A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Sam at Thistle Dew Acres. You can also follow her 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 Sam. This'll do acres. Good morning, Sam. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. Yeah, I actually saw snowflakes. I know, I'm not ready for it. I think the fall spring came and went. Oh, go ahead. Yep, I was just gonna say that. Yep. 00:26 It's you're only half an hour away from me. So you know what this winter has been like in Minnesota. So yes, yes. It's been wild. Yeah. It's been crazy. Um, our, our supplies are being delivered today for our reheated greenhouse that we're going to be building. Oh, that's exciting. So of course they picked the day it's going to snow to bring it. Yep. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do. 00:52 Yeah. Um, so, um, I live, um, on seven and a half acres right now with my husband and our two kiddos. And, um, I live in Jordan, Minnesota. And right now I made the transition to be full time. Um, we call it 10 99 or self-employed. Um, I have a couple of businesses that one is called, um, doll creations. And that's more of like eco-friendly. 01:21 nature-inspired items, things like fabric paper towels or on paper towels as some people call them, crocheting dishcloths, that type of thing. And then I started up Thistle Dew Acres and that's really focused on the homestead that we have. And that one is a food cottage license that I recently got, so I'm making breads and things like that, along with selling our eggs. We have chickens and ducks. 01:50 Then I also have a podcast as well. And that one is called Minnesota Crunchy. So that one's kind of similar to yours. The big difference is I just kind of talk about whatever I feel like talking about as it relates to either holistic approaches to life or foraging, all that fun stuff. So anything that someone might deem crunchy, which is the new word, or we always call it crunchy granola. 02:21 Um, so that's kind of where I go with that. I'm trying to figure out just a work life balance right now with it all. So that's where I'm at right now. But in terms of our homestead, um, for this'll do acres last night, we celebrated the spring equinox by planting our seeds so that we can get them started for our garden this summer. Yeah. My husband planted seeds this past weekend and my kitchen table is covered now with seed starters. 02:50 Yep. Yep. Um, we don't have a lot of great lighting in our house. It was, it's a 1970s house and they just, this, this house just the floor plan and everything is very weird. So I went and got some shelving and we have grow lights now. So I feel really official, finally like doing something like that. So we'll see how this goes for me. Yeah. Um, we have a. 03:16 big long grow light that we hang from our light fixture over our kitchen table. Oh, and the light itself is pink. I didn't know when I ordered it, but it would be pink. So when I get up at four or five in the morning and come downstairs and pop that on, there's windows right behind our kitchen table. And I'm like, you know, 03:36 a sheriff or a police officer is going to drive by and be like, are they growing pot in that house? Right? Well, and now it's legal, so they won't even care anymore. Yeah, it's just funny. And the paint is so creepy. It makes my kitchen look like it has alien lights in it. That's what mine is. It's supposed to be changing, but of course, when I was unpacking everything, I misplaced the remote to change the colors. So it's also, we have a nice bright pink light in our room too. Yeah, it's very bizarre. 04:03 But I'm getting used to it every spring. It's things light in my kitchen for eight weeks. Yep. So yeah. Yeah. So does thistle, thistle, is it thistle dew? Yes. Thistle dew, like a thistle in the forest, and then dew like a dew drop. So we're very much so a honey type people. So we were looking up names. And of course, I had a list of 15 different names. 04:33 start throwing them at my husband and he looks at me and he says, how about this'll do? And I'm like, this will do? And he's like, no, this'll do. And I'm like, I kind of like it. So that's what we did. Yep. We thought about naming our place last resort acres. Oh, I like that too. But we didn't. We kept with the A tiny homestead name. I cannot talk this morning. I'm sorry. It's okay. 05:02 dip thongs today. Okay, so does Thistle Do Acres have a Facebook page or anything yet? Yes, it does. It has a Facebook page. I will slowly end up becoming a person that has TikTok. I have a TikTok for Thistle Do. I have not posted anything yet. So it will have TikTok, Instagram, and it does have a Facebook page. It's Thistle Do Acres. 05:32 and the picture is a thistle. And then I also have my food cottage up in ready for ordering for that as well. And that's through Cast Iron, but the link is also on my

