• Spring Hill Tree Farm - Oh! Christmas tree...
    Nov 6 2024
    Today I'm talking with Dan at Spring Hill Tree Farm. 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 Dan at Spring Hill Tree Farm. Good morning, Dan. How are things in Georgia today? Good morning. Things are good, sunny, clear skies, and I just got done working in the strawberry field a few minutes ago. 00:30 Nice. It is incredibly overcast and sprinkling here in Minnesota this morning. For the third day in a row. So strawberries, is that for next year? You're getting them ready for next year? Yeah. So in South Georgia, you grow, you plant strawberries in October, and then they fruit usually in March after that last frost, about 30 days after the last frost. 01:00 Okay, cool. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Yeah, so I am a third generation specialty farmer, if you will. We do what you what you call agritourism. So we're here on Spring Hill Farm in Bainbridge, Georgia. And we've been doing agritourism for about 40 years now. Agritourism, simply put, is 01:29 Really, I mean you can take the two words right so agriculture and tourism and sort of blend them together and It's anything that you can do on your farm whether it's an event or maybe like a you pick scenario Trail rides something of that sort right to get people to come out and enjoy your property and You know usually charge some some small fee for them to come and do that Okay, so you've been doing it for 40 years I know that 01:59 Agritourism has been a thing, like a buzzword for the last few years, but it's always been a thing. I mean, I'm 55 and I remember my parents taking me to farms where they were like, let's go on a hayride and pick apples or let's go see cows or whatever it was that they were doing. So you're an OG, you're an OG agritourism dude. Yeah. It's funny because, you know, my dad and I, so I'm... 02:29 I'm 28, I'm the younger person on the farm that's sort of starting to take over things a little bit more. My dad's been doing this for a long time. And I remember he and I would go on trips to Atlanta because we're in South Georgia. And a few years ago, man, it was longer than that, 10 years ago or so maybe, we were driving down Highway 27. And we saw this sign that says, you know, Georgia's first agritourism farm on the left. 02:57 We're thinking, well, what's agritourism? That sounds like what we're doing. And we started to learn more about it and we said, well, they're not the first. And we don't, we don't claim that we're the first, but, but it is growing in the, in, it is a buzzword and I think it's the second largest or second fastest growing business in Georgia and has been for some, for some time. 03:22 Yes, and I am a huge proponent for agritourism because so many people have never set foot on a farm. And I think that they thought that they couldn't like, call and ask if they come visit. So I love that people are opening up their properties to people to come see what they do. Yeah, that's, that's what my grandfather would have wanted when he bought the property. He, he worked his whole life, was in the military and 03:52 sort of came across the US, started in Oklahoma, went to Texas, went to Atlanta, then came here and always wanted to buy some property with the end goal of being able to share it with people. And what's really cool about this property is he came down here and searched and searched and searched for some property and everything down here is flat, you know, peanut fields, corn fields. 04:19 And he just wasn't interested in flat land. He had seen enough of that in Oklahoma and wanted to see more trees. And they found this property. We're on the highest elevation in Decatur County is where we're at. And we are 321 feet above sea level, which is not a crazy amount, but for here it is. And we're on what's called Curry Hill. So it's this ridge that runs through. 04:49 um this area and it just it has you know springs on the farm creeks on the farm valleys um really beautiful property and i think when he and my dad found this place they kind of looked at each other like hey you know don't say anything let's let's go ahead and get this deal done um so and so 40 i think we got it they got it in 1982 and the next year uh my grandfather had 05:18 you know, so many hundred Christmas trees and he and my dad were going to do that. And unfortunately my grandfather passed away before they, before they arrived. And so my dad just kind of had this, uh, you know, I guess he had a decision to make and when the Christmas trees showed up, um, he planted them and then the rest is kind of ...
