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 00:00You'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. 00:29and 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. 00:56Um, 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. 01:24Okay, 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 01:52When 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. 02:20Okay, 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. 02:37It'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. 03:05Yeah, 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. 03:35So 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. 04:05And 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 sm

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 00:00You'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. 00:29And 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 00:58What'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 01:27It'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. 01:54It'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. 02:24Yeah. 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. 02:53It'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. 03:23to  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. 03:53Yes, absolutely.  need, okay, I'm gonna step on the soap box for a minute because I don'

Today I'm talking with Bryna at Drunken Duck Farm & Rescue. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. Use the code HOME 15 to save 15% off your ticket price. atinyhomestead.com/support Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You'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. 00:29and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Brina at Drunken Duck Farm and  Sanctuary in Ohio. Good morning, Brina. How are you?  I'm great. How are you doing today?  I'm good. Tell me what the weather's like in Ohio. 00:54Well, it's a little cold, but it's sunny. So we will 100 % take it, ah especially because where our farm is, we're at the  end of the power line and we lost electricity this morning. So it's a little cold in the house. Oh, I hope you get it back soon.  Oh, yeah. This happens to us probably about 30 to 40 times during the winter.  Might be time to invest in a generator that kicks on when the power goes out. We have one of those. They're really great. 01:24That is on our wish list for this year.  Good, because it's  so helpful. When we were looking for our property, we didn't know that the property we would end up with uh would have a generator that kicks on when the power goes out. And at our house, we have a well. So when the power goes out, there's no water.  And  we were very excited to find out about the generator just automatically sending power to the house. It's amazing. It is one of the most wonderful things about this place. 01:54Okay, well, the weather here is very gray and I think it's probably 37 degrees outside  and they are predicting snow tonight. oh wonderful. Congratulations. Yeah. And I'm in Minnesota. So that stands to reason that we would have some snow in November. I'm excited. I always love the first snow. The last one I'm like, are you kidding me? But the first snow,  I,  I'm just beside myself. I'm like a five year old. 02:20So I'm a little, I'm actually originally from near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. So I'm very pro snow. During the winter, I am always excited for snow and I am disappointed in rain  because for us  ice  and really frozen mud is like the worst thing we can ever want for on our farm. So when it snows, I get so excited because we have snow and not ice. Yeah, absolutely. And 02:50I get excited because I associate snow with cozy homes because I grew up in the woods in Maine and we had, my parents had a lovely little ranch home surrounded by pine trees and it would snow, we had windows in every room and we would just kind of hang out by the wood stove and watch snow fall and be cozy. Yeah, I really, I want to say probably fall and winter time are my favorite time. Yeah, mine too,  absolutely.  Okay, so. 03:18I have to know why is it called Drunken Duck Farm and Sanctuary? Okay, so it's a little bit of a longer story. That's okay. When I originally moved onto the property,  was leasing. I hadn't rented or anything. mean, was, let me try that again. I was leasing and there was two houses on the property. There was a converted barn that got turned into a two-bedroom, one-bath house that the owner had  and then an  old 03:48a  1890s house, three bedrooms, one bath that I went ahead and I rented out and I had a small yard arou

Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt about food security. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You'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. 00:29and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt in Alberta, Canada. Good morning, Dawn, how are you?  Good morning, I'm doing really well. How about yourself?  I'm great. I'm so happy you could take the time to talk with me today.  Absolutely. I'm very happy too. Anytime. I love talking about this stuff. 00:59Good. How's the weather in Alberta?  Well, we had a little bit of snow last night. So just a little skiff.  It's not too cold. actually still, even though it snowed,  I'm a crazy woman,  even though it snowed, I still wore my sandals  to go into town for a cup of coffee this morning.  I'm excited for you.  think that's great because that will wake you up for sure.  Absolutely, for sure. 01:23Okay, it is  really beautifully sunny here. The breeze is very light and I think it's probably 45 degrees outside in Minnesota. Beautiful, beautiful, nice.  Yeah. So Dawn is a homesteading coach  and I wanted to have Dawn back. She'd been on the podcast before  to talk about growing food  and about preserving food and about how to not get caught up short. 01:48if there's an emergency like we had in the States here over the last month with the SNAP benefits. And has told me all kinds of cool things before, but I'm going to open this up to Dawn to tell me about growing food. So tell me about growing food, Dawn. For sure. So I just want to back it up a little bit. So my understanding is that you have the SNAP program down there. You've got little cards that the government issues that that's how some people get their food and that's been cut off. Is that what's happened? 02:17how they get some extra food, you know, for like low income people.  Right, which  again  is honestly in some ways a beautiful thing because, you know, everyone should have access to food.  However, having said that, if you're relying on a card and you're relying on the government for your food, that's a problem  because just like you just saw when that card doesn't have dollars on it to get food,  what are you gonna do? Right? Yes.  That's where it's at.  And so that's where I wanna take this today is 02:46let's we the people have the power to make the change for ourselves. And so when you think of a package of seed, I'm going to use an example of a package of lettuce seeds. So if you go to the store and you buy a package of lettuce seed, maybe it costs you $2 for a package of lettuce seed. Now, if you take that seed and you plant it in your backyard and everyone, most people, 95 % of people have space of some kind, whether it's a balcony. 03:14whether it's a backyard, whether it's a space, there's lots of  community gardens around in different towns and cities.  So find a piece of dirt or find some pots and you take that $2 package of seed,  you plant it in some soil  and you can be creative. You don't have to, it doesn't have to be an expensive venture. There's soil everywhere. So you dig up some soil, you put it in any kind of containe

