A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Tim at Guldan Family Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Tim at I think it's Guldan Family Farm, but I could be pronouncing it wrong, and he's in Newall, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Tim. How are you? Good afternoon. It's pretty close. We say golden like the golden color, but you know what? We don't know for sure. So as long as it's close to the term, hey you, I answer to it. And it's too and well. 01:23 Yeah, you must be a dad. You must get hey you. I've been a hey you for a long time. Between there was a day at the farmers market a few years ago my wife was actually saying Tim, Tim and then it went to Mr. Golden, Mr. Golden because I was a teacher at the time and then finally she said hey you and I noticed and turned around and I said what do you need? It was a it's a joke that doesn't die anymore. 01:45 Oh, I know. mean, I've had four kids and if they can't get my attention, they're like, hey, and if that doesn't work, say, hey, you. And I turn around and like, why are you being rude? So yeah. I always ask about the weather at the beginning of the episodes, but I don't really need to ask because you're in New Ulm, which is not far from me. And Minnesota is having the first most glorious spring day we've had since last spring. 02:12 It is looking finally like it's here. We had a couple of tease days earlier on, but yeah, today I'm sitting at a beautiful 77 and sunny on a nice calm, maybe two mile an hour breeze day. So I have no complaints in my end. My husband's been outside almost all day and he just put out the open farm fresh eggs farm stand farm stand signs about half an hour ago. Oh, Yep. 02:38 We're very excited. This is the earliest we've had the farm stand open and we've had the farm stand for this is the third year. So this is great. We have we have bedding plants for sale this year. And this is probably the first year since we moved here four and a half years ago that we're going to have asparagus for sale before the farmers market opens. Very nice. Always a happy good day when you have asparagus. Oh my God. This is 03:07 This is the summer we have been waiting for. moved here in August of 2020. And with grand plans to have a farm to market garden and do all the things. And what we didn't take into account is that when you start from scratch, you have to build infrastructure. So that's what the last three years have been spent on. Yeah, there's that minor detail. So this is the summer that we have been. 03:33 working toward for three and a half years. We're so excited. Okay, so this podcast is not about me, but I just had to get that out or a joke on it. Tell me about yourself and what you guys do at your farm. Well, my name is Tim Golden and I'm, we, I am now the proud owner operator of Golden Family Farm. I'm actually the second generation running the vegetable version of this farm. Although the farm itself, excuse me, has been the family since the Homestead Act one way or another. 04:02 And so we're pushing close to 170 years in the family. And as it sits now, I'm operating 25 acres of fruits and vegetables. Very nice. Do you have the, I don't know what it's called. It's a thing they give you when you buy a home that lists the original plot and who signed the paperwork for it. Do you have that for your place? I have, I believe it's. 04:28 I don't know if you'd say it's original, if it's reproduction, but it is a certificate, you know, that has the President of the time, President Buchanan's signature on it, dedi

Today I'm talking with Raquel at Higher Calling Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Raquel at Higher Calling Homestead. Good afternoon, Raquel. How are you? Hey, how are you today? I'm good. It's gray and cloudy and rainy here and I'm kind of in that very mellow, I could take a nap, but I can't take a nap space. 01:24 I gotcha. It's the opposite here. It's warm and sunny. We were supposed to have storms today, but it turned out to be a beautiful day so far. So I love you. I'm looking forward to the first really moderate, beautiful spring day. I can understand that. Yeah, we've just started getting there. Really, really nice winds here in Tennessee within the last couple of weeks. It's heating up quick. I'm like, okay, it's not summer yet. So what's going on? 01:51 Mother nature is absolutely insane and has been for about two and a half years now. That's what's going on. I'd have to agree. Okay. So you have a homestead, but you also have a rabbit tree. And usually I say, tell me about yourself and what you do, but I'm just going to dive in with my questions about rabbits because we tried a couple of years ago to raise rabbits for meat and we failed miserably. So. 02:20 If I tell you what we did, can you tell me maybe an idea of where we went wrong? Yeah, I can definitely pray to help. I do want to preface this by saying that I started our rabbitry with the intention of doing the meat rabbits. We started back in, you know, like COVID times. And that was the intention and do like chickens and rabbits for me because the world was shutting down. was like, want to become more self-sufficient just in case this happens. And I quickly realized 02:49 that I loved raising rabbits, but I was not one of the people that was going to be able to do it for me. Yeah. I, number one, I couldn't be part of the butchering. I flat out told my husband and my son, said, if we do this, I am, I am more than happy to help take care of them. I am more than happy to cook the meat once it's just meat. But I, but when you bring that rabbit to me, when it's dead, has to be footless, tailless. 03:18 headless, skinless, because I'm going to fall in love with these things and it's going to kill me. It's hard, you know? it's like if I was in a position to have to feed my family, I definitely, definitely would be able to do it, but I'm not there. And I find it fascinating for people that can do that. And I follow some pages, you know, and I've watched the process and everything, and it's not like I shy away from seeing it, but it's just not for me. And I use the rabbits, you know, 03:47 I use their manure for our gardens and I love them. They have a great life and I raise them for pets, but just the meat rabbit thing ended up not being my thing. Yeah. And like I am just terrible about killing animals. I, I will stomp on a bug faster than you can say my name, but if it's fuzzy, I can't do it. It doesn't matter what the reason is. I can't do it. 04:14 I can see that. what ended up happening with your rabbitry? Like where did you think you went wrong with it? Well, we thought we were being smart. We got, we got two does and a buck proven buck. One of the does was proven. One of them was a new doe and we bought them from people who were raising rabbits had had good luck with their rabbits and brought them home and put them in the right size touches and gave them rabbit food. I can't remember what it was now, but you know, 04:43 whatever it was that they needed, they got. the lady that

Today I'm talking with Brandy at Shades of Green Permaculture. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Brandy Hall at Shades of Green Permaculture. Good morning, Brandy. How are you? I'm good. Are you in Georgia? Yeah, I'm in the Atlanta area. Okay. And is Shades of Green Permaculture based there? Yes, ma'am. We are based in the side of Atlanta. 01:24 in the metro area indicator, which is to reduce the sun. Okay, cool. Is it nice there this morning? Oh, it's gorgeous. We had a nice rain and now the sun is shining. It's about 70 degrees. Thank goodness. Cause we had a bout of like 95 degree weather in the beginning of April. So I was excited about summer coming early. Yeah, that's a little much for April. And we had a really warm day in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago and I was like, this is so wrong. 01:54 Yeah, there's something, it's like a cognitive dissonance because on one hand you're like, this feels so nice, the sun, and then you're like, wait, but it's too early. Exactly. And for the second morning in a row, we've got rain showers happening here. yeah, I'm just hoping that this remains a pattern of just a day or two of a light rain showers and then three or four days of sunshine. Cause I can't face another spring like last year where we got six weeks of rain in a row. Oh my goodness. 02:24 Yeah. And there comes a point where it's like, if you have the rain and then you've got the intermittent sun, the plants just love it so much versus just getting sun. Yeah. I really wondered if I had teleported to Washington state or Oregon last May and June, because I swear to you, I thought everything was going to mold. It was terrible. So tell me about yourself and Shades of Green permaculture. So my name's Brandy Hall and I'm the founder and CEO of Shades of Green. 02:54 firmaculture. I started the company in 2008. So we just celebrated our 17 year anniversary and we are a regenerative design, installation, maintenance and education firm based here in the Atlanta area. offer processes for our clients going everything from consultation through design and implementation and ongoing maintenance services, both 03:23 horticulture services like bed maintenance and perennial plantings and organic all-electric solar powered lawn care. Really encouraging people to move toward polyculture lawns. And then we also offer digital education. So we've got a few thousand students located around the country and some international students that participate in our online design program called the regenerative backyard blueprint. 03:53 Okay, so I have a few questions for you. Number one, how did you get into this? What prompted you to start this business? I think there were a few things, know, some like early childhood experiences definitely set the course for me on this. And then, you know, when I started the company, I was looking for work in this arena. 04:19 And there wasn't anything available. So I sort of just started my own thing so that I could do what I loved to do. But as a child, I grew up part-time in South Florida and part-time in Western North Carolina. My parents divorced when I was really young. And my mom and my stepdad had a nursery in South Florida, an ornamental plant nursery and a seed farm. And over the course of 04:45 maybe 10 years or so in the nursery business, they became really, really allergic to and chemically sensitive to the kind of quote unquote, innocuous pesticides and pesticides that were spraying on the farm to the point where my stepdad was in a

Today I'm talking with Tamber at The Giving Garden Farm Stand. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Tamber at the Giving Garden Farm stand. Good morning, Tamber. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Colorado? You're going to be surprised. It's actually quite sunny today. So we're very excited for this nice weather. 01:23 Yeah, is Colorado rainy? I don't know anything about Colorado. Yesterday we woke up to a complete fog storm and it was misty and nasty out. So you just never know what it's going to be. It's super bipolar. Okay. All right. Well, Minnesota's been a little bipolar lately too, as we were saying before I hit record. It's not raining right now, but we had a thunderstorm roll through around 7, 7.30. 01:51 and it's supposed to clear out and get hot and then we're supposed to have really nasty storms later today. So I'm like, okay. Bracing yourself. I'm just keeping everything crossed that it doesn't do anything bad because our high tunnel is full of seedlings, our greenhouse is full of plants, and my husband actually planted cabbage and lettuces and stuff this weekend in the garden. 02:17 Keep everything you got crossed so we don't get hail because that will ruin what's in the garden. We got a little hail storm this last week as well. We got about, I would say, eight minutes of pea-sized hail. it's unfortunate, you know, to watch it come through. It always makes your heart sink a little bit, especially growing up on the farm. But hopefully our first cutting of hay will bounce back and we'll see what the good Lord does for us. 02:44 Yeah, exactly. You just never know. And I said to my husband after he planted the stuff on, I think it was Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I said, did you happen to notice that we have rough weather coming in on Monday? And he was like, no. Yeah, we do. And he said, well, they're all little tiny plants. Maybe they'll be able to be in between the hail. I'm like, okay, we'll go with that. 03:11 Well, hope for the best. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do at the Giving Garden Farm Stand. Yeah. So my name is Tambor, as we already went over. My family and I run the Giving Garden Farm Stand, and we just recently opened. So in our little 7 by 7, 10 shed that we bought off of Facebook and revamped, you can find our Fresh Farm Eggs. 03:39 You can find always a bread product, whether it be a flat bread, a sourdough loaf, a regular loaf of bread, bread crumbs, something like that. And then always something to satisfy the sweet tooth. So this morning I made fresh raspberry crumble bars and they are to die for. I hate to do my own harm, but they're really good. I do too, it's fine. Yeah. This weekend we did a lot of cookies and that went very well too. So. 04:09 Just testing it out, seeing what people are liking, and that's been a lot of fun, meeting people, hearing what they like as well. And then alongside with all that, I always have my canning items. So I do some food preservation and have my pickled vegetables and pickles out there along with some fresh jams. We have actually quite a big variety of those. 04:35 It seems to all be going well. There's a lot of interest and it's been a lot of fun. Okay. I want to know how you came to do this, but first I want to know about the, we call them cottage food laws here in Minnesota. Is that what they're called in Colorado? Yes, that is correct. So what's, what are your parameters for that? So the biggest one tha

Today I'm talking with Michelle at Wild Ones Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Michelle at Wild Ones Homestead and Michelle is in Wisconsin. Good afternoon, Michelle. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Has the sun come out there yet? A little bit. We had thunderstorms earlier, but the sun peaked out and I was able to clean up some of my garden beds with the kiddos, which was nice. They don't have school today, so. Uh-huh. 01:25 Yeah, the sun just came out maybe 45 minutes ago here in Minnesota where I live. And I didn't think my husband had any time off because of Easter. And he texted when I was doing an interview at 10 o'clock this morning and it said, I'll I'll be home. I'll be leaving at noon. And I was like, Oh no, did you get fired? And, and I said, Oh, question mark. And went on to do other stuff. And he texted me back and he was like, it's good Friday. 01:54 the company closes at noon. was like, Oh, okay. So of course I was busy with stuff, not thinking and didn't tell him I had an interview at one. And he got home and he was like, so do you want to do lunch or you just want to wait till dinner? And I said, I have an interview at one. He was like, Oh yeah, no, we're not doing food right now. said, no, I mean you can make food, but I can't, I can't eat right now. So, so big surprises around here today after 10 30 in the morning. That was very weird. Um, 02:23 Okay. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Wild Wands Homestead. Oh gosh. It might be more of a question of what don't we do. But so we have, it's about 63 acres here and we raise beef cows. I actually just started milking one of them. They're Angus Holstein Cross. So they do have a little bit of that dairy genetics in them. And I really wanted to attempt to milk a cow. I'm actually not. 02:52 a cow person. My background is in horses. But it's like, we have cows here. We have bred them to have babies. Why would I not milk the cow? Like this? Well, yes. So my husband thought I was crazy. He grew up with cows and he worked on dairy farms a lot when he was younger. But he was like, you're nuts. That cow's never going to let you milk her. And ha ha. 03:16 I actually got almost a full gallon today and her calf has 24 seven access to her and I'm doing it loose in the pasture, which is really fun. But so on top of the cows, we also raise chickens, which I always joke that I have a chicken retirement farm because we have about 50 chickens, but probably 20 of them are really old hens that are pushing 10 and don't even really lay anymore, but I get attached. they just kind of out. 03:44 We do multiple gardens. We do a really big garden where we plant like corn and hot peppers and potatoes and melons and squashes and anything that we want on term. We actually did two years ago, we had so much corn. We had a bunch of friends come over and help us process it all. And we had enough corn for us and three other families to last two years. So we do a lot of corn. 04:13 And then I've got my smaller like potage style garden behind the house where I've got, you know, like my tomatoes and my garlic is my favorite thing to grow. And, you know, asparagus and strawberries and zucchini and my herbs, the things I like closer. We planted an orchard a couple years ago, but those trees are not big enough to start producing yet. We collect maple syrup and I turn a lot of that into sugar. So I almost exclusively use maple sugar in my baking. 04:43 Um, what else do we do? We forage and we lov

Today I'm talking with Sofia at Still Farms VA. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Sofia at Still Farms VA, which I assume stands for Virginia. Is that right, Sofia? That's right. All right. Where are you in Virginia? I am in Wakefield, Virginia. It's this itty bitty town right between Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia Beach area. 01:23 Okay, awesome. I can find you on a map now. That's good. How's the weather there? Beautiful, sunny, 80s, lovely. I'm so happy. Oh my god, it is gray and it's actually muggy here. I think it's 69 degrees in Minnesota right now. Yeah, no, we are finally with the sun out and my seasonal depression has lifted and it is lovely. 01:48 It is spring and you, I assume, grow things. So you have to be beside yourself. I do. I try to grow things more than I actually grow things. But yeah, we are very happy to have the sun out again. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and what you guys do at Still Farms Virginia. Sure. So I am very new to homesteading, farming, agriculture, any of this sort of life. I grew up in Boston. 02:17 I was actually a makeup artist for most of my life. I wore red bottom shoes and that's all that mattered to me. And then COVID happened and I was bored and I tried to think of a hobby and I went to Home Depot and I bought some tomato plants and killed them. And I bought one bean plant and realized that I couldn't feed my family off of one bean plant and became addicted. So we started doing a small garden when I was living in Norfolk at the time. 02:44 We started doing a small garden and year after year, I really started to just love the connection to the earth, connection to my food, learning how broken our food system is, trying to make small changes in my life that I can feel really good about inspiring the people around me. Then about, just about a year and a half ago, my husband and I decided to take the plunge. sold our business and we bought 11 acres here and have slowly been trying to 03:14 grow food and become the people, do the things that the people we want to be do. So we've got some chickens, we just got some dairy goats, we've got some livestock dogs and we're building high tunnels and greenhouses and really trying to do the thing. That sounds very familiar except we have three acres not 11. And my husband and son just, I hesitate to say the word 03:41 finished our high tunnel because the door needs to be hung. Okay. other than the door being hung correctly because the hinges that we had were too flimsy and they bent. as soon as he gets the correct hinges, it will be finished this weekend. Well, you're a little more ahead than me. I've still got to the whole top on. we're waiting for a not windy day to be able to tackle that project. We get horrible wind here. 04:07 I understand they had to wait two weeks to get the plastic on because every time they were ready to go out and do it, the wind was picking up. Yeah. And like I said, I hesitated to say the word finished because God only knows if it's actually finished. He might have another idea for it. That's what I'm learning. Things are never finished. They're just, you hit one stepping stone and then you get to the next one. Yes. And you're not alone, Sophia. Does that make you feel better? It does. It makes me feel so much better. Good. 04:37 Good. It's so funny because I mean, I've been talking to people for over a year and a half in the homesteading realm and the song or the tune is the same, but the words are different because not everybody's doing the same things, but they're de

Today I'm talking with Gregg at Wisconsin Mineral Solutions. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I needed something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Greg Forster at Wisconsin Mineral Solutions and he's in Wisconsin. Good morning, Greg. How are you? Good morning. How about you, Mary? I'm good. I am your neighbor in Minnesota and the weather here is relatively warm for April and sunny. What is it like in Wisconsin this morning? Right, about 37 degrees and bright and sunny. 01:26 Mm-hmm. Yeah, we're moving slowly incrementally towards spring. I'm very excited about this and I'm sure you are too. Yes. So tell me about yourself and what you do because I know that you are a genius. Yeah, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder so is genius. Oh, yeah. Well, over here in Wisconsin I have 01:55 on a 19 acre hobby farm, Homestead, where we've got probably about 30 baby goats born this spring. So that's, that's exciting. And most of those are twins, I guess. Yeah, twins and a fair number of triplets born this year. So that's always fun. And kind of kicks off the spring season with a lot of excitement here around the Homestead. 02:24 And, um, well, we raise quite a, I guess you could say kind of like a rainbow of fruits and vegetables here. We've got, um, a couple of acres actually of elderberries, and then we grow Aronia and blackcurrant and some red, white and pink currants. And have a small greenhouse that, um, helps us kind of keep things going a little later into the season and also a little bit early. 02:53 So yeah, home setting has been good. We've been working with Dairy Goats for about 30 years now and learning a lot. And my personal background is I have a degree in physics and I utilized that for about 20 years in the world of software engineering and it wasn't until 03:21 2012 that I turned that education towards the world of agriculture. And now I have a business called Wisconsin Mineral Solutions, as you mentioned. And I help produce growers and dairy farmers more profitably produce and more sustainably produce nutritious foods. Okay. And that's where the genius part comes in. 03:46 I listened to your podcast with Jill Winger today. I think her podcast is amazing. Like I want to be Jill Winger when I grow up and I'm trying really hard to grow up fast because that would be great. Yeah, she does. Awesome. She's great. She's a lovely human being. But what I found really interesting is all the science behind the making soil work better for you to grow better plants. And 04:13 So did you go back to school to learn this stuff or what, how did that happen? Well, I did not go back to school. Um, but a lot of the principles that I've been learning and research that I've come across, um, my physics background kind of helps evaluate that and understand more how it, when the rubber hits the road, what's actually happening down there in the soil and then what's happening in the plants themselves. And 04:42 I've encountered quite a few really, really knowledgeable people over the last decade or so that have been instrumental in my learning and growing. And then of course, there are plenty of good opportunities like Acres USA and the Moses Conference and La Crosse, not too far from here. So yeah, there are lots of ways to increase your knowledge and become more proficient in 05:12 your understanding of how the natural environment works. Okay. I think that you suffer from the same thing that my dad and I suffer from. My dad calls it got to know it is because for you to learn all of that stuff on your own, to be self-

