Épisodes

  • Burrow & Bloom
    Oct 22 2025
    Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow & Bloom. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow and Bloom in Bismarck, North Dakota. Good morning, Lulu. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather there? Really cloudy, really humid over here. 00:25 Oh, well, it's really nippy here in Minnesota this morning for the first time in over a week. Thank God. It's been very, very hot this past week. Yeah, we should be getting some good weather this weekend though. So I'm excited about that. I'm really happy for you. It's supposed to rain here this weekend and that's okay too, because we could use it. And that sounds really funny coming out of my face because, you know, I didn't grow up as a homesteader. 00:53 And so every time I say we need the rain, I sound like a farmer. totally understand. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Lulu. So my name is Lulu and I'm the owner of Furrow and Bloom. And I started a micro farmstead um in little North Dakota. What we kind of do is like we grow 01:23 vegetables. um We raise rabbits. That was how we started on a fourth of an acre. And um we recently started to reach out to the community and provide some of our products. And there was a demand for a refillery store. So we started kind of taking on the responsibility of that. So we're just kind of growing and taking orders like that. Awesome. 01:52 And I know that you actually produce almost everything that you put out in the world. And so how in the world do you have time for all of that? So I have to really sit down and make time for it. I work as an administrative assistant for a neuropathic doctor here in town. So that takes up a majority of my time, obviously. 02:19 Um, but then I do have a passion for baking. That's kind of how I got into the whole homesteading life. And I learned how to make sourdough probably about four or five years ago now. Um, so because I enjoy it so much, I make time for it. It started off just with me baking breads for our family. But then I started gifting it out. People started to really want it. And now. 02:48 I um sell that as part of our farmstead. 02:54 Okay. And what else do you make and sell? So I actually sell ravioli. So when it comes to food, it's bread and raviolis. um That's mainly what I put out and jams. And I try to source all the things here in town as much as I can. And also just like use the community as a, um I guess like a support system. Cause a lot of stuff we actually get 03:23 donated or we go and pick up when people no longer need something or just want to get rid of it. So we do use a lot of things like that oh to make our products. Okay, so here's my big question for you. In Minnesota, we have a lot of regulations on how we can do things like you're doing. 03:46 And in our case, we can't really do pop-ups at businesses unless there's more than three people who are going to be involved, three businesses, three pop-up businesses at the business. Is that how it is for you or can you just like get hold of a business and say, can I use your parking lot for five hours? Yeah. So the laws, the cottage laws specifically here in North Dakota and Bismarck kind of changed over the years when I first started out. 04:14 Um, cottage bakers were not allowed to bake at all. Like there was no cottage food, um, really allowed without getting permits and pulling all the right licenses. It has now kind of become, I guess, more accessible because there's such a big farm life and like rancher life, um, in the area. And a lot of them. 04:42 don't want to pay, you know, extra licensing because they already have their permits and do all these other things. So a lot of people kind of banded together and the cottage law did change. Before you were only allowed to like bake in an inspected kitchen apart from your home. Now it's a little bit different. You're able to actually bake in your home. You don't need a whole separate kitchen to do that. So the laws definitely have changed over the years. I feel like they're more forgiving. ah When it comes to selling, 05:11 I personally reach out to businesses and I set up. I don't have other vendors with me. That's never been like something that's been an issue here. As long as you have like the owner's approval, you can basically set up anywhere. And a lot of the town is really friendly. So if I was to ever reach out to anyone in the area, I think they would let me set up. 05:37 ...
