A Tiny Homestead

By: Mary E Lewis
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • We became homesteaders three years ago when we moved to our new home on a little over three acres. But, we were learning and practicing homesteading skills long before that. This podcast is about all kinds of homesteaders, and farmers, and bakers - what they do and why they do it. I’ll be interviewing people from all walks of life, different ages and stages, about their passion for doing old fashioned things in a newfangled way. https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
    Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
    Show more Show less
Episodes
  • Mabel's Herb Blog

    Mabel's Herb Blog
    Sep 27 2024
    Today I'm talking with Leah at Mabel's Herb Blog. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Leah at Mabel's Herb Blog. Good morning, Leah, how are you? Good morning, I'm good. Good. So tell me about yourself and this herb blog because I'm very curious about it. 00:29 Um, well, my name is Leah and I grew up in Southeast Texas, but I had my grandmother was from Nebraska and, um, about, I know that sounds random, but about six years ago, um, I took over the care of my mom who had Alzheimer's. And um, she had always been very. 00:58 pro-holistic care as her mother was. It was just kind of the thing her mom had taught her that, you know, in their belief, you know, pharmaceuticals, we had too big a dependence on pharmaceuticals and my mom didn't like chemicals in her body. So I mean, it kind of started as that when I was growing up. My grandma was a one-room school teacher. 01:25 this and I mentioned my grandma because that's who this is named after her name was Mabel. She was a one room school teacher so she taught a lot about you know botany and paleontology and all of this other she was a really good school teacher and that transition to us grandkids as we were growing up when we would go to visit grandma she was always teaching she was a teacher till the day she died. 01:55 in 1998, always teaching us, always showing us things as kids, which of course when you're a kid and grandma's teaching you paleontology, you're eager to go dig in the dirt and try to find dinosaur bones, you know? But the other side of that was also botany and herbalism and she taught a lot about plants and the importance of them. 02:24 Well, as a kid, you know, that's kind of the boring stuff. And I didn't really pay attention, of course. I knew then what I know now, I would have been hung on her every word. But about five, six years ago, when I started taking care of my mom, it really kind of hit home to me because they were wanting to pump my mom full of so many pills. 02:52 It was a pill for this, a pill for that, you know, and I knew that my mom would hate it. Because she'd have been in her right mind. She'd have been like, absolutely not. Let's find a natural way. And so I started studying herbs because I was like, there's got to be some kind of solution to help, you know, with her, all of her stuff, you know, not just her Alzheimer's, but everything. And um... 03:22 So I started studying plants and I realized that. 03:28 Herbalism and Western medicine, as I call it, pharmaceutical medicine, has a place to balance each other out. Herbalism doesn't have all the answers and neither does Western medicine. So that was my goal when I first started Mabel's Apothecary. And then in so doing, because in my studies, I was like, you know, 03:56 There's a lot of people out here that probably feel the same way about just shoving ourselves full of pills all the time. And so I started sharing on my website on Mabel's Apothecary.com and some friends of mine were like, Leah, you need to be putting this in a blog. You need to put this on a blog so that, you know, everybody, you know, even people who haven't been to your website can 04:24 can get this information and learn about their health. And so it kind of went from there. I started blogging about it. At first I was very gung-ho and I was doing it once a week. And then I realized that that was a huge job. So I've kind of slowed down to once a month so that I can do more in depth and get more research into my blog posts. And so that's where we are. 04:53 I got here. Wow. Yeah. Blogging once a week is a lot. Blogging once a day is a huge task. I did that for a little over a year many years ago about books and writing stuff. And after a year, I was like, I can't keep doing this. It's too much. So I understand why you would cut back to one a month. And yeah, if you have the time to put into one a month, then it can be a much more. 05:23 informative educational posts. So that's awesome. Yes. Okay. So did your, did your grandma grow herbs or did she just know about them? Oh, no, she had a yard full of herbs and plants and trees and everything you could imagine. She had, she was on a family farm. It was a century farm in Nebraska. So the family had had this farm for, I think, 05:53 when she died, it had been almost 250 years. So it was a family ancestral farm. And so there were plants from her great grandmother that were, or her grandmother, I'm sorry, her grandmother that she had planted. And then there were plants that her mother had planted and she had planted. And ...
    Show more Show less
    32 mins
  • The Garlic Farmers