Today I'm talking with Stephanie at Minnesota From Scratch, author of Small-Scale Homesteading: A Sustainable Guide to Gardening, Keeping Chickens, Maple Sugaring, Preserving the Harvest, and More. 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 Stephanie at Minnesota From Scratch. Good morning, Stephanie. How are you today? I'm good. How are you? I'm great. I am so excited to talk with you because I have wanted to write a book like you've written for years and I do not have the patience for it. So I'm so happy you wrote a book. Tell me about yourself and Minnesota From Scratch. 00:30 Alright, well I'm Stephanie Thurow. I have written four books. Three of them are food preservation cookbooks, mostly about water bath canning and fermentation. And then the fourth book that came out a year ago today, actually, I co-authored with a friend, Michelle Bruhn, and it's called Small Scale Homesteading. And I'm a master food preserver, master gardener with Hunnibin County. I teach food preservation classes and heirloom skill classes around the Twin Cities. 01:00 And yeah, I live in the suburbs of Minneapolis and we grow a bunch of food in our front and backyards and I have a small flock of chickens. And we just do whatever we can do from our little piece of land here in the suburbs. Awesome. So your book-aversary is today, March 14th, Pi Day. And I don't always release the... 01:28 podcast in chronological order. So I'm just saying March 14th is when we recorded this. So it is your book-a-versary. Happy book-a-versary. Thank you. Yeah, how exciting. I did not get a copy of the book, but I did go look at your listing on Amazon and looked at the look inside part so I could read some of it. And it's such a great idea to share how 01:58 we can homestead on a small scale. Yeah, thank you. That's, that's how the book idea was born. Um, my coauthor, Michelle Bruhn, she lives in white Bear Lake and I'm in Richfield and we met on Instagram a long time ago, kind of bonding over the things we both do from our homes. And so I'm on an eighth of an acre, but that includes my house, my garage, my driveway. 02:21 You know, people that don't know us in person think we have acres of land based on our photos and like our production and all we do. So yeah, that's what's in the book. We teach everybody to do what we do and how we do it. And we have, you know, varying methods for much of what we do. So it's kind of fun. The feedback has been good that people like these alternate perspectives and methods. You know, we have the same outcome, but we're doing it completely different ways. And you know, that's one big message is that there's no right way to do this. 02:50 It's whatever works for you and whatever you actually enjoy doing. That's what you should focus on. 03:00 Yeah, and I, okay, I don't want to alienate people who aren't doing any kind of homesteading because you don't have to do this. It's, it's not a requirement as a human to grow your own food or cook your own food or raise animals in 2024. It used to be, it used to be a requirement that we 03:25 We're nomads and we would travel the earth and we would eat what we could find to survive. But that's not the world we live in now. Having said that, I'm a huge proponent of growing your own food and cooking your own food and raising animals and trying to be part of nature in some way. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it was never a decision to like do this. It's something that happened naturally over 20 years. 03:55 started with canning. And, you know, it was like, well, now we do this, let's try this. Oh, let's add this on. And it's literally been 20 years of growing. And yeah, absolutely, people don't have to feel like they need to do it. And we're so lucky in Minnesota, we have farmers markets year round and that provide us with, you know, everything we need. So we're so lucky in that way. 04:23 Yeah, and I'm real thankful for the people that go to farmers markets to get local food because we sell at the farmers market in Lesor in the summer. So that helps our bottom line, but we also feel like we're helping our community. So it should be a symbiotic relationship between the grower and the buyer. 04:45 sure. And, you know, people oftentimes can't grow enough at, you know, in their residential home like we have. Like there's no way I could grow enough pickling cucumbers or sometimes I have grown enough tomatoes, but that only happened one year, you know, so we need our farmers. Yeah, absolutely. We did the same thing that you are doing for a long time, for 20 years. We had a tenth of an acre lot. 05:13 with a house and a four car garage on it. And we learned to grow our produce up instead of out, and that gave us more room. Yeah. And we had backyard chickens. We had four chickens for a while. Now we have 18, because we

