A Tiny Homestead

About A Tiny Homestead

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

Bauer Family Farms

Today I'm talking with Leah at Bauer Family Farms [https://www.facebook.com/share/1BMNNb8WVx/]. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company [https://greenbushtwins.com/]. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ [https://ngztqg19.r.us-east-2.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F%2Fhomesteadliving.com%2Fwp-json%2Fwp-mail-smtp%2Fv1%2Fe%2FZGF0YSU1QmVtYWlsX2xvZ19pZCU1RD00ODE5MzUmZGF0YSU1QmV2ZW50X3R5cGUlNUQ9Y2xpY2stbGluayZkYXRhJTVCb2JqZWN0X2lkJTVEPTk4MjU0NyZkYXRhJTVCdXJsJTVEPWh0dHBzJTI1M0ElMjUyRiUyNTJGd3d3LmhvbWVzdGVhZGxpdmluZy5jb20lMjUyRnN1YnNjcmliZSUyNTJGcmVmJTI1MkY0MSUyNTJGJmhhc2g9YmRhYTRjYmY1ZWNiMGI3YzNmYzc3NWEyYzRkNmYzYzUxNGZjOTNmZmQwOWJhNTRiMzAxMzNlNzRiMGQ5MjM5ZA==/1/010f019c29b8f111-9d513310-effa-4399-b62e-a754d387effe-000000/DIwVZ4krsifVtHi8bfdqa6jcHZE=249] https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ [https://ngztqg19.r.us-east-2.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F%2Fhomesteadliving.com%2Fwp-json%2Fwp-mail-smtp%2Fv1%2Fe%2FZGF0YSU1QmVtYWlsX2xvZ19pZCU1RD00ODE5MzUmZGF0YSU1QmV2ZW50X3R5cGUlNUQ9Y2xpY2stbGluayZkYXRhJTVCb2JqZWN0X2lkJTVEPTk4MjU0OCZkYXRhJTVCdXJsJTVEPWh0dHBzJTI1M0ElMjUyRiUyNTJGaG9tZXN0ZWFkbGl2aW5nLmNvbSUyNTJGdGhlLW9sZC1mYXNoaW9uZWQtb24tcHVycG9zZS1wbGFubmVyJTI1MkZyZWYlMjUyRjQxJTI1MkYmaGFzaD04NGRkNTg0ZGY5Yjg4OWQzNDIwYTRiZTlmN2Y3NjgwYzljNzk2ODU4MjI1YzQ0OWQ5ZjM4YzhhOWM5ZTkyNDNl/1/010f019c29b8f111-9d513310-effa-4399-b62e-a754d387effe-000000/KmjmDWkA_lanLUOTIrv0veC8ZnU=249] www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead [http://www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead] 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 [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. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together. Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality, and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose. 00:29 At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful. If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care, you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. That tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Leah Bauer at Bauer Family Farms in Faribault, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Leah. How are you? Doing well. I got most of my chores out of the way, so I'm... 00:56 sitting pretty with a nice coffee in my house and ready to chit chat about farm life. Good. And normally I would say, how's the weather? But you and I both know it is a gloriously beautiful day in Minnesota today. Compared to yesterday, yes. Yeah. And Saturday, Saturday, we got snow in the morning. Right. It was enough to to build up on the grass where we were at. We're we just had unhooked our our plow and everything and got it put away for the 01:26 spring, which those couple of 80 degree days really, really had me going for a second there. Yeah. And I just said that wrong Sunday. It was yesterday morning. I'm not quite with it. Oh, you're right. Yeah. It was yesterday morning because I was up at five and at 515, I went out on the porch with my coffee and looked outside and I was like, I will be damned. It's snowing big white feathery flakes. Right. Which is not what you want to see once you've already had what? Five 80 degree days? Yeah. 01:55 Yeah, it's spring in Minnesota. Doesn't know what it's doing. Oh, it's coming. It's all going to be okay. Our rhubarb is leafing. Our tree line is leafing. My peonies are up. They haven't budded yet. Thank God, because they'd be useless if they had, because the snow would have killed them. We have um tulips up with buds on them. They haven't opened yet. um 02:24 The tree has not bloomed yet. The apple trees have not bloomed yet. So that's good news too. We have about 500 cloves of garlic planted that are, I think like eight inches tall already. Wow. I know I'm so excited. We started, I think in 2023, we planted 80 cloves from a neighbor and the plan was to just multiply it, you know, cause garlic is 02:50 It's one of those things that if you plant one, then you usually get five to eight cloves back at the end of the season. Oh yeah. And so started with 80 and then replanted everything. And now we've got 500. So when we harvest, we should have 3000 or 4000 cloves to plant again at the end of this year. I am so jealous because we can't grow garlic here to save our lives. The dirt's too heavy, too black. You have more of a clay soil. 03:20 Yes. Yes, we do. That sucks. Garlic likes soft soil, kind of a loamy almost so that it has room to expand. Yeah, I asked my husband if we should just put in a raised bed and, you know, make the soil what the garlic would like. And he said, yeah, we could do that. And we haven't done it yet. It's easy to to get all of the dreams together. 