    The Garlic Farmers
    Sep 26 2024
    Today I'm talking with Christi at The Garlic Farmers. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. This morning I'm talking to Christi at The Garlic Farmers. Good morning, Christi. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm great. How are you? I'm all right. Did you guys get a little bit of rain like an hour ago? I do not think it looks like it. Like it could, but we did not. 00:29 I'm wondering if today will bring some rain. Yeah, we got a sprinkle here and I'm only about half an hour from you. So yes, I'm near New Prague and New Market. Are you by St. Peter? Yeah, we're in the store. Okay. So all right. So tell me all about what you do. Well, we live between New Prague and New Market and we live on 10 acres and we've been here for 00:54 24 years and we've always loved gardening, I guess growing up in 4-H. And my husband's from Iowa and his grandparents and parents farmed for a while. And so when we moved here, it just kind of made sense to have a garden and that was mainly to feed our family and just really enjoying things like salsa. And my husband was, for years, grew tons of tomatoes and we still do. But at 01:22 At the beginning, he would make hundreds of jars of salsa and juice for chili and just eat all year and give away and enjoy the fruits of the labor. It ends up being more work than you always think, but it always feels like an accomplishment. And so we have six kids and I always loved it in summers. And when the harvest started coming in, then I could buy less groceries, you know, if we could have our own. 01:51 cucumbers and BLTs and make chili, but take the tomatoes right out of the garden and that kind of thing. And then about three or four years ago, I think maybe four actually, kind of a funny story. I saw a bill on our dresser and it was just a handwritten receipt really. And it said, garlic, $252. And I said to him, 02:17 wait, what's happening here? What did you buy? You bought garlic? Like I thought maybe to put in his salsa or, and he had said some, you know, talked a little bit about researching growing garlic, but I was like, wow, he's serious. And if you know my husband, he does everything big. So I wasn't joking when I said a couple hundred tomato plants, a couple hundred pepper plants, 150 pepper plants, like he. 02:40 He is very diligent and hardworking, and he has a day job, of course, but at night he likes to have something to do. He never sits on the couch, maybe on Christmas, I'm trying to guess. If he ever sits on our couch, he's just very active. And it's taught our kids, they're now grown, but our youngest is 16, but taught our kids about work too. They're hard workers, and they got to spend a lot of time with us outside, which is what you do when you have 10 acres, there's always a project. 03:10 But the garlic thing started where he went to somebody's house and bought garlic from them. And then the next year we went to the garlic festival and bought some more garlic. And it really is fun to grow because it's not easy, it's work and the level we're at, it's a lot of work. But if you just have a small patch, I think people really enjoy it because you can put it in the ground and then just let it be. And then you have to deal with it starting in the. 03:37 in the summer really, you know with weeding and stuff there's a little bit but I don't even know how many bulbs and cloves he planted that year, I suppose a few hundred. And then last year we harvested 5,000 and this year we harvested about 15,000 bulbs. So it has grown quickly and turned into a little bit of a business in that now people 04:02 want our garlic and are coming back for the second year. Last year was the first year we sold, lots of repeat customers. A few said, no, your garlic grew so well, I don't need any, I'm just replanting. Because every year we replant about 20 to 25% of our crop and then you end up with really strong, I'm not sure how it's exactly explained, but like a strong lineage if you keep replanting your garlic and then we sell some, we eat some, we give a lot away. 04:31 Um, and it's, uh, also been a whole nother aspect of it. He, um, we have a freeze dryer, which we kind of bought also just to start preserving our own stuff and freeze drying very different than dehydrating. Um, I mean, dehydrating is awesome too, but freeze drying takes out even more of the moisture and technically you hear of people, you know, you can freeze dry. 04:56 mashed potatoes and gravy, lasagna. I mean, I know a gal who has a thousand meals in her basement, freeze dried, and I think she does it for fun and kind of just to have food any time, but...
    Show more Show less
    35 mins
  • Working Aussies Homestead