Today I'm talking with Brittany at The Green Shack. 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 Brittany at the Green Shack. Good morning, Brittany. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. Um, tell me about yourself and the Green Shack. So I am, um, a horticulturist and we started the Green Shack to do, um, landscaping and things. 00:29 Um, and then I found out that I had rheumatoid arthritis and decided that landscaping was probably not a good idea. Yep. We pivoted and are doing more of a hobby arts farm. Um, but we do lots of crafts and birthday parties and, uh, we've got some animals. We've got goats and chickens and ducks and the rabbit. 00:58 and bees and I host Girl Scouts and 4-H and more of a community event kind of thing than landscaping, yes. So you're doing everything. Yeah, a little bit of all of it. Very nice. So I have a question about you being a horticulturalist. Yeah. My former neighbor was too credit shy of being a horticulturalist, like she went to school for it. 01:27 She's my age, she's 54, I think she might be 55 now. And she was saying that she got a lot of pushback from the males in the industry telling her that women didn't do well as horticulturalists. And granted my neighbor was a little tiny lady, she's like 5'5 and maybe 100 pounds spoken with. Did you get any pushback? Because I'm assuming you're not 55. 01:58 So it was a different time. Not 55. I went to school when I was about 30. I did not have any pushback because my teacher was a woman. Nice. And she had been in the industry for 25, 30 years. 02:17 but I didn't feel any kickback from her, I guess. There are... 02:26 There's always men out there that feel that women can't do the things men can or surprised when a woman can do the things men can do. Um, so there have been a couple of boomers that have stated like, wow, you can drive a Bobcat and, oh, you hooked that trailer on yourself. Or like careful that's heavy and it's a 50 pound bag of feed and I throw it over my shoulder and walk away. Um, yeah. Yeah. 02:55 So there's just, there's comments like that, that I think as a woman, we're always going to get. As far as like the science wise, I haven't had any, I haven't had any pushback or weird comments about that. I think, I'm not sure when your friend went to school. I'm assuming it was like right after high school and to college. And I mean, 30, 40 years between that and now. 03:25 there's been a lot more acceptance of women in the science fields. Yeah, I think it was probably a generational thing. Absolutely. 03:37 And I hate to put boomers down, but that's kind of their mentality is more of women are supposed to be in the home and doing cooking and cleaning and stuff. Right. That's just how they grew up and I get it, but we're not there anymore. So no, thank goodness. We're not there anymore. In defense of boomers, my, my parents are boomers and my, my dad, because obviously he's male, um, was very, very pro. 04:06 Go do the thing you want to do with me. Yeah. So, so it's not all of them, but just like the generation before my parents generation, the men tended to be very quiet. They didn't, they weren't very social and they weren't real good about expressing feelings. So we've come a long way, baby. We have. Yes. Okay. So I was reading your story on your website and 04:34 I love how this came about. Can you share about the beginning to now? I guess which part of the beginning do you want me to talk about? Whatever the beginning was on the website. I could look, but I don't remember. Let me look and I'll double check here. Just so I don't move forward or I don't hear them. Yeah, that's fine. While you're looking it up, the way I found you is my mother-in-law actually texted me and she had been doing some... 05:03 some researching for classes and found you guys' website. Well, that's awesome. She said, can you, do you want to see if they want to talk with you? I was like, yes, yes, I do. Thank you. Yeah, I was surprised that you had reached out. It's really, we still haven't gotten a lot of. 05:22 I guess I can't think of the words right now, but for us publicity, publicity marketing. Um, I've gotten some like outstanding things, like things, weird things that are like, I never would have thought that it would be something that we would be a part of. Um, and then other weird things like, or just like local small publication kind of stuff. So, yeah. Let's see here. 05:53 I'm looking to while you're looking, so we're both typing. Just as far as like opening a business, we've always, my husband and I have always kind of wanted to do our own thing. Um, he's a military vet served in Iraq for a little while. And I just, I, we got married pretty much right out of high school and he joined the military and I went to. 06:22 Cosmetology school

