A Tiny Homestead Podcast Por Mary E Lewis arte de portada

A Tiny Homestead

A Tiny Homestead

De: Mary E Lewis
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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/lewismaryesCopyright 2023 All rights reserved. Ciencias Sociales Economía Gestión y Liderazgo Liderazgo
Episodios
  • Redwood Seeds

    Redwood Seeds
    Mar 27 2026
    Today I'm talking with Kalan at Redwood Seeds. You can also follow on Facebook. Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 Kalan at Redwood Seeds in California. Good morning, Kalan, because you're not in California right now. Good morning. Yeah, it's 10 a.m. here where I am in New Zealand. Tomorrow, for me, right? Yes. It's Tuesday for you. 00:28 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I've interviewed a couple of people in Australia and New Zealand and it's so confusing because for me it is 4.03 in the afternoon on Monday. Yeah, definitely. It's confusing for me as you've seen trying to um set up meetings with people, especially the states just went through the time change. 00:52 Now it's a four hour difference for me. then when New Zealand goes through its time change in about another month, then it becomes a five hour difference the next day. Uh-huh. I, every time I talk to somebody who's that far away, I say that it's, it's actual time travel because it might as well be. Yeah. feels like it. Whenever we travel down here, we basically miss a day. It's crazy. You lose an entire day. oh 01:19 Okay, so I want to talk about redwood seeds, but I also would love to know why you're in Austria in New Zealand. Yeah, definitely. Well, I married a man from New Zealand 20 years ago. So we come down here a couple of months every year during our off season and spend time with family. Well, that is a hardship to have to go to New Zealand, boy. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, it's different. We come down here or not really tourists, so we don't like. 01:49 You know, it's less of a vacation and more just like my kids, go into the public school system when we're here and we sort of just live normal life, you know, but we get to stay on the farm with em my in-laws. And that's really, really wonderful. That's really interesting. What do they farm? They're both retired now, but my husband grew up on like a mixed em sheep and cattle ranch. oh 02:17 the kind with like 2000 sheep, they're shearing for wool and that kind of thing. Okay, cool. That you are a very interesting lady. I'm very glad that I asked to talk to you. so tell me all about Redwood Seeds and what you do. Okay, well, we are based in Northern California. We're about three or four hours north of San Francisco up in the foothills of Lassen Volcanic National Park, actually. So if you're looking at 02:47 California, we are in the eastern slopes, the eastern foothills at about 2,500 feet. And we have a organic seed farm. We grow organic vegetable, herb, flower seeds, and sell them in packets, essentially. We started doing this in 2009. And then... 03:11 have now we're expanded into like about 70 different retail stores. So we have seed racks in those stores and send seeds to the stores, you know, a few times a year for customers. And then we also have a website where we sell our seeds. It's redwoodseeds.net. And sometimes I sell at like different festivals and markets and things like that. I would say that I call us a farm based seed seed company. 03:40 grow the majority of the seed that we sell. I do purchase some extra seed from other organic seed farms, mostly in the western states. 03:54 Yeah, we usually offer about 150 different varieties. um All of our varieties are open pollinated, which means that you can, they're not hybrids, essentially is what that means. And you can use traditional seed saving techniques and uh save the seeds and you'll get trutatite results. Most of, many of them are heirlooms, which means that the variety is like pre 1950. 04:22 but we also have a lot of really great varieties that have been bred using traditional plant breeding techniques since 1950. Okay. So since you do this for a living, I have a question. I bought a 60 day watermelon seed from, I want to say it was burpee, but I could be wrong and I'm pretty sure it's a hybrid. Okay. So, 04:51 If we were to save, if we get any melons out of it, I bought 12 seeds, we're praying we get watermelons out of it this year. If we get watermelons, which means we get seeds, and we plant those seeds, if we save those seeds and plant them, is there any chance that we'll get seeds producing 60 day watermelons next summer? There's a chance, yeah. 05:15 The way that it goes is that hybrid, it's called the F1 generation. Sometimes you see hybrids referred to as F1s. That's the first generation after the cross has been made. That watermelon had two ...
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    30 m
  • Tryna Homestead