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    26 min
  • Carlton Hill Farm
    Oct 20 2025
    Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm in North Carolina, is that right? West Virginia. West Virginia. I'm in Minnesota. I am a Yankee. It is all the same to me. Sorry about that. No problem at all. Good morning, Sean. How are you? I'm doing well. Good morning to you as well. How are you? 00:28 I'm good. I'm going to start this off by saying I have a head cold. So if there's sniffles in the recording, it's me and I'm sorry. How is the weather in uh West Virginia? It's honestly pretty good. It was pretty dry and hot there for a while. we last week, I think we got like an inch and a half of rain one day and weather's weather's starting to cool down in the mornings and everything. Everything's starting to feel like normal fall again. How's the weather up there? 00:54 It's a little nippy. I think it's maybe 60 degrees and it's breezy and bright and sunny. Oh, wow. Yeah, we've had a couple cool mornings dipped down into the high 30s. I actually had to start a fire the other morning. So it was it's it we've had some brisk ones, but overall, it's pretty nice. Yeah, even if I wanted to start a fire right now, I can't. Our furnace is dead and we have a wood boiler, wood burning boiler that hooks into our furnace with a blower. 01:23 And so right now it's about 65 degrees in my house and probably will be for a couple more days, but then we're getting it fixed. Oh nice, well that's good. And just in time for the cool season. Oh, of course, of course. That's what always happens. If the furnace is going to go out, it's going to be in the fall. And if the AC is going to go out, it's going to be in the spring. Yep, that's exactly right. 01:46 Yeah, exactly. Because Murphy is an optimist and God love Murphy. I have bad things to say about Murphy, so we're not going to go there. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. So ah I'm an author and farmer from West Virginia. I farm a one acre property with my wife. We farm rabbits and chicken and chickens and quail. um Prior to that, I spent 12 years working for the federal government and uh 02:14 we bought this property, started farming on it to feed ourselves first and then we sell anything that's left over to the community and then we also have some giving initiatives where we give back, whether it be farm products or uh pantry items uh to the people that need it most in our community. Fantastic. So are you strictly rabbit, chicken and quail or do you have a garden too? 02:41 We do have a garden. So we grow a lot of produce, we grow a lot of fruit. We use all of our rabbit manure as the only fertilizer for all of our crops and everything. So the rabbit manure is kind of where life begins for everything. It feeds everything that feeds us, including the rabbits. And it's kind of a closed system. But yeah, we also grow wildflowers and um any sales of things like wildflowers. 03:07 A portion of those proceeds go to purchase pantry items that stock are giving initiative, which is called Farm for Better. 03:15 Awesome does farm for better have uh a website or a Facebook page or anything? Yeah, so it's it's just part of our normal website, which is CarltonHillsFarm.com slash farm for better Okay, cool because I'm sure that people want to go check it out because they're gonna be like poor Where can I find stuff about that? um Okay, so tell me tell me how you got in this because I looked at your website and you're about page and there's a story there So tell me the story 03:41 There is a story there. So um I worked in the federal government for about 12 years and my wife worked a high pressure director role in the private sector for about just as long. And we got to the point where we felt like we were part of all these extractive relationships. The job took more than it gave. The families took more than they gave. And so we just felt like we were being consumed bit by bit by bit. And so when we looked at our lives, 04:11 We decided that we didn't want to be in debt. We didn't want to have mortgages. We didn't want to owe anybody anything. And that included our time, our emotion, and whatever that may be. So we took steps to start growing and raising our own food so we could step away from those systems and kind of build our own system on the margins of the one that failed us. 04:33 Okay, and how has that gone for you? mean, are you guys okay? ...
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    28 min
  • Sproutside the Box
    Oct 17 2025
    Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box in North Carolina. Good morning, Deborah. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? How's the weather in North Carolina today? Actually, it's cooler than it has been. It's been staying right around 86. 00:27 And we're getting a cold front on Northeastern. So it's a little bit cooler today, probably mid seventies, but the sun's out. So no, actually it's not supposed to start raining until I think late Friday into Saturday. And then Saturday is supposed to be, you know, pretty heavy rain. oh My daughter lives in Florida and she's on the Miami side. So I think she's probably going to be okay. 00:57 but if she was on the other side, she'd probably be getting rain right now. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and Sproutside the Box. Well, my sister and I started the business um back in February and our initial thought was to purchase a farm and tower farm. So we purchased a tower and started growing aeroponically and 01:26 It was just amazing the vegetables that the tower produces. so then I thought, well, you know, it only had like 28 ports. So unless you purchase a quantity, you really wouldn't have anything em much to say for like a business or a farm stand. And so at that point, we decided we needed something a little bit. 01:54 faster with a faster turnaround time and we came upon a website for microgreens through Donnie DeLillo for Donnie Greens microgreens. Anyway, so we took that class and we began growing microgreens and it's evolved rapidly. um We deliver to homes, we do home subscriptions and 02:24 So we deliver in a 30 mile radius and we also have, we've branched out into salads. And so now we have a big clientele for our salads and it's just expanding from there. Right now we're actually looking for land so that we can put a tower farm and the microgreens with a barn dominium on one spot. So that's where we're at today. 02:54 So much fun. Okay, so I have questions. The tower garden is the thing where it's a bunch of tubes and they have holes in them and you put a thing in and it has dirt and then you put those seeds in the dirt. Is that how that works? No. Okay, tell me. With this one it has a base that holds the water with a pump and it has one tube with 03:23 seven pots and each pot has four openings. So in our case, when we first got the tower, we didn't know how to grow seedlings. And so we purchased the seedlings with the tower. And it came in one package one day, we put it together in a matter of 20 minutes, maybe tops. And we have the seedlings in there in the pump going, you know, within 03:52 a couple hours and you add nutrients to it and then it's on a timer. So it waters itself. You don't have to do anything. that's pretty neat. What kind of space footprint does it take up? Like how tall, how wide? um It's probably, I would say six feet tall with everything. We also have a caster, um like a little 04:21 bench that it sits on so that we can roll it around if we need to change positions for a better sun. And then it's probably about maybe two and a half feet around. So it doesn't take up much space. And you can have one in the house, they have a smaller version that goes in the house. But ours was out on our deck. And so we just grew from February to April. 04:51 We just watched it grow. We went out and sat down and watched it grow. We were growing microgreens in the meantime in the house, but not outside. Do you buy your towers exclusively from one company? Actually, we only have the one tower right now, oh but we did buy that from uh Tower Gardens. They were out of Asheville, North Carolina. 05:20 and they're very, very nice people. They have a greenhouse that ah services two five-star restaurants and a golf course. And so they have a huge farm. ah And that's really what I was looking to do. ah But microgreens were a faster turnaround time with pretty decent profit margin. 05:48 Yeah, microgreens are like a 10 day turnaround, right? Yeah, some of them are even seven days, three days germination, four days to five days under the lights. So anywhere from seven to 10 days, depending on what you're growing. 06:03 Okay, that's what I thought. The reason I'm asking is we're looking at starting some of our own in our heated greenhouse in Minnesota. And we're no competition for you because you're in North Carolina and we're in Minnesota. I don't know if ...
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    28 min
  • Cottage Foodie Con - THE Conference For Cottage Food Producers!
    Oct 15 2025
    Today I'm talking with Matt Rosen at Cottage Foodie Con. You can follow on Facebook as well. "CottageFoodieCon will be an annual premier event dedicated to supporting and empowering small-scale food entrepreneurs operating under cottage food laws. This conference serves as a vital hub for cottage food producers, policymakers, educators, and industry professionals to connect, learn, and grow. Through a combination of keynote speeches, workshops, networking opportunities, and an exhibitor trade show. The conference will foster business development, regulatory compliance, and innovation in the cottage food sector." Use Promo Code: CFCON25 and get 25% OFF (expires 10/31/25) www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Matt at The Cottage Foodie in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Good morning, Matt, how are you? I'm doing fantastic, Mary. How are you? Good. See what I did there? I didn't say your last name. Do you want to explain it really quick? Yeah. So I question my family. 00:26 Lineage so whether or not they are pronouncing our last name correctly because it's spelled just like Rosen R O S E N But it's actually pronounced rosine like there should be a Z in there or maybe two E's uh So yeah, so it's uh I respond to both Okay. Hey you probably works to does people or hey cookie guy. That's what seems to be uh Most popular here over the last five or so years since I started my college food business, so 00:56 Yeah. And uh your business is sergeant shortbread and it's really hard to screw that up. So the spelling is a little tricky. A lot of people mix up the spelling of sergeant. went with the, uh of course, spending 23 years in the military. went with the military version of sergeant, not the S A R G E N T that some people want to spell it. But, uh, so it's easy to pronounce, hard to spell. Yeah. I grew up thinking the English language was super simple. 01:26 And then I looked at other languages and went, no, we're just as messy as everybody else's languages. So, has been on my show twice, I think already. And he came back to chat with me this morning about the fact that he has spearheaded the Cottage Food Econ that's coming up in April of 2026. So tell me what you got going on, Matt. 01:52 Yeah, so it's a cottage food conference designed specifically for cottage foodies uh or cottage food entrepreneurs. And the premise behind it is like the classes and the sessions and everything about this conference is geared towards uh the business side of running a cottage food business. 