A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Mackenna at Nothing But Knots by Mackenna. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. 00:16 Today I'm talking with Mackenna at Nothing But Knots. Good morning Mackenna, how are you? I'm doing good, how are you? I'm good, tell me about yourself and what you do. So my name is Mackenna, I run Nothing But Knots by Mackenna. I've been doing it for about three years now as an actual business, but I've kind of been crocheting my entire life actually. 00:42 I learned when I was super young, was taught by my great aunts and my grandmother. And I just kind of picked it up when quarantine happened again. And then I decided after about a year that I wanted to make a business out of it. Okay. So did you choose crocheting because no one was knitting or have you tried knitting too? I have tried knitting. It's just mainly that I can't quite get it down. 01:12 I'm not super, uh, like- 01:17 Like able to do things with two hands at the same time kind of thing and with needles with knitting You have to use two needles and crochet is just one hook So it's a little bit easier for me to multitask when it's just with one Like one hook Yep, I understand I I tried knitting when I was younger and the thing that made me not want to knit is the sound of the needles Clacking I yes 01:45 Yes, I totally understand that too. When you're so used to it being a very quiet hobby, hearing the needles touching each other can be kind of overwhelming. Yeah, I just didn't like it. And then I learned about crocheting and learned how to do the chain stitch, you know, just one after another after another. I was like, okay, I can do this. And then went on to the single crochet and actually the turn and then the single 02:14 Oh, I can do that. And then I read about the double crochet and tried that and then triple and then the other things. And I was like, oh my God, I love this. It's quiet. I can do it while I'm watching a TV show in January. When it's cold out, it's great. I am a big fan of crocheting. Okay. Especially if you're making a blanket, you could just curl up with that blanket that you're in the process of making. When it's cold outside, it's perfect. 02:38 Yeah, it's a great way to stay warm if your house is not, if your house is drafty for sure. Our old house was drafty, so I loved doing that. And a scarf is so fast to make if you're crocheting. I couldn't believe how fast the scarf came together. Oh yeah, I tried to make, that's when I tried knitting for the first time was trying to do a scarf and I was like, man, this is really taking forever. I could knock out a scarf with crochet and like. 03:06 Couple hours and here I am three days later still working on this knitted scarf. Yeah, I think the hardest thing with crocheting is keeping the tension correct. Because when I first started, I did a scarf and it had spots that were narrower than they should have been by just a little bit because the tension wasn't right. And I also did the washcloth, the crocheted cotton yarn washcloth. 03:35 the one corner was always too tight, so they weren't square, and it drove me crazy. I finally figured it out, but the tension is probably the thing that you need to learn how to get correct, I think. Yes, I am on the same page with you there. I mean, it's the same with crochet and knitting, but crochet is a lot easier to keep your attention, because you have one hand free, essentially, at all times. Yep, exactly. 04:01 Okay, so now that we've raved about crocheting, because I love it, you love it, I haven't done it in a long time, but I love doing it when I'm doing it. So what do you make? Because I saw your Facebook page photos and the little bear with like the blanket that comes down for the body, that's very cute. Oh, thank you. Right now, I mainly specialize in making bags and baby blankets. 04:26 I get a lot of custom orders from my co-workers for baby blankets. I'm currently working on one for my son and I have a niece coming in September so she'll be getting a blanket as well. Besides that, I've kind of been venturing into wearables so like sweaters, hats, that kind of thing, obviously some scarves. 04:56 quite found my niche really for it is like stuffed animals and stuff. Everyone wants a stuffed animal. Everyone wants me to make like those lovies like the bears with the blankets attached to them. I am not a huge fan of sewing things together. So if I can find a no sew pattern where I can just kind of crochet everything together, that's where I what I like to do. But a lot of people want like super complicated. 05:26 stuffed animals and I'm trying, I love the loo

Today I'm talking with Cindy and Mike at Rustic Roots. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Cindy and someone else in the background. I don't know who it is yet. At Ruster Groots Farm. Good morning, Cindy. Good morning. It's my husband, Mike. Hi, Mike. Sorry, I didn't know you were going to be part of this. Awesome. 00:29 Fantastic. All right. So tell me about yourselves and Rustic Roots Farm. Rustic Roots, sorry. Rustic Roots Greenery. We started a small greenhouse a few years ago and now we've built up. We found a used one for sale and bought it and put it up. We sold a couple of our cows to help pay for it. I don't know. It's fantastic. 00:58 Go ahead. All right. Mm-hmm. So for years, she wanted a greenhouse. And for a long time, I did a lot of the plants. And one year, she just couldn't handle me getting rid of the little helpless seedlings that we were thinning out. So she decided to keep them and took over our entire living room. So 2020, with the COVID and the COVID-19 pandemic, 01:24 Um, the kids getting kicked out of school, um, finally, after about eight or nine years of, uh, begging, we decided to have a, uh, arts and crafts and science program. And we built a greenhouse. About a eight by 12 or eight by 14 on the pad in front of our house with the kids with, um, rough cut lumber and glass panes and just basically things that we had around. And then we. 01:51 rolled it around to the south side of our house. And that first year she filled it. So the second year we doubled the size of that greenhouse and Cindy took that as a challenge. So she filled it again. Um, then I had a friend sent me a link to some people selling a 30 by 70 greenhouse about three or four hours away. And I'd been looking into. 02:19 I'm building a different greenhouse for a while and I've really been, I was really getting into the geothermal and some of the different ways to make greenhouses cheaper to heat and operate. And so we went down and we bought this greenhouse from some people that do the same thing. They sell garden starts. And then September of 22, we started our... 02:46 construction of our brand new greenhouse or brand new to us. And we dug a 20 by 60 foot hole in our front yard and filled it with 2000 feet of perforated pipe. And we built a climate battery style geothermal and then we plunked a greenhouse on top of it. He says we, but really he built, I just helped a little. You guys sound a lot like me and my husband. Um, we, I applied for a grant to. 03:16 to fund a heated greenhouse last year. And we actually got the grant, which dumbfounded me because I didn't think we had a hope in hell of getting it. And I was like, so do you want to build a heated greenhouse, honey? And he was like, I do. We can't afford to. I said, we can now. And he said, did we get the grant? I said, we did. I said, it's got to be finished, complete, by May 31 of 2024. 03:45 Can you make that happen? Because we didn't get the money until November of 2023. And he said yes. Oh, wow. And I said, OK, you better pray for good weather in the spring, because otherwise this is not going to work. And it was finished, I think, the weekend before May 31. Oh, nice. So yeah, go ahead. We applied for a grant. But what we learned is the grant money is only for brand new greenhouses. You can't. 04:14 You can't utilize that money to buy a used greenhouse or anything like that. Yes. We had to buy all the, the, we had to buy all the supplies new or they had to be in really, really good condition. Yeah. Almost new. So yeah, there's definitely some parameters that you have to meet. Yeah. We had a, we had a drought, um, 2022 and we had a small cow herd that we were running. 04:44 And basically it was a decision of, do we want to buy hay and rent pasture? Or what do we do? And we ended up selling the majority of our cows and calves. And we took that money and that's basically how we funded our greenhouse. Yup. You gotta find a way one way or another, because if otherwise it just doesn't happen. And the other thing is, is that animals are expensive to feed. I mean, people who have dogs and cats. 05:13 As house pets, they know how much money they spend to feed their pets. And it is just exponentially more expensive, the bigger the animal gets. And the more it's livestock, not a pet. So it's hard. And I don't blame you. It's the weather has been insane the last couple of years. You're in Nebraska, right? Yep. We're in a, we're in the panhandle in Nebraska. We're. 05:38 We're actually closer to the capital of Wyoming and Colorado than we are the capital of Nebras

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers MT. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today, I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazer's MT, and I'm assuming the MT stands for Montana, but I could be wrong. Good morning, Morgan. 00:22 Good morning. Yes, it is Montana. We're hoping to be another state. So we like to kind of divide it out. So this is our Montana location, which would be our original location. Okay, that makes sense. Well, tell me about yourself and Groovy Grazers. Yeah, so I'm an Air Force veteran. I spent about two years in and then I got out in Okinawa, Japan when I had my son. And it did set off some genetic disorders. So that's kind of how Groovy Grazers came about. 00:50 was I left my corporate America job making over, you know, $100,000. I was like, I'm going to do something different. And then we got some goats because we needed to like refresh our land. Goats are good land rebuilders. A lot of people don't understand that they can rebuild the land. So it just started with three goats and we were just sitting there one night, me and my husband, and I was like, man, these guys are just burning hay. They're kind of like horses or, you know, just kind of an ornament right now. They got to do something. 01:20 So it started originally with grazing because in the south, and that's where I came from, I moved from Arizona up to Montana, but I lived in Homesteaded in Louisiana and I lived in Texas. And I've seen them do this like massive grazing, but they've done it with meat goats. So I was like, okay, we're gonna try it. And that's kinda how it started. It went from grazing to birthday parties and events to kind of being like a community-based thing. So it's really got a lot of facets to it as a business and as like, 01:50 accompany what we do but the main thing is just go birthday parties right now. Fun! So how does that work? How do the goats interact at the birthday parties and is it for little kids or up to 18 or for grown-ups too? Anyone can have a goat party. I actually did a 34 year old males party this month and part of it was 02:15 He had goats growing up. So some of it is nostalgia, right? For the adults. Tonight we're doing St. John's United. They're a really big nonprofit. A lot of people know them. They're, I believe, worldwide. So we're doing it. So it kind of varies in who and what and where I've done. Dispensary grand openings, because it is legal here. We're doing a kid event at the park. So it... 02:41 There's really not like a person, right? If you ask who can do goat parties, it's anyone, but what do the goats do? Well, I mean, they're Nigerian dwarfs, so they're cute in general, right? They're like max 50 pounds, but I bring the babies. So I just rehomed my 10 to 12 week old. I think every 12 week, I'd have to count back. We had a few babies, but I would take them with, and the kids can hold them, the adults can hold them. You can take pictures with them, just watch them, right? 03:09 Sometimes kids will just sit there and watch them because they're really interesting creatures. A lot of the event is me talking and interacting with the public, which is really my favorite. So, you know, being disabled and not having a lot of things to do and being at home on 20 acres, you don't get out a lot. So a lot of it is me interacting with these people and explaining to them weird facts about goats and why we got into this and how it works and then them getting full range of touching them. 03:38 and exploring them. I love when the kids touch the horns and they look at, you know, their eyes, and I'll even show them their teeth. It's just a hands-on learning experience. And that's really what the whole party is about, is letting the kids touch something that maybe they wouldn't. I mean, not very many people have 20 acres or even goats per se, so it's something that they may never get to do. And so to allow them to do it to the fullest extent is kind of what Groovy Grazers is about, is like free or like... 04:06 I don't know how to explain it, hands-on learning, like free play. Like you play with the goats, you see what they do and you see how they interact and then the kids will ask you questions naturally. It's kind of a really cool interaction between the kids and goats. Super fun. No one has told me the, whatever you said, the facts. Oh yeah. Tell me some facts. Tell me some crazy facts about goats. Okay. So my favorite is land, right? Because in Montana... 04:34 our soil where we're at, I'm in Laurel, which is right outside of Billings. It's kind of a bedroom town for Billings. We're really high in al

Today I'm talking with Samantha at Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Samantha at Runamuck Acres Conservation Farm. Good morning, Samantha, how are you? I'm very good, thank you, good morning. I'm in Minnesota, you're in Maine, and everybody who's listening to the podcast already knows this, but I grew up in Steep Falls, Maine. 00:30 Oh wow, that's cool. Which is like half an hour or northwest of Portland, Maine. So I know what Maine's like and I think it's beautiful and I can't afford to move back because it's gotten so much more expensive to live there. So I'm really happy that you get to live in Maine. I think that's fantastic. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Let's see, so I'm a farmer, writer and conservationist. 00:59 I own a 53 acre farm and ecological reserve in New Portland, Maine, which is nowhere near the city of Portland. It is about two hours north near the Western Mountains. Okay. Yeah. All right. So what do you do at your place? We raise chickens for eggs. We have a one acre market garden. We have maybe... 01:26 an acre or so fruit trees that we've put in since we got here. And I raise a small flock of sheep, which we rotationally graze on our 10 acre pasture out back. Awesome. So why is it why is it conservation farm? How does that play in? Yeah. So I built my business on bees with a bent for bee friendly farming. And it's kind of morphed along the way and become more 01:55 geared towards beneficial insects and soil microbial life. And so that's what we are working to conserve. We're working to conserve wildlife through the wellbeing of pollinators and beneficial insects and soil life to benefit the whole ecosystem. Fantastic. Last night as I was heading up to read, because I read before I go to sleep, my husband texted me a photo of a queen bumblebee. 02:25 that had landed on one of the logs or the logs that they were cutting up for our wood burning boiler. And I was like, is it a honeybee? Because I couldn't tell from the picture. I knew it was a bee. I just didn't know what it was. And he was like, no, it's a queen bumblebee. And she just happened to land there. And he was like, I'm going to stop and take a photo because this doesn't happen very often. Right. Yeah. She must have emerged from her family nest and be going off to start her own. 02:54 Yeah, I don't know. Usually it's earlier in the season. So I don't know why she blessed him with a visit. But it was pretty cool to get a photo. I'm going to post it on Facebook later today. So, okay. So you before we started recording, you said it's your sixth anniversary at being at the place you're at now? Yeah, we call it our farm-aversary. We've been here for six years officially today. Okay, tell me the story. Tell me how you how you ended up where you are. 03:23 It was very long and arduous. I was a landless farmer for these eight years. I had gotten divorced and I really just refused to give up on farming. It was kind of the way, the only way I felt that I could become a homeowner and provide a home for my family. So I used the skills that I had and it took a long time to build my income from agriculture. 03:51 I raised bees because everybody will have a hive on their property if they don't have to manage them. So I had apiaries all over the area and that allowed me to build my income to the point where I could justify to a financial institution investment in real estate. So and then at that point we weren't able to qualify with a traditional 04:16 financial institution. So I ended up going to the USDA as a beginning farmer and the farm service agency classifies a beginning farmer as someone who has been farming for less than 10 years. So at that point I was at eight years or so and I was like, oh geez, if I'm going to do this, I better do it now. So I didn't want to go that way, but because nothing else was lining up, I was like, okay, this is my last chance. I'm going to give it a shot and then I may have to give up farming. 04:46 Mm-hmm. So we did we went we were able to qualify it took 270 days to close on a property I went after this other property first and so we were in Closing process with that one for six months before we finally found out that the house wasn't going to pass an inspection and to save my loan I 05:10 I had to scramble and look for another property in the area that might qualify, and I ended up here. Okay. For those who don't know, Samantha has a Facebook page, and I started watching or, I don't know, following her Facebook page. It's go

Today I'm talking with Roxanne at LilyFire Farms. You can follow on Facebook a well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Roxanne at Lily Fire Farms. Good afternoon, Roxanne, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well, how are you? I'm good, so did farm school go well this morning? We did not have farm school. It actually ended a week or so ago. 00:30 Oh, okay. I thought it was a summer. No, we have a spring session and we're looking at scheduling a summer session, but I do give myself some downtime in between just because I can't do week after week after week during our busy season for, you know, farm projects and gardening and all of that. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, well, tell me about yourself and Lily Fire Farms. Oh my goodness, where do I start? So. 00:59 I guess what you want to know about me is that I'm a mom and obviously a farmer. And we have our little farm here, like you said, Lollipire Farms, that we run it as a business and we're trying to grow and be that kind of resource for our community for what I would personally, of course I'm biased, but what I would consider to be kind of food the way nature intended it to be. 01:24 meaning that we follow organic principles. We're not organic certified, but we follow the organic mindset. You know, we don't use chemicals. If we can help it, I will obviously occasionally pull out a chemical dewormer if I need to for our goats, since those are, you know, extra picky. And, you know, I'd rather not lose any animals, but we try and go natural methods as often as possible. We pasture raise everything or free range here. We have poultry, we have chickens, turkeys, ducks. 01:54 We'll be getting geese next week just for fun for predator protection. We have goats Cows we have pigs We have a couple of sheep. We have a couple horses Just for you know, what's a farm without a horse kind of? So, yeah Yeah, what yeah exactly. So you're an agriculture zoo is what you are in a way. Yeah, uh-huh Okay, and I 02:23 asked about farm school at the beginning because I thought it was all summer long. So tell me about farm school too. Yeah. So we farm school plus other things we offer what I would call on-farm educational opportunities or community experiences, that sort of thing, where we have farm school that so far that's been a six-week program where we take each week and we kind of cover what's hard to do. And these kids work so hard and their parents too to absorb all this information. 02:52 It's basically all of the multiple facets of running a farm like this, slammed into those six weeks with that organic-minded, rotational grazing, regenerative agriculture kind of focus. So like we meet the animals, we learn what quote unquote jobs they all do. You know, like we call our pigs our rototillers because they're helping us clear land and they'll clear the garden later. And you know, the sheep are the lawn mowers, that kind of thing. We cover parasitology and nutrition. 03:21 and how those are connected and it connects to pasture management and how it connects to, I mean, all of the pieces of, you know, like I said, running the farm, rotational grazing, all of that. I do have, this year we're doing it a little differently. I have a, I'll call it a grow along gardening program. And so it's once a month classes from, when did we start? May until September. 03:47 And so that's basically like come and learn crash course of how to grow your own vegetables and a little bit of the fruits. And we do it as this once a month this year. So that way like you came in May and you know we're starting seeds and it's a little late, but that's okay. We start seeds, we plant some stuff in the class garden here, you know, and then the next one we'll be doing pruning and plant supporting and you know kind of as the garden progresses it's going to match whatever is growing in your garden. 04:16 And of course we offer field trips and hatching eggs. And we've had field trips here and we kind of try and cover the base of basically however it is that we can help connect our community back to these foods that we're providing for them. We kind of have a few different angles for that, like you mentioned with the classes and all of that. 04:46 I will put it this way. It's meant to be farm school for kids. By the time we get about halfway through it tends to be the parents that are really you can see the wheels are turning and they'll start asking some really good questions. They participate too. So I call both the kids and my parents. I call them my farm kids while they're here. So I have Awesome. I haven't

Today I'm talking with Debra at Harvest Creek Farm & Retreat. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm chatting with Debra at Harvest Creek Farm and Retreat. How are you, Debra? I am doing wonderful today. Thank you, Mary, for inviting me today. 00:22 Oh, you are very welcome. I need you guys to talk to me or I don't have a podcast. So thank you for being willing to come visit. Tell me about yourself and Harvest Creek Farm and Retreat. Well, we started about three years ago and my husband and I were just looking for about five acres. We live in a subdivision and I wanted to have some chickens and I wanted to grow some vegetables and fruit trees. And well, you know what HOAs are like. 00:50 We would try to find about five acres. Well, we came across this 15 acre parcel that used to be a farm decades ago. And so we slowly but surely, it had completely grown up. It was woods, forest. So over the next about a year or so, it was literally just excavation and taking down trees and just trying to get back the pasture again. It was so overgrown. And so we started working on that. 01:20 put in a little vegetable garden that first year and it did amazing. So we started growing vegetables and we had our chickens and ended up buying four or five more acres adjacent to our property. So now we have 20 acres and it is just exploded and we have now built a pavilion on it. We have a vacation cottage that people love to come and stay and we've left, we left quite a few woods and put the cottage near that. 01:50 So people have a place to just come and relax and get away from city life. Yet we're only minutes from the main city of Lenoir City. So it's just been an incredible project. As all farmers know, it is tireless. You never get caught up. And so we've had help here and there that we've hired. But basically my husband, myself, and some friends really have been helping us here and there. But now we are officially 02:19 A You Pick Flower Farm. Nice. Okay. So, you're in Tennessee and how many years ago was this that you started it, that you bought it? Three years ago. Okay. Yeah. All right. Awesome. I want to talk about the flower farm for sure. Yeah. But I also want to talk about the work involved. Did you get your chickens? 02:44 So yes, we had chickens for, I think it was about 18 months and we started doing a lot of traveling. We've actually joined the Tennessee Agri-Tourism Association. Oh yeah. Yeah, we've been going to those conferences and getting more involved in that. So as you know, you just can't leave animals. No. It just got to a point where the chickens were not going to be our focus. So we were able to have them adopted by some friends. And so they're happy. They did not get beheaded. 03:13 Good. Yes. And so now we do not have any animals on the farm. Eventually, we'd love to get some horses. I actually lived in a farm in Australia on a stud ranch for some time. And so that's always in my heart. So eventually we'll get horses. But right now we're focusing on the flowers. Okay. You lived in Australia on a what ranch? A stud farm, a stud ranch. Stud, stud ranch. All I heard was said. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. Sorry. 03:43 Okay, Stud Ranch, that makes more sense, thank you. Okay, so you have the flower farm. Do you do events around the flowers? Do you sell the flowers? What's involved in the flower part of the business? So we actually ended up putting a farm store at the bottom of our property to sell our vegetables and to sell our flowers, which has now become this beautiful little boutique farm store that we carry honey, not from our own property, that we purchase honey from. 04:13 and we have flowers, other flowers and gifts and candles and soaps and things like that and wind chimes and garden theme that people love to just stop by. We just started that last month and so now they will come to the farm store and they will sign up for their you pick time and then they'll go out and they'll start picking flowers. So yes we have a pavilion and because we're part of the 04:40 We have a minimum 15 acres and we're part of the agritourism association. We can have events under, under that. So we will eventually do weddings and have lots of other fun events here. Awesome. I just, I just chatted a week or so ago with a lady who lives a couple of towns up from me and she has a flower place too. It's freedom, freedom, forge flower farm or something like that. 05:09 And she does events. She's got three planned this summer. And it sounded like so much fun. But I'm not so big on the pollinators that go with the flowers. I

