A Tiny Homestead

Auteur(s): Mary E Lewis
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  • Résumé

  • We became homesteaders three years ago when we moved to our new home on a little over three acres. But, we were learning and practicing homesteading skills long before that. This podcast is about all kinds of homesteaders, and farmers, and bakers - what they do and why they do it. I’ll be interviewing people from all walks of life, different ages and stages, about their passion for doing old fashioned things in a newfangled way. https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
    Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
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Gestion et leadership Sciences sociales Économie
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Épisodes
  • Robin Easton - Author of Naked In Eden

    Robin Easton - Author of Naked In Eden
    Nov 27 2024
    Today I'm talking with Robin Easton, author of Naked In Eden. 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 Robin Easton, author of Naked in Eden. How are you, Robin? I'm great and excited to be here with you, Mary. I'm excited to have you. You are such an interesting person to me. 00:30 So tell me about yourself. What do you do? Oh, wow. That I've been listening to your podcasts and how you ask people that. And just, I was asking, they're great podcasts. I'm loving them. But anyway, I asked myself, well, what do I do? And I kept coming back to this line in my first book when I'm 25 in the jungle. And I'm, what do I do? And then the answer came, I feel. 00:59 You know, what do you do for a living, Robin? I feel. And it sounds an odd answer, but from that is born my music, my writing, my communication with other species, you know, my love of the earth, you know, everything that I am and do. And right now I'm writing, I'm kind of finishing up two books. 01:29 that I hope to get out this year. One is about all the incredible interactions I've had with other species and how it's changed my life, what I've learned, and how my own intelligence and awareness has just expanded more than I ever could have imagined through experiencing the intelligence of other species. 01:57 and their emotions, their ability for compassion and love and tenderness and just so much. And then the other book is kind of a look, I suppose, looking at the world, a woman who lives so much of her life, wild in the wild and places when I went in decades ago were very wild, were virgin forests and remote. You had to winch and could take, I mean, it was an ordeal sometimes just to get in there. 02:27 And then coming back out into my culture again and seeing the world again through wild eyes, because I very much went wild. And then another project I wanted to just touch on, but is I'm buying a piece of land. I've owned land before, but they were always bigger pieces, probably nothing 02:56 a small like six acres anywhere up to like in Australia, almost up to 200 acres. And they were wild and I didn't really have to do anything. I could just kind of move in and enjoy being there. But the place I'm buying now is one acre. It's in a rural area like they're small acreages with the people are all kind of 03:23 micro homesteaders. They have gardens and chickens and some nice docks and whatever. And it's a wonderful community. Like kind of back in the pioneer times where even though we're all on the grid, you know, it still has that feel where your neighbors say if you need anything, let us know. We'll come help. And I decided to do this, you know, this project. And so I'm 03:52 buying this acre, my partner and I, and we're going to turn it into a pollinator conservancy. And someone might say, one acre? Yes. You know, and so it's the first time where I bought a piece of land where one half is lawn and the other half is kind of was made into this extended kind of drive that's gravel and hard and it has a couple fruit trees, a little mini 04:21 great vineyard and a couple of trees. And it's like, what can I give back here? What life was driven from this acre? And that just touches me to tears, Mary. You know, what birds, what butterflies, what bees, what bats, what insects that are starved for homes and don't have them? What families? 04:51 were driven from this property. And how can I give back? And someone could think, one acre, what are you giving? Oh, we all need to give back. Even if we just have a balcony that has plants on it, flowers, you know, in a city. Even if we just have a quarter acre and we decide to plant organic. 05:19 lavender, organic things so the bees don't get harmed. Every little bit helps. And so right now, I mean, I'm coming from someone who used a hand crank washing machine, logged water from creeks and went without electricity, computers, phones, TV, radios for several, like decades. So now I have power. 05:49 It's an interesting, I mean, it's like it's making me grow in a different way. In terms of thinking, what can I give back now? You know, I'm, I'll be 71 in December and it could seem a huge project, but I want to do it, you know, I think it's great that you're going to do it. I think it's fantastic. And I get your, I get your, um, I don't know, bafflement at. 06:18 at really going from no technology to using technology because we here have obviously the internet at my house and we have TV and we have our computers and we have all the things but my favorite thing is just being outside and...
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    43 min
  • The Farm at Prophetstown