Today I'm talking with Joy at Harvest Of Joy Homestead. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Joy at Harvest of Joy Homestead. Good morning, Joy. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. You said you're in Mississippi when we were talking before I hit record. So what's the weather like there today? It's very cold today. Really? Yes. 01:23 Like how cold? Because like I said, I'm in Minnesota. I know what cold is. See, we don't really know what cold is. Like y'all, it's like 60 here. So it's cold to us. Oh, you would not be enjoying this morning. I don't think it's freezing yet. I think we're still below freezing here. Oh, wow. Yeah, we don't know what cold is here. Yeah, I absolutely know what cold is here. 01:48 People assume that I don't know what really hot is, but I can tell you from first-hand experience, two summers ago, we had a day that hit 101 degrees and the humidity was at the tropical level. So I do understand heat too. Yeah. we can be anywhere from minus 30 real temperature in January to 101 and tropical humidity in July. So. Wow. That's insane. 02:18 It kind of is. That's why we all have lots of clothes here. We have, I don't do this. My mom lives in Maine. I grew up in Maine and it's cold there too in the winter. She actually has summer clothes and winter clothes and she packs away the summer clothes in November and she pulls out the winter clothes and then she packs away the winter clothes in April and she pulls out the summer clothes. I don't even bother. I just have all my clothes available and that way if I need 17 layers, I have them. Yeah. 02:49 So, I always start the podcast with the weather, well, almost always because it's just a good way to break the ice and it's nice to know what's going on in the world on the day I talk to people. tell me about yourself and your homestead, please. Okay. So, my name is Joy. I go by Joy. I'm a homeschooling mom and I'm an urban homesteader in... 03:13 I run a Facebook of Harvest of Joy Homestead for our homestead that we just started this year. And I also run a Facebook group for Journey to Joy, Faith Family and Life Lessons for moms out there like me that has kids and just started homeschooling. And we just need a little compassion and upliftment and encouragement from each other. That's awesome. I love that. 03:40 And I'm so glad that you just started your homestead this year because I don't usually talk to brand new homesteaders who are just building it. So tell me about that. I actually have a license in veterinary technology and so I've always loved animals. Well, I have four kids. I had twins in 2021. One of them ended up having Dandy Walker and they thought I was going to lose both of them. So I ended up having to quit my job to 04:10 care for them. And so the journey kind of started then where God was putting it on my heart to, you know, get your chickens, get what you can. Even though you live in city limits, you can do what you can. And I kind of just like brushed it off, brushed it off. And last year I started just getting little things and putting it as a hobby and part of our home school. So now we have Brahma chickens. 04:38 We have just regular egg layer, barnyard mixes. We have rabbits for meat. And we also have quail and just got into ducks. Oh, I have a question real quick about all of that. If you're in city limits, are there regulations about what you can and can't have, or is it just a complaint-based thing where if somebody complains, then they're like, what are you doing? So for here, it's a c

Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler at The Punk Rock Farmer. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. That doesn't work here. mean, I said number one, said, when you have 12,000 tomato plants planted per acre, the pheromones that we're releasing to the hawk moths and the gypsy moths, everything that wants to come a beat on these, that's going out. Huge, huge signals. 01:26 And I said, we try to use, I mean, I do integrated pest management where I try to incorporate insect predators and, I encourage hawks here. love the fact that I have hawks. My wife doesn't like it because of her chickens, but I like having hawks here because mice are such a problem for us as produce farmers. They are just the bane of our existence. 01:54 we're getting ready to install 27 miles of drip irrigation just here at this location. And when we install that, the mice in the middle of summer when it's dry will actually chew on that drip irrigation. To get to the water. To get to the water. so, you know, I've always told people, like, I'll have guys who work for me and they'll see a snake and they'll go to kill it. said, that's fine. But you kill a snake, you got to do his job for two weeks for free. 02:22 You know, because he's eaten the things I don't want him. We have bees and we're able to educate people. They're like, well, how can you use chemicals and have bees? Well, because number one, the stuff I'm using, bees aren't chewing on the plants. And these insects have to chew on the plants in order to ingest it. Number two, we also spray in accordance with how the bees 02:52 Whether they're, you know, we don't like to, we really don't like to spray plants late in the evening, but, uh, we will, we won't spray before a big bloom, like a big bloom of watermelons. We don't spray. mean, there's, there's things that we actively do that there's nuanced conversations that we can have with the people that are all or nothing. When it comes to there's people that are like, no chemicals all the way. That's the way we should do it. And then there's people like, absolutely don't use chemicals. And I see myself as. 03:22 I'm the dude in the middle saying if I don't have to spray, I'm not going to. But at the same time, don't take the tool tools away from me that I need to help feed people. And that's that's that's that's a hard part for me sometimes is what people tell me now. The funny part about those those ladies that came, they were awesome. They were like you guys, you know, she said she wanted to know how we manage rabbits. And I said, Well, we throw lead at him. 03:51 1300 feet per second. Us too. Yes. And I could tell it took her a second to understand what I was saying. And I was like, all these, all these cute German shepherds that are your best friends right now that are, are, you know, circling you for, for their next pet. These guys also do it. They see a rabbit, they kill it, you know, and that's kind of, kind of how we've trained them to be. And they're like, yeah, we, 04:18 But I'm like, you guys are also in urban environments. So discharging a firearm would probably be frowned upon. you know, the things that you can do, I mean, I didn't really have an answer for him because I've always been able to manage pests the way we saw fit. Yeah. 04:40 Yeah, I'm going to jump in for a second. I think that what everybody needs regarding these stories you're telling is number one, listening. Number two, critical thinking. And number three, understanding what you heard and realizing that it doesn't have to be on

Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler at The Punk Rock Farmer. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler, also known as the punk rock farmer in Indiana. I think you're in Indiana, yes? Yes, that's correct. All right. Welcome, Jonathan. How are you? I'm good. How did you fare with the weather in Indiana last night? It was a little bit rough. We're kind of used to it. 01:25 My farm's been hit by a tornado. I don't know twice. I lost a packing shed to a tornado a few years ago. Weirdly enough, last night, you know, we thought we were kind of ahead of the storm. So we decided to run to Walmart together. Well, which was weird. We usually don't go to Walmart as a family. my wife wanted to stop at another place up to town. So she came with us. 01:56 And she actually came in because she said it was getting so bad. And as we were in there, the Walmart basically shut down and made everybody go back to their like, uh, receiving and storage area where it's designated as a storm shelter. Well, I'm glad you're safe because I saw that there were bad storms in Indiana last night and I was like, Oh no, I think the guy I'm talking to today is in Indiana crap. So glad you're good. Glad your family is safe. 02:26 Um, so tell me about yourself and tell me how come you're called The Punk Rock Farmer. So I actually didn't come up with that name. Um, I didn't like the name when people started calling me that, uh, you know, because when you get a label put on you, that's as wide as something representing an entire subculture in a music scene, it's kinda, you know, 02:54 You feel like there's a lot of pressure there. You might not align with everything that that subculture represents. But I was so we were working. We were doing urban farm projects in Indianapolis and a wonderful organization known as the Flannery House had been trying to put in an urban farm for like four years. They were working with a university and the university had them on like their ninth 03:24 feasibility study and the executive director was getting super frustrated and I was actually providing produce to this this community center and he took me out to where he wanted to do it and he said you know what is the feasibility of doing this because you know we we keep having you know the university we're working with says we got to make sure we're doing this this and this and I said do you have soil Sam? 03:53 And he's like, yeah, I said, okay, well, let's look at them. I looked at the soil samples and I'm like, well, we can put a plow on the ground and, you know, start planting. I mean, I don't, you know, the spring, I don't know what their holdup is. And he said, okay, you know, I'm all for that. So we actually put in a two acre urban farm there and they have a center for children. 04:22 that the center has a after school, it's for after school for their working parents. And they have a lot of young kids there. And Brandon, the executive director told me, he said, make sure, if you can, bring a cool tractor or, so I was like, I can bring two tractors. That way we get it done twice as fast and the kids can see them. So we brought two, one good size utility tractor than a smaller utility tractor. 04:53 The kids had just never seen anything like that. And of course we used two big F-350 farm trucks to pull those up there. I was wearing jeans, boots, but I had a Misfits shirt on and my hair was really long and tattoos. And so the kids all started calling me the punk rock farmer. You know, they're like, he's

Today I'm talking with John at Langton Green Community Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with John at Langton Green Community Farm in Maryland. Is that right, John? Yes, ma'am. We're in Millersville, Maryland outside of Annapolis. Okay, cool. Good morning. How are you? I'm doing well. Good. I am so excited to have you on the show because 01:22 This community farm thing you've got going on is huge. So tell me about it. Well, Lankton Green has been primarily providing residential services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities since the early eighties. About 15 years ago, we started also doing day services, which tends to be vocational or activities based for a small number of our consumers. But we're always 01:50 looking for more to do on an ongoing basis. So after a couple of years of doing a lot of landscaping and commercial and residential cleaning contracts, our former executive director went to a conference and met some people who operated a small residential program on a farm in California and said, hey, could we do something like this? Which was exactly the kind of thing that I was already engaged in personally. 02:18 doing a lot of suburban homesteading kind of stuff, a lot of gardening and canning. So it definitely matched a lot of my personal interests. A lot of my job coaches and staff also had experience working in horticulture and landscaping. So there was a natural tie in there. So I spent the next couple of years working with our board of directors, going through some mentorships with local agricultural organizations and 02:48 looking at properties locally to actually develop an expansion of our existing day services program to be focused on an agricultural property. The spot that we found was perfect. It's right in the middle of a really very populated suburban area and to be able to provide 13 acres of 03:12 animals and sustainable produce and flowers. We've incorporated a lot of artwork on the property over the past 10 years. It has just been a really great thing. It's benefited our consumer population tremendously. And I think we're increasingly a benefit to the public as we provide a space for them to come out and have those experiences and to kind of get a sense of where food comes from. Because I think a lot of people have lost that. 03:42 If you ask a group of kids where does food come from, the number one answer is going to be the grocery store. So to be able to give back a little bit of opportunities to experience the basis of that food industry and where it all starts in a setting that's also focused on providing therapeutic care for everybody, but most primarily for our consumer population. 04:10 That's phenomenal. I'm so impressed. Okay. So my first question is how is the public interacting with the farm? Initially our biggest, you know, we, we wanted to draw volunteers, so we needed the additional help with some of the work processes. Um, everybody that comes out here is just floored and really enjoys being on the property. So initially we started with a lot of 04:37 group activities with local churches, local community organizations. When we first got our property in Millersville, it basically was a 13 acre, some of it was in agricultural production with one of our neighbors. Part of it had been horse pastures with a collapsed very large barn and two houses that hadn't been inhabited for probably decades, one of which was actually. 05:04 Condemned it wasn't suitable for habitation. There were a lot of big p

Today I'm talking with Chelsea Chapman. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that Muck Boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out Muck Boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Chelsea at It's Chelsea Chapy in Saskatchewan, Canada. Yay. Good morning, Chelsea. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing really well. It's nice and sunny here. Finally. Oh, well, it's not nice and sunny here in Minnesota. It's kind of gray and it snowed yesterday. We got about an inch of snow on the ground. 01:26 Oh man, well you're doing better. I guess you're not doing as good as us. Our snow's almost gone. Yeah, ours was. Friday was 80 degrees here and then it got cold and rained on Saturday, thunderstorm Saturday night and then snowed yesterday. I was like, Mother Nature, what are you doing? That's funny. It always catches me off guard when it's it's 80 degrees and it's literally like a warm day here for us right now is like minus four. So it sounds so different. Yeah. And it's celsius. 01:56 Yeah, and it's really different for here too. We don't get 80 degree days in March. So it was very weird. I did not love it. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do, So my husband and I, we raise cattle and we recently just bought our own quarter section here. Was it six months ago? And so we've moved in into like a little sixties farmhouse that we're currently renovating and we 02:25 Finally, can have our, you're okay. I just have my son here with me. We're finally getting our own chickens and doing all the homesteading and things that I've been dreaming about for so long. And then I also do social media and that's just like such a fun, creative outlet for me. And it kind of started during COVID, I got laid off my job and I love doing photography and writing and things like that. And so it was just a really cool outlet for me. And then it started to gain traction and 02:54 Here I am like five years later doing what I do now. Nice, very nice. And it's so funny for you to say you've wanted to do for so long because you're not very old. What are you in your late twenties if that? I'm 25. But yeah, when my husband and got married, we were renting and we've been married almost three years. And so when I got married is when I really started to, my interest and passion in these things started to grow. And because we were renting, we weren't able to do that. 03:23 And so I just spent the last three years really trying to just learn and learn and learn so that when I am in the position that I am ready to go. So here I am now just waiting for the ground to defrost and everything like that. Yep, exactly. I'm so excited that you're 25 years old because I usually talk to people in their 30s and up because it usually takes us that long to get to where we can homestead on any kind of land. 03:52 So I love that you're 25, you're young, you're raising a family and you're getting into this and that's amazing. Cause you are the future Chelsea. Yeah, it's when I look around at the world and I just think, man, how are we raising our kids? And I just take it so much more seriously when I look at my son, especially be like, he is the future. And if we are not putting everything into our children, then our future is going to look weak. 04:20 And I really try and show that on my page, the way that we're raising our children spiritually, but also how much more effort we're putting into looking at their health, you know? I do. I have four grown kids and my daughter was the first and she's 35 now. And she was what changed my perspective on the world too. having a child can't help but change your perspective. It's just how it happens. 04:5

Today I'm talking with Annie at High Prairie Press. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that Muck Boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out Muck Boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a Calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I needed something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Annie Toro Lopez again. I just put out the episode with Annie from a week or two ago, sometime in the last six days. can't remember when. And Annie talked to me about her Seeds to Savor page and stuff on the last episode. 01:25 And today she's going to walk us through her process of how she publishes books at High Prairie Press. So welcome back, Annie. How are you? Wonderful. I am well. Thank you so much, Mary, for having me back. I'm very excited about this conversation. I am too, because that got to me like this bug has been kicking me for a week since we talked about doing this episode. You're in Colorado, right? 01:53 That's correct. I'm in Elizabeth, Colorado, and we are at 6,300 feet. That's High Prairie. We're on the Colorado High Prairie, and that was the name for my publishing company, High Prairie Press. Beautiful. the weather nice in Colorado today? Oh my goodness, not today. Everything's covered in ice. How about you up there? It's gray. 02:22 It's gray, it's probably 45 degrees and we actually had kind of nasty thunderstorms yesterday. I believe it. There were tornadoes all across the country. saw, I'm originally from Nebraska. I was born in New Jersey, raised in Nebraska and in an agricultural land, lots of tornadoes across Nebraska. saw a video of someone in their house and all of their windows all the way around them were breaking with hail. Yeah. 02:50 So it was, yeah, it was a rough day yesterday. I'm glad you guys are all okay. Yep. We're fine here. No broken windows. No, no cars got ding. No, no dogs got clunked in the head with hail. We're good. Um, and we're making a very small talk here, but I was, I was also born in New Jersey. I was also born in New Jersey. Where? Fort Dix. Wow. I was born in Plainfield. 03:19 Yeah, I think Fort Dix is in New Jersey. So yeah, we have that in common too. Really weird. Yes, Wonderful. Okay. So what I want to ask you first is you had said back in the other interview, 03:39 that it's always been your dream to be a publisher, but you have also written a cookbook. So were you a publisher before you wrote the cookbook or were you an author before you were a publisher? So I had published three books. I published before my most recent cookbook. So I published four different books. One is a writer's handbook. That was the first book I wrote. It taught me a lot about the process of publishing 04:09 Um, it was something just, just did. I taught my degree is in English and I taught literacy, reading and writing for about 15 years. So professionally and more before that, but I, um, wanted to capture what I had taught as a literacy instructor. so I made, I spent like, I don't know. 04:39 days, just listing words, like words that would come like metaphor and simile and antagonist and protagonist and plot and resolution and just words. so this book is the death, the writer's handbook defines those words and it's, it's people who have it, I think find it valuable. It hasn't sold to many people, but writers, especially for fiction, memoir, 05:08 anything you would have learned in like English 101 is all there and just really concise. So that's that book. Then I did a project in Southern Colorado around green chili because it's an iconic native indigenous, my husband is indigenous and so green chili was just always a part of his life. And so this was a way to capture stories and recipes. 05:38 So that was the second real book t

Today I'm talking with Shell. If you've ever wondered what it's like to homestead in Australia, this will give you a small taste. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Shell Smart and she is in Australia and it's actually morning in Australia right now, whereas it's six o'clock in the evening here in Minnesota. Good morning, Shell. How are you? Good morning, Mary Ann. Good evening to you. Thank you. And the other thing's different is you are in the middle of autumn and we are in the middle of a spring, right? That's correct. Yes. 00:58 Okay, so based on all of that, your growing situation is very different from ours, so I wanna touch on that. But first, tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, I am a wife to Stuart. We've been married for nearly 33 years. And we have five children and they range from 28 down to 15. We're homeschooling. 01:27 still got two homeschooling or sort of one and a half homeschooling at the moment. So we're nearly finished with being homeschooling. think this is our 22nd year of homeschooling. And we're homestead as well. So we have three acres right within the town limits, but a very small town of a thousand people here in the snowy valleys of New South Wales and in Australia. And yeah, we have three acres and we have a little homestead here. 01:58 Very nice and congratulations on making your marriage work for that long with five children to boot That's that's I'm one grandchild. Okay Yeah, well you have outdone yourselves. I'm impressed. I I've been married three times. I'm keeping the third one. He's great 02:27 And I can't imagine being with someone for that long with that many kids because kids are a huge stressor on relationships sometimes. Yeah, they can be. But I think they can also really make you work better as a team because you've got something bigger than yourself to work for as well within your marriage. True enough. Yes, absolutely. But you also have to be willing to do that. 02:55 You both have to be willing to work together. And my first two, I don't want to say anything bad, but the third one is more than willing to work with me to make this work. Let's put it that way. That's the big difference. It sure does. Okay. So what do you do on your homestead? Do have animals? Do you grow gardens? What do you do? Yeah, we generally do grow gardens. At the moment, we haven't got any luck. 03:24 this season because we're just finishing our harvest season. So we haven't done gardens this last year, this last summer, because we are moving and we just didn't have the time and energy to into that. But we do normally grow gardens with, you know, not a huge vegetable garden, but we do have, you know, herbs and veggies and tomatoes. 03:53 Well, I'm not very good at tomatoes. I like to plant lots of tomatoes. And I get a few every season that actually grow. So that's something I need to work on. And one day I'll work on that when I've got more time and energy. But we do grow a lot and have grown at the, again, at the moment we've downsized, but we have been in the past growing. Between growing and we have friends that hunt, we've been able to raise most of our meat. 04:22 that we eat as a family. So that's been good. So we currently have our chooks, oh sorry, in Australia we call chickens chooks. So if I revert to that I apologize. So chickens are laying chickens at the moment, laying hens. And we have goats. They have in the past been milked, but at the moment we don't have any babies and they're not milking. 04:49 And we have had meat chickens as well and we just sent back some milking cows that we had on our property that our friend had lent to us over the summer. A, it benefited her because she needed to reduce her load on her pasture and B, we needed to get some big animals on our pasture. 05:17 We were able to be blessed by having two milking cows and two calves on our pasture over the last four months, I think five months maybe. So we're very quiet at the moment. Our poor livestock guardian dog, Chief, he doesn't have a lot to do. I we're down to about 15 hens and three roosters and a small clutch of chicks and two goats. That's all he's got to look after other than us in the househ

