Episodios

  • Cottage On Cross

    Cottage On Cross
    May 23 2025
    Today I'm talking with Karen at Cottage On Cross. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Karen at Cottage On Cross 00:28 Good morning, Karen. How are you? Good morning. Thank you for having me. You're in Pennsylvania, right? I am, yes. Okay. I'm in Minnesota. It's beautiful here for the first time in four days. We've had clouds and rain since, I think, mid-afternoon on Monday. So it's been really nice to get up this morning and see the sun shining. So how are things in Pennsylvania? Well, we probably got your weather. Oh, We're in the midst of that rain, but it's spring and it's needed, so I'm not complaining. 00:58 Yeah, the weather people here were saying on Monday, they were giving us the heads up that this drenching was coming and they were all like, we need the rain. And I'm like, we don't need 17 inches guys. Oh gosh, no. Yeah. I think we've all, I think we've all ended up with five inches total. Well, that's better. Yes. You don't want your garden to flood. No, that happened last year. I don't want it to happen this year. So, all right. So you tell me why it's called Cottage on Cross. 01:28 That's a fun story. It's purposeful, but it's also out of desperation. This is not my first online business. And I learned accidentally with my last one that your name matters in Google searches. If people don't even know what they're looking for, but type in a keyword, you'll come up. know, cottage core, was super trendy when I started it. 01:56 And that's a lot of what I make. So I wanted that name somewhere. And the first maybe 28 names I chose weren't available either on Etsy or on Instagram. And I needed the availability on both of those. So I ended up with Cottage on Cross because we live on Crossroad. okay. Okay. So for people who don't know what Cottage Core is, can you explain that? 02:24 Um, well right now, grandma core is trending, which is pretty much the same, just another term for it. It's just kind of a, uh, a back to basics, um, aesthetic where, uh, if your grandma had it, you're gonna like it, but, but that's the grandma core. Cottage core is, uh, well, kind of the same thing. It's like little house on the prairie, um, vibe going on. Um, it's, it's a more, uh, old fashioned vibe maybe. 02:54 Uh huh. Okay. Um, what I find interesting about Cottage Core is that I grew up with Cottage Core because we spent time with my grandmas, obviously, and, my mom was very influenced by her mother, who was my grandma. And so we always had old fashioned things in our house. And to this day, I really, really hate sleek, shiny glass metal furniture. want, I want wood furniture. want cast iron. 03:23 hooks for my coats. want the old fashioned stuff. I am the same. I am the same. And I think we probably grew up similarly then. Yeah, just in touch with family and the generations back through and all their things that they brought with them and they didn't have the new shiny, partly because they couldn't afford it. And partly because it was cherished memories for them from the generations. And yeah, so you just grow up loving that stuff and 03:52 No, I shunned. I shunned all that too. So this is not a going back for me. This is a celebrating that they've caught up with us. exactly. And I feel like I'm going to sound really dumb. I feel like shiny glass and metal is very cold. And I feel like quilts and cast iron and wood are very warm. I agree. So I really like the cozy warm feeling in my house. I don't want it to be, you know, austere and cold. Yes, I agree. 04:21 So before we get into what you do with quilts, because I've seen the pictures and what you do is really beautiful. Thank you. Do you live on a farm? I grew up on a dairy farm. I had almost all the animals growing up and it was a fantastic way to live. We have land off my family's farm now. We are right across from the farm. I see it every day. It's beautiful. 04:46 I do not have a farm. I have a working knowledge of what a farm is and how much work it is. So I've chosen very carefully what I want. We have chickens. They are easy to care for. I can walk away from them for a day and bank up on their food and they're going to be okay versus a milk cow. can't ...