Today I'm talking with Amanda at BlueSky Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Amanda at Blue Sky Homestead. How are you, Amanda? I'm well. How are you? I'm great. It is really sunny and beautiful here today. So tell me about yourself and Blue Sky Homestead. So... 00:31 I just, um, so Blue Sky Homes had started just not even, probably not even a year ago. I would say about 10 months ago. I started venturing into more homemaking. I'm a stay at home mom. I work on a horse farm part time in the mornings, but other than that I'm home. So I started venturing more into. 01:00 cooking from scratch and the sourdoughs. I got married this past September and my husband lives on a little five acre farm. So we have goats and chickens, which I do not grow up around at all. Didn't have gardens, didn't have animals, except for cats and some dogs. But other than that, nothing. So it was like a, kind of like a culture shock to me really because I've never been around animals like that. 01:29 So, so I decided like maybe I can make my own little website and post things that I'm learning and share it with other people that are new to it and don't know much about it because that's still kind of where I'm always learning. But it's been fun. I still want to venture out into more like holistic things. 01:59 I like, I can't do like perfumes and stuff. Those chemicals really gave me migraines, like really bad. I had to get rid of everything. So I want to start venturing eventually, candle making, like incense and stuff like that, that doesn't cause and doesn't have all those nasty chemicals in them that really destruct your whole body. So. 02:29 I mean, that's where I want to head into, but for right now, I'm still in the works. Okay. Well, speaking of perfumes, giving you migraines, me too. You're taught, you're preaching to the choir. Me too. Oh, really? I know a lot of people and they, like my daughter, she doesn't believe me. She's about to be 16. She buys all Victoria's Secret and bath and body wash and I'm like, get it out of the house. 02:57 You want to know why I have a migraine all the time? Cut that stuff out for a little while and see how you feel. Yeah. Well, he's a teenager though, so. Yep, and you don't want to stomp on him, but you also don't want to have a headache all day every day either. Oh my gosh, yes. So the last time I was at a public entertainment event, it was a chorus thing for my youngest son, and the... 03:27 The high school has had, we don't live there anymore, they still have a really nice auditorium that they built. And we went and I was there for maybe 20 minutes and all the perfumes and all the deodorants and all the colognes, I couldn't even think my head hurt so bad and I didn't have a headache when I walked in. So it does cause issues for people who are sensitive to it. So crazy because I never used to be like that. 03:55 Or I did and I didn't realize it was comics or not because I didn't know anything about this kind of stuff until now, really. So I would, it was, it would really be bad because my husband and I would like, we don't really have date nights. So the one time that we would have a date night, I'd get all dolled up and looking nice. And I would put on my perfume and we would get ready to go. And I'd be in the car driving. And 04:24 All of a sudden my nose felt like stuffy and my head just started. I was like, Oh man, this is not going to be a good night because my head is starting to hurt and I don't know why. Yep. So it was a whole thing where I was reading books and was in a podcast. And I'm like, wow, like that could really be a thing. So I had like 20 different perfumes from like different places. And I just actually gave them all to my oldest stepdaughter cause 04:53 She doesn't care about stuff that doesn't affect her. So I'm like, here you go, you can take them. But it's amazing that just, well, even body lotions. And I was shocked when I learned about how that really can affect your everyday living, honestly. I got rid of all my plugins. I don't use Debreze anymore. So the only perfume that I really found that does not affect me is, it's a brand by Skylark. 05:22 So it's a little crazy. It's a roll-on. They do self-sprays, but when I found it, I initially just got a roll-on. And it's a cream, and I don't have migraines when I wear that. Because I do like perfumes and stuff, so I miss wearing them. But this Skyler line is the only line that I have found so far that has clean ingredients that do not have that effect on me at all. 05:52

Today I'm talking with Janae at Graham Fam Farm LLC. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Janae at Gram Fam Farm LLC. Good morning, Janae. Good morning. How are you, Mary? I'm great. I'm so excited to talk with you. Tell me about yourself and what you guys do. 00:25 Well, great. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So I started Gram Fam Farm. Let's see. We officially started about 10 years ago, but we got our company up and running about three years ago. And we grow weeds, what people would call them, and use them for medicinal purposes. So we like to forage and gather and grow our own medicinal plants. And we use them to make all sorts of herbal products and like to teach people about natural holistic 00:53 healing and living and how they can use the plants growing all around them to make medicine for them and their family. Awesome. You are exactly the person I want to talk to today. I know a little bit about like essential oils. Like I know that when I have a migraine, if I open up my bottle of lavender essential oil and smell it, it takes the edge off the pain of a migraine. I know that clove oil can help with tooth pain, like toothache pain. 01:23 I know that mints can help with joint pain, but that's about all I really know. So are you a certified herbalist? Is that correct? So certifications are, I'm not certified and certifications are kind of wonky. A lot of people will claim that they're certified and it allows them more credibility in the industry, but there actually isn't just a standard certification for herbalists. So a lot of herbalists that tend to say they're certified, it may mean nothing. 01:51 So I have experience of 10 years with it. I'm a first-generation herbalist, but I am definitely not certified through any group or anything like that. Okay. I was wondering if certified meant anything because I'm going to say this and I really don't want anybody to come down on me about it, but probably we'll have a hard time with it. I know that when we sell our essential oil blends at the farmers market, we have to label them with what oils we use. 02:22 and we have to name whatever the thing is. I have like something I use for bug repellent and we call it bug off because it's funny, but we're not allowed to say what the oils are good for because the FDA frowns upon that. And so here's where I get confused because there are companies that sell herbal 02:51 things to help with ailments and they're allowed to say what it's for. So why can't I do it or why can't you do it that way but companies can? Do you know? Well, the FDA hasn't hit them yet. Pretty much you're not supposed to make any sort of claim at all about the viability of herbal products or what herbal products are used to cure, I'm doing air quotes, right? Or heal, I'm doing air quotes. You're not supposed to do any of that. 03:21 You can say, it is recommended for this and we recommend it for this. And that's where herbalists like to err on the side of because, I mean, we're not doctors. And so I like to make it very clear, I'm not a doctor. I'm an herbalist. This is an herbal recommendation. This is what I recommend to clients. Recommend is one of the best things, but one of the best terms you can use when you're talking about the benefits of herbal medicine. But as soon as the FDA gets a hold of it, they like to kick out anything natural, unfortunately. 03:52 Yeah, and it's so silly because we did this a long time ago. Yeah, we've forgotten. A lot of people have forgotten about it. The truth's been hidden, you know, and I think it would kill, I don't think it would kill the pharmaceutical industry. Yes. And it's unfortunate that we as human beings pay so much money for manmade things and corrupted things. When I can go out to my garden, pick mint. 04:22 and steep it in a sweet almond oil or an olive oil or a coconut oil, put it on my ankle that is sore because I twisted it, which is not true. I did not twist my ankle. I'm saying if I did. And it will actually help take away some of the ache. Yeah, because it's a hardcore anti-inflammatory. It's the same thing with dandelion. The root is used as an anti-cancer. The astringent properties of it alone are amazing. Same thing with red clover. Red clover is a blood cleanser. 04:50 These things are recommended to treat things like cancer, which actually doesn't need to be cut out of your body, despite what doctors claim herbalists don't think that that's recommended at all. In fact, your body can take care of it itself. It just needs to be given

Today I'm talking with Kelsey at Sweet Briar Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kelsey at Sweetbriar Farm. Good afternoon, Kelsey. How are you? I'm good. How are you, Mary? I'm good. It's been kind of a crazy day here, but I'm ready. So tell me about yourself and everything you guys do at Sweetbriar Farm. Oh, boy. Well... 00:29 My husband, Mike and I run our small family farm together. We have five kids and our farm is tiny. We're just under six acres and we got started here about 10 years ago. Okay, and what do you guys do on your farm? Well, right now we're getting into produce season. So... 00:57 Mike is the one with the green thumb, and he grows all different kinds of tomatoes and beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, squashes, the works. And then in addition to produce, we have livestock. So we raise dexter cattle, which are the smallest standard breed of cattle. And in addition to our dexers, I have a small herd of Nubian goats. 01:27 Our oldest child has her own herd of one mini Nubian goat and we've got some chickens too for laying hens. Okay. So, this is a question I always ask, what made you guys decide to do this? Well, I think it's something that Mike grew up with. He grew up gardening and being involved with agriculture. So that's something that was very familiar to him. 01:56 For me, it was a bigger leap. I grew up in a subdivision on the west side of Michigan and I had little tiny dogs growing up. But my grandfather used to have a dairy farm with like a hundred head of Holsteins. And he sold the farm before I was born, but I grew up hearing stories about the farm and how cool it was. So I think it's something that always kind of... 02:25 just simmered in the back of my mind about how much fun it would be to be a kid on a farm. So after Mike and I moved in together and got married and were able to, you know, have a place of our own with a little bit of space, we, you know, he put in his big garden and we started with chickens. That was back, gosh, 2009. Yeah. So 15 years ago, we first started. And I thought he was crazy. 02:54 but it sounded like fun. So yeah, we just do it because we enjoy it. That's the best kind of crazy. And I love that your husband is the one who has the green thumb because my husband is the avid gardener as well. I have a green thumb, I can grow plants. I've done it before, I will do it again. But he is the one who loves to get out there and work in the dirt. And it's the way he de-stresses from his jobby job, his regular job. 03:23 That's awesome. Yeah, it's really nice when a couple can compliment each other because if we depended on me to grow our food and plant form, we would be very hungry. Yes, and I'm the one that gets depended on to actually cook the food that comes out of the garden. I am all good with that because I love to cook. So it works out great. Yep, it's wonderful when our skills that we're good at compliment the other ones. Absolutely. 03:53 Yeah. So you said you have kids? Yeah. Yup. We have five children. We just had number five in January. Um, so our oldest is 12. Uh, she's our daughter and then the rest are boys. So we have a 12 year old daughter and then our boys are 10, eight, six, and four months. Geez. You are a busy mama and a busy dad. Yes. Yeah. They definitely keep us happy. 04:23 Yeah, it's funny how much in common you and I have because my oldest is a daughter and all three of the younger ones are boys. Oh really? So yeah, we're batting a thousand on quinkanings here. Okay, so do you guys just do this for yourselves or do you try to make the farm profitable to support itself? I think our goals have changed over the years. 04:52 produce for ourselves and then anything extra we'd sell. And then we kind of swung to the other end where we were producing to make money and to make the farm a growing business and then we'd eat the extras. And I think now we're kind of swinging back towards the middle point where we want our farm to be able to sustain itself. 05:20 We still want to be able to produce food for a small number of other people, you know, to kind of make it a self-sustaining thing because for many years, all our extra money we were investing into the farm. And now it's time that it needs to pay for itself or things need to not be part of our farm. So. Yes. We are right there with you. 05:47 It's really funny when you start this thing, this project, this dream, you're like, we're going to do all the things and the farm is going to support itself and we're just going to be happy doing the work. And then

Today I'm talking with Ed, Emily and Corey at Highland Ledge Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking to Ed and Emily and Corey at Highland Ledge Farm. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning. We're great. I'm good. Tell me all about yourselves and Highland Ledge Farm. 00:27 We're a small business that produces all, makes all of our own jams, mustards, vinegars, simple syrups, and short breads. And we travel to different fairs, markets. 00:47 Okay, so how did you, how did that happen? How did you start it? 00:54 So we started a long time ago. Emily used to do fares and such recently, I guess about six years now. I think, yeah. I retired and decided to help Emily with her business. And so we put a little more effort into marketing 01:24 all that sort of thing, productizing, and kind of kicked off the business as it is today. Okay, so, okay, I don't know what to ask. Okay, so let me let me tell you, we're we're on 37 acres up on top of a mountain in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Okay. We go to about 70 fare. 01:53 fairs and season and vend retail there. We also service about a dozen stores with wholesale. We sell products too as well. We do all our own labels, all our own packaging. Most of the fruit and such comes from the farm or locally. 02:22 Uh, we do most of our food prep cooking packaging in the winter because in the summer we're involved with selling it. 02:33 Okay. So do you travel outside of New England? Not yet. But we're looking at some shows that might be good for us outside of New England. Okay. And do you ship your goods? Yes, we do. We have a website that's active purchasing and shipping from the website. Okay. So here in Minnesota, we have a thing called 03:02 cottage food registration where we can make baked goods or jams or jellies or canned goods and sell them without having to be licensed as a commercial seller. So does Massachusetts have that or do you have to be a commercial? Massachusetts and in fact New Hampshire, Vermont, New York are the states we sell in. All of those states and locations. 03:31 All those states have cottage food definitions. In Massachusetts, to be a cottage food manufacturer, you have to have, it can only be non-potentially hazardous, NPF foods. Or it's also now it's called non-temperature sensitive. You can only do those foods, but you still have to be licensed and inspected. 04:01 Okay. The only restriction is we're not allowed to sell wholesale outside of the state. Okay so every single state has a different set of laws regarding this, I swear. Well it's all based on the FDA. 04:24 rules. I forget how exactly it's tied, but typically to get a commercial license, you have to be inspected to state standards, which typically mirror the FDA standards. The CAUTI's license relieves some of the requirements of the FDA standards if you promise not to do a wholesale outside the state. Yeah, okay. So, people, some people, 04:52 have a perception that when you work for yourself, it's easier. And I don't hold that perception because we started a small business last summer and we were busy all the time. So, do you guys put in 80 hour weeks? Yeah, I don't know where people get the idea that we're not busy. So, typically if we are awake, we could be doing business. 05:22 So anything can happen. Somebody could call, we need to get this, we need to get that. Somebody has a show for one weekend, we're open, so we have to scramble to get the paperwork in. So the business just happens, it's part of our regular life. It's not a separate thing. I think there's two or three different kinds of people like us that have their own business. There's the people who just wanna make 05:52 couple of bucks under the table. And they go to all of these events. And there's people like. 06:04 who have enough money to be able to do it right and they have a fancy set up and so on and so forth. And there's people like us, right in the middle, who wanna do it right, who take the time to get the... 06:24 paperwork and the permits and have made a good booth presentation and just keep trying and trying and trying to make it grow and that's that's the way it is I mean you see you see people all the time at shows and you can tell that they're not licensed 06:54 but they're doing something with their time and stuff like that, but just they aren't spending a lot of time doing it. For people like us who use foods, who do stuff and care about how it tastes and things like that, it's like an 80 hour a week job. Yeah. 07:20 because you're living it, you're living it and

Today I'm talking with Regina at Farmgirl Farmstead. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Regina at Farm Girl Farmstead. Good morning, Regina. How are you? Good morning. I'm excellent yourself. I'm good. I keep doing this thing where I introduce people and then I stutter through the rest of it and I don't know what is going on with me, but that's okay. 00:29 So tell me about yourself and Farm Girl Farmstead. All right. Well, I am 65 and a half years old. About three years ago before I retired, I decided I wanted to have a farmstead. I spent most of my life raising four kids and I raised three kids and I raised two tiny grandkids for about a year and a half. And I was like, when I get out of the classroom of learning and I actually have time to have a farmstead, 00:58 I'm going to start one. So three years ago I started, but I was still working full time as a supervisor, so I didn't have a lot of time to commit. But then I retired in December. I just worked two days a week remote, and now the Farmstead Dream is coming true. I mean, it's happening, it's happening fast because I did a lot of research prior to get into the full time. And it's almost self-sustaining with the products that I sell. 01:27 But my goal is next year, because it would be my, this year was my first real year of running a full time. Next year I hope to make a profit. Awesome, congratulations on retiring and starting your next season of life. That's amazing. So I have many questions. I was looking at your Facebook page and it looks like you're located in a neighborhood. Is that correct? Absolutely, I'm an urban farmer. 01:55 I have a tenth of an acre and I'm surrounded by the medical field right across the alley from me is ear, nose and throat within a block is a hospital, four blocks is another hospital. So I have a big population of buyers because I'm so visual where I am. Okay. So tell me and tell the listeners how you are. 02:22 utilizing what little space you have to produce lots. Okay, I gotcha. Well, the way that the homestead pays for itself is I start vegetable plants downstairs in the basement. I think I have 38 grow lights, we pot breakers like four times a day. And so this year I grew 5,000 plants from seed. Last year just like 500, just cause I wasn't retired yet. I sell those for $2 each. And I think I have about 02:51 150 left. So that's how the farmstead pays for itself. And I plant everything that we eat. We have dwarf apple trees, dwarf plum trees, a ton of grapes, strawberries, and I sell strawberry plants too. Every vegetable that we like to eat I plant. And that way we can be self-sustaining. I have a friend who has 55 hens, so she provides me eggs, 03:22 like three or four hens and see if something I want to do. I grew up, we raised chickens grown up in California and San Diego. Cause I don't want to jump in and then be like some people who are like, no, let's get rid of them. So I make sure it's something I can and I do want to do. And then also we planted mulberry trees too cause my 29 year old granddaughter loves mulberries but we plant everything that we love. 03:49 I'm hoping to do a beehive next year. There's classes locally and none of my neighbors spray. Nobody sprays anything. I don't use any chemicals. So I wouldn't have to worry about a loss of a beehive due to neighbors. Well, that's helpful. That's great. Yes. Okay, so when you started growing stuff, you grew 5,000 seedlings in your basement with grow light this spring. 04:18 Yep, yep, this spring. I started in January. As soon as I got back from Georgia visiting grandkids, I started in January because I knew with only 38 grow lights, I have to do succession after succession. So some went to the big greenhouse. It's only like 8 by 12, the small ones, 6 by 8. And I'd have a heater in there if the weather dipped, but they would rotate to the big greenhouse or the small greenhouse. And yeah, successfully 5,000. My goal was 8,000. 04:48 But with just me, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do 8,000. That's a lot to handle, yes. So do you grow anything outside? Like you have the fruit trees and stuff. But when you, okay, I asked that whole thing wrong. Let me start again. When you started growing things outside on your property, did you have to amend the soil because you were in the city? Absolutely, yeah. And when we first moved here, and I would say we, but I'm single. 05:18 When I first moved here, I rented the house. That was nine years ago. And the first spring, my landlord said, hey, what do you think about ornamental grasses in the front? And I said, hol

Today I'm talking with Terry at Red Dragonfly Animal Rescue. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Terry at Red Dragon Fly Animal Rescue. How are you, Terry? I am doing great, Mary. Good. Tell me about yourself and what you do. So we have a large animal rescue in the Panhandle of Florida. 00:28 Um, we rescue horses, donkeys, cows. Um, every, every single rescue has a different story of how they wound up on our, on our farm. Um, we also have Muscovy ducks and roosters that have been dropped off because people have found them in their front yard and don't know what to do with them. Um, we're trying to provide a service for animals that have been neglected, abandoned. Um, the equine that have been put into the slaughter pipeline. 00:58 which is just devastating. So I know people ask me, you know you can't save them all and I know I can't, but I feel like if I can just make a difference in a few lives and save what I can that I think I found my purpose. Okay, so what brought you to this? So in 2021, we purchased a small five acre lot in Southwest Florida. And we have... 01:27 We had a business up in New England and we thought, okay, so this is where we kind of want our last chapter to be. I'm originally from Florida. My husband's originally from Connecticut, but he was on board to relocate. And at the end of 2021, we didn't know what we wanted to do with this piece of land. We know we thought a farm, we thought animals, we thought, you know, we had somewhat of a vision, but it wasn't clear to be, you know, fully transparent. 01:56 So my husband called me, I think it was like November, December of 2021 and said, listen, I met this rancher and he's got these baby cows that he's gonna take to slaughter. And I was like, why? And he said, well, he has too many cows and too many males and he's, one's a male, one's a female. Female, he doesn't even know who the mom is. So I said, no, let's bring them to the farm. So I learned how to do barbed wire for the first time in my life. 02:25 Um, we fenced in two and a half acres and we had six week old calves. Mary, they cried for their moms on that. Oh yeah. Oh, it broke my heart and we weren't living there, but I was there. I was there every hour. Um, and then six months, not even six months, I'm going to say maybe a couple months later, we got a call that a petting zoo was closing and they had this donkey and, um, that's the story that we were given. 02:55 I'm still not 100% sure. I think he was a displaced donkey that nobody wanted. So we transported him to the farm and we thought, oh, donkeys are pasture mates. They're gonna protect the cows. Not this donkey. This donkey wanted to attack the cows. So we had to separate them. They each got their own pasture, their own pole barn, their feed stations, their hay. And I thought, okay, I could do this. And I started doing research. I signed up for 03:25 FEMA classes that have, and this is all free, and a lot of folks don't know this, they're available online. They bring teachers to, it's usually like community centers. I was the only lay person in the room. We did a two or three day course. I flew up to Long Island, and it was all first responders on how to deal with animals in a disaster, whether it's a natural disaster or unnatural disaster. So you know, the fires in... 03:54 wildfires in California and I didn't know Hurricane Ian was coming to southwest Florida, but what do you do with animals in these situations? What do you, you know, who, who's there to help you? Who has transportation? Where can we relocate them to? So I started to reach out to folks in southwest Florida. I think they kind of had their own established network, and then Hurricane Ian came. We were super lucky, Mary, super lucky that the animals survived. 04:21 And the house that we also had near them survived, but not much else survived. I'm sure you saw pictures of, of post-hurricane and the devastation and the, the loss of lives. And it was just, we thought better of maybe not staying there. Um, my husband rides dirt bikes as his mental therapy, and he found some trails up in the Panhandle of Florida. So we came up here on a weekend and he was like, this is gorgeous. Um, and better yet. 04:51 affordable. So I said, I will relocate. Here's my thing. I need to live where the animals are. And I want to do this full time as much as we can full time. So I got our 501 C3, which was no easy feat. We transported the animals. We bought a 25 acre. We went from a 2400 square foot house to a 900 square foot barnaminium. 05:21 and

Today I'm talking with Liz at Green Roots Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Liz at Green Roots Farm. Hi Liz, how are you? I'm well, thanks for having me, Mary. Sure, you're in between, you said, Mankato and New Ulm? Yes, that's where I'm located, that's where my little farm is. Okay. 00:27 Awesome. So tell me about yourself and Green Roots Farm. Well, I am a master gardener. I've been on this 10 acre spot for less than 10 years. I started this by just trying to be self sufficient and support, you know, healthy food for my family. And then it became much more of a passion. And I raise 00:55 beef cattle, I raise chickens and pork, everything. So I don't leave the farm very often. Wow, okay. That's a lot of things from just starting out to maybe do a little gardening. Yeah, it's pretty large. We just tripled the size. So it was 50 by 100 feet, so now it's 50 by 300. 01:25 Yeah, so did you have a background in this before you started it? Uh, no, not particularly. My mother was a very avid flower gardener, master gardener, so I grew up kind of with that, but I didn't have a green thumb until I was probably into my 30s. Okay, huh. 01:52 That's really interesting because typically when people get this deep into it, they've had a lot in their growing up years with it. And I get what you said about your mom, but the beef cattle are a whole different thing. Yeah, it's a learn as you go process. And thank goodness I've had some wonderful teachers around me to kind of show me the ropes. I don't do a lot at the time, but I do enough to... 02:21 support our family and others who want to buy. Very nice. Okay, so you have a CSA. How's that going this year for signups? I am currently working on getting the website ready so that I can take the signups online. Just to make things easier, but I'm setting up some different markets. Hopefully the Minneapolis Farmers Market. 02:51 and will be in the late Crystal Farmer's Market, hopefully this Friday. And then there'll be signups in person at those times. Okay. Thank God for Farmer's Markets. We decided not to do a CSA this year because we had so few people sign up last year. I think part of it was that money was really tight last year and people were leaving about the initial outlay without the guarantee that... 03:19 that they needed to be sure they were going to get what they paid for because everyone knows that not all the crops succeed. So we decided that we would do the farmers market last summer and that went really well and my husband's gone to the first two this year and done fairly well with no produce. He sold candles and soaps and lip balms and did pretty well. 03:45 So again, thank you. We make all that stuff too. It's wonderful. Thank God for farmers markets, yes. Yeah, we're doing the farmers market and the CSA and we use all of the animal products to do natural products also. So fat from the pigs become lard and I make soap with that. There's all kinds of wonderful fun medicinal things to do out on the farm as well. Do you forage? 04:15 Do you forage your property? Yes? I do. Yep. Awesome. So I got to know, are you originally from Minnesota? I am. Okay. You sound slightly Canadian. I was wondering if maybe you were a transplant. No, I am born in the cities and then grew up down in the Mankato-Nuwam area. Okay. Well, you have some Canadian lilt to your accent. And I was like... 04:43 Maybe she's not from Minnesota. Nope. I'm here. Okay. Well, I'm not from Minnesota at all, and I don't sound like I'm from anywhere, so I'm the last one to talk about accents. 04:57 There's nothing wrong with that. Blend in. Yep. You gotta hide. You gotta hide in with people. You gotta become like everybody else. Where are you from? Huh? Where are you from? I'm from Maine originally. Oh, wonderful. Yep. And I had to drop the accent because apparently it's not great to have a New England accent here. 05:22 Hmm. Yeah, I can see. I can see how that would go. It did not go well. So I just I just spent a whole year of my life eradicating any trace of New England accent in my voice. And it's gone. It's completely gone. And that's okay. Yeah, no, you sound...there's no accent. Yeah, it's pretty clean. I like it a lot. Okay, so 05:52 What else can I ask you? Why is it called Green Roots Farm? 05:57 Um, I spent some time with the naming and it's a, it's a family run farm. It's me and my, and my kids that do most of the work. And I wanted to do something with, with that name, but I kind of ended up with. Just the roots was really important to me. I'm also a therapist and I run a private practice and coming into. 06:26 the root of things was really important. And then als