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    35 mins
  • Cassandra - the self-professed non-homesteader
    Nov 4 2024
    Today I'm talking with my daughter, Cassandra, about how being raised by a mom with homesteading skills has impacted her life. 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 my first born child and my only daughter, Cassandra. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I don't know what the weather's like in Florida right now, but it's gray and misty and cold here today in Minnesota. What's it like in Florida? 00:29 It's in the 80s and sunny and not a rain cloud in sight. Must be nice, although honestly, I'm real happy to see fall rolling in. So Sandra was nice enough to come and visit with me because she is a self-professed non-homesteader, at least that's how she told me or explained herself to me. But I think that there's some homesteading genes in there somewhere because 00:57 You are taking care of your mother-in-law's citrus plants and avocado trees, right? Yeah, mango trees, avocado trees. We have a lychee tree and banana trees. I think that's it. I thought you had lemons or oranges or something. We have a baby lemon and a baby lime tree. They are making fruit, but they're very small. They're not making grocery store-sized fruit yet. 01:27 So they look like toys? Yeah, it's really funny. Uh-huh. And how are all the plants doing? Well, so we just had two hurricanes. So the plants are not doing great right now, really anywhere near us. But right before the hurricane, the starfruit, that's what we have. We have a starfruit tree that just drops probably hundreds of fruit in October. So right before the hurricanes, that was producing like crazy. 01:56 But now we just have a lot of trees that are twigs. Oh, no. Okay. So, I don't know what you know about all the fruits that are growing on that property, but did they all, are they all in season at the same time? Or is it just different? No, definitely not. I can't remember when the mangoes go, but it's like the mangoes have their season. 02:24 And they're the kind of mangoes that like don't ripen until you take them off the tree. So they will stay, they'll stay good for like months as they're growing. And the lychee is a different season. And like I said, the starfruit is a different season as well. So you can't have a citrus lychee, starfruit salad all at once out of the garden as it was? Not from my yard, no, yeah. Okay. 02:50 So tell me about getting prepared for the hurricanes that came through. Yeah, it was kind of crazy. We had another hurricane, not the most recent two, but another one earlier in the year. And I'm not from here, my husband is. And he was saying like, oh, the hurricanes are not a big deal. They haven't really hit St. Pete in like 10 years. 03:15 So the first one was fine, we didn't do any prep. And then the second and third one, like people were predicting it to be so, so bad, we were like, okay, well, maybe let's go get some water. But, um, we talked about water. We have these big glass jugs that we always fill. My mother-in-law always fills before, um, hurricanes. We went. 03:38 The joke in their family is that the only hurricane supplies you need is boxed wine and bananas. So we got boxed wine and bananas in addition to like ramen and batteries and candles. Okay. And you told me that Helene wasn't bad, but Milton was worse, right? No, Helene was bad. Helene is the one that brought the floodwater surges. Yeah. 04:08 And that is what did most of the physical damage. Milton wasn't as like floodwater heavy, but the winds were crazy. So it took out like it took out trees, power, we were without power for like a week, I think here. No, I meant, I meant out of the two for you where you are. I thought Helene wasn't as bad as Milton. Because I live like on the only hill in St. Petersburg. So Helene didn't affect us as much. We're just we are not susceptible to flooding where we are. 04:38 Okay, cool. So I don't even know what to ask you. You were saying about... Let me ask you. So what's your wake up in the morning homestead life routine? Okay. And then we can compare and contrast. Oh, well, my wake up in the morning is at like 430 in the morning because I can't stay asleep past four. My get up is 430, five o'clock in the morning. And it's go directly to... 05:08 potty and then to the coffee maker and then to my phone to see if any new people have said yes to talking to me on the podcast. Sure. That's my get up routine. Yeah. What do you do throughout the day for home setting stuff? Meal planning? Do you do? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. We do a weekly meal plan. We usually do it on Sunday. 05:34 or Saturday and then shopping happens because ...
