A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Alisha at Ranch Wife Marketing. You can also follow on Facebook. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Alicia at Ranch Wife Marketing in North Dakota. Good afternoon.  How are you? I'm doing good. How are you doing?  I'm good. How's the weather in South Dakota this afternoon? 00:22 North Dakota, um but it is getting better. We did have a negative 50 wind chills just a day or two ago, but now we're at least above zero. So for us, we can finally go back out in a sweatshirt. Nice. Did I say South Dakota? I swear my brain is not working today. You did. It's okay.  Oh, North Dakota, the one above South Dakota. Jeez. uh In Minnesota today, it is really cold. 00:50 I am looking out my bedroom window at uh the tin roof of the bedroom next to me  and the snow is all sparkly in the sunshine. It's really beautiful, but it's too cold.  Oh yes, I get it. We don't get a ton of snow, not as much as Minnesota.  I was born and raised there, so I know how much snow falls there. We're a little drier,  so we don't have em as much snow, but we do have a little dusting currently. 01:17 Just out of curiosity, where are you in North Dakota? I'm actually on the  North Dakota-South Dakota border. I live about 20 miles from South Dakota. um We live on the Standing Rock  Sioux Reservation um in a small, tiny town called Selfridge. Okay, cool.  Well, for the people who are following along on the podcast about my barn cats, um 01:46 We had a stray barn cat show up here a month ago maybe, and she has been kind of hiding out. She'll come and eat every other day.  And we have three kittens that we got a couple months ago. They're about five months old.  And  today is the first day that I have seen her, seen the stray hanging out with the other kittens in the dog house in the sunshine on the hay bales. And I think she's probably around the same age as the three kittens.  So, 02:14 That was the banner moment of my day was seeing this beautiful tortoiseshell stray cat hanging out with the kittens.  Oh, that's amazing. We have plenty of cats around here, um both indoor and outdoor. I love seeing all the kittens as they grow up in the summer. Yeah, it's really fun. And this cat showed up out of nowhere. I was like, why is there another cat? We don't have six cats.  We have five. 02:42 and my husband happened to get a photo of her and I was like, Oh, I hope she sticks around because she's beautiful. And from my local listeners, we have tons of chicken eggs in our farm stand. Farm stand is heated so the eggs don't freeze and we have lots of eggs in the farm stand for sale every day. So if anybody needs eggs, come on by. And that's it for my updates for my house, my homestead. Alicia, you are 03:11 farmer, but you're also a marketer. So can we talk about both? Yeah. So if my husband listens in, he's going to cringe because we're actually ranchers. worries. Some people call it cattle farming. Some people call it ranching. It's all about where you are in the world. But yeah, so we have a cow-calf ranch. We run about 500 mama cows. 03:37 about 200 heifers. We breed some bulls and sell some bulls as well. And we also have a quarter horse operation. So we have about a hundred horses. We run about a 65 to 75 mare brood band and have about six stallions. So that's kind of our ranch side. Wow. That's a lot. 04:02 Yes. Yeah, it is a larger  ranch. as much as I'd love to do the homesteading thing and like have the garden and all the other little animals,  we have plenty going on that my husband's always like, no,  you don't need to add more to our plate.  Yeah, I wish that my husband understood that concept. He's always like, I want to try this. I want to try that. And I'm like,  I think we need to get good at the first couple of things before we add more in. 04:30 I know. I really want chickens because I love fresh chicken eggs. And he's just like, just go across to our cousins. They have chickens. Honestly, it's easier if you just get them from somebody else. It really is. um We have 18 chickens  and  keeping chickens is not hard. I'm not saying don't get chickens. I'm not telling anyone to not ever get chickens because it's not that hard, but you have to make sure that you have bedding in the wintertime. If you live in a winter state, a Northern tier state, 05:00 And you have to clean out their coop at least once a month, if not twice a month in the warmer months because it gets stinky and that's not a fun environment for them to live in. So if you don't want to deal with chicken poop, don't get chickens.  Yeah, that's definitely a thing. I have had to babysit the chickens across the  way a few times and they are a little bit of work. I think they'd be so fun and my sons, they love the chickens. 05:30 Yeah,  I love watching the chickens. I just don't love going in the coop in August when it's been a really hot day and the coop needs to be cleaned.  And I have to hold my breath for the whole time and they're getting eggs, you know, it's very stinky.  But they are they are gorgeous. Even the most, I don't know, plain Jane chicken like we have, we have the ISA Browns. They're just a reddish brown chicken.  They're really pretty, too. So  I don't know. Chickens are great, but 06:00 I think that you probably have a very nice setup with your cousins across the way to get eggs from. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely does work.  And there's other people in our community that do eggs as well. m I hear one of your kitties in the background.  Yeah. Yeah. Whenever I'm at my desk, she has to be right here with me and she is a old girl. So she likes to complain. Does she help you type? 06:26 She would love to sit right on the laptop the entire time if I let her. Something about the warmth of it. Yeah, we don't have any indoor cats anymore, but we have a dog and she barks in the background. Probably  one out of every three recordings I do.  And sometimes I edit her out and other times just leave her in because we live on a homestead. There's going to be animal noises. Oh no. Yeah, exactly. I have my dogs right beside me too. And if she heard a noise that sounded like a knock, 06:54 She would be extremely loud.  huh. Yeah. Maggie's like that too. The trash truck pulls in the driveway and she loses her mind for the entire time.  I'm like, you know, even if you caught the truck, there was, there's not anything you could do about it. So just stop  and she won't until it pulls out of the driveway. She will not stop barking. And as it's pulling out of the driveway, she does this raw, raw, raw, like, yeah, get out of here. Exactly. sounds. m 07:24 It's very, very funny.  So, um tell me how you got into this marketing thing, because I looked at your website and I know the story, but the listener doesn't know the story. Okay. So, um I originally got into it by doing it for  the ranch. So, my husband is a fourth generation rancher and  we have the Quarter Horse Program, which is where it mainly started and 07:51 They always sold locally and by word of mouth, they got it out and kind of were selling their horses for the last,  they started in like  the mid 1900s. So it's been a long  family operation. And in, you know, 2012, 2014 ish when  Facebook came out,  we started using Facebook to market the horses. And that's kind of when the program blew up. 08:20 We don't do any  modern day bloodlines. We don't show our quarter horses. They're just ranch bred horses.  And when we were able to show them off online using social media and the internet and a website and all the things, um we started selling them all across the U S and now we have even started selling them overseas. 08:45 And when I was working for the farm service agency, before I had my, well, up until right after I had my son, I was always talking with the farmers, the ranchers, the stay at home ranch wives that had smaller businesses or the little businesses in town. And they always struggled to market their stuff. 09:11 like further than just going to the local elevator or the local sale barn or just farmers markets and things like that, especially in such a small rural community where we live. And it was hard to, for them to make side hustles or side businesses really work in such a small community. And they just, you know, always were at awe. Like, how do you guys sell your horses? You know, so 09:39 to so many states and now you've even shipped them overseas or how are you getting your cattle to be hitting the top of the sale barns every time you guys bring them to the  sale barn and most of the time we sell right off the ranch private treaty  because we're able to market and get a good deal where we don't need to take them to a sale barn and give up that commission.  so  kind of, yeah, questions kept coming up and people asking advice and that kind of 10:09 made me want to help people do it  the way that we're doing it. So  I built the business, quit my full-time corporate job with the Farm  Service Agency and started doing this full-time alongside moming and ranching. Yeah, and that moming job is the most important one of the three. Yes. Now we have two boys and it's been uh such a blessing to  not worry about going back to work with my second. 10:39 Yeah,  I imagine it probably has been. I did not ever have a job when my babies were babies, like from the minute they were born until they were at least two and a half.  having the privilege to be a full-time focused mother  is one of the joys of my life. raised three that I birthed and one bonus child. have a stepson.  And that first couple of months home with those babies are my favor

Today I'm talking with Sara at Santa's Crew LLC. Sara and her dad raise reindeer!   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sarah at Santa's Crew LLC in Wisconsin. Good morning, Sarah. How are you? Good and good morning.  How's the weather in Wisconsin this morning? Because it's damn cold in Minnesota.  It's very cold here as well.  Getting through it.  Yeah. um 00:29 I know we shouldn't complain because we had a very long, extended, beautiful fall, but spring can't come soon enough, honestly. Yeah, I don't mind cold weather, but when it's like way, way in the negatives and it causes things to break or have issues, then it's like, okay, now it's maybe a little too cold. Yeah, I am prone to migraines. It runs in my family, and when the temperature drops like this and the air gets dry, 00:56 My head tries to hurt every morning when I get up and I'm like, spring's only a couple months away. I will survive it. Yeah. I would definitely be looking forward to it as well if I were you. Yeah. It's no fun getting up in the morning and you get that little twinge and you're like, okay, so am I going to be down for three days or is this just a few seconds of dry air bothering my nose causing sinus headache? 01:22 It's very frustrating, minor. There are worse things in the world. I'm not worried about it. I just don't enjoy it.  So um Sarah talked with me a week or so ago about their dairy farm  and she let it slip that she and her dad have a reindeer raising endeavor as well. And I was like,  oh, will you come back and talk to me about the reindeer? And she's back. So  how in the heck did you guys get involved in raising reindeer? 01:51 Right? It's not something you're, you know, not very common. uh But our neighbor used to have them.  And  I did go to one of these events one time and, know, it was a lot of fun. I did grow up on a dairy farm. So I grew up around animals and training animals  at, you know, going to the fair. So I was familiar with that.  And 02:12 we found out he was selling and my dad and I kind of talked. It was kind of spontaneous. It wasn't something like we planned. It was just kind of like the opportunity was there  and we're like, let's do it. So we kind of went in partnership. I was 17 at the time.  Um,  and  we started with  two baby calves  and kind of expand from there was a male and female. So they were calves. We showed them that first year. 02:40 And the following year they would be a breeding pair. So then we had to get another female, um, because during the holiday season is when the males are in rut. So you don't want to bring them out because they're very aggressive. So usually people will bring like females or steers. So then we kind of started with three animals within our first two years. And then, um, the third degree added another one. So then we had three females and kinda, oh um, 03:07 went with that and then we had three breeding females. But yeah,  we slowly built it. was, uh yeah, it's very fun. m Reindeer are different than  cattle in some ways. They have their similarities but their differences.  And growing up with dairy cattle, when I got the reindeer, I'm like, oh, reindeer are much quicker and  more nimble than  cows. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun. 03:34 And now we've been doing it since 2016, which is crazy to think that time's flying by that fast. do you have a big herd now? We're at eight right now,  which is a good size. I don't think we'll get  bigger than that um at all. We're pretty with the amount of space we have for them. It seems to work well.  It's enough  animals for like the holiday season. And then we do have some breeding females. 04:04 So we can kind of get calves. We'll keep a few every once in a while and sometimes we'll sell some to people who don't breed or want, you know, new genetics kind of thing. So other people who have reindeer or want to get into it. we had, let's see, last year we had two, but we were expecting four. We're hoping to have four. We had four breeding females. This year we have five that were in breeding. 04:34 with breeding bulls.  And we think the youngest one isn't bred because during the holiday season, we think she was in heat because the steer was kind of trying to jump on her. like,  oh, I think she's having a heat. I don't think that one's pregnant. So maybe we'll have four calves. Like, we'll see. um We'll just have to wait and see. How long is gestation for the babies?  Oh, two. 05:02 Why am I blanking on the exact? uh Let's see, October is typically when hours are bred and then they calve in springtime around April or May. Why? I'm blanking on the number of days right now though.  So like eight, nine months.  Yeah, yes. Yep. Around that. Okay. Awesome. And is it set in stone? They only have babies in the spring? Yes. Yep. Because rut. 05:32 For the males, always, usually the end of August is when it kind of starts.  So it kind of starts around there.  And then they drop their antlers in December or January, which means rut season is done. But we pull the females out of the breeding pen in October because if they get bred any later than that, then they're calving. 05:55 into like late spring and summer and it's really, you know, warm for the baby calves. They usually don't do as well  when it's that warm.  Once they get older, they're really good with like the warmer weather, but it's just the baby calves seem to take it harder, you know, in their first few weeks. So we just don't want to have any late late calves. So we just pull them in October. oh Okay.  I have so many questions for you because I out and did some reading on reindeer this morning and 06:24 Reindeer and caribou are not the same animal. They are cousins. Yes. And reindeer come from Siberia area, right? Yes. Yep. Across seas. They're native over there where caribou are native to North America. Okay. So how did reindeer get to the United States? Do you know? Yes. So, I guess I'll kind of go back and kind of tell people that 06:53 I go to so many events and people say that they're the same thing and they will argue with me and that they think that I'm just  lying, I guess, at like Chris said, that I'm like, am not. are completely like, they're separate animals, but they are close cousins.  They are the same species, but different subspecies. um Because even like national geographic or prominent zoos in the US will wrongly classify these animals, which is kind of why I think. 07:20 people get confused because you can research it and get different things. But they have done research  on the migration patterns of the two of them. they are close cousins, but they are different animals. And reindeer domesticated  have been domesticated where caribou aren't. So  some people will kind of make the comparison. 07:44 to kind of make it a little easier to kind of understand it as like wolves and dogs, like they're close related, one's domesticated. I guess it's kind of a way to put it in perspective in that way. yeah, so reindeer first arrived in Alaska in 1892 by a boat, obviously, because they weren't. 08:10 Unlike Caribou, they were already here because Caribou basically used the land bridge to kind of come over here and then you know, that's how that worked and they were shipped from Siberia. So you're right there. And they ended up having their peak population here for 640,000 of them around the 1930s, but they say there's only roughly 20,000 of them that are in Alaska today. 08:38 I'm not sure we're in Canada. I know there's some hers in Canada, but I don't know exactly what the numbers are over there. Okay.  And  I'm going to be bouncing all over the place because stuff's going to pop in from what I read this morning.  You and your dad raise reindeer to  take them to Christmas things or have people come see them at Christmas, right? Yeah. We travel with them  to all different places. We're in Wisconsin, so we... 09:06 basically stay in Wisconsin because there's enough events to fill the mid November through Christmas. It's a very short window to kind of get to all these places and jam pack it all in. So we do a lot of traveling with them and we do two teams. We started with one trailer and we travel with two at a time because they're herd animals.  they like to be with another one, seem to do better that way. And so we travel with two of them. We bring a whole display pen. We set it all up. 09:34 get, you know,  I'm in there with the, with the reindeer on a, uh, with a lead rope and, know, I'm able to kind of, you know, talk to people, educate them, and they can kind of take photos with the reindeer as well.  Um, and then we just, we added a second team a few years ago because there was just so many  people wanting the same dates.  And so now we travel with two teams on some of the days. So, um 10:00 four animals out at once and my dad will take one team and I'll take the other if we happen to have like double bookings that way. Um, but we will not add a third team. That would be really chaotic and a lot. we're, we're going to kind of two teams is good enough. Okay. And have you guys trained the reindeer to pull a sleigh yet? Not yet, but we have one that we are  hoping  to or working with. Um, it's a steer. 10:27 So he doesn't have the testosterone like an intact bowl, so he won't go into rut or anything like that. And he's like a big puppy.  Your steer is kind of like, you know, even in cattle, your steers are very, very calm, nonchalant.  And he's  bigger than two in size.  And I think he'll be, you know, a really good sleigh puller where the females are usually they should be pregnant du

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farm. Learn about how having a coach can change your perspective.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon farm in Montana  for like the fifth time, I think. Good morning, Morgan. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. Yeah.  What a journey this has been um from Groovy Grazers to Cole Canyon farm to more surprises. feel like 00:26 We have so many pivots you've had to cover, so I can understand why we've been  on quite a bit.  Well, you're also really listenable and you're really fun and I like you so much, so you make it a joy to talk with you. ah Morgan has been,  I don't know how to say it, she found herself a coach. Yeah. And I wanted to talk with Morgan about how that is changing things for her because  I feel like coaches give us perspective. 00:53 That we need that our friends give us so tell me about how that's going Yeah, so we talked a little bit about the last episode. I was like alright. I just did this crazy thing I signed up for a coach, I've never signed up for a coach. I've actually never spent I Would say probably more than two three hundred dollars on continued education for myself, and this is thousands of dollars But it's really important that you invest in yourself just as much as much as you invest in your property right so 01:23 um I do some silver and gold stuff with a friend  and her name is Diane Graber. She has a homesteading thing that she just launched. So I'm going to have you talk to her about Mary because her and her husband have been doing this for well over a decade. Like,  yeah. So  she's coming out into her homesteading area as I was coming into my set, you know, my,  golden silver era. Like I was just learning about it. Right.  And she. 01:52 came into my life about a year ago and she was helping coach me and that was really great, but I just had a lot going on. We covered a lot of what was going on in 2025, know, just lots of pivots changes. And she asked me about, I don't know, two weeks before the class, she was like, hey, jump onto this class, just say yes. It'll change your, change your whole world. I've worked with this woman before in previous adventures that we've done. 02:21 And she's a great person I just reconnected with her after 15 years. So was like, all right, cool. Like I'm, I love meeting people. That's how Mary and I met. If people don't know, she just messaged me on Facebook. Like I love talking to people. So it was one of those things where I was like, fine, I'll jump on. I don't have a problem. It's free, right? Like for me, income  is lower in the winter time. It's kind of a squeeze here in Montana.  And 02:49 So being free was great. It was something I could commit to.  I got on  and a coach is a vibe. Let me tell you, like you  will not vibe with every coach. You will not like what some coaches say. You will think that it doesn't fit your niche, whatever, be it right. Like coaches are, they attract their vibrational group is what I'm gonna say. Like, sorry. uh 03:18 the wind's bad here, you're going to attract the people that need to be around you. So somehow I landed up, landed in this class and I was listening to it and it was about being a millionaire. And I was like, well, don't, I'm not just try, I don't strive to be a millionaire. And it's not that I think that it's unhumble to be a millionaire. It's just like, for me, 250 K a year would be life-changing enough, let alone 500 K in a year, you know, so. 03:46 For me, was like, all right, I may not vibe with as much the millionaire side of this, but  I can get through the whole breakthrough concept of it. So I think there's a lot of like shame around having coaches or being open about having coaches. But there's a reason why in corporate America there's bosses and those bosses have supervisors and supervisors have supervisors. It's a checks and balance because like you were saying, Mary, it's a perspective. 04:16 So I got on, Melanie talked, it was two days. I really liked what she said. I had some really big breakthroughs about throwing spaghetti on the wall. I've said that here on this show before. If you've heard me talk on here before, I've talked about how we love throwing spaghetti at walls. We don't  anymore. And all  throwing spaghetti at the wall does is it either gets butter on the wall or it gets spaghetti sauce on the wall and it makes a mess. Correct. Yeah. So like... 04:43 In the past, was like, I'm just, and I was real honest about it. Like I didn't try and tell anyone we had every, you know, my ducks were not in a pond and we all knew that they were like in everyone's property. Um,  and so  Melanie was like, girlfriend, like you got a lot of potential. You got to lead with your feminine side.  I  grew up  in a home with a first generation American as a mother from Iraq.  And my dad is a Marine. 05:13 So  there was no sugarcoating involved in my household. And so I speak sometimes from the masculine side of life. And sometimes people don't vibrate with that. And she's not saying that you have to be, know, whatever weird version we think women and men should be. It's just to say, you know, she was just saying like, you got a lot to say, use a softer voice, you know, like use my good storytelling voice and I'll capture a lot of people. And like you said earlier,  I have fun talking on these podcasts as much as I do. 05:42 um hearing what people think about my storytelling. My son loves when I tell stories. So, you know, it just naturally makes sense that this would be a calling for me. And, you know, she was like, just kind of pull yourself back in. And had I not done this coaching, to be honest with you, I wouldn't have written my mini gardening guide already. I wouldn't have completed also my full gardening course that I'll be selling this year. 06:12 I wouldn't be getting set up for a website so then I could actually get help because I was paying for Wix and I was paying for the $50 a month program.  And that was great, but I had to do all the work. spent,  Mary, I spent like four or five hours a night, some nights, for weeks on end trying to get Wix to operate the way I wanted it to.  And it's still not operating correctly for Groovy Grazers. 06:39 Yeah, I'm working on the one for the other podcast right now, the Grit and Grace and the Heartland  Agriculture podcast.  And I'm trying to get the social media buttons to work on the theme that I chose and it's not working. I'm probably going to have to look at a different theme. I do it through WordPress.  once you get your website built the way you want it to be, it's plug and play. It's easy. You just update it. But getting them built is a pain in the butt. 07:08 Yeah, which by the way, I'm just gonna blurb in if any of the listeners on this show have not listened to the new one. You gotta go. You should be like running to your search button right now getting that in. Hopefully Mary will link the link below for it. like, yes, you should. Absolutely. Because  I yeah, my son even listened to it with me. Like he was like, Mom, this is great. And like he loves the fact that 2026 is the year of women's agriculture, like 07:37 you know, especially being first generation farmers. that, that was something that you also had completed. So you can understand we're kind of in the same process of like getting something up and going and people don't realize how many hours you put behind this. So all it took, and you're going to be just floored. It took Melanie a 30 minute session with me. That was it.  That's all it takes. Like, 08:05 you don't have to pay for hours and hours and hours of coaching. I'm taking a course that is self-paced and there's like, you know, twice a month Zooms  where we can all meet together. You can watch a replay and I jump on the Zooms because I think it's really important to be present and plugged into what I'm doing, especially if I'm spending a few thousand dollars on it, that it's got to be priority at that point. Or then I feel like I wasted, you know, my own money and 08:33 that came included with it. to,  I am going to get more like one-on-one sessions with her because it was very minimal information that I gave Melanie, cause this is just like an introductory one-on-one, but she told me that  my whole goal has been  since doing  Groovy Grazers was to teach because I find that that's my passion. 09:02 and what I love to do the most.  being able to teach, but just not in my area, but all over and then creating a community, I've have probably been on the soapbox more times than I can count about community being so important and what we do. And so being able to create that was really kind of seamless for me after she explained that I needed to get a Facebook group going, which I did, Built From Dirt Facebook group. 09:29 We have over 400 members and as Melanie said on the master class a few days ago, like we have active members and it's because I'm not just blasting people with just like, I'm not just trying to sell them something. Like I want to build a community and that is my honest mission in doing built from dirt farm school is having a place that we can all bounce. 09:54 bounce off of each other, but then also help elevate each other's businesses because most people that are in the ag industry, like as we all know, you can't have every single type of livestock and excel in any of them. You've got to really kind of hone in on one. So most ag businesses were all kind of like just a few small streamlines that kind of play together income. So, I mean, I've, I, 10:21 personally