Today I'm talking with Echo and Jonathan at Echo Springs Farm. 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 Echo and Jonathan at Echo Springs Farm. Good evening, guys. How are you? Good evening. Good. Tell me about yourselves. 00:26 So Jonathan and I, we met in 2010. We were both active in 4-H here in Pennsylvania and we were on the 4-H State Council. So we were selected as a group of, there was six of us that were on our State Council team. So they picked like the top six or top eight people in the state. 00:55 teenagers in the state to be on the state for each council and they plan like the state events and do all of the state legislative things concerning for each throughout the year and him and I met because we were both on the team in 2010 2011. We started dating when we were done with council. We got engaged in 2014 married in 2018 and 01:23 started the farm and the business in 2018. We both come from farming backgrounds. So I grew up on a traditional beef farm and he grew up on a traditional dairy style farm. And then when they sold the dairy, they had beef, cattle and sheep. And so we just, we both have a passion for farming. And in 2018, 2019, when we started our farm, we tried traditional style farming and it almost bankrupted us our first year. 01:51 So we realized we had to come up with something different. And that's how the farm concept of doing everything grass-fed, natural was born. Okay, so you were 4H sweethearts. Yes. And how old were you when you met? I was 16 and he was 17. So it's like high school sweethearts except it's 4H sweethearts. I love it, that's great. Yeah. Okay. 02:19 So tell me what you do at Echo Springs Farm. So we do a little bit of everything. Our primary focus is to produce the best possible quality food that we can for our customers. So be it natural, grass-fed beef, grass-fed lamb, grass-fed poultry, we have small... 02:49 batch of rabbits that we raise for meat rabbits that we raise on grass in a rabbit tractor, or produce. We do no spray produce, so a lot of tomatoes, a lot of cucumbers, some berries. We have a pretty big batch of blueberries that we pick every year, and everything is pesticide and 03:18 be toxic. We have two young children, a three-year-old and a one-year-old, and I'm pregnant with our third. So our goal is really for our kids to be able to walk outside, pick up what they want and eat it and not have to worry about what's on that. Wow. Okay. Congratulations on the third one on the way. Thank you. That's exciting. Okay. So do you guys have jobs off the farm or is this your job? Is the farm your job? 03:48 No, so we both work full time off the farm as well. So the farm itself is 14 acres and then we rent another 20 acres. So we farm about 34 acres. We run- And run a hay ground. And run a hay ground, yeah. We run about anywhere from 10 to 15 head of cattle a year. We have a couple of brood cows and then we buy stockers. In- 04:15 the spring or fall whenever we can get our hands on them. We have a flock of 21 sheep. We finish anywhere from six to eight sheep a year for customers. We do two batches of layer hens. So we typically have anywhere between 60 and 100 layer hens at any given time. We also then do meat birds. So we run batches of 60 meat birds at a time, and we do three to four batches a year, depending on what we have a want for. 04:44 And then, like I said, we also do the rabbit. And then we raise some pigs for ourselves. We have a couple of quail, some ducks, two peacocks, a donkey, it's kind of like a petting zoo. My God, when do you sleep? We don't. No, no. No, like I said, we both also work full-time jobs. So we really, we're five to six hours a night, if we're lucky. 05:14 Wow, I can't even begin to imagine. And luckily, I'm done child rearing. So I don't have to get up with little kids in the middle of the night anymore. But holy cow, you guys, that's a lot going on. Most mornings I start at between 330 or 4 o'clock and usually call it a day by 11, 1130. Yeah. Wow, I'm impressed. That is a gargantuan. 05:43 task in having two full-time jobs, well, one each, and two and a coming along child, two kids and one coming along, and running the farm with that many animals. Wow, I'm blown away. Awesome. So you're selling produce and meat. So that's to... Is that to support the farm? 06:12 Yes. So it didn't start out that way. We basically really just wanted to have the animals paper themselves. It was something where we were raising them for ourselves. So, you know, the two of us when we first got married, we didn't need a whole beef. We didn't need a whole pig. So we had the meat available to us. So why not, you know, pass that along to other people? 06:43 Then as it pro

Today I'm talking with Lorrie about the real estate market and things you may not have considered when thinking about buying a property for your homestead. You can reach her on Facebook as well. 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 Lorrie Adams, a Realtor extraordinaire and good friend of mine. Good morning, Lorrie, how are you? Good morning, I'm great. Good. So it may seem weird that I asked a Realtor to be a guest on my podcast. 00:27 But it's not weird because Lorrie is brilliant at her job and she knows things that people looking for land might wanna know. So Lorrie, tell me a little bit about yourself first. Well, years ago, before I was a realtor, I was a paramedic for a number of years for 911. So I know the area inside and out and subsequently became a realtor in 2007 during the crash, figured why not. I always do things the hard way. 00:57 So I've been a realtor for 17 years, absolutely love it. And don't specialize in one niche area. I like to be robust and be able to do multiple things. So I just stay on top of all aspects of real estate with the exception of I do not dabble in the business side. So just residential real estate, farm real estate, that kind of thing. Okay. And this is exactly why I wanted to talk to you because I have lots of questions. 01:26 First first question is the housing market bad right now and is it bad all over the United States? Bad is a Term that is kind of means different things to different people. Is it a challenging market? Absolutely The challenge is because we have very little inventory we have a lot of buyers sitting on the fence and Many of which have never even seen an interest rate over five percent. So 01:56 When they jumped up to around seven, people were a little bit flabbergasted as to what they could suddenly afford changes your buying power when you jack up interest rates. So, excuse me, with the interest rates up a little bit, historically though, 7% is an average interest rate. It's really not that outrageous. It's not impossible. 02:25 There is inventory out there. You just have to have eyes on it. You have to have somebody with their ears to the ground and nose to the grind, Stella Perse, and make sure that you know how to negotiate a good deal for your clients. As well as having an excellent lender that is good at communication, that is available, just like a realtor is 24-7 basically on weekends as well. And there's a lot of creative financing out there right now with some of the lenders coming up with a... 02:54 programs for helping buyers put in quote unquote cash offers and then financing after The transaction so there's a lot of things out there that can be done You just have to have somebody who knows what's out there and can find it and can negotiate for you I have to say I have never used Every tool in my toolbox as well as come up with new ones in the last few years to get my clients under contract But thank goodness, it's work 03:23 Yeah. So is the reason that inventory is down, does it have anything to do with the fact that people ran like there was fire under their feet back in 2020 and 2021 to get out of the places they were in and now they're happy in the places they're in and they don't want to sell? Well, some are happy, some are not happy, but they're staying in them because of the interest rates they got when they refinanced at historic lows of 2.5 and 3.5 interest rates. 03:54 To be honest with you, I wouldn't ever anticipate seeing those kind of interest rates again. But that's where people are in their mortgages. And then if they're not uncomfortable enough, they'll just stay where they're at. So there's a lot of restrictions as well on buildings. So new construction, the restrictions that have been placed on new construction by different government entities has added approximately $30,000 to each home. 04:24 and cost of building it. So building is restrictive with pricing, but there are builders out there. They're doing their best to get houses out there, especially for the baby boomers that want to downsize into homes that are just slab homes or smaller homes, one level, those kinds of things. Okay, I was just curious about your take. 04:48 on all this. Okay, so I'm going to talk a little bit about what you did for us. And then I have other questions regarding if people are looking for the kind of thing that we were looking for four and a half years ago. What you would suggest at this point because like you said, inventory is really limited. So the story is, Lori, we met Lori back in 2015, because we were trying to find a place back then. 05:17 And we looked at four or five places and there was just nothing within our price range. And we just de

Today I'm talking with Lawrence at Blended Acres. 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 Lawrence at Blended Acres. Good morning, Lawrence. How are you? I am well, and you? Good. Where are you? I am located in Quinter, Kansas. Okay. 00:27 I couldn't figure it out from your Facebook page. I didn't see anything about what state you were in. I was like, I have no idea where this person lives. OK, I will have to address that. Yeah. OK, so tell me about what you do at Blended Acres. We are a first generation farm with myself and my wife. We raise a 00:50 sheep for lamb meat. We also raise corn and wheat and currently some oats and millet and a few other feed crops. And then we, in the fall we sell pumpkins and kind of have a small farm market. 01:14 Very nice. How did you end up getting here? Because of your first generation, I'm guessing it wasn't family. It was not. I, uh, in 2004 when I graduated, I came to Kansas to go on a custom harvest crew. And, um, just absolutely fell in love with, with Kansas at that point in time. Um, and then, uh, it was in 2007. 01:43 when we moved here permanently. 01:52 Okay. So I get that you fell in love with the thing that you were doing, but it's a huge leap to go from falling in love to actually doing the thing. So were you just like, I'm young, I learned, I can do this? Well, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't give you enough detail there. I grew up in Michigan 02:22 of my neighbors in that area on the farm growing up. 02:31 Once I came here, it was quite a process. I mean, it started as a hobby. And... 02:45 most things were done in the evenings after work and that and over time as we've been able forward to is how we've gotten to this point where we we have our own operations. Okay so tell me tell me about the operation because this is this is not small scale correct? Not anymore no not really. We have a currently 03:13 a little over 200 years. We have 450 acres of farm ground that we rent. And then we custom farm on average, I do plant 8 to 12,000 acres a year between the different crops. 03:37 When we messaged you were like, I'm not sure that I fit what you're looking for. And when I said that you are, I'm going to tell you why I said that you are. You are perfect for what I'm doing with my podcast because there are people in the world right now who are interested in doing the kinds of things that you're doing, but they don't know anything about it. They don't know how to go from falling in love with the idea. 04:06 to making it go. And you fell in love with the idea and you're making it go and you're making it go big. So you're exactly the kind of person I want on my podcast because you're helping other people be inspired to go after the dream. What? I'm glad that that I can fill that role. Yeah because it's kind of scary for people. 04:34 especially people who maybe grew up in the city and get introduced to the idea of not being a city person anymore. And they're like, I have no idea how to get from here to there. So part of my goal from my podcast is that people get to live vicariously through the stories they hear, or they get inspired to stop living vicariously and actually go do the thing. 05:04 Okay. So that's why I wanted you to be on my show. Okay. So do you guys have kids? Yes, we do. We have... 05:19 I'm sorry, I'm counting. We had five kids. We have, our youngest is five. We have two girls that are, will be 10 here in the next, well, one couple days and the next one is in July. And then our, and Philip would be. 05:48 just turned 12 and then we had a son that passed away. He would have been 14 this year. Okay, so you're a classic farm family. You're married and you got a parcel of kids and that's way cool. It is. And that parcel of kids is gonna come in real handy as they get bigger and wanna help. Yes. And I'm guessing that. 06:16 the older of the five probably do already help. Well, he kind of, he does help in the shop some and does some stuff like that, but it's not really his cup of tea. The youngest one and our one daughter are probably the ones that are most intrigued and in love with the farming. 06:46 Well, a couple out of five isn't bad. It's real good. I don't try to force anything on the kids. We've been trying really hard to develop their likes and interests so they don't feel like they have to be part of the farm. But there's a lot of things that. 07:11 are still useful on the farm that aren't directly, you wouldn't think are directly related. Our one son is very, he's mechanically minded, so that is a very useful thing, but that also can take you into a lot of other industries. Sure. Yes, absolutely. So he's not pigeonholed into just mechanics on the farm. No. So that's... 0

Today I'm talking with Jamie at Strom Acres Homestead Pinnacle, NC. If you'd like to buy Happy Homestead Coaching by Jamie Strom, click here, and I will receive a small commission. 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 Jamie at Strom Acres Homestead. Good morning, Jamie. How are you? I'm well, thank you. How are you? I'm great. Is it lovely where you are? Yes, it is. Very sunny today. And where are you again? Pilot Mountain, North Carolina. 00:28 That's right, North Carolina. You're like the 10th person I've talked to from the Carolinas in the last month. It's, it's gotta be the place that homesteaders go to, to build their dreams. I swear. There's a lot of it around here. A lot of it grew up learning it. Yeah. Um, so tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Um, I live here on Six Acres with my husband. We are empty nesters. 00:58 And I replace my children with farm animals. As we all do, yes. Um, they're fenced in orchard. The orchard has apple, peach, pear, plum, almond, trees. I think that's all out there. And I keep the chickens fenced in with the orchard. That way I don't have to move their poop. They just fertilize the trees for me. Perfect. And you have two coops inside that. So if a predator or something has to get in, they got to go through two fences. 01:27 We've also got dogs and cats and honeybees. That's all for now. I'm also a nurse. I'm a diabetes teacher. I work part of the hospital and part time from home. I have two grown kids, 33 and 27, and I have a grandson that's 10. Wow, okay. I have four grown kids too, and one of them is 34 and one of them is 32. So your 33 year old is right in between. Yeah, yeah. 01:57 Nice. Okay, so how did you end up coming to this lifestyle? I think it slowly progressed over the years. Um, I've always had a little garden started out probably in my 20s. When I first got married, got my own place, always had tomato plants. And then started the raised bed thing and then started the chicken thing. And then we added on honeybees. 02:26 And then we expanded the raised beds to now we have about, well, I think it just keeps expanding. Um, I like the idea of living, being self-sufficient. Um, COVID did scare everybody when they ran low on food in the grocery stores. And I thought, Hmm, I could just do this myself. My grandparents did it. If they could do it, I can do it. So I've just slowly been learning more. And just. 02:55 building on the knowledge already had. Yeah, it's like a runaway train, I swear. Especially with social media, you always see something else out there you think, if they can do it, I can do it. Yeah, I think it's true. And I don't think it's true for everyone. I've said this a couple times on the podcast that 03:18 I'm not sure that homesteading is for everybody. I think that it takes a special person, and I don't mean in a derogatory way, I think it takes someone special to want to learn and grow in this way. Absolutely. I know lots of my friends say, I could never do that. I could never do that. I'm like, well, I'm glad I can. They don't wanna get their hands dirty. They don't wanna do a little chick-a-boop. They don't wanna hear a rooster. And that's the kind of stuff that just don't bother me. 03:46 Yeah, I kind of like hearing roosters. We don't have one, but our neighbors about a quarter mile away have a rooster. And I'm usually up before the sun comes up and I hear him calling and I'm like, oh, he knows what time it is. I recently made a ringtone out of my rooster's roost because he's teaching a younger rooster how to do it. Oh, fun. He's going, he's doing his, errr, errr, and then the baby goes, errr. That's adorable. 04:16 That's great. So I don't know when your book came out. I know you have a book out and I don't think it was out when I approached you about being on the show. So can you tell me about your book? Sure. I wrote it the last half of last year and it was published in January. It's called Happy Homestead Coaching. That's the book. It's on Amazon. Anybody's interested. Okay, what's it about? 04:46 about how to not just do the homestead thing, but how to maintain happiness and a peaceful life throughout it, not let it overwhelm you, not let it be something that you regret. That is a fantastic topic for a book because there have been days since we moved to our three acres where I'm like, what are we doing today? And it can, it can overwhelm you. Oh yes, absolutely. You have to know when to say, that's enough for now. 05:15 Yeah, last summer we were making lip balms and cold process lye soaps and candles. And my husband was doing the garden and the farmers markets and the CSA. And I was trying to keep everybody fed and make sure the clothes got was

Today I'm talking with Whitney at Shipshape Farm. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Whitney at Shipshape Farm. How are you, Whitney? I'm doing really well. Loving this day. Good. Is it North Carolina? It's actually South Carolina, but we're super close to North Carolina, so it's all good. 00:28 Yeah, I've talked to a bunch of people in your area over the last couple of months and I always screw it up. If it's South Carolina, I say North Carolina and if it's North Carolina, I say South Carolina. I can't keep them straight, so. You're totally good. It's the Carolinas and I'm a North Carolina girl who now lives in South Carolina, so I'm good either way. Okay. Well, tell me about yourself and Shipshape farm. 00:54 Well, first off, the name, I know it's a little tricky, but it comes from when we first moved out here in 2020. My husband is former military, former Navy, and the land was in a lot of disarray because it had been a couple of years since it had been well tended. So the idea was that courtesy of the Navy with an anchor and getting things ship shaped and then also 01:21 kind of rescuing the land, that's where the name came from. But yeah, me, my husband, our four kids, and my parents all live here on the farm in the upstate of South Carolina. And I'm not exactly sure what you want to know about, so you'll have to ask me more detail. Okay. Well, how did you end up having a farm? Oh, I'm... 01:48 We had moved to the upstate after my husband got out of the military because it was near to all of our family and that was in 2017. And then in 2020, the world kind of went on fire for everybody. And we were living on a quarter acre in the city and it was just not the best spot if we needed to like, if food supply chains got shut down, we needed to have better, just 02:18 to take care of our family well. So we started hunting at the time. I was actually a real estate agent and was able to find this property that was only really 25 minutes from our existing home. And we were, the owner was lovely. We were able to meet and talk with her and then move onto the land. So initially we moved to the land for just. 02:45 our family thinking we didn't know what was going to happen in the world, but we wanted to be prepared. And then as we've lived here, thankfully the world has not imploded. So that's been marvelous. And we've gotten, that's a good thing. So we've gotten to learn a lot because we started out as like the very worst farmers ever. But we've learned. So here we are. 03:14 My mom is in charge of the garden. She does a fantastic job taking care of that. And really, from about April to November, we don't have a greenhouse yet, but from about April to November, we primarily eat all of our fresh produce is from her garden for all eight of us. And then we have chickens, and so we've got lots of eggs. And then we have goats who we milk. So they're dairy goats and then land clearing goats as well. 03:42 And so we're slowly working to the self-sustainable component. Yeah. Okay. You're not, you weren't the worst farmers ever. You were just beginning farmers. That's all. Oh, I don't know. We lost some livestock. The things that you think you're supposed to know, we just didn't, we just did so many things backwards. But the beauty of it was... 04:12 Our mistakes sent us hunting for the people who knew more. And so we've been able to build a phenomenal community here with people who are much more knowledgeable and very gracious in sharing their wisdom. So we've been able to learn a lot from them. It is so funny to me that so many people changed their lives during COVID. Yeah. And pretty much to either make sure they had food 04:41 or to get away from people because it was just so uncomfortable being surrounded by people but not being able to be around people. And the thing that's come out of it is this huge community or network of new people in our lives. Yes. And that's wonderful. It's this crazy circle that happened. It's been really grand. I would say my favorite part though is that... 05:11 getting to do life with multiple generations together. If you had told me that this is my life, would be my life, like 20 years ago when I got married, I would have said you were insane and that that was not me. It sounded like a terrible idea to especially live, share the land with my parents and I'm about a mile and a half away from all of my in-laws and... 05:40 But it is glorious. It's very much like a lot of people in a marriage. So there are times that it's tricky and challenging and conflict and confusion, but the good far outweighs the difficulty. So it's been really wonderful to build those deep relationship

Today I'm talking with Kim and Janice at Goose Ridge Soaps, LLC. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Kim and Janice at Goose Ridge Soaps, LLC. I do not know what is wrong with my tongue this morning. Good morning, ladies. How are you? Good morning. Doing well. 00:26 I'm good, except I hate it when I screw up the intro. It makes me mad. It's fine. It's always like goat rope. So which sometimes is accurate. Well on that note, my dad used to call people from the Midwest goat ropers. And he and my mom live in Maine. He's always lived in Maine and I live in Minnesota. So I am technically now a goat roper or a flood lander according to my dad. So go figs. 00:56 All right, so tell me about yourselves and Goose Ridge Soaps. Yeah, well, Janice and I met a number of years ago in a different part of the state. So we're both Marylanders and we met in Western Maryland, which is a good two hours or so from where we had lived previously and where we live now. We were really into, or still are, really into kind of outdoor stuff, the homesteading type things, learning new skills. 01:27 stuff our ancestors did that we've kind of all kind of sort of forgotten how to do, which is a shame. So there was a outdoor women's weekend where you do all kinds of things. You're doing everything from basket weaving to kayaking to fishing to trap shooting, archery, all kinds of just cool outdoor stuff. And she and I both attended this weekend, did not know each other. And I was actually in the process of selling the house I was currently living in and moving 01:56 an hour and a half south and found out where I was moving to. That's where Janice was from. And we were going to be living a half, a half a mile, quite literally apart, which was hysterical. Um, and both being into the same types of outdoor activities and stuff like that. I mean, we just instantly became friends. So when I moved down to my new house, I had a built in friend already and we would get together and do stuff. I kept bees. So we would. 02:25 We made canned applesauce. We got the honey from the beehives. We would go pawpaw picking because there was a pawpaw stand in the woods, a secret place near the river. We both lived at that point near the Potomac River. So we would do all kinds of fun things together. And one day I had been using. 02:48 natural like real soap with lye and fats and oils like the old fashioned stuff. I just just had started using it didn't realize that it was a different feeling than what you buy in the store. And I thought, well, how do you make this? And I started researching and I called Janice up and I said, Hey, let's make soap. I got all the stuff. Come on over, bring a bottle of wine. So yeah, we 03:17 She came over, we decided we were going to do this and we made a whole bunch of real soap that summer and gave it away as Christmas presents to friends and family that year and kept some for ourselves of course. But what we quickly found out was that other people, the people we gave the stuff to, they didn't realize there was a difference between real soap and commercially manufactured things that you bought at the store. 03:47 everybody commented on how it was, it felt amazing on their skin and oh, you guys need to sell this and all that kind of thing. And at the time I was working full time, Janice was a stay at home mom who was, who was also house babysitting other people's kids and working part time doing stuff. So we were both really busy and we just kind of made it as a hobby and sold it on Facebook just to pay for ingredients. So that's kind of where it started. 04:17 And then in 2019, I met my husband and I moved from Southern Maryland up to where we both actually live now. So a year later, Janice and her family sold their house and moved five minutes away up here and we decided to get the band back together and make our hobby an actual business. And so we formed our LLC in April of 2021. And it's been kind of a... 04:46 you know, a whirlwind ever since. So that's, yeah. Okay. So your story defines, um, um, coincidence and serendipity. Oh, totally. Every step of the way. I, we, that's how it's sort of worked out for us. Yeah. It's been, it's, it's been interesting. Everything that that has happened with our business since we decided to make it a business, everything is just really, 05:15 fallen into place when it needed to happen at the best time for us. And we've been really blessed in that respect that things have happened. And if things haven't happened, it's because we weren't ready for it yet. And it's been neat. It's been really neat. Okay. So are you guys like the only game in town for soaps and salves and things, or