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    26 mins
  • Off The Beaten Path Homestead
    Nov 1 2024
    Today I'm talking with Val at Off The Beaten Path Homestead. 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 Val at Off the Beaten Path Homestead. Good morning, Val. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. As I was telling Val before we hit record, I discovered Val on... 00:29 on Facebook through her videos and I fell in love with her immediately because she has such a great personality. Thank you so much for that. Yes, absolutely. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, my name is Valerie Bias and I live in Virginia. I've been here most of my life. I 00:55 I grew up in a small town in Virginia, in Buckingham County, and six sisters, so my mom and dad had seven girls. And I watched them garden and take care of livestock. And of course, feeding seven children was quite a feat. And so they had to do whatever they had to do to stretch what we had. 01:24 And so they garden and they preserved food and we had livestock, hogs and chickens and goats. And, uh, that's what we did to survive. And, um, so when COVID hit, you know, my, me and my husband were talking and, and we started thinking, you know, this is different and, and, and we've got to do something, um, because. 01:52 Our world had changed and so we moved from our home in North Chesterfield, Virginia, and we purchased a piece of property in a rural area. We're only about 20-25 minutes from amenities. We can still, you know, get to the grocery store. And so we moved out here and we started doing what I learned to do as a child, which was 02:21 We only have chickens right now. We've only been out here since 2021. And so we just love it out here and we love what we do. We garden and raise our own food. And we also have a farm store that we put our excess products in. We are just a shed and. 02:48 We stock that with food that we preserve for long-term use. And so that's what we're doing out here and we're trying to get our community involved and so that we can learn from each other. That's been a bit difficult because we don't know anyone out here trying to find people who do what we do and who wanna learn from us and so that we can learn from them. 03:15 And so that's what we're doing out here. We just. I love it. I'm so excited that you decided to do that. We did the same thing. We moved from in town to out in the country in 2020. So, Ben, where you are. So your videos on your Facebook page are so fun. And the way that you say hello to your viewers and then. 03:42 Identify who you are is adorable. Could you could you do it for me? Well, I mean it's part of my personality and who I am and when I Meet people or I'm introduced to people. It's hi, sweetie. How are you? And so I start my videos off with hey sweet people. It's mama Val and so That's who I am My my daughter she's 41 04:12 and all of her friends, they refer to me as Mama Val. And I love it and that's who I am now. And most people who know me, they're younger, they call me Mama Val, so. Yes, and your accent is a little bit more pronounced on the videos too. And that was the thing that really caught me because I am a big, I don't know, I'm obsessed with people's. 04:38 accents. I think that it's so fun when people talk in a way that's different than I do. Oh, wow. I've never noticed that. Yeah. And I don't know if it's a southern accent or what it is. And it probably has to do with my stepfather was in the Navy and we moved around so much. He was in the Navy for 36 years. And we moved all over and 05:07 I'm sure it has something to do with moving around. Yeah. Yes, I would say that your accent is a generic Southern drawl in the best way possible. And basically to me, you sound like a warm hug and a glass of sweet tea. Oh, you are so sweet. That's how it sounds. Yes. It makes my heart sing, so hearing that. Yeah. 05:34 I just, I don't know, I just, I saw your video and I just sat there and I was like, I love this lady. She's amazing. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. Um, yeah. You're welcome. And I'm not typically this effusive, but when people grab me, they grab me hard, like grab me in full and you're one of them. I don't know why. So any, anyway, um, you're okay. 06:01 your videos that I've seen one was making two pennies into a dollar and one was something else and I can't remember but the two pennies into a dollar one really struck me because I have raised four kids. My youngest is 22 and he still lives with us. Back when they were young, we were a family on one income. I was a stay at home mom and I was trying to cook for six people total. 06:31 And so I cooked for an...
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    35 mins
  • FarmHer
    Oct 31 2024
    Today I'm talking with Kirbe Schnoor at FarmHer. You can also follow on Facebook. "FarmHer is all about the women who love the land, care for their community, and feed the people." 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 Kirby Schnoor, which is really hard to pronounce, at FarmHer. Good morning, Kirby. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. Thank you for having me on. Oh, thank you for coming because I have lots of questions and you're going to be an amazing person to get them answered. 00:29 Uh, so first question is, are you based in Nebraska or is FarmHer based in Nebraska? Well I'm based in Fort Worth, Texas. And FarmHer is kind of based all over, I would say most of our crew, our two videographers, editors, producer, they're all in Nashville at our offices there and studio there. And then we have offices in a studio here in Fort Worth and then we have office space in Omaha as well. Okay. 00:58 My stepson lives in Nebraska. So when I saw Nebraska on the website or the Facebook page for FarmHer, I was like, oh, Nebraska, here we go again. Okay. So tell me about yourself and what you do regarding FarmHer and tell me about FarmHer. Awesome. Well, thank you again for having me on to talk about this. I grew up in a farming family in the Central Valley of California, a tiny town called Chochilla. 