Today I'm talking with Addie at Frostbite Family Farm LLC.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Addie at Frostbite Family Farm, LLC in Lonsdale, Minnesota. Good morning, Addie, how are you? Good morning, I'm good, how are you?  I'm good. We're having some really gray weather this morning. We are. It's coming after a lot of sunshine though, so I can't complain. 00:25 Yeah, we're supposed to get snow tonight and I'm kind of hoping we do because the cornfield is looking very bare right now and it looks kind of ugly. So fresh coat of snow would be nice. Yes, we have some livestock and it actually gets harder when things warm up and get a little wet. So the dry snow is always a good thing. Yeah, I was just talking to a dairy farmer. I don't if it was this week or last week, but they were saying that it had been 00:54 like really muddy. And I of course assumed that the cows were out in the field and I said, I hear that wet weather is not good for cows feet.  And he said, oh no, he said, they're in the barn or they're on a dry lot and it's actually dry. He said, they're fine. He said, but yes, it can wreak havoc with their feet. And I was like, okay, cool.  Yeah, that is the difference between large dairies and small ones. So we operate a micro dairy. 01:21 And all of our cows are out in the field. So they have a good space to roam around in, but mud definitely affects them. Yeah. And, okay, I don't want to get too far into dairy stuff because I've interviewed two people about dairies in the last two weeks. But when you say microdairy, how many cows? So right now we have 16 cows. That includes our calves. So we are milking 10 currently twice a day. Okay. And I'm assuming you're not milking 10 cows by hand a day. 01:50 No, we use a surge bucket system. It works really well. My husband and I team up and do it together and it gets done pretty efficiently that way. It kind of keeps it cleaner than hand milking. Yeah. I think the days of hand milking have kind of flown. They've kind of gone away. Unless you just have one cow and you really like milking cows. Right. And even then I'm like, okay, you get a bunch of stuff that kind of flings into it and it's just, they make smaller systems now. 02:20 It's really easy. Okay.  So  I want to know how your farm got its name, because I love the name. Sure. Yeah, that is  always a topic of interest. It's so funny.  We picked that name after we didn't start out farming.  My husband and I got married and lived in an apartment. And I've always had this love of plants and food and good cooking. And  as we had kids, it developed into  including health and 02:50 um eating at home and making things ourselves.  And we sort of realized over time, like, I think we need to look for some land. I think we want to do some of this ourselves. And we began our land search, but at the same time realizing that neither of us had come from agricultural backgrounds. We decided to try to find people locally that were doing what we wanted to do or close  and  get to know them. 03:17 and hear their processes.  And um apples were a big point of interest for me. I love apple trees and  just the amount of food they can supply is amazing.  So  we found an orchardist in Northern Minnesota who was organic for a really long time.  He has this amazing little orchard on acres and acres of planted trees, really well maintained. A lot of them are like the semi-dwarf stock  and we would go visit every year with our little kids. 03:46 It was one of the only organic orchards that we had heard of locally.  It was about a two hour trip for us, so it was always a big event taking the kids.  And  as we had gone over a couple of years, we got to know the owner, and he is incredible  and would give us so much of his time walking around the orchard telling us all about his trees and the ones he was breeding and the different varieties he chose and why. I just... 04:11 I felt like I could just consume that information all day and he was so gracious with his time and he would walk around and show us, this is the triumph apple. It's a new one I'm trialing. You know, taste it. This is what I like about it. This is what I don't like about it. ah And on one of our trips up there, I mean, he was showing us the inside of his buildings and where he would make cider and all of these things and ah he was like, hold on, you got to come with me to the back of the orchard. He's like, my favorite apples are planted back there. 04:41 And as we took the trek back, he was telling us about the frostbite apple. And it was developed in Minnesota.  It's like a great, great grandparent of  Honeycrisp and some of the  original apples  that were planted here in Minnesota. It's this tiny little burgundy apple, and it kind of cracks on the top a lot. It's not really grown commercially because of that. It's not good for shipping. um But it's a dessert apple. 05:11 and he was like, you have to try this. Come over to the tree, like, here's how you pick a really good one. And he just like watched us and you know that's the sign of like a really good, a really good food. He's just like waiting for us to enjoy it. And I remember biting into this apple and thinking I had never tasted anything like this. And you your mind starts thinking back to other ones you've eaten, like the gala apples and things like that, where they're like a little mealy, not a ton of flavor. 05:39 maybe a little dry, and this apple, I mean, it tasted like brown sugar,  just molasses, it had these really complex flavors. uh And I remember just thinking, it crossing my mind that if somebody didn't care enough to plant these varieties that maybe don't ship so well, or maybe oh aren't great for grocery store, they're not perfect, uh I would never have gotten to experience this. 06:05 And it is one of my favorite apples. we, every year we go up there, we get a little box of them and our kids, you know, we all fight over them and we share them with people and  just watch people's faces light up and they go, I've never tried an apple like this. I didn't know they could taste like this. em And so as we were thinking about our farm and what we wanted, what our mission was, what we wanted to do, em the frost by apple kind of came up in our mind. It's like, we want to be the people who cultivate varieties that maybe 06:35 aren't the most popular but still deserve a place in the food landscape.  People should try these in their lifetime. We should not go our whole lives thinking apples are these boring standard  and not let little blemishes stop that.  we do a lot of different fruits and vegetables. 06:56 This last year was our first year at farmers markets  and selling produce direct to consumer and a lot of our vegetables even. love to pick heirloom varieties, weird shapes, weird colors. When we started, all of our ideas rolling and what we wanted to do, this was kind of the theme. And I had a lot of people actually look at me and say, this is not gonna work. People are not going to want a black tomato. They're gonna look at it and say, ew, that's gross. 07:24 We don't want to try that. Give us something, you know, the normal bushel boy tomato. Just stick with the normal varieties and then you'll be successful. And I just, like, you could not force me to grow a normal red tomato. And I've always been like that. I think the colors are so fun. We're losing varieties and people need to care about that. So yeah, just kind of come to that. I love that story. That is so beautiful. 07:53 And I'll tell you a secret, my husband and I have been talking since oh, a few years after we got married about wanting to do the homesteading thing and we're doing it now. We've been married for over 20 years and we bought this place in 2020. the first thing that got planted here was apple trees because we had talked and talked and talked about our dream. 08:20 for years and apple trees were like always at the top of the list. We wanted our own apple trees. So I get it, Addie, believe me. Yes. Yeah, they're so beautiful. They produce so much food.  It's an investment. It takes a lot of time. But we, the property we moved to  has two apple trees. They're a semi dwarf, so they're not super tiny, but they're not super large either.  And I am consistently baffled every year. Like we, my family,  have 08:48 I married and I have four kids and we could not get through all of those apples if we tried. There are so many, they're abundant. You know, we end up finishing our pigs on apples and giving them to the cows and chickens and all of that and selling them and giving them to friends. And it's just amazing how much food  one tree can produce. It is insane. And I have another story about apple trees.  The lady that we got our dog from. 09:17 She lives in Montgomery, Minnesota. Her name is Jean Bratz. I don't know if you're familiar. She has the  Minnesota farmer Facebook page.  Okay.  They raise small scale. They raise steers. They have many Australian shepherds that they breed and they sell the puppies and take incredibly good care of the puppies from when they're born until they go to their new homes because they have seven children.  Sure. So almost every puppy is assigned a kid basically. 09:47 Oh, but  they have apple trees in their backyard,  like many apple trees. And we were over there in the spring one year and all the trees were blooming and all you could smell when you opened the car door and got out in their driveway was apple blossoms.  And she has the the Wolf River apple trees, the great big apples. Oh, sure.  And  I 10:13 keep meaning t

Today I'm talking with Sara and Nick at Day by Day Dairy.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sarah and Nick at Day by Day Dairy  in Wisconsin.  Good morning, guys. How are you? Good and good morning. Good morning. 00:21 How is the weather in Wisconsin? Snowy. um looks like it's all trying to melt today, but it's going to be like 40 today. Yeah. Not a warm spell before it gets cold again, but  never stays cold too long.  I'm your, I'm your neighbor in Minnesota and it's supposed to hit 40 today and 45 tomorrow.  Oh, okay. Yeah. It's, I prefer to stay frozen all winter instead of the thawing and I'm like freezing and muddy mess. 00:51 I'm sure it's not good for the cows feet.  They go out on a concrete this time of year. We have them on a concrete cow yard and the ones there in the tie stall barn, they go in and out. They'll go in and out for a little while, but then we put them back in the tie stall. So yeah, they don't see too much mud this time of year. Try to keep them clean and dry as best as we can with  the weather, you know.  Good, good. 01:15 My husband watches videos of farmers and dairy farmers and cattle, know, steer  meat, meat farmers on YouTube all the time. And he's watching, he's always watching these shows where the  cows' hooves are all messed up from being out on wet pasture. And I'm like, it's so gross. Why do you have to watch these? I, isn't Nate the hoof guy? I watch his videos. He does, he does pasture or  um, hoof trimming. Yeah. He does hoof trimming. 01:44 It heat up pasture  and uh a freestyle barn cows. So it's kind of a mix, but I don't know why it's satisfying. like watching it.  When we let ours out on the pasture, we rotationally graze all of our, all of our heifers. So they're always on fresh grass from probably beginning of May to almost first a week in December, sometimes a second week in November, depending on the weather. And the cows go out in a dry lot that has some. 02:14 green on it, but um just because they have a totally different ration, the milk cows do.  We haven't figured out a way yet  to perfect that intakes that they eat out and out if we do rotational grazing. yeah,  no, definitely, we do get them outside quite a bit when the weather is appropriate.  Good.  All right. So since I knew I was going be talking to you,  there is a song that I learned in school, I think. 02:42 And it's something about day by day, day by day. Oh dear Lord, three things I pray. And I don't know if you guys have ever heard it, but I had to learn it for a musical chorus thing back in probably sixth grade. So it was a long time ago. And so thank you for sending me into the way back machine by your name. And how did you, how did you get your name? Well, we were trying to think of names for a while. 03:09 And I'm like, Oh, what should we do? We had a lot of different like ideas, none of them just felt right. And one morning Nick woke up and he's like, I think, I don't know he said something about taking things day by day or something. Yeah. We're just trying to take it day by day to get to the next day. So then we're like, Hey, day by day dairy.  It just kind of happened. Yeah. It just kind of happened like that.  Awesome.  Um, and also Wisconsin. 03:38 As far as I know, last time I looked it up, which was a few years back,  Wisconsin is the or  pretty much the state for milk production in the United States. Is that right? think California passes us in fluid milk production, but I think we're still number one in cheese. ah I believe California, because they have... Yeah, go ahead.  Is that how you guys got the cheesehead moniker? 04:07 Yes, yes. Yeah, there's like a cheese store. There's so many cheese stores all over.  Yeah. Both proximity.  Yeah.  Oh, yeah. When my husband and I make road trips to go see my folks in Maine, we go through Wisconsin because we drive and there's a uh Dane DeForge exit and there's a cheese shop there.  And the first time we drove to Maine, he was like, we have to stop there. He grew up not far from there. 04:35 Well, he didn't grow up far from there. His family is from there. He grew up in Minnesota, but he used to visit family in Wisconsin.  And he's like, we have to stop there. And I said, why? And he said, because they have the most wonderful Granny Smith wine, Granny Smith Apple wine. He said, and they have chocolate cheese.  And he was raving about this chocolate cheese. And I was like, okay, so is it like fudge? He said, I can't explain it. You just have to try it. And I'm not a fan. 05:05 It is the weirdest like fudgy cheese thing ever and  I it smells like fudge but you bite into it and it's really smooth and and soft like cheese and He gave me a piece. I ate it and I looked at him and I said I'm glad that you like it because it is all yours  Yeah, I don't think I've ever tried chocolate cheese 05:30 Yeah, it's really weird. I mean, if you love fudge and you love hot chocolate, you're going to love this. But I just, couldn't get past the texture of it. we ship our mouth to a cheese plant too. Yeah, a little one. A small one. Yep. Screes. So our mouth goes to cheese. Is that all it goes to? It doesn't go to butter or anything? Well, I mean, some of the cream gets separated out when they're doing 06:00 when they're doing their process to make cheese, but that goes to, that would go to a different creamery. I mean, that's what most cheese plants, and then you, you know, you got your whey products too that come out of some cheese plants when they take out the whey. So I mean, there's a lot of things milk turns into when it gets turned into cheese. Okay. So usually, you know, your whey gets separated out from your milk and your, and your, 06:29 and you usually get some cream and that's on a cheese plant what they end up doing with that because they buy the product off of me. But um there's a lot of different things that milk gets turned into, you know, like your protein powder on your,  your, oh, I can't think protein shakes and stuff like that was where a lot of that way ends up. Okay.  And uh do all your creams, your cream factories take that and turn it into, you know, like your whipped cream and stuff like that. And, but 06:57 Yeah, no, mainly all of our milk here goes for goes for cheese. There's only really off the top of my head. I think one real local fluid milk plant. And when I say local, it's Appleton would be the Lamers that does liquid milk, drinking milk in the in the area. And when I say in the area, that's an hour and a half away. So there ain't too many plants that do drinking milk around here. OK, cool. 07:25 So how did you guys get into this dairy farming? That's a lot. We start way from the beginning. Well, ever since I was a little kid, I grew up on a dairy farm. My dad would have been the... 07:44 fifth generation dairy farmer and I'm sixth.  But he milk cows for a while, him and my mom did, and they ended up changing career paths.  Probably when I was about 14, the cows ended up going and we converted it to like  a beef operation and we calved out our calves,  cow calf operation is what they call it. All your animals freshen in and you raise them through the summer months and. 08:13 Me and my brother would work with them, cows and the calves in the summer months when they're out on pasture. And then every fall we'd sell the calves and put the cows, you know, back in the barn, take care of them all winter, get them bred and do it all over again. And we did that for a little while and I kind of got some steers and stuff through that, but I really just always felt like I was, if I was gonna farm, I was gonna do it as much as I could, as young as I could. And the only way I could feel like I could really do all. 08:41 farm  and get the calf, well was, you know, a milk cow you have 365 days a year and you get milk out of it and a calf where beef cow you only got the calf. And I was a lot more hands on with the dairy industry and I always kind of liked the dairy industry and I always milked for other farmers after my dad got rid of the cows. So, uh, yeah, I just, when I turned about, I think it was 20 years old, I started milking a few cows  and I kind of. 09:10 and renting out a barn. And I got one site that I rent out is where the milk cows is at. And then my home farm is where we do the rotational grazing with the dairy heifers and the dry cows and all of our young stock is at the home farm. And all of our, go ahead. So it's in your blood is what you're telling me. It's pretty much. mean, my grandpa spent a lot of time with me ever since I was real little working on the fields, fixing stuff. I mean, he's really the reason I'm doing what I'm doing. So yeah. 09:41 Do you still absolutely wholeheartedly love it?  Most days, but you know, you have your good and your bad days, I guess, just with anything. Let's put it this way, I've tried probably, I don't know, how many different careers or how many different jobs, and I just always say, I'm just gonna farm.  So I mean, it's just, I don't know, just something I've always probably do for as long as I can. 10:07 Okay. Is the dairy you guys' only job or do either one of you have a jobby job as I call it? So  I also grew up on a dairy farm.  Nick and I met in high school.  So we've been together since then. But once I graduated, then I um ended up working  off the farm  and doing that for a while. And then once we had our kids, we had two kids back to back. They're 11 months apart. So then 10:37 We were like, well, they're only young for, they're only at that young stage for, you know, a short period of time.  And so we