    Tryna Homestead
    Mar 23 2026
    Today I'm talking with Kendra at Tryna Homestead. You can also follow on Facebook. Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 Kendra at Tryna Homestead in Wisconsin. Good afternoon, Kendra, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good, and I'm not gonna lie. When I looked at who I was talking to today, because I have it in my calendar, I saw Tryna Homestead and I was like, you know, 00:28 I hope that's trying to, you know, a play on trying to. if your name is Trina and I've been thinking it's Trina, I'm going to sound really dumb. How is the weather in Wisconsin? Did you guys get all the snow that we got on Sunday? We were supposed to get 12 to 18 inches, but we're right up against the river. And so it kind of buffered us and... 00:53 I think we only got about eight. It's hard to tell though, because we had the blowing snow and the blizzard conditions. So we have spots where it's fair and then other spots where we have two feet there. we definitely got snow. Did it start for you Monday night? No, we, started Saturday night while we were actually outside boiling sap. Oh. sitting in it as it started. And then it went, it was still snowing through Sunday night. And then 01:23 uh Yesterday and today have just been cold and sunny but cold. Okay. Where are you in Wisconsin? We're in Western Wisconsin, Northwestern. We're right on the border with Minnesota. Okay, because I'm in Minnesota and it started for us about nine o'clock Saturday night. Yeah, think it ended about, it really ended about seven Sunday night. But 01:54 The wind was so bad that you couldn't see anything. All day. insane. Yeah. Yeah. It was so loud. Like all Saturday night and Sunday night. was so loud. The wind was just whipping. Oh yeah. My Australian shepherd, she sleeps downstairs and my husband and I sleep upstairs. And about every couple hours Saturday night, I would hear, Arf! Just one Arf every couple of hours. She was barking at the wind. 02:23 I believe it. I was just like, there's nothing you can do about it sweetie, go to sleep. It's all good really. The house is not going to collapse, I promise. So yeah, it was some wild weather and I don't know about you, but it's the first real snowstorm we've had all winter. Yeah, it's the first we've really had in the last three years, be honest. Yeah, it's been so bizarre and 02:49 when I talk to people who don't live in the general Minnesota, Wisconsin area, they're like, oh, it's, been a real winter for you. I'm like, we're having a real winter at least five years. Right. Yeah. I, I love winter. It's actually my favorite season and I love the snow, but March snows are actually my favorite because at that point I'm done with winter. I'm focusing on spring. 03:15 But when we get snow, I know it's not going to last, it covers the brown for a little bit. uh Saturday morning before the storm hit, we had green grass showing. Yeah. I was like, we don't need a foot of snow. This is ridiculous. So the reason I open the podcast every time with how is the weather or did you get the same weather we got is because weather is a big freaking deal for people who grow things. 03:46 and you have a homestead. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. So we, my husband and I, we've been homesteading in a rental for seven years and we just bought our property last fall in like middle of August and we're just on four acres. And so this is our first year really getting to do the things that we've done on a really small scale in our apartment for the last 04:15 seven years. um We raised chickens down at my parents place, but I'd have to drive 45 minutes to go take care of them. And I would garden in containers and fill our tiny little patio. And now I'm actually getting to have chickens right in our backyard and a large in-ground garden. So we're really excited. And all the things that we have dreamed about doing, we're finally able to start putting those plans into action. 04:44 now that we have our own space. You sound like me five and a half years ago when we moved from our tenth of an acre lot with a house and a four car garage on it to a 3.1 acre property. That's about we are just shy of four acre. We have 3.98. They couldn't give us the point oh two. Yes, exactly. em 05:09 So I have a question. When you moved and you actually realized that you've done it, did you step outside and look around and go, oh my God, we did it? Oh, we walked around this property so many...
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    45 m
  • Three Birch Homestead

    Three Birch Homestead
    Mar 20 2026
    Today I'm talking with Andrea at Three Birch Homestead. Content Seeds Collective https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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 Andrea at Three Birch Homestead in Canada. Good morning, Andrea. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Canada this morning? um It's a little bit cold. We had like a really warm spell and now it's kind of freezing again. 00:30 Yeah, I'm in Minnesota and we've had a couple of really beautiful days and they're saying we're going to get snow tomorrow, a little bit of snow Thursday, and then they're kind of hyping up a bigger storm over the weekend. And I'm like, it's March. Could we please put it to bed now? Please. Yeah, I'm ready for spring. There was actually a really like heavy windstorm here the last couple of days and the power's been out, I guess, like all over the place. 01:00 um But because we're off grid, we like don't even notice. We just hear about it from other people. Uh-huh. It's one of the benefits of living off grid. You've got that covered. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself, please. um We live in northern BC, Canada, off grid um on a property, like a rural property. We're about 45 minutes from the closest town. 01:30 an hour and a half from like a bigger center. So it's a bit of a drive. There is like a small community about half an hour from here. um But there's just like a general store and a post office. It's not, there's not a whole lot going on there. Yeah. So and we raise animals for meat and we um have kids and 01:59 homeschool and yeah, just sort of try to do as much as we can on our own and provide as much food as we can for ourselves. 02:11 Okay, I have a question. You have kids. How many kids do you have? um I have five kids. Two of them are adults, so they don't live with me anymore. And then I have a 14 year old son and then a two year old and an eight month old. 02:29 Okay, having raised four kids without a whole lot of family around, because my family lives in Maine, uh how has it been for you? Do you have family at all in the area that can help out or is it just you? um When my other kids were little, I lived in a different area and I did have family around, so that was very helpful. Here, we didn't have much family around, but my husband's parents recently moved to the area. 02:59 They live uh here half the time and then in Ontario half the time because they wanted to be closer to their grandkids. So, um because the two boys are their only grandchildren, so they wanted to be close. And so that's been really helpful. 03:16 good because when I hear moms having more than a couple of kids and I don't hear anything about extended family being able to kind of help out here and there, I worry because I did a lot of the raising of my four kids myself and it is a lot of stress and a lot of energy and I loved every minute of it but it would have been helpful to have extended family to step in. Yeah, it's definitely nice to have somebody. So I thought I 03:48 Yeah, I thought I would ask because I don't recommend anyone do homesteading or off-grid living or anything else like that if you don't have some form of community to call on if you do need help. It's definitely nice. Yeah. you you disagree? Yeah, I agree. It can be really isolating. When I first moved out here, 04:12 Like where I had lived before, I did live out of town, but I only lived a couple minutes out of town and I had lots of friends around. And so when I moved out here to live with my husband, like my now husband, I didn't really have that anymore. it definitely, I didn't realize how much it was going to affect me until I got out here. And then I was like, wow, like I don't have anybody. And so I was pretty lonely. And then my son joined Taekwondo. 04:42 which helped us to meet people. And so now I do have some friends around, but they're definitely not as close. they're, you know, a good 45 minute to an hour drive away. So I don't get to see people as often as I used to, but I've kind of learned to adapt. It's given me a lot more time to do stuff at home, which is nice. I spend less time socializing and more time making bread and doing other things that I wanted to do before too, but didn't have time for because I would be out and about. 05:17 Absolutely. I am an extreme introvert and I spend most of my weekdays from about 730 in the morning until about 430. Just me. And I love it because I get so much done and I can pursue the things that I'm ...
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    29 m
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