01:27 It's based in between Fresno and Modesto. And then if they don't know those places, sometimes they'll say Bakersfield. Bakersfield is about three hours south of us. But I say in between LA and San Francisco, right? But it's all the heart of agriculture in the center of California. And I grew up, my mom's side of the family, they farmed in ranch and my dad's side of the family, they farmed. 01:56 Yeah, so it's just been a multi-generational thing that's carried on in our families. We used to farm a lot more diverse crops. And over the years, given land and regulations, prices, you name it, in California, kind of had to go into one main thing and make it a bigger production. And so my family mainly now farms almonds, and we do hay as well. But we used to back in the day do corn and alfalfa and tomatoes. 02:24 as well as almonds and hay and cotton. And so it's just interesting that I was able to grow up exposed to all of that and the diversity. And like I said, it's changed over the years, but still, yeah, everyone in my family, for the most part, is involved in the farming aspect. And I went to college at Fresno State in California, and I majored in mass communications and journalism. 02:52 emphasis in broadcast journalism and I said, oh my gosh, I'm never going to go into TV. I loved writing and I just didn't know what I really wanted to do. I didn't want to do a local network or local news station and hard news and things like that. But I found a place for me here in Fort Worth, Texas working at Superior Livestock Auction and they were the nation's leader in livestock marketing cattle via… 03:20 satellite and television. It was started by two gentlemen who grew up on our group ranching and they partnered with Patrick Gotch. They actually helped Patrick Gotch kind of get his start, Jim O'Dell did back in the day because Patrick, who is the founder and CEO and sadly had passed away earlier this year, he founded RFD TV and then which led into the Cowboy Channel and Cowgirl Channel as well. 03:47 He grew up in a farming family in Nebraska. And so that's where the roots of Nebraska and Omaha come from. Okay. But yeah, so I got my start with Superior Livestock and they didn't have a place for me. I started answering the telephone and working on the bid line and there it spiraled into some of their television shows that they did. And that still air to this day on RFD TV. And so I worked closely with RFD TV, never directly until several years ago. 04:16 I made the transition when they decided to open up the branch in Fort Worth called the Cowboy Channel. I helped get that started and I've been with RFD and the Cowboy Channel ever since. I basically have been with RFD since the start of my career, 2012, 2013. The two connected. I grew up showing livestock with my sisters. We had a cattle company, still do called Schnorr Sisters. We showed cattle throughout the United States. 04:45 And it was really fun and coming from the farming background with my family, running cattle, raising cattle, I was exposed to quite a bit. And when we started the Cowboy Channel, the original creator of FarmHer, she wanted to branch off into rancher as well. And so she said, she was so great. And she's like, her name's Margie. And she said, ...
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    34 mins
  • Blue Star Farm
    Oct 30 2024
    Today I'm talking with Paul at Blue Star Farm. 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 Paul at Blue Star Farm. Good morning, Paul. How are you? I am doing very well. Thank you. Good. So tell me about yourself and how this all got started because you have a lot of things that you guys do at the farm. 00:30 Well, I purchased this property back in 2016. I had been farming full-time and, oh gosh, I guess I started in 1993, actually. I was in a dairy business for a number of years and moved on to a couple other career paths for a while. And then I purchased this property and decided it'd be fun to play around with an apple orchard. I also grow some other vegetables, pumpkins, popcorn. 01:00 gourds and do a little bit of hay as well. So this is a part-time venture. I have a full-time day job as well at the moment. But most recently, I opened up a storefront where currently I make sweet cider and I'm in the process of getting licensed to make hard cider. Hard cider is the best. It doesn't give me a headache. Most beer gives me a headache, but hard cider does not. Okay. 01:29 So why? Why did you get into this? Well, it started off as kind of a little bit of a hobby, the hard center in particular. And there seems to be a market for it and I thought it would be a nice project to work on. I am not too far away, well a few years probably, from not having to have to have that day job. 01:59 can't sit still very long so I figured I'd create some kind of business keep me occupied and something that would be fun and make them hard cider and having people enjoy it is it's a good time for me for sure. Absolutely. So you're in Sharon Springs New York are you I don't want to offend you but I'm gonna ask are you near the Beekman boys guys? 02:26 I am not too far away. The farm that they purchased is about two miles south of the village of Sharon Springs here. Their flagship store is located in the downtown portion of our little village here and that is less than a mile from where I'm setting right now. And actually the building that I recently acquired where I'm starting my cider operation, Beekman 1802, used that as a warehouse for their product for a number of years. 02:56 So, thank you very much. 03:00 Very nice. The reason I said I don't want to offend you is because I've heard two sides of a coin about them. That they came in and made Sharon Springs not a small town anymore and made people mad. And the other side of the coin is that they came in and got Sharon Springs on the map. So I don't know which side of the coin you're on. 03:22 Well, honestly, Sharon Springs had been on a map for a number of years as a tourist destination for the mineral baths. It was in direct competition with Saratoga Springs, New York. And unfortunately, Saratoga had a little bit more going for it. They kind of won that battle, I guess you could say. But eventually, prior to Beekman 1802 coming to life here in the village, 03:50 There had been a resurgence, our former mayor, he and his husband had opened up several businesses in this area and they had, and actually I think their influence is why some others had relocated here, such as the folks that took over the Beekman farm, so it's been a long, slow process. 