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    32 m
  • A Farmish Kind Of Life

    A Farmish Kind Of Life
    May 22 2025
    Today I'm talking with Amy at A Farmish Kind Of Life. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy sell trade in local garden groups and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 00:25 Today I'm talking with Amy at A Farmish Kind Of Life in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Amy. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Amy is who I want to be when I grow up. don't even know who I want to be when I grow up. That's funny. Amy is an author. She's a podcaster. She's a blogger. She falls under the homesteading umbrella. 00:55 but it's more of a farm, right? I mean, what is a homesteader? know, isn't that what we're always trying to figure out? What is the definition of a homesteader, I suppose? I still We do have a farm. Yep. We do have a farm. I'm here. I have five acres in central Minnesota with, you know, a ton of different animals. We've been through, you know, all the different animals and we got all the gardens and we've got space. So yeah, it is farming, although... 01:23 there are people around here that have such huge farms that they think we're just kind of playing farm. So, you know, our little five acres is just kind of a little thing. But it's not. It's a big thing. It's a big thing. So tell me what brought you to this whole farmish kind of life, Amy. What brought me to the farmish kind of life? You know, when my husband and I were first married, we lived right in town and he had always lived in town. When I grew up, I grew up at 01:53 I grew up out in the country, but we didn't have a farm. We were more like in the woods and we had a creek and you know, all of that didn't grow up with, you know, the farm animals or anything. And we got married, we lived right in town and knew that was going to be a temporary thing. But we just we really wanted to be out in the country and have space, you know, to just kind of breathe. And I don't know if ever intentionally in the beginning, it was going to be we're going to have all these animals, we're going to can all this food and all this stuff. just 02:22 You just kind of morphed into that, suppose. think part of it was when we were first married, you we were, you know, you're trying to make ends meet and stretch the dollars and then you have the babies, you know, and things get crazy. And I think frugal living and just trying to figure out, you know, can we make this from scratch? What can we substitute? How can we do without this? How can we do something different? That and various other things just led us to whatever you want to call this. 02:52 this life, this farmish thing or this homesteading thing. Right there with you. That's how we got found ourselves in this, this, uh, this quagmire of trying new things all the time. Oh yes. Yeah. There's always something new to try. Yep. I, uh, front of mine brought me sourdough starter Monday night. Thank you Tracy. And, uh, it's fine. The starter she, she brought me, I, 03:22 got up this morning and I have water on top of it. And I was like, that doesn't look good. So I had to go Google it and find out if it was still alive. And apparently it's doing really well. So I threw some more flour in there. It's good. And then I realized, yeah. And then I realized I didn't know anything about sourdough starter. And I've been doing home studying stuff for a long time. So I went back to Google and, and, when looked in Wikipedia and I Oh, 03:49 this is not as hard as I think it is. I'm going to start my own starter too and see if I can make it go from scratch. So that now has water on top of it. And I'm like, okay, this, don't know what to do with it. So. I feel like, you know, like home setting is such a big thing. there's, there's, there's so much to learn. think for us this year, it was, I mean, we've been at the farm for 14 years now and just this past winter. you know, like not that many months ago, we finally tapped our maple tree. 04:19 And we've been here 14 years and we're like, wait a second, we have maple trees. Why are we not tapping these and trying to do this whole maple syrup thing? And it went way better than I thought it would. it's just, you know, I think there's just only so much you can have on your plate and process at once. And then you're like, wait a second, we could do this thing. We could do this thing. So ...