03:47 But then once it actually comes to putting the supplies together, that's a different story. Well, we're just not sure that we need to grow garlic because lots of people grow garlic in Minnesota. And he really loves growing tomatoes, so he puts all his focus on tomatoes. 04:06 I think it was 2024 that we did a ton of tomatoes and I still have some in the freezer. We just, we don't need a ton of them. And some other family in Wasika actually grows a greenhouse load of them. So they cover us for that and we're going to stick with garlic, I think. It's lot of fun. Yeah. And garlic is like God's gift to cooking. So keep growing garlic, please. 04:35 Yes, absolutely. We're hoping to put it in the farm stand if we get any smaller heads that aren't suitable for planting at the end of this year. Yes. So we kind of jumped the gun here. How about you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you came to be farming and what you do? Right. So we just kind of started up the farm and the farm page this year, but I do have a rural 05:05 background and grew up out in the country. Always had chickens when I was younger, but never really cattle or any other types of poultry or pork. ah So we're just really getting into it again, after a few years hiatus and jumping in with both feet, you know, starting chickens again, I have about 125 egg laying chickens. 05:34 Very nice. And I have six New Zealand doe rabbits and one buck. And we're hoping to get some quail eggs in the incubator soon, along with hopefully doing cut flowers for the farm stand and lots of vegetables. I love a big garden and I do a lot of canning myself. And so most of it's for my own shelves. But I'm hoping to get my cottage license here soon and I'll be able to sell my canned goods. 06:04 Yes, do that. Cause I think it's still free. Oh yeah. To get the cottage license. It's I've from the women around me that have applied and gotten approved. said that the process is fairly easy. It's super easy. have to renew mine and basically the website has a bunch of information you read through it. And then there's a quiz. It's like 10 questions and you have to get seven or eight correct. Right. 06:33 I mean, it almost sounds too easy. Anybody could do it, but maybe that's the point. Yes. Yes. And the thing is, if you don't love to cook, you're not going to bother to get your cottage registration. So I think it's fine. But yes, we we have a farm stand on our place too. And my intention over the next month or so is to start cooking some start cooking, start baking some cookies and get them packaged up and out there because 06:59 People are stopping in for eggs anyway. And if there's like a little box of six cookies out there for eight bucks, maybe they'll buy them. Who knows? Oh yeah. I'm pretty terrible at the impulse buys. And so that would get me a hundred percent. Yes. And my cookies are way better than store-bought cookies. I promise. That rings true for, I think, at least 99 % of farm goods. 07:27 Why buy it in the store when your neighbor can make it and you can barter for it or... And it doesn't have preservatives in it. You're right. Exactly. Five ingredients compared to a paragraph. Yes. And thank God for that because the labels would be impossible to create. So our neighbor, um the lady that I do the farm stand with, her name is Summer and her cottage name is Summer Flowers. It's kind of a play on words. 07:57 Cute. so she does all of the cottage baking and she is incredible at it. I mean, she's she truly has a gift. I'm looking at uh jalapeno cheddar and cinnamon raisin loaves right now that I snagged from the weekend. And so she does a lot of the cottage baking and I am going to supply cut flowers, fresh produce and farm fresh eggs at the farm stand. So it's kind of a 08:27 oh co-operation with the farm stand. But it's been a lot of fun so far. We've only been open, I think, three weekends now on Saturdays and Sundays. Nice. So do you get a lot of traffic in there? Yes. They have a gorgeous property and it's a little brick building that I think used to be like a pump house or a garden shed or something, but it was repurposed beautifully into what the farm stand is now. 08:56 but lots of, uh, not nitpicking, but we'll change little things about it as the season goes. Yes. You'll have to re revamp it as the season goes. Right. Fresh pangy, um, some decorations. I've saved seeds from when I grew marigolds last year and I have like a gallon bag full of marigold seeds that I just plan on kind of sprinkling everywhere. That'll be really pretty. 