Today I'm talking with Connie at Faithful Friends Farm. You can also follow them on Facebook. 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 Connie at Faithful Friends Farm. Good morning, Connie. Good morning, Mary. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day. Yeah, it is here, too. You're in Maryland? Yes, we're in Maryland. OK. All right, well, tell me about yourself and Faithful Friends Farm. 00:28 Okay, so back in 2010, my husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We had just given birth to our second child, my daughter, when he started having all these fluke symptoms and, you know, he finally got a diagnosis of running to doctors, you know, for six to 12 months. They finally diagnosed him with MS. So, um, 00:56 In 2012, we worked our way from having a little garden, and then I wanted chickens. I talked the rest of my family into getting chickens, and it just took off from there. We started selling to customers, and then in 2014, we started offering meat to people, so we started processing chickens. So that's pretty much where... 01:24 It started from, it was from my husband's diagnosis. We wanted to eat healthier and that was just an easy way to do it. You know, the garden and the chickens. Yeah. And again, you are cementing my belief that people do things because they need to make something work for themselves and then it works for them and they want to share it with other people. Yes, exactly. I was, you know, my hands were laying so well. I had all these extra eggs, you know, and I'm like, 01:54 You know what, let me look into getting certified to sell these. You know, so that's what we did. And, you know, I, you know, I just fell in love with my customers and vice versa. And I mean, I've had customers from the beginning that have stuck with me, even with the move, because in 2020 we purchased a larger farm because we had started off on an acre and a half and it just, we outgrew that very quickly. We ended up leasing. 02:22 Uh, about five acres from the farmer who was next door to us, he, he let us lease his woods because he didn't have a use for his woods. And um, you know, it just, it's been step by step. It's been baby steps, but we've gotten to where we are through baby steps. Yeah. And those are the best steps to take because I'm telling you, a humongous leap is the scariest thing you will ever take. 02:50 Yup, yup. And you know, when you have little lives depending on you, you really want to make sure you, you know, you take your time. I know people who jump in to dairy animals right away and I'm like, why don't you just give it a little time? Start off with something smaller because you won't believe how much of a commitment it is just to have lives, you know, even a chicken on your farm. You got to make sure you're home at a certain time, you know, before it gets dark. 03:19 because the predators catch on pretty quickly, you know, you're losing your chickens one by one, you know, so yeah, baby steps are the way to go for sure, at least in my experience. Yeah, we have chickens and we also have coyotes that we hear in the field that around us, like it's a big acreage around us. And every night, as soon as the pole light by our pole barn goes on, 03:48 That's when the chickens get put in because otherwise we won't have any chickens because coyotes would be like, Hey, it's dinner time. Let's eat them. Yup. Exactly. And so it's such a commitment just to have, you know, chickens, you know, I've missed weddings and everything else before we had our guardian dogs. I'm, you know, I, that would be my first recommendation for anyone, you know, starting off with homesteading if they have birds is to get themselves a livestock guardian dog. If. 04:17 you're not sure you can be home at dusk, you know, cause this, yeah, they, like I said, they catch on quickly and then you won't have a flock, you know. Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't even have to be a big dog. We have a small dog and the coyotes have never come on our property because she has her scent all over the property. Yeah. And they don't want to get into scuffle. They want the easy meal. They don't want to have to fight for it, you know. 04:45 Yeah, so it's not like you have to have a great Pyrenees. She's a mini Australian shepherd and she is very good at making sure nothing comes on the property. So, yep, yep. Okay. Did I see that you guys sell? I looked at your Facebook page earlier and I saw some animal that had been butchered and I can't remember what it was. Okay, so we mostly specialize in poultry. Yeah. 05:14 We've started with processing pork and eventually we'll try beef. You know, maybe it was a pig. I can't remember. Okay. It might've been goat too. Um, you know, a lot of people are like, when you tell them you butcher goat, but goats actually very sustainable. You don't ne