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    31 m
  • 5 Acre Wood Homestead

    5 Acre Wood Homestead
    May 21 2025
    Today I'm talking with Marissa at 5 Acre Wood Homestead. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 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 Marissa at Five Acre Wood Homestead in Washington State. Good evening, Marissa. How are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to talk with you because you have everything going on at your homestead. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, um... 01:27 I, so we weren't always, you know, Homesteader, Homestead life. I really just stumbled into it as a lot of us do, right? But I did, I am from a very small, tiny town in Idaho. And there was a lot of, you know, Homestead like things that went on there. And so I did have that very early young childhood. 01:52 experience of that. Like I have memories of the things my parents had to do to get us through winters and whatnot, you know. And my mother and my grandmother, you know, they sewed and crocheted and canned and did all the things. And so I kind of always had that influence in my life. But growing up, we were, I was, you know, displaced to the city here in Tacoma. 02:21 And that's where I spent 40 years was the middle of the city and had my kids there. And at a certain point in my life, I was, I just decided that. You know, we, it's nice to talk about how we want to get back to the country and the small town life and be self-sufficient and do all the things. But at some point you just got to do it. And that's really how this. 02:50 how the homestead came about. And we've been here six years now. Okay. And still no animals. Still a work in progress, right? Because our homestead was was vacant for five years before we got it. And so nature kind of just did what nature does and took over. And so it's been the last three years has been 03:18 a lot of rebuilding and a lot of taking down and a lot of getting the property back to where we need it to be so that we can incorporate the things that we want to have. It's been a lot of work. Well, I'm going to jump in for one second. You don't have to have animals to be a homesteader. It's totally cool if you don't. I know. I know. And so many people have told me that because I feel 03:46 you know, kind of some days like we're not a real homestead because we don't have animals yet. And you're right. That's not that's not true at all. 03:58 Yeah, my friend, she's become a friend. didn't know her a year ago, but now I do because of the podcast. My friend Amy Fagan at Grounded in Maine is her podcast. She asked me to be a guest and she basically introduced me as a homesteader who was bucking the system because we only have three acres and we don't have cows. And it was kind of tongue in cheek. And for anybody listening. 04:23 If you are doing something that's an old fashioned skill as a part of your everyday life, you are practicing homesteading. Yeah, that's true. That's absolutely true. And I do it on so many levels. And I think the animals and the husbandry is probably the only thing that I don't do. And honestly, that's probably a good thing because we tried raising rabbits here and number one, they were dumb and didn't procreate the way they were supposed to. 04:52 And number two, having to call or butcher those babies, not babies, I call them babies because they were my babies, but having to butcher those rabbits and put them in the freezer about killed me. I don't, don't want to do it again. really don't. It's that's a part that, um, you know, it's not everybody can handle that part. Now...
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    32 m
  • Hot Mess Ranch

    Hot Mess Ranch
    May 20 2025
    Today I'm talking with Steven at Hot Mess Ranch. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Good morning, Steven. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm really excited to chat with you because I understand that you have a ranch, but I also understand that you are all over social media. And I want to talk about that too. So first off, why is it called Hot Mess Ranch? 01:26 Well, when my wife and I started the ranch, uh, 2021, we thought for months on what to name the place. And one day when we were watching TV, one of my daughters walked through the living room, did something funny or whatever. My wife looked at her and said, Oh my word, you're such a hot mess. And then it was like a spark went off and instantly 01:53 My wife and I looked at each other like, let's just name it Hot Mess Range. Uh huh. And it was kind of a joke for a little bit. And then it just kind of stuck and we named it the social media that and that it kind of, that that's how it got started. So it's named after my daughters being silly. Well, I love that. And honestly, every time I see a hot mess before someone's name on any social media, 02:22 channel I'm like hmm what kind of hot mess is that one? Right. So it's a good way to get attention too. Yes. Okay so what what brought you to doing Hot Mess Wrench? 02:34 My wife grew up on a Longhorn cattle ranch for most of her life. And we had kind of kicked around the idea of getting land for years and we had always looked at it and coming out of COVID, we just, we found some property and then kind of got serious about it. And I have a daughter with autism and she was kind of having a rough time in the city and 03:04 Um, you know, kids can be kind of cruel and, and, um, we were like, let's just give this a go. Um, really my daughter is what kind of pushed it over the edge. And so we found this place and got out here and that main reason for her, uh, being a, a, um, 03:29 I'm a word I'm kind of brain farting here. The main reason for moving out here with my daughter, uh, played out really well. And, uh, she's her self-esteem is through the roof now and she's feeling great about herself and she's settled in with the animals. And so that's kind of really what it was all about. And then that's, that's why we came out here and got started. I have a question about your daughter and if you don't want to answer it, just don't, and I will edit it out. 03:58 Autism presents in a whole lot of different ways with kids. So how did you find out that she had autism? 04:08 Um, my wife is a teacher and so she holds a, well, she does now she holds a doctorate in elementary education. And so she's got a lot of experience with that, especially with kids in the, in school. Right. And so we could tell, she could tell kind of an early age that there was a chance she was kind of on the spectrum. And then we went and got her diagnosed. 04:35 Uh, early on, so we've, had known for quite some time. You can, you can generally tell they're not a, they're not as social as a lot of people, you know, she gets a lot of anxiety and in heavy social situations, a lot of people around a lot of noise, um, uh, over, over stimulation happens pretty quick, but the noise is really kind of. 05:05 you know, was a telltale sign. And she even to this day, if we go back into large gathering, you can tell she just kind of gets overstimulated pretty quickly. So that was one of the main signs that we noticed and she still has ...