Today I'm talking with Brooke at Alternative Roots Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Brooke at Alternative Roots Farm. Good morning, Brooke. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. The season's off to a great start. Good. Tell me about what you do. 00:25 Yeah, well, our focus at Alternative Roots Farm is on certified organic apples and other perennial fruits. Well, we have about 1,500 apple trees. We also have apricots, raspberries, cherries, plums, blackberries. And when I'm thinking spring in the orchard here, also asparagus and rhubarb. We have some pastured heritage breed hogs, some purebred Gloucester old spots. 00:55 And I do some herbal wellness products and grow greens in my deep winter greenhouse, which is a passive solar structure, and bedding plants in there as well, which it's the season for that. It certainly is. We are doing the same thing right now. I have, I think, 30 basil seedlings sitting on my kitchen table right now that need to go out to the greenhouse. 01:24 But I was worried that the cold would burn them. Because our greenhouse is not heated yet. It will be in the fall, but it's not heated yet. Yay. Yup. So I have a couple of questions for you right off the top of my head. If you're growing all that fruit and you're trying to be sustainable, and I assume not use terrible things on your trees or your plants. 01:53 What are you using for your apples to keep the bugs off of them? Yeah. So that's a big, huge question. And we've definitely evolved over the years. This is our 13th season and we expanded our orchard seven years ago. Um, so from the get-go, we transitioned to be being certified organic. And so we follow all, all organic practices, but what does that mean? 02:22 You know, that doesn't mean that we don't spray anything, but we are selective about what we use in the orchard. Now, at the very beginning, we tried to be, I want to say just like too organic. Um, we tried to just do nothing and that does not work if you want to make a living. Um, so we really focus on. 02:45 kind of a permaculture take in the orchard. We want a diverse understory. We've got comfrey planted and we're trying to continue to build that. But we do use organic sprays. My husband John does degree day monitoring, which is a... I'm not going to explain the whole thing, but it's tracking the high and low temperatures to monitor pest. 03:15 life cycles or like the life cycle of scab and other bacteria and fungus that might be an issue in the apple orchard. So we're making sure with what sprays we do use that we're targeting it at a very specific time to maximize the benefit and not spray anything additional that doesn't need to be sprayed on there. So we do use some organic insecticides. 03:44 We, for certain pests, but then like for coddling moth, we use a virus that is specific to that pest. So, we're being very specific as to which things we're trying to target. Some people like to spray like copper in the orchards. For scab, we prefer to stick with a sulfur. You know, that's a naturally occurring element. We just try to minimize as much as possible. 04:17 Okay, you mentioned comfrey. What does comfrey do? Oh, great question. This is one of the biggest questions I get when people come out to the farm, because you'll walk out to the farm, you'll see all these big, beautiful plants with these big purple flowers underneath the apple tree rose. And that was kind of the start of our diverse plantings in the understory, which we're kind of kicking back into gear now. Comfrey has a diameter of like... 04:46 three-ish feet. And it is a big hairy leaf, large-leaved plant that's basically like a living mulch under the apple trees. So I grow a variety that is not self-seeding, which is important. And basically it flushes up with these big nutrient-dense leaves. It's a very nutritive plant several times throughout the season. And then that mats down and just creates 05:15 a green mulch. It outcompetes all the grasses and everything. So it acts as a living mulch. It breaks down and feeds the soil and feeds the apple trees. And then it has a very deep taproot, like 20 feet. So it brings up water and nutrients that the trees can't access. I also use it to dry it for teas and infusions for myself. And I make herbal infused oils out of it and use it in my herbal salves. 05:45 Um, so it, uh, it feeds, feeds us and the trees. 05:54 I had no idea. I'm so glad that I'm talking with you. We have apple trees. We have, I think, 20. There's like eight in a row on the right-hand side of our house and there's a bunch over on the far left part of our property. We spray neem oil on the baby apples when they come a

Today I'm talking with Kendra and Louis at Lazy Ass Acres. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Kendra and Louis at Lazy Ass Acres. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning. We're doing well. How are you? I'm great. Where are you? We are in Noonan, Georgia. 00:25 Thank you. I'm in Minnesota. It is a bright sunny day here. What's it like in Georgia? It's warm. I saw that you saw the northern lights last night. How was that? It was amazing. I've never seen them in real time before. We didn't know anything about it, so we didn't make it outside to look. So we don't know if they'll be visible tonight, but we'll definitely try to check it out. I know some people... 00:53 south of us, they saw it too. So yeah, it's unheard of to see it that far south. So I hope you get a chance to see it. The thing we learned last night is that our eyes don't see all the colors of them, but if you take a photo with your cell phone or with a camera, the colors you don't see show up in the photos. So that was really neat. That's cool. That's, oh. 01:19 Yeah, really, really beautiful. And Facebook is filled with photos this morning from all over the place. It was so neat to see it all. All right. So tell me about yourselves and what you do at Lazy Ass Acres. So, um, just a little bit about us. We've been married for 34 years. We have two kids, we have two daughters. One is 27 and one's 30, both grown professionals doing their thing. 01:49 We have always had a small-ish garden, even if it was just tomato plants and pots, we've always grown something. But we just decided, like, over time, to grow, I guess. We started out with a small garden, then we got a few chickens, then we got a few more chickens, then the garden got a little bigger, and then we've added. So, just continuing to grow our homestead and continuing to... 02:17 do everything we can to be as self-sufficient as possible. And how is that going for you? Like what percentage would you say you're at on self-sufficient? We're pretty high. I would say, based on how little we bought from the grocery store, I would say we're about 80, 85%. So I guess just before 02:46 COVID, we became empty nesters. And so we started applying our free time, our family time to the garden expanding. And we just live on a small lot here, about just over five acres. And it was all wooded when we first moved here. And so if you looked at it from Google Earth, it pretty much looked like the Unabomber lived out here. It's just, all you could see was a rooftop and just trees everywhere. 03:15 So we've just been etching out more and more ground space and the soil over here is just horrible. It's just Georgia red clay and rocks. So we started on just raised bed containers and just making our own soil using a horticulture method. And then we just 03:40 realized we could put that stuff on the ground and amend the soil there and it worked out great. We had moved our chickens around on top of the last year's garden bed and they fertilized and turned it and we just kept doing that. And we make our own compost. We bring in about, I'd say about 10,000 pounds of manure and hay and straw a month and then we turn that with some fresh greens that 04:10 local organic market. They give us our scraps every week. And it can be between one to 300 pounds of fresh greens, lettuce, and all those leafy greens. And so we feed that to our animals, and then we add some to the compost and turn it about every week, get all those nutrients in the soil. And that's really been a game changer for us. 04:37 Yeah, you can't grow anything in clay. It doesn't matter if it's the gray clay that we have here in Minnesota or the red clay you guys have in Georgia. Clay does not grow anything. So yes, composting and amending the soil and chickens are a miracle creature. I do not love chickens. I'm going to say it loud and clear. I don't love chickens, but I love what chickens do and what they provide for us. 05:07 Yeah, they do a lot for us because we grow, we harvest our own meat birds once or twice a year and we get the eggs and everything is used on our chickens because like I said, we harvest the meat. When we do that, all the feathers go to a compost pile. The innards and stuff, they go to a compost pile. The dogs get the chicken feet. 05:37 When we're done with the meat birds as a meal, we use the bones to make bone broth out of it and then we take the bones out of that, dehydrate it, and then crunch that up and blend that with egg shells so we make our own bone meal that we give to our birds and use as fertilizer. So it's zero waste. 06:03 Yup, exactly. That's why I said chickens are a miracle critter. They give back m

Today I'm talking with Kayla at Faith & Feathers Farm about the homesteading life. https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kayla at Faith and Feathers Farm. Good morning, Kayla. How are you? Good morning. How are things in North Carolina? It's been really rainy and kind of a... 00:27 We don't know if we're on the verge of coming in the summer or finishing spring. Yeah. This, this weather all over the world has been a little bit odd lately. It's okay. It's all going to level out. I think, I hope. All right. Tell me about yourself and faith and feathers farm. Okay. My name is Kayla, Kayla Creech, and we have a farm here in Eastern North Carolina on the coast and. 00:55 This come with a vision about five years ago, we started when my husband brought home six baby chicks from Tractor Supply. And I think the rest is history because that just started our love for poultry, for a farm in general. And we have just went with it. We started, like I said, five years ago, he brought the chicks home. 01:23 my children fell in love. At that time we were living in Alabama, a little small subdivision, and it was probably less than an acre. So that's one of the things I wanted to talk about today with people, it does not matter what size or how much land you live on or what you have, you can work with what you have, and that's what I love about farming. Amen, sister. You're preaching to the choir, that's what we did too. And... 01:52 Tractor Supply Company, we joke around here that it's evil because every time we go there, we come home with something we weren't going for. Yes, yes, yes. And so five years ago, we started with those baby chicks. Then the pandemic happened and everything kind of went into a scare or maybe where's our next food source gonna come from? Maybe we need to think of having something to rely on in case we can't get to the store. 02:22 We had no idea that, you know, which way it was going to go and kind of the unknown, not really fear, but just having a plan B and option in case you couldn't get to the store. How were you going to feed your family and what were you going to do? Mm-hmm. Yep. That's where the whole homesteading boom, craze, whatever you want to call it, seems to have started, the renewed interest in it. Yes. And so the pandemic happened, kind of jobs went on scare. 02:52 We weren't quite sure what we were gonna do and we decided to move back to North Carolina where we originally were born and raised. We did live four years in Alabama, like I said, and did farm there. We always had a garden, even if it was small, you know, just planting roots where you're at with what you have and kinda making it work is what my goal is in life. People say, oh, I can't garden. Yes, you can. 03:21 It doesn't matter if you've got a pot on a porch, a little small container bed, a kitchen window, whatever you have that you can put seeds in and start somewhere, wherever you're at. You don't have to start big and have a huge garden. No, you don't have to. You can have a little tiny raised bed and grow things because nature hates a vacuum. 03:48 If you provide the right conditions, nature is going to grow something. It's going to work out, isn't it? Yup. I love that you're saying all this because I have been saying this for over 20 years now. All the things you're saying. And people just assume because they see Instagram, they see YouTube, they see what the social media wants to project as far as what you've got to have and you do not have to have that to make it work, you know? 04:18 Yeah, and thank goodness there are people like you and people like me who are dispelling the myth because it is a myth. You can grow a potted basil plant to the size that you need it to be to be able to use that basil to cook with in your kitchen even. Absolutely. I started years ago Seed Starts and my husband, we were fortunate at a time, he did build us a greenhouse. 04:48 And believe it or not, I've had the best seed start in a milk jug, one gallon milk jug. So literally taking a milk jug and starting your seeds. You don't have to have anything fancy from what a lot of people think and once you get those seeds started, you know, it depends on if you want to direct sow or start your seeds ahead of time, but you can make it work. I have started plants in a milk jug. 05:13 almost making like a partial greenhouse with the lid and cutting it half open and starting your seeds. I've heard of people starting their seeds on their dryer in their laundry room using bread bags. Putting the seeds in egg cartons and putting that bread bag around the egg cartons and make a little ecosystem for those seeds to start in and using that bag 05:43 to act like a greenho

Today I'm talking with Shavonica at In The Kitchen With Grammy. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Shavonica at In the Kitchen with Grammy. Good morning, Shavonica. How are you? I'm great. How are you doing? I'm good. I want to know all about what you do at In the Kitchen with Grammy. Great. So... 00:28 It all started about four years ago and I started cooking with my granddaughter. She'll be six in July and we just started making videos and, um, cooking with, with her and now I have four granddaughters and a fifth on the way, but we get in the kitchen and we cook and I teach them how to make different kinds of foods, but now we've started a channel called In the Kitchen with Grammy and we're doing pies. Um, I think that pie making has been a lost art kind of, and 00:55 You know, people aren't really doing that anymore. So I want to teach my granddaughters and make sure that they know how to do all that. So we started the, in the kitchen with Ramy. We have a weekly broadcast that comes out where we, I have either a grandchild or I've had several gifts come on and, um, we're cooking and making pies. And then we actually take our pies out in the public and let them taste them and rate them on a scale from one to 10. And from that, uh, people were saying, where can I buy these pies? And I said, well, you really. 01:24 can't buy them anywhere. We're just, you know, it's a YouTube, Facebook channel and all that, but they kept requesting it. And so from that, we've actually formed Grammy's pies and I'm now in the pie business probably about a month ago and doing pies on a weekly basis. That's great. Um, so are you falling under the cottage food laws for Texas? Is that how you're doing it? Yes, ma'am. Okay. 01:51 So in Texas, are you allowed to ship your food if you have your cottage food registration thing? No, not yet. Okay. All right. That we're working on. It may require me getting a permanent location, getting it inspected and that type of thing. And so we've had tons of requests for shipping and that'll be something that we're working on and trying to get that in the works. 02:19 Yeah, all the cottage food laws in all the states are not the same. We're like you in Minnesota. We are not allowed to ship foods if we only have our cottage food. It's not licensing. It's a registration. I keep wanting to say license, but it's not a license. But I guess in other states, you can ship. And I'm waiting for Minnesota to decide that we're allowed to ship our goods as well. Okay. So... 02:48 Let me rephrase that. You can actually ship within the state. I should have said that. You can ship within the state of Texas. So I can ship. It's a big state. And so I could ship anywhere within the state as I've, what I've read, but I can't ship outside the state. Okay. We're not allowed to ship anywhere in Minnesota. No, no. And the people that are in charge of this, the higher ups as it were, not me, are working to get the laws changed, but it's a very, very steep climb. 03:17 So yes, yes. I love pie. I hate making pie because I cannot perfect a pie crust to save my life. Do you have a secret for making pie dough? Yeah, I use a recipe with we use real butter. People just say your your crust is really flaky. You know, it's just really it's crisp. It's good. And so, I mean, just. 03:44 rolling it out, using the right kind of flour, just the right ingredients. And one of the things when you're making a pie crust is using really cold butter. It's got to come straight out of the fridge and you've got to, you know, use it right away to make your pie crust stick. Okay. So do you, do you like use a grater and grate the butter so it gets incorporated or how do you use the cold butter? I don't. I cut up. 04:11 butter in kind of like cubes and then I use a food processor. Oh, okay. And it, you kind of pulse it, pulse it, pulse it and it, you know, grinds it up and gets it all in there and makes it a little easier. And you actually have to use really cold water as well. So cold water, cold butter in with your flour mixture and that helps. And I also offer a gluten-free crust in my pies. So that's another little option. You are a one-stop shop then. That's great. 04:40 I never thought of using my food processor to pulse the cold butter. I'm going to have to attempt making pie crust again now that I have been reminded that you can do that. Yes. Okay. So I don't know what to ask you exactly because I just don't know. So how old are your other granddaughters? All right. So my granddaughters are, my oldest one will be six in July. I have one that just turned three. 05:09 one that just turned two, one that's 19 months, and then one that's due the first part of August.

Today I'm talking with Karen at Sourdough Farm, Inc. Miniature Animal Retreat. 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 Karen at Sourdough Farm. How are you today, Karen? Hey, I'm great. Thank you. Tell me the name of your business. I don't have it right in front of me. Sourdough Farm, Inc., miniature something. 00:28 Miniature animal retreat. Thank you. I Tried to memorize it in my brain went. Nope not doing it this morning So what do you guys do at the sourdough farm ink miniature something retreat? Well, basically we are raising a variety of miniature animals and We are in the planning stages of opening up our farm to special guests with special needs 00:57 And it's a lot of work. I'm sure it is. I wasn't sure whether you were rescuing animals and giving them a retreat, or if you were having a retreat for people to come get good feelings from the animals. Well, that's a very good point, because actually it is working both ways. We rescue and help to rehome animals. Plus, we breed animals so that if folks 01:27 mini pig themselves or if they want to have a goat that's been handled and could be used as an emotional companion. We provide the opportunity to give homes to the animals but also a safe haven of peace and joy for folks that just need to get away and need to have good listeners. 01:56 Animals are great listeners. They are, and they don't talk back. They just love back. They do. So what kind of animals do you have? Well, right now we have fallabella, miniature horses. We have donkeys. We have miniature cows. We have miniature goats, Nigerian miniature goats. We have lots of pigs. 02:26 Just this week we have a new litter of Flemish giant rabbits. Nice. How big is a baby Flemish giant rabbit? Because we raised rabbits for a year and they were very small in the one litter that we got out of the rabbits. How big is a Flemish giant baby? Well, the babies look like little itty bitty puppies. I mean, they're just so tiny at birth. 02:53 They hardly look like rabbits, but our older rabbits, the mother and the father, they're good size. They're about the size of maybe a small dog. So they're pretty heavy. You can carry them, but you mostly want to sit down when you hold them. We try to handle our animals on a regular basis. My husband, Steve, and I, we take almost our entire day of spending time with each and every animal. 03:21 just petting and loving on and getting them used to being handled. And so that's what we do a lot of our day is just giving our animals love so that they will know how to give love back to any people that might come visit. What a lovely way to spend your days. Yes. I really love it. I love every minute of it. So how did this happen? How did this come about? 03:51 We've always loved animals. Both my husband and I have always had animals growing up, but we lived in the city. So when my husband retired, we looked for some farmland and this area right outside Savannah just kind of came into our radar. And the minute we saw it, we knew this was gonna be ours. And so after our first year of being here, we thought, you know, we need to figure out a way of giving back to the community. 04:20 We felt so blessed and so lucky to be here. So we were throwing around ideas of how we could help the people that need us most. And I'm talking about maybe people that suffer from depression, people that are just lonely. Our very special folks are our military veterans or folks with disabilities because we are by no means therapists. 04:48 just coming and sitting in the shade and listening to the pond and the fountain and the animals talk is just so soothing. So we just wanted to share that. Okay. So Savannah, Georgia, right? Yes. Okay. And I feel like nature's sound is music. And anyone who saw the news this morning saw that Taylor Swift dropped her new... 05:17 album last night. And I am sort of a Taylor Swift fan, but not like a Swiftie. And there was a news article on the news this morning about how music actually impacts your brain and that it is the most powerful thing to use all of your brain all at once. And so when people are listening to the water, 05:43 and the birds and your animals talking and whatever they're hearing outside. That is another form of music. So I understand that it really does work for people. And actually, I've done some research on music therapy for my animals. We recently had a miniature horse that had to have surgery and she had a long recovery period in the barn. So we were thinking, I wonder if music could help calm her down. 06:11 and help her not get depressed and make her heal faster. And so we do play music every day for our animals. And over time, I've kind of discovered that the most soothing music, at least for my animal

Today I'm talking with Dustin at the Butcher Shop Bake Company. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Dustin at the Butcher Shop Bake Company. Good afternoon, Dustin. How are you? I am doing fantastic. How are you doing today, Mary? I'm great. Other than the fact that... 00:25 Our technology doesn't always work the way it's supposed to. Everything's good. So tell me about yourself and Butcher Shop Bake Company. Sure, so I am a third generation entrepreneur, not in the family business. We were a construction family, but I've been in the food industry pretty much my entire life, more years than I haven't been. 00:50 And we've been doing the Butcher Shop Bay Company now. I wanna say this is, we're going on year seven. And really I started this whole company with one thing in mind is creating something exciting to eat. Cause we all gotta eat food. And I was in the health and fitness industry for a lot of years. And I did diets and this and that and the other thing. But you still gotta eat something that makes you, something that makes you salivate a little bit. 01:17 So that was where we kind of came up with the idea of making some ginormous products, specifically some gourmet cookies. Awesome. So I gotta know, did you start out as a cottage food producer or did you start out as a commercial place? Sure, so actually before I started Butcher Shop Bay Company, I had a cottage company called the Flexible Baker where I created healthy protein desserts that I 01:46 sold mainly kind of just like through Facebook and online like that through local meetups and made some cookbooks and stuff like that. And then that kind of just snowballed into the commercial side of things. Okay. So you started small because everybody's got to start somewhere. Yes, ma'am. Cool. So you're exactly the kind of person I want to talk to because there's lots of cottage food producers. 02:16 who are starting out in their galley-sized kitchens and maybe dreaming of someday doing something bigger, and that's kinda what you're doing, so that's awesome. Absolutely. All right, I have so many questions. Number one, this, number one, how do you get your cookies to be so tall and they cook all the way on the inside? Well, part of it is trade secret, but, so, 02:46 a couple of things. One, it helps that I cook extremely hot. My oven, my oven is convection, of course. But the temperature is way hotter than what you cook a normal cookie at. It helps if a lot of my cookies are also stuffed. So then there's actually less dough to cook through. So that helps a lot. And then what is not quite traditional. 03:12 with my dough recipe is I almost started off similar to a scone instead of a traditional cookie recipe, which I help. I think that that helps then distribute the fat a little bit different and a little bit better, which helps it cook through quicker. Okay. Because I was looking at your Facebook page, because that's what I do. I look at people's Facebook pages and websites before I interview them. So I know what to ask. And the cookies look almost like a cake cookie. 03:42 Just about, yeah. It kind of has some of my flower makeups. I try to mimic, because for me, I grew up eating very thin, crispy cookies. And as much as my dad loves those, not me so much. I like a nice, chewy, a little crunch on the outside, but I like it to still be nice and chewy on the inside. So that's kind of what I try to replicate. And then that's also where that 04:11 really hot temperature comes in to give the cookies a nice, um, crunchy exterior, so to speak, but then yet keep them nice and cakey on the inside. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of the, the crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, soft and chewy on the inside. So when I saw the pictures, I was like, Oh my God, how does he do that? And the other question I have is what is a hodag? Help me here. 04:41 Oh, that's funny. So, so the whole day has been around for boy, I want to say now, 120 some years or so late 1800s. Boy, Jean Shepherd was his name, kind of created this mythical creature that lives in the woods and eats white bulldogs. And it's just this giant lizard looking creature with white horns and red eyes. 05:10 And it is, for whatever reason, the Hodag has stuck. And I think last year or the year before, we actually won best mascot in the country or something like that. So yeah, it's kind of cool to be from a town that is known throughout the country. I've been everywhere you go, you meet somebody that's been to Hodag country. 05:38 Okay. So it's Rhinelander, Wisconsin? Yes. Okay. And is it specific to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, this Hodag thing? Yes. Okay. All right. Cause I saw the, the post about the, the cookies and I was like, what's a