09:26 Marigolds are great for chicken eggs too. I don't know the exact science behind it, but they're supposed to lower the cholesterol in chicken eggs, along with making the yolks darker. If the chickens eat the blooms? Both flowers and the greenery on the plant too, I believe. Cool. I didn't know that. I will have to let my husband know that. That would be really cool to plant some marigolds for them. Right. I inherited a 09:55 gallon bag of expired seeds from my mom and was just kind of chaos planting everything because why not? You know, if it grows, it grows and I can separate it and put it where it belongs or it doesn't grow and becomes fertilizer. You know, one way or the other, it'll do okay. But so I planted like eight packets worth of marigold seeds in like a two by two square. 10:25 in one of my planting boxes and all of them germinated and it just became this super dense marigold bush that got like three feet tall. bet it was gorgeous. Oh, you could smell it from a mile away. It was great. But so I saved all the seeds from that and I'll plant them around our chicken pasture this year. Your chickens are going to love you. I really hope so. Yeah. ah 10:54 So because we're talking about the farm stand thing, I have a question for you. Do you know what scones are? S-C-O-N-E-S? Yes. Summer makes like blueberry white chocolate chip scones that are to die for. Okay. Are they like the ones at the grocery store that are really flat and dense or are they the ones that are fluffy? Oh, they're fluffy. They're so nice. Okay. 11:23 The reason I ask is because one of things I'm thinking about baking and putting in the farm stand is scones. Because I make a really flaky, fluffy scone. And I'm not sure that people will even know what they are because the only scones I've seen for sale in Minnesota are the ones at the grocery store that are flat and dense. 11:44 Well, if your farm stand has a decent, I mean, you are on Facebook for the farm stand, right? Yes. I would just post them on Facebook first to gauge interest, maybe. I love those videos where people like take their sourdough loaf and split it in half and then like slowly open it to show the crumb. And squish it so it crackles. Yes, you could do that with the scones to show that they're not. 12:14 dense kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I was so flabbergasted when I, when I bought scones at the store the first time I was like, these are terrible. same thing has been going for the sourdough English muffins. The ones that I just bought at Aldi like a month ago are so small and so sad and so thin. 12:42 And the ones that I am looking at in front of me are like an inch thick and they're fluffy. You'll, you'll never go back once you have one. Yes. And that's the other thing I wanted to, I wanted to bring up since we're talking about this particular subject, everybody has their own magic when they cook. And if you're, if you're a good cook, that magic can't help, but be infused into the food. So. 13:09 One person can make a scone and another person can make a scone and they can be absolutely wonderful and delicious, but they're going to be different because two different people made them. I've always kind of wondered if different sourdough bakers, if their starters have like a different. I don't know, flavor or like base to them. I don't think so. I think what's different, I think it's just water and flour. 13:38 I mean, it could be different kind of flour, obviously, but it's water and flour. What it is that every home has a different environment. What's in the air? Oh, interesting. And so that's what makes it different. But I also think that it's how the person actually makes whatever they're making out of the starter, how they make the bread or the pizza dough or whatever. Right. I know I've followed a recipe before where if you don't mix all the dry ingredients before you 14:07 add the wet ingredients, then that can change the entire outcome. Yeah, chemistry is amazing. 14:15 Chemistry is a pain in the butt, but it's also amazing. Right. It wasn't my forte in high school. I'll admit that. Yeah, I was okay with chemistry and biology. Physics was the one that kicked my butt. I don't think I ever made it to physics. I really loved uh reading, literature, English, writing. I loved all that stuff. Yeah, that was more my thing. I'm good at math. I just don't enjoy it at all. And physics is a lot of math. 14:43 So that's probably why physics was very hard for me. Algebra was easy. was, I think geometry is what sucked. Once you get into like the cosine and tangent and that kind of stuff, that's where it tripped me up a little bit. Yeah. And what's funny is as a homesteader or a farmer, we all tend to use geometry without even thinking about it. Right. But it's because it's practically applied geometry. 