    The Farm at Prophetstown
    Nov 25 2024
    Today I'm talking with Sunshine at The Farm at Prophetstown. 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 Sunshine at the farm at Prophetstown. Good afternoon, Sunshine. How are you? Hello. Hi. I'm doing wonderful here in Indiana. Good. It's really funny because I call my kids. 00:29 Well, I used to call my kids or grownups now, but when I would wake them up, I would say, good morning sunshine. So the minute I saw your name, I was like, oh. Yes, I get a lot of people who go, that's cute, but what's your real name? I'm like, well, it is, but it is unique. People do remember me. Oh, I would imagine so. Is it because your parents were of the hippie generation or what's the story? Yes. 00:58 Yes, that's it. Okay. I think it's beautiful. I think that being called sunshine all the time would be a lovely way to live my life. Okay, so tell me about what you do at the farm and then tell me about the farm. Sure. The farm at Prophetstown is a 1920s living history museum located inside of Prophetstown State Park. 01:27 I at the farm am in charge of our marketing, our website, our social media, our school tours, any kind of regular tour, anything public facing. I kind of consider myself an experience enhancer in a way. What a wonderful job, yes. 01:52 Yes, it's super fun. My previous job I did the same things, but I worked at a university. I worked at Purdue. So this was a totally different environment for me. I did not grow up on a farm. So everything I do here is kind of first for me in a way, even though my day-to-day job and what I'm doing as far as event planning and 02:20 tours and interacting with people. I'm very familiar with the course, but the farm itself and everything's a little different. Example, today it was our first snow here. So it's the very first time I'm seeing snow on the farm, but now we have a little bit of a mini, I don't know, it's not a blizzard, but it looks like a blizzard outside the window. I bet it's absolutely beautiful. 02:50 It really is. When I first pulled into the drive this morning, the sun just came up and to see that snow on the barn, just beautiful and the horses out. Our farm is six on a hundred acres. We operate on about 25 acres and the rest we use for our feed alfalfa. 03:16 We have several animals that we take care of year round. So our farm is open year round every day, seven days a week from 10 in the morning to 5 PM. We have three horses, three goats, three cows, six pigs, three sheep. We have a bunch of chickens, about 65 chickens, two turkeys, 11 ducks. 03:45 two farm cats. I'm thinking if I missed anyone out of all them animals. Is there a dog? No, we do not have a dog. Okay. We do have a mini horse and a donkey. Okay, well that's a pass little animals right there. Yes, and so we care for those animals every day. We have a staff of about six part-time farm hands. 04:11 And so our day begins, I come in in the morning, I open the farm, and then from there, the farm hands will start doing their, letting the animals out, feeding them, doing all the morning chores about 9 a.m. And then we will repeat it again about 4 p.m. in the afternoon and we button up the farm by 5 o'clock and we all leave. Okay, so. 04:39 It might seem weird that I'm talking to Sunshine about this place in Indiana, but I really love places like yours because I, when I was in school, we went on a field trip to a farm in Maine called Norland's Farm, N-O-R-L-A-N-D-S. And I don't know if that's what it's still called now cause I'm older now. It was quite a while ago, but it was a living history place and kids would go there for field trips. 05:08 and everybody on the farm was in character from like the late 1800s. And it was really fun, partly because one of the girls in my class, I think it was middle school, junior high, she had nail polish on. And nail polish wasn't a thing they did in the late 1800s. And the woman who was taking us through the experience of what we were doing. 05:35 She saw her hands and she said, did you damage your fingernails? And the girl looked at her and said, no. And she said, oh, well, they're all red. I thought they might be sore. And she stayed right in character. And at the time, all of us girls were just like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, that makes sense. There wouldn't have been red nail polish in the late 1800s, especially not on a kid that age. But as an adult, 06:03 that could have gone one of two ways. We all could have taken it in stride and then like that makes sense, or that kid could have gotten picked on for the next five years in ...
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    38 min
  • Homestead Harvest of Delano