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    38 m
  • Organic Urban Farm

    Organic Urban Farm
    May 19 2025
    Today I'm talking with Jesse at Organic Urban Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 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 Jesse at Organic Urban Farm. Good morning, Jesse. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How's everything? It's good. If I lose you, it's because we have some really high winds happening here in Minnesota today. Not a problem. Just a call away. Okay, cool. All right. So. 01:25 I had to go look up Long Island, New York because I never even wondered about where it is. I grew up in Maine, but never even wondered how Long Island fit into the state of New York. And it is literally a Long Island. Yes, it is. So is it very populated because that helps me raise my questions here? Yeah. So I've lived on Long Island my whole life. I've lived in the town of Oceanside since basically I was 01:54 Around three years old, we moved over here. The Oceanside is about 40 minutes from like New York City. So Manhattan and you you're very close to the boroughs. You're only a car ride away really from anywhere. But for me, I grew up upstate a lot in upstate New York with my grandparents, raising chickens and horses and other animals. With my papa was a big thing for me growing up. And I spent most of my summers over there. 02:23 I always loved it. So once my papa passed, I decided to do a little nice chicken coop in my backyard and start something small just in his memory and something that made me happy to do. But around us, we really don't have many chicken coops. I'm probably one of the few people in our neighborhood who has a chicken coop. So it is rare to have this over here, but it was something I love and it was something that I really wanted to do. But yeah, this is really more of like... 02:53 Urban city. This is more of you know a fast-paced area. It's You know more of a city suburban life, and it's a little bit different than Then what you would see on most forms I would say yeah, that was part of the reason that your Instagram page grabbed me because I was like organic and urban don't necessarily shake hands well unless you work some magic Yep, absolutely so 03:21 You know, we don't have our certifications and stuff like that, but we raise our chickens all organic when it comes to free-ranging them and then as well as feed. Right now, we use Scratch and Peck, which honestly is one of my favorite brands. It's a little pricey, but the chickens really do love it. And honestly, I haven't had any problems with it, even when they were babies with the coxodosis. you know, I was raising chickens, you guys know. 03:51 that the babies tend to sometimes eat their poop and stuff like that, which will make them sick. But a lot of people use the medicated feed, but I don't see a need for it, honestly. I've noticed that the organic feed, as long as it's a quality feed, seem to be, you know, you don't seem to have any sicknesses or anything. But that also goes with how neat you keep your coop and how neat you keep the brooder. Because that's very important when it comes to that. 04:19 When it comes to the health and the sickness in a small area like this, especially when you don't have a big farm, you really have to be neat. It's the most important part of it. Yep. Absolutely. Because those bacteria nasties will take any opportunity to get in and wreak havoc. Absolutely. Yep. So, um, so how big is your, uh, yep, go ahead. No, I'm sorry. That was, I was just getting, uh, in somewhere. Well, go ahead. What were you saying? How big is your, um, 04:48 your lot that you have ...
