sprouts make every day so much brighter. But I have a teenager too, so I'm balancing both of them. 00:58 in life right now. So yeah, and they both have their stellar moments, but teenagers are hard. It's really hard to know what kind of mood they're going to be in, what kind of reception you're going to get to something you say. It's just a whole different thing. It sure is. So anyway, what's the weather like in Indiana today? It's absolutely gorgeous. So it's a little bit of a breeze, the sun shining. 01:26 The birds are chirping. It's great. It's not so humid and hot as it has been over the last couple weeks. So I think things are cooling down a bit. Yeah, the Midwest has gotten its butt kicked in the last couple of weeks with temperatures and humidity. I'm in Minnesota and it's still muggy here, but it's not hot today. So that's helping. Yes, it's quite a relief. Yeah. 01:53 have said before and I will say it until the day I die. hate high summer. And for me, high summer is mid-July till the end of August because Minnesota is so crazy from in that timeframe. We never know what the weather is going to be. We could have the most beautiful 65 degree day with a breeze or we could have 105 with tropical dew point or we could have a tornado. You never know. 02:21 So summer is not my favorite season. Spring and fall are my favorites and I wish that we could just do six months of spring and six months of fall. That would be perfect for me. And the mosquitoes add a whole new challenge to being outside all day. Yeah. And the black flies. We don't have too much trouble with that, but the mosquitoes run us out of here sometimes. We have black flies every spring and 02:49 my husband will come in and he'll have blood dripping down the side of his neck because they bite him behind his ears. Oh no. Yeah. And they don't, they have, they must have some kind of anesthetic thing in their saliva because he never realizes he's been bitten until I'm like, um, you might want to go get a wet cloth and wipe your neck. And he's like black fly. Oh my goodness. So yeah, it's, uh, nature is wonderful. It really is. But there are things that you have to deal with to 03:18 get that wonder. So, absolutely. right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am the founder of Wild Roots Nature School, which is a nature-based home school nestled right in my own backyard, right here in Indianapolis. It's a play-based 03:43 program where kids are welcome to be wild and free and barefoot and kind of have the freedom to choose how they want to play most days. So it's a emergent type curriculum where I follow the lead of the child in the interest of the children. so if we find 04:13 a caterpillar that will lead to discussions on the life cycle of a butterfly or right now you can probably hear them. They're very curious about the cicadas and lots of lots of cicada shells in every pocket that I find. So yeah, it's a mixed age group of kids ages three to six. 04:43 And it's just, you know, I grew up like the barefoot running around with my friends and my sister in the fields making friendship soup out of weeds and pine cones. And I think that not many kids have that opportunity to learn and play outside every day anymore. 05:10 Um, there's such a big focus on kindergarten readiness and, um, academics that they just can't play anymore. There's such a, so much pressure to be prepared for school. So we slow it down a bit and focus more on just playing and learning through play and, and they're learning all the time. And it's, it's just beautiful. Lots of giggles and, um, 05:40 Yeah, they just have a blast. Lots of light bulb moments too. Oh yeah. Yep. So we have chickens and kittens and currently we found three black swallowtail caterpillars when we were harvesting our carrots in the garden one morning. So we've put them in an enclosure and we've been able to observe the life cycle and 06:09 Unfortunately, we were on vacation last week, but we came home to three ch

Today I'm talking with Danette at Cookies in a bag by Danette. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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. 00:11 Today I'm talking with Danette, well Danette, at Cookies in a Bag by Danette in Kentucky. Good morning, Danette. How are you? I am fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. And it is Danette. It's not Donette, right? My mother actually born and raised Danette, because I was going to be Dan if I was a guy, but I'm not. So I was Danette. But I actually am kind of. 00:36 I a bit when I was about 18. I went off to college and I changed it from Danette to Dinette. So just the same name but just slightly pronounced different. yeah, so, Dinette. Cookies in a bag by Dinette. I just hate it when I pronounce people's names wrong because I have very Oh, you're so fun. I have very easy names. I have Mary, I have Evelyn for my middle name, and I have Lynn for a nickname. And those are all really easy. 01:04 That is. Okay. So what's the weather like in Kentucky this morning? Fantastic. Absolutely beautiful. It poured and rained all evening yesterday. Um, but it's fine. It was in the evening and that means I don't have to water plants today. Um, but I love the rain in the evening and at night because it just makes everything green and lush and beautiful. And we've had a great week here in Paducah, Kentucky. So no complaints from me. Good. Cause I know it's been really hot. 01:33 everywhere and I'm in Minnesota. It is a lovely day outside. is sunny. It is cool. There's not even a breeze. don't think. Great. That's awesome. I'm happy. for us. gardening. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I really wanted to talk to you because you do cookies in a bag. It is a really simple concept. It really is. But I had never thought of putting it in a bag. 02:03 I had heard about the jars, but I hadn't thought about a bag. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, if you look at my bags, they're actually shaped like mason jars. So this really is sort of what you said. This is a very simple concept, but hopefully done well. And it has just surpassed my wildest expectations. went into business. Well, actually about 2004, I was like a big 02:33 PTO president at my children's elementary school and we had this fundraiser called shop till you drop. It was brand new and you know the first year for anything is the hardest. And so we were trying to get vendors to come into our gymnasium and pay $50 for a table. And you know, like we had the local Pampered chef lady and then we actually had businesses. We'd reach out to like a local gardening center and have her bring her stuff in. And so, you know, I was. 03:00 just using my very best persuasive skills and it was going pretty good but we had a few empty spots and several of my friends said, oh my gosh, Jeanette, why don't you set up a table? You're a fantastic baker. And this was in between Christmas and Thanksgiving. So like a week after Thanksgiving. So three weeks until Christmas. And they're like, why don't you sell your cookies and cakes? And I was like, well, I appreciate the fact that you think I'm good enough to do that, number one, but nobody wants. 03:29 cookies three weeks before Christmas, you know? They want them at Christmas. And so I was like, gosh, how can I give people what they want, but when they want it? And I'd always seen those little glass jars, you know, like the, I want to say they used to sell them in our farmers market. There was this Amish lady there who always sold baked goods. 03:52 And so I was like, oh, that's cute. I could kind of do something like that, but I really don't want to deal with glass jars or anything. That seems like a pain and things could break. And I was like, how can I do this in a more simpler manner? And so I came up with these little cute clear plastic. Actually, my colors are all red and white with polka dot and stripe. And so I came up with these cute little plastic bags, not the ones I have now, but they were just like a cellophane bag. 04:21 with a flat bottom and I filled them with my contents. Like these are my homemade recipes. Like literally I created or came up with or my mother handed down to me every single recipe that I sell. And so I just had four or five recipes and then I would put the chips on top. So I mixed everything in. It wasn't like the layers like the, that used to be in the glass jars. I mixed everything together and then I put. 04:47 the chips or the toppings or whatever on top. So it would kind of look cute. And then I had this adorable little red bow and I set up, I don't know, I made a hundred or something and I was like, oh my gosh, how's this goi

Today I'm talking with Brittany at Hillside Harvest Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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. 00:10 Today I'm talking with Brittany at Hillside Harvest Farms in California. Good afternoon, Brittany. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. I had to think about whether it was morning or afternoon because you're in California. Yes. They're an hour behind us, so it's afternoon now. We're actually two hours. And I was so nervous. I was not going to figure out the time change. But it's 11 o'clock, so we're still morning here. 00:36 Okay, well good morning to you and good afternoon to me. How's that? Thank you. Perfect. How's the weather in California today? We have actually had like a fairly mild summer. So it makes me a little nervous what our August and September is going to be like into October, because we'll be like 110 into October. So I'm a little nervous, but the summer has been great so far. Awesome. My daughter used to live in LA. lived there for 01:06 like over three years. then she made a lateral move to Florida. Oh my gosh. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Well, you'll still have oranges and lemons. That's good news. Uh huh. Oh yes. It is kind of a gray day here in Minnesota. It's overcast and it's not really muggy, but it's not really not muggy if that makes any sense. Uh huh. Uh huh. And it's not hotter than hell. So that helps. 01:35 That's always nice. Yes. After the week we put in last week, I'm very happy to have it be cooled down. Yes. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, we live in Paso Robles, California. We moved here about three years ago. My husband and my two boys. 01:57 We're, my husband and I are both from California, but we went to school in Utah and lived there for quite a few years. And then we're able to move back here to California, which we were really excited about. Um, we don't live in typical California. We're very rural. Um, and just, it's, it's so beautiful out here. about an hour from the coast in central California and wine country. And just love being out here. We're on about three acres and. 02:26 have goats and chickens and pigs and ducks and about an acre garden and a little farm stand down at the bottom of the driveway. And we just have so much fun doing all that. Very nice. And California is an odd state because you've got high fashion, you've got Silicon Valley, you've got the, assume the wine industry is pretty big. You've got. 02:54 citrus fruits that are pretty big. And then you've got all the agriculture. Yes. So there's so much agriculture. I love it. We actually just went to Tahoe over the weekend. It's about a six hour drive. And besides just the quick drive through Sacramento, we were just driving through orchards and vineyards and just it was almost completely agriculture and it was such a fun drive and I love it so much. 03:24 I forgot a big one. have movie production out there too. Yes, we do. Uh-huh. I know. It's so, I love how diverse the state is. And it's really cool. I love being in a small town. It's about three hours to our closest international airport. It was really funny when we moved from Utah to California, everybody was like, what are you doing? 03:47 Like it's just, you're just going to be moving to the city. And I'm like, I don't think you understand where we're moving to in California. Like it's so much smaller than where we're living now. I don't, I don't think you quite understand where we're going. Yeah. And I'm, I don't necessarily want to make the podcast all about Mary today, but Minnesota is, is odd like that too. When you hear Minnesota, when anyone hears Minnesota. 04:16 They make Minneapolis St. Paul, which are the two biggest cities in the state. And they're right next to each other. But southern Minnesota is cornfields, soybean fields, and alfalfa fields. And northern Minnesota is pine trees and the boundary waters and cabins. so it's funny to me when people immediately assume big city when they hear Minnesota. like, no, there's... 04:43 There's very little acreage that is big city in Minnesota. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It's so funny. Yeah, but it's great. We love it here. Last year, we opened our farm stand for our first year, and that was so much fun. And it was just a little trailer last year. And this year, we built a greenhouse and a little shed. So that's been a lot of fun. 05:10 I do a lot of canning and preserving and we grow a lot of our own meat and my husband's family, have a 40 acre avocado ranch in a little town called Cayucas that they have, they raise steer. So we have our own meat, our beef cows that we raise. so it's, it's a lo