Today I'm talking with Amy at Amy’s Garden Jam about her jam making and her podcast, Grounded In Maine, which is about sustainability. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Amy Fagan at Amy's Garden Jam. How are you, Amy? I am doing good, thank you. How are you? I'm good, it's been a decent day. It's been a decent week so far, so that helps. So. 00:29 So full disclosure, folks, Amy and I tried to do this a few weeks ago and the recording failed and so we're trying it again. So Amy, tell me about Amy's Garden Jam. Amy's Garden Jam is, I have a jam business. It is for a little over four years old. I just started making jam. 00:57 for not for fun necessarily, but I made it as my contribution to the income in our home. Because I don't make a lot of money at my job. I was thinking that if I, you know, grew produce and harvested and preserved it, then that would be just like making money. And so I started making jam. I mean, I've just I've always made jam for like the last 20 01:27 And my sister got married and I made little four ounce jars of jam for all of their guests as a gift. And they said, you really need to do this. To which I said, that's really funny. No. But then a few years ago, four years ago, I changed my tune. So 01:56 Amy's Garden Jam is a thing. And why did you change your tune? So I was, I actually had a car accident. I was in a car accident and I was out of work for a few months. And so while I was out of work, you know, a lot of people were like, you know, just catch up on Netflix and watch lots of movies and I was like, no, I just can't do that. So I was watching like... 02:25 I was doing webinars and... 02:31 stuff like that, webinars and workshops and just getting myself all hyped up. And I was like, well, maybe I can do this. And while I was out of work, I couldn't really walk. I had foot surgery. So I had the time to wait on hold with the state and get everything in line. So by the time I was able to walk again, I had a kitchen all lined up and I had my license in hand. 03:01 And I started with a, I started running. So you did all the leg work with a broken foot. I did. Very nice. Yeah. I mean, I had nothing to do, right? Yeah. It's amazing how that works out. Um, I just thought leg work with a broken foot was funny. Oh, I didn't even get it. Good one. Yes. Yeah. Very funny. 03:30 Okay, so are you at liberty to say what your jobby job is? Do you mind telling me? Oh, well, I mean, at the time, at the time of the car accident, I was working for an elder home care agency in the office. Okay. And what's your jobby job now? Now I work for a healthcare company in medical records. I work from home. 04:00 Nice very nice, but I should have been doing four years ago at the time of the accident because I could be working. Yeah Yeah Okay, so I also know that you have a podcast called grounded in Maine Actually how I found you. Yeah So are you like balancing your jobby job you're making jams and your podcast as your three 04:29 jobs that you do or does one take more time than the rest? Oh, my job takes up most of my time. Uh huh. Uh, the podcast takes up most of my brain space by choice. I mean, I get very excited about it. And so I'm thinking about the podcast while I'm working. Um, and then jam is usually like one day on the weekends. Okay. 04:58 So jam is where you de-stress, I take it. 05:02 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because we I called it I named it Amy's Garden Jam for a couple of reasons. So one, you know, it's a jam business. I'm making jam, obviously, but I also used to be a singer. And before I got like obsessed and and podcasting took up my my whole brain. I would listen to music and sing. So and so while I first started 05:32 making jam for the business, I would play like 80s music. It's always the 80s. And even still, like I'll do it sometimes. But so it's a jam session. I call it a jam session. And do you listen to music while you make jam and sing? I do. Uh huh. Yeah. I love having music playing when I'm doing housework or cooking. Oh my gosh. It is so it's like, I mean, I enjoy cooking and baking, but it would be unbearable if it was just quiet. 06:01 Yeah, the old house that we lived at, the music used to come out of our bedroom. When you walked in the door, our bedroom was to the right, the living room was where we walked into, and the kitchen was to the left. And so the music would just flow out of the bedroom toward the kitchen. So if I was cooking, I just turned the music way up and just danced around the kitchen and cooked and sang along and it was really fun. Here... What's your music of choice though? 06:31 Oh good lord. I don't even know. Um, alternative rock maybe? Okay. Um, I can't listen to 80s music. I

Today I'm talking with Liz at Lazy Knoll Farm LLC. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Liz at Lazy Knoll Farm LLC. Good morning, Liz. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm doing well. How are you? Great. You're in North Carolina? Yes, ma'am. Pilot Nob. Pilot Nob? Pilot Mountain. Mountain. Okay. 00:29 Alright, tell me about Lazy Knoll Farm LLC and what I really want to know is why it's called Lazy Knoll. Well I guess the name was just kind of situated on top of a hill and it's one of the highest points in the area. I was trying to find something that was more of like a relaxing name. It's a quiet area. It's in the middle of the country. 00:59 And to me, just a lazy novel is just a peaceful little place. But we actually got started in 2020. We started our first pumpkin patch and that was in the middle of us purchasing the property from my husband's family. And after that, the farm kind of began an annual pumpkin patch here and it slowly grew into what it is today with the chickens. We had pigs. 01:29 We ended up processing them and we have our cows, which is a variety of cows now. We have our Highland cows and white Galloways and belted Galloways and we have a Dexter and a ton of chickens. Nice. The Galloways, is that an Irish breed or does it just happen to be called Galloway? They're actually a Scottish breed. Okay. Yeah. 01:59 And I honestly, I was drawn to them originally before we even got howling cows. I liked the fact that they were smaller in size and polled. And we started looking at the different varieties of smaller cattle because we live on 40 acres, but you can only keep so many cows on each acre, especially when it comes to Angus or some of the bigger breeds that are so popular around here. And 02:29 And then we happened to be watching an auction. And I asked my husband, I said, it was for a Highland cows. And I was like, do you think we should try for it? And we ended up winning her. And that just started the snowball effect of getting all these different cows. OK. Polled means that they don't have horns, right? Yes. Yeah. How is it spelled? Is it P-O-L-L-E-D? Yes, ma'am. 02:56 Okay, I keep hearing it, but I never know if it's polled P-U or polled P-O. So thank you. Um, the Highland breed is the, the orange-ish colored cows with the real fluffy coats, right? Yeah, they, I mean, they come in a variety of colors, but they have, I guess most distinguishably their, their horns are those, um, similar to like long horns, but they, they curve a little bit and I mean, they all have a different. 03:26 shape to their horns. They're just, they're all unique. But yes, they had the long shaggy fur, which, you know, a lot of people call them the emo cows. Yeah, they look like a stuffed animal. They're the Justin Bieber's of cows. Cute. Okay. So what is the purpose of your farm? Are you guys just raising animals and 03:55 gardening and stuff for yourselves or do you sell? 03:59 We do sell our cows, but we sell them more to hobby farms, small homesteads, smaller farms. A lot of people like Highland cows for, you know, kind of, I guess, glorified yard ornaments, but they are actually sought after for their meat too, but they're so cute that a lot of people have trouble making that transition. 04:30 I do know that it was one of the, I believe it was the only beef that the Queen of England would eat. It was a highland beef. But it does take them at least two years to mature. And so you can't get it as readily as you would say an Angus or a Baldi or some of the more popular beef breeds. 04:58 They do. And it's actually rich in buttermilk. Okay. So it's, you know, if you're interested in churning butter or anything like that, it's one of the better cows for that. We don't currently milk any of our cows. We do have a mini Dexter, and she's our smallest. She won't get over 36 inches, and she has A2A2 milk. 05:25 She was tested genetically for that. And A2A2 milk is supposed to be better for people who have lactose intolerance, milk allergies, those sort of things. I guess it's easier to digest, which my five-year-old son has, he cannot drink milk or soy milk. He has allergies to both. And so it's been on my mind when she has her first calf that I've considered. 05:56 starting milking her and seeing how he can digest that. I also don't tolerate milk as well. So I'm curious to see what the difference would be in that. Yeah, you'll have to check back with me because I want to know too. That would be really interesting. Okay, so did you always want to do this or was this a new thing for you or what? It's kind of crazy. Our story is, I guess, 06:26 unique. I actually moved down to North Carolina from Alaska in 2016. I will say I was originally b

Today I'm talking with Therese at Salonek Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Therese at Salonek Farms. Good morning, Therese. Good morning, Mary. How are you today? Oh, we are doing great. We're doing great. This is fun. I'm so glad you invited me. Yeah, I have. I have all kinds of questions. Before I get into them, tell me about what you guys do. 00:30 Well, we farm in Montrose, I understand you're in Minnesota as well? Yeah, in Lesour. Lesour, okay. So we're just about 45 minutes west of the cities in Montrose, Minnesota, and we raise beef. We have anywhere between 900 and 1,000 head of beef cattle here. And you know, we've... 00:59 My husband grew up on a farm not far from here. I, however, was a city girl and I go where he goes, right? And so we've been here at the farm since the early 90s. Yeah, mid-90s. And we bought the farm from his parents. We milked cows for until about the 2000 or so, 2001. 01:27 and switched over to raising replacement heifers for dairy farmers, and then ended, kind of landed on beef. And for a variety of reasons, beef isn't as intense as milking cows. And yeah, so that's what we do. Our beef goes, we have a pretty robust, private beef sales. We have... 01:56 We work with several processors in the area to sell privately to beef. And then we also sell, obviously, into the major beef markets. JBS in Wisconsin is where our cattle are shipped to. So yeah, that's what we do. OK. So is producing cattle or raising cattle for beef less intense than for dairy? 02:26 gets contaminated, you lose all that milk and it costs you money, is that part of it? No, because that's a pretty rare occurrence that that would happen. It's more, dairy animals require every day, twice a day milking. Some people do three times a day, we never did, we did morning and night. And they also are a little bit more finicky. 02:54 as far as how you feed them and how you carry. Dairy cattle are hardier, or beef cattle are hardier than dairy. And so, yeah, so that's kind of the difference between, and actually, sadly, dairy farmers are not, they're dropping out the small dairy farmers that are milking 60 to 150 animals. They're... 03:23 few and far between because the milk prices vary so much. And that was part of the reason that we got out is our monthly income could vary $15,000. And that was in the early 2000s. And that was just, it was frustrating to us because we didn't have that control. And so milk would go up, milk would go down. And it was just too frustrating. My husband loves. 03:53 farming, he loves livestock and he's good at it and he's done it his whole life. But you have to look at the economics of it. And that's why I think you see so many in the last 20, 15 to 20 years, dairy farmers going out and you're seeing the major 2000, 3000 cow dairies pop up because that's really the only way I think you can survive. You know, I'm sure there's people doing it, but for the most part, you're seeing all of that. 04:24 all of those dairies just get bigger and bigger and bigger. And it's tragic. There's a lot of empty farmsteads around here where you see, obviously, they had cattle probably for many, many years. And they went out of cattle. And yeah, so. OK. All right. I just didn't know why dairy was more intense than raising for meat. But thank you, because if I don't know, other people don't know either. 04:52 I feel, okay, I'm going to say this, this is my opinion and my opinion only. I feel like farmers and teachers don't make nearly the money they should be making. Well, with, it's the control of, I always said to my husband, you know, we would send a cow on a truck, right? And then to be butchered. 05:20 then once it gets there, they tell you what they will give you for it. Well, it wasn't in their best interests to give you, if they didn't have to, to give you a high price. So the farmer was kind of like, okay, what are you going to give me for it? And they're not going to be able to take the cattle back, right? It's already been there. So it always kind of frustrated me. And I say to my husband, this was years ago, you guys should unite, you know, because 05:49 It just didn't, it never, who else puts their product out there and not knowing what they're going to get for it and then just be stuck with whatever somebody deems it to be valued at and you know, but farmers are, are independent bunch and to not want to collaborate, which always confused me as well. I thought, why don't you guys get together? 06:17 have breakfast once a month and share your ideas so everybody can do well, you know, all boats rise with the tide. But farmers are, you know, kings in their own kingdoms. I probably get in trouble for saying that

Today I'm talking with Kristy at Future Farmers of America (FFA). You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Kristy at Future Farmers of America. Good morning, Kristy. Good morning, Mary. How are you? I am wonderful. It's a beautiful sunny day in Indiana. 00:26 Awesome. It's a beautiful sort of overcast day in Minnesota. The sun keeps peeking out. So tell me about Future Farmers of America. Yeah, so National FFA is an organization that allows students to take agriculture education classes and then also participate in FFA chapters. And what that means is along with taking those classes in their schools, they can then participate in FFA events. 00:55 that allow them to really focus on different projects and also on leadership skills. So instead of being like some clubs that are extracurricular, FFA is unique in that it's intracurricular, meaning you have to have an agricultural education class to be an FFA member. Cool. So it's just offered in schools. And I'm assuming it's not necessarily offered in city schools, or is it? 01:25 It actually is. Interestingly enough, we are in 23 of the largest 25 cities. We have more than 8,995 chapters and we're almost a million members strong. So FFA is definitely growing and really gaining interest for a lot of students on a lot of different levels. That's awesome. I'm sorry, I made a bad assumption on that one. 01:55 Okay, so what do you guys teach in the FFA classes? Yeah, absolutely. And Mary, don't worry, a lot of times people make that assumption. It's an easy one to jump to. So our ag education classes really run the gamut, right? There are more than 350 careers in agriculture, which a lot of times people don't realize because we usually tend to think just about production agriculture, but there's a lot more. 02:22 There's aquaculture, there's forestry, there's veterinary science, biotechnology, so a lot of opportunities. So depending on where your chapter is, it could vary of what you might really be focused on. For example, some of our urban chapters focus a little more on the greenhouse pieces or maybe the aquaculture piece. We have a chapter out in the Northeast that really focuses on aquaculture. 02:47 And then one up in Chicago that focuses a little more on agri-science. So it's kind of all over the board. But our goal really is to let students understand that there are so many opportunities in agriculture and really help them look at those career paths and figure out what their best pathway is to a career in agriculture. Okay. So what grade level can kids start taking these classes? Well, we've actually just recently expanded into middle school. 03:17 So they can start in fifth grade. Not every state has that, but some do. Traditionally, most of them are in high school, but we have expanded to include middle school and junior high. OK, and it's offered as an elective, I would assume. Well, so the agriculture education class is a regular class, but then FFA just is an additional piece. Yeah. It's been a while since I was in junior high or high school. But I'm. 03:46 The classes that weren't required were called elective classes back then. I don't know if that's what they're called now. Well, and also been a long time since I've been there too, but I believe that some of the agriculture education classes qualify as science classes as well. So some of them might fall under those science classes and not necessarily elective, it just depends on what those offerings are in your school. Okay. 04:11 I wish that they had been offered in my high school because I would have taken one. I would have loved to do that because my parents were very into the growing things and hunting and fishing and I would have been happy to take an FFA class. That would have been awesome. Okay, so on average, do you have any idea how many kids choose to take these classes? Oh, well, that's a little hard to break down on like how much it would be per school. 04:40 I do know we're reaching close to a million members nationwide. So there is a large percentage. It just depends on if those schools happen to offer those agriculture education classes and if they have an FFA chapter. Okay. And does it, it doesn't cost the students anything to take those classes? The classes don't cost, no. But FFA membership, there is a fee. 05:07 And usually that just depends on what the chapter fee is and then what the state fee is and then what the local fee is. Okay. All right. Well, what are the benefits of taking the classes? I assume the benefits are that the kids are interested in whatever they're interested in and they get to learn about it. Yeah, absolutely. The benefits are kind of twofold. One, it's an opportunity really for them to

Today I'm talking with Josh at Upward Spiral Goat Service. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Josh at Upward Spiral Goat Services. Good morning, Josh. How are things in Otter Tail County, Minnesota? Good morning, Mary. It's really good. The rain stopped sometime overnight. 00:27 Yeah, did you guys get bad storms up your way? Because in Lesor, we had some pretty good thunderstorms going on. I saw lightning once, but and the wind picked up after half of the day. But no, no, it was just a pretty gentle rain all day. OK, good, because it was a little spooky here last night. The dog actually barked at the thunder. I was like, why are you barking at thunder? You can't fix it. 00:54 Okay, so tell me about yourself and Upward Spiral Goat Services and what you guys do. All right. I'm Josh. I've kind of discovered farming in my adulthood. My parents both grew up on the farm to some degree and I, as a travel opportunity, I learned 01:24 about wolf willing workers on organic farms. And that's where I first saw regenerative management, intensive grazing. And I decided to make it my business. 01:38 Okay. And so what is your, what do you do? What is your business? Um, I, uh, I have my herd of goats, um, my breeding herd specifically, and I move them at least once a day. Um, I bring them to other people's properties for a fee and I'll move them through, uh, especially for managing buckthorn and, uh, really weedy places. I guess they. 02:08 They love brush and they eat a lot of like pasture forage as well, but they prefer brush. So it's a, they thin it like, they'll stand on their back legs and they get the leaves up right as high as you can see. So it's a really drastic difference and it looks great. And I'm moving towards kind of a environmental like management. 02:36 sort of side of things where I've got a lot of test plots and I'm trying to see just how good I can make it look. Okay, full disclosure, I wrote an article for River Valley Woman, it's a regional magazine out of Mankato area, a few years back about people who have a business doing the same thing that you do, they're based over toward Montgomery, Minnesota. So I am aware of how this works, but the listeners probably aren't. 03:06 Um, what Josh does is he, he has his goats go to places where people need their brush and their, their undergrowth and their tree lines cleaned up. Or like, I assume that if a park has buckthorn, a buckthorn problem that you could, you could take your goats there and they would take care of it. Is that how this works? That's true. Yes. Okay. And 03:31 So my questions are, because I was terrible when I did my article and did not actually address this, can the goats do this work in the wintertime too? I just went to a pasture walk outside of vining here, which is like a neighboring town, and that was all about bale grazing with cattle. And I... 03:59 It wasn't until then that I started describing what I've been doing this past winter as bale grazing. Um, and yeah, they, the answer is yes, they, they have a really drastic effect in the winter because I'm feeding them hay. There's not much for them to eat, but they will, they peel the bark off of the buckthorn and they'll eat the stems way back a lot more than they would in the summer. Um, and their manure. 04:29 and the waste hay is a lot more concentrated. I don't have to move them over as much land. So I've got this big strip of tree line that I'm watching and the difference is already really dramatic. I love it. Okay, and then the other question I have is, I know that they eat the leaves and they eat the stems and they eat the bark, but do they eat the plants all the way down to the ground? I mean, if there's a... 04:57 If there's a trunk that's three inches in diameter, will they eat the trunk down to the ground? No, no, definitely not. Okay. Um, yeah, I work with my buddy Cody. He has his company, Jonas & Company, and that's brush clearing. So he's the brush clearing specialist, and he helps me with treat like fence lines, cutting fence lines and stuff. Yeah, the big stuff, they don't eat wood. They'll eat... 05:27 Um, uh, they won't eat lignin, but they do eat cellulose, which I think is kind of the same thing, but lignin is more hard and like that's actual wood. I think that's the line. Okay. And the other question I have is how hard is it on their teeth? I mean, how long can I go do this job before they start to destroy themselves? I don't know. I think they're made for it. 05:56 I think they prefer it. Honestly, I know they're in better health when they're on the brush rather than just a soft forage. And they'll, they rub up their whole bodies against trees and I'll look behind them and an oak t

Today I'm talking with Amber at Freedom Forage Farm & Flower. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Amber, Freedom Forage Farm and Flowers. Good morning, Amber. How are you? I am great this morning. How are you, Mary? I'm good. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota. Absolutely is. 00:26 And you're in New Prague, so you're only about a half an hour from me, I think. Yes, I am. If you're in Lees Center. In LeSore. LeSore. Oh yes. Yep. So not far. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and what you do. Um, well, I am a stay at home mom. I homeschool my three boys. And during the summer months, we grow cut flowers. We also have on-farm events called happy hour in the flowers where 00:56 We have our flower friends come out and learn about growing and harvesting techniques and build their own bouquets, watch the sunset, take pictures, all the fun stuff. Nice. Speaking of taking pictures, do you let like photographers come in and take photos of, I don't know, engagements and prom pictures and things like that at all? Yes. Or graduation pictures? Yep. Cool. Yeah. 01:25 How did you start doing this? Like a lot of other people, COVID, we were at home. We had a positive test, so we knew that we were stuck here for at least 20 days. And it had been something, you know, throughout the years, we would just walk around our pasture and think of all the things that, you know, we wanna do. And it was like, hey, we have the time. Should we just do it? And he was like, yeah, let's just do it. 01:55 Yeah, there was a lot of why not and let's just do it when COVID happened because people had so much time for self-reflection and so much time to actually pursue something they had thought about. Yes. Yeah. And it was like, when are we going to get this time again? And you know, what's the worst that could happen? We're here now. Let's just do it. Yeah. That's, that's kind of how we ended up where we are too. Amazing. And. 02:24 Like I've said to everyone who has mentioned COVID, you're not the first person to take a leap during a very uncertain time. And honestly, I feel like part of what COVID did is reminded us all that we only have a limited amount of time to be alive and pursue our dreams. And some people didn't get that. So we all who did decided to do something else. Yes. 02:54 So are your kids young? We have a 10 year old, soon to be seven year old and a four year old. And did they, are they into the growing flowers too? They love the flowers. They love to help. Except for when I asked them to help, then they're not fully on board, but they are just as much involved as, as any of us. Yeah. 03:24 They definitely prefer when the flowers are in bloom though. They like that work a lot better. Yeah, well, it's really, really pretty. And I'm sure that draws them to help. So what kind of flowers do you grow? Do you grow native flowers? Do you grow hothouse flowers? What do you grow? Mostly annuals, field grown. We got our first hoop house. Actually, we got it two years ago now. And this is the first year. It's actually up. 03:53 It has flowers in it. I was really scared to do a high tunnel because I had just that we're going into year four and I felt like, okay, I know what I can grow. I know what grows well. And I didn't, I kind of didn't want to mess with that because there's such a steep learning curve with season extension. And so it's a lot of, a lot of annuals. We have a few perennials. I'm starting to. 04:21 lean more towards perennials and every year I grow less and less things. More colors, maybe different varieties, but less actual different crops. Okay. So in particular, what do you grow? We have dahlias and snapdragons, tons of zinnias, forget-me-nots. We did, what else did I put in the ground? Buplerum, tons of basil. 04:50 What else? Celogea status is down there. Rubbeckia, feverfew, delphinium, eucalyptus, and lisianthus. You can grow eucalyptus here? I started from plugs, but you can, absolutely. It loves the hot and humid. So I didn't, last year was the first year that I had like a really nice big crop and I didn't let anybody cut from it. Like almost all season I wanted to do. 05:19 Dahlia, Lysianthus, and Eucalyptus bundles. And my dang Dahlia's just were so far behind for some reason, lack of rain, who knows what it was. And at the end of the season, I was swimming in it. Swimming in it, and I really was kicking myself because I could have been cutting from it all season long. And so in October, I sold just Eucalyptus bunches last year because it just was going nuts. I had no idea you could grow Eucalyptus in Minnesota. I need to do that. 05:48 You 100% do. Yes, there's a lot of like Queen bees in Prior Lake. She's got, I know that she