    Homestead Harvest of Delano
    Nov 22 2024
    Today I'm talking with Ellen at Homestead Harvest of Delano. 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 Ellen at Homestead Harvest of Delano. Good afternoon, Ellen. How are you? I'm all right. How are you? I'm good. Are you looking forward to the snowflakes we're supposed to get tomorrow? Tomorrow? 00:29 Yeah. No, I did not know that. My weather reporter did not tell me that. Oh, yeah. We're supposed to get like a trace to an inch of snow. I'm in LaSore and you're in Delano, so I'm assuming you're probably looking at a little bit of snowflakes tomorrow. Okay. I will let him know that he has, you know, got a demerit for failing to keep me apprised. 00:57 Well, it is after mid-November. It's time. It's time for things to start looking holiday-ish, you know. All right, so tell me about yourself and what you do. I know you make jams. Uh, yep, I do. I started because my mom used to make wild plum jam jelly from our plums on our property and then she died and we had to sell the place and 01:27 I decided I wanted to make jelly like she did because it was so good. And so I started making it and I had a good time doing it. Thought it was a lot of fun. So I then decided that I wanted to try other kinds of jellies and or jams. And that's where it started. But my nephew, my great nephew really, really likes the wild plum. 01:57 So he kind of, you know, encouraged me as only a child can do. Yep. I've got four kids and they all are my biggest fans when it comes to trying out new foods, because they figure the worst it's going to be is edible. Yeah. It helps when you have somebody who will eat your practice sessions. Yes. We call it eating the evidence. Yeah. 02:27 Okay, good. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, my husband makes Christmas cookies every December and invariably some of them burn a little and none of us care because you just break off the burnt piece and the rest of it's yummy and he calls that eating the evidence. Yeah, that's, he's got a great point there. Uh-huh. And you can't waste food right now. I mean, you should never waste food, but right now don't waste food. It's so expensive to eat right now. It is. It's crazy. 02:57 I have chickens, so they can also eat the evidence. Yes. Chickens will eat anything. So will pigs. Pigs will eat anything too. Um, so I, I knew that jams and jellies didn't always have to be just sweet. I knew that they could be spicy or they could be even salty or minty. But a lot of people don't realize that the jams and jellies can be of. 03:23 a food that goes with like dinner, not just toast and jam. Right. Right. So over the past summer, I was asked by several people if I had any pepper jellies. And so I started making pepper jellies using my sister-in-law's peppers from her garden. And I've had good luck with those. I've had a lot of people. 03:53 enjoy them and buy multiple, you know, come back and buy more. Mm hmm. And, um, that is gratifying because I had never thought of jelly or jam except for mint, mint jelly, you know, you, you know about that. Cause it goes on lamb. Yeah. But, um, also I've had people put it on their fish and their chicken. 04:22 Your jams or mint jelly? Jams. Like, yeah, I have a pineapple variations and peach variations that are used on their meat, whatever, you know, chicken or fish or like that. And then I made, I had a boatload of tomatoes last year. 04:50 So I started making tomato jam and that is so good on like your, um, it's a savory jam. So you put it on your hamburger or your meatloaf or your ribs. And it, um, you get the tomato, but you also get all the, the spices, depending on which spices are used, it brings out the taste of the meat more. 05:19 Yeah, we tried a blackberry jelly and balsamic vinegar glaze on steak one time and that was really good. Oh yeah, that does sound good. Yeah, it was sweet. It was almost like a barbecue by the time it was cooked, but it was very blackberry-y but it had the zing of the balsamic vinegar. It was really nice. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, and years ago. 05:49 I used to do roast chickens and I would mix apple cider vinegar and apricot jam and something else. I can't remember what the other thing was. Like whisk it together in a bowl and put that over the top of the chicken like you would put butter over on a turkey. Yeah. And then- Yeah, baste it with it. And that's really good too. My mom still uses my recipe because I sent it to her. I was like, you should try this. And- 06:17 She's like, we make an apricot glazed chicken once a month since you sent me that recipe. I'm like, well, ...
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    33 min

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