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers.  A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You'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. 00:29and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers in Montana. Good morning, my friend. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. It's a wonderful morning after getting to see the Northern Lights. Did you get to see them? It was so weird. I got up at like... 00:571130 when my husband came to bed last night because I had to go potty  and uh I  went outside on my porch for some reason. I don't usually usually just come back to bed and I was looking out the window. I could see this red orangey color off in the distance. I did not have my glasses on and I was like, oh no, what's on fire over there? Yeah. And I was going to put my glasses on when I came upstairs and look out the bedroom window and I was like, if it's on fire, it's too far away to impact us. And I went to bed. I went to sleep. 01:27Got up this morning and looked at the local Facebook page for our town and somebody had posted, what's the red glow on the west side of town? And people were posting so many pictures in the comments and I was like,  I missed it. Well, I mean, you kind of  saw it. I saw the red, my husband got pictures and he got the blues and greens. Wow. So up here it was red and green. Yeah. 01:55And it was bright.  And  you know, I always wanted to see the Northern Lights. I was on my bucket list. I thought I was going to have to go to Alaska.  I mean, I really wouldn't have had to move up to Montana to even see them at this point. But they were  red and green last night and dancing. They'll dance too. It looks like almost like glitter in the sky to the naked eye. But the fact that you're able to see the actual red and green without the camera lens is pretty crazy because that's like 02:24Alaska, you know, style Northern Lights where you can see them dance in the sky. So we,  guess you're supposed to again see them tonight. So we're really excited. We'll go out again. Last night we had cloud cover and that ruins all of it.  course. And  you'll be surprised people in Minneapolis and St. Paul here in Minnesota actually could see them even with all the light pollution. Yeah, that is wild to me. I had friends that were in,  you know, Billings because we're kind of on the outskirts. 02:54And they were posting pictures of a two full blown light pollution.  And normally it has to be pretty pitch, you know, pitch  outside to be able to capture it in a long exposure. was capturing it without a long exposure. I mean, cool, but also scary tinfoil hat, you know, style thing where I'm like,  my husband jokes around. He's like, should we be putting tinfoil hats on now when we go outside to look at these? And we couldn't help but really laugh at that because it is. 03:23It is from the sun having solar flares that we're able to see these. Yeah, exactly. And  it's really cool and it's really pretty. But yes, it's concerning.  So I'm assuming the weather is pretty good there. If you were met, you managed to see i

Today I'm talking with Kristin at Mother Clucking Eggs. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Food Econ is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15 % off your registration costs. 00:29and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Kristen at Mother Clucking Eggs in Duluth, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Kristen. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. Is it gray up in the north there? It is a very gloomy day. Yeah. Typical November in the Northern tier states.  It is. 00:59Yeah, we're gray and it rained a little bit and it's breezy and it's cold. We just got the wood boiler going. Yes, I know. This weekend looks like it's going get down to the 20s. So I'm not quite ready for that, but yes. Yeah, we might get snowflakes. I know. Ready or not. 01:21Well, it is November what, ninth today?  Yes, seventh. Seventh, sorry. I'm way ahead of myself. um The  running joke in my family is that my birthday is November 4th and my daughter's is November 14th. And so we have a running bet as to whether it will snow by my birthday, in between my birthday and her birthday, or after her birthday.  And we're going to get snow here before her birthday. You think so? 01:51Yeah, I think so.  And she lives in Florida, so she won't see any snow, most likely. Oh my gosh. Lucky.  Yup. It's really weird having a kid who lives in the South  because she grew up, she grew up partly in Maine and partly here in Minnesota. And then she ended up in Florida. So, right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and mother clucking eggs, which is mother clucking fun to say.  My mom did not like  when I named it that. 02:21Um, she did not appreciate, but I think it's kind of funny.  is funny. So we moved out to the country,  um, six years ago and  I was obsessed with goats, specifically Nigerian dwarf goats. So,  um,  that was my first order of business was to get some goats. So I have two of those.  And,  um, then the next spring I. 02:48decided to get some chickens and I started with six and now I don't know what happened but I'm up to 44. Oh chicken math got you. It got me good. Okay so what else do you have anything? Two dogs, two kids and a husband. That is a good way to round it out I think. Yeah yes. Okay I have to ask what kind of dogs do you have? A golden retriever and a silver lab. 03:16So they're not necessarily livestock guardian dogs, although you may be using them that way. Yes, I do want a Great Pyrenees very badly, but my husband says that we cannot have a third dog. So I said um then we could maybe get a donkey, but he said no.  A dog would be easier than a donkey. 03:36I know. I know. I agree. 03:41Well, anyone who's listened to my podcast for over two years now knows we have a dog and I talk about her a lot. I really talked about her a lot in the beginning, but I try not to talk about her as much now.  Her name is Maggie. She's an  Australian shepherd and she only weighs 36 pounds. Oh my gosh. Little. She's a little Australian shepherd.  She was billed as a mini Australian shepherd, but having talked to people who raise Australian shepherds, 04:09I have been corrected. There is no s

Today I'm talking with Megan McGovern at Stone Soup Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You'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. 00:29and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefruitycon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Megan McGovern  at  Stone Soup Farm  in Oregon. Is that right?  No, I'm in a little town called Ferndale, Washington, which is about as far north  west in the United States you can get without being in the ocean or Canada. 00:59I was one state away. I screwed up. I'm sorry. uh Good um afternoon, Megan. How are you? Good. I'm doing great. Thanks. Good. um So how's the weather there? um You know, the nice thing about Washington, and we love it here, we are right on the, it's a beautiful place.  We're in between mountains on the East and they are just gorgeous mountains. And on the West, about eight miles of us, there is ocean. 01:27So we have everything we have. could literally if you were doing like a design theme, you could have, you know, Western house in a little log cabin or you could have a cabin in the woods or you could have beach house. It's really fantastic here. And the best part is that it never gets really cold and it never gets really hot. So in the winter never gets dips below freezing a few times, never gets a hard freeze or much snow, a couple inches here and there. Summer never gets above 75, 80 degrees. 01:57The winter is dark and gloomy and they call it the big dark. In the summer, you've got daylight till almost 10 o'clock at night. You can't even go watch fireworks, 4th of July, because it never gets dark. In the winter, it's dark at 430 and doesn't get light till 815 and we're right heading into that. And it rains every day all day long. And this weekend, this whole week has been dark and gloomy and overcast and sad. Makes me miss summer already and it's only November. 02:26As I sounds like November. We're kind of in the same boat today. It's drizzly and it's gray and I think it's like 45 degrees outside in Minnesota. Yeah, but it gets cold there. also not only cold, you have sunny days occasionally though, right? Oh, we have lots of beautiful, bright, crisp. 02:46Yeah, bright blue sunny days, you bright blue sky sunny days. Yes, absolutely. But today is not one of them. my  my husband happens to have a doctor's appointment here in an hour. So he's home today.  And he just got the wood burning boiler started for the first time this season. 03:05Yeah, yeah, we're about to start. Same thing. I love that thing. It saves us so much money in the wintertime, because as long as we're willing to do the work, the wood is paid for. Well, we have a very old not OK, not very old by Minnesota standards, but we have a farmhouse that's been a farm since the 1920s. And one of our little buildings outside was built as a place for farmhands to sleep in the 1940s. And my two adults 03:34sons are both ones in college and ones just graduated and they're both moving home for a while to save money and they want to live in this little outbuilding. It is not insulated. It is not warm. It is basically a barn and they're trying to kee