Today I'm talking with Tanya about her accidental journey from fledgling homesteader to author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food: A Crop-by-Crop Reference for 62 Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, and Herbs. Also, trap crops, patience, and integrity. Full disclosure, if you buy a copy through the above link, I receive a small commission. 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 Tanya, the author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food. Good afternoon, Tanya. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Yeah, tell me about yourself because I've done some homework and you have accomplished many and great things in your life. I'm sorry, I have to laugh. 00:29 I have had many lives in this life and so I've gone in many different directions. Yeah, so I've wandered all over the place and found a place that I love to be, you know, spiritually and mentally and all of the rest. And so, yeah, I mean, I started. 00:56 After college, I started in international labor rights and then relevant for this podcast and listeners is then I retired at an early age to go and the idea was we were setting up a self-sustaining homestead out in West Virginia. I was supposed to be in charge of managing a large organic farm. 01:25 I knew nothing at all about any of it. And in fact had killed my two peach trees in the backyard in DC and had, you know, had many, many disasters in the garden. And so I thought I really need to get my act together around this. And then, you know, that never really actually happened, but the story around this book is really quite. 01:56 quite unusual in that I didn't set out to write a book at all. I mean, that was not my goal. My goal was just simply to do a good job in managing this organic farm that we envision. And so I just started doing a lot of research, and this is in the days before Google, actually before much internet at all. 02:22 This is way back in the late 80s and when I started down this path. And so the book that's out today is really in some ways, you might even say it's like a classic because it's on its fourth life and it's been updated each time and some things changed and so this and retitled and so this is 02:52 book that is really one of my first babies. I mean, it was born in the late 80s for this homestead that never quite materialized, but basically threw me into sustainable agriculture. And I just... 03:13 You know, was surrounded by magazines and books and was so frustrated that I finally said, I've got to start organizing this material in a way that makes sense to me for what I can do. And I, you know, just felt like, oh my gosh, here's a great thing on pests, but there's nothing on how deep to put the seeds and here's something that's great on allies and companions, but there's nothing on how to harvest. And so it's like, I needed everything in the same place. 03:43 And I didn't know at the time what I was doing. I, today we might call it a kind of a database. You know, I mean, this is really, it feels like, you know, dinosaur time looking back. And so I went out to this, as part of my research, I was going to different farms and I went to this one Yupik organic farm outside of D.C. near Harper's Ferry. 04:12 And they had said, I had asked if I could come and pick their brains. And they said, yes, if you weed. And so I went with a girlfriend and we brought our gloves and we spent a beautiful morning, the entire morning weeding. And so finally midday, you know, we sort of like, you know, sort of slink up to them and like. 04:37 could we possibly get a minute of your time? And they looked at us and said, do you know in all these years of asking people to do that, nobody ever has, you're the first. And they said, nobody's ever actually weeded. And so you get as much time as you'd like, which was a riot. That's awesome. I know, I know it really wasn't, it changed my life because in... 05:03 talking with them and getting to know them, I ended up and they were asking, obviously, well, why do you care? What are you doing? And so I very scared, sort of tentatively shared what we might be aspiring to. And they said, oh my gosh, would you be willing to share what you have put together? And I said, well, yes, but it's... 05:32 It's like a lot. And they said, well, yeah, can you print it out? So this is again, the days of dot matrix printer, you can imagine it was like a box, you know, folded up. And so I did, I took the box out and left it with them. And about a week later, I got a call and they said, oh my gosh, Tanya, we wish we had had this 10 years ago. You would have saved us years of. 06:01 agony and I was like, what? And they said, would you, you need to publish. And I'm like, what? 06:12 And they were quite serious. They said, this is really important and helpful for other people. And I just, my mind kind of exploded. And I t

Today Susanne from North County Marketplace is interviewing me about our place, A Tiny Homestead. You can follow us on Facebook, as well.