02:15 A lot of people ask me like, can you have a cottage food conference? Every state, how can it be national? Every state is different and all these products. I'm like, easy. I'm just going to teach you the business side of running a cottage food business. And I'm not going to teach you how to make sourdough. You probably already know how to do that. And I'm not going to teach you about the laws in Tennessee. You should already know those because you're a cottage food producer in Tennessee. If you're not from Tennessee, you could care less what the laws are in Tennessee. 02:44 So yeah, so that's the premise behind uh the conference is that it's designed to help cottage food entrepreneurs with the business side of running a cottage food business. things like one of the classes is food photography using your iPhone. As we all know as cottage food entrepreneurs, we don't have enormous budgets to hire somebody to take professional pictures. So just starting out, we'll teach you how to do 03:13 great pictures and it's taught by a photographer. oh So she's going to teach us how to take, you know, she used the lighting and the angles and ah things like that. So it's going to be a hands-on workshop. So people are going to get to take picture. It might not be their exact product of what they're taking a picture of, but it's going to give them the idea of like what the angle should be and um whether you want direct lighting or maybe you want to pull a shade. If it's really sunny out, you might want to pull the shade so it's not quite as bright. So 03:42 Yeah, teaching things like that social media. We've got a few classes on social media uh One of them how to win at social media without being an influencer. So Yeah, and it's we have speakers coming in from gosh all over the country from California, Missouri, Colorado, Florida Pennsylvania Wisconsin and of course right here in the great state of Minnesota Fantastic so I have lots of questions the first one 04:11 The first one is what are the dates in April for this? It's April ...
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    32 min
  • Erin's Acre
    Oct 13 2025
    Today I'm talking with Erin at Erin's Acre. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Erin at Erin's Acre in, I want to say around Faribault, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Erin. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing, Mary? I'm doing good. Is Faribault close enough? Faribault is close enough, yes. We do have an example address. Cool. 00:26 Alrighty, I know how the weather is because we're in the same state. It's been a lovely day. It is a lovely day. It's very warm for October 2nd. Yeah, I would just assume it not be, but we're going to have that next week, supposedly. So that would be nice. I see a 34 degree out there next week is a low. So we are coming to an end. Yeah, I saw that too. And I was like, well, there goes the good basil that's left in the garden. Right. And in my farm, uh my flowers run 00:56 July, I guarantee July through September and you know, any extra days into October are just bonus for me. The first, the first frost will take me out. I don't have, um, hoop, hoop tunnels or anything like that. I'm everything's outside. And so that, that first frost will take me out and I grow a lot of dahlias. so usually by the second week of October, I'm ready for, let's move on to the next, the next phase here and start clean up and getting ready for next year. Yes, ma'am. Um, 01:25 I have a question about dahlias, but I usually say, tell me a little bit about yourself and your place. But first the question about dahlias. Okay. When do you have to have those out of the ground? When do you have to dig the bulbs out? So after the first frost, you can start cleanup as far as, you know, cutting down the dead greenery stuff that's on the top. They do recommend a real hard freeze to put that tuber into the dormant state. And then you dig. 01:55 You know, Minnesota weather in October can be all over the place. It's freezing rain. We've had snow. I've had to dig snow off to dig the tail, your tubers up. Um, but you know, a real hard freeze, um, is great. And then if you can get some warm days to do the digging and pull them up after that is the best. And then the other question I have is, will they bloom until the first frost or do they kind of have a life cycle where they're kind of done? They do slow down. think, um, you know, our temperatures. 02:24 Those cooler nights will slow them down and just the hours of daylight too. And I'm sure you've noticed we're really losing daylight fast right now But they will keep going I've got oh I've got one variety called Baron Katie and she is my first to bloom and my last she will Keep turning out blooms until the last last last moment. Okay. Well, we grew dahlias two summers ago just as a shit and giggles thing, you know grins and giggles and uh 02:54 I didn't love them as much as people seem to. They were pretty, but they're not my thing. And so my husband said to me that September, October, he said, do want me to dig the bulbs out? And I said, nah, I'm probably never going to grow them again. And he said, are you sure? And I said, yes. He said, what about the gladiola? It's because you have to dig gladiola bulbs out too. And that was the year we tried those too. And I said, nah, just leave them. said, you really like. 03:22 He said, you really like perennials, don't you? said, yes, I do. They are a lot of work. Yeah. And we don't really have a