04:15 Okay. 04:18 Yes, and we haven't been home to Maine in a while. My parents live in Maine and I'm in Minnesota. So when we drive back, I don't fly. So we always do a road trip. So when we go through New York, I always see the sign for Sharon Springs on the highway that we're on. And I'm like, we should go to Sharon Springs someday. And my husband's like, the only reason you wanna go to Sharon Springs is to go to the Beekman store. And I'm like, well, yeah. 04:48 And we haven't done it yet, but someday maybe we'll do it 04:54 Okay, I do know they've got limited hours, so I think they're not open. They used to be open seven days a week there. I believe they're only open Friday through Sunday. I can't say for a fact, but you'd have to check their website. 05:10 Yes, and I don't have any plans to do a road trip in the next couple of years. So we're good for now. But it's just, it's funny because when I saw Sharon Springs, I was like, I wonder if that's the Sharon Springs. And so it is. Okay, so, so you're doing this as your retirement plan, basically, from the sounds of it. So you're not going to retire, you're going to keep working. 05:36 That is correct. 05:40 Yeah, I think that's the case for a lot of us who are over 50 at this point. I don't think any of us who are over 50 are like, you know, retirement sounds great. I don't think ...
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    30 mins
  • White Pine Berry Farm
    Oct 29 2024
    Today I'm talking with Andrew at White Pine Berry Farm. 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 Andrew at White Pine Berry Farm. Good morning, Andrew. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. So tell me about what part you play in White Pine Berry Farm and... 00:28 the story of White Pine Berry Farm. Great. I'll kind of start at the beginning. My dad was a dairy farmer for his whole life. Opportunity presented itself that some other family, my uncle, my cousins would continue the dairy farmer. And my dad went from dairy to berry and started a you pick berry and egg tourism farm from just a neighbor's, you know, kind of hobby bee farm. And. 00:56 I just was helping out a little bit the first couple of years, helping out the first couple of years just on the weekends and getting it going. And he ran it for seven years. And then in 2019, I came back as the manager and dad took a different full-time job, but it was still helping me a lot on the weekends. And I ran it for the last five years. And then this year we've been running it together as he retired from the... 01:27 the job that he took as a farm director at a local university. That is so fun. Was it his dream that you guys would end up working together? Not necessarily. It seemed like it worked out that way. It worked out that way. It was something that we talked about when he was looking at what we want to do if he ever wanted a farm. 01:54 This intrigued me a lot compared to just dairy farming. If you always look at different farms, I think this is both really good fit for our personalities. We enjoy working with people. It's having guests and public out to the farm. Yeah. 02:10 Okay. Is your dad Greg? Is that his name? Yes, Greg Farmer Greg. Okay. Yeah. Farmer Greg. I was looking at your Facebook page today because I have been crazy busy and hadn't actually looked at it since I booked the interview with you. And I was like, it looks like such a fun place to be. And your Facebook page is brilliant. I don't know who handles, who handles that, but whoever does it is doing a great job. 02:38 Well, thank you. It's something we've always enjoyed. My wife and I have done it for many years. The last couple of years we have joined with. So thanks for the comment on our Facebook page. My wife and I had been running the Facebook together for many years. And then we also have hired an intern the last four or five years to give us a hand with it, especially on the video editing side. But it takes a whole bunch of us to come up with some fun, creative ideas and put them together. Yeah. 03:08 looks super fun and the the way the videos and photos are taken it's very colorful and inviting and that's what you want for people to want to come see you. Yep and we like to think that our Facebook reflects our farm when you come out here you're out here to have experience it's not just about us growing you know fruit and vegetables and pumpkins it's about having a good time on the farm. 03:35 making memories with your family and friends. And yeah, I just want to be a place that is really welcoming and just something that people look forward to. And we reflect that on our Facebook and our website as well. Yes, I was just going to say your website is crazy full. Yeah, it's really hard to describe what we do just in one page because we, like you were saying, it's all summer and fall long. 04:02 We start out with strawberries usually mid-June. Follow that up with strawberries at the beginning of July. Then raspberries, blueberries, and currants come into play. Throughout those times we also have strawberry shortcake days where we have shortcake we sell out of our store and food and wagon rides. On Saturdays we typically do those. 04:26 In July, we have the ElocoCoop Farm Tour. We're a part of where other farms and us, we are kind of used to open our doors. We open our doors, have people from all over Western Wisconsin and the Twin Cities area come out and check out what we got going on. Moving into August, we saw some blueberries that we do our sunflowers and zinnias. In the fall, we do a corn maze pumpkin patch. 04:49 Sometimes we sell some flowers depending when the frost comes, fall raspberry pickin', we even have golden fall raspberries, guided wagon rides on the weekends. We had at least six to seven hundred kids come for field trips this year and always a blast. On top of that we planted Christmas trees which are still a ways out and we host a handful of weddings here as well in our wedding barn. 05:18 And those ...