15:14 I know that every teacher that told me that I wouldn't have a calculator in real life was absolutely wrong. Yeah, funny how that worked out. You're not always going to have a calculator a hundred years later. Oh, really? Right. I have one right here in my pocket. And not only do I have that in the same device, I have a camera and a video camera and a way to access the answer to any question ever asked by any man ever. 15:43 It's terrible, but it is true. It's real handy though. I do believe that thinking for yourself is important, but having answers easily available is also so much more convenient. Yes, like why is my dog scratching at her ear? Oh, she might have ear mites. What can I do about ear mites? You can put olive oil in a Q-tip and put it inside of her ear and it will kill the ear mites. 16:13 Right. That's $200 that I can save instead of taking her to the vet and... And it worked. Oh, right. It's... love... I consider myself a semi-crunchy type person. Like, I love the holistic approach to bumps and scrapes and bruises, but I'll still go and get myself a nice coffee kind of thing. Oh, yes. Absolutely. They will pry my coffee from my cold dead hands. 16:44 They'll do their best at least. Yeah, I don't know. My spirit might come back into my body because I'll be really angry. I don't know. I'm just being silly. So you have chickens. What else do you have? Right. So we raise New Zealand rabbits, mainly for meat. I have a couple of pelts in the feet and the heads in my freezer. I am a sucker for oddities, curiosities, that kind of thing. 17:14 And so that world is in my wheelhouse as well. I sell any rabbits that don't make it or die of natural causes and some chicken eggs to the save a fox rescue out of Millersburg. 17:32 So they take some of the rabbit products. Otherwise, we're trying to market rabbit meat for human consumption as well. yes, definitely. Rabbit is really yummy. Millersburg, where is that? Oh, it would be north of Faribault, think like 15 miles or so. And then it's west of I've 35. And they are what? 18:01 What's the place that you're? It's called Save a Fox and it's all one word. Yeah. They're pretty popular on Facebook, I think. They have a couple of different Facebook pages, though, but they're great. They rescue foxes from fur farms and let them live their happy little fox lives in a contained environment. 18:26 I'm going to have to look them up and see if they will chat with me because I like, I like talking to people that are sort of adjacent to what I talk about. Yeah. I, I don't know if they would be open to it or not, but they've, I think they're above a million followers on Facebook. Wow. I know they're awesome too. The people that work with Fox's have a lot of patients, I think. Yes. And it's interesting because I was brought up being told that 18:54 that wild animals are wild animals and that you don't really get to be anywhere near friends with them. But there is a uh fox rescue that I do follow it. I don't think it's the one you're talking about though. I think it's another one. And they have foxes that they rescued that literally will eat out of their hands and sit in their laps. right. Yes. The foxes at ah that rescue, they... 19:23 are like nine generations bred out of the out of a wild habitat. So they're completely they're like a cat and a dog's body, I think is how they refer to them. Yeah. Yep. It's just it's so funny because like I saw on Facebook, I find everybody I talk to on Facebook. So I spent a lot of time on Facebook. I shouldn't, but I do. And there was a guy that rescued a coyote. 19:52 It had gotten hit by a car and it was, it was really hurt and took it to the vet. The vet got it fixed up and then the guy took care of it while it was in recovery. The coyote comes back all the time to visit the guy. He let him go. The guy let the coyote go wild and the coyote comes back to see him all the time. That's really sweet. We've, it's, been a, I've, I've loved working with animals since 20:21 I was younger, maybe it started with a chicken obsession, but who knows? But I would love to in the near future, if not, maybe like a five-year plan or something, but I would love to have a wildlife rescue. 