Episodios

  • Mother Clucking Eggs
    Nov 12 2025
    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 00:00 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 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. 00:29 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 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. 00:59 Yeah, 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. 01:21 Well, 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? 01:51 Yeah, 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. 02:21 Um, 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. 02:48 decided 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. 03:16 So 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. 03:36 I know. I know. I agree. 03:41 Well, 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, 04:09 I have been corrected. There is no such thing as a mini or a toy. They're just all Australian shepherds of varying sizes. Oh, I didn't know that either. So there's some, some dispute going on in the Australian shepherd world about what they're called. love her to pieces and she is definitely not a livestock guardian dog. She loves every critter that comes on the property except for possums. Oh. 04:38 Okay. She thinks possums are cats until she realizes that they're possums and then she's like, oh, and she does this really deep in her throat growl. And that's when I know there's a possum outside because she sees them outside the window. Does she kill them? No, because she's never she's never been up close with one. Okay. There was one in the doghouse and she saw it and she thought it was one of our cats who she loves. And she went 05:07 tail wagging up to the doghouse realized it was not one of our cats and her hackles went up and she was just barking at it. My husband had to...
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    31 m
  • Stone Soup Farm - SNAP How to find help, and how to help
    Nov 10 2025
    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 00:00 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 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. 00:59 I 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. 01:27 So 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. 01:57 The 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. 02:26 As 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. 02:46 Yeah, 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. 03:05 Yeah, 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 03:34 sons 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 keep warm with a little propane stove and it's not working. We might need to upgrade to wood for a while or something because it's or I could insulate but you know that's work. So we'll see. 03:59 Whatever you're do you better get on it. No kidding the bar cats are sleeping on their beds right now to get everybody keep warm. yeah, exactly All right. So tell me a little bit about your farm we Honestly, we did not set out to be farmers Although I have always loved food and the food supply and figuring out where my food came from but we have 04:26 three kids who are all gluten-free and dairy-free for health reasons. And so we need to be very strict about what we eat. And my middle son, he's in college right now, but he needed room to roam. He could not be contained in a suburban household. And he's the kid that when you go to the park, he's the one that all the other moms are pointing at the tallest tree and saying, whose kid is that? 04:54 and it would be mine. ...
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    36 m
  • Home Sweet Home Baker
    Nov 5 2025
    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 00:00 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 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%. 00:26 from 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. 00:56 who 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. 01:25 or 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. 01:50 and 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 02:19 When 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. 02:48 So now I teach other home bakers just how to grow and how to survive and balance everything. 02:59 Wow. 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 03:28 Are 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. 03:51 Awesome. 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 about what cottage foodie con is but Matt the guy that that started it is a fantastic person I don't know if you've met him. I don't if you talk to him, but if you get the chance to when you're there 04:16 go say hi and tell him Mary sent you because he's super sweet. He's a really nice guy. Yes. I talked with him online and that was the first time I met him and I was blown away. He's really nice and really helpful and he knew his stuff. So I'm really excited about going and I'm looking forward to it. Good. I was hoping that you were going to say yes because I really wanted to break this news in 04:42 conversation, not just with a little blurb at the beginning of the podcast. uh I'm so excited for him and I'm really excited that you're going because I think you're going to find out things that you didn't know and you've doing this for a while. But there's always stuff to learn that you didn't even think of. oh So anyone who's listening, if you're ...
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    34 m
  • Wholesome Meadow Farms
    Nov 3 2025
    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 00:00 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 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. 00:27 So 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, 00:57 It 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. 01:23 But 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. 01:52 but 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. 02:22 around 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. 02:50 Very 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 03:19 we 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 03:36 offer 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 04:06 They 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 04:35 we 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 also bring them to some farm swap. 05:03 and we're trying to also get them to farmers market. Okay, awesome. Awesome. So how long have you been doing it? About a year now. We've been doing the farm. We're in our second year going in. Okay, do you love it? Yes. Yes. 05:29 It's like, you know, it brings me back to my childhood where, you know, we do chores, we attend the land and we attend to the animals. So it's basically bringing back to our childhood. Yeah. And you're not the first person to tell me that. And the thing that comes up a lot on this podcast is memories and childhood and play. And I am not saying that homesteading is just playing. 05:59 because it's not, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of work. But the reward is to be able to say, I pour my, you know, all my energy into this and I'm able to have a food that I know where it came from. uh That's the reward. And then being able to just have ...