Today I'm talking with Michelle at Home Sweet Home Bakery. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Michelle Chesser  at Home Sweet Home Baker in Missouri. Good morning, Michelle. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How are you? I'm doing great.  I'm okay. I'm getting better. I've been sick for three weeks and I've mentioned it on the podcast and I actually feel  maybe 80%. 00:26from the zero I was at two, three Tuesdays ago. So I think I'm getting better.  How is the weather in Missouri today? We finally got fall  and  I love it. I love the changing of the season. So it's chilly. have our, we started a fire for the first time this weekend. So  bring it on.  I am right there with you because I am north of you in Minnesota  and I was listening to the weather for the week on our local news channel this morning  and the cutie patootie boy. 00:56who does the weather, said that we might get our first  mixed precipitation like sleet, snow flurries and rain on Saturday this weekend. And I was like,  yes, finally. Wow, that's early.  That's too early for me. Well, my birthday is tomorrow  and my daughter's is the 14th and we are 20 years and 10 days apart. And every year there's an unspoken bet as to whether we'll get snow before my birthday. 01:25or in between my birthday and her birthday or after her birthday. So I think we are going to get snow  in between. She's in Florida, so she won't be getting any snow. Well, happy birthday. Thank you. uh Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do.  Well, I've started my bakery about 17 years ago for young children. 01:50and  I wanted to find a way that they could grow up working, have a good work ethic. And so we started taking,  we grew a garden  and  started taking vegetables to the farmer's market. And  eventually we just started eating all our vegetables  and I've always loved baking.  So one year we took cupcakes to the farmer's market  and  we just grew from there and we added things and 02:19When we added cinnamon rolls, it got crazy. And eventually we built a home on our property and added a commercial kitchen in our home. So we have a home kitchen and then we have a commercial kitchen right next to it. And that was to bake for a coffee shop, a local coffee shop in town. So I baked for them for eight years and just finished doing that in March. 02:48So now I teach other home bakers  just how to grow and how to survive and balance everything. 02:59Wow. Okay. So you started out as a cottage food producer and now you teach. that  the beginning to where you are now? Yes. And I still bake. I still bake and sell not as much,  but I still  I'm in the trenches and I'm, you know, the holidays are coming up and I'm going to be full force baking. Awesome. I love stories like yours where you go from, we're going to try a thing and then it becomes a real thing, like a much bigger thing. uh 03:28Are you by any chance going to be coming to Minnesota for the cottage foodie con thing in April of 2026? absolutely am. And my husband is originally from Minnesota. He spent some of his childhood there. So when I told him it was in Minnesota, he's like, we're going, we're going. So I will be there. Yes. 03:51Awesome. I will not be there. However, cottage fruity con is the new sponsor from my podcast. Awesome Yes, I will actually have a little thing at the beginning of this episode when it comes out on Wednesday morning talking

Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms in Florida. Good morning, Mimi. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Florida? It's nice. It's fall weather  and it's  not hot. It's really nice and cool. 00:27So we're really excited about the  new weather right now.  I'm in Minnesota and it is as gray as it can possibly be and it is cold and they're saying rain today. Well, it is still sunshine in Florida.  It's really nice at the farm with the nice cool weather coming in. It makes it much easier to work on the farm for sure. Oh, it always does. We love cool days in Minnesota in the summer because in the summer, 00:57It can get as hot as it gets in Florida and it can be just as muggy as it gets in Florida. So I understand what you're saying. um So when you say it's cool, like how cool is it there? 70,  65 to 70 right now. Okay. Well, we have had frost every morning for the last three mornings. So my definition of cool is a little bit colder than yours. Yes.  Yes. 01:23But I'm not mad about it. Fall is my favorite season. So I am tickled that we in mid fall. It's been beautiful.  All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and wholesome whatever the heck it is. I forget the name because I've been sick. I'm sorry. Tell me about your place.  No problem.  started the place. I grew up in a farm back home and I really wanted to go back into the farm. We started uh a little homestead. 01:52but the region in Vernon and it's about 11 acres  and we have a few animals. have goats, we have a lot of chickens and we do have  some pigs and we're growing, you know, steadily growing  our flock and we're excited about it because it's pretty flat uh area. It has different, um we kind of parsing in our four  areas region so we can move our flock. 02:22around ah and then we also putting  on a putting on one of the lot a house there so we're excited about that to be permanently at the farm and  operating so  it's uh that's overall uh the farm we also building a pond  so that we can have our ducks  and  other you know animals being able to enjoy a pond as well. 02:50Very nice. So what made you want to get into this? Because I grew up on a farm, I wanted to always go back to that root and being able to raise my own animals and being able to grow vegetables or food source in a natural way like it used to be, know, non-GMO, pasture-raised animals so that 03:19we have that wholesomeness and then being able to have more of um a source of food that  we love raising and being able to. uh 03:36offer that same type of uh experience to other people too and enjoy a natural made food source. oh so  I'm glad that you mentioned that because not everyone who has a homestead or a farm sells their products that they produce from the farm. But is that was that the plan when you started this?  Yes and no. We also have uh some of our people, the people I know in community 04:06They also expressed the want to have naturally, you know,  a  reliable food. So we started  selling  our uh products to some friends and family and then expanding now to the other market. So that's how it falls from,  you know,  being able to share the things that we oh 04:35we raise  and then trying to expand it to  a bigger market right now.  Okay. So that leads me to my next question. Do people come to your place to buy your produce and your other products or do you sell it like a farmer's market or are you looking to get into grocery stores?  Some people do come at the farm to pick up the  items. I