Today I'm talking with Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm! Listen to what he has to say about family, farming, and unexpected fame. You can also follow the farm 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. I feel like today's guest needs no introduction. Hi, Joel Salatin, how are you today? I'm doing great, I hope you are, thank you. I am, so tell me about yourself. I did some research, but my guests don't know what I read. So tell me about yourself and Polyface Farm. 00:29 Yeah, so yeah, so our family owns, co-owns Polyface Farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. My parents came here in 1961, bought a property, and Dad was an accountant. Mom was a school teacher. The farm jobs paid for the land. Dad was quite a visionary and an experimenter and did a lot of experimenting with electric fencing, controlled grazing, composting, mobility, portable shade, direct marketing. 00:58 It was basically a glorified homestead, so that when I wanted to come back to the farm full time, September 24, 1982, we had all this wonderful legacy of experiments and land healing things that we knew would work. We just never done it at scale or to really make a salary. And so that's what we started then. And 01:26 It has been fantastic. What a run. We now have about 20, what, 2022 salaries generated from the farm. And we supply some, whatever, seven to 10,000 families here at the farm to market. We deliver, we supply some restaurants, some boutique grocery stores, and we ship nationwide. 01:56 and just have a wonderful team. We're in pastured livestock. So beef, pork, chicken, both meat and eggs, turkeys, rabbits, lamb, duck eggs, and forestry products. We have a sawmill, and so we sell lumber as well. And yeah, it's a great run. It's a beautiful life, it sounds like. 02:19 It also sounds like innovation ran in your genes because your dad created things and you've gone on to create things as well. Yes, when people ask me what's one of your greatest blessings, certainly if not number one within the top two, is the blessing of growing up in a family that embraced being mavericks. I just simply never had a need or a desire to 02:48 to be affirmed and confirmed by other people. The Frank Sinatra song, you know, I did it my way. That was truly mom and dad's, mom was a maverick growing up, dad was a maverick. And so we just, as an entire, the whole family persona was, you know, we don't need the endorsement of others. We don't need their approval. We're going this direction because we believe it's right. 03:16 And boy, is that a liberating, freeing way to live. Yeah, I'm kind of like that. I have very few close friends, and that's partly because I do things the way I do them. And if you want to come along for the ride, please come along, be ready to help, be ready to enjoy it. If you don't, that's fine, too. Yeah, it is. And, you know, I think farming, of course, everybody has a certain amount of peer dependency 03:46 at some level, but I think of all the vocations out there, the different vocations, farming probably is the most, the peer dependency is the most common because farming is a fairly lonely vocation. You spend a lot of time by yourself. And so the desire to be accepted and affirmed by your... 04:15 counterparts by the next door farmer and that next door farmer and the farming community is extremely intense more than other vocations that inherently tend to be more social. And so I think farming has a bit of a disadvantage in this and certainly 04:42 we see that in the conservatism and the reluctance of farmers to try new and different things. Yeah. So I was watching a video this morning that you were talking on, and I don't know if it was a class you were giving or what it was, but you said something about if you are in your mid-50s and considering starting farming or homesteading or anything that... 05:10 Maybe you should think twice or maybe you should have a young person who can help or something. I'm paraphrasing it badly. So tell me what you think about people who are over 50 trying to get into homesteading. Yeah, well, I would I would qualify that a little bit between homesteading and actual farming. You know, one I realize I'm I'm a whatever I'm a friend of homesteading. 05:40 And certainly for our first 20 years here, this was basically a glorified homestead. There was no, this was not a business. It was not a commercial enterprise. It was not generating a salary by any means. And so, you know, a homestead where you're just, you know, a couple three acres, maybe 10 acres, and you're just basically trying to grow as much of your food as you can, you know, then 50s is fine. Probably not ideal, but it's tolerable. 06:09 But if you think that you're going to, in your mid-50s, get a property and become a commercial farmer and make a living at it without a young partner, you're probably kidding yourself. There's jus

Today I'm talking with Josh at Streblow Family Farm. You can also follow him on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Jessica at Barefoot Blossom Farm about creating one-of-a-kind flower bouquets, and dahlias, and peonies, and upcoming 2024 events. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Anna at Rise Bread Company about Sourdough Breads, Focaccia Bread, Pizza dough, and the satisfaction of baking from scratch. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Andrew at St. Croix Valley Hobby Farm. Andrew and his family faced adversity by pulling together after a truly scary event, and have begun a beautiful new future! You can follow them on Facebook as well.

Today I'm talking with Cana at Cedar Shade Farm about goats, and genetics, and the most important things to look for if you're considering raising goats. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Betsy at Summerhill Farm. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Wade River Critters.

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom about ranching, different terminologies in different parts of the country, and why she started her Facebook page (here's a hint - people with good hearts do amazing things!)

Today I'm talking with Tia and Gabriel at Half-a-Barn Farm. You can also follow them on Facebook.https://www.facebook.com/halfabarnfarm

Today I'm talking with Gao at Uprooted Coffee about their Specialty Lao Coffee sourced from Southeast Asia. You can also follow them on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Susanne at North County Marketplace. She is essentially a good food broker, connecting farms to her surrounding friends and neighbors. You can follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Emily at Keiser Family Homestead LLC about the ups and downs of homesteading, homeschooling, peacocks, and sheep. And also, when you have livestock, you will eventually have deadstock. It's all part of it, unfortunately.

Today I'm talking with Jeff Poppen at the Barefoot Farmer about his family legacy of homesteading and his thoughts regarding organic certification versus organic practices. You can follow him on Facebook, and also watch for his book release at Chelsea Green Publishing.