20:37 uh I would love for you to have a wildlife rescue too so I can come visit. Right. ah A lot of times in the spring people disturb like cottontail nests or a baby bird falls out of the tree or a possum gets hit on the highway kind of thing. I just really enjoy that rehabilitation work. 21:01 Yes. And if you do it, I hope you get to rehabilitate baby raccoons because we had some visit last spring and oh my God, they were cute. They, their little hands just kill me. They're little squeaks. The noises they make. I know they're the best. I love little raccoons. That's a lot of, um, roadkill happens in the spring because all these animals are trying to feed their young right now. So it's in the spring, it's usually a good time to take your 21:31 speed down five, 10 miles an hour or so on the highways because everything's crossing. Yes. And sometimes you hit people's barn cats and they die. And that's really hard on us who own the barn cats. Yeah. For Fairbolt has a really heavy, uh, feral cat population as well. There's, um, the Fox rescue in Millersburg and Fairbolt, there is furball farms. Yes. I actually did a, an article about them for, um, 22:02 River Valley Woman Magazine a few years back. They're so much fun. They have a pretty huge following around here. They're kind of like a local celebrity type thing. But a lot of my family has gone to just go hang out with the cats. They have events where you can just go in and hang out and. Yes, and if you love cats, you will love being there because there are cats everywhere. 22:33 I love cats. My husband is more of a loves kittens, not the adult cats. Yes. So we do have two of our own along with our livestock guardian dog. She's a great Pyrenees. Her name's Mika. Nice. But then the two cats are kind of indoor outdoor. If it's a thunderstorm, they get to come hide out in the garage. But typically they like spending their days outside. 23:01 So I have a question. your cats like your dog? They don't snuggle, but they respect each other's space. Okay. The reason I ask is our barn cats love our dog. Our dog is an Australian shepherd and she's only about 36 pounds. And we just got three new kittens. They were like 16 to 20 weeks old when we got them last summer. 23:29 They wanted nothing to do with Maggie at first. They wanted nothing to do with anybody at first. And now in the morning they come running up when we let her outside and they just rub up against her and purr. And I'm like, didn't take you guys very long to be friends, did it? Right. You have very well tempered cats and the dog, I think. Well, 23:51 Maggie would have been a great mama dog, but we got her spayed when she was six months old because puppies was not on the bucket list. Right. We had a, German shepherd just passed in January and he was the same way. I really wish we hadn't gotten him neutered because his temperament was ideal. Yup. But you can't, you can't know. And also there are so many. 24:20 animals in the world that are in shelters that don't have a home and I was just like I don't want her to get pregnant by oh geez a dog that's too big and she ends up dying because the puppies are too big right she's small dog and There was no guarantee we could find homes for puppies. So I was just like the smartest thing is to Make her not a mama permanently and it's sad 24:49 But it was probably the smartest thing we did. Right. I would love to someday go to a shelter and adopt like who's who's been there the longest or the senior dog that got surrendered or something like that. I would love to give somebody's pet uh a good ending to their life. Yes. Oh, I love that. I love that. And actually, that's probably what we'll end up doing when Maggie is no longer with us. We probably will never get a puppy. 25:18 again because my husband and I are both 56 and puppy energy is a lot and I can't imagine going through it in our 60s. So we'll probably just get a dog that is a dog, not a puppy. We still try to get out and travel as much as we can. We also have two small children here in our homestead, farmstead, whatever you want to call it. um But they're two years and six months. so young children and the farm makes travel. 25:47 pretty difficult, but someday we'd like to be able to take a month off in the winter and go to Mexico or something. But having too much going on and needing to find someone to watch everything, you know, and be able to learn feeding schedules and all that is such a challenge. It is. And we're going through that too, because it's just my husband and I. So 26:16 If we want to go somewhere, we really can't because I don't know what you know about Australian Shepherds, but they are very, very close with their people, but not really close with anybody else. Oh, so she wouldn't do well with like a doggy hotel type thing. No, no, she would not. I suspect she probably would go on a hunger strike. And she also is scared to death of people, strangers. 