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    33 mins
  • Grounded In Maine
    Oct 28 2024
    Today I'm talking with Amy at Grounded In Maine. 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 Amy Fagan from Grounded in Maine. How are you, Amy? Again. I'm good. Good. Amy and I talked months ago. I think it was June. 00:29 I think. I don't remember. And we recorded an episode and it was released and it was great. But Amy is no longer grounded in Maine. She has uprooted herself to Virginia. So I wanted to have her back and talk about how that's all going. So tell me about what's changed. What hasn't changed? Yes. 00:50 No, I will always be grounded in Maine. I spent my first 49 years in Maine, so I will always be grounded in Maine, but I no longer live there. I got divorced in July. I moved to Virginia in August because Maine is way too expensive for a single income. And so I just relocated. And you moved to some land as well as a house on it. Is that right? It's not a lot of land. I'm on a little more than an acre, 01:20 It's all me. It's plenty. You can do a lot with an acre honey. Yeah well I mean it's weird because the backyard is this super steep downslope. That's where the chickens are and I need to fix that up but so everything is gonna be in the front yard. All the gardening is gonna be on the front yard and people are gonna hate me here because they are very they love their lawns. 01:49 are very meticulous about their lawns and I am not going to be mowing my lawn. I am growing a food forest. Maybe they'll be inspired. Maybe they will. I hope so. He'll be a trendsetter. I am going to be a trendsetter and I'm getting more chicken. So I will be selling my eggs to my neighbors and, um, and if I have a really great, if I have really great crops, I will be feeding them too. So meh. 02:17 Nice. Take that about my scruffy lawn. Well, yeah. And you can't eat grass. I say this all the time. You cannot eat grass. Absolutely. Doesn't taste good. It makes it smells good. Doesn't taste good. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me insane when people are like, but I want a nice green lawn. And I'm like, you can have a nice green lawn. You could be growing chamomile and it would smell amazing when you step on it. 02:46 But no, it's grass. Or mint or creeping thyme or anything. But yeah. Even Creeping Charlie smells good and it's a low ground cover and people hate the Creeping Charlie, but it's really pretty and it smells good. I don't know Creeping Charlie. I'll have to look that up. But yeah, I mean, I've had three people in the first month offered to mow my lawn. I mean, not for free, but. Well. 03:16 One of them did for free. But I said, you know, I don't plan to do this ongoing. So I'm sure if you want to know it now, but it's not gonna last. But the man that lives across the street is super, super sweet. He's a retired policeman, which was, I knew that before I moved here and I was psyched about that. I'm like, so he's gonna look out for me. And he is, but he's also 75. He just lost his wife this year. 03:44 He was in the hospital earlier. He can't really get around well, but he can get on his mower. Well, that works. My first time meeting him, he had come over and was mowing my lawn. I was like, oh my gosh, what? Wait, no, I was gonna have someone else mow my lawn. And he was like, I just didn't know how to say hi. Like, you know, I saw that. He can't just like walk up the stairs because he's older. 04:09 But he's, you know, he's been in this house across the street for 75 years, his whole life. And his daughter lives on one side of him and his son lives behind with his donkeys and other animals. And his grandson lives next door, which is right across the street from me. But so it's like, it's, it's kind of cool. It's family, it's family area. He owns some land up at the end of the road too. But it's, I'm an agricultural because I brought my chickens. Good. 04:39 Hmm. Yeah. So it's good. It's good. I have I mean, I've met a lot of neighbors and I will say my my. 04:50 I really like them. I really like my neighbors. People drive like they want to take me out and I'm not sure if they really do or if that's in my head. Nobody walks here except for me and we risk our lives doing it. Yeah, but it's so good for you. So keep doing it. As long as nobody runs you over, it's great for your health, right? Yes. Yeah, it's a nice uphill too. It's 05:19 It's so funny to me how many co-incidents you and I share because our neighbor who lives northwest of us, about a quarter mile away, he is a county sheriff. So you have former law enforcement and I have current law enforcement. And actually the county ...