Today I'm talking with Jess at Apocalypse Acres. 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/lewismarye 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 Jess at Apocalypse Acres in Florida, and you can hear the birds singing in the background. How gorgeous is that? Good morning, Jess. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. Thank you so much. How's the weather, Jess? Right now, it's beautiful. It's the perfect temperature to go outside and get stuff done, but that doesn't last very long. 00:27 probably have like another half an hour before it's almost unbearable to be outside. you're killing that half hour with me. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. That's okay. It's worth it. Okay, good. Um, I'm in Minnesota and it is cool and sunny and like a tiny little breeze happening. So that's kind of a welcome relief. Nice. We always have a breeze because we have, we have a big like 40 or 50 acre 00:54 pasture next door to us and it just happens to be that the wind is always blowing across that. So even when it's not really windy elsewhere, we always have a breeze. And so even when it's really hot, it still feels pretty good here. must be nice. It's been real sticky hot in Minnesota up until yesterday. Yesterday was gorgeous and today's looking to be pretty nice too. Okay. So why is it called Apocalypse Acres? Well, when I first moved here, 01:22 And I've been here for five years now. I was travel nursing up in Wisconsin actually, and I lost my travel nursing contract because of COVID. So when I moved in here, it was about two, not even two or three months after the COVID lockdown started and happened and all of that was going on. And it felt very like post-apocalyptic kind of at that point, or like things seemed really crazy. people still weren't going out in public and people were still really focusing on like trying to 01:52 try to homestead for a purpose of not, know, because the shelves were empty in the stores and things like that. So Apocalypse Acres just ended up kind of making sense. And the reason we chose that type of a name is because growing up, my grandparents had a 10 acre farm called Pickery Acres. And so we kind of just put a spin on that. Okay, um, on the whole COVID thing. 02:17 I was talking with a friend like six to eight months into it after lockdown started in March of 2020. I said that it was the quietest apocalypse ever. I had no idea the first apocalypse I experienced was going to be so quiet. In a good way. It was nice, wasn't it? Yes. And I've said this a few times on the podcast, but I'm going to say it again. 02:46 COVID was a horrible thing to have happen, but there are so many amazing things that came out of it. And I hear about them all the time from people on the podcast. Yeah, things have changed for sure. It was like a weird tipping point for everybody. Hold on one second. I'm so sorry. Alexa, stop. And I hear about things all the time and there's negative things too, like some stores and pharmacies and things like that not being open 24 hours and not planning to ever open 24 hours again. 03:16 Um, but I think that there are quite a few positives too, that kind of outweigh, you know, some of those negatives. Yeah, it was the craziest time and I'm glad that we're mostly through it. I actually had COVID diagnosed for the first time in January of this year. That was not fun. And, uh, I slept like 18 hours a day for four days in a row, and then I was fine. So I got the very pale version of COVID. 03:45 Yeah, for sure. I had the bad one, but then I had it most more recently too. And I also had it when I was pregnant, which was really scary. Oh, not good. Yeah, but back to kind of the apocalypse thing, I think. We, my wife and I, we go to Wasteland Weekend, which is out in California every year or every other year as we can. And it's a five day it's kind of like Burning Man, but it's post apocalyptic. 04:13 Costumes are required. It's fully immersive. No one's really on their phones and you go camp, primitive camping in the desert with like 1500 other people and it's fully like Mad Max, Furiosa, like, you know, a dystopian society. And so we want our farm to be kind of like that. So we've actually filmed a couple of movies here on our property and we've, we actually won an award for like set design and production for a movie that we filmed here called Hinders. 04:44 That is so fun. You're very talented. And I had no idea that you did that. That's amazing. I would love to talk about filmmaking. And if I was a filmmaking podcast that I would have you back, but I'm not. what, so what do you do at your homestead? Well, our main crop, I guess, is super hot peppers. So we grow super hot peppers, and then we make hot pepper jelly. And th