26:45 So even if we could take her with us, all she would do the whole time we were not home, if she was with us, is bark. So we have the joy of having a wonderful dog, but we also have the pain of knowing that it's gonna be a problem if we actually wanna go somewhere. Right? It's like a, kinda like a toddler in that respect. Yes, exactly. 27:12 And honestly, it is a lot like a toddler. husband took her out and threw the frisbee for her last night. And I got up at midnight to go potty and she was snoring in her crate in her crate. I thought you were going to say crib. Yeah, almost. I was going to say kennel and I'm like, it's not really a kennel. It's a crate, but she was snoring and I was like, wow, he must have run her hard. That's so funny. Yeah. But anyway, um, 27:41 So you said chickens, you said rabbits. Do you have other animals or is that it for now? For now, that's it. We have done pigs in the past, but as typical farm life goes, we found ah things that needed to be stored in the shed that the pigs were kept in. So it turned from livestock back into storage and we just haven't really had the time. 28:11 with two small children to start pigs up again. I would like to start quails soon. I'm hoping my incubator has sat empty for about a week and I'm starting to get the itch to hatch eggs again. 28:23 Yep. It's so funny because quail is very much on the radar here and it keeps coming up in these conversations with you guys. uh We're thinking about it. We're about 50 % sold on the idea of getting quail. I just found a little hutch on Facebook Marketplace and so I think that I would keep quailing that. We have thought about doing other poultry, know, throwing some turkeys or something in with the chickens. 28:51 Getting turkey eggs or turkey poults is they're so expensive. It's insane. I think I saw a sign in Tractor Supply that was like $18.99 for one turkey pulled. Really? Yeah, like wildly expensive and nobody around me has any hatching eggs available. So are chicken chicks expensive this year too? Like five or six bucks a piece? Well, I mean, it depends on if you want 29:20 barnyard mix or if you want some sort of purebred specialty type. So I ordered from Hoover's Hatchery for our egg layers that I, oh, I think they were Valentine's Day chicks. So they're, I don't know how many weeks old that would make them. They're about to start laying next month. So we got 70 there and those were. 29:47 between four to six dollars a piece, because I went with the more budget-friendly breeds. But I see a lot of people hatching ah like cream leg bars, which do the blue eggs or the black copper morans, which give you the dark chocolate eggs. Those can be like nine to fifteen dollars a check if you're getting them from purebredlines. I swear, just like two years ago, 30:17 The not fancy chicks were only like a buck and a half a piece. I would love to know where you saw those prices. It might have been three or four years ago, but it wasn't that long ago that they weren't five to six dollars a piece. Right. I know that backyard chicken keeping has become wildly popular, especially after the pandemic. think a lot of people turned to wanting to be more self-sufficient ah after you couldn't find toilet paper at Walmart. 30:47 made a lot of people panic on uh the whole food supply in America. It absolutely did. That's why so many people moved out of the towns and cities they were in out into the country. And I'm not going to like throw any shade about that because I think that if you can do it, you should. Right. Absolutely. I fully support anybody that wants to commit to a lifestyle in the country. Yeah. 31:15 Yeah, I do too. And it's not for everybody. There are lots of people who really want to live in an area where there are people around. I am not one of them. I really, really value being not surrounded by people anymore. Let's put it that way. Right. I grew up 20 minutes from the nearest town. And so going into town to the grocery store with my mom was always a trip. 31:45 You know, was preparation to get out of the house took 20 minutes in itself, 20 minutes to drive to the grocery store and then 20 minutes back home. Yeah, it was like half the day. But I always would go to sleepovers at a friend's house and not be able to sleep because of the headlights bouncing off the walls at night. It's like, how can you how can you sleep like this? There's so much going on outside. Like, aren't you worried about 32:13 people looking in your windows or, you why is your neighbor's window pointing at your kitchen? Uh huh. That's, it's just the strangest concept to me being stacked on top of other people like that. Yes. And it's part of the reason that we decided to move five and a half years ago. Well, actually almost six years ago, we moved in here on August 7th of 2020. Wow. You have a very good memory. Well, 32:40 Part of the reason I remember it is because I spent the first night I spent here was August 3rd into the 4th because we, had to be here because they were going to hook up the internet and bring a stove because this place didn't have a cook stove when we bought it. So I had to be here on August 4th in the morning and I vividly remember going to sleep on the couch downstairs that we had moved in. So I had a place to sleep. 