Today I'm talking with Rebecca at AQuack AndaCluck Farm.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Rebecca at a Quack and a Cluck farm in Illinois. Good morning, Rebecca. How are you?  Good morning. Doing good. Good. Well, how's the weather there? Because it's been raining since last night here in Minnesota. Well, we didn't get rain until this morning and now it's drizzling  and cold. 00:28Yeah, and I hate to sound like a farmer, but we need the rain, so I guess it's okay. Yeah, we definitely do.  Definitely. It's really dry. It's been dry. It's needed. um Okay, so the first question I have for you is how you came up with a quack and a cluck for the name.  You know, honestly, 00:51I sat and I thought about it for a very long time.  And one thing that  I did was, you know, kind of come up with some names and I Google search just to make sure, you know, nobody else had any of them. didn't want to, you know, take somebody else's name.  And it just kind of hit me. I'm like, well, we got chickens and we got ducks. They make noises. There we go.  And  so I just, it just kind of came together. It worked out great. 01:20I  love it. And the only thing that's hard for me as the podcast host is that I have to make sure I pronounce  cluck very carefully. Yeah. Yeah. There was another lady who had a name like yours and it was something it had clucking in it.  And I I practiced for a whole day in my head and out loud saying clucking. So I didn't screw it up. uh Yeah. You know, and it 01:50It only takes just a little bit of a tweak in there for it to sound like something completely different. Yeah. And that's the one word that I never ever say on the podcast because I don't want people to be alienated. So,  right. So every time I find somebody with a name that ends in UCK, I'm like, OK, Mary Evelyn, be careful of how you say this word. Right. Yes. Very enunciate.  Yes. So is that chicks that I hear in the background? It is. Yes. 02:20um This is our first year  of doing fall hatches. um I'm not so sure that I like doing it. uh Of course, it's partly because my chickens are like,  no, we're out. So  it's been kind of random on what's hatching and what we're able to hatch.  Okay. 02:45Well, it's a lovely sound. think that chick peeps are beautiful to hear. do not,  I'm gonna step off to the side for a second.  The peeps that they sell at Easter,  I hate them. I don't like them. Every year I try one and I go, God, those are gross.  But  baby chicken peeps, the sound are just beautiful. So. Yes, I agree. And  on that side note of yours,  I do not like those peeps. 03:15I want to like them and my son always ends up getting some because he loves them and he's like try again so I eat one and I'm like it's just straight sugar it's gross. They're cute they are cute I'll give them that it's just that texture is just I can't get past that.  either I don't like them and my husband just laughs at me he's like you love marshmallows. 03:42And I'm spoiled. I have had homemade marshmallows before. Homemade marshmallows are fantastic.  And Peeps got nothing on them.  No, no. And once you have the homemade marshmallows, you can't even look at it or even taste, you know, the store-bought marshmallows the same. They just don't taste the same to me. No, they absolutely do not. There is a place up in Duluth, I think it is. I interviewed the lady that owns it and she makes homemade marshmallows and she sent 04:12I actually ordered some from her. had to try them.  And she sent me a package and I opened them the day I got them and they were gone. There were like 12  in the bag. And I ate pr

Today I'm talking with Susan at Momma Dragon's Homestead.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Susan at Mama Dragon's Homestead in Maryland, of all places. Good morning, Susan, how are you?  Good morning, I'm doing well. How are you? Well, let's be honest, you and I are both coming off of a two-week sickness. And if I sound rough, it's because I have had the most 00:26ridiculously miserable head cold upper respiratory thing  since two Tuesdays ago. And  how long have you had it? It's been about the same. I'm on week three and  doing so much better than I was before.  My tonsils decided that they were going to  get huge on me. So  but it's something that my kids brought home for sure.  Yeah, my kid went to see his girlfriend and she had been sick and I didn't know she'd been sick. 00:54And I think he brought it home from her place. So I'm kind of  mildly displeased with him,  but I love him. And so I'm just like, eh, it could have been my husband bringing it home from work. can't find anybody to blame. I just have to be miserable.  So  if  Susan sounds snorky or I sound snorky, that's why.  And listener, if you are smart, 01:19try to make sure you wash your hands and if you feel okay about it wear a mask when you go out in public because it is going around. Yeah it is. It's gross you do not want this. It has been so bad.  Okay so first off I'm so happy that you're you're well enough to chat with me  and second off why is it mama dragons homestead? um I  really really love dragons. um 01:47I was definitely uh kind of a horse girl growing up.  But then like in middle school, was like, you know what? I'm going to just make these look like dragons now. dragons  have just been something that  I've  loved for most of my life.  And I'm an artist as well. So I draw a lot of dragons. uh I  didn't want uh my homestead to be uh 02:17a name that I already have online elsewhere or anything. I tried to make it kind of, well, I love dragons. So I'm a mama. Here's dragons. Mama dragon.  Well, it's attention getting because I saw it on Facebook and I was like, hmm, what is this? Does she raise dragons? Do they exist?  My kids, my kids are all grown. But if you had figured out a way to find dragon eggs, hatch them and raise dragons, they would have been all over that.  Oh, if I 02:46you'll be the first to know because I'm all about that.  Yeah, the book that got my youngest hooked on reading  was Aragon and he talked about dragon eggs incessantly for months after he read that book.  I actually have read that one too. think I was um in middle school as well when I read that one. ah But my first uh big dragon series book was Anna Caffrey's Dragon Riders of Fern.  Mine too. 03:14love that series. Absolutely love it.  Me too. And what I didn't know when I started, the first one I read, we're going to get into books for a minute, was The White Dragon because I didn't know there were other books before that one. And that's the one that got me sucked in. And then  as a young adult, I learned that there were so many more. And then I think she's died now. think  Emma Caffrey has passed. So there will be no more Pern books. And I'm kind of sad about it. 03:44She did collaborate with her son. So her son has, they've got books that they've done together and some that he's done. So there's still some Anne McCaffrey magic out there. I may have to dig into it. I haven't read one in a long time. Okay. Well, anyone who's a reader and loves dragons and loves words, go find the Pern series because it is fabulous. So I don't want to get into books too much because I am a word nerd a

Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hooves & Honey Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead   Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hoves, and Honey Farms  in California. Good afternoon, Paula. How are you? Good afternoon. How are you? I'm good. It looks like it's sunny there. Oh, yeah. It's nice and warm down here today. Oh, well, I think it's not even 50 degrees in Minnesota where I am. 00:29Oh, wow, that's cold already. Yeah, fall is on the way. It's really sunny though. So if you don't think about it too hard, it still looks like summertime outside. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do at your place. So my husband and I bought some land about 15 years ago. 00:54It kind of started, my husband at the age of 32 was diagnosed with cancer  and  the cause of it from  what the doctors could understand was more environmental causes. Basically the water, the food, all the stuff, all the toxins and everything. So we kind of decided that we wanted to grow our own food, just kind of live a healthier lifestyle, so to speak. 01:23Um, so we got some land and we started small with cattle and pigs and then just slowly over the years,  um, we've just kind of expanded things and that's kind of how we got started.  How long ago was this? About 15 years ago. And how's your husband now? He's great. He is cancer free and has been,  I mean, since it went away about 01:5214 years ago.  Awesome. So whatever you guys did helped. Yes, hopefully. It never comes back. Good. It looks like you have a lot going on. So do you grow produce? Do you grow animals? Do you grow both?  Well, right now we grow animals.  We have some fruit trees and stuff growing that we've been slowly planting over the years to just kind of get everything ready. uh 02:20We don't actually live on that farm that we are starting, but we literally make the drive every single weekend. We live in Southern California and we bought up in Northern California. Oh, okay. We have a foreman that lives on the property  and he takes care of the animals during the week. then usually  Jeff and I try to make a three or a four day weekend trip out of it. And we drive up and down. 02:49and help take care of the animals, make sure everything's up to date, make sure they have their food, their pens are secured, run all the errands, and then we get to play with them and have some fun.  So  it's like work and vacation mixed together? Yes. Okay, what kind of animals do you have there? So right now we have mini Hereford cows,  and then we have our pigs. 03:18which we have uh Magna-Listas. ah And then we have about 40 chickens.  And we've got what else? Oh, we have a lot of Nigerian goats that we um have started breeding about two years ago.  We kind of dabbled into the goat world. We've always just done the pigs, the chickens and the cows and up by our property. We have a lot of poison oak, which my husband is highly allergic to. oh 03:48We decided to bring in some goats to help try to clear it and then we just kind of fell in love with the breed and we slowly grown them over the last two years. So um now we breed them and sell them. 04:06Okay. So I was going to ask you if the animals earn their keep. The goats do. Oh yes, the goats do and the, uh, the cattle do as well. So we kind of run them through a cycle. We have, let the grass kind of grow back. We let the cows go through and graze first, and then we'll kind of run the goats behind them to pick up cause cows are kind of a little bit more picky about what they eat. Yeah. And

Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow & Bloom. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow and Bloom in Bismarck, North Dakota. Good morning, Lulu. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather there?  Really cloudy,  really humid over here. 00:25Oh, well, it's really nippy here in Minnesota this morning for the first time in over a week.  Thank God. It's been very, very hot this past week. Yeah, we should be getting some good weather this weekend though. So I'm excited about that. I'm really happy for you. It's supposed to rain here this weekend and that's okay too, because we could use it. And  that sounds really funny coming out of my face because, you know, I didn't grow up as a homesteader. 00:53And so every time I say we need the rain, I sound like a farmer. totally understand. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Lulu.  So my name is Lulu and I'm the owner of Furrow and Bloom.  And  I started a micro  farmstead um in little  North Dakota.  What we kind of do is like we grow 01:23vegetables. um We raise rabbits. That was how we started on a fourth of an acre. And um we recently started to reach out to the community and provide some of our products. And there was a demand for a refillery store. So we started kind of taking on the responsibility of that. So we're just kind of growing and  taking orders like that. Awesome. 01:52And I know that you actually produce almost everything that you put out in the world. And so how in the world do you have time for all of that?  So I have to really sit down and make time for it.  I work  as an administrative assistant for a neuropathic doctor here in town. So that takes up a majority of my time, obviously. 02:19Um, but then I do have a passion for  baking. That's kind of how I got into the whole homesteading life.  And I learned how to make sourdough probably about four or five years ago now.  Um,  so because I enjoy it so much, I make time for it. It started off just  with me baking breads for our family. But then I started gifting it out. People started to really want it. And now. 02:48I um sell that as part of our farmstead. 02:54Okay. And what else do you make and sell? So I actually sell ravioli. So when it comes to food, it's bread and raviolis. um That's mainly what I put out and jams. And I try to source all the things here in town as much as I can. And also just like use the community  as  a, um I guess like a support system. Cause a lot of stuff we actually get 03:23donated or we go and pick up when people no longer need something or just want to get rid of it. So we do use a lot of things like that oh to make our products. Okay, so here's my big question for you. In Minnesota, we have a lot of regulations on  how we can do things like you're doing. 03:46And in our case, we can't really do pop-ups at businesses unless there's more than three people who are going to be involved, three businesses, three pop-up businesses at the business. Is that how it is for you or can you just like get hold of a business and say, can I use your parking lot for five hours? Yeah. So the laws,  the cottage laws specifically here in North Dakota and Bismarck kind of changed over the years when I first started out. 04:14Um, cottage bakers were not allowed to bake at all. Like there was no cottage food, um, really allowed without getting permits and pulling all the right licenses. It has now kind of  become, I guess, more accessible because there's such a big farm  l

Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm in North Carolina, is that right? West Virginia.  West Virginia. I'm in Minnesota. I am a Yankee. It is all the same to me. Sorry about that.  No problem at all.  Good morning, Sean. How are you?  I'm doing well. Good morning to you as well. How are you? 00:28I'm good. I'm going to start this off by saying I have a head cold. So if there's sniffles in the recording, it's me and I'm sorry.  How is the weather in uh West Virginia?  It's honestly pretty good. It was pretty dry and hot there for a while.  we last week, I think we got like an inch and a half of rain one day and weather's weather's starting to cool down in the mornings and everything. Everything's starting to feel like normal fall again. How's the weather up there? 00:54It's a little nippy. I think it's maybe 60 degrees and it's breezy and bright and sunny.  Oh, wow. Yeah, we've had a couple cool mornings dipped down into the high  30s. I actually had to start a fire the other morning. So it was it's it we've had some brisk ones, but overall, it's pretty nice. Yeah, even if I wanted to start a fire right now, I can't.  Our furnace is dead and we have a wood boiler, wood burning boiler  that hooks into our furnace with a blower. 01:23And so right now it's about 65 degrees in my house and probably will be for a couple more days, but then we're getting it fixed. Oh nice, well that's good. And just in time for the cool season.  Oh, of course, of course. That's what always happens. If the furnace is going to go out, it's going to be  in the fall.  And if the AC is going to go out, it's going to be in the spring. Yep, that's exactly right. 01:46Yeah, exactly. Because Murphy is an optimist and God love Murphy.  I have bad things to say about Murphy, so we're not going to go there.  All right. So  tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. So ah I'm an author and farmer from West Virginia. I farm a one acre property with my wife.  We farm rabbits and chicken and chickens and quail. um Prior to that, I spent 12 years working for the federal government  and uh 02:14we bought this property, started farming on it to feed ourselves first and  then we sell anything that's left over to the community and then we also have some giving initiatives where we give back, whether it be farm products or uh pantry items uh to the people that need it most in our community. Fantastic. So are you strictly rabbit, chicken and quail or do you have a garden too? 02:41We do have a garden. So we  grow a lot of produce, we grow a lot of fruit. We use all of our rabbit manure as the only fertilizer for  all of our crops and everything. So the rabbit manure is kind of where life begins for everything. It feeds everything that feeds us, including the rabbits. And it's kind of a  closed system. But yeah, we also grow wildflowers and um any sales of  things like wildflowers. 03:07A portion of those proceeds go to purchase pantry items that stock are giving initiative, which is called Farm for Better. 03:15Awesome does farm for better have uh a website or a Facebook page or anything?  Yeah, so it's it's just part of our normal website, which is CarltonHillsFarm.com slash farm for better Okay, cool because I'm sure that people want to go check it out because they're gonna be like poor Where can I find stuff about that? um Okay, so tell me tell me how you got in this because I looked at your website a

Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box. You can follow on Facebook as well.   www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box in North Carolina. Good morning, Deborah. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? How's the weather in North Carolina today? Actually, it's cooler than it has been. It's been staying right around 86. 00:27And we're getting a cold front on Northeastern.  So  it's a little bit cooler today, probably mid seventies,  but the sun's out. So  no,  actually it's not supposed to start raining until I think late Friday  into Saturday. And then Saturday is supposed to be, you know, pretty heavy rain. oh My daughter lives in Florida and she's on the Miami side. So I think she's probably going to be okay. 00:57but if she was on the other side, she'd probably be getting rain right now.  Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and Sproutside the Box. Well, my sister and I started the business um back in February  and our initial thought was to purchase a farm  and tower farm. So we purchased a tower  and started growing aeroponically and 01:26It was just amazing the vegetables  that the tower produces. so  then I thought, well, you know, it only had like 28 ports.  So unless you purchase a quantity,  you really wouldn't have anything em much to say for like a business or a farm stand. And so  at that point, we decided we needed something a little bit. 01:54faster with a faster turnaround time  and we came upon a website  for microgreens through Donnie DeLillo for  Donnie Greens microgreens.  Anyway, so we took that class  and we began growing microgreens  and it's evolved rapidly. um We deliver to homes, we do home subscriptions  and 02:24So we deliver in a 30 mile radius and we also have,  we've branched out into salads. And so  now we have a big clientele for our salads  and it's just expanding from there. Right now we're actually looking for land so that we can put a tower farm and the microgreens  with a barn dominium on one spot. So that's where we're at today. 02:54So much fun. Okay, so I have questions. The tower garden is the thing where it's a bunch of tubes and they have holes in them and you put a thing in and it has dirt and then you put those seeds in the dirt. Is that how that works? No. Okay, tell me. With this one it has a base that holds the water with a pump and it has one tube with 03:23seven pots and each pot has four openings.  So  in our case, when we first got the tower, we didn't know how to grow seedlings. And so we purchased the seedlings with the tower.  And it came in one package one day, we put it together in a matter of 20 minutes, maybe tops.  And we have the seedlings in there in the pump going, you know, within 03:52a couple hours  and you add nutrients to it and then it's on a timer. So it  waters itself. You don't have to do anything.  that's pretty neat. What kind of space footprint does it take up? Like how tall, how wide? um It's probably, I would say six feet tall with everything. We also have a caster, um like a little 04:21bench that it sits on so that we can roll it around if we need to change positions for a better sun. And then it's probably about maybe two and a half feet around. So it doesn't take up much space. And you can have one in the house, they have a smaller version that goes in the house. But ours was out on our deck. And so we just grew from February to April. 04:51We just watched it grow. We went out and sat down and watched it grow. We were growing microgreens in the meantime  in the house,  but not outside. Do you buy your towers e

Today I'm talking with Matt Rosen at Cottage Foodie Con. You can follow on Facebook as well. "CottageFoodieCon will be an annual premier event dedicated to supporting and empowering small-scale food entrepreneurs operating under cottage food laws. This conference serves as a vital hub for cottage food producers, policymakers, educators, and industry professionals to connect, learn, and grow. Through a combination of keynote speeches, workshops, networking opportunities, and an exhibitor trade show. The conference will foster business development, regulatory compliance, and innovation in the cottage food sector." Use Promo Code: CFCON25 and get 25% OFF (expires 10/31/25) www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Matt  at The Cottage Foodie  in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.  Good morning, Matt, how are you? I'm doing fantastic, Mary. How are you?  Good. See what I did there? I didn't say your last name. Do you want to explain it really quick?  Yeah.  So I question my family. 00:26Lineage so whether or not they are pronouncing our last name correctly because  it's spelled just like Rosen R O S E N But it's actually pronounced rosine like there should be a Z in there or maybe two E's uh So yeah, so it's uh I respond to both  Okay. Hey you probably works to does  people  or hey cookie guy. That's what seems to be uh Most popular here over the last five or so years since I started my college food business, so 00:56Yeah. And uh your business is sergeant shortbread and it's really hard to screw that up. So  the spelling is a little tricky. A lot of people mix up the spelling of sergeant. went with the, uh of course, spending 23 years in the military. went with the military version of sergeant, not the S A R G E N T that some people want to spell it. But, uh, so it's easy to pronounce, hard to spell.  Yeah. I grew up thinking the English language was super simple. 01:26And then I looked at other languages and went, no, we're just as messy as everybody else's languages. So,  has been on my show twice, I think already. And he came back to chat with me this morning about the fact that  he  has spearheaded the Cottage Food Econ that's coming up in April of 2026. So tell me what you got going on, Matt. 01:52Yeah, so it's a cottage food conference  designed specifically for cottage foodies uh or cottage food entrepreneurs.  And the premise behind it  is like the classes and the sessions and everything about this conference is geared towards uh the business side of running a cottage food business. 02:15A lot of people ask me like, can you have a cottage food conference? Every state, how can it be national? Every state is different and  all these products. I'm like, easy. I'm just going to teach you the business side of running a cottage food business. And I'm not going to teach you how to make sourdough. You probably already know how to do that.  And I'm not going to teach you about the laws in Tennessee. You should already know those because you're a cottage food producer in Tennessee. If you're not from Tennessee, you could care less what the laws are in Tennessee. 02:44So yeah, so that's the premise behind uh the conference is that it's designed to help cottage food entrepreneurs with the business side of running a cottage food business. things like one of the classes is food photography using your iPhone.  As we all know as cottage food entrepreneurs, we  don't have enormous budgets to hire somebody to take professional pictures. So  just starting out,  we'll teach you how to do 03:13great pictures and it's taught by a photographer. oh So she's going to teach us how t