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    34 m
  • Home In The Pines

    Home In The Pines
    May 16 2025
    Today I'm talking with Lindsay at Home In The Pines. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 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 Lindsay at Home in the Pines. Good morning, Lindsay. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm good. Where are you located? We are in East Texas. Okay, cool. Is it sunny there? Because it's gray here in Minnesota. Same here. We've had a lot of rain lately. I mean, honestly, it's just the humidity. I feel like we're just one big 01:26 ball of humidity. It's just like walking through steam all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I keep waiting for the first really nice moderate spring day and it just hasn't happened yet, but we're supposed to have a gorgeous weekend here. I'm so excited. good. Yeah. So tell me about yourself and what you do. And I have one quick question. Your Instagram page shows you as home in the pines, but it also shows you as something else. What's that something else again? 01:57 Um, Homestead Hustlers in Progress. Yes, that. So tell me, tell me about yourself and Homestead Hustlers in Progress. Okay. Um, well, my husband and I are actually originally from Minnesota. So we get through this stand. Yeah. We know what you're going through this time of year. Um, we both grew up in the city. My husband really inner city and I was, you know, more on the outskirts suburbs. And, um, when we first got married, I was teaching. He is a basketball coach, now teacher and. 02:27 Um, we were led to go to Iowa a couple of years after we were married and, um, he was coaching at a Christian college there. We adopted our two older boys while we were there and we were in a neighborhood, but we had about an acre of land. It was a super big yard for, for the neighborhood. And we absolutely loved it, especially both coming from the city. Um, my husband will say like, I never want to live on top of anybody ever again. And, um, so we just really got like that. 02:58 it to like, oh, this is nice. This is kind of nice having a little bit of space, you know. After a few years, we moved to West Texas where we worked in a facility for at-risk youth. We were both teachers, both coaches. Again, we had our two older boys and then we had a baby while we were there. And we lived on, was like a working ranch. We lived on the ranch there. 03:25 but we also bought some property about 15 minutes away. So we would go there on the weekends. My husband liked doing projects, being out there, bringing the kids, you know, just having some freedom and fresh air, that kind of thing. Excuse me. So then just two years ago, we moved over here to East Texas where we purchased a major fixer upper. it had been abandoned for a few years besides all the critters. And 03:55 had another baby, so we four kids, three boys and a little girl. And I work part time from home. My husband still teaches and coaches. And we just, we have about 13 acres here in the middle of the woods and we love it. It's just, it's like been a gradual progression from like where we started to now kind of just like fully immersed in this like own land, you know, work it, that kind of thing. 04:23 Okay, that's a fabulous story. I have to know, was your husband living in Minneapolis? Is that the big city? Yes. Yep, right there in South Minneapolis. Okay, cool. Yeah, I had no idea that you were from Minnesota, but the minute you said no, no, I heard the big O and I was like, oh, I would have known either way. everyone's like, where are you from? What accent is that? I was like, I'm the one with the ...
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    28 m
  • Plotting To Plate - The people on plot 11 & 5

    Plotting To Plate - The people on plot 11 & 5
    May 15 2025
    Today I'm talking with Matt and Deb at Plotting To Plate - The people on plot 11 & 5. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at HomegrownCollective.org. 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 Matt and I think you said Debbie. I might have screwed that up. At Plotting To Plate. Hi guys, how are you? We're good. Thank Very good. Thank you. Did I get the name right? Yes, it's Deb. Okay, good. I blanked for a second. I was like, what is her name? 01:24 Okay. You guys are in Staffordshire or Staffordshire, England, right? Yeah, we're in Stafford, which is in Staffordshire. It's a market town, about 71,000 people. So it's quite a big town these days. It's so medium to large. And it's in the Midlands. Okay, cool. And how is the weather in England today? It's lovely. 01:52 It's really nice. So if you're wanting to go outside and get some time and sit and have a cup of tea and read books, it's great. If you're growing vegetables, not so good because this has been the driest spring that we've had since the records began. So obviously we have two hats on these. Oh, no. 02:19 Unseasonably warm and dry for the UK at the moment. I really wish that Mother Nature would get her act together. Well, just give us more warning about what she's going to be because we've got seedlings and things we need to look after. So, you know, you need to be able to plan for that, don't you? Yes. And we went through this last year here in my town because we had six weeks of rain straight in May and June. Yeah. 02:49 And it was bad. Our garden was terrible. And I've talked about it a lot, so I'm not going to talk about it anymore right now. tell me about what you guys do, because I know in England you can either have plants growing where you live or you can have allotments. And I'm not quite sure I understand what allotments mean. So tell me about it. Yeah. So an allotment is a large piece of land. 03:17 that's often owned by either a council or an association. And then it's subdivided into plots. And the sole purpose of the plot is to grow fruit and veg. And you rent that land from either the association or the council. So we rent two plots on our site. There's plot five and plot 11. And there's about 150 plots on the site. So it is a massive site. 03:47 But it's urban, so it's completely surrounded by housing. There's nothing rural about it outside of the gates until you get in the gates and then there's all the small plots that are put over to fruit, veg, flowers or whatever you want to grow there. Allotments, it's quite an old tradition in the UK. 04:15 the 1970s became popular and then it died off again. Then it came back to life in the 1990s and has sort of grown ever since. We found that we actually took ours on in just after lockdown in 2021 because during lockdown, know, we love food, we love eating well and we love eating organically. So lockdown gave us the time to think and consider about having. 04:43 a more sustainable and simpler life and part of that was to get these two allotment plots. We haven't looked back since actually, just absolutely love it. So as far as allotments for the third, as quite large. So normally in the UK they're about 300 yards, but as a bigger, so with the two together, I think we have about a quarter of a plot, something like that, isn't it? 05:13 A quarter of an acre. Not a quarter of a plot. That wouldn't feed us. It's about a quarter of an acre, which it's not too big. It's just about as much as we can manage because Matt still works. I'm retired but he works. But ...