Today I'm talking with Haley at Wilson Dairy Farm MD. You can also follow on Facebook.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Haley at Wilson Dairy Farm in Maryland, I think it is.  Good afternoon, Hayley, how are you? Good afternoon, I'm great. And yes, you're right, we are in Maryland here, Baltimore County. All right,  and you guys  are a dairy farm and 00:27 I've actually been really looking forward to this because I don't talk to people who do dairy. I talk to people who do  cattle for  eating the meat more often. So, uh number one, how's the weather in Maryland today?  Today is absolutely gorgeous. We hit 50 degrees and it's been sunny and just a light breeze and it feels like a nice spring day in January.  Yeah, oh in Minnesota it is pushing 40 degrees. Everything is melting. There's no wind. 00:56 It's sunny, it's gorgeous. It feels like April, not January. Yes, I'll take it though. Yeah, me too, because I figure two weeks from now it'll be minus 20 with a wind chill of minus 40. Exactly, we don't quite get that cold, but anything under 30 degrees is cold for me. Yeah, it definitely gets cold here in Minnesota for sure. 01:21 We had a night last winter that was pushing minus 50 windchill and I thought you know, maybe the northern tier states aren't as much fun as I as I think they are so I bet All right. So tell me about yourself and about your dairy farm because I am so excited to hear your story Sure. So my name is Haley Wilson. I grew up on a commercial dairy farm My dad milked around 220 Holsteins at our biggest 01:50 So we were a small commercial dairy farm because there are a thousand head dairy farms out west. There's much bigger farms than that. for us, that was a lot. We milked 200 cows a day. It was about three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. We had some family trouble over the property about six years ago. My dad's siblings had all left the farm when they were young. 02:15 like a lot of small family farm disputes go, they came back and they wanted their inheritance. we were in a lawsuit during the COVID timeframe between 2018 and 2021. And um because of COVID, we actually never got to see a jury trial. We had a judge who just decided everything. And because my grandfather's notes that said what he wanted to happen with the land were not notarized, he said none of them could be 02:43 admitted as evidence. So we actually ended up losing everything. had around 350 acres. it was all, yeah, it was all gone to my aunt and uncle who live in Virginia. They're not even local. So that was something we went through a couple of years ago that was really heartbreaking. And there were a lot of emotions surrounding the lawsuit, know, anger, frustration, just disappointment all around. My dad really took it hard. 03:09 And  my sister and I kind of felt the weight of the family and we kind of had to figure out how to keep things moving. As far as the dairy cows go, I was able to keep a couple of my nice show animals.  I just kind of took them to different dairy farms around the state of Maryland, actually. People were very generous and would house them for me. Just last year, I found this farm  about 10 minutes away from my home farm where I grew up. 03:33 and the people who own it were renting it out to a family who were moving and I reached out and everything worked out perfectly. I was able to move in last fall. I brought all of my young animals, so like my little calves and my breeding age heifers, no one who's in milk yet. I brought all them home here about a year ago.  And for the last year, I've been working on fixing up the farm  and getting a parlor built. 03:58 When you're going to milk more than just two or three cows, you've really got to have the facility for it. And since I planned on shipping milk grade A to a cooperative, like my dad did, I had to have the facility to match their standards. So I just accomplished that here in November, and I'm shipping milk for 25 cows for the last 60 days. So that's catch up to where I'm at. Is it just you? It's just me. 04:24 Yeah, it's just me. My parents live in a house that they rent down the road. My sister has a little farm she does ag tourism business  with, but I'm the only one that lives here. So whenever I say we, I mean me and the dogs, me  and the animals. We is a me and my animals concept. I um don't have anybody that lives with me or helps me. It's just me. Wow. Haley,  I am so impressed and so proud of you. Thank you. 04:53 That is a lot to take on as one person.  It is definitely a lot. Once I got a routine, know, things have, it's like anything, you know, once you get a system down, it becomes a little bit easier, but there, you know, there's definitely tasks out there that I have to wait until I can call my dad or somebody to swing by and help me. It's just not possible to do some jobs by yourself. So I do my best,  but I do have an intern that sometimes will come down from Penn State when she's on her breaks and she'll help me occasionally.  So. 05:21 People are very generous. Our community being in Baltimore, it is a big city below us, but ultimately the area that I'm in in the county, the community members are great. If I need help  fixing the manure spreader or fixing the tractor, there's people I can call that'll run over and just do me a favor and they'll help me out, which has been life-changing. Yeah, community is so important, especially when it's just one person trying to do what you're doing. Yes,  absolutely, yes. 05:51 I mean, community is important anyway, but boy, you are really fortunate that you have people around you who are more than willing to help. That is fantastic. So how many cows do you have? So I'm currently milking 25. Now with the whole community concept, they're not all my milk cows. I only owned about 13 milk cows. So the other cows are actually from three other neighboring farms who said, hey, this young girl is trying to get started. 06:19 go ahead, you can take a couple of our cows because I have to have enough milk to reach the agitator in my tank. They were willing to give me their money producing asset because they believed in helping a young person get started in the dairy industry. So I actually only own 12, I think it's 13 now, I just had one calf, 13 of my 25. I own them, they're registered in my name, but the other half of my milk cows are actually belonging to neighborhood farms who are trying to help me. 06:47 get my feet under me and get started here. Because the rule is when the milk goes in the tank, you have to have enough milk in it to reach the little agitation stick that's in the tank. And if I didn't ship enough milk, it wouldn't stir and it would create bacteria. So there's lots of regulations around that. So  I own about 13 of my milk cows and then I actually have another 13 of the younger stock, which would be the calves and heifers that are not milking yet. So I own about 30. 07:17 Wow. Oh my God, Haley.  I'm so blown away by everything you've just said. There's a  lot to it and it can be very overwhelming. It should throw at you all at once. So if I have to repeat anything, if you have further questions, feel free to stop me.  No, I just, can't believe how everything is coming together for you to do this. Yes. Nope. I don't believe it some days either, but I have to say I have faith. 07:44 And not just religious faith, but faith in myself, faith in the goodness of the world, faith in just things working out. And I hate to say it, but if I wanted to get this far or to even go further, I have to have that kind of just belief that things will work out because there are days, there are really cold days when equipment won't start or the days where maybe a cow is sick or if I lose a calf, they're really tough. And the only way to get through them for me is to have faith that things will  work out the way they're supposed to. 08:14 Yes,  and things do work out the way they're supposed to. The problem is sometimes the supposed to part isn't the way you wanted it to work out. Very true, very true.  I understand that completely. I've had a lot of those moments in my life, but I'm 56 years old.  I have lived a great life so far and it all does kind of come out in the wash. There's some really terrible things that happen. 08:42 And there's some really fabulous things that happen that offset the terrible things. yeah. Just keep moving. Just keep going. It's all perspective. It really is. Yes, exactly. Wow.  I am just sitting here dumbfounded. I cannot believe all the stars that had to align for you to get where you are. 09:03 Me as well. definitely, this fall as things were coming together, I, you things fell together and people offered, whether it's a manure spreader to borrow or coming to chop the corn. So I'd have feed in my trench for this winter to milk the cows, all those little things. I say little, they're big things, but like you said, everything just fell together so great. I will forever be in debt to lots of people around here. Well, I'm sure that if they needed something, you would be right there for them too. 09:32 Yes, absolutely. Yep, because that's how this works.  You don't receive the kind of blessings that you're receiving on this without giving some back.  Correct. And if you own animals, if there's people who have  homesteads and they have any type of sick livestock where they need medication and it's nine o'clock at night, you're calling your neighbor who maybe also has animals and has something in stock. So that's just how it works when you have animals and have to take care of every

Today I'm talking with Corey at Mystic Roots Homestead - Herbal Simples & Apothecary.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Corey at Mystic Roots Homestead, Herbal, Simples, and Apothecary  in Kentucky. Good morning, Corey. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm good. Good. How's the weather there? It is sunny  and almost in the  50s in South Central Kentucky today. It's really kind of crazy for it being January. 00:29 Yes, I'm in Minnesota. It is going to be 40 and it is sunny and we have about three or four inches of snow on the ground right now. my goodness. I would love for some snow. had a very, very dry Christmas this year. So does it snow in Kentucky? You guys are pretty south, right? It does. I think in 2015 we had, or no, 2014, we had about eight feet here and I'm closer to the Bowling Green area. I was working at 00:58 I was a dispatcher then actually, and we had so much snow that we had to close the interstate down. It was rough that year,  but it does. It's not been bad or equated to a lot in the last few years, but we've kind of been waiting for it. The woolly worms have been telling us it's coming, but it's not showed up.  And the woolly worms lied to me this year. I saw seven different woolly worms and all of them had different stripes. 01:27 different width stripes. And I was like, okay, I need some consistency here, guys. And see, we've been all of the  persimmons have been given a spoons shovels, but we've not seen  it'll probably be here in mid February is when we'll see it. Okay, so for the listener who doesn't understand what we are talking about,  woolly worm caterpillars are are black and like a reddish brown.  And the ends of the caterpillar are black and the middle is brown, I think. And 01:56 The middle band of the caterpillar tells you how long and how hard the winter is going to be.  And all of them I've seen have been different. And the persimmon fruit, if you cut them open,  it looks like a spoon or it looks like a fork, right?  Or a knife. A knife, okay.  if it's  spoon, fork, or knife. Okay, so if it's a spoon, it indicates lots of snow. uh If it's a fork, it indicates what? 02:24 It will, I think it's very mild and then the knife it's going to be frigid. It will like, the knife will be cold enough it'll cut through you. Yeah. So it's a very frigid winter. Fork is very mild, but a shovel, you're supposed to be shoveling through that stuff. And that's what we've had, but we've not had it yet. Yup. I understand the last two winters we've had, not counting this one, we had a foot of snow each winter. That was it.  And the reason that I wanted to clarify what we were talking about is because not everyone is up on their, 02:53 their weather lore. And if you want to learn about it, the old farmer's almanac talks about this stuff all the time. It'll even tell you when to cut your hair. Yes, it will. It will tell you when to breed your cows. It will tell you everything. We do a lot of stuff based off of the almanac and the cycles. We like it and it works that way. They've been doing it that way for hundreds of years. Why would we change it? Yeah, if it works, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't fix it. Exactly. 03:22 All right. So tell me about your homestead and what you do. We started full on homesteading  last year. I've been staying at home for about three years now with the girls  and  I got a few quail and then I got some ducks and I got some chickens  and I started a hatchery.  We wanted to gear more towards sustainability  and 03:51 I had a lot of hormone issues and we had some fertility issues and I started falling in the rabbit hole of herbalism.  And that brought me closer to my spirituality because it allowed me to learn about the land and the things that are provided here that are local that I can forage,  but that also heal my body. And that led us into homesteading and it blew up.  You fell down the rabbit hole. 04:19 Literally with everything Just right in like Alice  Mm-hmm. Yep. Absolutely. That's how it happens. You get sucked in and you and you learn things and you're like what else is there? Yes, and now my family I Usually they come to me for little things. We don't get sick in my house a lot  So they're always like what are you doing? What are you using and I'll be like, well, here's some tea and 04:46 I say community herbalist because I just offer consultations to people now at this point and if they want product,  I just let them have it. And that gets them an entryway into this  and it's an amazing place. It really is. um I am trying so hard to remember  to this spring, get um bird netting over my elderberry plants. Yes. Because they're trees. 05:15 Which means we're gonna have to figure out a way to throw it over the top of the trees and they're at least six feet tall.  I would just grab a ladder  and tie some rocks to the other end of your net so it's heavier when you toss it. Yep. And that will help.  I have a friend that I used to teach with and she has a farm that's about two  minutes from my house  and they have a light. 05:42 Grove of elderberry that's wild and I made four gallons of syrup this summer. Wow. Okay. So  I'm going to ask you because I keep looking it up and I keep thinking I need to make a bookmark and I always forget and have to look it up again.  What do you do with the berries to make it into syrup? Do you put them through a juicer? How do do it? 06:02 You boil them on the stove. There are some people that will make an oxymilk first with apple cider vinegar, which allows it to be more shelf stable.  But what I do is  I put all of the berries into a big pot and I boil that down on a slow cooker for like seven hours.  Some people boil it because you have to  use that heat to break down  the bad chemicals in the elderberry because they have cyanides in them. 06:32 from the seeds. But when you do that, that breaks that down, that heat breaks that down and it makes it tolerable for you to use. Okay. So I don't even know what the inside of an elderberry looks like. Is it a little tiny seed or is it, is it like-  So you know how like blackberries, each blackberry little pod has a seed in it that's about the same size of the berry? Yes. It's about the same. Okay. And then  after it boils down, I run it through a fine mesh strainer, put 07:01 equal part honey to it and refrigerate it. Okay. Can you  okay. So  we have a pressure canner and we have a water bath canner. Can you can it too? You can if you use I believe the shelf stable version. I don't make the shelf stable version so it needs to be refrigerated. So it's only good for about three to four weeks  on um outside of the refrigerator but then it lasts for about six months in refrigerator. 07:30 Okay, so it might be easier just to put it in the refrigerator. Yes, and there are tons of recipes. uh There is the Appalachian Forager. She's from Eastern Kentucky. She's got a big following on Facebook as well. She has a wonderful shelf stable recipe for it.  I've just not tried it yet. Okay, I'll have to look her up too because she might be somebody I want to talk to on the podcast. she was the possum festival queen as well, I believe. She's cool. She is amazing. She's big into fungus and mushrooms. 08:00 So she's, she's who  got me started. found her and I was like, if she can do this, I can do this. She's not far from me. And I, she's,  I, oh, she's amazing. I'm going to have to look her up. Okay. So  I didn't mean to go off on a tangent about elderberries, but every time somebody brings up um foraging, it's the first thing comes into my head and we have been here for five years.  I have not gotten a single elderberry yet because the birds get to them before we do. They are so quick. 08:30 Yep. And they're so quick. And that's why if it's the minute you have to watch them about every single day, the minute that they start ripening, you got to grab them. Yeah. The minute that they're good, grab them. The birds will get them. Cause if you go back the next day, they'll be gone.  Uh huh. Oh yeah. The birds love them. Yes. And it's so funny because I didn't even know we had these two elderberry trees until the second summer we were here. And I was like, I swear that's elderberry. 08:56 And my husband said, okay, we'll look up how to identify it. And I did. And I said, does it have thorns?  And he said,  no. And I said, that's elderberry.  I have a little bush that's growing in like my tree line. It's only ever had like three flowers on it. So it's not really worth breaking anything off of to use for myself. just leave it for the birds to carry around and hopefully they'll spread some more. Yeah. But, um, when I saw it, I saw the flowers and I was like, Oh, what is that? 09:26 And then I learned that it is also  very easily mistaken for em nightshade  and also wild carrot.  like, not nightshade, hemlock. Yes. So hemlock and elderberry and wild carrot all favor a lot. So you have to be very particular, but they're  all larger plants than each other. Like wild carrot looks more like  a wild flower. 09:56 And hemlock grows up to like 10 feet. Yeah. And hemlock has some, has some medicinal properties, but if you're not careful, it'll kill you. Yes,  it will. And it's spreading so much in our area that I've offered to come and pull it  and remove it for people so their kids don't get into it  and things like that. Cause it's dangerous even to touch if you're not careful. Cause it has that powder on it. Yeah. 10:27 So,  yup. Do you guys have wild plum that grows in Kentucky?  We don't. have, um, pawpaw trees  and,  um, I've never fou