Today I'm talking with Megan at Growin and Crowin. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 Share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Megan at Growin' and Crowin'. Good afternoon, Megan. How are you? I am good. I love that Growin' and Crowin'. I just talked to a lady this morning and Cluck is in her name. And had to be really careful that we pronounce the CL. Right? For sure. So Growin' and Crowin' is safe. That's a good one. Yeah. 00:52 So you're in Illinois. it gray? Because she was in Indiana and I'm in Minnesota. It's been gray and sprinkling to hear all day. It was sunny earlier, but now it's all overcast again. Yeah, it's it's spring like, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Never know what you're going to get from one day to the next. Oh, thank God. It's spring. I know how your winter was, but it seems like our winter was a blink of an eye and the longest winter at the same time, which is really weird. 01:20 Right. Nothing compares to last year with all the snow we got. yeah, it always seems to take forever for spring to get here. Yeah. We, I was, I keep saying this. We have not had a lot of snow where I live for the last two winters. I don't think we've gotten a foot either winter of snow. Yeah. We definitely got a big blizzard last year, but this year was not bad. Well, I can't figure out if it's good or bad because my mom said that my grandpa 01:50 who was a farmer and then worked for General Motors for a long time. He used to say that rain and snow were God's fertilizer or something like that. Sure, because it gives the ground moisture for the whole year of planting season and gets them started. Yeah, and so this not having snow sometimes is a blessing because the roads aren't dicey, but it can also wreak havoc when we're trying to get stuff in. 02:20 It's a crap shoot. I keep saying that and I stand behind it. You just don't know how it's gonna go. Yeah. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do growing and crowing. Okay. So it's my husband and I live, like I said, in West Central Illinois and we have an 85 acre farm or homestead or you know, whatever you want to call it. We have three kids and I do photography. I'm wedding and senior photographer mainly. So this is 02:49 Hobby farm stuff at home is just a fun thing to do and keeps me busy. Okay. I always feel like I'm being nosy when I ask this question. Do you try to have stuff from the homestead support the homestead financially? So we don't do any sort of farmer's market or anything like that, really. It's just... 03:13 like I raise catod and pear sheep. you know, my goal with them is if I can sell enough lambs for, to buy the next year's hay supply, then, you know, then we did good. So, so no, we don't, you know, my husband and I both work full time as well. So it's not, it doesn't support itself. It's more just about, it makes me happy. It makes us happy and, you know, get to try new things and that sort of thing. 03:37 Yeah, and happiness is a payoff all on its own. So I don't blame you. If we could have done 85 acres, we would have too, but we did 3.1 instead. Yep. Well, that's we bought it, you know, at 21 and initially we bought it because we want to hunt and ground. We all hunt. And so that's why we wanted the ground we got. And we do all hunt on it. So. Nice. What do you hunt for? Mainly deer, turkey. The boys do some coyote hunting, that sort of thing, squirrel hunting. 04:08 Yeah, my youngest still lives with us. He's 23 and he's always plinking rabbits because the rabbits eat our garden. if he sees a rabbit, he's like, um, I see a bunny and I'm like, uh-huh. He's like, I'm going to take care of it. I'm like, you do that. That would be great. So I have a question about the deer. I do not love venison as a meat. I grew up with parents who hunted and they loved it, but I did not. 04:37 It's very, it's too close to the way that liver tastes to me and I just can't, I can't do it. And I love liver but... Yeah, I cannot. 04:49 Cannot do it, just the smell of it makes my stomach flip. I'm like, no. That's probably 95 % of what we eat. So we'll raise cattle every now and again. When the prices aren't so dang high, then we can buy them just as feeder calves. But we put the venison in our freezer and

Today I'm talking with Kelsey at Misty Mountain Homestead. This a follow up chat about what Kelsey has been up to since November of 2023. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kelsey at Misty Mountain Homestead. Good morning Kelsey. How are you? Good morning Mary. I'm doing great. Good. I almost called you Misty. I was, I almost said I'm talking with Misty at Misty Mountain Homestead. That's where my brain's at this morning. That happens to me very, very often actually. Yup. My brain not functioning, words not working. We'll get it together eventually. 00:57 Where are you in Minnesota? told me before, but I forgot. We live in South Haven, Minnesota, but we're actually closer to Fairhaven, but Fairhaven doesn't have a post office, so it's a South Haven address. Okay, so what's the nearest big city to you? We're about 20 miles south of St. Cloud. Okay, yep, that helps. Thank you. Is it gray? Is it gray up there today? 01:26 Oh, yes, very foggy, very gray. huh. Yeah, I was all excited because Wednesday was supposed to be the official real swinging into warm weather spring. And the last couple of days have been kind of bleh. Yep, that's true. I'm waiting for the pretty sunny days where the crocuses start to pop up and that hasn't happened yet. Okay, so Kelsey came back to visit and do a catch up episode with me. 01:55 And I looked and the first episode Kelsey and I did was back in November of 2023. And I started the podcast in August of 2023. So it's been a minute since we've chatted. tell me what's happening since then. 02:14 Um, well, we've really added to our meat rabbit colony. Um, we have probably close to, um, 60 rabbits right now. Um, I would say 15 of them are our breeders. Okay. And, um, we have been selling and butchering those ourselves and that's been, um, a really good adventure. Um, lots of. 02:42 teaching moments for us and the kids both. And we're starting to learn how to tan their hides as well. A long-term goal, I would love to learn how to like make hats. Cause their hides are just so beautiful and I really don't like seeing them to go to waste. And we've also started using, you know, every part of the animal, their ears, their legs, feet as dog treats. 03:12 And you just dehydrate them and they turn into chips. Okay. Um, yeah. And, um, that's been really, really fun. And of course the dogs enjoy it as well. So, and we also have cooney cooney pigs now. Okay. Um, we're going to start breeding those, um, and the selling the piglets and then of course, um, having some meat for ourselves. 03:40 CUNY CUNY pigs are extremely high quality pork. Their meat looks more like beef and it actually has marbling in it. And then once you eat like CUNY CUNY or Mangleesa is also another high quality pork, it's really hard to go back to like more of a normal pig like a Yorkshire. But yeah. 04:09 So I have a question. have a question about that real quick. so if it looks more like beef, does it have the same kind of texture and flavor or does it still taste like pork? Well, I think it has the same texture as pork, but it definitely has a very rich flavor. Um, I would say more even so than beef does. but yeah. Okay, cool. I just, I've never had either. 04:38 kind so I thought I should ask. Okay and I told you before I hit record I've been looking at your Facebook pages because I wanted to see what you've been up to and you make some of the most beautiful breads ma'am. Oh thank you very much. And other things. It's been quite the process. So you've really gotten into baking since we talked last I think so tell me about that too. 05:05 You know, it's been a little bit surprising. Um, and I'm kind of just along for the ride and, I have had wonderful customers and farmers and, Just people show up out of the woodwork. Uh, and I'm kind of just doing things that I would do for my family. And then I, you know, increased it by scale. Um, which 05:34 was really easy for me actually. And, um, I started with a little KitchenAid mixer and I burnt through a couple of those motors. Uh, and I have a, now I have a 15 quart like professional mixer. And I remember being really nervous about buying that. And my husband's like, Oh, it's only, yo

Today I'm talking with Samantha at Cluster Cluck Acres. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Samantha at Cluster Cluck Acres and I had to say that really carefully. Good morning, Samantha. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. You are where again? You're in Illinois. Is that right? Nope, Monticello, Indiana. Indiana. Sorry. Yep. Is it gray in Indiana this morning? Cause it is gray and drizzling here in Minnesota. It definitely is. And it is cold, very cold. 00:56 Oh, it's like 45 degrees here this morning. I got up at five and it was warm outside. was like, ooh, spring might be here. I don't call 45 that warm. Well, after the week or so we had back in January when it was minus 20 to 25 at night, I'm good with 45. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Cluster Cluck Acres. 01:25 Well, I am the owner. So it's kind of just a basically a family farm. We started off with chickens that were actually kind of given to us. We had a friend that had a bunch of chickens and the rooster had attacked one of our kids. I had wanted some and I grew up with chickens. So I knew. 01:51 Um, after I got in the farm that I wanted chickens and then we've moved on to, I was thinking, oh, they had rabbits also. They wanted to get rid of it. So we took two rabbits in and then, uh, my oldest son had bought a horse and we have horse stalls. So he wanted somewhere to bring his horse. So we have a horse. We have, uh, pigs. had three, we got down to two and then we just got six more. 02:22 Uh, in that chaotic time, we also had a litter of puppies. had 10 golden doodle or 10 doodles. I should say they're a mix of doodles, but they're 10 doodles. So we, we added a little, little more chaos to our, to our lives with puppies. So yeah, that'll, that'll shake things up a little bit. Just a little. I decided that I will never do a litter again. It's a very emotional process. I didn't realize how emotional it was. 02:54 I would have kept all 10 if I could, but... 02:58 Yeah, that doesn't usually work. That's a lot of dogs to handle. And not only that, but you get to deal with littermate syndrome too, which is something I've heard about. Yeah. Well, we thought we were coming, we were getting sick. So we spent a long night with mom delivering babies. So it was a, it was an all day process, but it was, it was a good experience. 03:23 We've had an opportunity to hatch some of our own chickens also. I took the time to get an incubator and so we do some chicken hatching and I just got into doing sourdough. So at the beginning of last week, 03:45 Or actually over the weekend, last weekend, we opened a little farm stand out in front of the house. So I have been creatively working on different items to put out every day to fill the farm stand. Your farm stand has inspired me, ma'am. We have a farm stand. It's a little red shed. It looks like a little tiny barn. 04:12 Yes. It's red with white trim. I love it. It's my favorite thing here. We had it put in a few years ago. And we usually just sell eggs and produce out of there in the summer. And I saw the way you have yours set up and I was like, I have got to get on baked goods and I've got to get them out there this summer and sell them because why wouldn't I? You know, we have it. So why not do it? So you have inspired me to get off my ass and make baked goods this summer. 04:39 That's exciting. I sell sourdough sardar. I have had what we call Sally now for several months. I actually did sourdough here at home. then shockingly enough, this is not my only thing that I do. actually a full-time, I have a full-time job. I'm actually an ER nurse. Wow. So yeah, that's a lot to do on top of what you're doing at home. 05:07 And I actually am also currently training, taking fire classes to train to be a firefighter. Oh my God. Wow. Wow. Lady. That's amazing. Yeah. I've been an ER nurse for 10 years and I took EMT classes last year so that I can kind of cross over to the 911 aspect of emergency medicine. 05:32 And in order to do that in our local town here in Monticello, you also have to be a fire certified. So I am getting fire certified now. do you actually want to be li

Today I'm talking with Janna at Authentic Food. You can follow on Instagram as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 Share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Janna at Authentic Food. Good afternoon, Janna. How are you? I'm phenomenal. How are you doing, Mary? I'm fantastic. I love the word phenomenal. I love it. No one ever uses it. Thank you for using that word. Where are you? Where are you located? Actually, right now I am in Miami, Florida, but I'm rarely here because I'm always traveling. I'm usually in and out for a day or two and then on the road. 00:59 Oh, okay. Is Miami nice today? Yes, of course. It's beautiful. It's sunny and warm and yeah, we're going into full on summer here. Yeah, we are, we are wintery today in Minnesota, but starting tomorrow, it's supposed to start warming up and stay warming up. So I'm very excited for this. Oh, good. Good, good, good. And my daughter actually lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. So. 01:28 Oh, lovely. So hopefully get to visit during those cold months. Not yet, but it's sort of been it's been floated. We haven't decided yet when we're going to go. So. All right. OK, so tell me about yourself and authentic food. So authentic food dot com has been brewing for about a decade. It has lived inside me and it's finally the. 01:57 It's such a good feeling to get it out. So I was traveling for work all over the world and sometimes I would be in a country for maybe a day or two. And I've always loved food. I'm also an Italian citizen. So, you know, for me, food is kind of religion. And I would always want to have some kind of dish that I could only get in a certain place. And 02:26 Like even if I was in Denver, I'd want a Denver omelet or I was in Australia. I wanted to try kangaroo, something that was very like regionally specific or culturally specific. And I kept, when I would be in a country, I would ask people, what, what's the most authentic dish here? Or I can't get anywhere else. And, um, the conversations were just really fascinating to me. And it was like, I couldn't get a straight answer. And then some people would send me places and I would feel like. 02:55 Oh, I could have gotten this, you know, in Florida. And so then I would start asking the concierge at the hotel, if they would eat there, they would send me to these places and, and they would say, well, no, I don't really eat there. And I'm like, well, where would you eat? And then I got even more intuitive and I would ask them, well, would your mom eat there? And it was like the deeper I was getting in the conversation. 03:23 the more authenticity I felt like I was getting for that kind of local flavor. And I really started to wonder how are people coming up with this idea of authenticity surrounding food and restaurants? And so much so that I went back to college and I got a PhD so that I could research it. I did a five-year PhD at University of Florida. 03:48 What was the PhD in? was the sociology? So I did the sociology of food and specifically how society creates the idea of authenticity in regard to Super cool. Yeah. I, yeah, I mean, starting a PhD in my forties, everyone thought I was nuts. Um, but here I am. I graduated almost a year ago now and 04:18 During that time, I hadn't been in academia in a while. So I realized that a lot of the stuff that I was writing was sitting behind these paywalls and these academic journals. And I wanted people to have access to the discussions that I was having, the interviews I was doing. so I at some point bought authenticfood.com domain and it sat. And then last fall, this past November, 04:45 My daughters are like, mom, you need to do something with appendixv.com. And I thought that it would be a little blog that maybe I did once a month or something, but it has really grown into something more. And I love these dialogues with people about authenticity because as a sociologist, I study how society creates this narrative. 05:12 And for me, I learned that it was through a very like socially constructed idea as an individual. So food is very universal, but we each have these very personal experiences with food. And it was driving me crazy because I would see like chefs or writers write these articles saying,

Today I'm talking with Annie at Seeds To Savor. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Annie at Seeds to Save Her Farm and she's in Colorado. Good morning, Annie. How are you? Good morning, Mary. It's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. I love it when the people I invite have time to talk with me. It's really great. What's the weather like in Colorado this morning? Oh, it's a gorgeous day today. Yeah. We're like, we're at, I think we're going to get up to like 65. So just, it's perfect. 00:59 Nice. It's always sunny here. Well, that's awesome. It's only going to get up to like 30 here today. Where are you, Mary? Minnesota. Minnesota. Okay. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's really sunny, but it's windy and it's cold. The news, the good news is that the weather guy says that's going to warm up on Wednesday and we're just going to keep warming up until we get to like, you know, 01:24 reasonable April, end of April temperatures for Minnesota, which is 50s, 60s for the highs. Yeah. Yeah. In here, it's like we can get snow. We had a blizzard on Mother's Day three years in a row. And so we're like, I'm sure you're the same there, right? So you're covering your blossoms, right? So the apple trees are in full bloom, the plums are in full bloom, the peaches are in full bloom, and then along comes a blizzard. 01:53 We honestly, I've lived here for over 30 years and I have not seen snow, real snow in May, but I've seen heavy frost in May and that's what does in our blossoms. we keep our fingers and toes crossed in May that it does not frost. So, okay, so tell me about yourself and what you do and I know you do a whole bunch of stuff so start wherever you would like. I always tell people I've worn a lot of hats. 02:22 Um, yeah, I do a whole bunch of stuff. So I am a cookbook author, I guess we'll start with that. I have two cookbooks out. The first one is called, um, where Fino's happy heart. Um, and it is a collection. if in Colorado are, um, the iconic ingredient, um, the state food is green chili. And if you know Colorado, um, it is a, it's a. 02:53 very regional thing. We and it's in Colorado and New Mexico. So Hatch of course is like most people are familiar with. But there's always this like very friendly rivalry between Colorado and New Mexico who has the better green chili. I'm not going to say who I think. My green chili is the best. So there you go. My husband is indigenous to Colorado. And so he always talks about growing up with green chili, but you know simmering on the back stove all the time, always. 03:23 So that was kind of a passion project and I had a grant. I went down to do work with a senior center and I collected stories and recipes and we created that cookbook. So that's where that came from and it's a lot of fun. About a year after I published my first cookbook, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. that was actually in the spring of 2023. 03:53 And I had lost my best friend who I like, she was my friend since I was like, you know, a kid. She was, and she, and then six days later, my sister died from a fall, complications from a fall. And then three weeks later, I was diagnosed with celiac disease when I was in first place in a national cooking competition. So it was like, was, was flattening. 04:23 Literally flattening. And when I was able to finally look up again, I realized that I was really, I guess I found gratitude. And I realized that I was really fortunate that I was able to handle food. I know how to cook food. I grew up in Ogallala, Nebraska. 04:50 Heartland of America and the agriculture, agricultural. So food has always been just a part of my life, right? So like my mother was an amazing cook. actually known as an amazing cook. We did all the entertaining and all those things. So when I realized that I was a, know, that I felt fortunate about what I can do, 05:19 I felt like I could help other people. I kept seeing people say like, it's hard to navigate a truly gluten-free lifestyle. Like with celiac disease, you can't have any gluten at all. That means cross-contamination. That means like you can't have a burger grill

Today I'm talking with Jessica and Renee at Kesinger Homestead. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jessica and Renee at Kesinger Homestead. And I don't know who should get first billing on this because Jessica and Renee are sisters and I don't know who's oldest. I'm oldest, Jessica. I'll take that. I think I said it right. Yes, you did. And I would normally say, how's the weather? But I'm pretty sure I know how the weather is. So I'm looking out my window and it's and spitting snowflakes right now. And you're in where in Minnesota? 00:58 Anoka County. We're north of those cities. It's not snowing here yet. It will be. I'm sure it will. You guys are probably going get more snow than we will in Lasur. Yeah, I'm really hoping this is it. I'm hoping this is the last hurrah of winter because I'm tired of it. I'm ready for it to be over. It's April 1st, damn it. We are all ready for it to be over. 01:26 This last snowfall was pretty. I'm not some pretty pictures and such, but I'm not even giving it that. It was not welcome. Jess wants to just live somewhere tropical. Oh, well, she is in the wrong state for that, but I hope you at least get to go on vacation somewhere tropical. I do. do. Okay, good. All right. So normally I would say tell me about yourselves and Kessinger. 01:55 Kesinger or Kesinger? Kessinger. Kesinger, Homestead. But I looked at your Facebook page this morning and you guys have a cow that is imminently due with a calf or two. Yes. Oh gosh. me about that. Oh gosh, what if it's two? So she, yeah, so her window to deliver started about a week ago. So we had a live bull on the property. So we're not sure exactly when she got bred. 02:22 But she is showing signs. She's swollen back there. She's just a little bit irritable. And this morning she may have lost her mucus plug. I know everyone wants to hear about that. It's pretty gross. No, it's not. I am hopeful that this snowstorm gives us a baby. So that's my goal today. Yeah. How late did you stay up last night watching? I was watching her on the camera all night. 02:50 As much as I want your cow to be more comfortable, I also would like to have at least 30 minutes to talk to you guys before you have to like run off to help her. Because this is real life listeners. This is what happens on homesteads. Animals go into labor when they're ready. And it doesn't matter what you're doing, you got to drop everything and go see if they need help. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So, I've Googled how to take care of cow and labor. we're... 03:17 We're semi-prepared. It's our first year with cows. Oh, okay. How many cows do you have? So we have two moms and they both came with babies. So we have four and then both of the moms are pregnant again. So we'll have six this summer. I'm so jealous you're going to have calves. I'm jealous. They're so cute. I know. I know. And I think they'll let me snuggle them as my, I've tried to make them my best friend the past year. So. They should. 03:45 My goal. It's my goal. So yeah, we're all about all the babies, baby chicks, baby cows, maybe a baby pony next year. As we're looking at little Coco out there in her pasture right now. Uh huh. Yeah. Um, is she, is she bred? No, we've been Googling that. So that might be we between the two of us, we have six kids. So the more ponies, the better, think. 04:14 Well, you won't have to rent one for the birthday party if you already own one. that would be great. Exactly. Yeah, she gets passed around for birthday parties for sure. Oh, funny. All right. So tell me how this all happened because you guys are sisters, you live four and a half miles away from each other and you're both doing homesteading. So what's the history here? 04:36 So I, this is Jessica. I started about 10 years ago when I met my husband. So he lived in a town home and when we were dating, he had home studying books on his shelf, which was funny. Cause again, town home living. Um, so we were just kind of meant to be, he was more than happy to move out to the country with me. Um, but he's an engineer. So he is the best at optimizing things. So 05:01 That's how we're able to do so many different things on a limited amount of time is becau