Today I'm talking with Lauren at Wildflower & Bone Company. 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/lewismarye 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 Lauren at Wildflower and Bone Company in Oklahoma. Is that right, Lauren? Yes, it is. Okay. Good afternoon, Lauren. How are you? I am great. How are you? I'm good. What's the weather like there? We are actually extremely hot right now. think we've... 00:30 for the last five days. 00:34 I am so sorry to hear that. Today is the first day in probably five days that it hasn't been unbearably muggy in Minnesota. Oh my. So I'm taking a big deep breath of much less wet air today. Yes. Yes. We, my boys want to go outside all the time and I hate having to tell them not right now. Yeah. Unfortunately tomorrow we're going to be under a, a wildfire smoke. 01:04 thing again from the Canada fires. Oh no. Yup. So you you can't win for losing, but I guess you take the gifts you're given. If that's a gift, yes. Well, today is. Today is really beautiful and not hot. And I don't have to have the AC running in my room right now where I'm recording. And that's a good thing because otherwise you would just hear the hum from the air conditioner. 01:34 Right now our air conditioner cannot keep up. Yeah, we had a day like that a couple weeks ago where it was set for 72 and the house got to 78. Yep. It's ridiculous. I think I have it at 70 right now and it's 75. Yeah. I'm not gonna lie. I love spring and I love fall. And if we could just stay, you know, have six months of spring and six months of fall, I would be thrilled. 02:04 I agree with that. So I'm, I'm very much looking forward to September. I just have to get through August to get there. That's all. Yes. Okay. So you're a crafter. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Okay. So I am 29 years old. Um, I taught elementary school for about six years, um, resigned. And then I'm currently going back to school. 02:32 to be a speech pathologist. So about 10 years ago, I picked up my first skull. We own a ranch or partial owners of a ranch. And I painted one and then just put it to the side. probably five years ago, I had someone reach out to me asking me to paint something for a silent auction. 03:00 for a cancer patient. And so for the last five years, I've done that. And then I had so many people reach out after this last silent auction that I decided, let's go out and make it a business. So I'm going to school full time, a stay at home mom of two and starting a business. an artist who's starting a business. Yes. Very nice. 03:30 I have a quick question about your speech pathologist thing. a speech pathologist someone who does speech therapy with people or what did you do or what do you do? Yes, it is for speech therapy. Okay. And is it, I don't know how to ask the right questions about this. Is it for people who have hearing loss? Is it for kids that have tongue ties? How does it work? 03:58 It kind depends on the area you specialize in. Generally, a speech pathologist will work with all sorts of patients. So elderly with hearing loss, children who are born deaf, tongue ties are very common. 04:17 The audiologist side, which is a whole nother degree, are the ones who really work on the hearing. A speech pathologist basically makes it just so they can communicate in everyday life, whether that be AAC, which is assistive devices, or teaching them how to speak. 04:45 Okay, well, as someone who started a podcast almost two years ago and is highly entertained by the way that people talk and how they pronounce things, the minute you said speech pathologists, I was like, ooh, what an interesting job. Okay. So, um, a podcast that's only audio is terrible for, um, talking with crafters because crafters want to show 05:14 the things that they make. But if people would like to see your work, they can go to your Facebook page and I would highly recommend that because the skulls that you paint are beautiful. Oh, thank you very much. I do have an Instagram as well, but it's also wildflowerandboneco. I do post there quite a bit as well. Yeah, the photos that you have posted on both Facebook and Instagram are just stunning. 05:44 I saw the name of your business on Facebook, that's how I found you. And I was like, wow, Flora and Bone, what's that? And I scrolled down and I was like, oh my God, I wanna talk to her. Okay, so what, like I'm terrible about these crafter interviews because I'm not an artist. I used to draw, I used to paint when I was a kid, but I haven't done it in forever. 06:13 What kind of designs do you do? I will honestly do absolutely anything. One of my favorite pieces that I've ever done was for a friend's late grandfather. And it was one

Today I'm talking with Julia at Farm Fresh Wife. 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/lewismarye 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 Julia at Farm Fresh Wife in Pennsylvania. Good afternoon, Julia. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What's the weather like in Pennsylvania? Is it hot? Oh my goodness. It is think around 90 some degrees, but the humidity has been around 95 to 99%. So it is 00:29 kind of gross. I'm so sorry. The good news is it has finally broken here in the upper Midwest in Minnesota. So maybe in a couple of days it'll be bearable in Pennsylvania. Uh, it says next week it's supposed to be around 70, like upper seventies and a little bit of rain hopefully tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to that. I think the whole freaking country is ready for it to not be so hot and sticky. 00:55 Yeah, my kids have been spending more time inside. They go from the pool to the house. That's about it. Yeah. And let's just start this off with congratulations on the newest baby. Well, thank you. 01:09 I saw pictures on your Facebook page and he is adorable. He is really good. I can't complain. All of my kids have been really good sleepers and babies and so far he's been really well behaved for us so I can't complain. You are so lucky. My youngest kid, I birthed three and I have a stepson. My youngest baby that I birthed did not sleep through the night solid until he hit kindergarten. 01:39 Oh my goodness. My little brother was like that. He was the worst baby. And of course, my room was next to my parents' room at the time and he would wake up like every half an hour. So I dreaded that when I wanted to have kids, but I can't say much now. Like I know I'm lucky. Yeah, you really are. And I mean, we're all lucky to be privileged to be moms, but if you get a baby that sleeps through the night, you are very blessed. Absolutely. Okay. So. 02:07 Tell me a little bit about yourself and Farm Fresh Wife. So I am 29. My husband and I have known each other for 13 years. We've been married for five years as of July 11th. We have a farm out in Jonestown, Pennsylvania. We raise beef cows. I have obviously the dairy goats. But actually before I started my business, I worked in healthcare. 02:38 After we had our second child, I was working full-time nights and I just kind of got tired of it. I came home one day and I said, I'm buying Dairy Goats. He goes, do you have a plan? I said, no, not really. I said, but I found two on Craigslist and I'm going to go pick them up next week. He said, okay. Then I started making soap in our garage and I watched a lot of YouTube. I talked to a lot of people. I even took a couple classes. 