    Working Aussies Homestead
    Sep 25 2024
    Today I'm talking with Jordyn at Working Aussies Homestead. You can purchase Jordyn's book at https://sawdustpublishing.com/product/herding-on-the-homestead-start-where-you-are/ And you can listen to Jordyn and Jill Winger's chat here . If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jordyn Kelly in North Carolina at Working Aussies Homestead. Good morning, Jordyn. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. I am going to preface this entire episode by saying if you don't want to hear about 00:29 Stop listening now because I am so excited to talk to Jordyn about what she does. Do you want to tell me about yourself and what you do, Jordyn? Yeah, absolutely. So we operate on an acre and a quarter in North Carolina between Raleigh and Fayetteville. And we raise working Australian shepherds. We use our dogs on our homestead to rotation and graze our small flock of Gulf Coast native sheep, as well as our chickens. 00:57 But over the past few years, we've also had pigs and we still have rabbits. We've had goats before we had ducks. So a little bit of everything, but primarily our focus is working with our Australian shepherds. I wrote a book this past year. So herding on the homestead, start where you are. And I do public speaking and give herding demonstrations across the country to really help inspire. 01:26 anybody to get started where they are with what they have using a working dog on their small homestead or farm or even a large farm. But just to really help showcase the versatility, all the ways that you can use a good working dog and how they're probably the best addition you can make for your homestead or farm. Fantastic. I'm so excited to talk to you. My first question is, can you tell me what 01:56 that an Australian Shepherd puppy is gonna be good for herding right off the bat. And the reason I ask is because when we got Maggie, ours, she's a mini. And the lady that we got her from, who's a good friend, said that she was, that the breed is very people oriented, like they wanna be with their people, they wanna please their people, they want to love their people. And... 02:23 Maggie was trying to herd us by walking behind our ankles and doing the diagonal walk from three days after we brought her home. So can you tell that they're going to be a good herding dog from the get go? 02:38 I'm going to say yes and no. So with our puppies, we actually do instinct testing at five weeks old. So I will put them in with our stock. We've used turkeys in the past, and then we've also used our sheep and goats. And we do this to really help us determine which puppies need to go to a working home versus puppies that can go to more of just like an active family. Um, so yes, you can tell. But. 03:07 There's a couple other factors that come into play to say, yes, this is going to be a working dog versus no. That's where the Australian Shepherd breed has started to become a lot more popular, but people want to breed them to be more like your golden retriever, where they just are like good in a family home versus the workability. 03:32 Kind of a big controversial topic with some of the old timers and people who have been in the breed since the breed began 30 years ago is a lot of people want them to be watered down in terms of their workability. And so you don't see working Aussies as much anymore as you do like more pet Aussies that don't have that drive. So yes, you can tell. But I think. 04:01 that it's important to. 04:05 to especially like find breeders that are focusing on maintaining the workability and the breed if that makes sense. 04:14 Sure, yeah. We did not get her to be a herding dog. We got her to be a watchdog. And as I've said on the podcast episodes many times, she is an excellent watchdog. She is the weirdest Australian Shepherd I've ever seen, met, hung out with. She's very calm in the house. And the minute she's outside, she's all go. So. 04:41 We lucked out huge because we didn't want a crazy dog in the house all the time. And I know that you can train them to not be crazy, but we were a little concerned when our friend told us they could be kind of problematic with being bored. That they, that they would chew or they would destroy things. And she has been really good. And I listened to the podcast that you did with Jill Winger this morning. And. 05:10 You are so incredibly knowledgeable about all of this. I really enjoyed it. So if you get all the way through this podcast, guys, go listen to that one too. I'll put it in the show notes because it's really, really great. So do you consider ...
    Show more Show less
    50 mins
Leadership Economics Social Sciences
Show more Show less

What listeners say about A Tiny Homestead

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available