33:10 And I couldn't sleep. I was just so excited to be spending the first night here. And my husband was actually at the old house because he had to work and it was much closer for him to stay where we were living before to drive to work. And we hadn't moved clothes down here yet. And I could not sleep because I was so excited and because it was so quiet. 33:37 That's like the night before a field trip when you're a kid that you're just jittering in bed. so excited. Your backpack's ready. Your clothes are set out. Yeah. And I've told the story a billion times, but I'll tell it again because it's one of my favorites. I made sure to set the alarm on my phone for before sunrise because the window over the kitchen sink faces east. And I really wanted to see the first sunrise out over the field. Oh, that's so exciting. 34:05 I think I slept an hour the first night I stayed here and I was definitely awake for sunrise and it was worth every second of it. I hope you took a picture or something that would be a framed photo. I have a picture of looking at the window so it's not like through the window at the sunrise it's just the window and you can see the sunrise outside so it's not 34:33 It's not necessarily focused on the sunrise. It's focused on my cute little kitchen window over the sink. But either way, just, feel like certain people are city people and they always will be. And that's where they're comfortable and they love it. And there are certain people who are not and that's where they're comfortable and they love it. I think that anything worth having you have to work for. so convenience, 35:03 kind of kills part of that. 35:09 Yes, I agree. do. However, I am a sucker for a good burger and I don't mean the ones we make here at home. So I'm real happy that one of the best dive bars in Minnesota is in Lesour. What is it called? It's called the Bar and Grill. That's very vague. Yes, it's very original. It's a bar and a grill and they make a really, really good burger. But the best thing they make is homemade onion rings. 35:38 battered onion rings. Oh, I put onions and mushrooms and almost everything I make. Uh huh. So when we're going to celebrate something, we we go grab a burger and really good onion rings at the bar and grill. That's awesome. I think there was just a do you know where Lonsdale is? I do. The Shields Lake cheesecake was just on the news. 36:05 And I've never heard of them. Really? Oh my gosh, they're it's the best cheesecake you'll ever have in your life. Is it a it a bakery? It's they only sell cheesecake. OK, so so is it like a store? Yes, they have a storefront in Lonsdale. I think that the city of Fairbolt put up too much of a fuss about regulations, and so they intended to open their storefront in Fairbolt, but 36:35 opted for Lonsdale instead. They're the type of place that you have to get there and wait in line because they sell out so quickly. is a that's a terrible problem to have. Boy, I don't know. It's I they it was worth I got there early one day and didn't have to wait in line for my cheesecake. But it is it is a hefty slice that you get. 37:03 and they do all sorts of different flavors and concoctions. They supply weddings. Huh? I might have to go check that out. I would say it's worth it. Yeah, because I'm kind of a real sucker for cheesecake, which is why I only eat it about once every five years, because otherwise I would eat it every day. Okay, awesome. Well, I try to keep this half an hour. We're at almost 37 minutes. So. 37:31 I am going to cut you loose, but before we go, where can people find you? So Bauer Family Farms is currently only on Facebook. Bauer is spelled B-A-U-E-R. That is so far our only socials. We're getting connected to a couple of farm stand websites and the name is spelled the same in all those spots. Okay. Hopefully someday I'll connect to Instagram or TikTok, but for now it's just Facebook. 38:00 That's good enough. It's a place where people can find you online, which means that I can link to it for you in the show notes. All right, Leah, this was really fun. Thank you for your time. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you. You too. See you later.