03:07 That's just kind of how it started. was really just on a whim that I was like, I want to do something for myself. I grew up in a family of business people. My mom used to have a garden center and she does gourd crafts and she's been doing that for 20 some odd years. And my dad has done construction and landscaping for a very long time since he was like 16. So having a business or like 03:36 being business oriented has always kind of been a part of me. I worked for both my parents growing up. So it just, kind of was more appealing to me than having to wake up every day and work for somebody else and leave my kids at home. And, you know, it was kind of like, it turned into like a vicious cycle where everyone was tired and, you know, they needed mom and mom wasn't home. I was working 12 hour shifts. 04:02 And then it was like, hi bye to my husband. You know, we weren't going to bed at the same time or we weren't waking up at the same time because we worked opposite shifts. So it was kind of just like taking a leap. know, at this point I'm three, almost four years into it. And now I'm referred to as like the goat soap lady and I love it. It like, tickles me pink that people actually know who I am and they come looking for me at craft shows and stuff now. And it's actually, it's helped. 04:31 you know, cover a couple extra costs here and there. And I get to be home with my kids and do extra stuff here on the farm too. That is amazing. And the entrepreneurial, that's a hard word to say for anybody, is strong in you because of your parents. And that's great. Um, when you said that you've been making soap for four years, almost everybody I talked to on the podcast makes some 04:59 form of skincare or soap in, you know, whether they do it to sell it or whether they just do it because they like to do it. I'm astounded that Procter and Gamble is still in business. Yeah, I, it was funny though, cause COVID was, you know, that was kind of the turning point. That's when my oldest son was born. And like I said, it was j

Today I'm talking with Jason at Sow The Land. You can follow on Instagram as well. 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/lewismarye 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 Jason at Sow The Land in North Carolina. Good morning, Jason. How are you? Good morning. Doing well. Thank you for having Good. Thank you for being here. I know that you all are very busy people and I really appreciate the fact that you take time to talk with me. How's the weather in North Carolina this morning? 00:29 This morning early this morning. It was very nice Before the Sun comes up, know or right before it's about to come up. It's really nice But like right now we've had a pretty good heat wave here this week You know, I think high of 95 which that's pretty hot for us because I'm we're kind of more in the mountains And humidity is there still 00:55 But other than that, know, it's sunny. We got a little bit of rain, maybe five minutes of rain yesterday, which we needed. But other than that, it hasn't rained here in a good week or two. Okay. Well, I'm in Minnesota and it's been very hot here and we've gotten over five inches of rain in the last four days. Which I mean, it's better than last year because last year it was a drought by now. We had hardly any rain. Yes. 01:23 That was us too, I believe. Yes, that was us too. We had quite a bit of rain in the beginning of this summer, which was nice. I think that was kind of like normal. But yeah, I remember last year we had a good drought. Yeah, and the thing is the rain has been fabulous for our over 250 tomato plants. I just ate the first tomato yesterday and they are so sweet. They are fantastic. Yeah, nice. But... 01:48 but all the off and on rain pretty much did in our cucumbers and we have no viable cucumber plants this year. I'm so sad. Oh man, I know. Yeah, it's always sad times. So I begged my husband the next time he's at the farmer's market, because we sell our stuff at the farmer's market. I said, next time you're there, trade tomatoes for cucumbers, please. And he said he would. So we're good. And it is the first day in 02:15 Oh, a week or so that it hasn't been sweaty, sticky hot at 5 a.m. So I'm counting my blessings. Yeah, that's wonderful. It really is. I record in my upstairs bedroom and I can't have the air conditioner on when I'm recording because you would hear the hum. Oh, yeah. And the last few interviews I've done, I've been like, oh my God, it's so hot upstairs without the AC. So thankful that it's cooled down finally, because it's been gross. 02:45 Yeah. Okay. So tell me about yourself and about Sow The Land. Yeah. So we have a homestead farm in Western North Carolina. We as in me, my wife and my daughter, she's now a We've been doing this since 2016. We first started when we first moved out in North Carolina, we started at one and a half acres and then 03:15 lived there for six years and now we're on 14, which we've been here about three years now and where we grow a lot of our food, not all of it, but you know, currently we have a 72 foot high tunnel that we grow in plus a 1200 square foot outside garden and then some raised beds. We also have raised pigs, cooney cooney pigs, which 03:45 If you're not familiar with them, they are probably the cutest pigs that you'll ever see. And they're very easy going. If you're new to pigs, they're a great pig to start off with. And they're very gentle on the land. hear they're sort of friendly too. Oh, they are. You could train these pigs easily to follow you around. You know, we butcher them for meat. I mean, that's a little hard because they are cute. 04:15 You know, but we breed them here too. And we've had them since we lived here. So I guess in three years, we have a breeder pair and we breed them. then we also had two, we raised two steers here. do, geez, this year, think we've almost 300 meat chickens this year that we're raising. 04:43 You know, we have 40 egg layers and we move everybody around on pasture, in the woods, constantly moving these little pig and chicken structures everywhere. And we also have our own YouTube channel and the whole time while doing all of this, we film what we're doing. it's kind of been, you know, as we're learning this lifestyle, 05:13 kind of sharing what we're learning and just documenting that for folks who want to watch what we're doing. Well, good on you because trying to video the things that you're doing takes time and patience and skill. So I'm really proud of you for sharing it. It definitely does. It's a whole other aspect that some people, know, when you're watching us doing something, you kind of don't realize that that's what we're You know, and it's just so, you know, 05:42 Editing v