Today I'm talking with Tracy at O'Connor Family Acres.  The Soap BeeZZ   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Tracy at O'Connor Family Acres in Le Sueur, Minnesota. It's a hyper local episode. Welcome Tracy, how are you? Hi Mary, thanks for having me. I am doing well today. It seems like it's going to be a little warmer today here, so very excited. And we're supposed to get freezing rain later today too. 00:28 I mean, why wouldn't we? It's Minnesota. So  yeah, it's very gray, but that's why we're warmer. so yeah,  Tracy's been on the show before. It was a little over a year ago. And we talked about that you had just gotten pigs,  mangalitas, mangalitas. Yep.  And um that was the newest thing then. And Tracy has been selling her duck eggs in the summertime, all this past summer. 00:58 at our farm stand, at our place. So it's been kind of fun. Yeah, it's been a great collaboration. I really appreciated the opportunity and it's been nice because we,  springtime and summer, we are  overflowing with duck eggs and then they take the winter off  and  know, hunker down, I guess.  Yeah, about the time they stopped really laying, we had a couple of people stop in and ask if we had duck eggs and I was like, nope, they're on vacation until April. 01:27 It's very true.  they yeah we and you can put heat and light in the coop But we kind of let them follow their natural cycle. That's just you know, the way we've we decided to do it. So Yeah,  when they lay they lay very proficiently and when they don't they don't so You know, so what else is new on the farm in 2025 because I didn't talk to you on the podcast since December of 2024 01:57 Yeah, so we've really just been expanding the goats.  We've had some baby goats this past spring and so they've been doing really well. um Getting kind of a wrangle on what the ideal number of ducks are.  So we've been working on that. And then we had  baby piglets  unexpectedly this fall. I mean, kind of unexpectedly. We knew the boar was in there with her, but... 02:25 We didn't realize she was pregnant. that was a fun uh adventure.  And thankfully, our mama pig, Fiona, her name's Fiona,  has been doing  really well with the piglets. So  we have six  gorgeous little baby piglets running around. How old are they now?  Oh,  they would be about two and a half months. OK. Yeah. 02:53 They were right before Halloween. just, yeah, just over about almost two and a half months. And they are so adorable. Like so adorable. I saw the pictures on Facebook that you posted, but I couldn't tell from the pictures how big they were when they were born. Were they the size of your hand or were they bigger than that? Yeah, they were probably the size of two of my hands, I would say. But they were, I mean, they were teeny teeny. 03:23 um And then of course it was October in Minnesota, so we got to pick them up and bring them in the barn and mama did great with that. She was  not overly thrilled but was not aggressive, which was great. And then  we were able to, after a bit of time, coax her into the barn. um And we had the heat lamp set up in there and  they have a big enough paddock where they can 03:49 go to the other side or come back and be under the heat lamp if they want. And they are just, they're doing super great in there. So yeah, looking forward to figuring out what we're going to do with. So what'll be eight pigs now, two adults. We have the male boar and then the female. And then we have the six piglets and of the six, I think only one is male. So all the rest are female as well too. 04:19 Oh wow. Mm-hmm. Yeah.  Okay. Well, you might be in the market to sell a couple sows in the spring.  Exactly.  Exactly. I don't think they're called sows until they have babies. don't know  what version Yeah, I'd have look. It's... guilt? Are they guilt maybe? Yeah. Yeah,  I think that's right. I don't know. I'd have to Google it and I don't... 04:46 want to make the clicky clacky noises on the keyboard right now. So yeah, no, I feel you. Yes, exactly. And then I've been doing soap. Soap has been my new adventure this year. yeah, tell me the story on how that happened because I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I kind of fell into it, which was awesome. So my neighbor has the soapies is the name of the business. 05:12 um And the soap bees has been around for 20 years, over 20 years. So my neighbor, Anne, who is amazing, um was looking to retire and not do soap anymore. um And  she asked if I would be interested in taking over the business. And so we made some soap together and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. Absolutely, I would do it. So I have a full time jobby job, um you know, so it's really more of a 05:41 you know, a part-time  pay for my hobby kind of job.  You know, maybe make a little extra money, but not, you know, I'm not trying to do it full-time, full-time, but um so I do probably one,  one show a month or so  and um just, you know, direct sales then  and um 06:04 She mentored me for about seven months. made soap together.  I have her recipes, so it's all the same recipes that she's been  using for the last 20 years. um And the soap is amazing. Absolutely love it. And then  I ventured into,  also do, we do a shaving soap puck.  And then  I also ventured into dish soap this year. So I've been making that bar of 06:33 of dish soap. So that's new just in the last couple of months. um So yeah, I was really fortunate to have an amazing mentor  and um you know, she told me the do's and don'ts so I didn't have to learn those on my own through  trial and error, although I've made plenty of trial and error my own self once I was flying solo. So, but it's been good. It's been really good. Good. Have you had a batch Cs on you yet? 07:03 Absolutely. Yes.  Yeah.  It's  not fun at all.  And I just had my first batch  I  made.  So the soap or the shaving soap recipe is less because I put them in the round molds instead of the big square loaf molds. Yeah. And so it's less butters and oils  and  I put in the fragrance for a one tray of the square ones. 07:33 instead of the lesser. And so now I have this chalky,  crumbly soap and I'm like, oh great.  So that batch is  going to get tossed probably. But yeah. hate it when that happens. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I've had a few where, um, so the other thing too is the sense that she was using the company that she went through. I took over the business in January and 08:01 end of January, they went out of business. I was like 90 % of the  sense that she had been using were from that company. And I was like,  okay. So now I've  been kind of trial and erroring, erroring, trial and erroring soaps,  our fragrances. And so that's been a whole process as well too. But I feel like I have a good core group now of 08:27 sense and then I just kind of mix stuff in when I feel like something new. So that's been good. So what are your usual sense that you make? Yeah, the big sellers are, mean, oatmeal, milk and honey hands down is the like best seller and I put ground up oatmeal in there as well too. So it has a little bit of exfoliating action and also it's very soothing for the skin. So I have people who 08:56 have sensitive skin that order, I mean, like 15 bars at a time.  They just love it. And then um Angel Smiles is another big seller for us.  Sweet Rain has been an amazing one.  But I have a lot of the tried and trues. I have a cotton,  I have a eucalyptus, uh lemongrass is my personal all-time favorite.  I love the lemon smell. That's a good one. 09:26 Um, and then I tried a new one this fall called crackling birch. And that one has been a great seller. So that one smells really good too. Nice. Um, Kyle and I have had one batch of soap seized on us and it didn't all the way, but we just, we just went ahead and poured it because it was still pourable, but it was starting to get thick, thick. Yeah. One hadn't poured it and let it cure. 09:54 And it turned out that it was usable, but it was ugly as sin. And so we didn't share it with anybody. We just used it till it was gone, because it was fine. It was just, it just looked wrong. When we sliced it, had like little air bubbles in it. Yeah. Which you're I actually had a batch of eucalyptus that did that.  And the best advice I ever got was  just... 10:19 Basically just sell it. Don't worry about it because at the end of the day people understand that it's handmade and that You know, it's you're not a machine pumping it out. There's imperfections. It's gonna look a little different sometimes um and I was  Honestly, I mean there's times when I've been like, I'm gonna mix these colors and it doesn't work, know, or I'm gonna do I'm gonna make this. Oh, I did um 10:45 I did one for Valentine's Day last year  that was going to be, was the, the fragrance was sensual. So I'm like, oh, that's perfect. I'll do red. It'll be great. Right.  Um, it turned brown.  So I was like, wow, that's  not very sensual.  Um,  so I ended up calling it Woodland Bouquet and it was one of my best sellers. What did it smell like? 11:14 It smelled like woodland flowers basically when I first smelled it and that's the other thing too, which I'm sure you guys know from doing it.  Sometimes what you smell in the bottle when you get it is different  once it mixes with the oils and the lye and you know all the stuff. And so when I opened it, it smelled like, I mean, old lady perfume to me, honestly, like in a not good way.  And I was like, oh no. 11:43 But once it cured through the soap, oh, it smelled so good. It was just like, yep, like walking in and picking a bouquet of woodland flowers. That's what

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. Built From Dirt : Farm School www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farm in Montana.  Morgan's been on the podcast a few times under a different name. So hello, Morgan, how are you? Hello, I'm doing good. Yes, most of your viewers know me as Groovy Grazers, which we're still doing, but... 00:26 We had talked about last time trying to come up with a farm name. And so we finally figured it out and it's coal Canyon farm. So we're super excited to finally have that done after two years.  That's a long time to settle on a permanent name.  Yeah. Yeah. It was hard to name the land. We live in a very unique area. We live in canyons, ah but there is  a Canyon battlefield. We were trying to take on like not your atypical Montana name, you know? 00:55 It definitely fits. We're excited. We got to come up with our brand next. That's going to be a nightmare. guess trying to get your brand registered here can be really hard and there's not very many like single stick brands left. So that's man. I hope that doesn't take two years, but that's next on her on the chopping block. So  I don't know that we have that situation here. When we started our place, we just picked a name, registered it with the state and that was it. 01:21 So the name's okay. I can pick my name without registering that with the state, but I mean, we don't have cattle right now. We have horses um and the sheep don't have to be branded. So it's not like a super big rush, but if I'm going to have horses, especially being in Montana,  going missing is not uncommon or they get out.  Brand, brand, brand. get it. Okay. Brand. It's okay. Yeah. I'm talking like iron brand and like, 01:51 either freeze dry or hot iron brand um because that's like one of the next big things that you do in Montana. You pick a name and then you figure out your brand  and people sell some brands for thousands of dollars if they're a single easy one, but it's only 250 bucks to register with that, I think with the state here. So that's not bad. That's one of the less expensive things  to have to do. Okay. Okay. oh 02:19 because I'm looking at a computer and because I know Facebook, was thinking brand as in brand like, Oh yeah. I mean, your brand is so important though when you're a farm, right? Like that's why I built it through Groovy Grazers, even though we didn't have a name because I was like, well, this is how we're going to operate anyways. Like having some type of grazing or deal going on, whether it be sheep or whatever, I just knew we were going to eventually be a farm face. And so I didn't want to wait on that. So yeah, like if you're a farm and you don't, 02:49 have a Facebook page, you don't have an Instagram.  mean, TikTok is one of those where I'm back and forth on if you really need it, but Facebook and Instagram for sure, or a website. If you don't wanna do social media, it's really hard, you gotta do more advertising and word of mouth, but having a brand is so important, like your colors, the way your logo is, can you put it on items? Like these are all things that people don't even think about, and that's actually why we did Cold Canyon Farm, and we built our, oh 03:18 Facebook group, it's called Built From Dirt Farm School. Because a lot of people, they don't know how to do this. Yeah, I was going to ask you about the farm page too. I didn't do my weather update. what's, I usually open it with how's the weather. So how's the weather in Montana today? Oh man. So I mean, it dropped from like 34 down to one degree last night and we have like a powder. 03:43 that came so like not feet of snow which can happen here but it's just the swings are ridiculous this year it's not good for the animals how's your weather? we are in a blizzard we are officially under a blizzard warning and you can't see to the road from my house and that's about 200 feet whoa look at this dedication though this is what it takes to like do any type of business right to be honest Mary like the fact that you're here still trying to do this is awesome you don't want to get you down 04:11 Oh no, no, no, no. It always makes me laugh when I see blizzard warning because we've had blizzard warnings before and it hasn't really been a blizzard. This is a blizzard. Like this is a for real Minnesota blizzard. And I'm like, this is great. Our house is warm. We're having roast chicken and winter squash and broccoli for dinner. The dog is fine. chickens are all nice and cozy in their coop. We're fine. We're going to ride out to No problem. 04:40 Yeah, when you have that. we went without power like two weeks ago for 36 hours. Oh, I traded which this is awesome about farming to we bartered six goats for a frickin wood stove, dude, like nice. Wait, because we don't have any heat in the house. We just have radiant floor heat, which is propane fed through our instant water heater. But if the power goes out, guess what? It does not work at all. 05:10 So,  you we went 36 hours without heat. Now, granted, was in the  50s, but like right now, it's, I mean, it's probably less than 10 degrees outside.  And  the floors are keeping the house warm and the oil heater is, but if we went without power again, our house would be cold.  So we traded for wood stove. Because then once you're in that position of being self-sufficient, like you guys are with your generator and stuff, then you're like, okay, it's okay. 05:38 uh Everything can burn down outside, but I'm okay right now. It's warm. It's good. We're okay. Yup. I will tell you something funny though. I said to my husband yesterday, I said, if you, need anything from the store, you should probably go now because it is going to be impossible to drive by nine 30 tomorrow morning. And he said,  Oh no, we're fine.  And then he got up this morning, grabbed his coffee and he was like,  I'm going to need to go to the store. And I was like, for what? And he said, sugar, we're almost out. And I said, we have enough sugar. 06:07 to last for at least a day and a half. I said, it's gonna be snowing by the time you're ready to get out. I said, do not, do not go anywhere. It's gonna be bad.  He's like, okay, we'll see. And then it was snowing by 9.30, I think. And  he looked outside and he said,  yeah, I think we have enough sugar to last us. I was like, yeah, I think so too. In that moment when you're like, I told you so.  I didn't say it. I tried really hard. 06:34 to say that out loud because it's really insulting and he gets really offended so I don't say it but I think it really really loud.  Okay so that's the weather update it's blizzarding here it is not blizzarding where you are that's good yeah  and you have all kinds of things going on since I talked to you only like a month or two ago. Yeah pivots right?  Big pivots so tell me. So no more throwing spaghetti at the wall. 07:00 that like, you know, we kind of talked about that last time we were like, we're just gonna kind of throw it and see what works there. And  really just spent like the last month since we talked, making some hard cuts, the goat market is down, sheep market is stable, the cattle market is insane, right? Like it's high, but it's dropping again. And so just trying to figure out like where 07:24 Where do we fit? We're staying at the property. So that helps a lot to write. We know what's going on.  Um, I think the last time we spoke, we had one horse, maybe two horses.  had the fillies. Yeah, we just had, yeah. So we had the new Philly, which is a paint,  um, Betty. And then we had Bambi, my husband's $100 BLS  Philly. And then I traded my six year old gelding, um, with a gentleman who really needed a mount. 07:51 This was before the horse herpes outbreak, EVH, which was turning neurological and killing a bunch of horses within 12 hours.  I traded because one of his horses had passed away, uh my six-year-old gelding for a Kiger Mustang. I have uh three young fillies. One is going to be two this upcoming year.  And then I have the two that are turning one on January 1st. 08:16 Quite the young gang here, which is fine. That's why we were kind of talking about branding in the beginning because I want to make sure if I'm gonna put all this time and money into them I have a marked em as mine  and We came up with farm school. There's a lot of downtime in Montana  and We've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall. So one of the things about Cole Canyon farm is that you should know we're working  Actively on our farm as a family. We're diversified 08:44 farm, so not all of our streams of income come from what we produce. And it's not a hobby farm.  when we last talked, Groovy Grazers is 100 % a hobby farm. It was not making hay. It made half the hay this year that it needed to. I was working my body to death. think  the hustle culture in farming and homesteading needs to stop. You need to work when you're rested and inspired, and you need to 09:14 rest when you're tired, which is hard to say, but in the last month, I've taken three days off  and I have literally transformed our whole farm into what I've been dreaming and kind of alluding to in our last conversations over the few podcasts we've done is that this is what we wanted. We wanted to be able to educate the public ah and build systems from scratch. on  on very low income, I think we see too many Instagram farms where these people 09:44 have made six figures doing something else, now they get to Hobby Farm. That's a Hobby Farm.  A real working farmer is very different. You know, we've talked a

Today I'm talking with Christie author of Moonlight Elk. You can follow on Facebook as well.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Christie Green, the author  of  Moonlight Elk,  One Woman's Hunt for Food and Freedom.  Christie is in New Mexico this morning. How are you, Christie? Good morning. I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. 00:25 You are so welcome and thank you for visiting.  love it when I get to people who are  into nature and also write books about it. um What's the weather like in New Mexico this morning? Well, it's unfortunately very warm and sunny and dry. We've had unseasonably uh mild weather. It's been in the high fifties and we haven't had uh much snow for a number of weeks. So it's really precarious here. It's not good when we don't have snowpack. 00:54 But we're hoping for some form of moisture, at least in the new year. We'll see. I will keep my fingers crossed for you. And I wish I could send you all the rain we got this morning. Oh, man. I do, too. I have a friend up in North Dakota, and they get snow and those cold temperatures. And I wish they could just push it down here. Yeah, it was so weird. I was looking at my Facebook memories, because I look at them every morning, because I sit down with my coffee and scroll through Facebook to find people to talk to. 01:23 looked at my memories and a year or so ago it was raining on this date as well. I'm like, okay, so is December 18th a rain day? Hmm. Yeah, interesting. It seems like it would be too cold up there for rain, but moisture is moisture. Yeah, I'm, I have an appointment tomorrow at 9 45 in the morning, half an hour from here and it's all wet out there. The temps are supposed to drop. 01:50 hard this afternoon and it's supposed to snow a little bit on top of whatever freezes.  And it's not supposed to warm back up until tomorrow afternoon. like, I may not make that appointment. We'll see how the roads are.  Go slow.  Yeah. Making appointments in the Northern tier States in December or January, February is a real  iffy game a lot of the time. 02:15 But it's fine. I love winter. Winter is my favorite. Well, fall is my favorite season, but I love winter because it's when we all kind of cocoon and  get cozy and eat really good food. So that's right. That's right.  All right. So Christy, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.  Well,  I  am  55 years old  and  I am originally from Alaska and now I live in San Diego, New Mexico. I've been here for 02:44 let's see, 28 years or so. And pretty much my whole career as I'm a landscape architect and I'm also an author and a designer and my work revolves around food and cultivating connection to each other and to place through the catalyst of food. And so in my work as a landscape architect, I focused on 03:10 building soil, harvesting water, and growing heirloom varieties of food for  people, like in the homes, but also in larger kind of contexts like housing developments and public spaces. And then I also work with native plants  and um doing like passive water harvesting landform grading techniques like berms on swales and bio-swales and things like that. And then uh I am a hunter. uh 03:39 As some people say, an adult onset hunter, started hunting when I was 40. And the original intent was to harvest my own meat, right? So I was growing all this food for myself and for other people. And I thought, well, what about, you know, meat? Why couldn't I hunt as well, you know, to fully round out this sort of self-sufficient way of gathering food. 04:08 I thought I was going to get food, so to speak, and what I ended up finding was this revelatory new relationship to place  and to myself, really,  through the animals and through the hunt.  So I started writing about  those experiences with the animals here in New Mexico and other places too, but mostly here  in the West with elk and deer and turkey. And these  stories ended up 04:37 becoming this compilation of braided essays and then a whole braid of a book,  which is Moonlight Up, which was published  last September. Very nice. um You said self-revelatory regarding hunting. give me a couple examples of that.  Well,  what I didn't realize, so I'm a mother and at the time my daughter was five  and  I was always, you know, 05:05 responsible and on. Like had to be home, you know, make food, go pick up my daughter from school, you know, attend a business, you know, very scheduled,  loaded life in terms of obligations, you know, and all of those I loved, but em I didn't realize  how  off balance I was in terms of my own unscheduled time and the freedom that that uh 05:33 affords like the feeling of being unencumbered.  And when I went hunting, it was the time I could be wholly  my own self without attending to anybody. And it was actually for lack of a better way of saying it, the time hunting was when I could become my own  animal, I could be as animal me as the animals were themselves. Because, you know, when hunting, you have to kind of become 06:02 that animal and understand how they move, what their habits are, where they're spending time, where they're crossing, all of that. So it was like I got to shed  all of these layers  of the human world and become wholly immersed in the animal world. And when I got a taste of that, I just wanted more and more of it because then I got to actually listen to myself, my own desires, my own inclinations in a way,  you know, like follow my nose. 06:32 And that's just become an essential part of my life that has translated into my regular sort of scheduled at home work life in  knowing how to listen to my body,  listen to my own instincts and follow my own way. 06:50 That is amazing. That's beautiful.  And the one thing that I will say about being a parent, especially being a mom,  is for me, I've  raised four kids, birthed three, have a bonus child from my husband, which is great.  And uh my favorite moments of being a mom, and people are like, I don't know why I would be so bored, but I wasn't bored,  was from the moment I got home with that baby for the first three months when 07:20 when you just cocoon in and you  focus on getting to know this little person that you brought into the world and you attend to them.  And you attend to yourself too, because if you can't be there for you, you can't be there for a baby. But  it's very baby focused and people come to visit  the baby. mean, they'd say they're coming to visit you, but they're coming to see the baby.  It's this very nurturing, very calming, very 07:49 animalistic  experience because  animals are very attentive to their babies. I mean, you don't think that they are because  wild babies are born ready to go, most of them.  But if you watch a mama deer,  she is  very attentive with her fawn.  So the one thing that I will say though is once that baby becomes a toddler,  it is time for mom 08:17 to take some time for her and hopefully sooner than that, but definitely once they start to walk  because you cannot lose yourself in your children.  It's not healthy.  No, it's true. We have to be our own individual selves. And it is interesting like that, those first moments  and days and weeks and months after the birth that 08:46 I feel the same like what you're saying that the clock goes out the door.  It doesn't matter. Any sort of routine doesn't matter because everything revolves around the body and the bodily needs  of that baby. So it is like this  sort of whiplash,  yank into a different world, a different uh realm of that very animalistic child, because the child isn't operating from the mind of 09:16 you know, a rationale of,  what time is it and what am I supposed to be doing? It's all driven by the visceral, by the needs. yeah. Yeah. And the other thing that I want to throw in here really quick, because you hit all the buttons for me with this, um is when you're a new mom, like when you have that first baby,  you have got to ask for help.  I didn't know that. 09:41 I didn't ask for help. was really lucky. I lived in an apartment building and I knew my neighbors.  And my first child was a girl,  the only girl out of the four kids. I was 20 and she was teething and she was having a very hard time with teething and she would cry and scream and cry and scream.  And one of my neighbors knocked on the door and I opened the door and I hadn't slept in three days, you know, up with baby all night.  And she said, can I hold her? 10:11 And I said, she bothering you? I'm really sorry. She was like, no. She said, you need sleep.  She said, she said, has she been fed? I said, yeah. She said, when was she last changed? I said, half an hour ago. She said, okay, I got it from here.  Go lay down, get some sleep.  Your daughter and I are going to get to know each other.  And I was so grateful because it had never occurred to me to ask for help. So anybody out there who's a brand new mom who is drowning, ask for help. People want to help. 10:41 No, it's true. need that community, not respite.  Yes, absolutely. So, sorry, I didn't mean to get all weird about babies, but I don't know, you hit a button this morning for me and I was like, oh, there are things people don't know about having babies that are very important. oh Okay, so I am not a hunter, but my parents both hunt  and I got taught by osmosis how to hunt. 11:10 One of my favorite memories  of the hunting season  is my dad would get up early in the morning and he would get all his stuff. He'd get all his stuff set out at night, but he would pack everything up the next morning really early.  And he would always clean his guns befo