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    42 mins
  • Serenity Farm and Stables
    Oct 25 2024
    Today I'm talking with Teena at Serenity Farm and Stables about equine therapy and the grounding power of nature. 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 Teena, and of course I just shut the Facebook page, so I can't read your business name. Tell me your business name again. All right, well my company is Serenity Farm and Stables. We're at a water town, Minnesota. 00:29 We are a facility that specializes in programs that support mental health, healing, and so predominantly working not riding horses, but groundwork, a lot of group therapeutic experiences, individual couples and families. So how did this come about? Because I know that you are educated in all of this. So how did you get to where you are? 00:56 That's a great question. I would say in terms of the equine piece, I have children that were more or less born with a passion for horses. And so that's what got us into the equine world. As my children have now moved on into college, we still had these three amazing mayors and I desired to continue to work with them in a capacity. And that included as an equine therapist. My background was oncology nursing. 01:25 with a component of marriage and family counseling around oncology and family and cancer survivorship, which then led to holistic healing and homeopathics and other things. Ultimately, all of them tied together, though, so beautifully with equine therapy, which is really amazing for trauma release. And so much of our physical experience of suffering comes from suppressed emotions. So. 01:53 They are amazing facilitators for that. Yes, and what you just said about all of our misery coming from suppressed emotion. Folks, let it out. That's the thing I want to say about this, because you cannot suppress everything and manage to thrive. No, they cannot cohabitate, for sure. And a lot of times, which is why the horses are also the most amazing facilitators, because a lot of times, the suppressed emotion we have 02:23 might not even be on the conscious level. And they have the ability to meet us at both conscious and unconscious levels, which is why they do such beautiful and amazing healing work with clients, perhaps on the spectrum, who might not have the words to express their experience. The horses don't communicate on that language level. They communicate on an energetic level. And so they have the ability to understand. 02:51 and transmutate energetic experiences and emotional experiences in ways as humans will never comprehend. Yes, and so this is gonna get real deep if you keep talking that the way that you're talking because most people do not understand how this works. So can you, I don't know, in layman's terms, tell me how the horses help? Okay, so I'll try to... 03:20 You're right, this is deep work and it's what I'm submerged in, so it's kind of how I live day to day. But so how the horses work in a herd scenario is they rely on one another because they're prey animals. And so they can communicate in very, very subtle ways through energy. Just the slight movement of an ear or flip of their tail or the angle of their body could indicate there's a predator to be unaware that they should be in awareness of. 03:50 And so when you take that very strong sensitivity to their environment and you bring it into, for instance, an arena with clients, often when we come in with clients, the clients might have a lot of anxiety or a depressive state or high stress kind of personality. And as such, their heart rate might be very elevated, the respiratory rate might be elevated. And so the gift of the herd is as we enter into their herd, 04:20 meaning like our relationship as a human to them as a horse, often it will help bring down our heart rate, it will slow down our respiratory rate. So that's what we call co-regulation when there's a sort of a movement towards something that is more stable. And so we can apply that to the physical sensations of stress, which I just shared, like the respiratory heart rate. 04:48 But then also our emotional state can come down from a place of trauma and stress to a one of more of a harmonized state. Does that feel more simple? Yes. And I would have been happy to keep listening to the big words because I love words and ones I don't know. I would have been like, what does that one mean? But it makes it really hard for people who are listening because they'll be like, I'm lost and I don't have time to look up the word, you know? 05:18 All that is important is that we understand that we harbor and hold so much emotion in our bodies ...
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    31 mins