Today I'm talking with Deborah Niemann at the Thrifty Homesteader. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Debra Neimann at the Thrifty Homesteader in Illinois. Good mor- well, it's noon. Good day, Debra. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me. Ah, thank you for being here. Um, what's the weather like in Illinois today? Insanely hot. 00:26 Um, we actually have this really horrendous thing called evapotranspiration. Um, Illinois is actually more humid this time of year than the Gulf coast because of corn sweat. Um, all of these billions of acres of corn and soybean are drying out in the fields, releasing their moisture into the air. So, um, we have a heat advisory today, even though it's only like, um, only supposed to be 90 degrees. 00:55 But the heat index gets dangerously high because of the high humidity. Yeah, we're here in Minnesota, where we live, around my house. It's all corn fields and there's a soybean field across the road from us. And I can remember my dad and my mom mentioning corn sweat when I was a kid and being like, that's gross. I don't want to know about that. That sounds terrible. 01:22 Yeah, I swear to you it is hotter on our property than it is in town, which is four and a half miles away when it's like this because of that trans evaporation or whatever it's called. Yeah. Evapotranspiration. Yep. Crazy. Yep. But it's summer in the Midwest. So there you go. Yep. It's pretty brutal. Yeah. Somebody told me that 01:49 When I moved to Minnesota, they were like, oh, you live in the Midwest now. And I thought, you know, I don't think Minnesota is Midwest. And I had to look it up and it's upper Midwest. So I learned something because somebody was like, oh, you're a Midwestern or now you're a flatlander. I was like, um, okay. Cause I grew up in Maine. Oh yeah. And my dad called people in, in the Midwest flatlanders. 02:17 and goat ropers. And I was like, you know, that seems really mean. I don't think that you should call people names who live in other states just because you're so in love with yours. And my mom would laugh and say, he's right. It is pretty flat in Illinois. I'm like, oh, okay. All right. Well, the weather here is not as miserable as it was yesterday, but not as lovely as it's going to be tomorrow. 02:44 Nice. Hopefully you're sending in the nicer weather our way. Supposedly it's going to cool down toward the end of the week, but I'm not sure I trust it just yet. Yeah. Cause you know, weather, who knows what it's going to do. Exactly. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, uh, we moved to the country in 2002 to grow our own food organically because 03:14 I wanted my family to eat healthier and get natural exercise. When I was growing up, I ate lots of fast food and convenience food and I was sick all the time. And when I got pregnant the first time was when I learned about the connection between your diet and your health. And that was such a wildly revolutionary idea to me. Like, oh my gosh, so like, if my kids have a healthier diet, maybe they won't be sick all the time like I was. 03:43 And so that was where it started, you know, and we were originally shopping at health food stores all the time, spending a lot of food on money because I had started reading labels. And finally, in the early 2000s, we started looking for a place in the country because I realized the only way I was going to be able to get the kind of food I really wanted to feed my family was for us to grow it ourselves. And so we did. 04:09 Um, we ultimately found 32 acres on a Creek in the middle of nowhere, about a hundred miles Southwest of Chicago. Um, I always say we're an hour from everything. Um, but anyway, we started, we were so clueless. I had this crazy idea that people have been growing their foods since the dawn of agriculture. So how hard could it be? Right. Um, cause everybody would ask me like, Oh, did you grow up on a farm? And I say, no. 04:38 And they're like, well, how do you know what to do? And I was like, oh, it's not that hard. Like, I seriously thought you just plant some seeds in the ground, come back a few months later and harvest dinner and that any mammal, every mammal lactates and they're all just gonna let you stand there and take their milk. it was so unbelievably naive when we got started. 05:04 Okay, so I don't want people to think that it's extremely hard to do this though, because it's not. But you do need to do a little bit of learning and research and hopefully make a friend with a farmer who can tell you the secrets. Yeah, and read books and stuff. I was very ada

Today I'm talking with Deb at the MeanderingCottage Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Deb at Meandering Cottage Homestead in Michigan. Good morning, Deb. How are you? I am fantastic. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Michigan? It is entirely too warm and very muggy. Same in Minnesota. 00:28 literally under a heat warning, excessive heat warning for the whole day today. Yeah, you know, you live in a northern state, you don't expect it to get this hot. This is just not right. 00:42 You would think that it would not happen, but global warming apparently is an actual thing, climate change. So we're experiencing that. guess that's what it is. My dad says that there are seasons and cycles to weather, and he's not sure that we're actually suffering through anything new or different. It's just the seasons and cycles. But I have no idea because I am not a climate scientist. 01:10 Tell me about yourself and about Meandering Cottage Homestead. Well, geez, I don't really know where to start. My parents moved up to Northern Michigan from like the Ann Arbor area when I was 14 years old. And I watched them build their own house. They saw their own lumber and everything off their property. 