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    32 m
  • CT Farms Mobile Processing

    CT Farms Mobile Processing
    May 14 2025
    Today I'm talking with Ty at CT Farms Mobile Processing. You can follow on Facebook as well. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org. 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 Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year? Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months. So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com Lang calendar. 00:26 because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. 00:56 You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 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 Ty at CT Farms Mobile Processing in Le Sueur, Minnesota. Good morning, Ty. How are you? Good. Hang on one second. My computer is doing something weird. Okay. Nevermind. We're good. Okay. So, um, Ty is not far from me. Where are you in LaSore, Ty? 01:26 Uh, right outside we live over by the Cambria plant. Oh, okay. Yep. And we live over by Michael Foods on Highway 8. you're maybe five miles away from me, I think. Yeah, not terribly far. Yeah. So it's a hyper local episode today, guys. I'm very excited about this. What does CT stand for? Uh, stands for Chad and Ty. So I'm Ty, the son of the operation and then Chad is my dad. 01:57 Okay, awesome. That makes sense. I would normally I would ask how the weather is where you are, but we have been having the most glorious streak of beautiful weather here in Lesor. Oh, God, yes. Today is just beautiful. My husband and my son have been outside all morning watering plants and getting our plant sale set up and all kinds of things. And I've been taking 02:22 I've been taking care of stuff in the house and doing dishes and the stuff that the girls do so So tell me about yourself and what you guys do, please um So kind of just all started, you know I was Wasn't having fun really doing concrete breaking my back for a whole lot of money, you know processing pretty easy money We've been doing it 02:49 I've been doing it for a very long time now. My dad used to do it when he was younger. So it was kinda like in our family. You know, we knew what we had to do. We knew that it would provide everything for us. You know, it cost us less money if we just butchered the animals ourselves. Saved us money and it provided food for our family. So you know, it was kind of a big plus to it. There's one guy getting out of 03:18 mobile processing for chickens and we just kinda started questioning if we could do it. We were gonna go buy that trailer but it sold so we were like alright well we can kinda base our trailer off of that. So we did, we tried our best and it turned out pretty good. As a business getting into something obviously there's some stuff that needs to adjust. 03:47 which we are slowly working towards. Our business is definitely getting better and better every year. Our customers love our birds that we do for them. They love us. And we love having them come to us. So yeah, I mean, it's pretty fun. Awesome. So is it only chickens that you guys butcher or do you do other things as well? 04:16 Uh, we mainly stick to chickens. Um, we do butcher our own animals at home. have a little hobby farm per se. So. Yeah. Cause, a friend of ours was looking at getting into mobile butchering and discovered that, um, the state of Minnesota does not really smile upon much else except chickens for mobile butchering. Yeah. They don't really like you doing everything else really because 04:45 You know, there's just a lot of stuff going on in the government. Uh huh. Yeah. All the rules and regs that you have to follow and, something about that, that the USDA inspector person has to come out and be there for butchering of anything other than a chicken or a rabbit, think. Yep. Yeah. And that's, that's difficult to schedule and they don't really like to do it from what I've heard. So. 05:14 Yeah, that's a big thing. If you're approved, they kind of just got to come out there, ...
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