Today I'm talking with Mary at Mary Loofah. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 Share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. 00:57 It's still pretty cold. think it's probably 35, 40 degrees right now. Oh, yuck. No, thanks. But it's spring. It's coming tomorrow. They're saying we're supposed to 81. I'm like great. Thunderstorms tomorrow night for sure. Yeah, it's been a wild spring. We've had such shifts in weather and temperatures. I'm like, mother nature, if you could just find a moderate place to be for a week, I would be so thankful. That would be great. So. 01:27 Anyway, I covered the weather. I try to do this at beginning of every episode because why not? And everything we do is so dependent on the weather. I figure it's a good way to start. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Mary Luffa and explain why it's Mary Luffa because Luffa is not your last name. Well, I am Mary McDowell and I... 01:50 milk goats. So I never in a million years thought that I would milk goats. I am a horse trainer and equestrian by first trade. And I got into goats when I had my first child. He was six months old and I was breastfeeding exclusively. And I just stopped producing milk overnight. Oh no. given reason whatsoever. 02:19 And I was in a panic, of course. And so what happened was we tried the formula thing and it was projectile vomiting and projectile diarrhea out of my six month old who had yet to sleep through the night once. Oh God. So tired mama, very tired, hungry baby. And our neighbor across the street just happened to have a Nubian milking goat. 02:43 that they were using to feed other baby goats. And they said, well, you can use her to milk if you want to try the goats milk. So we did, we milked her. I had never milked a goat. I hadn't really even raised goats before, but I got on YouTube as everyone does and learned all the things I could learn as quickly as I could. And so we started milking her and God bless her. was this, gentlest goat in the whole world. 03:12 And so the first time we gave our son goat's milk, he slept through the night and started to gain weight and he was just thriving on it. And so we kept milking her. Well, once we were done feeding him milk and he was ready to switch over to regular food, we had to give the goat back because she wasn't ours. She was just on loan. And so she ended up going home. 03:41 And I was like, you know, I really miss this goat's milk. So we ended up being gifted another dairy goat and one goat turned into over 30 goats. And my main mission is I want a homestead and I want to help other people who need help. Like women trying to feed their children healthy is my bread and butter. That is like my passion. Of course, I will sell milk to anybody who wants the milk. 04:10 But that is where my heart really is, is I want to help people who were struggling like I was struggling when I couldn't find something that would work and quickly, you know what I mean? yeah. So the name Mary Lutha to go to the other half of that is of course we have the goats milk, but we also have so much milk that there is an abundance. So we had to do something. So I started making soap and all the body butters and the lotions and 04:40 all the things that you can make with goat's milk, cheese, yogurt, you name it. Well, at the time I had started growing luffas and I'm sure you know, but for any listeners who don't know, luffas are basically in the gourd family and they look like giant cucumbers while they're growing and then they dry and you've got this amazing cleaning tool inside. so my husband was offhandedly joking saying, you should just 05:09 make a little store, you know, like an eight by eight building in the backyard and call it Mary Lufa. And I just kind of laughed it off. I was like, yeah, I'm, never going to be selling anything at that level. Well, fast forward seven years and we have a huge shop that I have a commercial refrigerator in for all the milk and all the other things. And I have my soap making area in there and I sell all sorts of stuff. We have an online store. 05:39 It has just grown so exponentially from what I could have ever imagined. And so it was just this little idea that my husband offhandedly

Today I'm talking with Diana at Farmhouse 302. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Diana at Farmhouse 302 in Delaware. Good morning, Diana. How are you? Good morning. I'm very well. How about yourself? 00:42 I'm good. It is a beautiful sunny day again in Minnesota. And I say again, because it doesn't happen days in a row all the time. What's it like in Delaware today? It's sunny today, but it's cold. When I woke up this morning, it was 28 degrees. But it's sunny and I'm glad to see the sun. 01:03 Yeah, me too. I really love it. And I'm going to say this again, I've said it a couple of times lately. When I sit at my desk to record the podcast, there's a window to my right and the sunlight just streams in that window. So I get to sit here and just look at this beautiful stream of light through the window while I'm talking to people. It's really nice. Oh, that's wonderful. So for half an hour, I get to look at sunlight. It's kind of a beautiful thing, especially when 01:31 Especially when we are known to have three or four days in a row of clouds and then it's like, ah, the sun came back. Thank you. Okay. So this, this episode is going to be what I'm labeling a topics adjacent episode because you're not a homesteader, but you curate and sell things that homesteaders used to use. So I really want to hear about what you do, Awesome. Where would you like me to start? 02:01 Where would you like me to start as far as like how I got where I am or? Yes. Yes. That yes. Well, I'm not. I'm just going to jump right in. I I just turned 60 and I grew up on a farm on a hundred acre farm in Delaware. And my grandfather was a mechanic for the Pennsylvania Railroad. 02:29 and he was their fix-it man. Any part that broke, he could manufacture it, he fixed anything. And I grew up on the farm with my grandparents. And my mother was born in 1931, so she grew up during the Depression. So I got firsthand knowledge on how to use something until there was no youth left. 02:57 Um, I grew up learning how to fix tractors, fix lawnmowers. Um, we had, basically, I mean, where I lived, even though Delaware is small at that time, it was podunk. Like I lived out in the boonies, so to speak. And, um, I guess you could say we were kind of homesteaders because we had a full garden. Um, 03:26 We had cherry trees, had apple trees, pear trees, we had blueberries, blackberries, and we had geese and ducks and all kinds of animals. So that's kind of how I grew up. I learned how to fix things for their purpose and just kind of grew up knowing. 03:54 how to use old fashioned hand tools and all that. So that was sort of like, I don't know, I guess the roots of my beginning. I was always, I was like, for lack of a better word, I was a feral child that grew up in the woods on a farm. And I was always a crafter. I was always making something. And a lot of it was, 04:23 You know, I drag home, you know, sticks and brambles and grapevines. And I was making wreaths and like when I was like 12 years old, I was always bringing something. So it's sort of like been on. Organic path for me. So I, I grew up at crafting and painting and making and all of that. And then I met a boy and he was. 04:53 We were in high school and fast forward, we've been together 40 years. And of course we got married. have two fantastic boys. One lives here in Delaware and the other one broke my heart and moved to Tennessee. 05:18 And, um, there, they took a lot of our time, you know, so of course I had to move into the corporate world. got a job, you know, the whole kitten to bootle. My husband's a contractor. was in banking forever. And then I was just like, one day I was like, I can't, I can't do this anymore. I just, I simply cannot do this anymore. And he goes, so quick. So I quit and just started, you know, 05:47 painting furniture and selling it out of my house, paint furniture, post it online, sell it out of my house. And then it got word of mouth and it just kind of grew from there. I had done a couple of like shows, like cramp shows. And then I had the opportunity to move into a brick and mortar building. So that's, and I've been here now. 06:15 for si

Today I'm talking with Joanna at Majestic Acres Homestead. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Joanna at Majestic Acres Homestead in Texas. Good morning, Joanna. How are you? Good morning. How are you doing? I'm good. What's the weather like in Texas? Today it's cloudy and overcast. Yesterday we reached 90 degrees. So summer is not far off. We were already sweating and we were feeling it yesterday. Wow. OK. 00:55 Here in Minnesota, there's still frost on the dead grass outside and it's really bright and sunny. And my husband informed me this morning before he left for work that we're supposed to hit 81 degrees on Friday. Wow, that sounds crazy for you guys, I guess. Yeah. I said, are the seedlings in the greenhouse going to fry? And he said no. He said he would open the door and... 01:23 We have two doors, so there's a cross breeze through there. So he's going to open the doors before he leaves for work on Friday. And that way they don't die because that would be terrible. weather report done. And tell me about yourself and Majestic Acres Homestead. OK, so we are a family run homestead out in Paradise, Texas. It actually is called Paradise. I get the joke a lot. 01:49 of, know, are you actually from Paradise? Like, I'm like, yes, that is a town that we live in. It's a five acre homestead. And we do all things. We do chicken, sourdough. I make my own vanilla extract. We're gonna be doing meat chickens, honey bees. We have goats, sheep, turkeys. So kind of just a whole variety of things going on here. 02:16 We are new to homesteading. We probably started about two years ago. We are kind of your typical suburban people that got tired of living in, you know, a cookie cutter neighborhood and wanted to venture out and try new things and, you know, really give, you know, self-sustainability a chance. And it has been wonderful. Nice. 02:44 I get the joke about Paradise, Texas because there is a town in Minnesota called Embarrass. I have never been there. way up north. I don't know how I would feel about living in a town named Embarrass. That would be interesting. Paradise is probably better than that. Yes, absolutely. It's about, I would say, an hour outside of DFW Metroplex Dallas-Fort Worth. 03:12 So we're close enough to the city, but far, far away enough that you still get that country feel. And, you know, there's not so much hustle and bustle and traffic around here. Yeah. So did you always want to do this or is this something you guys just came to after living in the cookie cutter suburbanite lifestyle? We started talking about it probably after my husband's last deployment. So probably about five, six years ago. 03:40 And we kind of started thinking about what do we want from our family? What are our goals? And country life and just developing new skills and venturing out from what we were used to was definitely a goal for us. I am not from the country. I am a northern girl. I am born and raised in Delaware, right outside of Philadelphia. So this is a whole new aspect to me. 04:07 But we definitely wanted this for us, for our children. We wanted them to be exposed to this and develop skills and essential knowledge. We all know that the world right now is kind of uncertain. We don't really know what our future kind of entails. today's society, the kids are just so plugged into their phones and social media. And we just wanted something different for our kids. 04:33 That's kind of where we, that's kind of where the idea came from. And we just started, you know, researching and spend hours of, you YouTube videos. I think the first one that we watched that we really enjoyed was, it was Off Grid with Doug and Stacey. And I really enjoyed them and just watching what they were doing, kind of implementing old school, old school knowledge with, you know, new school technology with them. And that was really inspiring. 05:01 So, you know, just kind of gathering information and, you know, finding the right property and moving out here and kind of the rest of history, I guess. Okay. Well, it's good to know that you're a fellow former North Easterner because so am I. Oh, nice. Yeah, I grew up in Maine and very cool. don't think De

Today I'm talking with Darcy at Preserving My Sanity. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Darcy at Preserving My Sanity, which I think is the best name for a business I've ever seen. Good afternoon, Darcy. How are you? Hi, Mary. Thanks so much for having me today. It's nice to talk to you. Yeah, I'm so happy you're here because I need to know how you decided to call it Preserving My Sanity. Sure. Actually, I started my business and my blog in 2018. 00:58 primarily as a food preservation blog. So I was posting a lot about a variety of food preservation and kind of just did the brainstorming plan of trying to figure out what names were already being used and what was out there and what I thought would work well for what I was writing about. And settled on preserving my sanity as kind of a fun play on words since I was preserving food, but I was also doing it as a way to 01:27 do something I enjoy and spend some time away from the computer. So kind of a double meaning, I guess, play on words. love it. It's so cute. Thank you. So normally I would ask about the weather where you are, but you're in Minnesota and I know what the weather's like in Minnesota because so am I. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's sunny and it's been a little bit warmer than normal, I think. We're in Southwest Minnesota, kind of in the corner. 01:57 But it's been just really nice spring so far. Yeah, it really has been. did you see the weather report for Friday? It's supposed to be like 81 degrees here in Lesor. Yes, here too. It's going to be amazing. I'm kind of not looking forward to that. That's a little hot for March. it's a... and then I saw Saturday it's going to be back down to like 40. So it's really hard to get used to what you're supposed to... 02:26 do and where. Yeah, this weekend is going to be ugly. It's supposed to rain. I'm like, okay, so we're going from 81 to 40 and rainy and gross. And then what is the next day going to look like? Right. So anyway, I would love it if you would tell me about yourself and preserving my sanity. Sure. 02:50 So I mentioned how I started with the food preservation. Since then, I've continued writing about food preservation and cooking with Whole Foods at home, learning new things are some of the themes that kind of follow through my content. And then two years ago, I actually started making goat milk soap and I added it into my business as well. 03:15 Now, in addition to the food, I also make soap and sell that online too. Okay. Is the goat milk soap the cold process soap? It is. Yeah. I make cold process soap and I actually source all of my milk from local farmers here in my county. Okay. I have a question about this because we make soap, we don't use any milk of any kind in it. We make the cold process soap. 03:45 Does does it change it when you use the milk like the way it heats up the way it does what it's supposed to do In the making process but what okay when When you put Okay, when you do cold process So you do the the the lie in the water and then you add in the oils and whatever else you're gonna put in and you Use a mixer to make it all come together 04:13 when it's all come together and you pour it into the mold. it make it hotter? Does it make it cooler? Is it the same situation? It's a similar process. It is different though. And I actually have never made soap with water. only, I learned from someone who only makes milk soap. And so that's all I've ever done. But I do know, 04:39 Like I'm familiar with how it works to make it with water and how you, when you mix the lye into the water, it gets really hot and then you mix it with the other ingredients. So the lye still would make the milk really hot. So you actually start it with frozen milk cubes. Okay. So, um, instead of mixing it with just milk, because if, you did actually just put it with milk, it would curdle the milk and burn and that's not what you want. So, um, so you start it with frozen milk cubes and, 05:08 then when you mix it with the oils, it kind of keeps the heat under control. I guess is how I would explain it. That's what I was wondering about because I was like, wouldn't that burn the milk?

Today I'm talking with Scott and Marilyn at KayLeo Urban Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Scott and Marilyn at KayLeo Urban Farm in Indiana. Good morning guys. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. What's your weather like? Cause ours is gray and it's raining. It's gray, but not raining. It's to rain the rest of the week though. Yeah. I'm in, I'm in Minnesota. We got like an inch of really wet, fluffy, gross snow last night. got up this morning. I was like, what? No. 01:00 No more. It really nice weather until this week basically. Yeah, this spring or what amounts to spring, it's been spring for two weeks really, has been really chaotic here. Like last Friday it was 80 degrees here and then was 35 on Saturday. I'm like, what are you doing? Yes, that is chaotic. So yeah. You guys have the tornadoes as well. 01:29 You have? Well, not here. We're at our place, but in Indiana. Yup. I think it's going to be another crazy growing season. And I was really crossing everything I have that it was going to be a moderate season. Oh, no guys. It's going to be interesting to see how the summer goes. Okay. So. 01:50 I am so excited to have you as guests because you guys are doing something really important in Indiana and you're actually in Indianapolis or near Indianapolis. Yeah, we're right in the city on the northwest side of the city. Okay. Tell me about what you're doing. Cause I looked at your website and I was like, Oh my God, you guys are special. Like you're really, really doing something good. Well, thank you. So we are a nonprofit urban farm. 02:17 We bought the property about 10 years ago and have been a nonprofit for the last five years. We kind of focus on three areas. So growing healthy food for people. And then we get that food to people through, we started a farmer's market. This will be our fourth season starting later this, well, in June we'll start that. And we also do a matching donation to either local food pantry or specific families. 02:47 as well. We try to do education related to growing the environment, how to be sustainable. We do that through field trips, working with different groups, classes, opening our farm to people, and we focus on environmental stewardship. So growing in ways that are going to benefit the environment and leave this place better than we found it, and then helping people learn how to do that as well. Fantastic. Scott, do you have anything to add? Because I have lots of questions. 03:17 I mean, she said it well, that's pretty much it. All right. So how did you guys get into this? How did this start? Well, like Marilyn said, we bought the property about 10 years ago. We've been kind of wanting some property for a while. We talked about options of living out in the country and looking for more property out there. But Marilyn really felt called to stay in this within the city limits here. 03:45 And that kind of limits it a little bit, but we've happened to find this place, is nine acres within the city limits. I don't know if you're familiar with Indianapolis. It's fairly spread out. There's actually, you can find three to five, maybe even 10 acres of places here and there in the city. Less and less, of course, as time goes by, but it's kind of rare, not totally unheard of, but it's rare to find a this big, especially in our part of town where we are. It's pretty developed. 04:14 This had been a farm for a decade before this, then this place, we're the third owners of this place. But we found this place and got it in June of 2015. And then we weren't sure what we wanted to do with it exactly. We knew we wanted some property and some more as a space, and then talked about doing some sort of animal rescue here, kind of a... 04:40 sanctuary for animals and we do that a little bit still sort of. But then we kind of started getting just into growing. So we had some raised beds and some things and kind of just started enjoying that. And we're fairly near to some food deserts. Not exactly one, but kind of around us. And even in our area specifically, we saw some of the grocery stores closing and. 05:06 people have to walk a lot or go places to g

Today I'm talking with Anna at the The House and Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 Share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Anna at the House and Homestead. Good morning Anna, or afternoon Anna. It's one o'clock in the afternoon here. I screw up the intro all the time. Good afternoon Anna. How are you? I'm good. sorry Mary, where are you located? I'm in Minnesota. You're in Minnesota. Okay. So I'm a West on Vancouver Island. So it is actually morning here for me still. 00:57 Okay, well, it's one o'clock in the afternoon here, sort of. Fair enough. Yeah, Vancouver Island, right? Yeah, that's right. In Canada? Yes. Yes. I looked at your Facebook page this morning or your website or something and I saw Vancouver and I was like, I swear there's a Vancouver in Washington state, but I think she's in Canada. So now we know. Yes, yes, there is a Vancouver in Washington state as well, not too far from us as the crow flies, I guess, but we're out on the island now, which is... 01:26 Lovely. Yes. And would you believe that I scheduled two interviews on the same day for two women in Canada? I talked to somebody in Canada this morning as well. Oh, no way. Cool. I was like, wow, that was weird. Who knew? And Canada is a great place. have been to visit once. We took the Northern route from Illinois back to Maine. So drove up to Canada and then across and back down to the Maine because I grew up in Maine. 01:53 Oh, cool. You've probably seen more of Canada than I have then. I've been only to Quebec once and I've never even been to like Toronto or anywhere back east. I've traveled way more extensively in the US than I have across the rest of Canada because it's actually quite expensive to get back and forth across Canada using our airlines. Yeah, there's not a ton of competition here. So the prices tend to be high. I used to actually work as a travel agent funnily enough in another life and it was 02:20 often cheaper to, I kind of joked it was often cheaper to go to London, England than to London, Ontario. So, you know, if I was going to book a trip, I'm like, well, I may as well go somewhere, somewhere else, you know. Expand your horizons. Yeah. I think I was a teenager when we did that and I actually got wet from the Niagara Falls spray. we stopped in Niagara Falls too. Yeah, it was pretty neat. Okay. So tell me about yourself and the house in Homestead, please. Well, I 02:51 grew up with zero homesteading background. I did a little bit of gardening when I was a kid. remember with my grandpa, that was about as close as I ever got to growing food or anything. I remember he had a little backyard garden in the city where we live. I grew up in Vancouver in the city or in a suburb of Vancouver. And yeah, when I was a kid, I remember my grandpa had a little garden in the backyard and he would grow 03:15 beans and peas and tomatoes and a few things like that. And that was always a novelty to get them fresh from my grandpa's garden in the summer. And then I would help them out there. But other than that, I really had no experience growing food or doing any type of like food preservation or even like cooking. didn't like get into cooking for myself until I moved out in my twenties and, kind of had to figure some of that out. So I, you know, didn't come from any type of 03:44 home setting background. in about my mid twenties, my husband and I, we were engaged at that point, but we were kind of trying to determine what our future would be and where are going to stay in the city? Where are we going to look elsewhere? And I was just feeling very disenchanted with city life. was like that typical kind of stuck caught in the rat race and like, is this how it's going to be forever? And I was struggling with anxiety and depression and mental health issues at that time. 04:12 I'd always noticed that like when we got out into nature and just kind of got away from the traffic noises in the city and the hustle and bustle, I just felt at ease. I felt calm. And I wanted to, I knew at that point I wanted to get out of the city, but I didn't know what that looked like. And around the same time, we started watching a lot of documentaries on Netflix

Today I'm talking with Jesse at the The Homestead Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jessie at the Homestead Farm. I love the name of your place, Jessie. Good afternoon. How are you? I am great. How are you doing? And thank you by the way. Oh, you're welcome. I'm great. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota. You're in Washington state and you said it's raining. It's actually dry right now, but it's very wet outside. The mud goes up to your knees down in the cow pasture. 00:54 Gross. That's no fun. We're excited for a sun tomorrow. 74 it says. We'll see what happens. Well, maybe you'll get a couple of days and we'll dry it out some. It'd be nice. It'd be nice. And then we've got thunderstorms and rain coming up after that. But hey, spring is here, but summer, guess, is slowly approaching. So we'll have dry soon. Yeah. Let's not wish spring away because here in Minnesota, winters are long and cold. Yes. Yes, absolutely. 01:23 We have to eke out every piece of beauty and an amazingness from the point that spring hits until winter arrives. Okay. Nice to see all the green things popping up everywhere. I love that part of spring. The baby's being born on the farm and everything else. It's awesome seeing all the new life. Yeah. If I, if I actually lived on an actual farm, I would never be inside. Yeah. Ever. So. 01:53 All right, so tell me about yourself and the Homestead Farm. So I am Jessie. Hello everybody. And I started the actual business, the Homestead Farm, just over three years ago. I bought this place nine or 10 years ago with a dream of having a hobby farm and living off the land. It's only nine acres here, but we are using every square inch of it. 02:19 So yeah, I moved in nine years ago, 10 years ago, and I owned a cleaning business. I went to college before that for graphic design and just it wasn't my thing sitting at a computer. I worked my butt off and met an amazing man who made help to make all this possible. And I actually am now a stay at home farm girl, which has really been my dream for a long, time. 02:45 So yeah, we've got cows, goats, chickens, turkeys, some guinea hens, and a bunch of dogs. How many dogs? Right now we have nine, but five of those are puppies that are going to their new homes very soon. We've got some great Pyrenees puppies that are just awesome and they're in training right now to be livestock guardian dogs. Well, if anybody's in Washington state and looking for a great Pyrenees puppy, you know who to contact now. 03:13 Yes, I love it. We've got three three left available. So, okay good Yeah, only have one dog. I talk it talk about her all the time I probably should not even bring her up, but I'm going to anyway Her her name is Maggie and she is a mini Australian Shepherd and she is the love of my life Even though I have four adult grown children. I Love dogs. I think they're just the best thing on this planet. So I have I had kids though. So there's that 03:43 Yeah, our oldest son came to visit just like a week or so after we got Maggie, so she must have been nine or 10 weeks old. And I have never had a puppy. I was as anxious about a puppy as I was about my newborn babies. And he was like, she's a dog. I'm like, no, she's the baby. 04:08 And he was like, oh god, you're going to be so in love. I said, I'm already so in love. I can't stand it. This is making me insane. He said, this is why we never got a dog when we were kids, because you wouldn't have been able to raise us. You've been too busy raising the dog. I sense a bit of jealousy there. He's giving me hard time, because I don't think he remembers seeing me that in love with anything. And his youngest brother is, I think. 04:38 10 years younger than him. So he sort of remembers when we brought the youngest home. But it's a whole different kind of love, you know? You don't hold a baby and pet it and kiss its nose and tell it it's a good girl. You know, it's a whole different thing. So anyway, that's my thing about Maggie today. Maggie was not feeling well last night, so I've been a little concerned about her this morning. Poor Maggie. Well, we'll be thinking about her from over here. 05:

Today I'm talking with Hayden at the Home Grown Collective. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 Share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Hayden from Homegrown Collective for the third time. Hi Hayden, how are you? Great Mary, I hope you are. I'm good. It's a really beautiful day here in Minnesota. The sun is shining and it's cold. It's like, I don't think it's above freezing yet. Oh man, I got nice 67 degree weather down here in North Carolina. Well, yeah, because you're in the south and I'm in the north. So go fig. 00:58 Spring so far has been pretty good, so we're really looking forward to the temperatures keeping climbing here. it really is. I'm ready. I'm ready for it to be May 15th so we can start planting plants. Okay, so just to catch people up, Hayden and I have talked a couple times already. Hayden has the most wonderful directory for people who want to get found if they sell stuff. And by stuff I mean produce or... 01:28 Homegrown meats or I don't know what else but Hayden's gonna tell you so Hayden. Tell me more. Tell me where you're at. What's going on? So we created a it's it's it's a what a directory an online store and it's a hub with tools for producers and consumers to organize a local Supported food system in their communities so you can create educational groups. You can create barter groups you can 01:58 share which which farmers markets you're going to be at if you want to if you don't want to sell online and you want to keep everything local. The point of the online market is to give those smaller producers access to that revenue. And you're still supporting you know, local and when I say a local food producer, mean somebody who grows their own food, and most of it goes back to a 50 mile radius of consumers. 02:26 is what I consider a local food producer. people ask, where are you located? And it's not about where our company is located. It's about where they're located and who they can find that has the same mindset. So our Homegrown Collective isn't just a collective of people selling food. It's a collective mindset of people who want a different food system in America. And it gives you the tools to help organize that. 02:54 all in one place and you're able to support and organize local food production and offerings with restaurants, household consumers, backyard gardeners, to small family farms. And it brings everybody with that same goal in mind for our food system together in one place. You could compare it to like a Facebook with a good cause and our 03:23 Our thought was with the revenue that social media brings in, you could really make some real change in a country with that kind of revenue. And if we can do it under a nonprofit business model and get that money back directly to the responsible food producers and grow new operations of food production, then by directly funding those efforts, I think we can change the food system in our country. Probably communities out of time, but it can be done. 03:54 Very nice. And I'm really excited to hear that the Homegrown Collective model has grown since we last talked. Yeah, absolutely. I thought it was just going to be a directory, but it sounds like it's much more than that this time. So that's great. Before we continue, it's national, right? It's not just... Yeah, international. You can access it anywhere in the United States. We can't operate outside of the United States based on our... 04:23 a nonprofit status, you can't take in funds and direct them outside of the country, which I totally understand and wouldn't want to do anyways. we are steadily growing and I know it'll be a long, with all the information being pushed out onto people, it's kind of hard to get it out there. So we really appreciate everything you do for us, Mary. 04:50 Well, I am a huge proponent for what you're doing because I have been saying on every episode for the last two weeks, I think if you live in America right now, find your local growers because it's really important. It's always been important, but it's even more important now. I agree. I agree. And we are, our board members are growing. So we got a new lady in, uh, in Georgia that's come on and a man in New Hamps

Today I'm talking with Troy, author of Fun Farm Studios. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Troy at Fun Farm Studios and I don't know where you are Troy. What state are you in? We are in New Haven, Indiana. Okay, well in New Haven, Indiana. What's the weather like there today? Oh, it's beautiful. I love Northeast Indiana. We get all the seasons. We have nine seasons in this part of the state. Oh really? Yeah, the joke is if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. 00:57 Yeah, my dad used to say that I grew up in Maine and it would be beautiful and then it be boring. We'd come run in the house and be like, what happened? He'd be like, if you don't like it, wait five minutes. That's right. It lives true here. So I'm used to that. I'm in Minnesota and it is incredibly gray and windy. And yesterday they were saying we're going to get six inches of snow. And then when I got up this morning, the storm had taken us 01:25 of more southerly tracks, so we're probably going see some flurries and that's it. Oh no. It's fine. I really wasn't looking forward to six inches of snow on the day before the first day of spring, so we're good. Minnesota only has two seasons, right? Winter's near and winter's here. Minnesota has two seasons and winter and allergy. That's great. 01:55 Yeah, no, we have spring, summer, fall and winter. And the joke here is that we suffer through the winters because the spring, summer and fall are so beautiful. That's true. So, OK, so we've talked about the weather because I try to talk about the weather at beginning of every single episode because it's a good way to keep track of it. So tell me about yourself and what you do. My my inner child is on the outside. I am what I wanted to be when I grew up. 02:24 and I've known since I was seven. And it's been art. They are an artist and entertainer has been the wonderful evolution of the dream since I was in second grade. And it has come to fruition in a big way with this beautiful homestead that we purchased about 11 years ago in New Haven. It's a historical property, although it doesn't quite. 02:48 Meet the standards of the registry. You can't paint that. You can't change that window. The windows 143 here, so we gotta change the window so but it's rich with history on this property. There are Johnny Apple seed trees on our property. We have everything Indiana has on our property except a cave, so it's just beautiful everywhere you look. There's something to see. And it's been a wonderful fruition. We started our company tag our company on the. 03:17 turn of the millennium, Y2K, when we realized the computers weren't taking over. Three, two, one, okay, we're fine, all right, all right, so let's start a business. 26th year in business now. And it has just grown organically from customer needs with a focus on making good memories and family-friendly fun. And the property that we are stewarding now that we've been delivered to is just a huge blessing that has the fruition of 03:47 offering people an option to come to us. We always have gone to them, but they've never been able to come to us. So we have a village that we have built on the property that represents the variety, the versatility of services that we possess and can provide. And we call it the fun farm. So the fun farm is kind of a cart before the horse because we have a TV show on YouTube now, Fun Farm Studios, which is 04:13 I guess the Disney movie and then we built Disneyland or he built Disneyland. We've built Disneyland and now we built the show. So it's just whatever, it's all happening. And the, village is inspired by playhouse design. So we have a giant UFO and castle and pirate ship and, uh, an A-frame for the dinosaurs. And it's just a, like we bought a park and it doesn't disrupt the land. It's a wonderful flow. So people can, can look it up and see it. 04:41 Google Earth is just an amazing aerial view of the property from what the previous owners did and what we have continued to enhance it with never destroying anything that we that wasn't a dangerous thing I mean some things fall over some things rot but whatever we could preserve we have so it'

Today I'm talking with Atina Diffley, author of Turn Here, Sweet Corn. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Atina Diffley, the author of Turn Here Sweet Corn. Good afternoon, Atina. How are you? Hello. It's really a treat to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Oh, I'm so thrilled you had time. I reviewed Turn Here Sweet Corn on my book blog years ago and I haven't read it since and it's been a while, but I remember just being smitten with your writing. 00:57 Thank you. was really fun to write it and really healing. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine it would be. was so like, it was so comforting to read it and know that I'm not crazy to love everything about the lifestyle. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. The good, the bad, the ugly, the aberrant, the fantastic. It's all there. Exactly. So because not everybody knows about the book. 01:25 Asina, will you tell me about yourself and what the book and what you're doing now? Sure. The book is a memoir. And when I started writing it, really all I knew is that I wanted to write a memoir about my experience as a farmer. our farm started in 1972. My husband, Martin, started it in Eagan, Minnesota. So for those of you who are familiar with Minnesota, Eagan is now 100 % developed as a suburban. 01:53 area, it's 20 minutes downtown Minneapolis. So he grew up there at Fifth Generation Family Farm and saw all that change happen. And that in and of itself is so much what this book is about because he knew that land through his ancestors and their experience as settlers, as Fifth Generation on land that had been in that family since it was taken from the Indians. 02:23 And that was rolling land. It was diverse. It was never farmed industrial style because of the topography of the land. wasn't flat and possible to put big equipment in it. So it was small fields settled into a diverse landscape that still had an intact biological system from pre-colonial days. 02:53 fields that he grew there were small vegetable plots, settled into this extreme diversity. And as a certified organic vegetable farmer, before anyone knew what organic was, he was really utilizing that diversity of that land. So that right there is a great place to pause and to really just sort of celebrate this word biological diversity that has now become somewhat of a 03:20 buzzword and a catchword and it's now being greenwashed, but it really is that the essence of all life on the planet. Well, yeah, because different is good and same is not good. It's boring. And from a health perspective, the more diverse any system is, whether it's a living natural ecosystem or a relationship, and you talk about any system, diversity is healthy. 03:50 and creates reduced disease transmission, reduced disease issues. When you think about it from an agricultural perspective, as long as we had a diverse landscape around our fields, we really didn't have disease or pest issues. And I was really naive when I joined Martin in the 80s. I was young and 04:17 There wasn't really a lot of science and research and conversation at that point in time yet about this and how it works. And so really, I organic farming was really easy. I mean, it was hard physically. We worked our butts off. But the management of our fertility and our pest-centered disease and our water needs was done through the diversity of the landscape and didn't take a lot of effort. But I didn't know that at the time. 04:46 I just was doing the task of planting and harvesting and I didn't really understand the impact that diversity had on it until the sky fell out and that land was developed. Yeah. It's, I, okay, I'm sitting here thinking about how to say this next. We lived in Jordan for 20 years, Jordan, Minnesota, and we moved to our little piece of heaven like a little over four years ago. 05:14 Our little piece of heaven is in the middle of the corn fields right now. And it's a 3.1 acre lot and our nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away. And part of the reason that we chose to leave Jordan is because stuff was starting to get built up. There were a whole bunch of housing developments that went in. And when housing developments go in, population expands and then bi

Today I'm talking with Jodi at Rural Route Bulbs. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 Share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. This Homestead Holler Shoutout is to our friends over at Freedom Reign Farm in Buffalo, Minnesota. Their new little farm shop is the perfect spot for seasonal fresh goat milk products if you're local to the Buffalo area. While their online shop makes it super easy to order shippable items right to your door. From natural handcrafted goat milk and tallow soaps to grass-fed tallow skin care and beautifully arranged gift boxes. Each product is crafted with care and love. Check them out at freedomreignfarm.com or follow their Facebook page to stay in the loop. 00:58 Let freedom reign. Today I'm talking with Jody at Rural Route Bulbs in Wisconsin. Good afternoon, Jodi. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm great. How's the weather in Wisconsin? Well, it's probably about the same as Le Sueur. It's windy. It's warm, which is nice. It's like 62, but we have a pretty good south wind. think we're gusting to like 40. 01:21 Oh, it's not too bad here, actually. They were saying this morning that it was going to be windy and it was, but I think it's died down and it's sunny and I think it's 50 degrees maybe. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I was just telling someone else this morning that I interviewed at 10 a.m. that they are predicting real measurable heavy snow for Wednesday. And I'm like, of course they are because it's the day before spring. Yep. We were supposed to get that same snow. 01:48 So we'll see how much we get. We're kind of on the line between rain and snow, which we ride the line like all winter between rain and snow, it seems like. are you in Wisconsin? Uh, we're by Eau Claire. So we're just east of Eau Claire. So about an hour and a half east of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Yeah. Eau Claire is really pretty. I have been through there. So. It is. Go ahead. It is. It is. It's, it's so pretty in the fall. Um, I'm from Southern Minnesota. 02:18 by where you're from. And I've been combining in some areas with previous jobs. And sometimes I just stop and I'm like, it's so beautiful here when the leaves are changing. And so yes, you're right. It's, it's wonderful area. town are you from in Minnesota? Janesville, Minnesota. Yes. Yes. I've heard of Janesville. My, my husband actually has family in Janesville, Wisconsin. So, okay. Yeah. I get confused. 02:46 A lot of clinking things going on here this morning or this afternoon. Sorry. keep thinking it's morning. It's not. It's one o'clock. Okay. So anyway, I'm very excited to talk with you because I've been talking a lot on the podcast with people about eggs, chickens, cows and pigs. And I really do love flowers. So tell me about yourself and rural route. I can't say it rural route bulbs. Yeah. So, um, 03:15 Roll route bulbs was just an idea that, well, my husband and I, we were trying to think of a crop to diversify into that was local. So we farm, we're pretty conventional farmers. know, we have a combine, we do corn, soybeans, rye. We're trying to rotate into a couple of different things right now, but we were really looking for a local market that we could diversify into. 03:44 We happened to be on a trip in Washington state for baptism for my sister and my husband was like, we should think about tulips. So we looked into them. We planted 5,000 one year just to see if they would grow well. And they did. then planting, I planted 5,000 tulips with COVID when it was new and I got very sick afterwards. And then we planted another 12,000, I think the next year and I. 04:14 planted those when I was pregnant. So I would like to plant tulips when I'm not in an otherly state. Your property must be gorgeous in what, May, June? May, yep. It is. 16,000 tulips didn't take up quite as much space as I thought it was going to, but yes, I often find myself, I go out to the garden just to 04:42 to take notes on my tulips, which ones are coming back, you know, but sometimes it's kind of a lie. I'm just out there because it's just so nice. Yeah. I feel like people who grow flowers do it partly because it's a good thing to grow, but because there's such joy when they bloom. Yeah. So my trade is in agronomy. So I generally work wi

Today I'm talking with Wanda at Minnesota Farm Living. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Wanda at Minnesota Farm Living and by the name of the farm, you know it's Minnesota. So good afternoon, Wanda. How are you? Good, good. I'm glad to be here. I'm happy to have you. And I'm really glad you're in Minnesota because when I ask you about the weather, we can just grin because it's sunny and it's warm. Oh, know. It's crazy. And it sounds like this next week. I mean, the next like seven days is going to be like a roller coaster. And I mean that literally almost. 00:58 Highs near 70 and it will be down to lows in about the 30s by the end of the weekend and probably snow again. Yeah, but not much not much snow and will melt next week. Yeah, exactly. can't Considering the winter we've had and how little snow we've had I would be very happy to not have three feet dumped on us. That would be great. I'm in Lasur. Where are you? I am in Welcome, Minnesota. So I'm actually right along the I-90 01:25 In fact, I can actually see I-90 from my house and yeah, just south central Minnesota. Okay. I have no idea how far away that is from me in Lesor, like an hour. I'm going to guess an hour and a half. Okay. Cause I think St. Peter for us is like an hour and 15 minutes. So you're a little bit north of that. So yeah, we're about 10 minutes due north of St. Peter. Yep. We go to St. Peter all the time. It is such a cute town. Oh my city, I guess. I think it's a town. 01:52 But I think every town is a town other than Minneapolis. So yes, I had a daughter that actually went to school there for a year. So it gets Davis. So familiar with that. So yeah, my son and I, a couple of springs ago went down to the campus and there's this really pretty like park area and they have some walking trails and it's really, really gorgeous. So we, we enjoyed that cause we moved to Lusore. 02:18 little over four years ago and we really busy getting things set up in our new home and getting a garden plotted out and getting a chicken coop set up and you know things you do when you buy 3.1 acres in the middle of cornfields and so there's hadn't been a lot of time to go familiarize familiarize there we go ourselves with the area and we went down to St. Peter and I was like I want to live in St. Peter this is so pretty and then I got home 02:46 Then I got home and went, no, I want to live in the middle of I hear you. So anyway, yeah, the weather is going to be a little nutty starting Friday and be nutty into Sunday. And then I think we might be through the worst of this winter. think we might be on our way to spring. I would be okay with that for sure. Me too. So Wanda does a whole bunch of stuff, but I think the biggest thing is, that you guys grow. 03:16 pigs to supply Hormel, is that correct? That is correct. we've been- Okay, tell me about that. Yeah. So we've been raising pigs for 47 years. So that's how long we've been living on our home site. And so we've always raised pigs. We started off with actually having sows and boars and they would feral, which is another name for giving birth. had 24 farrowing stalls. 03:44 And so we could have 24 cells actually giving birth at the same time. And so then at first we just started raising them up just a feeder pig weight, which is about 40 or 50 pounds, because we didn't have any room for them to grow up to like 280 pounds, which is what we do now. And then we would sell them, we'd go to Windom, Minnesota, and we sold them on a feeder pig auction. So that was how it started. And then eventually we got into, we actually, 04:12 built what we call gestation barn, which is where our cells actually were housed. And the reason we did that, if anybody really knows much about pigs, they can be pretty aggressive towards each other because what they have to do is they have to figure out their pecking order, you know, who is going to be king sow. And so the way they do that is they can kind of fight with each other. And that was kind of hard to see at times. I mean, we actually had a sow die because another sow attacked it because they were just trying to figure out 04:41 Who's going to be K

Today I'm talking with Matt at The Cottage Foodie. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Matt Rosen, also known as Sergeant Shortbread at the Cottage Foodie, because he has a new thing going on. Good afternoon, Matt. How are you? I'm doing fantastic, Mary. Thanks for having me on. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Just to catch people up, Matt and I talked quite a while ago about his business, Sergeant Shortbread. He makes fabulous shortbread, I have heard. 00:54 And then he decided he wanted to do this new thing called the cottage foodie. So this is kind of a catch up and to talk about that. So tell me about yourself and what you're doing now. Yeah. So like you said, I started out in the cottage food community or the cottage food industry as Sergeant Shortbread. I still am a cottage food producer here in Minnesota. Yeah, I love it. I don't know if I'll ever quit. 01:23 Physically, that might be the only way that I stop, but we'll have to see. Only time will tell, I guess. But yeah, I've been a cottage food producer here in Minnesota for, seven years now. Yeah, seven years in April 2018 I started. yeah, like I said, been a cottage food producer since then and about a year and a half ago or so just had a... 01:50 I don't know, a revelation if you want to call it. I'm not sure what exactly you'd call it, but I just felt like there was a need for a directory of cottage food producers. for those of us who remember the yellow pages, maybe I'm dating myself here a bit, but. I remember them. Yeah. There's no digital yellow pages for cottage food producers. look for. 02:19 for this and I saw there are some out there but it didn't look like they were really being managed or maintained and I wasn't sure if they were still being used and so I thought well I'm gonna do a new upgraded version of this and so yeah, joined up with a social media, a digital marketing company and we created a platform for cottage food producers to become members and have profiles on 02:48 the cottage foodie and then in return, what I do is I do some of their digital marketing forum. I don't take over their digital marketing and so I tell them, keep doing what you're doing. This is just gonna be in addition to what you're doing. So I run Facebook ads for them. Anywhere we have members, I run paid advertising in their areas. So for example, I think 03:17 in Minnesota here alone, we're close to 70 members. so essentially I just run it in the entire state of Minnesota, just because I'm not going to pick and choose little communities. Once I do that, I'm going to be covering the whole state practically anyway. But take for example, California, I think we have four or five in California. Two or three of them are in kind of the Los Angeles area and that surrounding area. And then two or three of them are up in like the San Jose Sacramento area. So 03:47 So I just run specific ads within those areas. I'm not running in the entire state of California. I mainly just want to highlight the cottage food producers within their areas. So for example, I might put San Jose in the Facebook when I'm doing a targeted audience, I'll put San Jose plus 20 miles. And so it'll be San Jose and then 20 miles from downtown San Jose, it'll cover that. 04:16 So yeah, that's what the cottage foodie is all about. I grew my business, my cottage food business from being a cottage food producer to moving into a commercial kitchen. So I do have a wholesale food manufacturing license on top of my cottage food producer registration. So I just wanted to help other cottage food producers grow their businesses if that's what they wanna do. If their goal is to... 04:46 move into a commercial kitchen and sell in grocery stores and coffee shops and things like that, then I just want to be able to help them achieve that. And I know that one of the hardest things that we as cottage food producers will run into is, and I hear it all the time, how do I get my name out there? Nobody knows I exist. I can't hire somebody to do my marketing and I can't afford. 05:14 all this paid advertising on Facebook and social media. And so, so that's where the cottage foodie steps