Today I'm talking with Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Joel Salaton at Polyface Farms in Virginia in the United States. Good morning, Joel. How are you? Good morning. I'm very good. Thank you very much. What's the weather like there today? ah Well, last night it was down about 00:29 15 degrees today. I think it's supposed to be a high of maybe 34, 35. And then drop down into 20s tonight. Tomorrow's going to be warm. It's going to be about a high of like 50 tomorrow. So. We're going to be warmer than you are in Minnesota today. It's supposed to hit 45 degrees today. Oh, wow. That's cool. That doesn't happen very often that we're warmer than Virginia. 00:58 Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, uh, it, it's, we, we've been in a really, really cold, I mean, the river's frozen over. It's, uh, we've been in a really cold, uh, cold dip here lately. Yeah. I think the whole United States has been at some point in the last week and a half. It's been, it's been unbearably cold here. And I'm really looking forward to getting back into what we would consider to be temperate degrees here. Um. 01:27 So I saw that Polyphase Farms is closed for the next week or so. Do you guys close for the holidays? Yeah, we do. We close for about two weeks. And that you got to realize much of many of our staff, we have a very, very young staff here. And so often they like to go to family over the holidays and things and New Year. we just, it's just the easiest thing is to just close for two weeks and 01:58 Um, just keep a, you know, keep a kind of a core here to  do chores and feed cows and gather eggs and  kind of hold the ship together, uh, for, for a couple of weeks and let everybody,  uh, just enjoy. And then, and then those people that, put their hands up and say, I'll stay through Christmas. Then obviously they get there. They get there two weeks. One guy already took us two weeks back at Thanksgiving.  And, and then, you know, they, they, they, 02:28 stagger out, you know, through January. you know, usually by the, by mid February, we're back at full staff and up and running, but these two weeks were pretty,  were pretty core. That's fabulous. And it gives you and your wife and your son a chance to maybe spend some time together as a family. Yeah,  some, although  I'm a bit of a scrooge, you know, we've done this all our lives and,  um, the, uh 02:58 The holidays, you know, the work stays. So we end up picking up the slack because we live here. don't have to go  see family. know, we're here.  so we pick up a lot of extra work during the holidays. I'm actually,  what I've started doing in the last few years  is the holidays oh with the crew kind of down to core level. 03:26 and not doing, not biting off any great big projects.  That's when I do my writing. So  yesterday I started on my next book and I'm almost  done with the third chapter. I got two chapters done yesterday. got, em I was trying to get my third one done this morning before this, but I didn't quite get it done. I have to finish after our call here, but  I'm hoping  to get this knocked out here in the next couple of weeks. 03:56 And we'll be up and running. you have a working title yet? Oh yeah. The title is  food emancipation.  Oh,  awesome. Cause we need that real bad right now.  We do. We, we need it desperately.  And, you know, this,  I consider this, told Teresa this morning, this is probably going to be my, my single biggest contribution, I think to the culture.  And  of course she said, well, 04:26 It's taking your whole life to get to this, you know, to get to this point.  but,  uh, this, this, the food freedom, the food freedom, I think is  the biggest issue we've got now agriculturally, oh uh, and, and in the food system.  And, um, so, um, 04:50 I'm really digging into it. I'm excited about it. In fact, I couldn't even sleep last night. got two chapters done  and, um, um, I'm really excited about it and glad to be jumping in. The  big thing with a book, hard part, the hard part is starting.  And, uh, so yesterday when I got that first chapter done, I  was, I say, you know, I was on a roll  and, uh, and now I'm, I'm just really excited about. 05:20 about knocking it out. Yeah, somebody told me a trick once that if you're stuck at the beginning, start in the middle. Like literally just get the words on paper and then you can move it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. So, know, I have an outline, have an outline. And so I've got, you know, kind of the chapter, the chapter ideas, chapter titles,  and, know, they'll, they'll change and they'll morph and things. mean, a book kind of takes on its own. 05:49 Uh, kind of takes on its own, uh,  uh, persona, you know, as you get into it and  new things come to mind and all that. But for me, I find that, that just sitting down and cranking on it and trying to get it knocked out on a couple of weeks, you know, a rough draft at least,  um, is the way to be the most efficient because it's often hard to leave it for a month and come back to it. 06:16 You know, to know, what did I say this that I said, you got to go back and review. I can't remember where I put this in or that in. So, you know, if you just start and just, um, go through, you, it's a lot, it's a lot more efficient. Yeah. And if you stop and come back to it a month later, you've lost some of the momentum and the energy that you had for it. So that's right. So I, there's no, there's no energy like first energy. 06:44 You know, if you've ever written something and then lost it on a computer, you know, hit a button and it all goes away. And you can never, you can never resurrect  the second  writing with the same energy as you did the first one.  No,  it's like new relationship energy. You know, when you meet somebody new and you're just learning about them and you're all excited. 07:09 That's what happens with books and articles. It's amazing. I love it. I used to be a freelance writer and every time I would get into it, I'd start writing, come up for air two hours later and be like, oh, I was in the zone. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Zone.  Love that zone. And I actually would love to get back into writing, but I don't have time right now because I'm too busy  talking to amazing people like you every week. um So I was going to ask you about the whole 07:39 cost of beef situation and the snap benefits fiasco and things are just so heavy right now. I would actually just rather ask you about what where you've been this year, what you've learned, what your favorite parts of the year were. So where have you been? Where have you traveled this year? Oh my goodness. I've been, I've been all over the place. Uh, yeah, I mean, I'm gone. I'm gone. don't know a third of it, a third of the time or more. 08:09 Um,  I've,  I've,  I've do a lot of homestead homestead fairs.  Uh, so, you know, if you want to go around the country, you know, it's, it's, um,  it's a homestead festival in Columbia, Tennessee. That's about, you know, 6,000 people.  And then, uh, then you got,  um, Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. That's Melissa Norris's group. That'll be three or 4,000. 08:37 And you got Ozarks, Ozarks  Homestead Conference with the  folks there. That's, you know, that's another whatever, three or 4,000. um Cheryl is the lady that does all that. Then you, you know, you have the Ohio Food Independence Summit. That's another three or 4,000. You got Homesteaders of America up in Front Royal, Virginia. That's  7,000. 09:07 Uh, these, these homestead fairs are  huge. Then what's happening this year, for the first time, I really noticed it this year is I'm starting to do, um, 10 or 12 homeschooling conferences. It's like the homeschoolers have, have matured to, to move into the edu-, move into the food space beyond the education space. What I think there is that. 09:35 You know, when you, when you try something alternative and you find it soul satisfying, you, you know, you come up from that experience and you say, wow, that was pretty cool. Uh, what else have I been missing? And so these homeschoolers, when they find, uh, homeschooling to be satisfying, uh, they start looking at food, at investment, at recreation, at 10:02 uh, energy, you know, uh, all sorts of things.  And, uh, so I think it's a very, very natural permutation that the homeschoolers are coming to homesteading and, um they're just such a, such a fun bunch and, and I enjoy them a lot. So suddenly that, that has really blown open here in 2025  and,  and it's, it's pretty, it's pretty,  uh, it's pretty different. It's added a tremendous,  a whole new dimension. 10:31 I have a question based off of that. um So are you going to homeschooling conferences or are you going to actually homeschools and talking to the kids too? Oh, no, no, no, no, these are conferences. Okay. I don't do this for free. No, no. uh I go to these conferences and these are state, you know, almost every state has some sort of state homeschool convention.  The biggest one in the nation is Florida. 11:00 The Florida, and they all have different names, Florida Parent Educators, uh FPEA, Florida Parent Educators Association. ah You know, Virginia is a big one, but they're all over. And then there are, are uh overriding groups too. Like, ah they find it here, the great, great homeschool conventions. uh 11:28 those they do about six a year around the country. so, you know, they're big, know, there are thousands and thousands of people and yeah, they're a lot of fun. Awesome. So what have yo

Today I'm talking with Shannon and Allen at Hellfire Homestead.    www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Shannon and Alan at Hellfire Homestead in New Hampshire. Good evening, you guys. How are you? Very good, actually, despite freezing. Is it super cold in New Hampshire right now? Yeah, we could kind of a little, 00:25 cold snap going on so that makes for frozen water bottles and water buckets which is always a nightmare but yeah Minnesota's pretty cold too but not as cold as it's gonna be Saturday the high for Saturday where I live is gonna be minus one oh my gosh  and it's probably coming your way three or four days later so you I've given you a heads up oh 00:50 Yeah, I know it's really hard with livestock because they've got to have fresh water whether you want to go out and break the ice and put water in or not. Yep. And we have quite a few different animals here. Okay. Well, tell me the first question I have is why is it called Hellfire Homestead? So, mean, oddly enough, it was sort of to weed out people that would be turned off by that name. 01:18 I think, and feel free to interrupt me, dear. But I feel that like in recent years, you know, with the influx of TikTok and other various social media, not only is there a lot of information that's absolutely wrong about homesteading, survivalism, bushcraft, et cetera, but a lot of people into it are not multi-generational. And there's a lot of returning to sort of like bad 01:48 Um, bad themes, I guess I should say as far as what we perceive to be gender roles in home setting and things like that on top of,  uh, just a lot of bad information in general, which I mean, as somebody who grew up in New Hampshire and  my family's been out here since the 1700s, um, ah I learned generationally how to can, um, how to keep meat clean.  Um, hunting was big in parts of my family. Um, 02:18 And I just sort of like grew up in the woods, like a wild feral child. ah So,  you know, and then you, you know, you log on to like TikTok and you see like 25 year old kids like canning with, ah you know, jars they got, you know, spaghetti jars they got from the grocery store and saying this is viable. And it's like, no, that will kill you if not ruin your entire harvest. There's a reason our grandparents use ball jars. ah 02:46 So that was part of it. And another part of it is that people are incredibly interested in what it is we do. 02:54 just on the day to day, like they're interested in the farm, they're interested in the fact that we fill our own freezer with our own meat. They're interested in the fact that we do process the hides of the animals that we eat and kill. We have sheep. ah So, some of us being online was to satisfy the curiosity of our friends, but also to kind of counter some of these like... 03:20 these ridiculous ideas that people who are not even generational farmers are starting to promote as good.  Uh huh. Good. I'm glad that you're, you're like standing up for that because you're right. There's a lot of crap  on the internet about what's safe, what isn't, what you can do, what you can't do. And I was grown up the same. I was brought up, sorry, not grown up,  brought up the same way you were Shannon. I spent so much time in the, uh, the woods and the swamp behind my house growing up in Maine. 03:50 And  I'm 56, there were no computers, were no tablets, there were no cell phones.  Mom said, you ate a good breakfast, go play, don't come back till dark. And that's what we did. Yeah, was Gen X. So my parents were basically like, get outside, you're on your own until it starts getting dark. Yeah, me too.  And  I couldn't necessarily do that with my kids when I finally managed to find a husband who wasn't terrible and managed to stay with him. 04:19 and lived in town because there weren't really any woods for them to go play in. So we would take them on the weekends and go hike trails in the area. 04:30 Yeah, my son that way too. we, you know, when I was,  it took a while to get a farm in my first marriage. Um, and we lived in the city. We actually lived in Concord, New Hampshire.  Um, so like keeping that rural, that like, you know, that aspect of like self sustainability was a little bit harder.  Um, but you know, we did things like, you know, from a very young age, he was taught gun safety from a very young age. He was taught at least some of the basics of. 04:58 killing and cleaning your own food.  And then as we got our own farm  with my ex-husband,  we started raising rabbits and doing things like that. So, I mean, that's definitely uh something that he's held onto. And hopefully I can pass on to my grandchildren one day on top of, know,  those future grandkids into 4-H as quickly as possible.  Yeah, I love where your heart is at. I really do. ah 05:26 The other thing that's funny is I'm sitting here listening to you talk about how you grew up. And I didn't know that I was brought up under a homesteading umbrella because my dad heated his house for the wood. My mom and dad both hunted. They both fished. ate bass every summer or every spring.  My dad will not, he does not keep any bass these days. He's 83 years old. If he goes fishing and catches the bass, it's catch and release. 05:55 And the last time I had baked bass, he makes it with stuffing. is amazing. Was when my kid was like six or seven, my youngest, he caught the bass with grandpa. And I said to him, I said, if you catch a bass, talk grampy and bring it home. Cause I want baked bass for dinner. And  my dad got home. We're having baked bass for dinner. And I said, Oh, did you catch one? He said, no, of course I didn't. Your kid caught it.  And I said, Oh, did you bring it home? 06:25 He's like, yeah, cause he wouldn't let me put it back in the water cause mom wanted big baths for dinner.  So, um,  but seriously, I had no idea that my parents were doing anything unusual.  And as soon as I married my third husband, who happened to have a house in a small yard,  we started gardening because you can't eat grass. Yep. Very true.  And he was already a deer hunter. So we had that box checked. 06:54 And we started putting food away and preserving. And I started crocheting and making hats and scarves for the kids. And it was all stuff I grew up with. And now in quotation marks, it's a movement. Yep. For good or ill, I think that the preservation of these homesteading skills and bushcraft and things like that is not only just, you're preserving your heritage as a human being. 07:22 regardless of race, you we all came from the land. But you're also, you know, it's mental health. Because when you realistically look at it throughout human history, industrialization was what only the past, what since 1700, 1600, something like that. So you got to think how did we live for millions of years previously, well, we lived off the land and we lived side by side by animals. So there's a big mental health aspect to that, I think. 07:51 Yeah. And when I, when I said now it's a movement, it might've sounded snarky and I didn't mean for it to sound snarky. I just find it really interesting that the old ways are now the new ways. Yeah. And I'm not against that idea. I mean, I have go.  And the problem that I have with it, I think is that,  um, these movements, because they are popular on social media and they do generate money is that some of the easiest things that you can do when you're, when you're creating these, 08:21 this media is to slide backwards. And I've seen a lot of very detrimental, um, this toward women going back into the quote unquote, trad wife lifestyle. And I have watched a lot of these videos and they're, you know, on the surface, it's like, you know, this, this woman in a dress that looks like it's made out of a 1995, you know, kitchen curtain, you know, dancing around her kitchen, coop and cleaning it out in white sandals. And I'm like, this doesn't happen. 08:50 Like good luck keeping your manicure when you've mucked a sheep stall for like four hours.  So yeah, those are the ones that make me mildly crazy. I'm like, I can't even imagine trying to do that. I mean,  I haven't actually mucked out our chicken coop ever because my husband does it. God love him.  But if I was going to go out there and uh scoop poop. 09:15 I would be in the crappiest, holiest pants I have that I wouldn't be worried about throwing away.  my least favorite shirt, because you're going to get covered in straw or pine shavings  and poop. It's going to happen.  And spider webs and  dead bugs and beans. Of course, the dog is going to interrupt. Oh, that's okay. Maggie barked her head off this morning or yesterday morning when I did an interview with somebody and I was like, I'm sorry. And they were like, that's fine. 09:46 But  I think that um at least what we're going to try to do, we are putting together  some media. We're hoping to get some  videos up by the end of the year. We're just sort of collecting it and doing it in the winter while we have a little bit more time.  It's also to talk about that there's a lot of mistakes that happen in homesteading. It's not all like, oh, I get to go out and play with my cute little sheep and my dogs are frolicking happy and... 10:13 You know, like you do lose an entire litter of rabbits to a mother that, you know, knocks them out of the nest. Uh huh. You know, your sheep does split a hoof and then you have to figure out how to help, help that animal. yeah, break a horn on the wind. Oh my God. A broken horn on the sheet bleeds so terribly. So two of our sheep have four horns. Um, so, know, or, you know, a dog gets sprayed b