01:38 built their homestead from nothing. And I was so intrigued and impressed and just all the things with that. yeah, it just kind of happened from there. I mean, after I graduated, I thought maybe I might want to go back to the city. So I went back to Ypsilanti. That lasted about, I don't know, maybe six months. And I came back home. 02:07 I just, didn't want to be in the city anymore and here we are. Okay. Why is it called meandering a cottage? Well, the little house that I have, it's a, I'm sorry, my cat wants to play right this moment. It's the little house that I got. It's, it reminds me of a little cottage. I used to go camping and, 02:35 do little cabins and things like that with my parents when I was younger, the whole family did it. And I don't know, I just thought it was always so neat being in a small little space just always felt so comfortable and cozy. And I also like the idea of like little paths around your property. You just have all these cool little nooks and 03:01 just neat little places tucked away and out of the way places on your property. I thought, you know, meandering cottage just sounds like where I want to be. I love that. And I know exactly what you're talking about. When I was growing up in Maine, people had homes on lakes and here in Minnesota, it's a big deal to go up to the cabin up north. And a lot of those. 03:28 going up to the cabin spaces are actually big homes. They're not cabins. And when I was growing up, these were actually little lake cabins and it felt like being in a dollhouse. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of, I mean, I decorated my place. It's, it's, um, you know, it's not your typical little cabin looking place. I don't know. just. 03:56 In my mind, I just wanted something that was very, I like being hugged when I come home. So, you know, I just, I guess I wanted to do that and make that the vibe. 04:11 Very nice. I'm thrilled that you are embracing the cozy theme because cozy is so nice. And especially on a day like today when it's so hot, our house feels, our house is pretty big. It's over 1400 square feet on the inside, but it's warm and it's welcoming and it's cozy and it's comfortable. as long as I don't actually go outside, I can pretend that it's not 150,000 degrees outside. 04:39 Oh, absolutely. Watch a Christmas movie. Yeah, I made them. I made tortellini salad yesterday because I knew it was going to be super hot today. tortellini salad is basically a cold pasta salad. And it is waiting for me at about 11 o'clock this morning to dive into. I'm a little bit jealous. 05:02 It's super easy to make and that's part of reason I make it. takes like the time it takes to boil the water, cook the tortellinis and then, can't talk, slice up an onion and of sweet bell pepper and dump a can of quartered artichoke hearts in it and some zesty Italian dressing, some balsamic vinegar and whatever seasonings you like to put in your cold salads. That's pretty much it. Oh yeah, that's easy peasy, isn't it? 05:32 Yup. I, when I was making it, I was like, it's hot today. I don't want to be cooking today either. This was yesterday. I thought, I thought when I went to bed last night, I thought I'm going to be so grateful that I did it today, which was yesterday instead of this morning when it's already hot outside. So, Oh yeah. Yeah. It hit 71 here by, geez, I think it was seven o'clock this morning. It was a

Today I'm talking with Adrienne at Stonehedge Farm Produce. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Adrienne at Stonehedge Farm and her three little kittens in the background. Good morning, Adrienne. How are you? I'm doing just fine. Awesome. You're in Kentucky? I am. Okay. How's the weather? Hot and humid. Here too in Minnesota. It is disgusting. Yeah. 00:29 Yep. You walk outside and immediately start sweating. Yeah. And, uh, I got a double whammy going on because our corn is, is tasseling and putting out the silk on the ears. So I have an allergy to that. And so I am just a disaster this morning. My head hurts. My head hurts. My nose is stuffed up. like, Oh, I'm going to sound amazing on the podcast. It's going to be great. Okay. So tell me about what you do at Stonehedge farm. 00:58 Well, in a nutshell, we raise vegetables. Nice. What do you raise? A little bit of everything. start our markets generally in April with like lettuces and green onions and spring turnips and radishes and peas and that sort of thing. And then we continue through the summer with squashes and eggplant and peppers. And that's where we are now. And then we pick up the 01:26 winter squashes like the acorn and butternut and spaghetti squash. do them a little earlier in the season because they're so good as a cold soup or on the grill and so I like to have them available in the summer. yeah, absolutely. So why is it called Stonehedge Farm? 01:50 My late father-in-law named it because it is bordered on three sides by the old stone fences. Nice. So it is a play on Stonehenge, but it's Stonehedge. Yes. Great. It sure is. So this is a family farm? My late 02:13 in-laws bought it in the mid-90s. So it's been, you know, it's been in my husband's family since then. But, 02:24 So it's not really a family farm. I do come from family farming though. Okay, tell me about that. My mom married my stepdad when I was six. My stepdad's dream was to be a cattle and tobacco farmer. So at six years old, I was plopped on a tobacco setter and taught how to set tobacco. And I was tied to more calves than I can remember. 02:54 you know, taming them to be able to be walked on lead. And grew up with a huge vegetable garden and then tobacco went out of fashion. So my dad took the tobacco buyout and we started raising vegetables together. 03:14 Awesome. So you're a country girl. Yes, I am. I am an old farm girl. Nice. OK. So do you grow your produce just for you or do you sell it at farmers markets or to restaurants? We sell directly to some restaurants. And then our main outlet is the Lexington Farmers Market in Lexington, Kentucky. 03:40 We sell there four of the five days of the week that it's open. The guys, know, some of my employees do the weekday markets and instead of paying them by the hour or, you know, per market, you know, a lump sum fee, they get half of the sales because I feel like that incentivizes staying on your feet and engaging with potential customers and, you know, the more 04:09 The more the farm makes, the more they make. So. I think that's more than reasonable. That's a great marketing plan. Yep. And it seems to work. But and then with our leftover vegetables, we have a table at our farm gate that we call the pay what you can table. 