Today I'm talking with Joe Lamp'l (aka Joe Gardener) of Growing A Greener World about his love for gardening, where it started, and the unexpected fame that's come with it. You can also follow him on Facebook. 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 Joe Lamp'l, aka Joe Gardner of Growing Greener World. Good afternoon, Joe. How are you? I'm great. Good afternoon to you. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. You have no idea how tickled I am. 00:29 said yes. Tell me about yourself because you're pretty famous, but not everybody knows your story. This is true and I feel like I've told it a few times and I think maybe by now more people have heard it and the word's getting out I guess, but I love my story because I remember it as though it were yesterday. I grew up in Miami, Florida and I was one of four boys in the family. That was it, just four boys but... 00:57 Uh, in the pecking order, I was last, you know, I was eight years old when I was out with my dad on the weekends. He had his weekday job, his nine to five weekday job, although I know he worked more than that, but on the weekends he did his guard work, you know, his typical mowing the grass and edging the driveway and trimming the bushes. And because I was only eight years old and my next oldest brother was 13, he wasn't hanging out with me. He was hanging out with his buddies, which was fine because my dad was my buddy and I had them all to myself for the weekend. 01:26 And I love that. So I would follow him around and just tag along and do anything he needed me to do. But on this one day, when he finished up on this Saturday, he went inside and I still had plenty of energy. So I'm out running around and I, I hit a branch on a plant he had just got through pruning earlier that day and I broke it. All right. I basically broke it and I didn't want to get in trouble, but I wouldn't have. My dad was a very kind, sweet man. 01:54 But I didn't want to disappoint him. Maybe that's the thing. So I took the branch and I stuck it. I shoved it in the ground basically right next to the base of the plant, covered it up with soil. Although I probably would have called it dirt at that point. And, um, you know, went about my business and time went on and I forgot about it until I came upon it again, weeks and weeks later. And when I did, it reminded me that that's the, that's the plant that I broke the branch on, but I couldn't find. 02:21 I couldn't figure out which was the broken branch because they all looked the same. They were all green and growing. And I'm like, wait a minute, I know this is the plant. So I, um, I isolated it down to the one that I actually broke and I looked at it and it was a little less vigorous than the others, but it was growing in that. And that just surprised me. So, because I had no idea that it was going to live to begin with. And the fact that it was sprouting new leaves and forming new roots. Literally blew my mind. I just couldn't understand how that was happening. I didn't know anything about. 02:50 gardening at that time, but I needed to know more because that was the coolest thing ever to me at the moment. Still is. And, um, from that, that very moment was when I decided I'm hooked on this. I love this. I need to know more. And I started propagating. Again, I didn't know that word then, but I started, you know, making more cuttings and sticking stuff in pots and growing seeds. And I started a garden, a few gardens, actually a rose garden and a vegetable garden and fruit trees and daylilies and you name it. 03:20 So that was it eight years old. And, uh, honestly, I haven't slowed down one second of my interest in my quest to learn more and my love and enthusiasm for gardening and all that it has to offer. So you were eight and the magic of nature kicked you in the head is what happened. You know, it did. It kicked me in the head for, for, for garden. You know, I was. 03:46 Way earlier than that, I'm sure I was fascinated with nature. I was just in awe of being outside and hearing and seeing the birds and the trees and the wind and you know, back then, well, still, I mean, I was in the hurricane region and I know we had big storms coming through when I was little and all of that just amazed me. But then the, the gardening side really is what totally captivated me. Specifically, it was the gardening. Do you remember what the shrub was by chance? 04:15 Kind of, I do. I picture it as a privet. Basically your standard hedge shrub, ubiquitous everywhere. And I really feel like it was a privet. Okay. Just wondering, cause I don't know if you knew at eight years old, what, what the plant itself was. I, you know, I learned a lot of those plants. Uh, but I don't know that I ever really sp

Today I'm talking with Chebrai at Big Whiskey Creek Range. You can also follow on Facebook. 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 Chebrai at Big Whiskey Creek Range. And when I first read the name, I thought it was ranch and I've been thinking it's ranch the entire time. Good morning, Chebrai. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. 00:28 This being over 50 thing that I got going on, I just think I read things the right way and then I realized that it's not ranch, it's range. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. I have been pretty enamored with the farm life since I was a little girl. I can remember just being on my grandparents farm and it really ingrained like a passion for animals and farm life. 00:58 So I guess when I grew up, I always knew that farm life would be it. And I was really lucky to meet my husband who also loved the homesteading self-sufficiency life and big Whiskey Creek range was born. The range part actually comes from us having a small little shooting range in the back. So. Okay. 01:28 Awesome. So when did you guys start doing this? We started in 2019 and we got six chickens. And I remember going, yep, we can handle this. I had raised horses and trained horses. So I kind of knew what I was doing and thought chickens wouldn't be a big deal. And now here we are with, I don't count anymore. 01:54 But there's goats and rabbits and ducks and chickens and a horse and some pigs Yeah, you got hooked in with the gateway drug of chicken yes, yes we did Yeah We we got hooked in with chickens when we lived in town Because the bird flu was going through and I was like, you know I'd really like to have eggs so I can make cookies for the kids and if this bird flu thing is a real 02:22 problem and eggs go up to $10 a dozen, I don't want to pay $10 a dozen. So we bought four chickens and that was really cool. And then we moved here like almost four years ago now and we have 18 chickens now. So yeah, it meant chicken math. Chicken math is real. The only problem is that I found that chicken math starts applying to all the different animals as well. 02:50 It does. It's an umbrella term for, I got this, I got this handled, I know what I'm doing, what's the next thing I'm going to bring onto the farm? We tried bunnies, I have talked about this at least four times on the previous episodes so far. They were terrible at reproducing, so we decided we didn't want to feed rabbits that didn't give us any return. They were dumb bunnies. 03:18 We have, I think I have seven or eight litters out there right now. I have a mama that was due yesterday, but she hasn't kindled yet, so I'm impatiently waiting for those. Yeah, and nothing cuter than a baby bunny. Nothing. Yeah, I feel like the sweet spot is like three weeks old and they just, they look like an adult rabbit, but they're so small and fluffy. Yeah, and if you've handled... 03:47 them since they were born, they like to be held and petted. Oh yeah, we have three kids and they handle them daily so they are of course, you know, super snuggly. Yeah, they're a lot like kittens except that they don't meow. Yes, yeah and well I mean I was going to say I feel like their nails are sharper but they might be about the same. It's a different sharp because we did get one litter. 04:16 Yeah, they're pokey, but yeah, but kitten nails are curved down and so they hook into whatever they get hold of and If you pull away, it doesn't help you you just push, you know, so but anyway, um, so How do you I don't know? I want to ask you. How do you feel about what do what you do? Do you love it all the time? All the time. No, I'm 04:45 I think the good part is that I'm very passionate about what we do. Before we started getting the animals, I went and found the breeds that I wanted and that I loved the traits for. I think that really helps because there are days where it's hard and you just want to quit. At the end of the day, you crawl into bed if you make it to bed and you just lay there and go, okay, is it worth it? 05:15 Every morning I wake up and I walk out to the barn and I start milking and the birds are singing and the sun's rising and it's like, yeah, yeah, it is worth it. It might be hard but kind of our family saying is we're not quitters. So we keep going. Yeah, and it's really hard to quit when you have living beings counting on you. Yeah, yeah, it is, it is. And that's part of it. I think 05:45 a mom also helps me want to take care of more. So I'm never one to turn down another mouth. Yeah, and I'm exactly the opposite. When we bought this place, we had big, big ideas. Because when you buy acreage, and we only have three acres, but to us, that was a big jump. You have big ideas. You want to get 06:14 animals an

Today I'm talking with Bernis at The Honeyberry Farm. You can follow along on Facebook as well. 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 Bernis at the Honey Berry Farm. Good morning, Bernis. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm just great. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the honey berries are growing. Good. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota for growing honey berries. 00:28 Yep, we've had a week of rain and they're just loving it now that the sun's come out. Cool. So, tell me about yourself and Honey Berry Farm. Well, I grow honey berries along with my farmer husband, Jim, and we've been growing them for, well, about 14 years now. We planted our first ones in 2010 and we really like them. They are so... 00:55 tasty and good and good for you. And we also offer, once we got into honeyberries, it kind of led, it was kind of the entry, you know, the gateway fruit drug. So we then got into tart cherries and currants and a whole bunch of other cold hearty specialty berries that we didn't know about, that we found out about just because we started to grow honeyberries. 01:22 Nice. Are you up near the Canadian border? We're two hours south of the border of Minnesota with Manitoba. Okay. That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. Okay. So how did you, how did you decide to start doing this? Well, it started in the winter of 2010 when I was looking through a garden catalog and I noticed this strange looking berry that was kind of oblong and never seen it. It's a berry like that before. Usually berries are round, you know, but this had... 01:52 kind of an irregular shape and it was bright blue, very attractive, and it was called a honey berry. So I ordered a couple and later that spring I got my first two bare root plants. They look like dead sticks. I was skeptical. I didn't think they'd grow. I had never ordered bare root plants before, but I stuck them in the ground and... 02:13 actually had 50% success. One of them did not break dormancy, but the other one did. And usually bare root plants are just fine, but once in a while there's a dent in the batch. And so I had my first honeyberry bush growing and then I went to Canada and Googled cold hardy fruit and I found out that the University of Saskatchewan was developing – they had a breeding program for something called Fast Gap and the more I read about it, I thought, wow. 02:42 I think that's what I ordered this spring. So sure enough, it's the Japanese name that they use in Canada, Hascap. Whereas down here we call it honey berry just because it's a lot easier to pronounce and it's a honeysuckle. It's the same thing. It's a honeysuckle berry, a blue edible blue honeysuckle. So that's kind of how the journey started, except there was one other key factor. I went to visit a friend. 03:11 at a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada there. And we got talking gardening and I said, I asked her, have you ever heard of these haskaps? And she says, well, my brother-in-law got some. She has some planted behind her house. You wanna go see? So I said, sure. And we went and there she had probably half a dozen bushes or more. And they were just starting to ripen. They had just started to turn blue. And I had my first taste. I've had a berry and it just, the skin was so. 03:39 tender, it just melted in my mouth and it had this interesting flavor I hadn't ever tasted before and I asked my friend, well, what do you do with them? And she said, nothing, my son eats them all off the bush. Well, that's what you first do is eat them off the bush, but they are so good for so many purposes, for jam and toppings and... 04:07 put in your pancakes and anything that you would do with a blueberry basically. Nice. So they don't taste like blueberries, right? Well, there's a much more complex flavor in most of them. But what I have to tell you is that honey berries, they need two parents. Most of them need two parents to produce fruit like apple trees. They need cross pollination. So every child, like humans, is unique. 04:35 different. You never know what a seedling is going to taste like. They have a lot of different flavors ranging from very mild, almost bland, to very strong, to put it mildly, even nasty. That's why these breeding programs do a lot of research, tasting their berries to select the ones that taste the best and grow well. 05:05 bigger ones that grow vigorously and they breed for, you know, a good size. And yeah, it's just a fascinating area of research fruit breeding that I got to learn about as well. So, okay. So what conditions did they like to grow? Because I grew up in Maine and we had wild blueberry plants all over my parents' property. And 05:30 Blueberries really like it kind of dappled sunshine and they really like acidic soi

Today I'm talking with Ginger at The Naked Rancher. You can follow on Facebook as well. 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 Ginger at the Naked Rancher. Good morning, Ginger. Good morning, Mary. How are you this morning? I'm great. You're in Texas, is that right? I am. The hill country of Texas. 00:26 I wasn't sure and I couldn't figure it out from your Facebook page, but then I saw something I was like, I think she's in Texas. Okay, great. Tell me about yourself and the Naked Rancher. Well, thank you. I appreciate you even talking about it. Well, I was married to a gentleman in the army for 40 years and after our divorce, I had a ranch to run and it was my 29th move and I thought I'm going to make this work and... 00:56 I had some girlfriends come over and they jokingly started calling me that. I'm not in the nude, so it's not about actual nudity. It's about being honest about trying to run a ranch and everything on it. From that, they suggested that I do stories about it and post about it. I also... 01:25 I started doing that and then realized I should get a trademark for it. So I applied for the trademark for the name and the brand and I've been posting for four years now. That's awesome. So if you were married for 40 years, you must be over 50 years old, I would assume. I am. I am 63 years old. 01:50 I'm impressed because I'm 54 and when I decided to start a podcast, I had a steep learning curve on all the technology behind it. So I'm impressed that you managed to do this four years ago. Yeah. Well, my children think I've got all adult grown children and they all think that I'm still not there yet. So. Oh, that's always going to be a thing. My 22 year old is like, I can't believe you're doing this now. I know. Isn't that funny? 02:20 I'm like, you know what, old dogs can learn new tricks. I actually said that to him this morning. Well, see, and to me, it's all about the learning process. So I'm not the only one out there that's like you, that's learning and trying to make it work in today's world. Yeah, and honestly, the minute you stop being curious and the minute you stop trying new things, you might as well be six feet under. That's my take. I agree with you completely, and I enjoyed. 02:49 learning new things and you know, I don't mind embarrassing myself or talking about things that I mess up on and have to redo. Yeah, because that's how you learn and how you teach. Yeah. Yeah. But I was going to say thank God for girlfriends. Your girlfriends helped out and I'm really glad we all have girlfriends because without them, I don't know where we would be. I agree completely. Okay. So I was talking with a lady 03:19 at a local, I'm in Minnesota, and I live in Sibley County in Minnesota. And I was talking with a woman the other day who I interviewed, and she is, I don't know what her title is, but she's involved with the Water and Soil Conservation District in the next county over from us. And she was talking about how trying to market what they do has been a bear. 03:46 and that they have not been really great at promoting what they do. And it's a county state agency thing. And I said, well, I said, it's a shame that the topics of homesteading and farming and ranching and growing things and raising animals for food or for milk or whatever you're raising them for isn't considered sexy. And I said, 04:13 We watch grown men run down football fields and they get dirty and sweaty and people pay big money to see that. And I think there's nothing sexier than watching people work hard at doing something that they love and they get dirty and sweaty. Exactly, I agree with you. So then I happened to watch a couple of your videos on your Facebook page and I watched the one where your pants are trying to fall down and I was like that right there. That's sexy. 04:42 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no part of that is sexy. But you know what? It happens. Yeah, it sure does. And you were working and you were getting dirty and sweaty and your pants weren't up all the way. And that's okay. So you proved my point because people probably see that video and they're like, oh, oh, okay. Okay. What is she, what is she actually doing? And then they're interested. So, so, um, 05:10 The lady that I talked to, her name is Holly. I was like, we need to enlist some people to make like promotional videos of people doing the work that they do in the garden or working with the animals or whatever they do and post that and be like, be a doer, it's sexy. There you go, I like that. So I said- It should be on a T-shirt. Yep, so I said on the interview, which will come out in two weeks. 05:38 I said, if anybody out there wants to help Holly and I start a campaign like this, let me know. Well,

Today I'm talking with Holly at the Renville County Soil & Water Conservation District. You can follow them on Facebook as well. 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. 00:15 Today I'm talking with Holly at the Renville County Soil and Water Conservation District. Good morning Holly, how are you? Good morning Mary, I'm fantastic. How about yourself? I'm good and I'm not quite sure how to start this because I don't really know what you guys do exactly. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Sure. So, the Renville County Soil and Water Conservation District is a local government unit. 00:43 And what we really focus on is working with landowners on promoting sustainable use of water and soil resources. So things that are going to have a direct benefit on water and soil for the county and the state. Okay. And does every county have an organization like yours or are you alone in this? Sure. So while I think we are unique and special. 01:13 five Soan water conservation districts across the state. So almost every county has a Soan water conservation district. Okay, I'm in Sibley County, which is I think right next to Renville. It is. You are a neighbor. I am terrible at counties in Minnesota because there are so many of them. Yes, there is a lot. But yeah, you're directly east of us. Sibley is a Soan water district that we've partnered with on projects in the past and wonderful team over there. 01:43 Okay, so tell me how this works. Sure. So really what a Soil and Water District does is we provide education and resources to stakeholders. And when we say stakeholders, that's anybody that uses water or soil in the state. So the bulk of our customers or clients that we work with on a regular basis are farmers, just because we're in a heavy ag region. 02:12 And, but that doesn't mean that we can't help somebody who's got a tree in their yard that they think is sick, or if they want to do something to change water flow through their property, things like that. So, we really can kind of just do anything, like I said, related to water or solar resources. Okay. So if someone has a tree that they think is sick, how do they contact you? I mean, do they. 02:41 Do they just ask around until they find out about you or do you guys promote what you do or how does it work? So it's interesting you bring that up, Mary, because even like my whole childhood and going through college, till I was in my senior year at college, I didn't really know what a Swinwater district is, right? And I don't know if we've always done a fantastic job of promoting ourselves. Historically... 03:07 In Minnesota, soil and water districts really cut their teeth on tree programs. So if we back up just a little bit, we're a product of the dirty thirties. So what happened is the dust bowl and we had massive erosion and the government, US government created our partners, the natural resource conservation service. And as a result of that federal partnership. 03:36 locals got involved and said, it's great, we have this federal partners, this federal money, but we also need local buy in and local support for programs. And so Soin Water Conservation Districts got organized, usually sometime between 1938 and 1960. And again, that varied on kind of those local stakeholders and just momentum of getting those organized. And so 04:05 part of that was is our USDA partners would say, okay, you have this massive field erosion, you tore out your trees and you broke up all the prairie to farm it. And so we need to plant some trees here to stop that erosion. And that's really where Soan Water Districts got their feet under them was selling trees and designing and installing that. And then we expanded that to also designing and helping with installation. 04:32 of structures out in the field where we would actually move soil to slow water flow or just adjust where wind would blow in a road soil. 04:44 Okay. So like last year, we're surrounded by what used to be an alfalfa field. Sure. And is now a corn field. Yay. Um, I'm not a fan of corn. I, I sneeze when it does its thing in. Oh yeah, all that pollen, right? Yeah. Kind of kicks my butt every summer, but it's okay. Um, they put in drained hyle. Uh huh. I can't remember what was last summer or the summer before. I think it was the summer before. 05:15 And is that something that you guys are involved in, or is that just something that the farmers just do on their own? So how we're actually involved with Green Tile is on the level of making sure that whatever is installed has no negative impact on what we have today for waters of the state, which includes lakes, rivers, and wetlands. 05:41 So our involvement is a landowner wants to install tile. They first start with the USDA Farm Service Agency

Today I'm talking with Brittany at Crazy GF Cookies. You can follow her on Facebook as well. 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 Brittany at Crazy Gluten Free Cookies. Good morning, Brittany. How are you today? Good morning. I'm doing well. How are you? I'm great. Tell me about yourself and Crazy Gluten Free Cookies. Right. So... 00:29 Um, I actually just started, uh, I call it crazy GF cookies, but yes, the GF stands for gluten free. Um, and I just started it back in January, but it's kind of been like a slow start. So, but I'm going to be at a farmer's market, um, come next month in May. And so, yeah, it's super exciting journey for me because I've never really done anything with 00:56 restaurants or businesses or baking and stuff like that for at a professional level. So it's kind of a fun adventure for me just starting off slow with a cottage food bakery. Okay, so tell me how you got started. I read your About Me on your website, but I would love to have you share why you started doing this. Yeah, so I feel like when somebody asks like, oh, why are you doing the baking? They always are like, because I love to bake. 01:25 That is not me. Mm-hmm. It is quite actually totally different. I actually got into it because I see a problem in our marketplace, especially I live in a smaller town outside of the Twin Cities, like an hour outside of the Twin Cities. And so I really don't even, this is even bigger problem where I live. But there's just nothing for people who have allergies and gluten. 01:54 being one of those allergies, which a lot of people don't understand what gluten is. It's just a protein in wheat, but wheat products are all over the place. It's pretty much in everything. And so it's very difficult to eat out anywhere or to be safe anywhere. And that's my story because I didn't used to have to eat gluten-free. So I know what it's like to just go to a restaurant and order whatever you want. 02:23 But yeah, back in 2012, I was basically told, hey, you're allergic to gluten. And I was like, can't I still eat it? And I was asking the doctor that and the doctor's like, you're going to die if you keep eating it. And so I had to go gluten free and it was awful. I mean, I love my pastas and my bread and the treats and the cookies and everything. 02:52 And so for me, it was just an awful realization. And so my passion really lies with, you know, helping people who have allergies like I do, because it's like, we just don't have that many options. If we go to a restaurant, we have to always like ask a million questions. Like, do you have gluten-free on the menu? Is this gluten-free? Does it have wheat in it? Is it fried in the same fryer with everything else? Like... 03:20 You know, so it's very difficult. And I just, I saw this as like a hole in our marketplace where there's really nothing that's super safe in our area and like that's dedicated gluten free. And so I was just like, you know what? We need something. We need something in our area. Cause more and more people are finding out that they're allergic to wheat, or they're just going gluten free for just to be healthier because in general, um, most people, even if they don't have an intolerance or an allergy to wheat. 03:50 they actually do better when they're off of weight. They lose weight and they are healthier and stuff like that too. So that's really why I started it. Okay. The restaurant thing. The thing I have found if you ask the waitresses or the manager questions about what's in the food is you get one of two kinds of responses. 04:17 Either they understand why you're asking and they're really kind and they're really sweet in their response, or they're really short with you because they're like, if you need to ask, you shouldn't be eating here. You know? Yeah, exactly. And I would feel like there's also the response of they have no idea. It's not that they're necessarily short with you, they just are so confused. They just don't know what you're talking about when you say gluten. And it's like, okay, well. 04:44 it's wheat. Is there any wheat in it?" And they're like, I don't know, what is wheat? And it's like, that's basically flour. So anything that has flour in it, that's your typical flour that hasn't actually been purposely made gluten-free by picking rice flour or corn flour or something like that, is going to automatically have wheat in it. And so I try to explain it to people. And it's just, it's countless times I've tried to explain it to a waitress going like, 05:12 this is what we is, like, and I have to explain it to them. And so then, but then that makes me feel less safe because I'm like, if I'm explaining it to you and you don't know, how do I, how can I trust your response and yo

Today I'm talking with Chonnie at Independence Gardens. You can follow them on Facebook as well. 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 Chonnie at Independence Gardens. Good morning, Chonnie. Good morning. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Good. Fantastic, actually. Good. 00:26 I'm actually in Lewisville, Texas. So it's a town a little bit north of Dallas. It's kind of in a North Dallas area. Okay. I thought it was Texas, but I just wanted to make sure. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and Independence Gardens and what you guys do. So Independence Gardens is a local nonprofit that has roots in Lewisville, Texas. We've been around since 2013. And our overall mission is to provide children access to fresh food. 00:55 through nutrition-based programs. And it includes sustainability programs. I was actually just recently had an opportunity to be at EarthX at 2024, that was held in Dallas. And I spoke about some of the programs that we had, specifically our Beanstalk project, which is our hydroponic system, which is a fairly new program for us. And so really it's just an opportunity for 01:22 school communities to not only grow their own food, but to feed everyone in that school, in the heart of that school. And the program started in 2013. And I tell this story because nobody believes me. It started with a simple school lunch. And my daughter was in kindergarten at that time. And I just happened to be having lunch with her, of course, like everybody wants. 01:51 first year of their child's public school years. And I remembered, right, our school lunch. I don't know if you remember your school lunch. Mine was like the best hamburger ever, right? It was the best hamburger I ever had. And, you know, everybody said it was kind of a hamburger, but not really a hamburger because it tasted like meat, but there were some additional fillers in it that made it. It was the best thing I remember when I was growing up. 02:17 So when I had lunch with her and went through the line, she had, I remember this because she had chicken nuggets. She got her chocolate milk and it was green beans that did not look like green beans. And it was the weirdest color I'd ever seen. And I didn't really think much about it, but I should have had a warning when I went in to check in and the administrator asked me. 02:46 if I brought her something to eat. And I'm like, absolutely not. I'm having lunch with her. And she said, well, maybe next time you can bring her something from either McDonald's or Chick-fil-A. And I'm like, that's odd. So as we went through the line and she kind of, you know, I saw these green beans. It was supposed to be green, but I don't know. I've never seen this color green beans before. She kind of picked her food a little bit, drank all of her chocolate milk of course. 03:14 and basically threw about 80% of it away. I noticed that in every child around me as they threw away their food, and there was 80% of everything they had in their lunch tray they threw away. I understood why she was so hungry when she came home because she didn't eat. I left and I was checking out this administrator said, 03:42 see maybe next time you need to bring her something else. And so I left that lunch. That's when I think the mission of the organization seeded itself because I could not consciously send my child to a place that is supposed to be the organization, the people that would nourish her mind and body when we can't even. 04:09 solve the simplest things and that is what would they put in their body, right? To actually nourish their mind and get them on the path of success. And also, I couldn't believe that adults would actively say, I wouldn't eat that lunch. And then my thought is, then why are you feeding it to my child? So that's really, and I talk about her because she is going to be a senior this year, so she's graduating this year, and Independence Gardens started with her. And so that really just 04:37 I surrounded myself with like-minded individuals and having a background in marketing and in health because I always say I started my journey in this sphere of food and health when I worked for the American Heart Association. So I was a marketing manager for them and I led part of the Heart Checkmark program. I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's on the... 05:05 It's on the cheer-grows boxes and it's like a heart with a check mark on it. And so I was really plugged in with the importance of how food impacted your body. And also at that time as well, the school that she was in was 55% Title I school. So everyone and those children received free or reduced lunch. 05:33 in food deserts. So believe it or not, there is still a food desert in the US and roughly, I think back t