Today I'm talking with Nikki at Cotton Cupcakes, LLC. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Nikki at Cotton Cupcakes LLC. Good afternoon, Nikki. How are you? Good afternoon, Maryam. Great, thank you. Good. I always, I swear like one out of three intros that I do, I screw it up somehow and I'm like, ah, it's all right. It's okay. We got it covered. Those are the ones people remember, so that's good. I'm sorry, say it again. 00:54 And those, think those maybe help people remember the names. So it's good if you mess it up, then maybe someone will remember the name more so than not. Or they just giggle and go, yeah, that's Mary again. Okay. So you're in, where are you in New Hampshire? So I'm in a small, very rural town called Alexandria, New Hampshire. What's it near? So we're near Newfound Lake, which is a stunning, gorgeous, pristine lake. We're very, very fortunate to be beside it. 01:23 And we're also close to Plymouth. So we're close to PSU, which is the university up there, Plymouth State University. Okay, that doesn't actually help me because when I think of Plymouth, I think Massachusetts. So what's the next biggest town or city? We have Laconia, which is pretty close. We do a huge annual pumpkin festival at Laconia Pumpkin Festival. you know, I probably haven't heard of that. Maybe you have, I don't know. I actually grew up in Maine, so I do know where Laconia is. 01:53 fantastic. All of my family's from Maine. Yeah, and now I live in Minnesota of all places. Oh my goodness, that's quite a ways away. Yes, yes, I've told the story a few times. I'm not gonna repeat it. It's just sickening to keep saying it over and over again. If you really want to know, I'll explain when we're done recording. So your business name is Cotton Cupcakes LLC, but you don't do cupcakes, right? I do not make, I mean, I make cupcakes for 02:20 for joy, you know, for my family and for neighbors and whatnot. But cupcakes, I do not produce cupcakes as a business, no. No. So tell me about yourself and what you do do at Cupcakes, LLC. Okay, so Cotton Cupcakes came about because I have wanted to own my own t-shirt company for about 20 years. So 20 years ago, my husband and I said, we're going to do this thing, we're going to start a t-shirt company. Then we went down to our state house and we applied for our name. 02:49 And one thing led to another and we never got to do it. So 20 years later, my children, I've been a homeschool parent for forever. And about a year ago, about a year and a half ago, my littlest said, I've decided that I don't want to be homeschooled anymore. I want to go to public school. And I was devastated. I went, I was just almost in mourning for a little while, but I've always told my children that if they wanted to go in public school, they could, the option was there that we're homeschooling. 03:19 because we have the pleasure of being able to do so. So I said, okay. So she went in and then my eldest who's going to be starting high school, just after a year, I said, you you should take some courses so that you can get ready for high school. So I went through a bit of a little emptiness syndrome with one in school full time and one starting to take courses. And I started to freak out like, oh no, I've got to be something because I've been a homeschool parent for years. And I made a picture. 03:47 I was painting a picture and I put it between two pieces of plastic and I pressed on it. And then I pulled the plastic off and I looked at it it was a squished cupcake. And I was like, oh my gosh, I love this squished cupcake. I want to do something like this because I went to school for design and I've used it in various elements of my life, but I haven't really been able to do anything for quite a few years with it. And I sent it to my husband, I took a picture and I sent it over the phone and I said, 04:15 you know, do you think if I start my t-shirt business now?" And he just responded, that's it. That's it. He just said, that's it, as the words. And I went, I knew it. I was like, okay, because he and I are very in sync and we believe in a lot of the same things and feel a lot of the same

Today I'm talking with Josie at Heirloom Garden Studio. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Home Grown Collective. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Josie at Heirloom Garden Studio. Good morning Josie, how are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? I'm good. You're in Texas, yes? Yes, I'm in Houston. Okay, how's the weather? The weather is great. Spring has sprung here. It's going to be close to 90 degrees today. 00:56 So we're getting some warm weather, but you know, Texas does this little two-step thing where we kind of stutter into spring and then we'll have some cold weather again and then warm. So it's kind of all over the place for a while until it gets hot. Yeah, we've been going through that in Minnesota. It hit 70 here yesterday. Oh, that's wonderful. That's great. It was kind of really refreshing to step out on my porch. 01:25 and the window was open and I was like, oh, it's beautiful. It's not gonna freeze my face. This is great. I can't imagine. I could never live someplace where it gets cold like that. I love the heat. Yeah, I love it when people are like, I'm never gonna live somewhere where the air hurts my face. And I'm like, well, you're also missing out on spring, summer and fall here. that's really great. true. And I understand. I can't imagine living somewhere without the season. 01:54 So we're kind of on opposite ends here, but I do get it. All right. So tell me about yourself in Heirloom Garden Studio. Okay. Yeah. So my name is Josie Haley with Heirloom Garden Studio. As you mentioned, I design and install kitchen gardens or backyard gardens, whatever you prefer to call them. 02:19 in and around the greater Houston area and I also provide gardening services and I teach gardening classes and workshops. Awesome, I love you already. Great. We also have a small urban homestead which is funny to say. I never thought I would hear myself say that but here we are. Well, what do you do on your urban homestead because I'm always trying to make the point that you can homestead anywhere. 02:48 Correct, yes. we live very close to downtown, about four miles in kind of an urban area. We have about an 8,000 square foot lot, so not big. And we have three chickens right now, which give us plenty of eggs, but we also have five baby chicks that my kids just love. And we're hoping to introduce them to the flock. 03:16 in a few weeks here and get some more eggs going for this year. And then of course I have my beloved kitchen garden, which is where it all started. So that's what we have here. Nice. What do you plant in your kitchen garden? Do you have herbs or is it just veggies? my. Herbs and veggies, yes. 03:43 Houston actually I know everyone thinks oh my goodness it's so hot here you can't grow much but believe it or not we can grow year-round so I have four raised beds about a little over a hundred square feet of growing space and I love to pack in as much as I can and right now we're starting to plant all of our tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and squash and 04:12 Just everything spring and it's just it's probably my favorite time of the year. Anytime I can put a tomato plant in the ground, I'm as happy as I can be. So we're also harvesting all of our what we call winter vegetables here. Our cool season vegetables like lettuces, snap peas, brassicas and all of that. So. 04:42 So what you're telling me is that you're never without fresh produce during the year to use in your house. That is true. And that's what I really love. And I love teaching it to people here locally because, you know, in Houston, it's cyclical, right? Gardening. You should never have an empty garden bed. You can be growing something and constantly adding to it and taking things out. So 05:10 You know, even if you just have a few minutes every day to go out and grab a handful of snap peas, you should do that. And then you should also plant something. Uh huh. I'm right there with you, sister. I agree completely. Um, what I, what I try to tell people when they're like, I want to start a garden, but I don't know how to do it. And I want to start small is I tell them to start with herbs, like chives and thyme, because chives and thyme are really hard to screw up. They really are chives. I would s

Today I'm talking with Bobbi at BLB Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. A tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Bobby at BLB Farms. And Bobby, what does BLB stand for? 00:53 Butcher's lazy bee farm and depending on who you talk to myself or my husband is who the lazy bee is. Oh Okay, I get it Yeah, we don't swear on the podcast so lazy be is perfect Thank you for explaining that you're in Texas and What's the weather like in Texas right now? Well, we just got over having two tornadoes come through 01:21 One was three miles and one was about eight miles from us. So it's nice and beautiful and sunshiny right now, so we'll take it. Yeah, I'm really glad it was three miles and 10 miles away because I would be very sad if I wasn't talking to you right now. Thank you. We would be very sad too. We lucked out. We didn't have any damage this time around. Last couple of years, we have really bad straight line winds here. So it makes farming very difficult. 01:50 Yeah, I'm in Minnesota. We have tornadoes here too. Luckily, I've never actually seen one in the over... Oh my God. I don't know how many years I've been here since 1991. So over 30 years, I think? Never seen a tornado, but I have seen the sky look really scary and like it could turn and I don't love it. So, and for those who don't know, I talk about the weather at beginning of the episodes because it's my way of expressing my esteem for the person I'm talking to. 02:20 So the weather in Minnesota today is sunny and it's supposed to hit 70 degrees this afternoon. Yay. And no tornadoes that I know of. we're set. So all right, Bobby, tell me about yourself and what you guys do at BLB Farms. I am a 47 year old housewife and farmer, chief cook and bottle wash. And I have three children. My youngest is 18. 02:49 oldest is 27. So we kind of spread them out there a little bit. But I found out very early that I wanted to do farming. was raised with farmers. So I already had a good background. And we just kind of, you know, rolled with it from there. Okay. So have you always been farming? 03:18 Yes, we were raised, we grew all of our produce. My mother, we did chickens. We processed our own chickens. We had friends that done their own meat chickens. So that was the extent of the animals that I grew up with. But as far as vegetables, fruits, anything like that, that we could grow, we did so. And my mother preserved them. 03:47 via freezing or dehydrating or even canning, pressure canning or water bath. I think that's a beautiful way to grow up. It was. I took it for granted. And then when, because I was raised between my mother and my father had gotten a divorce and we had moved to Alaska when I was three. So up there things were very expensive. 04:16 So if you have a good ground somewhere where you can actually do some of your own produce, it's best to do that. And so when we moved back to Texas, I was lost because that's what we done. And it was cheaper down here, so we got the routine of just going to the store. So I had to come kind of full circle back to the way I was raised. 04:44 I feel like that happens to a lot of us. When I was growing up, I grew up in Maine. My parents had an acre of land on a block. So you would drive down a mile into the woods and there was a block. You drive down, hang a left, come back out around on that same one mile lane again. my dad put in a garden, oh my goodness, I think the first year that we lived there in 05:14 Oh, moved in the summer of 76, so must've been 77. He put in a big garden and he had a garden every year until I moved out and I was six when we moved in there and I moved out at almost 19. And so I watched my dad and my mom garden. And then when I moved out, I moved into the city and lived in cities or suburbs until, oh, can't think. 05:42 1999 maybe? And then moved in with my husband and we were in a little tiny town and we didn't have a big lot. We had a tenth of an acre lot with a house and a four car garage on

Today I'm talking with Dawn at VT Blodgett Family Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective. Log in using the app or your computer. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Dawn at Vermont Blodgett Family Farm. Good morning, Dawn. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing good and you? I'm great. Tell me I pronounced Blodgett correctly. You did. Okay. Cause I was like, could it be Blodgett or is it just Blodgett? Blodgett. Awesome. Good. I always hate like slaughtering people's names. I feel really bad about it. What is the weather like in Vermont this morning? 00:55 This morning we've actually had a warmer day. It's up in the 30s. We got about an inch and half of snow in an hour this morning when we were milking. So the roads are nice and slushy and we're all white again. Well, it's pretty. I'm sure that you're like a lot of Northern Tier State people. You're probably looking forward to spring. Yes. Yes, us too. 01:22 just to do my usual thing that I do at the beginning of every episode. Here in Minnesota this morning, it's bright and sunny and it's warm. And we're supposed to hit 70 degrees today for the high. I'm jealous. Yeah, me too. I'm gonna be real happy to see that hit this afternoon. The problem that we're having with this though is that it's really bouncing up and down. And today it's to be, it's supposed to hit 70. 01:51 And then it's supposed to go back down to like the fifties and then Friday they're saying that it's going to be over 70 and we're, might get, um, severe thunderstorms in March. Wow. Yeah. I'm like, you know, this is not great. I don't, I don't really love the, uh, the zigzagging and the up and down that we're going through right now, but hopefully by May it will have worked it all out and it'll be okay. Saturday. was negative five with the wind chill. 02:21 Oh, all day long. Yeah, a week and a half ago, two weeks ago here, we were in like minus 20 real temperature weather for a week. So yeah, it's really hard to know how to dress for the day. I'll tell you that. Layers and it all then can come off. Exactly. All right. So tell me about what you guys do at your farm and about yourself. 02:51 So we are classified as a dairy farm. So we have 45 milking jerseys. So we ship to Organic Valley. so that is what we actually do. Like our whole farm is set up as a dairy farm. We've been here for almost 10 years now. are high. 03:20 What is it? High rotational grazing or intense. That's it. Intense. Great rotational grazing. We have about 50 acres of land that we we pasture. We have about 100 acres of land that we hay and then we have beef cows. But we only have 15 of them. That's more for the farm stand that we have. 03:48 And about three years ago, four years ago, my husband built the stand, the farm stand, and I have been increasing my egg sales since. So I'm up to 670 chickens. Wow. But we are a dairy farm. OK. I understand that you're a dairy farm, but 670 chickens lay a lot of eggs. Yes. 04:17 You must be very popular right now with egg sales. Very. I right now because I have various ages of birds. I have about 250 that are laying consistently. So I get about 21 dozen eggs a day and I sell out within an hour. Well, I was impressed that our chickens just started laying a week ago. They're starting to be consistent and we've been getting 10 eggs a day. So 21 dozen a day seems like a wonderful thing. Yes. 04:47 It is a lot of eggs. I'll be happy when we have a dozen a day because we have 12 chickens. So if they're all laying the way it was supposed to, we will have seven dozen a week, which would be really nice right now. Yes. Yes. And I don't really want to talk too much about eggs and chickens because it's all over the news. And I saw your post on Facebook that you did about your chickens and what it costs to take care of them. 05:13 And I'm going to share that on my page and my tiny homestead podcast page because people don't quite understand that that that first outlay for the chickens is expensive. 05:27 So it definitely can be. As you said, I posted it. But for the first four months of a chicken's life, it actually only cost about $10 for four months to feed them. But what's going to cost you the money is starting up. So you need a housing p

Today I'm talking with Daniel at Valor + Harvest. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Daniel at Valor and Harvest. Good afternoon, Daniel. How are you? Doing well. Thank you for having me. Oh, absolutely. I live for you people to talk to me. This is what I... 00:27 I spend my life doing lately, so thank you for being here. So tell me about yourself. Well, actually first, tell me what the weather's like, where you are, where are you? So we are located just north of Cincinnati, Ohio, behind Kings Island Amusement Park, if you're familiar with that. Well, I'm not, but that's pretty cool. And what's the weather like there today? The weather is, we'll say mixed, so we have partly cloudy. 00:54 and sunshine mix between the two. It's very windy out there, probably right above freezing. Could be wrong. Ohio weather is very hit or miss this time of year. So it was snowing last night. I think it's supposed to be 60 or something tomorrow. So it kind of gives you a overview of what we have around here. We're in that spring crazy weather pattern right now. Yeah. I'm in Minnesota, but I grew up in Maine. 01:22 And my dad used to say, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute. And, and Minnesota is like that too. And honestly, I think every state is like that. So, okay. So we've done the weather report from Ohio. Yeah. Ohio you said, and Minnesota this morning. tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Yeah, absolutely. So we started Valor Plus Harvest back in October. We are a bath and body company. 01:50 We initially started with candles. We have soap coming, also beard oils and other items. So the very basics, that's what our company is. We're a veteran owned small business. So I'm a Marine Corps veteran. I served in OIF 1 and 2, straight out of high school. What's unique about our company is first and foremost, our products are made with, we try our hardest to get all locally sourced ingredients. 02:18 and Made in America products. It's very hard, but that's what we're going for. And what's really interesting about our company in totality is the end of the day, we give back 10 % to veteran organizations. So I know you're not familiar with Cincinnati, Ohio, but we're very close to the Disabled American Veterans Headquarters. That's our organization that we donated to last year. That's the national headquarters for all disabled American veterans. you know, 02:48 Not only do we create a good product and what we're striving for in our space, we also like to give back and that's at very high level, that's our company. Fan, I would use the F word, I-N, tastic, but I'm not going to do that because I don't do that on my podcast. My son was a, well, he says that once a Marine, always a Marine. So he's a Marine, but he hasn't been in service for a bit. He served for eight years actually. 03:17 duty. Nice. Thank you for his service. Well, I don't know if I'm saying this right because I don't know a lot about how this works, but he was in the Marines for eight years. I don't know if active duty means like fighting with guns or it just means being in. Yeah, same eight year contract for myself as well. So once a Marine, always a Marine. Still live by that motto, created really good work ethics and self-discipline. Yeah. 03:46 I always joke that I started the process of growing him up and the Marines finished him. There you go. That's a very good way. I like that. Yeah. And he came back like a year after he enlisted to visit me specifically before the kids got home from school. And we had a slightly rough parting of the ways when he moved out and he showed up at the door to the house that he grew up in. 04:14 knocked and I was like you don't have to knock just come in to your house and sat down and first thing he said was I need you to listen and I need you not to say anything and I was like okay he said first off I'm sorry I said for what he said for being such a pain in your ass and I was like oh well that's that's okay I said I love you and he said I love you too and then we just kept talking 04:41 It was the most beautiful moment of my life with that kid, swear to you. That's good. I'm glad you have that relationship. That's really important. Yep. And I don't talk about it a lot because it's very, it's very personal, but I was scared to death that he would get killed when he enlisted. And I, I'm not a praying girl, but I, I said a lot of messages to the universe saying, please keep them safe in that eight years. And so. 05:08 when he came out and

Today I'm talking with Christi at Tee’s Kitchen. 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, podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Christy at Tee's Kitchen in Louisiana. Good morning. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. Good. So what's the weather like in Louisiana this morning? Oh, it's... 00:29 Actually, it's raining. It's raining here, kind of humid, muggy, the typical Louisiana weather. Okay, well, it's like 35 degrees, I think, here in Minnesota and the sun is just pouring through the window. Oh, wow. I'm a little jealous. Yeah, so we're kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum, but that makes sense considering how far north I am and how far south you are. 00:56 Okay, so did the obligatory weather report. This is a thing now. I do this on every episode and tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, my name is Christy. I'm from South Louisiana, as far South as you can get. I'm married to my high school sweetheart and we've been married for 20, 25 years. And we have two, I'm a boy mom. We have two boys, an 18 year old and a 10 year old. 01:24 I'm an elementary teacher, so I currently teach third grade in the charter school system. And I also have, I guess you could call it a business, T's Kitchen, which kind of started out as a, I would bake from my home. slowly kind of got away from that lately because I've been so busy, but now I mostly do, like as my side gig, I do social media. And so I do cooking videos and. 01:52 Sometimes I work with brands and so I enjoy that social media aspect of my life, which is more of a hobby, but sometimes I wish it would be my full-time job because I just love it so much. Yeah, I'm discovering that media content production is really fun. Who knew? It's so much fun. Yeah, I mean, I'm not doing videos, but I'm definitely sharing my voice and other people's voices. And when I started it, 02:18 I was really nervous and now I just sit down and like, hi, how the hell are you? Let's chat. Right. Me too. I was so nervous at first too. I wouldn't even show my face. Like I would just show my the food, you know, and then slowly I started showing myself and becoming more vulnerable and I feel like people really connect to that, you know. Well, I think your face is adorable. I watched a couple of your videos and you're really good at it. Well, thank you. Yeah. Okay. 02:45 So we need to stretch this to half an hour about what you do. We're going to talk about your videos first. Your videos are really good. Like your diction when you talk, you are so clear, which is really helpful if there's actually like something you're trying to get across on how to do something. That's helpful. And you're always smiling. Whether you want to be or not, you're always smiling. I think it's beautiful. And some of your videos are funny, but 03:14 a lot of them are just really interesting. thanks. Wow, what a compliment. you know, we're always our own worst critic, you know, so I don't sometimes it's funny to see how other people's people, not people's other people perceive you, you know, so that's such a compliment. Thank you. You're welcome. And believe me, I am always my worst critic. I listened to the podcast back before I released them, obviously, to edit them. 03:42 Some of them I'm like, I don't know about that one. I'm not sure I want to put that one out. And I wait, I wait like a couple of days and I sleep on it then I listen to it again. I'm like, I don't know why I thought that was bad. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. I know, I know. And sometimes, you know, whenever you think something is terrible, other people really connect to it. And I don't know if it's cause it's, you're a little more vulnerable. I don't know, but some of the videos that I release and I'm like, the next day I'm thinking, Oh, I shouldn't have posted that. 04:11 I get the most comments or the most private messages from people that were like, I'm so glad you shared that. I'm going through that too. yeah. Yeah. The episodes I really get tweaked about when I'm doing this is if somebody says something that makes me tear up and you can hear it in my voice, and I don't like hearing my voice like that. Yeah. I'm like, that's a real reaction. It's important that people realize that 04:41 I'm human too, so. Right, right. Yeah. I've done my fair share of crying on social media. I'm really glad that it's not video from mine because I have the worst ugly cry face you've ever seen. no, that's not going to ever be seen on a video on the internet if I can avoid it. Okay. So are you in gumbo country? We are. We are. 05:10 S