Today I'm talking with Erin at Erin's Acre. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Erin at Erin's Acre  in,  I want to say around Faribault, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Erin. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing, Mary? I'm doing good. Is Faribault close enough? Faribault is close enough, yes. We do have an example address. Cool. 00:26Alrighty, I know how the weather is because we're in the same state. It's been a lovely day. It is a lovely day. It's very warm for October 2nd. Yeah, I would just assume it not be, but we're going to have that next week, supposedly. So that would be nice. I see a 34 degree out there next week is a low.  So we are coming to an end.  Yeah, I saw that too. And I was like, well, there goes the good basil that's left in the garden.  Right.  And in my farm, uh my flowers run 00:56July, I guarantee July through September and you know, any extra days into October are just bonus for me.  The first, the first frost will take me out. I don't have, um, hoop, hoop tunnels or anything like that. I'm  everything's outside. And so that, that first frost will take me out and I grow a lot of dahlias. so usually by  the second week of October, I'm ready for, let's move on to the next,  the next phase here and start clean up and getting ready for next year.  Yes, ma'am.  Um, 01:25I have a question about dahlias, but I usually say, tell me a little bit about yourself and your place. But first the question about dahlias. Okay. When do you have to have those out of the ground? When do you have to dig the bulbs out? So after the first frost, you can start cleanup as far as, you know, cutting down the dead greenery stuff that's on the top. They do recommend a real hard freeze to put that tuber into the dormant state. And then you dig. 01:55You know, Minnesota weather in October  can be all over the place. It's freezing rain. We've had snow. I've had to dig snow off to dig the tail, your tubers up.  Um, but you know, a real hard freeze, um, is great. And then if you can get some warm days to do the digging and pull them up after that is the best.  And then the other question I have is, will they bloom  until the first frost or do they kind of have a life cycle where they're kind of done? They do slow down. think, um, you know, our temperatures. 02:24Those cooler nights  will slow them down and just the hours of daylight too.  And I'm sure you've noticed we're really losing daylight fast right now But they will keep going  I've got oh I've got one variety called Baron Katie and she is my first to bloom and my last she will Keep turning out blooms until the last  last last moment. Okay. Well, we grew dahlias two summers ago just as a  shit and giggles thing, you know  grins and giggles  and uh 02:54I  didn't love them as much as people seem to.  They were pretty, but they're not my thing. And so my husband said to me that September, October, he said, do want me to dig the bulbs out? And I said, nah,  I'm probably never going to grow them again. And he said, are you sure? And I said, yes. He said, what about the gladiola? It's because you have to dig gladiola bulbs out too. And that was the year we tried those too. And I said, nah, just leave them.  said,  you really like. 03:22He said, you really like perennials, don't you? said, yes, I do. They are a lot of work. Yeah. And we don't really have a good place to store them. I mean, I could probably figure it out, but I'm just like, it's expensive. It's an expensive hobby.  And I also wasn't really excited about the gall situation with, you know, if the

Today I'm talking with Emily at Tiffin Community Kitchen. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Emily  at Tiffin Community Kitchen in Tiffin, Ohio. Good morning, Emily. How are you? I'm great. How are you?  I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning? ah Wonderful. It's actually going to be 85 today. That's awesome. It's going to be 90 something in Minnesota. 00:29And I'm done. I'm going to be really happy to see this break this weekend. Yeah, it's time. It's October. It's time.  Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what Tiffin Community, whatever it is, Okay. All right. So my name is Emily Reilly. um joined the, it's actually a nonprofit that runs the Community Kitchen, the Farmers Markets, and the Community Gardens. 00:57So it's Seneca County common ground and it's the nonprofit  and I'm the executive director of it. Um, I joined with them in January of this year. So I've only been with them for, was it like 10 months, 10 months now.  Um, so Aaron Gerlach, who is the reverend of the Episcopal church here, who started this whole program. Um, he had this huge vision. So once the kitchen was built, then they needed someone to. 01:26actually take what his vision was  and um actually start putting it into motion. So that's what I'm here to do.  So  I oversee the  community kitchen,  which is a our mission is to support  and improve local food ecosystems. um The kitchen has successfully delivered um kitchen training um and we're directly supporting our local workforce to help strengthen it. um 01:56I also run the farmers market, um which we operate every single weekend. It's awesome. It's fabulous. I love it.  I've never ran a farmers market until this time.  But my background is event services and hospitality. So it kind of falls  right in line with everything I enjoy doing. um And then the community gardens, which I'm not a gardener, but I oversee that part as well. And it's great because we're able to put  garden boxes throughout um Seneca County. 02:26So people can go and  grab their locally sourced tomatoes and cherry tomatoes and green peppers and  all that kind of stuff and not have to pay for it. Because sometimes it's not affordable for everybody and we always want to make everything affordable. So that's what the nonprofit kind of  is helping um develop in Seneca County.  That is fabulous. I love that all three parts  are one. 02:54you know, that they all feed each other. ah So where is Tiffin? What's the nearest big city? ah So it would be between Columbus and Cleveland. Okay. I have probably driven by Tiffin on my drives from Minnesota to Maine to see my parents.  Yep. So, okay.  Is Tiffin a small town? Is it a suburb? Is it, what is it? Yes. Tiffin is a small community.  It's a rural community. 03:22So, you know, you have Tiffin and then you have a bunch of rural towns around it. Like you have Hopewell and Bascom,  New Regal, Cary, Old Fort. So  Tiffin is like the center,  kind of like a little city um with all these smaller towns around it.  And we're a huge farming community.  So we are very rural.  It's cornfield after cornfield and then you hit soybeans. it's,  you know, that's why I love doing the farmer's markets because you have. 03:50all these locally sourced vegetables  and baked goods that are coming in um that you  sometimes don't get ah in the cities. I lived in Columbus for eight years, loved it, but I miss living in a rural environment. Yeah, I can't imagine living in a big city again. I don't ever want to if I don't have to. um So  if it's a rural area, then 04:19How is