good place to store them. I mean, I could probably figure it out, but I'm just like, it's expensive. It's an expensive hobby. And I also wasn't really excited about the gall situation with, you know, if they have gall on their, their roots. It's hard to cut, to cull and cut what you've been saving. Yeah. 03:50 Yep. So I was like, it is way too persnickety for me. am not, I'm not into it. So we didn't do it, but they were very pretty. got the cafe au lait one and that was really, really pretty, but I don't know. I like peonies. Peonies are easy. You throw them in the ground. Three years later, they're producing beautiful flowers. Well, that's what's, know, with flower farming, everything, Betty kind of finds their niche, niche of what they enjoy and what they can handle. oh 04:20 Yeah, I've got a lot of dahlias. Yeah, I think that they're gorgeous. And if you are obsessed, please be obsessed because people love them. But I don't want to grow them. I'm not into it. It's not my thing. I'm bad at it. So I'm just going to let you do it. All right. So now that we've talked about dahlias, clearly you grow flowers. So tell me a little bit about yourself...
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    37 min
  • Tiffin Community Kitchen
    Oct 10 2025
    Today I'm talking with Emily at Tiffin Community Kitchen. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Emily at Tiffin Community Kitchen in Tiffin, Ohio. Good morning, Emily. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning? ah Wonderful. It's actually going to be 85 today. That's awesome. It's going to be 90 something in Minnesota. 00:29 And I'm done. I'm going to be really happy to see this break this weekend. Yeah, it's time. It's October. It's time. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what Tiffin Community, whatever it is, Okay. All right. So my name is Emily Reilly. um joined the, it's actually a nonprofit that runs the Community Kitchen, the Farmers Markets, and the Community Gardens. 00:57 So it's Seneca County common ground and it's the nonprofit and I'm the executive director of it. Um, I joined with them in January of this year. So I've only been with them for, was it like 10 months, 10 months now. Um, so Aaron Gerlach, who is the reverend of the Episcopal church here, who started this whole program. Um, he had this huge vision. So once the kitchen was built, then they needed someone to. 01:26 actually take what his vision was and um actually start putting it into motion. So that's what I'm here to do. So I oversee the community kitchen, which is a our mission is to support and improve local food ecosystems. um The kitchen has successfully delivered um kitchen training um and we're directly supporting our local workforce to help strengthen it. um 01:56 I also run the farmers market, um which we operate every single weekend. It's awesome. It's fabulous. I love it. I've never ran a farmers market until this time. But my background is event services and hospitality. So it kind of falls right in line with everything I enjoy doing. um And then the community gardens, which I'm not a gardener, but I oversee that part as well. And it's great because we're able to put garden boxes throughout um Seneca County. 02:26 So people can go and grab their locally sourced tomatoes and cherry tomatoes and green peppers and all that kind of stuff and not have to pay for it. Because sometimes it's not affordable for everybody and we always want to make everything affordable. So that's what the nonprofit kind of is helping um develop in Seneca County. That is fabulous. I love that all three parts are one. 02:54 you know, that they all feed each other. ah So where is Tiffin? What's the nearest big city? ah So it would be between Columbus and Cleveland. Okay. I have probably driven by Tiffin on my drives from Minnesota to Maine to see my parents. Yep. So, okay. Is Tiffin a small town? Is it a suburb? Is it, what is it? Yes. Tiffin is a small community. It's a rural community. 03:22 So, you know, you have Tiffin and then you have a bunch of rural towns around it. Like you have Hopewell and Bascom, New Regal, Cary, Old Fort. So Tiffin is like the center, kind of like a little city um with all these smaller towns around it. And we're a huge farming community. So we are very rural. It's cornfield after cornfield and then you hit soybeans. it's, you know, that's why I love doing the farmer's markets because you have. 03:50 all these locally sourced vegetables and baked goods that are coming in um that you sometimes don't get ah in the cities. I lived in Columbus for eight years, loved it, but I miss living in a rural environment. Yeah, I can't imagine living in a big city again. I don't ever want to if I don't have to. um So if it's a rural area, then 04:19 How is this helping? Because I would think that people in a rural area would already have these things covered. me why it got started. So why it got started is because um we want to make sure everything is accessible. at the farmers market, actually offer, you can use your EBT and SNAP benefits. We also accept the senior coupons and WIC coupons. All that is accepted at the local farmers market, which makes it 04:48 a little more accessible for families that don't have a lot of income, don't have a lot of money to spend on this stuff. And we also provide training. So we have taken, we took a group of 12 people from the community kitchen to the local farmers market, showed them how the shop use their EBT benefits. Then they came back to the kitchen and they got to learn how to cook what they purchased. And I think that is one of the missing pieces um in this 05:17 in this community and actually in the world now that people don't know ...