Today I'm talking with Danielle at Country Roads Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 After listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Danielle at Country Roads Farm. That's it. Good morning, Danielle. How are you? Good morning. How are you, Mary? I'm good. I've got a really goopy voice. 00:26 Right now, I don't know why, hopefully it'll clear itself up as we keep talking. It's that weather. Yeah. We got some real weather last night. We were supposed to get six to seven inches of snow, supposedly, but we live in the plains area of Minnesota. So the wind just blew and blew and blew and there's maybe an inch and a half on the ground out there. But the wind was really, really bad. I mean, I had the fan on in my room and I could still hear the trees creaking outside. was like, oh. 00:55 50 mile barwind. No, have in, we are in the thumb of Michigan and it's been a winter. It's been a long time since Michigan has had a good winter. I don't want to say hard. It hasn't, but it's been a good solid winter and honestly we need it. But this week is finally 40s and today is almost 50 and it's definitely given spring fever. 01:25 You're having the week that we had last week. Last week was gorgeous here. 01:32 Yeah, we're supposed to have snow. Oh, I saw it in the forecast. I want to say it's in a couple of days. you know, lovely, lovely Michigan. Well, it is spring in a Northern tier state. You just never know what you're going to get to quote Forrest Gump. You just never know. Right. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. So. 01:56 We have country roads farms, which is last year was our first year being open for business. And we are a an agro tourism farm, I guess is the best description of it. We have a petting farm and we offer you picks. We do workshops, all sorts of fun stuff. We're open from May to December. 02:26 fun. And for anyone who doesn't know what agritourism is, it basically is a farm-ish place that offers entertainment through people going and experiencing the activities on the farm. Right? Yeah. So it's absolutely what it is. Okay. Good. Yeah. I was looking at your Facebook page. Your place looks like so much fun. I want to go. 02:55 It's definitely a lot of fun and we kind of, oh, so what started out originally as the idea for a Christmas tree farm quickly involved into being more of a multi-seasonal. And more so it was, know, financially it was driven just by not putting all of your eggs in one basket. 03:22 Christmas trees are a little bit of a risky business in that they take seven to 10 years to grow. during that time, you have to hope and pray that they make it, know, blights, know, drought, too much rain, you name it, everything in between doesn't wipe out your tree lots. So. 03:47 So yeah, we decided to just kind of open it up and then we were given the advice of several other farmers about agritourism and looking for ways to invite the public to your farm and kind of capitalizing on that. And we absolutely love that aspect of our farm. So I'm really glad that you do. I'm guessing you're not shy. No, I'm not shy. I'm. 04:14 I'm a mom of four kids and we're all outgoing and kinda, there's not much that holds us back, that's for sure. We're a spirited group. I love that. Spirited is such a great word. So you diversified your business is what you're telling me. What did you add in? 04:38 We open in May with Mother's Day flowers and flats of vegetables. And I'm sorry if you can hear that. That's my dog scratching at the door. I kicked him out so they wouldn't bark. are so many dog noises on every episode of my podcast. It's totally fine. So, but we, well, that's good. So I'm not the only one, but no, so we have the flowers and the plants and that kind of, and then we do hard dip ice cream. 05:09 in the petting farm. So all that opens up in May. And then come June, we start transitioning into cut flowers and dupix. And then as that goes, the vegetables start coming in. So then we start getting the produce for the farm market. And then that transitions into fall with the mums and pumpkins. 05:34 Apples, we are licensed to press their own cider. So we do that and do cider slushies and fresh donuts. And then we transition into Christmas with the pre-cut Christmas trees, wreaths, porch pots. And in between all of this, we're doing field trips. We do... 06:00 workshops and different classes and events and farm to table events. We also do fundraisers. So there's a lot that goes on on any given day, week, month. So. Wow. I don't, I don't want to know wh

Today I'm talking with Meg at Skylight Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 After listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Meg at Skylight Farm in Wisconsin. Good afternoon, Meg. How are you? Hi, I'm good. Good. I was just telling Meg before I hit record, the weather here in Minnesota right now is 00:29 Going from it to gross It was over 40 degrees this morning and now it's 33 degrees It's raining and I expected to shift to snow any minute. So we're kind of excited. They had said two to five inches They're now saying six to seven inches overnight 00:47 Wow, that's a lot. I think we will probably get dumped on here at least one more time this year, but I definitely would rather the frozen ground and the snow right now over the rain and the mud. Yes, me too, because we have a dog and I have a husband and an adult son who live here. And mud is always on my kitchen floor right now. For sure. Yep. This past week, it's been like May, you know, it's been like May mud. 01:14 and dirt and leaves from the lawn or the, we don't have a lawn from the yard. And it's been kind of messy and that's great because it means strings on its way, but it's kind of bad when you got to sweep it all up. Yeah. So Meg, I always talk about the weather at the beginning of the podcast, just to give people an idea of what's going on. And it's a record of what was going on at the time. And so tell me about yourself and tell me what you do at Skylight Farm. 01:42 We do a few things here at Skylight Farm. Originally, initially, I've been a full-time horse trainer since 2012, and we purchased the farm here in Wisconsin for boarding and training of dressage horses in 2019. Yeah. And, you know, since we've had this beautiful, wonderful place, things have... 02:07 evolved a little bit and we do a little bit more of the farmsteading homesteading sort of stuff in conjunction with what we do with the horses. So we have like, I think we have 25 raised beds, we have some really beautiful soft root that we, that's come to, it's come to be, you know, a really adult producing. 02:33 thing now. We have really beautiful raspberries and currants and soft fruit. And just, you know, kind of try to do everything that we do here with partnership with nature and more surrounded by nature preserve here and in the southern kettle marine. And it's just, it's beautiful here. It's like our little paradise. 02:54 Everybody says that about their places if they're a homestead or a farm. I can't tell you how many times I've heard my little piece of heaven or paradise or whatever. And I love it. I really, really do. So you're the first person that has mentioned dressage horses in over a year and a half of doing interviews and podcast episodes. Um, so do you, do you offer training or how does that work? 03:19 Yeah, I have been a full-time dressage trainer since I started my business and left pharmaceutical sales in 2012. So I offer board really top quality, top, top quality care, really comprehensive care board training lessons. And we actually are capable here and do a fair amount of what we call rehabilitative boards. 03:49 horses that come in here that have had major surgeries or major injuries and are able to help them rehab in that difficult time of their lives and provide that kind of care that they they need oftentimes it's intensive with bandage changing and hand walking and medications and you know some some pretty intensive requirements for those horses, but I have a wonderful team here and I'm 04:15 I'm really grateful that we can offer those services because it's actually really hard to find. 04:21 Okay, cool. I want to talk about this for a minute because I love horses. I don't have any. I wasn't a horse girl growing up, but I think that they're gorgeous. And dressage is to me, every time I hear dressage, I think dancing horses, but I don't think that's right. Yeah, that's absolutely right. It's like a dance together. When it's done well, it's really beautiful. And it's all about the partnership. 04:48 So how old are the horses when people start training them for this? Well, that's a good question, actually. So my philosophy on that is from day one. And I kind of specialize in starting young horses, actually. So we don't obviously ride them as babies, but all of their interactions with people and learning how to trust people and learning how to interact with people on the ground. 05:18 All of that happens every day, even when they're very, very young, and that sets them up for success in all of their training later on. We

Today I'm talking with Angela at Millie’s Moonstone. 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 After listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This Homestead Holler is a shout out to North County Marketplace. North County Marketplace's mission is to partner with and provide local farmers and zero waste slash clean ingredient products. You can find them on Facebook at North County Marketplace or online at NoCoMarketplace.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe. 00:29 Share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Now I'm talking with Angela at Millie's Moonstone. I love that name so much. Good morning, Angela, how are you? Good morning, I'm fine, how are you? I'm good, how's the weather in where you are? It's actually a beautiful day today. Yeah, and I forget where you are, sorry. I'm in Southwestern PA, like close to Uniontown, Pittsburgh area. Okay, yep. You told me a message and then I closed it and I forgot to make an order in my brain, sorry. 00:59 That's all it is going to snow in Minnesota tonight. That's where I am. Well, I actually love snow. So I'm the, like the only weirdo around here that's like missing this thing. Yeah. Well, it wouldn't be unusual. I wouldn't be so excited except that last winter we got maybe six inches total for the season. And this winter we've gotten maybe six inches and they're saying three to five tonight. So. 01:24 It would be really nice to get the last hurrah done, have it be pretty, and then just roll into springtime. I would be so excited about that. Right. I love the changes of the season, but we just don't seem to have winters like we used to anymore. As you'll find out through this, I'm very old fashioned for my age, so I miss the old times and always having snow on the ground all winter. Yeah. Somebody called it Grandma Cor to me the other day. Yeah. 01:53 At first I was like, you know, I'm 55, I'm a grandma. I don't know how comfortable I am with grandma core, but it's okay. I decided it was very cute. Yeah, like I'm still like fun and immature in a sense, but like I just, when it comes to like the values and the gardening and you know, things like that, it just, that's always been like super important to me and stayed with me. 02:22 I'm kind of surprised nobody's called it nature core yet, but maybe they'll start doing that too. I dig that. Nature core. That way it's not grandma core, it's not kid core, it's not an age specific thing. It's just an everyday thing. Okay. So everybody stop calling it grandma core, call it nature core. We'll start again. All right. Millicore. Yes, exactly. Okay. So I'm assuming that your grandma had a lot to do with your... 02:49 take on all this. So you named your business after her. Yes. So growing up, she lived walking distance from me. So that was, you know, super nice. And we were super close. She she always just had a way of like how everything is just so busy now and everybody's on their phones and just, you know, like busy working for corporations and different things. But like when you were at grandma's house, it was like you were at a pot like you were almost on vacation. 03:19 Um, she did like Sunday dinners every Sunday. Um, she would make a soup we called Sunday soup, but it's actually like an old hunky soup recipe, um, that was passed down like generations. Um, you know, we didn't always have that. She had other things, but you know, everybody was always welcome at her house, um, a lot of homemade cooking and, you know, gatherings. So. 03:46 I always wanted to be like her and be that type of person. And, you know, there was, like I said, like that always sense of pausing and not to get your thoughts and, you know, identify with people and yourself versus just being so busy and on the go. So that's something I really miss about her. Yeah. My husband's grandma was Grandma Kyle. My husband's name is Kyle. 04:16 the family surname. So if Kyle has his family surname, he would be Kyle Kyle, which wouldn't work. But she was Grandma Kyle to everybody, but to people who actually spent time at her house and to people who spent time at her house, she was Ma. M-A. Ma. And my husband told me the story and I was like, that is so sweet. And everyone was welcome to come. 04:44 to her house and sit down and have a cup of something and talk. And I liken her to the town therapist because she would listen to anyone. Right. So I think your grandma and my husband's grandma probably have a lot in common. Yeah, sounds like it. And she had like a love for the earth and that kind of... 05:07 how I started all of this. So like we would do a lot of gardening and snapping beans. And when they say snapping beans is therapy, they're not kidding. I feel like that w

Today I'm talking with Susan and Jasmine and Sean and Teresa at Self Sufficient and Homesteading Community Forum. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 After listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This Homestead Holler Shoutout is to our friends over at Freedom Rain Farm in Buffalo, Minnesota. Their new little farm shop is the perfect spot for seasonal fresh goat milk products if you're local to the Buffalo area, while their online shop makes it super easy to order shippable items right to your door. From natural handcrafted goat milk and talo sauce to grass-fed talo skin care and beautifully arranged gift boxes. 00:29 Each product is crafted with care and love. Check them out at redomarinefarm.com or follow their Facebook page to stay in the loop. Let freedom reign. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I am talking with Susan and Jasmine and Sean and Teresa at Self-Sufficiency and Homesteading Community Forum is the name of their Facebook page. That was a lot to say. 00:56 Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Great. Awesome, we're doing good. Good. I don't, where is everybody located? 01:09 Um, Sean and I are located between Bloomfield and Ottumwa, Iowa. Okay. Um, I'm not far away. I'm over by Drakeville. So I'm about nine miles away from them. This is Susan. Okay. I'm about 160 miles from them. I'm located north of Ames, Iowa. So very much central Iowa. Okay. So you guys are all my Southern neighbors in Iowa, cause I'm in Minnesota. Is it really sunny in Iowa right now? 01:39 Yes. Yeah, here too. It's, it's just gorgeous and it's supposed to hit 50 again today for the third, third day in a row, fourth day in a row. So that's a nice change from last week. I assume it was very cold in Iowa too. Yes. Yeah. I think, I think we might be rolling into spring, you guys. I think it might be happening. I'm going to hope it is anyway. I hope so. Now if we can just get rid of all the mud, that would be wonderful. 02:08 Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if mud season was like the next couple of weeks and then the end of March and April and May when we all need to get in our gardens was dry? Yes. Well, not too dry, but not muddy. That would be great. Yes. Okay. So tell me about, well, I don't know how to do this. Whoever wants to go first, tell me about yourself and then the next person can and the next person can and then you guys can tell me about what you do. Well, kind of what information do you want to know? 02:38 Um, just do you guys have gardens and stuff at your places too, or not? 02:49 I'll go if nobody else is jumping that way we can get it. My name is Sean. I'm the husband of Teresa. Daniel is my oldest son. Matthew is my youngest that lives at home, our sons. And we've been interested in home studying for quite some time. We've got a goal to be off the grid within the next, no. 03:19 year, year and a half, possibly even sooner. The good Lord blesses us. I am the camp manager of Forest Lake Baptist Camp outside of Atoma. I'm also a pastor for Cedar Community Church in Cedar, Iowa. We are avid outdoorsmen, my entire family. In the wintertime, we trap. In the summertime, we... 03:48 We do a lot of foraging. I would say close to maybe 90% of our food comes from what I call God's grocery store. The woods, we have gardens, chickens. Our next goal is to get a milk goat. And just working towards becoming off the grid and... 04:13 going and doing whatever is, you know, God wants us to do and requires us to do, but He'll also meet our needs and give us the desires of our heart. Yep, go ahead. But as John said, you know, we do want to become full-time, well, somewhat full-time homesteaders. Obviously, you know, we still have a job, but as well as all that, you know, we homeschool our two sons, they're 16 and 18. 04:42 You know, I, I am in charge of the kitchen here at the camp. I'm like the program director. So we have a lot of things going on, but I think our biggest goal is we just want a simpler life. And so right now in this time of, of waiting, I would call it waiting. Um, we're learning skills. We're trying to learn as many skills as we can from other people, from other homes setters, from other self-sufficient people, and, um, just build a network of people. 05:12 they can help each other. Awesome. Okay, Susan, do you want to go next? Sure. So my husband and I actually farm. We grew up, both of us grew up on farms. He grew up on a dairy farm up by Oskaloosa. I grew up down here by Drake'sville. So we have actually the agriculture side of it where we row crop and do hay. And then we have two herds of cattle. We have Angus and we have Highla

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom. She has some exciting things on the horizon after experiencing a health scare. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom, and this is a catch-up episode. I interviewed Leah back last March, and her episode is originally called Clear Creek Ranch Mom. Go Fig! 00:29 So good morning, Leah. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Good to visit with you again. You too. I, it's funny. A lot of the people I talk to on the podcast, I, I don't necessarily ever talk to them again, but I have like six people that I check in with and I keep up with and you're one of the six. So. 00:48 I feel blessed. Thank you for thinking of me. Oh, you're welcome. And it's really hard to miss because you have been doing a lot and you've been sharing on Facebook a lot of all the new things you're doing. So give me a real quick who you are and what you do. And then I want to talk about all the new things you've been doing. Sure. Leah Peterson. I am from Custer County, Nebraska. I am blessed. 01:14 to live on and help operate a multi-generation family operation in Custer County. We raise cows and crops and kids, I like to say. Additionally, I am an executive director for a small nonprofit in Nebraska where we apply for federal grants. So if you hear that buzzword of late, you know, that comes with a whole bunch of rain. 01:40 Cringing and curling your toes, we use those federal grants to help provide education and technical services for farmers and ranchers in Nebraska. So I've been doing that for a little over two years. And then, you know, I'm just that busy lady as a volunteer service oriented person in my community and then doing stuff for Clear Creek Ranch Mom too. Okay, awesome. Before we get into all the new stuff you're doing since you brought up the federal grant thing. 02:10 One of the things somebody told me the other day when we were discussing this, it might have been my dad, I don't remember, was that if you had submitted an application for a federal grant and it's up in the air right now, there are also regional grants and local grants out there that aren't necessarily funded by the federal government. So if you're still looking, those are good alternatives to look into. 02:37 Absolutely. There are also so many donors, charitable groups out there that care about causes that you care about. Someone told me last week, it's as simple as trying to spend some time listening to public radio. If you'll notice on public radio a lot of times that your news breaks or your commercials are sponsored by some of those foundations that exist out there, and those people are also looking for opportunities to help fund projects. 03:05 and education. And so we have been looking under some of those couch cushions as well as we try to diversify some of the funding sources that we look to to help us keep on with our mission, which is to bring quality, solid education to farmers and ranchers. Yep. So that's an alternative or those are alternatives and you're not completely screwed on this right now. 03:31 I don't really want to talk about anything to do with government right now. Amen. The chaos is making me really nervous. I just talked to my folks this morning and they're, my mom is not in her 80s yet. She is two years away and my dad is 81 and they're very smart people and I love them with all my heart. And when I freak out about things, I talk to them and I said, so what do you think? And my dad said, hang in there. 04:00 I said, that's it. He said, yeah, hang in there. I was like, okay, I'm going to take you at your word, dad. Thanks. Absolutely. That's all I got. Hang in there guys. Hang in there, get off social media and go sit down at the dinner table with your neighbors, your friends and have one-on-ones and that will help center you, bring you back to center and help you feel more calm and assured that things will work out and be all right. Yes. Or read science fiction. Yeah. Or read. 04:29 romance novels because at least it gives your brain something else to focus on. Yes, or dad jokes. We're big fans of dad jokes in this family. Yes, exactly. So, okay. So, back when I talked to you a year ago, we talked about ranching, we talked about what's proper etiquette, asking questions about ranching. I will remember that. Whoops. 04:54 Now I know if I'm going to ask somebody a question that I don't know is a good question to ask, I say, I do not know if you can answer this or if you're comfortable answering this. If you're not,

Today I'm talking with Amy at the Natural Living Fair. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today's Homestead Holler is a shout out to the Grounded in Maine podcast. Amy Fagan is the host, and she focuses on the many ways to live a sustainable life. You can find Grounded in Maine on Instagram or at groundedinmaine.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Amy. 00:29 at the Natural Living Fair. Good afternoon. I get so confused because I record at 10am and 1pm, typically, and the light is pouring through the window in my room where my desk is and it looks very morningish right now. So good afternoon. Sorry about that. Good afternoon. I don't know where you are, but we have a ton of snow on the ground and so everything is so bright today. 00:55 Yeah, I'm in Minnesota and we have maybe a dusting on the ground. And I saw that you guys down in the South were getting pounded with snow. And I was like, you know, we've gotten maybe eight inches all winter and they're getting more than we've gotten all winter right now. It's insane. Isn't it? It's not right. I don't love it. And especially up here, we need the snow for insulation for the plants to, to do their thing in the winter time. They need time to rest. 01:25 And we had hardly any snow last year either. So this is getting to be a problem. I'm very concerned about what our gardens are going to do this year. Yeah, you know, for us, we get worried in the summer, because it's so hot and dry now. It's not like it used to be. And we're dealing with mid-summer drought after drought after drought. Yeah, I guess we're just going to have to see if Mother Nature adjusts to the new weather patterns, because this is. OK. 01:54 I can't worry about it anymore than I already do, or I will just call it. Sure. All right. So Amy, I want to know about your Natural Living Fair because I was reading the article that was linked on your Facebook page and it says you've been doing this since 2015. So tell me about yourself and the Natural Living Fair. Yeah. So I have a farm in South Clarksville. It's called the Sunday Morning Flower Farm. And I... 02:23 grow primarily flowers for summer CSA, which stands for community supported agriculture. So when you think CSA, often you think, you know, like a bushel of vegetables that you pick up from a farmer in the summer. And we kind of do that with bouquets. You can pick them up at our farm or we deliver them. And so that's the main thing that we do with our farm. And then in the spring... 02:50 I throw the Natural Living Fair, and you're right, it's since 2015. This is the eighth one that we're going to be doing. We took kind of a pause during when COVID first started. And we just feature farmers and artisans and any type of craftsperson, small businesses that kind of deal with the more natural living genre. And we just all meet up. 03:18 one weekend. It's the last weekend of April every year. And we just bring the community out and we sell tons of plants and all kinds of fun stuff. It reminds me of the Common Ground Fair that Maine holds every year, except the Common Ground Fair has been around for a long, long time. And it's huge. And I don't know that you guys are huge yet. No, we're not huge. 03:47 The location that we have, I think we could be bigger if we wanted to, but I really like the size that we are. We're kind of perfect just serving our community. We have between 50 and, really between 40 and 70 vendors every year. 04:05 And really the location that we have it at is gorgeous. It's at the Tanglewood House in Clarksville. And we have, it's like, it's an old historic building and the grounds are beautiful. 04:20 keep it. I'm sorry. Are we still here? Yeah, we're good. Okay, I got a phone call. I'm so sorry. It's important to me that we keep it there because the ambiance is so perfect and I want people to come away from the fair with just a peaceful feeling, you know, that they just left something good. Yeah, that's Clarksville, Tennessee, right? Yes. Okay, is that the same Clarksville in the song? The last train to Clarksville? 04:49 I think that's Clarksville, Indiana. Okay. I don't know. It's been running through my head all day when I saw where you were and I'm like, I don't think that's the right place. I think that's everyone's first thoughts. Yeah. Great song. Fun song. I love music. So anything, any word can trigger a song that will just haunt me all day. It's insane. Okay. So when you say natural living fair, 05:14 I'm assuming that a lot of your vendors sell herbs, they sell soaps, they sell lotions, they sell balms.