Today I'm talking with Marcus at Hope Hill Homestead.  Route 2 Revolution   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Marcus at Hope Hill Homestead in New Hampshire. Good morning, Marcus. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How are you?  I'm good.  I'm very excited to find out what you do, but tell me how the weather is in New Hampshire this morning. Well, when I was dropping my kids off at their little 00:28 uh school, little farm school, little private  Catholic farm school. It was two degrees.  Okay. Is it sunny? it cloudy? What?  It's partly sunny, cloudy. Okay. so, but there's some snow on the ground and everything is frozen here. um It is, I think it's 22 degrees outside here. 00:56 In Minnesota, it's very overcast. Our yard light, we live on three acres, so we have a light that lights up the door yard at night. It was still on at 7.30 this morning and the sun was supposed to be up. I was like, oh, it is very overcast. And they are predicting rain this afternoon. Oh no. So you're going have some hard driving conditions pretty soon. Yes. And my husband actually has an appointment at two. So I was like, please be careful when you go. 01:26 True. Yeah, I don't love it when the weather does this flip floppy thing because it's been really, really cold here and we've had snow at least a trace every day for over a week and now it's going to rain. Yeah, it just makes a big mess. yeah, we did the driveway and like, for example, I had an oil truck try to come deliver oil to me and we burn wood and we have like oil as a backup and sometimes if the fireplace goes out, the stove goes out in the night, then you... 01:55 the heat kicks back on and I wanted to make sure I had the oil tank full because we live up on  a dirt road, a driveway is a dirt road  that goes up pretty  steep and uh at some points the oil company will say we  won't even attempt to go up your driveway because it's dangerous. uh yeah, yesterday he tried to, a few days ago they tried to get up, they couldn't make it up and I'm like, oh please God, please let them help him get up and then they came today and he delivered it. So now we're, hopefully we're set for the winter. 02:25 because it's really important when you live on a homestead, as we all know who do. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at your place. Yeah, so we live on, me and my wife and my four kids, live on 10 acres and we have some sheep and we have some chicken and I also from home, I'm a work at home parent here and I 02:54 I make furniture, but I also make  like little A-frame cabins and greenhouses. That's primarily what I do now. I make these kind of these smaller concept cabin structures that people use for like Airbnb or just for,  you know, their backyard sleeping cabins or whatever. Yeah.  And as far as like the homesteading part, we just started milking some sheep this last spring, the first time we milked. um 03:24 That's been interesting and we made cheese. We were in the process of trying to become more self-sufficient, but as you know, you got to take little steps and sometimes with every two steps you take, you take one step back. Yes, you do. Sometimes you don't even go forward again. We did that with rabbits. 03:48 We're not doing rabbits again, I don't think. We keep talking about it, but I don't think we're gonna do it again. just not, it is not worth the return for us. So with the sheep, I already knew that you could milk sheep, but are they good with that or do you have to like train them to be okay Well, you know, there's a couple breeds that are very good milkers. So we have some East Phrasians and 04:14 The East Fraser's sheeps, can produce up to a couple gallons each one a day.  And a lot of people don't know that about um sheep that you can  milk them.  we love our sheep and we've had sheep for the last,  well, we had to get rid of our herd a few years ago because we just didn't have enough pasture and it was getting too expensive  and we had young kids and it all together was hard. so we... um 04:43 We got rid of our sheep and our goats for a little bit. And then we just had the chance to get back the same sheep that we got rid of, returned to us um because they had young children. They couldn't take care of them.  And luckily they were, one of them was in milk.  And uh so we just kept on milking and it was fantastic. And sheep's milk, if anybody has tried goat milk, there's a little bit of a taste with goat milk. It doesn't taste like cow's milk, but sheep's milk. 05:11 actually taste just like cow's milk, I would say even better than cow's milk. And it's actually better for you. It has a higher protein content. It's got a higher fat content. It's a higher vitamin and mineral content. And yeah, they're easy. Awesome. I know nothing about it, so I thought I would take the opportunity to ask. So what brought you to this lifestyle? Oh, man. mean, the simple lifestyle in the country, even though it's 05:41 It's simple, there's a lot of hard work, but there's a reward. right, so I think a lot of homesteaders do it because of what they get out of it. Not just because they think they're gonna be able to completely live off the land.  It's like you realize you're sacrificing some time, but the returns you get by the process of homesteading. So having like two young boys, I wanted them to uh kind of grow up. 06:11 having farm chores, being around animals,  and choosing just  that lifestyle, which seems so nostalgic  to the modern busy life that we're kind of living now. It just allows you to be home more, um enjoy the company of animals,  and enjoy  that work that goes into it. um So I think this altogether is for, yes, to have kind of 06:40 safety net if shit ever hits the fan, know, to be able to produce milk and have eggs. But also just for the experience of it and just for  the love  of the lifestyle.  Absolutely could not agree more. And sometimes you get to hang out with the neighbor's animals too. Just before we signed in to talk to each other,  our neighbor's dog showed up on our property. We have not actually met her before. Her name is Shy. 07:09 She is some kind of  Labrador retriever and she's very, very red. She's almost the red of a deer. Yeah. And we have a mini Australian shepherd  and apparently Shy showed up and our shepherd decided to say hello  and uh my son brought our dog in and my dog was losing her mind. So it's a good thing that we couldn't get together till  the time we signed in because I wouldn't have been able to talk until she stopped barking. Right. Yeah. I love that. uh 07:38 about getting the random visitors from the neighbors or other wild animals that  come around and the reactions of the animals are always fun. Yeah, she's a very friendly dog. I was like, hello, beautiful girl. And she came right over to the window because I was on my porch and put her paws up to say hi. That's funny because sometimes you hear them. You know you have the neighbor, the dog's neighbor. And then  every once in while, they come over to visit. you're like, OK, that's where the barking's coming from. 08:03 Yes, and if it wasn't icy, it's all hell out there. I would have gone out and said hello, but I don't want to break a hip. I would really rather not.  But she said hello through the window. And when she shows up this spring, because she inevitably will, I will have to just love on her then when it's not so scary outside. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I love dogs. I was not a dog person until we got our dog as a puppy. 08:26 And now I'm like, oh, look at the good boy. Oh, look at the good girl. And my husband's like, oh my God, you are the most converted woman ever to dogs. It's so funny. Me and my wife, we've gone back and forth with having dogs. We've tried having a couple of dogs. And she says, oh, you're just not a dog person. I do love dogs. I love dogs. But they're also a lot of work. And it's like having another child.  It absolutely is. And it will break your heart when they're not feeling well. 08:53 or if they die early, our dog has a very sensitive stomach and when she doesn't feel good, I just want to fix it and I can't. And it makes my heart hurt like it did when my kids were little. So yes, it's just like having another kid. And it's funny because like we just got this new cat and I was reluctantly holding off, but you know, we had, we want to get rid of, know, there's some mice around here and there. So I'm like, all right, so I can. 09:19 I can go, my little boys really wanted to have a cat. I'm like, all right, we'll get the cat. And now I'm totally all in and now I understand. I see my friends who have their dogs, they love their dogs so much. And me and my wife would be sitting in our bed talking about our kids. I would always say her, I bet you our friends are just laying in bed talking about their pets before they go to bed. And now we do the same with the cat. And the cat sleeps between us and kind of. 09:47 her's us to sleep, you know, and, and, no, it is, it is a wonderful symbiotic relationship, isn't it?  It really is.  I  don't know that I want another dog once ours is no longer with us. I don't know that I have the energy  for another one. I'm 56. We've probably got another six years with her. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, maybe a house cat next time.  It's a lot of work and responsibility and cost. 10:15 And so you have to weigh it, right? Cost benefit.  so we tried this dog and it was just, was going to the road all the time and we're so far up the driveway.  have no neighbors around us, but um it would find a way to get to the road and it kep

Today I'm talking with Christeen at Rustic Haven Homestead. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. 00:12 Today I'm talking with Christine at Rustic Haven Homestead in Washington State. Good morning, Christine. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm doing great.  I'm good. I'm good.  I'm good. oh What is the weather like there? 00:30 Right now  it's eight o'clock in the morning, so we're just getting our day started and it's super foggy and trying to rain. 00:40 That sounds about right for Washington state.  Yes.  Well, in Minnesota, it is bright and sunshiny. We got a little bit of snow overnight on top of the snow we got over the weekend.  So it's very shiny outside because the snow is reflecting the sunlight. It's beautiful out. I love that. I can't wait for it to snow, but we still have a few more weeks of rain. Yeah, when. 01:05 I don't know anything about Washington state's climate except that you guys get a lot of rain. So does it get cold, cold there? It does. um Depending on where you live in Washington,  that'll depend on how much snow you get. I have kind of been all over. So  up in Skagit County by like Mount Baker, you get a ton of snow.  And  down here by Olympia so far, we don't get a lot of snow, but there's a lot of ice. 01:36 Okay. Yeah.  I don't love it when there's ice. My husband drives all over the place for his job and the days when it's freezing rain, I'm just like, please be careful.  Right.  I don't mind driving in the snow and stuff like that just because I'm used to it from living up in Skagit County, which I didn't  really grow up in.  For the most part, I was born and raised in North Carolina where they put ice  like 02:05 um,  ice salt down  instead of  sand. Here they do sand. And so  it's a little bit different on  that front.  But I've noticed that in certain areas of Washington, the roads aren't kept as  well as others. So up in Skagit County, they worked  really hard to make sure everything was maintained. Down here, it's like they're very short staffed. 02:32 And so the roads don't get cleared and when they do get cleared, it's clean cleared. So it's very scary. And if you don't grow up in an environment where you're actually driving in the snow and the ice, you become a danger to others. Yes. And that happens every fall here in Minnesota. That first snowstorm, there are more people who end up in the ditch than really should end up in the ditch. Yeah. And so... 03:02 I work in the medical field. have  for  almost 20 years and so I'm just like, just stay home. It's okay. Just stay home.  If you can, don't be on the roads. Yes. Yep.  Okay. is more important than your life.  Oh, absolutely. You're, you're  absolutely a hundred percent right. And other people's lives too, while we're talking about it.  So tell me a little bit about yourself and your version of your homestead.  Okay. So. 03:32 My name is Christine  and I have grown up with my grandparents canning and  baking everything and doing everything from scratch. My mama, she  lived to be almost 100 and had  a full-time garden, worked in the medical field. She worked in the hospital until she was in her 80s. And  so she taught me a lot about canning. 03:59 vegetables and how to grow a garden and all of that aspect. And then whenever  I  was  probably 30,  I started getting into sourdough  and learning all of that process, which has been quite fascinating actually. um But I met my spouse and we have started our own little homestead.  We have all kinds of animals  and 04:30 honestly all kinds of kids. uh Blended family  of seven, so we have five kids between the two of us  and they  love to ride our goats  like their horses. And it's fun to watch them get chased by chickens sometimes,  but we have kind of just moved everything into a very simple life and hopefully in the next couple of years we can start homeschooling as well. 04:59 Very nice. That sounds like a beautiful life that you're building. We're trying really hard. We have a few acres  and em within that we are pretty self-sustainable for the most part. 05:15 Okay, awesome.  So what animals do you have? Because I always ask that question.  So we have about 100 chickens.  We have turkeys and geese  and about 20 ducks. We have six pigs  and  four goats. And then  we have five dogs. And so  it all meshes well with our five children. I was going to say a dog for every kid. Yes. 05:45 Are the other dogs all different breeds or do you guys have a favorite breed? They are all different. So we have a 50 50 split Shepski. So he's Siberian Husky and German Shepherd. And then we have a purebred German Shepherd. We have a purebred chocolate lab. We have a purebred Belgian Malmois. And then we have what I like to call a Belgian chocolate accident. 06:15 because our chocolate lab got our Belgian and had babies. And so we have one of her babies. And so she is 50 50 Belgian Malinois and chocolate lab. Okay. I'm going to say something and don't get mad at me, but chocolate labs have always struck me as kind of dumb. They're very laid back and they're very lovey, but they're kind of dumb. Belgian Malinois is maybe one of the smartest dogs on the planet. 06:45 Absolutely.  So you have turned  the mix, the pub. We have. And she is actually very different. em Our Belgian Malinois, everybody has this idea that they're super crazy and  just kind of all over the place.  And ours is not like that. She is very much,  guard mom and that's what I do. em And she's never been hyperactive like that. And then 07:15 Like you said, our chocolate lab, he's our hunting dog and he would rather live in my skin than anything. And so he  has his job, but other than that, he's very much. 07:31 just hanging out. He likes to lay down. He likes to just be around his family. And so  it's a very different  aspect. But to get them two together, um she is hilarious because she's got the derpiness of the chocolate lab, but she's also very smart and very quick to learn. Yeah, was Belgian. So 07:58 What I was going to say is that you've taken the smartest dog and the dumbest dog on the planet and made the best dog ever. Yes.  She is hilarious.  And do not get me wrong. I think chocolate labs are beautiful. And  we have  a mini Australian shepherd right now who is five years old.  And my husband and I have both decided that when she is no longer on the earthly plane in about,  oh, hopefully 08:25 14 years from now, probably not. She'll probably be out long before then.  We would like a lab.  And  I said to him, I said, if you want a uh chill, goofy dog,  we should get a chocolate lab. And he was like, yeah, but, and I'm like, no, no, I think we should look at chocolate labs.  Yes.  Definitely not a Belgian Malinois.  Get them together. It's fine. So our chocolate lab we use to duck hunt. 08:55 And he knows how to track. Arshepsky,  he tracks too, but obviously that's not really in his  nature to hunt. um But we  hunt big game, we do waterfowl and all that stuff. We teach our kids  all of that as well. And so  we  really do embrace every single part of being self-sustainable and  really going back to our roots. 09:29 Awesome. So the chocolate lab goes hunting with you. So is he trained to hunt? He is trained to hunt.  Awesome. Awesome. I love it. I love it when the dogs do the job that they that they're naturally inclined to. Yes. And then so I had some heart problems and my Shepski has been my baby for the last three years  and he has never been trained or anything like that, but he will alert. 09:59 to  anything that's weird with me and he will go find  someone or he'll sit there and bark more like howl at me and be like, hey, something's wrong. Something's wrong. We don't like it. Something's wrong. And so he will make sure that you know one way or another that something's about to go  off sides. Uh huh. Sideways. Yep. 10:24 That's amazing. love it. have two very useful dogs. assume the other three are probably useful too. 10:32 Yes, they are. So when our German Shepherd  purebred girl was having babies, they were actually, he was the father to them. um And he was actually jumping our seven foot fence and going to try and find somebody to help her. And then he would come back and check on her. We have it on camera and everything. It's so cute. dogs don't actually have that like mentality for the most part. 11:01 And so it was really cool to watch. Yeah, but daddy dogs aren't usually interested when mom goes into labor.  No.  And so we could tell that she went into labor and was having babies because he was panicking and trying to find help. Just like a human dad is like, oh my gosh, we got to get going. We got to do this. We got to do that. He was very much dad mode. I love it. Do you have that video on YouTube or anywhere? um 11:28 currently, but we do have it on like our ring camera history.  You should put it on YouTube because people would love to see that. 11:39 Yes.  People  meaning me, I would love to see that. Oh, absolutely.  Okay. So, um sorry,  I was looking at your Facebook page and there is a photo of,  assume your husband with a bobcat over his shoulders.  Yes, that was this year.  Tell me that story. So we were out hunting. We had the kids with us  and  we were looking for a buck. We were on a 12:08 trail  and we saw a buck and we're trying to get in a better position for it. Well, we heard rustling  down below us and we're like, okay, maybe it's a bear or something like that. Just kind of avoid that area. But him and our son  go over and look and there's three bobcats playing right next to where it typically floods out in the wintertime. 12:36 They

Today I'm talking with Santa Claus! Hope you enjoy our chat, and a small peek into the North Pole. Merry Christmas!   patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I have the supreme pleasure of talking with Santa Claus at the North Pole. Good morning, Santa. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm doing very well. How are you? I'm good. Is it cold at the North Pole? Oh, it's always cold at the North Pole, but we adapt pretty well. Yeah, it's a- 00:27 It's very cold in Minnesota where I am this morning. We are not even at freezing yet. True. We call that the South Pole. Exactly. So in our summers there, you need to come to Minnesota in June. It's beautiful. Yes, absolutely. All right. So tell me a little bit about the North Pole because I, my questions for, for 00:56 the North Pole is, you always listening to Christmas music?  Oh, not necessarily. I enjoy a nice variety. mean, Christmas music certainly keeps us focused on what we're doing, but I like some jazz music every once in a while. Of course, there is a nice crossover with Vince Guaraldi. I love his stuff. Very nice.  And what I mean... 01:20 I don't even know what to ask you. This is, this is crazy. I might actually, I might actually be nervous talking to Santa Claus.  So  is your, is your home decor, is it all Christmas stuff all the time? We have some areas that are off limits  to anything Christmas  because Mrs. Claus, she's very supportive, but sometimes she just needs to have something that is devoid of it. 01:47 Just to have a variety, just to break things up a little bit. She enjoys her Coca-Cola room and she enjoys her shabby chic room and there's lots of rooms in the castle. So she has many options and I give her carte blanche because happy wife, happy life.  Absolutely. So is the home a castle? Does Santa Claus live in a castle? 02:13 Oh, we, we have what you might call a compound actually. There's a whole village, not just the castle, but the ancillary areas where the reindeer live, where the elves have their home quarters, et cetera, et cetera. So just about any facility you might imagine that we need, we have, and it's protected by a great big dome so that we can't be seen by anybody who might want to find us.  I love it. I love it. That's amazing. um 02:43 So tell me about your reindeer. Are they the same reindeer all the time? Are they immortal or do you have baby reindeer sometimes? 02:54 Oh, we have a, we have the A team that everybody seems to know, although I do challenge the children to try and name them. Uh, they, they always miss two or three. The most famous example is Don Durr, not Don Ur. Uh, Don Ur is something else. Don Durr is the name of that reindeer. And then the B team and the C team. they, they are immortal, but we do have some grandparent reindeers and. 03:21 The beyond the first famous nine, there are two more teams of reindeer right now. So two more, 16 more reindeer. And they have fun names like chat and Shlomo and all of, all of the other reindeer.  Shlomo. Okay. I hadn't heard that one before. Right. Well, and then they're all different, but they don't see a lot of action, but they're there just in case. I usually use them when I make visits down south. 03:50 Uh, so that the A team stay in their peak strength.  Oh,  okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Cause I'm sure that even if you're an immortal reindeer, you probably do get tired. Oh, sure. They need their naps and they're, they're bedded by time and they're,  they're good diets and such. So you don't want to wear them out. They can still get sore hooves.  Oh my, we don't want that. That's not good.  Okay. So,  um,  what is your. 04:19 Well, number one, does Santa Claus like eggnog? Sure. I enjoy eggnog. Definitely the virgin types. You don't need anything tipsy. I'm always driving. Yep. So maybe,  so maybe milk is better. Sure. You can put anything out. It's the thought that counts. And I really appreciate the children who think of us and the reindeer as well. It's nice to put out things for them. They love things. 04:49 that make crunchy sounds. So red bell peppers,  maybe some zucchini, some cucumbers, things that crunch. They love making the crunching sounds. So those are always welcome and appreciated as well.  they like apples? Oh, sure. If it crunches, they munches. Okay.  And then,  so I'm assuming that you like all cookies, but you have a favorite. 05:14 Oh yes,  again, it's the thought that counts. appreciate whatever the children put out for me, milk, eggnog, a glass of water. It's all fine. And I do have my favorite, it's white chocolate macadamia nut, but cookies are cookies. They're like pizza. Nothing can go wrong if you put out pizza and nothing can go wrong if you put out any kind of cookie for Santa.  Good to know. My favorite cookie is a snickerdoodle.  Oh, that's a good one too. 05:42 Yeah, I'm probably going to make some over Christmas.  if you swing by, if you swing by the house in LaSore, Minnesota, where I live, there might be snickerdoodles for you. You can count on it.  Okay. So I know that you are the Santa, but there's all these Santas that people see at the malls where kids go to sit on Santa's lap and tell them their wishes for Christmas. Do you? 06:08 Do you feel offended that there are so many impersonators or do you feel flattered? No, I love it. It takes a village so I can  use all the help I can get. It's all a network, you see. So they're doing the recon for me and they pass it on  as long as it's appropriate. I mean, sometimes 06:29 children ask for the craziest nines or a whole house. So they filter it out really well for me. The elves on the shelves do a nice job too. So it's all part of my reconnaissance team all over the world. I have a little bone to pick with the elves on the shelves.  Oh, okay.  They are naughty. A lot of them are naughty elves and they do, they like, they personify silly naughtiness and. 06:57 I didn't have the elf on the shelf for when I was a kid or when my kids were kids. And so when the elves on the shelves showed up and I saw some of the things that they do, I was almost grateful that I was not part of that. Well, that's a very valid point. And you should rest assured that it's actually a bit of a pilot program because normally the elves are making the toys year round, round the clock. But 07:22 A few of them approached me  and wanted, guess what you could call a sabbatical where they come down south and they do a little field work, a little reconnaissance. 07:36 Oh, it is a pilot program. Sometimes when they get a little bit ribaldry or a little bit incorrigible, we have to bring them back to the pole and circulate them out. So the elf on your shelf might actually be a different elf from year to year, especially if they're naughty. We want to keep them on the straight and narrow. They just seem to look alike. So  one year you might have an elf that's very cooperative and friendly and nice. And then maybe they get a little too big for their britches and we have to swap them out. 08:06 keeping everybody humble. So even the elf on the shelf can be on the naughty list sometimes.  Oh, anybody can be on the naughty list. I try really hard to stay off of it myself. Sometimes Santa has a grumpy moment. Sometimes I get tired. And Mrs. Claus really helps me a lot to remind me of why I'm doing what I'm doing. Yes. And so tell me why you're doing what you're doing.  I just love making wonderful memories. 08:33 I love the joy and the wonder in the children's eyes 08:40 and it could be children of any age,  but so contagious that it drives me. I guess if you could say if Santa has a drug, it's the spirit of Christmas.  Okay. And tell me what the spirit of Christmas means to you, Santa. If I had one thing on my Christmas list and children of all ages ask me, what do I want for Christmas? I want peace on earth. And when we're all at peace, when we stop worrying about so many things, 09:08 So many opinions we don't need to have. We're arguing about so many things these days. Oh my goodness, stay off of the social media. So many irrelevant and irreverent things on there. Peace. Let's get back to the basics of what we are. uh A herd, a pack, a tribe, a social creature. We're meant to be together and to support each other, not to tear each other down. So the spirit of Christmas is the 09:38 perfect embodiment of peace and we're all striving to achieve that.  Right there with you. If you ask me what I want for Christmas, I want peace on earth really bad. I want it now. Yes, and we can all do our part. We don't have to worry about being like somebody else or how well or not well someone else is doing. If we mind our own business and do our part, everything works together perfectly. Yes, it sure does. 10:08 um What's the craziest thing that a child has asked you for Christmas? 10:15 Probably the most common requests I get are for living things and I have to set them straight. And honestly, the parents appreciate this. Santa doesn't fly with anything that can poop in the sleigh. So it goes for puppies and kitties and donkeys and boyfriends and girlfriends. don't do any of that. So  it's always adorable. 10:36 And it's always something that I have to advise them.  I can bring a toy puppy or a toy kitty or maybe a Ken doll or a Barbie doll, but that's about it. Mm-hmm.  Yep.  I wanted a teddy bear for my  15th Christmas.  And I asked Santa because Santa is real.  And my mom said, what do you want for Christmas from Santa? And I said, I want a teddy bear. And she said, what kind of teddy bear? And I said, a gunned 11:04 teddy bear G-U-N-D. Yes, very nice. Very, very nice teddy bear back i