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    29 m
  • AQuack AndaCluck Farm
    Oct 31 2025
    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 00:00 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 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. 00:28 Yeah, 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, 00:51 I 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. 01:20 I 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 01:50 It 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. 02:20 um 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. 02:45 Well, 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. 03:15 I 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. 03:42 And 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 04:12 I 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 probably eight of them. I saved four. Two for my husband, two for my son. Because I'm a good mom and I am a good wife. I wish it was the same here. I make something like that and it doesn't even really have time to set up before the kids are reaching in and taking them out and eating them. 04:41 It's like same day they're gone. yeah, absolutely. OK, so let's let's bring it back in the line about homesteading. Tell me about yourself and what you do at a quack and a clog farm. Well, we we are trying to be a little bit more self-sufficient. um So we have lots of chickens, plenty of chickens. A lot of them, though, are also 05:11 ones that we're trying to preserve, trying to bring back, like the Pavlovaskan chicken breed. I have heard it pronounced, you know, a little bit different. So I may not be saying it right to everybody, but I've heard it both ways. The Sebastopol geese. We also have like Mandarin ducks and ...
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    36 m
  • Momma Dragon's Homestead
    Oct 29 2025
    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 00:00 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 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 00:26 ridiculously 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. 00:54 And 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, 01:19 try 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 01:47 I 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 02:17 a 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 02:46 you'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. 03:14 love 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. 03:44 She 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 and a 04:12 book geek and we could spend two hours and that's not what this podcast is about. keep joking that I need to start a book podcast and I just don't have the time right now to invest in a second podcast. So maybe if I do do one in a year or so, I'll have to have you come back and we'll talk books. But what do you do at Mama Dragon's Homestead? What are you guys going on there? um So we just started out. This is 04:40 This is my first year homesteading and I literally took a nose dive into it. um And in February, me and my kids started planting our little garden. had pumpkins, corn, uh tomato, every tomato. planted way too many tomatoes. um Zucchini, we got that all going and I felt like really hopeful for it. I'm actually terrible at keeping any kind of plant thing alive. So the fact that uh 05:09 it was working was really exciting and encouraging for me. And then I was going to be getting into canning. um But on ...
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    37 m
  • Hens, Hooves & Honey Farms
    Oct 27 2025
    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 00:00 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 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. 00:29 Oh, 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. 00:54 It 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. 01:23 Um, 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 01:52 14 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 02:20 We 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. 02:49 and 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. 03:18 which 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 03:48 We 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. 04:06 Okay. 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 so the goats will go behind them and kind of get what they didn't get. And then. 04:35 We'll send the pigs through afterwards and they pretty much take everything down to the dirt. And do you let the chickens go out there too or is that a whole different thing? We do have them out right now. uh We're training our, we got some rescue puppies. We have two great Pyrenees, they're not puppies actually, that we got. And one of them we rescued uh from a guy on Craigslist. 05:02 who was getting rid of her for free because she was killing his chickens. uh And we're like, that's okay, we don't need her for chickens, we needed her for the goats. ah So she's done a phenomenal job with the goats, but she doesn't like the chickens. So we have a huge run area where they're kind of fenced off so she can't get to them. And then we have another great Pyrenees named Clyde that we rescued about six months ago. 05:32 uh And we're working with him to make him be with the ...
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  • Burrow & Bloom
    Oct 22 2025
    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 00:00 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 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. 00:25 Oh, 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. 00:53 And 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 01:23 vegetables. 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. 01:52 And 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. 02:19 Um, 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. 02:48 I um sell that as part of our farmstead. 02:54 Okay. 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 03:23 donated 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. 03:46 And 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. 04:14 Um, 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 life and like rancher life, um, in the area. And a lot of them. 04:42 don't want to pay, you know, extra licensing because they already have their permits and do all these other things. So a lot of people kind of banded together and the cottage law did change. Before you were only allowed to like bake in an inspected kitchen apart from your home. Now it's a little bit different. You're able to actually bake in your home. You don't need a whole separate kitchen to do that. So the laws definitely have changed over the years. I feel like they're more forgiving. ah When it comes to selling, 05:11 I personally reach out to businesses and I set up. I don't have other vendors with me. That's never been like something that's been an issue here. As long as you have like the owner's approval, you can basically set up anywhere. And a lot of the town is really friendly. So if I was to ever reach out to anyone in the area, I think they would let me set up. 05:37 ...
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