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    31 min
  • Careful Creations Bake Shop
    Oct 6 2025
    Today I'm talking with Marissa at Careful Creations Bake Shop. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Marissa at Careful Creations Bake Shop in Mankato, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Marissa. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What a beautiful day we're having in Minnesota today. Oh gosh, yeah. I see that they're predicting snow the first four or five days of November. oh 00:29 So I mean I'm used to that with just moving back from Sioux Falls. We barely got snow last year. So this will be a nice change for us Yeah, the last two winters have not been too bad for snow in Minnesota Just so you know, so you may luck out again and not have a whole lot of Oh, man, my youngest children will be disappointed with no snow then 00:54 Yeah, I don't know. This weather's been nuts. And that's why I always start the podcast off with, how's the weather? But because you're right down the road for me, I was like, oh, it's a gorgeous day for both of us. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am 28. I'm married. I'm a military wife. I have four kids. My husband and my eight-year-old daughter both have 01:24 tree nut allergies. My eight-year-old, also has sunflower allergies. my goal has always been to make the environment safe for them. And when we go to the store, we can't really buy any baked goods because everything has some sort of manufactured on or near 01:53 nuts, then 90 % of store products do have sunflower of some sort. creating my own bakery company and business has been a dream come true because now I can keep my loved ones safe and other people's loved ones safe. love that you would not believe how many people I have talked to in the last two years. 02:21 who had a need for themselves, figured out how to fill that need and then were like, oh, I can help other people who have the same need. I love everybody in this community so much. Yeah, it's a whole new ball game for me, but I am definitely excited to be able to provide those special dietary needs for my clientele and customers. 02:48 Mm-hmm. So how have you been getting the word out because you just started the business a little bit ago? So this morning at about five o'clock, we actually launched our website that is also on my Facebook page. We have a public group. We have a public page. And also here in Mankato, we have been taking advantage of the free public 03:17 bulletin boards and we have putting flyers out as well. And then Friday we receive our business cards so we'll be able to hand those out as well. Awesome. Tell me the website address if you know it off the top of your head now and then you can tell me at the end too. It is www.careful-creations-bake-shop.com. Okay, awesome. And I'll ask you again at the end so people can catch it at the end too. 03:48 So, so what are you I know nothing about tree nut allergies or sunflower allergies because I haven't had that in my family at all. So are you just avoiding making things with nuts or have you found some kind of substitution for them? So we completely avoid them altogether. There are things where we do substitute. So if like it is something for example 04:16 My favorite thing to make is butter chicken, but traditional butter chicken requires cashews, and that is the deadliest for my husband. So when I make it, I actually leave it out completely. I just add a little bit of extra butter to make it a little nicer. Butter makes everything better. Oh yes. But most of the time we just avoid. 04:43 If there are recipes where we need to substitute, we usually use flax seed or we go ahead and use chia seeds. Okay, yeah. Can you use pumpkin seeds? Yes. Sometimes we will use pumpkin seeds. They're a little nuttier than sunflower seeds, which I personally like, but some people just don't like that. So we, if like, 05:13 One of our recipes calls for a tree nut. You know, we just ask, hey, you know, do you have an allergy to this? Do you like the flavor of it? And if the customer states that they'd prefer that we leave it out, we work around. Awesome. I'm actually going to pull up your website because I had questions about your menu and I need the web to be able to do that. So hang on just a second. 05:43 Okay. Oh, there's the menu right there. Sourdough or yeast breads and muffins and cookies, quick breads, tortillas and English muffins. So that's awesome. But can people just request a certain kind of muffin or cookie or are going to have a like a? Are you going to have a list of things ...