Today I'm talking with Tina at Red Dog Ridge. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like information regarding the documentaries mentioned, click here. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today's Homestead Holler is a shout out to O'Connor Family Acres in Le Sueur, Minnesota. They offer duck eggs, goat milk, and soaps are coming soon. You can find them on Facebook at O'Connor Family Acres. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. 00:26 Today I'm talking with Tina at Red Dog Ridge. Good morning, Tina. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. Okay, first thing I wanna know is why is it Red Dog Ridge? Well, because we have sheebas and we live on a ridge and we were trying to figure out a name for the farm and we at that time had a litter of puppies and then we were overrun with red sheebas. So the sheeba in you. So. 00:54 My son was like, what about Red Dog Ridge? Okay. Awesome, I love that. I hear really good things about the Shiba's, but I've never met one in person. Are they really nice dogs? They're temperamental dogs. They're a bit of drama queens. They can be nice. There are ones that are very nice, but ours are not. They're not real friendly to others, but they're real loyal to their families. Nice. I know they're beautiful. 01:23 That's about all I know and I've just never known anyone who has one. Everyone I knew or know has German shepherds or labs. So, so those are the ones I'm exposed to the most. Okay. We also have a lab. So, labs are usually pretty cool. The ones I've met have been really friendly and really silly and I love them. Okay. So, 01:52 Tell me about yourself and what you guys do at Red Dog Ridge. It's my husband and myself and I have three children, two daughters and a son. We own 20 acres in the Houston, Missouri area. We raise mini jerseys, red bourbon red, red bourbon turkeys, chickens, cooney cooney pigs. We sell meat. 02:22 or chicken, pork and beef. We just opened a farm store where we sell milk and eggs and a few little homemade items. We just have been here about four years trying to get established with the communities. 02:38 Okay, was this a COVID decision? No, no. We had bought the property. It was completely raw. We bought the property in 2019, right before COVID had hit. And then during COVID, we were we traveled full time for 20 years before this property. And we always knew that we were going to buy property, we were looking, we have been, you know, back and forth across the United States and up and down. 03:07 probably 14 different times. So we looked all the way from New York to Arizona for what we were wanting. Finally settled on Missouri because it was pretty middle of the country and my husband's an electrician and my son's a lineman so they can get to the bigger jobs anywhere pretty quickly. But settled on Missouri and then during COVID we were over in Nebraska working. 03:36 And we came here on weekends just to kind of make it, you know, we put in an RV park for our RVs because we knew that, you know, we weren't going to be having houses for a while. And we just started building it from there. Nice. So what had you traveling for the previous 20 years? My husband and first off, my husband's work, he only did like oil refineries, coal plants. 04:05 large hospital jobs. So I mean, we went to the big jobs all over the country and we homeschooled our three children. And then my son, he wanted to go into becoming a lineman. So he took three and a half years into his apprenticeship and then we traveled together once he graduated and he went to transmission jobs and you know, we took smaller jobs, but we went to places we wanted to see and explore. 04:35 Well, I'm going to say that sounds like fun. I don't know if it was, but it sounds like it was fun. It was a blast. For 20 straight years, we were just nothing but tourists. So, I mean, it was no responsibility. We didn't have a home, you know, back in the sticks and bricks, we just were full-time RVers. And we saw, I mean, we've seen, we've been to every state except for Hawaii. And we've seen a lot of amazing things, met a lot of good people. 05:02 So I'm going to stick with fun. That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm, I'm, I couldn't do it. I am such a homebody. I love coming back to the same place when I leave. So, so for me, it would be really strange. So that leads me to my next question. Is it really strange that you've been in one place for four years? Oh yeah. It was a, it took a lot to get used to, but that was originally why we started RVing was my youngest daughter. She did not like. 05:30 packing up and moving and changing friends. S

Today I'm talking with Bailey at Wonderful Thyme Farms. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Bailey at Wonderful Thyme Farms. Good morning, Bailey. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. And you're in Iowa, right? Yep. Eastern Iowa. Okay. Is it cloudy in Iowa right now? 00:29 Yeah, it's pretty cloudy right now, but it's a pretty nice day. It's almost 50 degrees. So after we're done here, I'm headed out to get a few things done after I get done with work. Nice. Um, it's very cloudy here in Minnesota today, but it is, I think it's pushing 50 degrees too, so, so it's a nice reprieve from last week with the, uh, brutal frigid temperatures we had for a week. Absolutely. Yep. It's really nice to see the snow melting and 00:58 be able to get outside and get some things done. Finally, yes, exactly. And I don't see it getting really cold again. So I think, I think, carefully I'm saying, I think we're through it. I think, I hope. Oh, Iowa usually surprises us at some point after, after we think it's all done. So I won't hold my breath until it's May 30th, probably. 01:24 I'm talking about the brutal, your face hurts and your nose freezes when you go out cold being over. I think we're through the worst of that. Hopefully. Yeah. From my lips to God's ears, I suppose, but I hope so. Okay. So tell me about yourself and what you do. My name is Dr. Bailey Goose. I live on a small homestead we purchased last year. 01:51 Um, before that we were renting a different homestead. Um, my partner, uh, two bonus kids, one kid, uh, two dogs, several chickens, more in the incubator, uh, we run this, uh, small homestead in Eastern Iowa. Uh, my partner and I both work full time, um, off the farm as well. So right now we're kind of in a building year. 02:21 We're looking to get a bunch of projects done here, but I am a USDA veterinarian. I was in private practice for a few years before that. So we kind of have an eclectic mix of interests and hobbies and careers and everything else here in Iowa. Okay, well, since you are a veterinarian, 02:49 Before we're done talking, I want to talk about bird flu, but we'll get to that in a minute. How did you decide you wanted to become a homesteader? How did you decide you wanted to buy property and have chickens and things? I grew up on an acreage. My parents have an acreage not too far, actually, from where we live now. And I kind of grew up with that whole... 03:17 interest, but my mom always had a garden. When we were younger, at least when we got older, and we were quite busy with sports and activities and 4-H and all those things, she kind of had to let that go. But it was definitely a part of my upbringing as a child. My friends had different ag-related families, so one of my best friends growing up. 03:42 lived on a dairy, so I spent a good amount of time on a dairy when I was a younger kid. I had friends that had chickens and I always thought that those were so cool. My dad wouldn't let us get chickens when I was little. So I kind of came into the homestead space a little bit naturally. It's not too far of a jump from being a large animal veterinarian to wanting your own livestock and wanting to be fairly self-sufficient. 04:11 I've always really enjoyed gardening. So I've always had either a couple tomato plants when I lived in the city or some herbs in my window. So when I got the ability to have a bigger scale garden, I started planting one and then it's gotten bigger every year since I started. So as they do. Yep. Absolutely. So I guess I was kind of. 04:39 born into the seeds of it and I kind of have let it flourish the last five years for sure. And luckily my current career and job really lends itself to being able to be flexible and be able to do this kind of on the side. I don't work a whole bunch of overtime or anything and my partner's job is pretty flexible and we don't have kids. 05:09 every single sport yet. So just some sports. We do the best we can making it work here. Okay. All righty. The reason I ask is because it seems like there's people in two camps when it comes to getting into the homesteading thing. They either have seeds planted when they're little, 05:31 Or they just get sick of the corporate grind and they're like, I need something completely different and they get into gardening and chickens and they're like, oh, I want to do this. Oh, for sure. Chickens and gardening is a gateway drug to the full effect homesteading. So we're not, we're not, we don't have enough space to have everything yet. So we are sticking with our poultry and our gardening and 06:00 We

Today I'm talking with Morgan at C&M Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Morgan at C&M Homestead. Good morning, Morgan. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Is it still super cold in South Dakota? You know what's warming up? The last couple of days have been bitterly cold, but today... 00:27 The sun is shining and the temperatures are warming up. So hopefully we're done with that little cold snap. Well, considering I'm your neighbor to the east in Minnesota, we're in the same boat. The sun is so bright this morning and I think it's actually above zero right now. I think it is here as well. I think we're maybe at like four degrees maybe. So not far above, but it's above zero. So that's good. 00:52 Yeah, last I looked at my phone, my weather bug app was telling me it was minus two, but that was at like five o'clock this morning. So I don't know what it is right now. Okay. So we've done the obligatory weather check-in because that's what I do with all the podcasts and tell me about yourself and what you guys do. So I am the C or I guess the M of C and M Homestead. My husband would be the C, Corey. So probably about two years ago, we... 01:21 decided that we wanted to do better for ourselves and kind of that's where the whole bread, baking bread started. I started kind of taking the deep dive into sourdough and it's just kind of transformed since those two years ago. But about a year and a half ago, we moved out to my grandma's farm. And so we rent now from my mom and dad, a house and two. 01:48 two acres and we've kind of just turned it into our own little paradise out here. We started with some chickens and it grew to ducks and turkeys and we had a couple of friends who could no longer take care of some of their animals. So we inherited some geese and it just kind of seems to keep growing out here. And it's just fun to watch our boys. We have a 02:14 nine-month-old, a four-year-old and a 16-year-old. It's his birthday today. And it's just fun watching them be involved in caring for the animals and seeing the four-year-old come into the house with a handful of eggs. And he's like, Mom, look what these chickens did. So it's just fun. We kind of just wanted a slower lifestyle for ourselves from in town in Aberdeen. And so we moved out here. 02:43 We're just slowly kind of making transitions to being able to be more self-sustaining. Awesome. Happy birthday, 16-year-old. Yeah. And boy, do I know what it's like to be a boy mom. My first child was a girl, but the next three were boys. So it was basically a boy household once she moved out. Yes. And it's a lot. It's a lot to be the only girl in the household. It is. 03:10 They are like, what do you mean you want to paint your nails? Like, let's go outside and like play trucks in the dirt. And I'm like, oh, all right, we'll do that. Let's go. Yeah, mom, just run a brush through your hair, pull it back in a barrette or a ponytail holder and let's go. Yes, I understand completely. Yes, they are all about being outside in the dirt with the chickens, in the duck pond with the ducks. You name it, they want to do it outside. Yes. 03:39 Yes, I have a husband who's like that too and he is chomping at the bit for this weekend because it's actually supposed to be not freezing tomorrow and Sunday. And when he got up this morning after he got his coffee, I said, so should I just plan on you being outside all weekend? And he said, yep. Didn't even bat an eye. So it's a male thing. It's not a kid boy thing. It's not an adult male thing. It's just a male thing. Boys and men like to be outside. Most of them. 04:09 And if they don't, then they like to be in a room with a desk and a computer playing video games or coding things. So they sure do. So when you started making sourdough bread, I need to know, did you kill your starter when you first started it at least once? Did you burn a loaf? I got to know the failures and the successes. So no, I did not kill my starter. I made my own starter. Okay. 04:37 I had great success with it. I didn't have any issues kind of going through that process. I have a couple of friends in my mother-in-law who've made starters multiple times and they're like, it died and I just, I don't know how, but it's very common. So I must have been very grateful and I'm very grateful and I was very lucky that I didn't have that problem. But have I burnt a loaf? 100%. 05:08 have quite the following for our Facebook page and we do some drop-offs for bread. And last week I was just struggling

Today I'm talking with John at Dailey Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with John at Dailey Farms. Good morning, John. How are you? Morning, Mary. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on today. 00:21 You're welcome. I'm sorry we had some technical difficulties. I don't know what's up with this app, but sometimes it works like a charm and sometimes it fights people. I think it's more about me not figuring out technology fast enough here. Well, that happens too. Yes, yes. All right, so you're in Illinois, right? Correct. We're just on the western side of Illinois here, zone six if you're planting. And yeah, we're a dairy farm. 00:50 Nice and you're a goat dairy farm, right? Mm-hmm, yes. Tell me all about what you do. So about 2015 I decided to have a major career change. I was a desk jockey working in the tech and biotech world and had a career, came to a crossroads and I said I always wanted to be the million dollar question. What would you do if money were no object? I always wanted to be a farmer. And... 01:21 One of the major reasons that came up and so here we are and I was over in Australia and I have lactose issues and they're like, oh, you can't have milk? Yeah, you can. You can just drink goat milk up until that point. I've been drinking almond water and coconut water and oat milk and all the different alternatives and was not a big fan of that. So... 01:51 I said, why isn't anybody doing this in the States? And so I said, maybe I should be the one doing it in the States. So here we are. Yeah. Did I miss it? Did you grow up in Australia or were you just over there? Oh, no. I was, so when I was transitioning careers, I took a little sabbatical and spent a couple weeks over there visiting a friend. And that's when I came across all the people over in the, down in Australia, sipping on goat milk. Okay. 02:21 Now I understand. I apologize for not clarifying. I'm born and raised in Illinois. My mom was born in Illinois and then she moved to Maine when she was like 19 years old. So wow. That's a big move. Yeah. She met my dad, fell in love with him and was like, I go where you go forever. So all right. That's pretty neat. Yeah. I have one of my old roommates moved to Maine and they are now a chicken. They're doing chicken farming. 02:51 Which is funny because we're both in the tech world. We both decided to become farmers. It happens. I, my husband loves, loves, loves gardening and loves having chickens. I do not. So I do a podcast and he raises, takes care of chickens. It works out great. Um, that's a good deal there. And my dad actually was a, a, uh, electrical engineer. 03:18 by trade and then became a bio med tech. Oh, wow. And now he's 81 years old, living on 14 acres in Maine and raising chickens and has a border collie. So there's something about that thing. I think so. Or maybe the romantic idea of being the gentleman farmer as well. I don't know. He's my dad has always been a gentleman. And I mean that with all due sincerity. He is the nicest man you will ever meet. 03:49 So he would have been a gentleman either way. Fantastic. Mm-hmm, best man I know. Well, I don't know if I'd qualify for the gentleman part, but I definitely am farming out here. Hehehehe. 04:03 No. Okay. So I saw that you have goat milk soap and it's made with lard. Sorry, tallow and lye and goat's milk. And I also saw that you sell goat's milk that is pasteurized at your local store. So my question is, do you use the just the raw goat's milk for your soap or do you use? Yes, for the soap we can luckily use the 04:31 It does not need to be pasteurized. But with the process of saponification, which is what makes soap, soap, the temperatures do get up there. So it's slightly pasteurized. Pasteurization is just something the French figured out to make white to make wine and have a longer shelf life back in the 1800s. 04:57 It was a beautiful thing for farmers at the time as well, because it also extended the shelf life of the dairy products they would take to market. Long-winded answer, but during that saponification process, while I'm making my soap, the temperature on that milk does get up at now the same temperature range as traditional pasteurization. The milk you see at the store. 05:25 that doesn't need to be refrigerated. That's been ultra high temperature, pasteurization method, which is several hundred degrees, full other can of worms. Yeah, we make soap here too, and we actually burned our table at one point, because the saponification process gets super freaking hot. 05:51 And if you

Today I'm talking with Aaron at the Qwazy Quail Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Aaron at Qwazy Quail Farm. It's really hard to do two QWs in a row. Good morning, Aaron. How are you? Good morning. Doing good. How about yourself? I'm doing great. You're in Ohio? Yes. We are in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, which is just east of downtown. 00:29 Cleveland by about 12, 13 miles. Okay. Is it super cold there today? It is very cold today. Um, I think it's supposed to be in the teens at the highest today. Well, you've got us beat cause I don't think we're going to see above zero again today in Minnesota. It's been so freaking cold. 00:50 But that's okay, we're gonna get through it and it's gonna warm up next week. And I looked at the long range forecast and we're looking at spring temperatures in about two weeks. I'm very excited about this. Yes, I know all of my birds are very excited about the warmer weather also. Yeah, and I wanna hear all about your birds. So tell me about what you do, Aaron. Okay, so what we do here is we raise Coturnix quail, Bobwhite quail, and we also raise a small flock of chickens. So the... 01:18 Bob white quail we here in Ohio, because they're a native species, you have to have a special permit for those. So we have about a dozen of those right now, just getting into them. Um, as a, I'm not sure exactly what we're going to do with those birds, possibly get into a conservation program with the state of Ohio to repopulate them as due to environmental factors, uh, some farming practices, um, 01:47 predators, things like that. The Bobwhite quail population has dwindled drastically here in Ohio. So I think they're beautiful birds. The sounds that they make are, it sounds like you're almost at a zoo or something like that. It's really cool sounds. The Coturnix quail, we raise several colors of those, which we raise jumbo whites, jumbo Egyptians, jumbo 02:15 And then we have some Celadon and we have some black quail, which the black quail didn't come to the United States until around 2019 and they came from Germany. So there's a lot of people that are starting to get into them. Um, there's some people that have concerns. They have something called a yellow gene, which I don't get too much into the genetics. Um, I've attended a quail con last year, which was in, uh, Miami'sburg, Ohio. 02:45 And they had people, quail enthusiasts and farmers from Canada. And many, many states here in the United States attended that. And they have that every year in the fall. And so there you can meet like-minded quail farmers, people that are doing this as homesteaders, all kinds of different backgrounds in quail, but we specify or specialize in the quail for egg production and for meat. 03:14 We raise many of the jumbos because another thing we do is when you go to a pet store and you're getting some treats for your dogs, you want to make sure that you're offering them the best that they can get. And a lot of times these pet stores will have ingredients that have other stuff in there that's not necessarily the best for our pets. And it was just recently I had run out of our quail treats that we make. 03:42 And both of my dogs ended up getting extremely sick and coughing up and puking up blood and chunks of their innards. That was from a chicken treat that said it was all natural. And when I went and looked up more information on this company, they've got a lot of lawsuits and I almost lost both of my dogs. So what we do here is we raise the quail. The ones that are going to be processed for meat or for dog treats, they go to 04:12 a chicken or poultry processor that's USDA and Department of Agriculture really inspected. They're down in Baltic, Ohio called Pleasant Valley Poultry. And we take them down there and get our birds processed. We bring them back here. We put them in storage. We have our warehouse license so that we can also sell meat to grocery stores, to markets, to chefs and things like that. So. 04:39 But we've got a lot going on here and sometimes I don't know how I find the time to do anything. I was going to say you're pretty deep into the quaildom going on there. A couple things. My dog is actually allergic to chicken so she never gets any kind of poultry. We actually had to switch out her dog food because it turned out that the chicken in the dog food was making her sick to her stomach. So we don't do chicken here for the dog. We do chicken for us. Chicken is great. 05:09 But what I really want to get into is your expertise on quail raising, because I have