Today I'm talking with Marissa at Careful Creations Bake Shop. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Marissa  at Careful Creations Bake Shop in  Mankato, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Marissa. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What a beautiful day we're having in Minnesota today. Oh gosh, yeah. I see that they're predicting snow the first four or five days of November. oh 00:29So I mean I'm used to that with just moving back from Sioux Falls. We barely got snow last year. So this will be  a nice change for us Yeah, the last two winters have not been too bad for snow in Minnesota Just so you know, so you may luck out again and not have a whole lot of Oh,  man, my youngest children will be disappointed with no snow then 00:54Yeah, I don't know. This weather's been nuts. And that's why I always start the podcast off with, how's the weather? But because you're right down the road for me, I was like, oh, it's a gorgeous day for both of us. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am 28. I'm married. I'm a military wife. I have four kids. My husband and my eight-year-old daughter both have 01:24tree nut allergies. My eight-year-old,  also has sunflower allergies.  my goal has always been to  make the environment safe for them. And  when we go to the store,  we can't really buy any baked goods because everything has some sort of manufactured on or near 01:53nuts, then 90 % of store products do have sunflower of some sort. creating my own bakery company and business has been a dream come true because now I can keep my loved ones safe and other people's loved ones safe. love that you would not believe how many people I have talked to in the last two years. 02:21who had a need for themselves, figured out how to fill that need and then were like, oh, I can help other people who have the same need. I love everybody in this community so much.  Yeah, it's a whole new ball game for me, but I am definitely excited to be able to  provide those special dietary needs for  my clientele and customers. 02:48Mm-hmm. So how have you been getting the word out because you just started the business a little bit ago? So  this morning at about five o'clock, we actually launched  our website that is also  on my  Facebook page.  We have  a public group. We have a public page.  And also here in Mankato, we have been taking advantage  of the free public 03:17bulletin boards and we have putting flyers out as well. And then Friday we receive our business cards so we'll be able to hand those out as well. Awesome. Tell me the website address if you know it off the top of your head now and then you can tell me at the end too. It is www.careful-creations-bake-shop.com. Okay, awesome. And I'll ask you again at the end so people can catch it at the end too. 03:48So, so what are you  I know nothing about tree nut allergies or sunflower allergies because  I haven't had that in my family at all. So  are you just avoiding making things with nuts or have you found some kind of substitution for them? So  we completely avoid them altogether.  There are  things where we do substitute. So if like it is something for example 04:16My favorite thing to make  is butter chicken, but traditional butter chicken requires cashews,  and that is the deadliest for my husband. So  when I make it, I actually leave it out completely. I just add a little bit of extra butter to make it a little nicer. Butter makes everything better. Oh yes.  But  most of the time we just avoid. 04:43If there are recipes where we need to substitute, we usually

Today I'm talking with Ruby at Red Feather Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots  Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Ruby at Red Feather Farm in Ohio. Good morning, Ruby. How are you? Good. How are you?  I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning?  It's actually kind of chilly, but sunshiny, so I'll take it. At least it's not 100 degrees. Yeah, we're looking at 90 tomorrow or Saturday in Minnesota. Oh  man. We had that over the... 00:29past weekend and it was miserable. I'm so excited for fall. Me too. And I'm going to update everybody on the weather here and then I'll tell you why I me too on fall and then I get questions. The weather here is bright and sunny and I think it's 65 degrees and there's a light breeze, but they're saying hot and really windy all weekend, which means that a lot of the stuff we wanted to get done outside isn't going to happen because we can't do it with high wind. Oh, great. 00:58So indoor things this weekend, which is good because we have lots of indoor things to take care of because it's end of summer season. You know how this goes, right?  Oh, yes. Yeah. And ah the reason I said me too is because fall is my absolute favorite season.  am  so excited to get into soup season and sweater season and candle season. I'm thrilled. Oh, me too. That's my favorite. I love soup.  It's so easy too. 01:25Yeah, I was looking to see if we had any canned beans, not like we canned them, but store-bought canned beans, because I was thinking chili sounded good next week.  And uh we don't have any, but we have the beans in a bag, you know, the dry beans.  So I will be soaking beans at some  point next week so we can make chili and cornbread, because that sounds wonderful. Oh, yes.  I'm ready, ma'am. 01:50I'm so ready. All right. So tell me about yourself, a little bit about yourself and about, um, red feather farm. Well, my name is Ruby and me and my husband started red feather farm. I'd say somewhere like 2015. And basically it started out with, we named it after we raised red Angus beef cattle and we raised boar goats. both red. And then we raised all kinds of poultry. I. 02:19pastured them and sold them that way to customers.  And we've kind of evolved a little bit and I've completely gone in a different direction. But basically now I guess you could call me a homesteader. I think most of my followers on social media know I hate that word because nobody knows what it means. But  we have dove into basically producing all of our own food for our family and some other families and 02:46Red Feather Farm is now just kind of my social media presence  where I am teaching and trying to empower people that are either just waking up and trying to escape the matrix of being dependent on grocery stores  or people that have been doing it a little, a long time like me. And just be encouraged and know that this is a great life. It's hard. You've got to be willing to work hard  and preserving your own food and growing it is not that scary. It's not that serious and we got to quit being afraid of it. 03:16So it's kind of, it's been kind of fun doing this social media thing and teaching other people. I've taught a lot of people how to can and all that good stuff. yeah, that's okay. Fantastic. And you're right. It's, it's not hard to preserve food  or it's not scary to preserve food or any, or make soap or any of the things that we do as homesteaders,  but it is hard work and it's not convenient. And the reason that 03:46people like stores is because it's convenient. You go, you buy the thing you need. You don't have to buy the stuff to make