Today I'm talking with Elizabeth Ries. Some of you may know her from Twin Cities Live, but did you also know she loves to garden, and keeps chickens, and cooks?! You can follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Laura at Evergreen&Ink about small business and marketing, especially the KISS formula (Keep It Simple Stupid) if you're just beginning to build and grow your business. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Kimberly at Frosted Cakery. You can follow her on Facebook as well.

Today I'm talking with Crystal at Half Pint Coffee Co.

Today I'm talking with Jim Melvin. He's a talented author, but he's also a steward of the land. He and his wife are working toward their property becoming a seed repository for plants native to their area of South Carolina. You can also follow Jim on Facebook. If you'd like to purchase either of his two young adult books, click on the titles, Do You Believe in Magic and Do You Believe in Monsters. Full disclosure, I'll receive a small commission from your purchase.

Today I'm talking with Jazmyn at Bake Me Happy. You can also follow on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Hayden at Home Grown Collective. You can also follow on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Christine at Gingersnap Vegan Bakery. You can also follow on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Shawna at 7 Anubis Farms LLC about her homestead where she raises Berkshire pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and guinea hens. You can also follow them on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Sophia Eng at Sprinkle With Soil about homesteading, family food traditions, her cookbook, and how homesteading can stress relationships. If you'd like to purchase her cookbook, click on the book title, The Nourishing Asian Kitchen: Nutrient-Dense Recipes for Health and Healing. Full disclosure, I'll receive a small commission from your purchase.

Today I'm talking with Rachel at Minnesota Grown, about what they are, how they help, and what they offer to Minnesota growers (and bakers, and makers).

Today I'm talking with Sadie Willis at the FairShare CSA Coalition. You can also follow on Facebook. "We are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Madison, Wisconsin and serving the Midwest region. Our mission is to support and connect farmers and eaters through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). We envision a future where CSA is the backbone of a strong local food system and where all families have access to locally-produced, organic food from small-scale farms.​​"

Today I'm talking with Dalia Monterroso at Welcome To Chickenlandia about the humble chicken - how she fell in love with them, began raising them, and then wrote a book about how to get started with your own flock. You can also follow her on Facebook. If you'd like to purchase her book, click on the book title, Let's All Keep Chickens!: The Down-to-Earth Guide, with Natural Practices for Healthier Birds and a Happier World. Full disclosure, I'll receive a small commission from your purchase.

Today I'm talking with Christina at Dutch Oven Paws. - Pet treats - Dog bandanas - Catnip toys - Desserts for hoomans - Lots of dog talk

Today I'm talking with Shane at Hendricks Home Goods. You can also follow him on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Anna at Wildflower Farm. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Craig at C bar G Ranch about popcorn. You can follow him on Facebook for more information.

Today I'm talking with Crystal at The Rare Daisy about freeze dried candy, and cocktail and mocktail syrups, but really the ups and downs of starting running a small business. You can also follow on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Kalvin at Fiddlehead Knob about mushrooms. You can follow him on Facebook as well. IMPORTANT!! Never eat a mushroom that hasn't been identified as safe by an expert!

Today I'm talking all things honey and honey bees with Karma at Good Karma Honey & Apothecary LLC.

Today I'm talking with Matt at Sergeant Shortbread about his shortbread cookie business and the Cottage Food Producer Directory he is working on! You can also follow him on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Chris at Happy Jack Homestead about homesteading on a .12 acre lot.

Today I'm talking with Katie at Fredin Acres about Nigerian goats, and her experience with being a 4-H mentor to kids. You can follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Rick at Homegrown Gardens about successes, and where we don't always succeed, there's always room for learning and trying again.

Today I'm talking with Cheryl at Autumn Acres Farm about pumpkins, and sunflowers, and corn, and the Autumn experience at their farm. You can also find them on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Amber Skramstad at Skramtastic Treats about baked goods, cottage food producers, and the magic ingredient! You can also follow her on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Brandon at Triple Silo Meats about their organic meats and their homestead.

Today I'm talking with Aumori at Matter's Farm To Table about maple syrup. You can also follow them on Facebook.

Today I'm talking with Beka at JRK Narratives about how she became a childrens' book author and illustrator.

Today I'm talking with Kelsey at Misty Mountain Homestead.