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 ...