Today I'm talking with self-described "A-team" of Egidio and Elisa Tinti, and Ryan, and Julie at New Beginnings Farmstead. You can follow them on Facebook as well. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking to the team from New Beginnings Farmstead. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves? I'm Elisa Tinti. And I'm Julie Noble. Ryan Kuhn. And Jiddy Tinti. Okay. So now that we've done that, I have never interviewed four people in a group at the same time, so this is going to be fun. 00:27 Tell me about what you guys do at New Beginnings Farms, Ted. Are you, Alisa? Well, we are about 130 acres in upstate New York, and we purchased this farm in 2015. At the time, we were not married, and we were looking for someplace that was between both of our homes so that we could start a life together. And my husband was... 00:55 born and raised up in the mountains and I was born and raised in the city of Kingston. So we had many challenges when we bought this farm. Okay. And so what did you want the farm for? What was your plan? We just wanted a place kind of in between where I was living at the time and where she was living in the city. A true city mouse, country mouse type of situation. I grew up around bears and snakes. 01:24 farm folk and firewood and she thought not she did not. That's correct. So when we when we bought the farm, one of the first things, of course, you know, we're walking around looking at the place and it had been a dairy farm for probably over 100 years and sat vacant for about 10 years. And everything was pretty overgrown. And one of the things that I thought of right away with one of our very large barns was to have a wedding venue and. 01:55 My husband, well, at the time we weren't married, but he said out loud, who in the world would want to be married in a barn? And little did he know that a year later, he'd be getting married in a barn. But that's how we met our friend here, Ryan Coon, who is now part of our family. Okay. So what do you guys do now? You host weddings, right? Host weddings. And our main... 02:22 Agricultural production revolves around firewood and maple syrup. We have a decent size maple collection system in place. Julie signed on that way. That's how she came on. Her current position, full-time job, gives us a tremendous amount of knowledge. She brings knowledge to the farm that, short of us identifying maple trees, a lot of the maple production that we've started with was small. 02:48 We still consider ourselves small as compared to some of the other ones, but we're up to over 500 taps and our collection system is running on vacuum. Every year, the four of us go up to a conference in upstate New York and we learn more and more and more and add more and more and more. I think of the entire team, I'm the only one that wants to stop or slow down our production. 03:17 the three of them out in the woods with their hard hats on, tapping trees and having a good old time. And you can see the smiles on their faces just thinking about it. And in the Sugar Shack, it's really a Ryan show. He's the one who's got the evaporator under control. Okay, so what's Julie's background? I am a sustainability coordinator, but my background is in environmental education. So 03:43 teaching about the outdoors, getting people outdoors. And I had some, I worked on another nature center before this and was doing maple production there as well and teaching about maple. So I came into an operation that was already well run and I feel as though I brought a little bit of fun and a little bit of knowledge and some organizational skills that maybe needed to be upped a little bit here. That's true. Everything's about a checklist, check boxes, whiteboards. We are 04:13 very efficient when it comes to planning and test management. There's lots of singing and dancing and having a good time. Right, Ryan? Well, life is nothing without music. That's true. So Ryan is our sugar maker. He kind of took under his wing. So our first evaporator was really an old wood stove that we converted. Lisa and I tried to do it up in, I say the country, but about 20 minutes away from here where my family was... 04:43 born and raised and we did some maple. It was fun. She got the bug once she entered that small batch of syrup in our local county fair and won, took home the blue ribbon. And at that point she considered herself a sugar maker and wanted to increase. So we built our first evaporator, old school, took a, you know, everything's about recycle, we knew we'd use. And we took an old oil tank and lined it, put a draft system in it, researched it, talked to a bunch of people. 05:10 welded the pants together and started making maple on a very small batch system. And over the time we just outgrew it because they kept tapping trees without my knowledge. And we had way too much sap collected and not enough time

Today I'm talking with Jonathan at Woodland Worm Company. You can also follow on Facebook. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Jonathan at Woodland Worm Company. Hi, Jonathan, how are you today? Great, how are you doing? I'm good. I've been looking forward to this interview because I have not talked to anyone about earthworms before. Awesome. So tell me about yourself and Woodland Worm Company. So I am... 00:29 I am the owner of Woodland Worm Co. We were formerly Wiggle Worm Farms, but we changed the name just recently actually, because it just kind of better suits where we wanna go and the direction we wanna take the business. So the Woodland Worm Co. is a relatively new name. I am a, I like to say I'm a jack of all trades, but master of none. 00:58 I have a really varied background, none of which is actually in worm farming. I'm an accountant, diesel mechanic, drummer, you name it, I can do it, I can fix basically anything. But I found myself in a place where I didn't have anything to be passionate about two years ago. 01:27 believe it or not, I stumbled across the Facebook post from a friend of mine that's Liz out in California. And he was just talking about random odd jobs or random weird family histories. And one of the folks, one of his friends, 01:49 put up a comment basically saying, yeah, my dad used to be a worm farmer. And I didn't know that was even a thing, to be honest with you. And so he, that guy's father wrote a book with his uncle back in the 70s. And I found the book amazingly twice online and I bought it. And it showed up in the mail one day while I was at work. And my wife said, 02:19 earthworms. And yeah, and I said yes, I did. And then a month later, I had worms. And here we are now. So two years later, I'm, I built the business. And we're really, really very in its infancy right now. So it's interesting, fun, exciting, and busy. I bet. So, so tell me. 02:47 Tell me how you begin raising earthworms. 02:53 So there's, when it comes to raising worms, there's different methods that you can do, but it all really comes down to a few, several key elements, right? The earthworms that I raise and most of the industry raise are composting worms. So they live within the first six inches of the soil. 03:21 right, they're horizontal movers, they don't really go up and down, they don't burrow up and down. They burrow horizontally and they eat the dead and decaying material that's on the surface of the ground. So if you know you really just need good food, which is usually for us, we feed compost. 03:47 um finished leaf compost and a grain mix or worm chow if you will and uh plenty of moisture and really you just give them a place where they can grow and be happy and not overpopulated and the worms they do their thing. It's really not complicated but it's easy to make it complicated. Okay and then 04:14 I guess my next question is, do you have bins that you have them in or do you have them outside in the ground or how does it work? So I tried several different breeds of worms before I actually started selling. My focus with the business is I want to build soil and make the soil great in your gardens. 04:43 so we can all eat better and eat healthier. So my focus is on producing the best worm castings there are. The way of which I raise, I use a breed called African nightcrawlers. And where I'm at in the country, we have really cold winters, so they don't survive outside. So I raise them, 05:12 temperature controlled environment in my basement and they are raised in three and a half gallon buckets and I stack them about, oh, I got 60 buckets per pallet. So yeah. Wow. Okay. And you're in Pennsylvania. That's why it's cold. Yeah. All right. And then tell me about why the castings are good. If anyone doesn't know, earthworm castings are basically earthworm poop. 05:41 exactly it. It's it castings I didn't come up with the name someone did somewhere along the line. It's it's a warm fertilizer. It's just it's a soil amendment. What's good about them is think of it kind of like a probiotic for your soil. Right castings are they are living. There's organisms inside. 06:10 in those castings and that fertilizer, what you put into the soil, what happens is those worms break down all the micronutrients that create all this life in their poop and all that life is also breaking down other, it's breaking everything down in the soil. 06:38 to a point where your plants can then absorb it through their roots. So the poop is really just a vehicle if you think of it that way, of which you can infuse a lot of good things for your soil environment. All different types of microorganisms are in there that will, they just, 07:07 benefits of it far outweigh the work. Okay, so how do you collect the casting? So do you just do you just scoop out the dirt that they've lived in? Or how does it

Today I'm talking with Amy at The Minnesota Marshmallow. You can follow her on Facebook as well. I was so inspired by Amy's description of the mint cookie marshmallows that I ordered some. Fantastic as a treat and even better in my coffee! 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Amy at the Minnesota Marshmallow. Good afternoon, Amy. How are you? Doing really good. How are you? I'm good. I'm dying to know the story about you and the Minnesota Marshmallow. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for interviewing me today. 00:24 Idea originally was something that I always had wanted, uh, growing up through high school. Um, the big dream was to have a restaurant and this was kind of my niche for the, the back and have this really authentic bonfire type setting where people would come up to like a little silver bullet trailer and get some marshmallows and some hot cocoa or, you know, and just kind of enjoy some, some family space and. 00:50 you know, providing that in kind of a different setting that just isn't out there yet. And, um, I joined the military right out of high school and I've just been chasing that dream and I wanted to retire. And meanwhile, we got hit with COVID and I was sitting with a friend outside of bonfire one night and I said, you know, I know I've said it a lot, but we should have like a juicy Lucy of marshmallows. Like all these toppings should be on the inside and all warm and gooey. And she's like, you literally can't. 01:18 talk about this anymore until you start making it." I was like, well, no time like the present, I guess. I hopped in the kitchen and watched some videos trying to figure out how do you even do that. Within four weeks, I had gotten carried away and started with just a vanilla and a strawberry. Then I started doing orange. Then I started doing hot fudge mamas. 01:47 Caramel ones and just the creativity was oozing at that point with excitement and I was bringing them up to the Air Force base and handing them out to friends and I'm like, I have so many marshmallows. I don't know what to do with these. So if you don't like them, you can just throw them away. But if you do like them, like let me know or if you have a suggestion and I should change something. And so I was just peddling marshmallows everywhere I went on base because I had just had so many at that time. 02:15 Um, next thing I knew, I was getting messages from friends and coworkers and they're like, Hey, make this one again. Can I get that for the weekend? And, um, another friend was like, you should just make this like a fun side hobby. And I was like, yeah, it has been really fun. So, um, I had just graduated college and decided like, I have a new, new thing where I can like pour my energy into. And so it just kind of focused on that through 2020 and, um, at 02:44 After I started the company in August of 2020, I had Mike and Jen's hot cocoa reach out and say like, we should sit down. We want to meet you. And I'm like, me? You want to meet me? I've only been doing this for like four weeks. And, um, that was really exciting and got to sit down with them and they, I'm kind of walking in their footsteps as far as like learning how to start a business and create it. And now here we are almost four years later and 70 flavors and just having a lot of fun with it. 03:14 That's fantastic. I do understand the, you want to talk to me question because like a month ago, a publicist for an author emailed me out of the blue and was like, we'd love to be a guest on your podcast, the author. And I was like, okay. And I actually went and researched because I didn't know if it was something that was not good, if it was like spam or a trick. 03:44 And it wasn't, it was not a trick. And I interviewed the author and she's a really neat lady. So it worked out great, but I understand that you want to talk to me. Why? Yes, absolutely. That was kind of like, Oh my gosh, like you want to have like dinner with me? And I was just like, that's really cool. I was like, okay. And, um, ever since then, um, it's Dean and Amanda, they've been so, I could not ask for better mentors. Um, Dean started his. 04:13 hot cocoa company from, you know, Cottage Food Law of Minnesota, and then was able to expand and grow, and now they're all throughout the United States and Mexico, and it's so amazing to have had them in my corner from the start, just to like, run questions by, or you hit an obstacle, and you're just like, what do I do? You know? So, I was very grateful for them, and having someone to like... 04:38 you know, teach you kind of like, or guide you saying like, oh, we hit that obstacle, try this or something. Yeah, I did my homework on you. I went and looked at your website and you were, or you still are in the Air Force, is that right? Yes, yeah. My husband and I have both been in for almost 15 years now and we're both

Today I'm talking with Rob at The Wegener Farm. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Rob at the Wegner Farm. Good morning, Rob, how are you? Good morning, Mary, I'm good. How are you doing? Good, how are things in Michigan? That's a beautiful day here in Michigan, finally. We had a little snow yesterday morning, which always sets you back mentally a bit here, but it's beautiful this morning, so. 00:29 We're loving it. Yeah, it's April. Spring is coming. It's going to get here sooner than we think. It's beautiful here today in Minnesota too. So tell me about what you guys do at the farm. Okay, so at the Waggoner Farm, we're an organic, certified organic regenerative farm. We focus really on, you know, you've heard it called probably dirt, farming the dirt. 00:57 uh... move away from the idea of uh... feeding plants and rather uh... think about feeding the food web in the in the soil itself so we've been very big since the beginning on treating treating the soil right and it'll grow the plants and uh... and they'll be great and uh... so far so good that we've been at this now this will be our fourth year uh... we started the first year on this property which was new to us 01:24 with only 10 CSA customers, just to see, and mostly, by the way, friends and family who were fairly low risk, in case it didn't work. And year two, we went to 50. Year three, we went to 120. And this year, we'll be 130 CSA members, as well as some wholesale relationships and possibly a couple of restaurants. Wow. That is, that's huge. 01:54 Um, yeah, anyone who's never run a CSA does not have any idea the work that goes into it. We did it for two years, three years, and we only had nine people at our highest number. And it's a lot of work and it's a lot of pressure because you want things to go right. Yeah, you've, uh, you're right about the pressure because basically, you know, the model. 02:22 is such that the people, you know, they've paid you and now you better deliver, you know, and deliver well or the model falls down. Sorry about the dogs. Okay. I have one too. She does the same thing. Yeah. But our CSA members are great. They're people that are like-minded about looking for quality food. 02:51 Excuse me, let me just close this. Yeah. 02:58 at looking for quality food and not being, let's say satisfied or comfortable, but with the way the food system works and the way commercial farming works. We have a lot of visitors to the farm who I think also realize that USDA organic labeling is nice, but really transparency into seeing how things work is really where it's at. 03:27 And we love to have people at the farm. We have some chickens that free range around the house. Kids love them. They're friendly, and they can feed them. And it really is an interesting, at CSA Pickup, a real interesting sense of community as people come to get their boxes every week. Yeah, we had baby bunnies two springs ago. And they were just big enough that the people who came to pick up their CSAs could hold them and pet them. 03:57 That was a big hit here. We don't do rabbits anymore. I've already talked about this a billion times, but our rabbits were stupid. They did not understand that they were supposed to make babies. So we weren't going to let them. Rabbits that didn't make babies, I didn't think that it was possible. They were broken. There's something wrong with these rabbits. So we decided that feeding them with no return was not a good investment. So we no longer have rabbits, and that's OK. You were saying feeding the dirt. So. 04:26 when you take care of the soil, the soil is fantastic. It grows fantastic food. So the soil is great. It feeds the plants. The plants are great. And then the plants feed us, which is great. Yeah, and I think this is what gets lost in the commercial food system, honestly, now. Two things, I think, make a world of difference. Actually, probably three. One is. 04:55 When you are not trying to feed plants directly with synthetically produced fertilizers, plants get what they should be in terms of all of the micro and macro nutrients that the food web creates. These vegetables are just different. They're better for you. They taste better. 05:22 We also use varieties that are not bred to be trucked from Mexico. And those varieties that are bred to be trucked from Mexico have been hybridized through the years to be tough. You know, and the result is that the flavor and the nutrition has been bred out of these plants and vegetables. And it's just unfortunate. And 05:51 I would say to anybody listening, if you're not already connected with a local farmer, get connected. What you will learn about how things are supposed to taste, and just blow your doors off. Yeah, absolutely. And I am right there with you because we used to wait and wait and wait in the summertime for the tomatoes to come

Today I'm talking with Carol at The Old Farmers Almanac about gardening by the phases of the moon, frost dates, and the history of the almanac. You can follow on Facebook, as well. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Carol at the Old Farmer's Almanac. Hi, Carol. How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you doing, Mary? I'm great. Thank you for being here. Tell me about yourself and about what the Old Farmer's Almanac is. 00:23 Well, the Almanac is ultimately really a calendar and a calendar of the heavens. And so, you know, old farmers or new farmers tend to need calendars because we like to know what's going on and what we need to be planning ahead for. But yeah, the greatest thing about the Almanac, I think, is that it's 232 going on 233 years old. So I'm the newest editor. I'm the 14th editor. I'm the second female editor. 00:51 of the almanac in all those years. So it's quite an honor and a responsibility. But I think we just see that there's such a resurgence and an interest in all of the things that the almanac is about, whether it's gardening and farming or astronomy or folklore or home remedies, those sorts of things. People are really paying more attention to those. So it's a great place to be. 01:18 Yankee Publishing is our home publisher and I worked here 20 years ago on a different publication for Yankee Magazine. So it's a bit of a homecoming for me. I've always been a fan of the Almanac. So it's great to be here. Very nice. So can you tell me where the Almanacs, actually before we even get there, there are two farmers' Almanacs. The old farmers' Almanac is the original? Yes. 01:45 So who puts out the other one? Not that I want to give them any press, but I don't know. We don't know a lot about them either, honestly. They are out of Maine. We are out of Dublin, New Hampshire. And the farmer, not the old farmers, the other one is, I think it started in the 80s or 90s. It's not that old. I think distribution-wise, they are pretty much in New England, whereas we are... 02:13 you know, all of North America. And I think they sell about, maybe their publication is about 300,000, you know, and we sell almost 3 million. So it's a little different, you know, I think, but again, like almanacs, when we started our almanac, there was many almanacs and really ours just kind of, well, we know that the weather was more accurate and we know that we were more entertaining. That's why we stuck around. So. 02:42 Honestly, there was always almanacs. So it's really kind of great that there are more than less, because some are regional, some are really specific to a certain aspect of almanacs typically. So good competition to have, I guess. So you guys are the old farmer's almanac, and you've been around for over 200 years, you said? Yes, 1792, first year. All right. So I have a little tiny story to share about your publication. 03:12 I think that the old farmer's almanac was probably one of the first things I read when I was six years old. I think. Cool. So, yeah, my dad bought it every year because he grew a garden and he needed to know when the safe time to plant was and when the full moon was going to be and all those things that are in there. You mentioned weather. 03:40 the coming weather is going to be. Are you at liberty to share that? Of course. And so yes, that's really what has been, I think, anybody who plants things in the ground, we're always pretty obsessed with the weather. What's it going to do? And so that's true for since, really, if you think back, people that are now homesteaders like yourself or farmers or if they aren't, it's only a couple of generations back that all of us were farmers. 04:10 The weather is of key importance. And as we have weirder weather too, we get a lot of more interest in it. And so from the beginning, it's been about data. It's been about this special formula. And so our founder, Robert B. Thomas, whose birthday is coming up, he really believed in and studied astronomy and planet science and pinned his algorithms and his data. 04:40 data at that time, of course, what he had to three sciences. And sunspot, sun science, sunspot activity is really the one that I think sets us apart in terms of our long range forecasting. We also use climate science and meteorology, but it's really that idea of layering the data that we have in those three science areas, one on top of each other and looking at patterns across... 05:08 that very large data set. And of course, in those days, we do have Robert B. Thomas' hand calculations. And these days we can crunch even more data, even more data is available. But to be more nuanced about it, for sun science, the sun is in its 25th cycle that it's been recorded and these cycles are 12, 13. 05:35 more, sometimes years old, years. And so this worth the very end of the 25th cycle, and it's quite a crazy cyc

Today I'm talking with Therese at Short Stack Ranch. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Therese at Shortstack Ranch. Good morning, Therese. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing very well. Thank you. Good. You're in California? I am. We are in Northern California, just a little bit north of Sacramento. Okay. Well, tell me about yourself in Shortstack Ranch. 00:26 So the short stack ranch, I retired from 25 years with the California Department of Corrections about two years ago, and it had always been my dream to have comfort care minis, you know? And I never really thought it would happen, but I've also been heavily involved since I was in college with Special Olympics. 00:50 And everything just kind of fell together. I was gifted two beautiful miniature horses by a wonderful woman, Sharon Mariam, who had had them both for 15 and 30 years, but she's been involved in the mini world for about 35 years. And I had asked her to mentor me and she is luckily was just trying to get out of the mini world because of age and other commitments and things like that. 01:18 So she mentored me, very special to me. So it just kind of grew. We ended up getting Kenny and Kevin, and then we got two goats that were supposedly pregnant, and they were supposed to be due any minute, and 58 days later, my one goat was not pregnant at all, and the other goat had four, which is... 01:46 incredibly unusual. You know, they only have two teats and really can only, you know, manage about two. Well, we ended up bottle feeding three of them, which is just like a newborn baby every three hours. Bottle feeding those guys. And then in that process, we got kind of every a whole bunch of stuff happened at once. Kevin suffered a pretty bad. 02:15 well, a very bad injury. He had fallen and he suffered a spinal cord injury to his neck. And we did not think that he would make it. He did not stand for almost 10 days. He was completely paralyzed from the neck down. And he was such a fighter. Limus Basin Medical Equine Facility was amazing because he was so little. He was under 200 pounds. We could 02:45 It took us about, he got out of the intensive care about 58 days later and was walking with a limp, but we worked on his physical therapy. And in the meantime, we ended up getting two donkeys from a kill pen that were very badly neglected, could barely walk, one had one eye. So that was Bailey and Baxter. 03:14 And then we had heard about a gentleman who had passed away and left five minis behind with nobody to take them. And over the course of the next two months, we ended up getting four of those. One had passed while it was still at the sanctuary. And so that was Sophia and Rose. And goodness gracious, I'm kind of spacing out. Chandler. 03:41 his, which we changed his name to Wyatt and Jesse. So we had those four. Yes. And so we now had this zoo basically. And we also have two great Danes that are very, very large, a silver lab that was rescued and a cat that came with the house that we rent. Very nice. That's the short back ranch 04:11 We sadly did end up losing Kevin. He just succumbed to his injuries. Just wasn't strong enough a couple months ago. And Wyatt, who was 32, also passed. But they both had wonderful end of life here with all of their buddies around. And we've had, you know, I have friends and family and just people that I know and my Special Olympic athletes come by and 04:41 Everybody loves on them. They're just incredible. We've taken some of them to memory care facilities. I'm learning how to do that. It's a process. Everything is every day is a learning process. A couple of them starred in a in a manger scene at one of the local churches and were part of a play. So it's been it's been crazy. 05:10 Not at all what I had thought would happen when I ventured into this. You know, we, we, it is a financial burden, that's for sure. But it is one that, you know, I look at my life and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this, it couldn't be any better. You know, it's just happy. I have, I have so many questions. 05:36 So is it, are you registered as a 501c3 nonprofit or how are you doing that? I am working on that. I'm not super good with that kind of stuff. I'm that likes hanging out with the horses and doesn't like paperwork, I'll admit it. But we are in the process of doing that. 05:59 It is, we kind of had to take a break. We had some pretty bad storms out here and it was about a month after we finished building everything, my poor husband built everything. We had a really bad storm of hurricane level winds and it took away all of our barns and all of our fencing. So we are literally in the process, if anybody's been following us on Facebook and Instagram of rebuilding. And it's, you know, everything happens for a reason. We've met so many wonderful people along the way. 06:29 We did have a friend of mine set up