Today I'm talking with Jessica at The Homemade Mess. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jessica at the Homemade Mess in South Dakota. Good morning, Jessica. How are you? Good morning. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so glad you had time. Hi. It's really hard this time of year starting in September. Harvest season has begun and then the holidays hit.  And I'm like, okay, who's going to be available to talk to me?  Yes. 00:30 30 minutes isn't a hard time to carve out of the day. Well, it is and it isn't. It just depends. It depends on what people have going on and what time they have available. And things come up and they can't make it. And I'm just like, ah-ha! And it's not 10 o'clock at night? Yeah, I don't do... I try really hard not to record past 6 o'clock at night because I am not on my game at past 6 o'clock at night. Yes. That seems to be the only me time is after 10 o'clock. 00:59 Nothing else is there. Well, that's because you're a mom and you're a home sweater and you're busy and you're a teacher. Yes, I am. OK, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am I live in central South Dakota and I grew up in North Dakota. I did have did grow up on a ranch. And so when I married my husband, I always had these big dreams. I was going to I was going to marry a rodeo guy. Right. And then I fell in love with a fisherman. 01:29 So  we,  love him to death and we, um, he really isn't into the homesteading, the animals, the, he's a fishing and hunting guy and that's, that's what he does. And so, um, we moved, he's not my husband's alignment. And so we moved to a really small town.  Um, there was no Walmart. So I said, we're not moving there. We compromised and we moved there.  And so,  um, 01:53 We, I really didn't have land.  I do have some horses and I do barrel race as well. And so I didn't have land. And then up until probably a year ago, a little over a year ago, uh we found like our dream place and it was like, God willing it happened and it worked out. And so we really are like living out our dream now.  I do also teach.  I teach in a very small town. have 11 kids in my class.  And then I'm a full time or full time teacher.  I'm a mom. And then from after that, after 02:23 whatever time I have left is when I do my social media business. um I actually started it in late  June of 2025, so like not very many months ago. um And I kind of blew up, um which is I'm very grateful, but um I don't really know what I'm doing on social media quite yet, which might, the half a million followers might seem  like I do, but I'm just living on a prayer and winging it over here. But um we live day by day. We don't really know. 02:52 I don't really know what I'm doing in life yet, so here we are.  You are in one of the most wonderful and most frustrating spots of life right now because  winging it is really fun, but it can also be really scary. Yes. Yes.  Especially being like, nobody prepares you for motherhood. You could Google all you want, but then you become a mom and you have no idea what you're doing. So I'm like trying to figure that out. 03:20 trying to figure out my social media business and trying to be a good mom and be a good wife and take care of all the hundred thousand animals I decided to accumulate and it's busy. Yeah, just just be a good human and everything else will fall into place. Yeah. Okay. I have a couple questions regarding your your answer to my first question. um How many kids do you have? Just have the one. I just have the one. Yep. He's 18 months.  Oh my that is a very busy busy time. Yes,  very busy. 03:49 And then did you teach at a bigger school before you moved? I did, yes. I taught in a very large school district. I taught in a school district that had 12 just elementary schools. So it was about 20 to 30,000 people in elementary. So I taught in a very large district. And then I came down here and I had nine kids last year. I didn't know what to do with my time. 04:15 So how many kids were in the class size before this new place? About 30. Oh, wow. So this is a huge change for you. Yes. Yeah. also, before that, I taught in really big district. And then I taught  over on um like a um meeting reservation school. And then I taught where I'm at now. So  there was a little bit of steps taken before I got to where I'm at now. 04:45 Yeah, very large class sizes. Do you enjoy the smaller class size more because you can give the kids more attention one on one? Yeah, I do.  It comes with its challenges as well, though.  The small school district also comes with a school, so it comes with a small community.  The small community was hard for me to adjust to. OK. All right, that makes sense. 05:11 Okay, so your place is called the Homemade Map. Yes. So why did you call it that? I feel like that really encompasses what I do. we are, I really encompass the reality of that life is messy. I also want to normalize the fact that like not everything is Instagram perfect, especially like the homestead we live on. My kitchen is really my main recording place and my kitchen has become a large. 05:40 profile of who I am  as our social media presence.  But it really encompasses the fact that life is chaotic, life is a mess and it's okay.  And it's normal. um Just embrace that mess and really  soak it in because that mess doesn't last forever.  And one day you're gonna miss that mess.  Oh yeah, absolutely. Oh my goodness, you just hit a button, I'm sorry. um 06:09 I'm 56. I've raised four kids. Oh gosh, I love that.  And uh they're all grown and  it's great.  I swear to you, I love the stage of my life.  do. Yeah. But I miss my kids, you know? Yeah.  I swear to God, every time I think I'm going to get through a podcast without tearing up, I can't. So  it's okay. ah 06:35 The other upshot is that once your kids are adults and hopefully you've raised them the way that you hoped you would. A hundred percent. And all move out and they're good human beings and they're doing their thing. Your stress level comes down immensely. I bet. I can't imagine. Today we, I had to get my kid out of the vent of the house because he was stuck and I thought he was going to fall to the basement. Oh my. like, Oh my God. I was like, what? When does this end? 07:03 Um, the sweet spot is when they're about eight or nine years old. Oh good. I look forward to that. Because I don't want to rush life. I really don't. I really, I really like where I'm at now.  Um, but nobody prepared you for that part of life.  Oh no, there's no, there's no owner's manual as it were for kids. No, but as far as social media, that is something that I feel like is really not normalized. 07:26 Um, especially as a new mom, like when I was feeding in the middle of the night, what was I doing scrolling social media?  And I feel like when I was, when I was doing that, I was, I really felt degraded on myself.  Um, cause I didn't have, I didn't have number one, I don't have family around. So I didn't have a village, right?  Um, and it wasn't even about the village because really our village has changed over the years. mean, I can get Amazon prime in two days now where we couldn't before. So like, I do consider that part of my village. Um, 07:55 But I didn't have I don't have family around here. So like, when I was scrolling social media, I felt like there was really nobody out nobody out there that  or that I had found they are out there.  But that really normalized like the mess in not only like my kitchen, but in like life, but also in like homesteading, you know, like  I really um that's one thing that I really wanted to encompass and I couldn't really find that and I wanted something 08:23 to give me answers. And that's kind why I created it.  All of my recipes and all my platform is completely free  because I do think that that is really important for moms  and not everyone is um in that financial space where they can afford healthier alternatives. um So that was something that I wanted when I was scrolling. When I was scrolling, I wanted someone to give me the answers right then. I wanted someone to read that it was going to be okay. You made the thing that you needed. Yes. Good. 08:53 Good job. That's what we all should be doing. That's why I started the podcast because I needed  a place to talk to people who were doing things like I was doing. So same premise. Yes, I love that. Yeah.  And, and I'm just going to reiterate life is messy. I mean, I  came down with some upper respiratory thing back the first week of October and I am finally over it. took like six weeks to start feeling human again.  Oh gosh. I feel that.  I feel like that's our house on rotate. 09:22 Yeah. And my downstairs right now is not very nice.  It's a mess. There's stuff everywhere. Yeah. But that mess is temporary. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes life takes the front seat. Well, being able to function, being able to get the dishes done and laundry handled when you're sick is enough  for at least that first couple of weeks when you don't feel good. um But the other thing about life being messy is that you can spend three days getting your entire 09:52 kitchen and living room,  cleaned up, organized and spotless. And within two days, it's going to look half as nice as it did the day you were done. Two days? I wish mine would last two days. Well, you have a little one. So  you get some slack on that.  You just you cannot make your house a museum. It has to be lived in. Yes. So, OK, tell me about your homesteading stuff.  What do you do that classifies as homesteading? 10:20 So  my main platform  is in my kitchen.

Today I'm talking with Becca at Moon Ridge Acres. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15% off your registration costs. 00:29 And that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Becca at Moonridge Acres. I think it's the name of your place in Alberta, Canada. Good morning, Becca. How are you?  Hi, I'm good. How are you?  I'm good. Is Moonridge Acres the right name? That is correct. Yeah. Okay. And do you, you have a separate page for that or not on Facebook? 00:59 I actually do have a separate page for it, but I don't really  use it very much. um just, I'm spread a little too thin, but eventually I would like to do it and have it be more, you know, promotional for the horses. But  right now it's just kind of sitting there. Okay, cool.  I  looked at your personal profile. was like, I know she has a business name, but I couldn't remember it. And I was like, oh yeah, Mooner Jakers. Okay, cool. So how's the weather in Canada this morning? 01:29 It is brisk. Brisk is what I would call it. It's, I think we were at minus 11 last night, that's Celsius. So I don't know what that works out to in Fahrenheit. I'm still, I'm trying to get the conversion in my head, but it's not going super well. So yeah, it's cool. It's one of the cooler mornings that we've had so far. And honestly, this is a really great fall. It's been really nice. So I can't complain. 01:59 Is it sunny there? Sunny? Yeah, it is. is sunny. It's,  uh, Alberta's kind of known for being cold, but sunny. So  you, you get  one,  one  evil and one good thing. You know, the sun is nice. Cause when it's dreary and cloudy, that's just depressing. Yeah. Um, yesterday all day, looked like,  um, dusk cause it was rainy and cloudy all day yesterday. um 02:28 And I was okay with that because the weatherman was predicting that we were going to wake up to one to three inches of snow this morning. And I was excited. Oh, wow. And I got up and we got like half an inch of snow. I was like, it's going to be another one of those winters where they hype the hell out of the forecast. And then we get nothing. I swear every single year, like in the last like four years, they were like, this is going to be the worst winter ever. And then it's fine. 02:55 Like, I'm not sure  if they get more clicks on that. Like, maybe they make more ad revenue by saying it's going to be terrible. I'm not sure. I have no idea, but I was  in my five-year-old pram of mind of, okay, it's going to be the first really nice snow. It's going to be beautiful when I wake up. And oh no. No. I  was also excited because my dog loves the first real snowfall of a couple inches because she goes out and rolls in it. 03:23 And I was so excited for her to go out the door and be all crazy. And now I was like, okay, well, this was not the day already.  No, they seem to be doing that a lot. told us  Calgary, which is just  a boat three hours south of us, they got  a decent dump. Like I think it was  10 inches or not 10 inches, sorry, 10 centimeters. ah And they said it was coming our way and  to expect  a big storm and nothing. 03:52 Yup,  I don't believe the weather people anymore. The weather is what it is doing outside my window right now. And right now,  it is really windy. It is 28 degrees and I would call it brisk. So I think we're probably in the same, the same. I think  so. think Fahrenheit to Celsius, believe 20 is zero  Celsius. So we're minus 11 Celsius. So that's gotta be like. 04:21 I want to say around like the, in the single digits of Fahrenheit, I think. So we're having kind of the same weather day. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you've been on the podcast twice. They have been wonderful conversations. And just to catch people up, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Uh, so I breed miniature horses, um, here in Alberta and we breed for 04:48 show purposes um and we show them and my, you know, my whole social media is all about promoting the breed  and hopefully getting more people  to get into them  and see that miniature horses are truly awesome little creatures.  I really, really love them. ah And yeah, that's,  we're all about the minis right now. Okay. So in the first interview we did, 05:15 You had mentioned rabbits and goats. Do you still have those? So I no longer have my rabbits. I would like to get back into the rabbits eventually. I really miss my rabbit people because I did rabbit shows as well. um But right now  I am just spread too thin. I don't have  the time to give them proper care and rabbits are very time consuming because they're all in individual cages. 05:44 and they all need individual feed. And it's just a very time consuming uh hobby to get into. I just, I'm spread too thin right now to  do rabbits  to the best of my abilities. ah And so we're pausing on that. I would love to get back into them though, cause I really do miss them. Okay. And do you still have goats? We do still have the goats and they are just ruling my life.  They're feral in my yard for whatever reason they don't leave. So I don't lock them up. 06:14 And they're just,  you know, eating my horse food  and causing troubles.  That sounds about on par for goats. Yeah, they're just  out there living their lives and being menaces. Okay,  and did you have chickens? I can't remember.  No, we did not have chickens. We would love to have chickens. Like, I mean, I would love to have a whole lot of everything, but... 06:39 um We're just kind of limited on space right now  and  the the minis are  currently our  major focus. Okay, I just wanted to check in on on what I remember. Well, I went and listened to both episodes this morning. I was like, what did she say to me the first time?  And I was like, there's got to be I don't know. I didn't know if you were just really focusing on the horses or if you still had the other things. So  and that's 07:05 You are still- My husband would really like me to get rid of the goats because they eat all of our trees  and they're they're just menaces and I don't do anything with them other than laugh at them when they climb on things they're not supposed to. ah But I just really enjoy laughing at them.  They are highly entertaining and my husband is really thankful that I have not like demanded that we get goats because he knows how much I love them. 07:32 Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're big trouble. um I like, yeah, there's something about them that I love,  but they're really more trouble than they're probably worth.  But here I am. Yeah, I use demanded loosely because I never demand anything from anyone I request. don't demand. But the thing is, is that I really love the baby goats, the adult goats. I'm not as thrilled with so. 07:59 So I just let other people raise goats and I go see the babies when they're little and then  they take care of their goats and I just get the benefits of seeing the babies when they come. That's fair. The babies are so entertaining and I'm not like breeding the goats anymore because I can't really sell them.  So  it just, doesn't make sense  to continue on with it, but I, yeah,  I am entertained by their shenanigans. 08:27 Yes, to quote Dawn's dirt. She's another person that does a podcast on Bershett  or something like that is her last name.  Her podcast is Dawn's dirt.  She calls that tic-tac-titioning, math-ing. 08:43 That's awesome.  Now anytime somebody's talking about  it not making sense to do something because there's no return in it, the thing that pops into my head is tic-tac-titioning every time now. That's funny.  I love it. And she's in Canada too. Oh, no way. Yeah, I can't remember.  I want to say Alberta, but I could be wrong. I would have to look it up. Yeah, I'm going to have to look her up too and see. It's always good to connect with some other 09:12 you know, Canadian people that are  probably trying to do  the same thing that I'm trying to do. Yeah. If anybody wants to listen to Dawn's podcast, and it's really great because she's,  she's very, very blunt. She's, she's friendly and she's honest and I love her, but she does not pull any punches.  And she's, she's, uh, she's very, um, anti-government. 09:38 And she's very honest about that too. So if anybody wants to listen to it, all I have to do is type in Dawn's dirt in  Google and it'll come up. promise. That's awesome. I might have to do that. So anyway, um I want to learn more about what's going on with the mini horses, but I want to say that I am so glad you're still in the world because I saw that you hit a moose. oh yes. I just did that with my favorite. 10:05 car ever. I absolutely loved that car so, much. um And it's,  you know,  I got really lucky because it was a cow calf pair  and I  was paying attention. It was just a really bad lighting situation. And, you know, where they came out of the trees were super close to the road. So  I saw mama and if I would have hit mama, we could have had a much different outcome. um But I swerved and I just 10:35 just nicked the hindquarters of  the calf  and  it totaled my car most likely. I'm still waiting for insuranc

Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15% off your registration costs. 00:29 And that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm in  Montana, right? Yes, Billings, Montana. Yeah. I've talked to a couple of people in Alberta in the last few days and I keep thinking Alberta. I'm like, no, she's not in Canada. She's in the States.  Okay. How are you ma'am? 01:00 I am doing wonderful this morning and yourself? I'm good. How's the weather where you are? It's it's a little chilly, but not  as bad as it could be. Okay.  It is definitely chilly here. We got sleet for the first time this season this morning  and it has all melted away already and the sun is peeking out. So it's, uh,  it's looking like it's going to be a pretty day, but it sure didn't look that way at three o'clock this morning when I got up, when I got up for no apparent reason.  It was. 01:28 pouring rain here at 3 a.m.  Oh no, we haven't had a lot of moisture. I've  been pretty lucky on that. I do have my wool out, but it's like mainly for mornings and evenings and then you just don't want to get caught  out before the temps go back down.  yeah, it's been a beautiful extended fall here. It sounds like it has been there too, so that's good. 01:55 Okay, so Chelsea was a guest on the show back in May and she was telling me all about her regenerative urban farm or urban regenerative farm. said it in the wrong order. So give me a quick update on who you are and what you do, Oh, well, I am someone that just took their health into their own hand and it led me here and now I like to grow lots of things and 02:24 have chickens and I just added rabbits. eh And the attempts  of creating a decentralized intentional community that's focused around edible landscaping and self-sufficiency  and personal growth. Okay, I have a question about decentralized.  Is that the same thing as hyper local community? 02:54 I have absolutely no idea. just said decentralized because we won't live together. Okay.  Cause with everything that's been going on in the States right now, I've talked to a couple of people on different aspects of the whole snap fiasco  and  what  we don't, we don't use snap, but I definitely was on wick when I had my first baby.  And, I think maybe way back. 03:22 My first husband and I might have had to use food stamps and it wasn't a card then it was actual like paper vouchers.  But, but SNAP is really, really important, but more important than SNAP, think is  number one,  not finding yourself in a position where if SNAP goes away,  you're, there's a bad word, you're in trouble.  And that learning to cook helps with that  planning ahead. 03:51 and trying to get things stored away in your pantry or your cabinet for an emergency is really important.  And  your local growers is really important because  farmers  in my experience really want to help. I can tell you right now, someone had pulled into my driveway  and said, do you have eggs? I'm on the SNAP program. I don't have any food. Can I just have some eggs? I would have given them eggs. Yeah. I mean, it's hard because for me, you know, 04:19 grew up, was a welfare kid, you know, like I didn't have a great childhood. And, know, even when I raised my children, I had to utilize that even though I still worked full time, you know, I went to college full time, uh, online and when I was working full time and raising two kids by myself, and I definitely used food stamps, but I still had to go sit outside of food banks, you know, on the weekends and in some way forage. 04:48 or  additional resources while raising two boys. So I get it. I get  using resources, but I also understand that being dependent on them makes you a slave.  Exactly. And you don't want to be a slave. And  let me just clarify, there is absolutely no shame  in  utilizing the resources that are available to you that taxpayer money pays for, especially if you're one of the taxpayers paying for it. 05:19 But I also, you know,  as, someone who has lived lots of lives, one of them is, you know, I  have been part of the Mormon church and watching how they take care of their own  and just everything that I've ever seen. I've lived in low income housing where there was 31 units and we didn't even have an apartment manager for a long time. And we took care of each other. We had a little community garden. You just have to be more intentional and connected. 05:49 You know, people are very disconnected with where their food comes from.  They're disconnected that they can forage food or grow food. And they're disconnected from each other too. Yeah. I mean, everything. We just need to be more empowered and think about what we can do instead of all the things we can't. Right. Exactly.  Okay. So you and I talked back in May  and what's  new? Is anything new? I know you had a... 06:16 uh, community gathering kind of event last night. Yeah, I went to, um, Morgan with Ruby Grazer had a homesteader meet up yesterday during the day.  Um,  I have my first intentional community meet up this Thursday coming up. Yeah.  Uh, I've been on a few more podcasts about various things  and 06:43 given a couple more interviews. I've added rabbits, meat rabbits to the farm recently. ah Yeah, I mean, but everything's kind of calming down right now for the season and focusing more on community and building that at this point since it gets cold here and there's not a lot of growing until I get my greenhouse up and going. Yes, and you had mentioned on the last episode, last episode we did. 07:11 that you were going to turn your swimming pool into a greenhouse and that has not happened yet?  We have utilized the last season of it and it's completely empty and so we'll begin the conversion  once it's kind of safe weather wise to do so. We don't want to be  caught in the middle of that and then have a whole bunch of water pool up on us because we're in winter. Yeah, no, that would be really bad. Let's not have that happen. um 07:39 Do you have any idea how long it will take to convert it? 07:44 Um, that's the thing. Like it, for me, honestly, depends on how fast the parts I have to rely on other people go. Okay. If it's me,  my neurodivergence just hyper fixates and gets it done. Like my front food forest or food meadow I did in a day  once I had a blank canvas. 08:12 Yeah. And it's so funny because many hands make light work, but many hands also make many distractions. Well, yeah. I just, you know, if there's like welding, I don't have that as something I'm proficient in at this point in time in my life. You know,  so there's, if I have to rely on someone else's schedule, there is a little different latency than I deal with than if I were doing it myself. Definitely. Yeah. I understand. um 08:42 When my husband and my son built our greenhouse, they spent,  oh, every weekend for, I think, five weekends building it. it's, think it's 25 by 15 or something like that.  I thought it was 40 by 20, but I was informed that it's smaller than that. And I was like, oh,  I was wrong.  But  they got it done over the course of a month. And had we had more people, I still think it would have taken a month because there would have been a lot of chatting and 09:09 probably would have been beer and pizza involved and it just probably would have taken the same amount of time. think the thing that's going to take me the longest is because the swimming pool, I'm on like a  shotgun property, so it's long and narrow  and the pool is at the back of my property and there's no alley. It's going to be  actually will bearing all the soil back there myself.  Oh,  you're gonna, you're gonna be even more fit than you already are by the time you're done with it. 09:40 I mean, that's part of the cool thing about like farming or homesteading is you don't need a gym membership no more.  So how was the homestead meeting with Morgan yesterday? I'm so curious because I saw that on Facebook and I just interviewed Morgan the other day. So how did that go?  It was good. It was small. There was  like her and I and our husbands and then one other person that showed up. 10:09 Everything kind of trickles in. So it was nice to just kind of talk about things. It'll grow. I bet you it will grow. I bet not the next meeting, but I bet a month from now you'll probably have like five extra people. Well, home studying is kind of a trend right now. So like every type of convention or fair I go to, it's either back to traditional skills or it's like plastic 3D printed stuff, know, like 10:39 There's no, it's either or. And so I think it will definitely catch on as people wake up to needing to have their own sustenance. Yes. Somebody else I talked to last week called it personal sovereignty. Yes. And I loved that because I love the word sovereignty. I have always been entertained by that word. 11:07 Mostly because people think of um you know, medieval England and the sovereign king and blah, blah. But  it's not that sovereignty

Today I'm talking with Amanda at Lala and Justin’s Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  The tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Amanda at Lala and Justin's Homestead in Vermont.  Good morning,  Amanda, how are you? Good, how are you Mary?  I'm good, how's the weather in Vermont this morning? Chilly, we got our first freeze. 00:56 Um, well, our first day that the bowls in the barn, the ice bowls were all frozen. So that was a fun morning, topping out dishes, but it's to be expected. It's Vermont. So as my dad says, it's all part of it. Yep. Yep. It's, uh, it's very gray here in Minnesota this morning. It's chilly  and there's almost no breeze at all. It's very quiet outside, which is weird. We usually have some kind of wind blowing. 01:24 Okay, so  I want to know why it's called Lala and Justin's Homestead first. Well, Lala um was a nickname given to me by my stepdad.  And  when I got into rabbits,  he helped me a lot with like building nest boxes and building cage areas and different things that I needed help building. And he always called me Lala. So 01:52 When I started the rabbitry back up, um as an adult, I decided to honor him and call it Lola's Lovely Lops.  And Justin's my partner, so he gets to tag along.  Well, yeah, and he probably helps, which is really nice. um Is your stepfather still with us?  No, he passed away five,  he's been five years since he's been gone. Okay.  Well, what a great way to honor his memory. That's, that's fabulous. 02:20 Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you guys do. Um, sorry. Um, so I'm- Did I make you cry? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 02:37 It's just... I just miss him. That's all. Yeah,  yeah, it's so hard. It's hard around the holidays.  Oh, for sure, yeah. And the way that I deal with people who have passed... The way I deal with it is I try to remember the really fun stuff that made me laugh and then it makes me laugh and it kind of counteracts the crying a little bit.  Yeah, he was hilarious. So there's a lot to laugh about. 03:05 Yeah, and you're carrying on his memory by doing something you love to do.  So that's a beautiful thing. And how much do you love raising rabbits? I mean, come on. I've been raising them since I was 10. I absolutely adore them. Yeah. one of my favorite animals in the whole entire world, other than my dogs. Okay. So are you okay? Yeah, I've got it back.  Okay, good. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. 03:35 So we are a family of four.  We have a point four or five acre property and we raise the rabbits  garden. We do a lot of foraging.  like, I'm very into mycology and mushrooms. um So we've been taking on teaching ourselves different types of edible mushrooms for the past,  I'd say 12 years or so we've been learning about mushrooms. 04:05 And I'd eventually like to get into herbs and learning about that. But I would like to find a mentor before I step into that because there's just so much to learn. But yeah, we're a small family and we raise the rabbit meat. I do a lot of bartering with people for rabbit. And I get most of my beef and chicken from other people that raise so that. 04:30 That's a good trade. It's a good barter system we have going in our community. And we started that back in 2020 with the bartering because of the shortages and stuff. So I just got deeper into the rabbits at that time.  And I have way more than I intended  now.  So rabbit math is not much different from chicken math. take it. Oh, I think it's a little worse. Okay. 04:56 But it's enjoyable, so it's okay. don't have anything bred right now. I have one that's due today. And, she was due yesterday and she hasn't had her litter yet. But other than that, I don't have anything bred because I haven't decided if I want to have babies in the cold, cold months yet. But I have a few that I was thinking of breeding this week so that I could have them born during my Christmas break from work. So. Yeah. And it's addictive. Those baby bunnies are so cute. 05:25 Oh, they're adorable. Yeah, I don't, I'm not, I am not an expert. We tried raising meat rabbits for about a year.  We had one litter after trying to breed rabbits for the whole year. got one litter out of the deal  and had to bring them, had to bring the mama and the babies in the house because they're born on the hottest day of and oh there was no way to keep them cool out in their hutch. And my husband was like, we should let nature take its course. And I was like, 05:54 No, because this is not nature.  She is not living the way she would live if she was in nature. If was in nature,  she would be burrowing into the ground to stay cool with her babies. I said, I am not letting those babies die. And so we literally put her in a clear bin with her nesting box with the babies. And I had little baby bunnies in my house for about three weeks. Oh my goodness.  No, it was so fun. 06:24 It was no, it wasn't bad. just we had pine shavings that we had in a bag and we would just empty the  bin out every morning  and put them for our shavings in and it was it was very educational but it was far more entertaining than anything else. Yeah. But they are they are the most adorable babies and  about the only time you can hold a rabbit really safely is when they're the size of your palm. 06:56 I know if I agree with that, but. Oh, I I got kicked really hard when I was about, oh, probably 15 from my pet rabbit. had a pet rabbit when I was 14, 15 and, uh, claw punctured the skin at the top of my breast. I still have the scar from that puncture. I have a scar in that area too from a rabbit I had as a child that bit me and. Yeah. 07:24 And I mean, if you hold the babies from when they're just  little and they become something that you hold every day, they trust you and they're fine. But I didn't get that rabbit until it was probably four months old. So it hadn't really been handled a lot. So it did not love to be held. And of course I wanted to hold the bunny.  I didn't hold that bunny as often after that happened. Yeah, they get kind of feisty if you don't really hold them too much, if you don't give them too much attention, but if you socialize on them and 07:52 play with them, they're usually pretty easy and chill. Yeah, exactly. They don't fight me too hard, but I think I just have a bunny way about me. I don't know, I  can handle almost any rabbit, even the wild ones.  You're a bunny whisperer. Yeah,  I've doing it a while. I I've had rabbits for 28 years, I've  had them for a long time. You have a lot of experience. Yep. 08:21 Okay, so since you've been doing this for a long time,  can you walk me through so that anybody who wants to get into rabbits could think really think about it more how you get started because  it seems like it's easy, but having done it, it's not as easy as one would think. Yeah, they don't really breed like rabbits when you want them to. They do not. oh Well, if I was to get started, I think I would research. 08:49 the breed that I want. There are so many breeds to choose from. And I would  look at the American Rabbit Breeder Association standard of perfection and find someone that knows a little bit about what they're talking about. Because  rabbits bred to the standard,  the meat breeds are bred to produce more meat. So if you get something that's closer to the standard of perfection, you're going to have more meat production. 09:17 and better meat production because they're going to be bred to the right standard. oh I would start by finding a breeder that knows what they're talking about,  that has a little bit of experience at least. I mean, there are new breeders that have done the research, so I can't say just experienced breeders, but for the most part, find someone that might want to mentor you. So if you have questions,  you can refer back to them and 09:47 I mean, as a breeder, if someone buys from me, when they message me, I answer their questions. That's part of it is they get mentorship out of purchasing my rabbits. um 10:00 But I would research that and then research  the type of environment that you want for your rabbits  based on your space.  So I don't have very much space because I'm a small property  and I do stacker cages, which work for me in my space.  But with that, you've got to clean more often because if you don't, you can get pneumonia buildup and end up with sick rabbits. So your space,  some people want like a full barn with 10:28 just hanging cages, which is nice because then you can shovel out the poop and you don't have to clean pans.  And you don't have to clean as often because  the droppings fall to the bottom and they're not ever going to be in their waste. you'd want to do, some people want to do colony style.  That doesn't work for my area. um I also don't like, I personally don't want my rabbits  on the ground picking up parasites and 10:58 being exposed to disease.  So for me, cages work best to keep them clean and healthy. Let's s

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29 And that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  The tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch in Nebraska. Good morning, Leah. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Always good to visit with you. Yes. And as I told you before we started, I love you. You are wonderful. uh 00:58 What's the weather like in Nebraska this morning? Oh, goodness. So if you didn't know, my first major in college was actually meteorology. I was planning to be a weather girl. And so I love to study the weather. It is foggy and dreary. I'm supposed to be 60 today, but if you follow the old wives' tales, I mean, I keep seeing these early foggy mornings, TNS up for precipitation in 90 days. I don't know. Winter has not arrived yet, but 01:27 It'll be interesting to see what ends up happening. We've had such a beautiful fall.  We have here in Minnesota too. And I thought we were going to be looking at an early cold snap, but it's been gorgeous. And we had our first, um, Sneet. We call it Sneet here, snow and sleet mixed together.  We had that three or four days ago  and it did it early in the morning and then it was gone by noon. Nice. 01:54 It's been, it's been foggy here every morning for the last four mornings. So I don't know. This, this climate change thing is freaky. I don't really love it, but it's okay. We'll see how it goes. And honestly, my husband drives all over creation for his job. So the less ice and snow on the road, guess is better than more ice and snow on the road. story. Yep. Yeah. Let's check like in February and see how things are looking. 02:24 Yeah. Well, I'm sure we're going to get snow. I just don't think we're going to get a lot. The last two winters here where we live, we haven't even seen a foot of snow total for the winter. Yep. Same. I always uh judge the snow by in my diary how many times we had to scoot bunks for the feeder calves in the mornings. And the feeder calves are with us until, well,  somewhere around the week after Valentine's Day when we usually sell them.  so I always know what kind of winter it's. 02:53 It's been, we didn't have to shovel at all last winter at all. Okay. All right. So Leah's been a guest on this show three times already because she's brilliant and I love talking with her  and she is a rancher, a fifth generation rancher, right?  Yes, ma'am. And sixth generation waiting in the wings.  Oh, there's a baby come in. uh No, the girls fight our daughters. Yep.  Yep. Yep. The ranch will be left. 03:23 to  these wonderful girls  when the time is right  and they can do with it as they choose.  But I love that fact. Good. And hopefully they'll marry really good, strong, smart men who can help them run the ranch. Yes, ma'am. That is the prayer when I go to bed every night is marrying the right man, not because of what I want him to do, but how I want him to be no matter  what occupation he's in. 03:53 Yes, absolutely.  need, okay, I'm gonna step on the soap box for a minute because I don't usually, but I'm going to right now.  We need our children who are adults to hook up with the right person so that they can have a really  long and lasting love and that they work together as partners because I've  been married three times.  This current marriage is my third marriage and we just celebrated our 20 something. 04:22 I can't remember right now.  I married in 2002. And  it's longest marriage out of any of the three that I've had. And my husband and I are very different people.  I mean,  very different. His priorities and my priorities on things are very far apart sometimes, but our core values are the same.  And so if you can find someone with the same core values, you can work through almost anything. Amen, sister. Yeah. 04:51 So um when we last talked in September, so this is a really quick turnaround for you to come back. I'm very happy about that.  We talked about beef prices.  And one of the things that you told me is that you guys were going to have to decide how many of the  baby, ah well, not baby, but younger bovines you were going to keep back to build your inventory back up. 05:17 So how is that going? Have you decided? Have you already made the decision what's up with that?  We were blessed with wonderful weather this fall and we weaned right on schedule and the weather was cooperative for that. Weaning is a stressful time for the calves mainly because they do lose that last bit of immunity benefit they're getting from their mother's milk even as most of them have tapered down.  And we did deal with some wild temperature swings and when that happens right in  that stressful period, 05:47 they can have some respiratory concerns.  And we did see that, but thankfully our people,  all of us, vigilant on top of that. And we got through the weaning stress just fine.  And then we moved right into harvest and then we moved back to cattle work. And so the last two months since I talked with you really have been a blur.  That's the way it is each year.  Oh, to the news  on beef,  you know. 06:15 We could talk just for days and days about  everything over the last 60 days regarding  beef in the United States.  insanity. uh Yeah. And  so, you know, my father is a very wise man, still very involved in the operation. And he reminds me constantly something we talked about before we went on the air today about only managing what's in your sphere of influence and sphere of control. And that's a good touch point. And it's important. 06:45 to do often, more than once a day sometimes,  as these sensational headlines and comments being made and swings on paper at least in the markets  and global challenges continue that the wisest voices have said, focus on what you control, which is ranchers, please keep raising high quality beef. 07:10 So here we are now in mid-November and all of our feeder calves are  growing away  and we have not made decisions yet on how many females we will retain next year. Now we always raise our own, our own replacement heifers, but there may be an opportunity to hang onto a few more rather than set them into the feeder cattle market. Preg checking was last week for us. That went exceptionally well and we're very grateful  because every cow 07:38 will hit a place in her life where it's time for her to exit the herd for whatever reason. Maybe she hasn't bred two years in a row. She's  got cancer. She needs to go.  Or maybe her last calf didn't wean off very well. Maybe she didn't have enough milk. So we're always anxious that we have a good quality crop of replacements, always  ready to step in  to that herd. Now we have finite resources as far as what we own for grass and the rent that we 08:08 do of grass, so we have to manage our grazing plans well, working with Mother Nature. But the  bigger question that many producers have right now who are justified in their concerns about what an operating note is going to look like, maybe they raise other commodities that are in the dumpster, like corn and markets are right now, are going to have to work really closely with their bankers, with their accountants, with their insurance people. 08:38 and with their families  and other decision makers and make  real hard decisions about what the plans are next year and try to do it without being caught up in speculation because that doesn't serve a purpose. So for us, means keeping on keeping on.  There may be an opportunity to keep back some additional females so we can do our part to try to help grow the herds. 09:07 size in America because it has continued to shrink. But that'll be a decision made in spring, probably. 09:16 It's really, really hard to explain what all this means to consumers or to those removed from agriculture, but  it's not unlike owning and managing your own business, especially if it's a business that's really can be really caught up in things affecting you that you don't have any say over.  That's the hardest part to translate  as again evidenced by comments and wild swings in the markets. um 09:46 things happen at least on paper and on the boards  that affect us,  sometimes minute by minute.  And I don't like it.  I can't do anything about it except for ask my elected people to be cognizant of what we've allowed to happen. And so much of it is well beyond my  limited understanding of economics um and trade. But. 10:15 Doing what's best for Americans, for consumers, for business owners, investors and all is very complicated. All I can say is there's a lot more that needs to be done  again as evidenced by what's happened. mean, it was terrible a few weeks ago and I  more than anything I think in this day and age of instant information, instant communications, it's every one of us needs to be much more cognizant. 10:44 of understanding the words have consequences. Good words and bad words, because you  just travel so much more quickly and you don't get an opportunity to provide further explanation to what you're saying. People have got to take respon