04:33 There's a little drop box there you come and you get you know, you get your peppers in your eggplant and or your bag of lettuce or whatever and then you drop whatever your budget allows in to the cash box and then that gets that gets given to the crew Fantastic. So you're helping the community and the crew gets paid. Yep Love that. That's great. So I have a question about 05:02 the produce that you sell to restaurants. I don't know what the regulations are here in Minnesota, so maybe I'll look it up later because we don't do that with our stuff. Are there certain things you have to do to sell to restaurants? Not really. Be eye-catching. That's about all I can come up with is to catch the chef's eye because the chefs come to the farmers market. 05:32 I have some chefs that have been buying from me for years, you know, through multiple restaurants or through beginning as, you know, as a, as a line cook coming along with the head chef to now they're the head chef, but there's really no state or local regulations. It's good to have your produce safety. 06:03 your FSMA training done, but it is not a requirement. 06:11 Okay, I still have to look into what they are here because we're gonna have metric but tons of tomatoes coming in in about two weeks. My husband planted over 250 tomato plants this year. That's a lot of tomatoes. Uh-huh, an

Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt. She's running me through a sample coaching session. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to attend Dawn's webinar mentioned in the episode, click this link, Homesteading Masterclass. 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 Dawn at Dawn's Dirt in Alberta, Canada? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I couldn't remember. I've talked to a few people and I'm like, oh no, I'm going to screw it up again. Dawn is going to run me through a basic coaching session because that's what Dawn does. Dawn coaches people on how to start. 00:28 farms or homesteads or something where you grow things. So go ahead Dawn, let's do this. Now I feel a little nervous actually. just act like I know nothing. Well, but that's not the truth though. You've got a homestead going there and I think it's a pretty good one. 00:50 I guess what I do with my clients, first I jump on a jumpstart call just to get a feel for who they are and what their goals are. So I guess that would be my first question is what are your goals with your homestead? To keep it. 01:05 Okay. What are the blocks and barriers from you keeping it? We need to figure out a way to have better systems. Like my husband started growing a garden four summers ago and it's a hundred by 150 feet now. And he started out growing all the things. And as we've gotten further along, he's now whittling it down to the things that sell like tomatoes and cucumbers and cabbage. 01:35 And so I think that was a smart thing to do, but do you think that's a smart thing to do? I absolutely think that that's a smart thing to do. So when I had my farm, I was a farmer for many years. I had a 36,000 square foot greenhouse and I did 20 acres of garden and people would ask me what I don't grow. And there was a handful of things that I didn't grow. So I didn't grow asparagus because I just didn't get it established. I just never went down the asparagus route. I didn't grow, um, 02:04 Peas didn't really grow on my farm very well. And so I stopped growing them because they didn't produce very well and they just weren't effective. I didn't grow garlic because again, garlic, I just never got it figured out. And ironically enough, I didn't grow carrots and people go, why wouldn't you grow carrots? Like they're one of the biggest sellers. And the reason I didn't grow carrots is they didn't grow super well and they were super labor intensive. And so by the time I... 02:32 planted them and weeded them and harvested them and packaged them. It just took so much time that it didn't really pencil out very well and it wasn't one of my high, it was a high cost item for low net margins. Like I didn't make as much money on it so on them so I just quit growing them. So I think that's super smart that you're gonna grow the things that sell the best. 02:59 and grow the best and are easiest for your customers. good. So we've got that knocked, I think. And you'll be happy to know that since we last talked, all, well, over 250 tomato plants are still growing and they are loaded with green tomatoes right now. So we should have, but tons of tomatoes in August. I love it. 03:26 How many leaves do you have on your plants right now? Are they full of leaves and green tomatoes or are they full of just green tomatoes and a few leaves? Probably right in between the two. My husband's been pruning them and tying them up. Okay, perfect. Yeah, because that's how I got more production out of my tomato plants is I actually pruned them. And so I took all the suckers and shoots off and then I stressed my plants out. had a client a couple years ago, she said, 03:55 Dawn, my tomatoes are all green and the plants look big and beautiful and healthy, but these tomatoes are green. I've got some flowers, but I'm not getting red tomatoes. And I said, that's because your plants aren't stressed out enough. And so if your husband goes through and kind of takes off a lot of the bottom leaves, opens up the green tomatoes to the sunshine, you're going to get more production. It's going to stress your plant out a little bit. And a stressed out plant is going to want to produce a seed and a seed is a red tomato. And so 04:22 When I had my farm, and again, I was in perfect growing conditions. So perfect watering, perfect temperature, perfect sunlight, perfect, perfect, perfect everything because I was in an enclosed space. But you can still take the principles and move them outside to your garden. I only had 12 to 15 leaves on my plant at any given point. And so I don't think you should go that 04:51 far into stressing your plant out, but I do think, yeah, it's not going to hurt to take