Today I'm talking with Brandy at Turnbull Clan Homestead. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Brandy at Turnbull Clan Homestead. Good morning, Brandy. How are you? I am doing good, Mary. How are you? I'm great. I'm so curious about your place because I looked at your Facebook page and there's lots about bees. So I'm assuming that honeybees are your main thing that you do? 00:28 Yes, ma'am. So long story short, my husband is active duty military. We were stationed out in Hawaii. And in 2020, during the height of COVID, we ended up buying our home sight unseen. And we got very lucky, bought the house and it was big enough that we were able to do all of the things. So being very pregnant at the time, I got home and started getting to work. 00:56 started clearing off land. We've got now honey bees up until I got bit by a tick and contracted alpagel. We had meat rabbits and we have a greenhouse going up right now. And then we've also got a bunch of like bushes and plants and things like that. Rather than invasive species that were planted here, I went through and I dug everything up. 01:23 and I planted more native species like elderberry and blueberries, the blackberries and raspberries and strawberries and things. And you're in Maryland, right? Yes, ma'am. I am in the heart of Southern Maryland. Okay. I thought so. Blueberries. I miss blueberries. I grew up in Maine. Blueberries grew all over my parents one acre property. So when blueberries were in, we were eating blueberries every day for weeks on end. Yes, ma'am. 01:51 Yeah, kind of miss it. We're too far south in Minnesota where I live to have them grow. We've tried. We've tried buying blueberry plants and they just don't do well at all. Okay, so were you military as well? I was. I did 12 years in the service before I got back from my last appointment and I was a little bit too beat up to continue to serve. So I was medically separated. Uh-huh. 02:18 Well, thank you for your service. My stepson was a US Marine for eight years. And he says once a Marine, always a Marine. So I guess he's still a Marine, but he is no longer active duty. He is, he is always a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine is correct. Yep. So, okay. So I also saw something about Mission Believe on or Be Leave on your Facebook page. And I really wanna know what that's about cause I hadn't heard of it. 02:48 So Mission Believe is a nonprofit up in Taney Town, Maryland, and their whole focus is offering different modes of therapies to like military first, military veterans and first responders, police officers and the like. And their whole premise is bee therapy. There's a lot of things that can be said about working with bees. 03:15 there have been studies done to show that the vibrations that they create when they're buzzing is actually calming for like your neural cortex and can actually bring you down out of like panic attacks and anxiety attacks and things like that and help with like PTSD and coping mechanisms and that the vibrations themselves can actually be healing on a deeper level than we ever thought. I know personally for myself 03:45 Bee stings actually help with my arthritis. And there's a lot of information right now that's been going around and a lot of research that's been done to support bee venom therapy for chronic pain sufferers like myself. And what they do is they set first responders, military veterans, whoever has served our community up with a mentor and allows them to work with that mentor for a year learning about bees. 04:14 basic husbandry and then at the end of that season, their mentor will actually gift them their first hive of bees at no cost to the veteran. That is amazing. I love that. I had no idea such a thing existed. I had no idea until I got out here and it's been amazing. I actually raise honey bees for them and go out and catch swarms whenever the opportunity arises and then I donate the bees back to them. 04:43 Okay, so it's mission BEE as in A B leave. So it's BEE leave, but it's BEE leave. Is it national or is it just local to you? It's stationed here local to me. I believe that they are trying to get a larger footprint. There are several other operations that are similar to them in other parts of the country. I don't know if they have grown big enough to operate nationwide, but they are definitely working on it. 05:11 That's fabulous. I hope that they get it to be nationwide because that would help so many people. It probably would not help me because bees raise my anxiety. I'm still mildly afraid of anything that stings. So for me, it would just raise my anxiety, but I also don't have PTSD and I'm not former military and I'm not former law enforcement or fire department or anything. So, so yay, I'm glad that the bees have a different job than just making honey. That's fantastic. 05:41 Yes ma'am, that they

Today I'm talking with Jackie at Acres Away. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Jackie at Acres Away. Good afternoon, Jackie, how are you? Good afternoon, good, how are you doing? Good, so tell me about yourself and what you guys do at Acres Away. So we're just kind of a family hobby farm. My husband and I have always wanted animals. I grew up with animals, he did too. 00:27 And when we had kids and moved to the country, we decided we were gonna, that's what we were going to do. So we bought, um, a house with 10 acres and a barn. And first thing we got was the horses. I grew up with horses, so that was a mandatory, um, and we just kind of expanded from there, had three daughters, and now we've got, um, just about everything you could have on a farm. We've had the horses, we've had pigs, all the birds, turkeys, chickens, ducks, quails. Um. 00:57 goats, we have cows, and I also raise rabbits. Very nice, you have the whole menagerie. The whole thing, I think the only thing we haven't had are alpacas and sheep. And are you interested in doing those or is that just stuff you haven't done? Maybe the alpacas, I do like to crochet, so it would be neat to learn how to spin their fur, their wool, and make my own yarn. 01:24 Same with the sheep, but I haven't heard from some friends that have sheep. I've heard they can be kind of temperamental. So I think for now we'll stick with what we've got and figured, you know, if we don't like something, we'll move on to a new animal. Yeah, that's what we did. We tried doing rabbits and it did not work out very well. So we did that for a year and then decided it really wasn't for us. Yeah. Yeah. I figure you got to try it. You know, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but you got to give it a shot. Yeah. It's funny in the over 01:54 50 interviews I've done since the end of August, the word crochet has not come up and I'm kind of surprised because I like to crochet much better than I like to knit. I hate the sound of knitting needles clicking. And so that's interesting that the word crochet has not come up. That's it's something my aunt, I started crocheting when my aunt was crocheting. I was pregnant with my first daughter. So this would have been 02:22 15 years ago, almost 15 years ago now. And I thought, well, if I can make some cute baby stuff, blankets and whatnot, and then it'd be a good thing to give as gifts, and it kind of took up my time because at the time I was able to stay at home, my husband was full-time in the army, so I was basically at home kind of twiddling my thumbs. And I thought, well, I can learn how to do this, and I'll make stuff, and I've made stuff for friends and sold a little bit, and it's kind of gone by the wayside. 02:48 my husband retired from the army and then I went to work so once I went to work extra time for stuff like that with the animals kind of went away but once in a while I'll still pick up and you know make somebody a hat or make some mittens or a baby blanket if I've got a friend that's having a baby or family so yeah I definitely I could never get quite the hang of knitting my grandmother uh... was she knitted everything she would make hundreds of hats and mittens for 03:14 like local hospitals and churches and things, but I never quite got the hang of the knitting. The crocheting is much easier for me. Yes, I agree. I tried knitting when I was a kid, like maybe 10 years old, because my mom knit, and I could never understand the knit one, purl two thing. I always messed it up. Yep. And with crocheting, once you have it down, once you have the basic stitches down, 03:42 It's really simple and I think it's a great thing to do in the wintertime when it's cold outside and it's dark outside. Yep. I got into it because my kids were small and they would lose their scarves. Yep. And I was like, you know, I could probably just crochet them scarves and that way they have extras when they lose the ones they have. And then I can just make more as they lose those too. And it worked out great. Yep. You always have some extra. 04:09 Yep, and they were little kids, so they loved all of the crazy variegated yarn colors. Mm-hmm, yep. So that made it fun. 04:19 So I just I want to hit on crochet because I hadn't even thought about it until you mentioned it. Okay, so to support your hobby farm, do you guys sell anything that you produce? Not really. I wish we could. It's but it being we're in New York State and they have a lot of regulations about selling meat and and being like USDA certified and 04:47 Even if you're an animal breeder, there's things I was just reading actually yesterday about having some kind of domestic animal permit and the taxes and things. It's really complicated. If I hooked up with somebody who's already doing it, maybe it would be less complicated, but I haven't really found anybody local

Today I'm talking with Katy at Olde Skye Farms. You can follow them on Facebook as well. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Katie at Old Sky Farms. Good morning, Katy. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. Tell me about yourself and Old Sky Farms because I know you have a lot going on right now. We do have a lot going on, but I feel like we're just getting started and don't know where to start, but we're starting. 00:29 Yup. So we have, we moved from Florida almost two years ago to North Carolina. So we went from like 0.26 acres to 23. Nice. And it's been a lot of cleanup and fixing structures and getting things ready for livestock and animals and all of those sorts of things. But we're just now getting into agritourism. Yeah. 00:58 and figuring out how to make that work for us on the farm. We just had our first big event, which was an Easter egg hunt, and that turned out pretty good. We have currently nine Nigerian dwarf goats. Three of them are, well, they're kind of babies. They're almost like teenagers now. And about 30 something. 01:25 adult chickens and then of course it's chick season so we have probably like 20 chicks right now. And the next thing we're adding are Highland cows in May which we're really excited about. How many? Two babies so they're half siblings. Fun. Yeah we're really looking forward to that and the experiences that we could you know open up to people with them. 01:53 Sure. Agrotourism is basically using what you have at your farm to have people come in and see how the farm works or having events at the farm. Yes? Yes. Yeah, exactly. We're still new to it too, but I did join. North Carolina has something called the Agrotourism Networking Association. 02:21 So it's basically farms from all over the state that do all sorts of things like hay rides you pick or just come visit the farm for camp or field trips, things like that. The fun stuff. Yeah, the fun stuff. Okay. Yeah, and that's been a really good resource, especially just starting out. And they had their annual conference in February. And one of the main things learning was just like, 02:51 There can be so many farms, but a family can visit each farm a different weekend and see something like experience something different completely. And just that there's room enough for everybody to succeed. Yeah. Okay, so I know what you were doing this morning because you told me in messages and I saw on Facebook, but can you tell the listeners what you and your husband were up to this morning? Yeah. So we were working on. 03:19 converting what was cropland into pasture. So my husband spent all week using a chain drag in our UTV because we don't have a tractor yet to prep the soil. And this morning we were seeding it also with our UTV and then a hand spreader. So it's going to be a long day. Yeah, so what time were you guys up and at them to do this this morning? Well, I have a 03:46 almost two-year-old daughter. So once my mom came to watch her, we went out. So probably, I mean, we were up around six, but probably got out there around eight. Okay. The reason I ask is because farming and homesteading and ranching, whatever term you want to use, is real work. It's not just, oh, yay, we're having baby cows or we're getting baby cows or, oh, the chicks are cute. 04:12 It's a lot of work when you're doing it. It is a lot of work and yeah, I'm just very thankful for my husband too because it would just be a lot harder. So those that are doing it by themselves, I give them a lot of props. Yeah, I'm not doing it by myself. My husband and my 22-year-old son right this second are outside putting in the, I don't know what they're called. They're like pavers, but they're actually tall and they have an X in the top so that 04:42 put things in that X to make a foundation. Oh, okay, yeah. The wood goes into the Xs and they're beginning the build on our heated greenhouse. I'm so excited. That is exciting. I had listened to one of your previous ones and I heard that you got a grant, which we're also working to try and get a grant for a hoop house to do producing stuff. 05:05 Yep. And hoop houses are great, but I really, really, really wanted a solid greenhouse, if that makes sense. Because we've lost one hoop house to the wind and I was just like, I can't watch another one blow over. I will just cry. And so when I saw that there was a grant available and I told my husband about it, he was like, you should apply for that. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I said, okay, I'm going to apply for it. I didn't have a hope in hell. 05:33 of getting it. I didn't think that we were ready. And apparently they did think we were ready. So they're starting the build today and they were supposed to start it a month ago, but then we got snow. So my husband was like, we're going to be hitting the starting the greenho

Today I'm talking with Lisa at Homesteading and Hungry. You can follow her on Facebook as well. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Lisa at Homesteading in Hungary. Good morning, Lisa, how are you? Good morning, I'm doing well, how about you? I'm great, we have another sunny morning here. I think it's gonna rain tonight, but right now it's beautiful. So tell me about yourself and Homesteading and Hungry. So. 00:29 We just got into homesteading. I mean, I guess it's going on three and a half years now. So I feel it's gone so fast. I feel like we just started, but really we've been doing it for a little bit now. But we first got into homesteading because my husband called me and said, hey, Lise, I bought a farm. Yay. So I decided to make my entire personality. 00:59 And homesteading and Hungry came about because we are a military family. And I was a food blogger and I blogged on my site at the time was called the crunchy sailors wife. And so I would share my recipes there and, you know, just a little bit about our military life. And then when we, I found out we were moving to a farm, I was like, okay, I'm just going to really bloom where I'm planted and embrace this. And so. 01:28 I changed our name to Homesteading and Hungry and started cataloging our adventures there. I love the name. Homesteading and Hungry just made me laugh when I saw it. I was like, that is such a great title. So what do you do? What do you guys do where you are? So we are in the Midlands of South Carolina and we started off with chickens as many do. 01:55 I'd never had a garden before, so we just got started with chickens and gardening. I used to always say that I had a black thumb, and now if I hear anyone say that, I'm like, no, no, no. You don't have a black thumb. You have a green thumb. You just have to cultivate it. You have to find it, but you can do this. I love encouraging people who are like, oh no, I can't do it. One of my favorite things is to get local friends and be like, let's go get you your first plants and get your garden started. 02:21 And I'm still very much a beginning gardener, but I really, really love it. Um, but so we started with chickens and then, um, that really, you know, we're bad at chicken math, so that's really, really fast. Yep. Um, and now we've got goats, we've got chickens, turkeys, goats. We got started with cattle. 02:46 And we thought chicken math was bad, but calculus is a whole nother thing. And so, calculus, calculus. Yes. That, so now we have 11 cows. Oh, wow. And we raise both dairy and beef cows. And we have, I think I said goats, so goats, cows, chickens, turkeys. And we've got a beautiful, sweet, loving livestock guardian dog named Chester. 03:15 And then we've got the worst homesteading dog ever. And his name is Deoshi. Okay, why is he the worst? He's so bad. So if anybody follows me anywhere on social media, they've seen my posts like free dog. I'll put his, you know, I'll just put free dog up there cause he just drives me up the wall. He's a hound. And we had him before we had a homestead. So because he's a hound, he wants to chase everything. He wants to bark at everything. And so... 03:45 He is just like very, very, very obnoxious when it comes to being a homestead dog. And he also loves to just make us crazy. He likes to steal things off the counter. He's a professional counter surfer. He likes to, anything that I'm working on, whether it's inside or outside, he comes, he steals it, he runs away, he's obnoxious, but we love him. 04:10 He's having a hard time growing where he's been planted, I think. Oh my gosh, he is. Yeah. Okay, so back to the black thumb thing. Yes. And when people say, I can't. To me, when I hear I can't, I hear I won't. And if you say I can't, you haven't tried yet. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, well, either that or they've tried and then like not, you know, tried like once. 04:39 and got discouraged and felt bad because they killed the plant and they're just like, I can't do it. So yeah, I agree. Definitely either never tried or just tried once or twice and then gave up when, if they keep going, they'll get it. Yeah. And sometimes they don't. I keep trying to make yeast bread and I kill the yeast every 05:09 is the one who makes the yeast breads, because he just has the magic touch with it. And so for me, I can't do yeast breads, is actually I won't try it again right now. So sometimes I can't, translates to I won't, because I don't really want to do it. Yeah. And other times I can't is I won't, because people are afraid to try. And I hate flying. 05:36 Like I will never be on an airplane again in my life if I can help it. And I have tried, I've been on a plane like three times in my life and I hate it. I cannot get past the anxiety. So when I say I can't fly, I mean, I absolutely will not fly. So, so it's just the way th

Today I'm talking with Beth at Twin Creek Gardens, CSA. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Beth at Twin Creek Garden CSA. Good morning, Beth. How are you today? Good morning. In this beautiful snowy weather, I am wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, have you guys not had a lot of snow this winter? No, it was crazy. Everything was awake. My gardens were beginning to bud, and now we just got a pile, I think almost 17. 00:29 18 inches in the last three days. So I'm a little worried about my lilacs and my other little bushes out there, my blueberries, but hopefully they'll be protected and they'll come through it anyway. This is the first... You're in Superior? Yeah, we're south of Superior, about 10 miles. This is the first big snow we've had all year. Yeah, it feels like Christmas. 00:56 Yeah, we were supposed to get six inches to a foot in this same storm that you guys are getting in Wisconsin. And we ended up with only like a couple inches here. Oh. So I don't know what happened to our Christmas snowstorm. It didn't happen. I'm kind of glad because we were in the same boat as you. Our maple tree has started to flower out and we had onion sprouting and stuff. So I don't know. 01:24 Anyway, tell me about yourself and Twin Creek Gardens, CSA. Well, this is kind of amazing because this is a long dream, long time dream come true in a short amount of time. I actually, for 34 years, was a classroom teacher and a reading specialist in particular. And in working with kids and with literacy and with writing and reading, I always had, you know, 01:54 the desire to have them learn more about who they are as people through what they were reading and writing, not just the ability to read and write. And so my passion for gardening and my love for people and helping the world become a better place, my son calls me the biggest liberal hippie in the world, which I wear as a badge of honor, by the way. You know, and so I've always had this desire to. 02:24 help others find their goal, or reach their goals and find their path to the healthiest life, the best life that they could have. And so I've been having kids listen to podcasts and watch videos in middle school and then write about how that affects them in their thinking and their process of who they wanna become and that kind of thing. And so CSAs have been... 02:51 Um, not very prevalent up here, but I love the idea because my father has always had a garden when I was young, I grew up digging in the dirt. My favorite thing of, of gardening was always the, the digging of the potatoes in October because I knew we were putting the garden to bed then, you know? And so, um, you know, I grew up south of Superior here, just about five miles from where I live right now. And my sweet husband grew up about. 03:19 mile and a half from this house, and we grew up together. We were 10 when we met, and we both loved gardens, we both loved horses, and nature, and just being, we're both country kids, let's put it that way. And we grew up and went our separate ways when you go to school in Superior. If you go to the Catholic school, you kind of lose touch with your friends from the country school. 03:44 And at least that's how it was. And so he went one way, I went the other. And then we met back at high school. We hardly had any friends in common, so we kind of went our separate paths. But he and his first wife loved gardening as well and raised three children in various country homes doing gardening and raising horses. And they had cows for a while. And so very much a farm family. 04:14 after college moved down to the Green Bay, Manitowoc area where I married and had my son. And then when my marriage fell apart, I came running home to the northern woods of Wisconsin. And my parents were still here in Paterson Park at that time. And so cable is where I landed because the school that I found that needed me was Drummond. 04:44 which all these sweet little towns up here are just, it's like going back in time. It's such a beautiful, fresh air. I'll never forget when I came home to do the interview in Drummond and I got out of the car, the air smelled different. I left Green Bay and the big city area, I came home and the trees up here, the air up here, I knew I had to come home. 05:13 We had a kind of randomly meandering here, but we had a school garden at Drummond that I helped organize and participate in. It was actually a high tunnel. And so I fell in love with that kind of gardening because it extended our season so nicely. And so that's kind of building blocks. My cable house had a third of an acre right in town. 05:42 I had a ring of cedar trees around my yard and so gardening in ground was really not possible. The cedar trees had taken over the ground and so it was more of a forest floor. So I learned to garden in raised beds and also in a lot of pots and gr

Today I'm talking with Brie at Honeycutt Hill Farms. You can also follow them on Facebook. 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Brie at Honeycutt Hill Farms. Good morning, Brie. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm great. Tell me about yourself and Honeycutt Hill Farms LLC. Yeah. Well, Honeycutt Hill Farms started in 2022 when we moved across country from Oregon to Tennessee. 00:30 So we kind of moved up into the mountains and had a relative idea of what we wanted to do, what we wanted to provide the community. And we've just been kind of, I guess just moving forward ever since. We do registered kinder goats, poultry and soap. So we make the soap from the goat milk. So that's kind of what our niche has been lately. Nice, what made you go to Tennessee? 00:59 My husband's from North Carolina, so it was a little bit closer to his family and where we were at the time, especially around the 2020, you know, stuff, it was just, it got really expensive, a little, a little crazy at times. And then we didn't really have a lot of family there. So nothing was really holding us there. And actually, my neighbor, we were in the army together and I've known him for about 12 or 13 years. 01:27 He had told me that his neighbor was putting his property up for sale. And so we drove out here, we looked at it, we put in escrow and now we're here. So, um, it was definitely a bit cheaper for us to live and a little bit closer to more family. So it sounds like it was right place, right time. It was. So I think it was definitely, um, what you want to call it, whether it was divine intervention or, um, 01:53 You know, if you manifested it, whatever you want to call it, it was definitely what we needed at the time we needed it. And it just kind of all fell into place. Yeah, we had that happen back in 2020 as well. That's why we now live where we live instead of where we used to live, because we were tired of being in town. So, yeah, like I said, it just kind of got crazy. Like I said, we had moved there. My husband and I met in the army. 02:21 I had gotten out and I was waiting for him to finish his contract and he was trying to finish his bachelor's degree where we were. And that all was fine, but then like I said, once 2020 hit, things just shut down or skyrocketed and we were, you know, starting our family. You know, my son was born in 2016, my daughter in 18, and it just got wild and it just, it wasn't meshing with our way of life anymore. 02:49 Yeah, it's really crazy how COVID changed so many people's lives in so many different ways. Yes, it definitely did. So, you know, whatever side of the fence people were on, I really had no problem with. But it definitely divided people. And, you know, it just really, it was an intense time. And it really, you know, took an emotional toll and a financial toll on a lot of families. 03:17 But it really kind of opened our eyes to say, you know, we really need, you know, more family. We need more community involvement. We need, you know, to be around more like-minded people. And it just wasn't happening where we were. Yeah. And it opened a lot of eyes to the fact that we all needed to be just a little bit more self-sufficient than we were, I think. Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So the first part of the farm was mainly so that we could survive as a family if something happened. 03:46 You know, so I think chickens are the gateway to goats and goats to cows and cows to horses. But first and foremost, it was just making sure that we were self-sufficient enough to survive and help our neighbors and that kind of thing. And so we noticed a need in the community for other things, different types of chickens or meat birds or goat milk soap or a different kind of goat that, we noticed a lot of people moving here as well. 04:15 but they needed something more dual purpose so that they could be self-sufficient. Yeah, so tell, okay, I've talked a lot with a lot of people about goats, but I have not heard about kinder goats yet. So explain to me what kinder goats are. Yeah, so kinder goats happened from a pygmy buck and a Nubian doe. And so when you have a pygmy buck, a registered pygmy buck and a registered Nubian doe, together they make a kinder goat. 04:42 And the kinder is just a dual purpose goat. It is a meat goat and a milk goat. They don't get really tall or really like, you know, overbearing like a boar goat, you know, so they're not really intimidating, but they're good for both. So, you know, if you have a lot of bucks and they're meaty, then you know, you at least you're gonna get something good out of them. But you also, you know, would want enough milk and dairy for at least your family or maybe you and your neighbors. And so they're just a dual purpose goat. They get about... 05:11 I would say no more than maybe 130 140 on the big end and They're easy to mana