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    29 min
  • Red Feather Farm
    Oct 3 2025
    Today I'm talking with Ruby at Red Feather Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead 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. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Ruby at Red Feather Farm in Ohio. Good morning, Ruby. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning? It's actually kind of chilly, but sunshiny, so I'll take it. At least it's not 100 degrees. Yeah, we're looking at 90 tomorrow or Saturday in Minnesota. Oh man. We had that over the... 00:29 past weekend and it was miserable. I'm so excited for fall. Me too. And I'm going to update everybody on the weather here and then I'll tell you why I me too on fall and then I get questions. The weather here is bright and sunny and I think it's 65 degrees and there's a light breeze, but they're saying hot and really windy all weekend, which means that a lot of the stuff we wanted to get done outside isn't going to happen because we can't do it with high wind. Oh, great. 00:58 So indoor things this weekend, which is good because we have lots of indoor things to take care of because it's end of summer season. You know how this goes, right? Oh, yes. Yeah. And ah the reason I said me too is because fall is my absolute favorite season. am so excited to get into soup season and sweater season and candle season. I'm thrilled. Oh, me too. That's my favorite. I love soup. It's so easy too. 01:25 Yeah, I was looking to see if we had any canned beans, not like we canned them, but store-bought canned beans, because I was thinking chili sounded good next week. And uh we don't have any, but we have the beans in a bag, you know, the dry beans. So I will be soaking beans at some point next week so we can make chili and cornbread, because that sounds wonderful. Oh, yes. I'm ready, ma'am. 01:50 I'm so ready. All right. So tell me about yourself, a little bit about yourself and about, um, red feather farm. Well, my name is Ruby and me and my husband started red feather farm. I'd say somewhere like 2015. And basically it started out with, we named it after we raised red Angus beef cattle and we raised boar goats. both red. And then we raised all kinds of poultry. I. 02:19 pastured them and sold them that way to customers. And we've kind of evolved a little bit and I've completely gone in a different direction. But basically now I guess you could call me a homesteader. I think most of my followers on social media know I hate that word because nobody knows what it means. But we have dove into basically producing all of our own food for our family and some other families and 02:46 Red Feather Farm is now just kind of my social media presence where I am teaching and trying to empower people that are either just waking up and trying to escape the matrix of being dependent on grocery stores or people that have been doing it a little, a long time like me. And just be encouraged and know that this is a great life. It's hard. You've got to be willing to work hard and preserving your own food and growing it is not that scary. It's not that serious and we got to quit being afraid of it. 03:16 So it's kind of, it's been kind of fun doing this social media thing and teaching other people. I've taught a lot of people how to can and all that good stuff. yeah, that's okay. Fantastic. And you're right. It's, it's not hard to preserve food or it's not scary to preserve food or any, or make soap or any of the things that we do as homesteaders, but it is hard work and it's not convenient. And the reason that 03:46 people like stores is because it's convenient. You go, you buy the thing you need. You don't have to buy the stuff to make the thing you need. Right. And then make the thing you need. so yeah, I think I'm going to define home studying as number one, a lifestyle is not necessarily having a hundred acres and 40 cows and 20 goats and 50 chickens. It's for me, it is being able to make things that I need. 04:15 out of the things that I have available to me with my own hands and my own mind. I like that. That's how I see it. I kind of, I'm having a hard time too with the homesteading versus farming versus ranching because everyone who is in whichever realm of it, you know, if you're talking to a rancher, they're a rancher, they're not a farmer. If you're talking to a farmer, they're a farmer, not a rancher. If they're, if they're a homesteader, 04:44 They're neither a farmer or a rancher. And, and really, I think that they all fall under the heading of wanting to do good in the world, to grow our own food, to take care of ourselves and be independent. That's kind of how I see...
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    30 min