22 Apr 2026 - 38 min

Montana Country Homesteading

Today I'm talking with Diane at Montana Country Homesteading [https://montanacountrypines.com/]. You can also follow on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586502125691]. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company [https://greenbushtwins.com/]. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ [https://ngztqg19.r.us-east-2.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F%2Fhomesteadliving.com%2Fwp-json%2Fwp-mail-smtp%2Fv1%2Fe%2FZGF0YSU1QmVtYWlsX2xvZ19pZCU1RD00ODE5MzUmZGF0YSU1QmV2ZW50X3R5cGUlNUQ9Y2xpY2stbGluayZkYXRhJTVCb2JqZWN0X2lkJTVEPTk4MjU0NyZkYXRhJTVCdXJsJTVEPWh0dHBzJTI1M0ElMjUyRiUyNTJGd3d3LmhvbWVzdGVhZGxpdmluZy5jb20lMjUyRnN1YnNjcmliZSUyNTJGcmVmJTI1MkY0MSUyNTJGJmhhc2g9YmRhYTRjYmY1ZWNiMGI3YzNmYzc3NWEyYzRkNmYzYzUxNGZjOTNmZmQwOWJhNTRiMzAxMzNlNzRiMGQ5MjM5ZA==/1/010f019c29b8f111-9d513310-effa-4399-b62e-a754d387effe-000000/DIwVZ4krsifVtHi8bfdqa6jcHZE=249] https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ [https://ngztqg19.r.us-east-2.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F%2Fhomesteadliving.com%2Fwp-json%2Fwp-mail-smtp%2Fv1%2Fe%2FZGF0YSU1QmVtYWlsX2xvZ19pZCU1RD00ODE5MzUmZGF0YSU1QmV2ZW50X3R5cGUlNUQ9Y2xpY2stbGluayZkYXRhJTVCb2JqZWN0X2lkJTVEPTk4MjU0OCZkYXRhJTVCdXJsJTVEPWh0dHBzJTI1M0ElMjUyRiUyNTJGaG9tZXN0ZWFkbGl2aW5nLmNvbSUyNTJGdGhlLW9sZC1mYXNoaW9uZWQtb24tcHVycG9zZS1wbGFubmVyJTI1MkZyZWYlMjUyRjQxJTI1MkYmaGFzaD04NGRkNTg0ZGY5Yjg4OWQzNDIwYTRiZTlmN2Y3NjgwYzljNzk2ODU4MjI1YzQ0OWQ5ZjM4YzhhOWM5ZTkyNDNl/1/010f019c29b8f111-9d513310-effa-4399-b62e-a754d387effe-000000/KmjmDWkA_lanLUOTIrv0veC8ZnU=249] www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead [http://www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead] 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 [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. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together. Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality, and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose. 00:29 At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful. If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care, you'll feel right at home with Green Bush Twins. That tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Green Bush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Diane at Montana Country something homesteading in Montana because it's Montana country homesteading. Good morning, Diane. How are you? Good morning. I'm wonderful. How are you this morning? I'm good. How's the weather there? 00:59 Actually yesterday for Easter was just about as perfect as it could be. And this morning it's a little overcast, but it's going to be a nice day. Unusual weather in Montana, to be honest. Yeah. It was a lovely day in Minnesota here yesterday too. Yesterday was beautiful. Sunny 50s light breeze. was, it was really good. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Montana country home study. Well, um, 01:28 Let's see a little bit about us. I've been married to my husband who was my high school sweetheart for 47 years now. um We came to Montana exactly 30 years ago in just a couple of weeks, the first weekend of May. And um we came with our three kids, two dogs, a motor home, a U-Haul carrying a pickup truck full of all my husband's construction tools and away we went. 01:57 and came out onto a bare piece of property that quite honestly, my husband found in the back of a Field and Stream magazine in a one inch by two inch ad and said, honey, let's go to Montana. And so we did, we packed up everything 30 years ago and came onto this 20 acre parcel that we actually bought it with a couple of Polaroid, the shake pictures, you know, that you shake to develop them. 02:26 And away we went and it's been a whirlwind since we actually did homestead this property. It was set up in 20 acre tracks out here with quite honestly, no roads, no development, no nothing. They had just subdivided the land. um When we moved on the property, there was literally a two lane dirt path that came down to our 20 acres. And that I looked at. 02:52 dirt path up by the way. And it is actually considered um a stage coach line road from Billings, Montana to Park City, Montana back in the day. So that was of interesting. Yeah, we live on a stage coach road. uh It's now been a little better developed than it used to be, but it's still just a gravel road coming in here. uh But yeah, 30 years ago, we came onto this property with just a dream and an idea. uh 03:21 We were uh building contractors in the Bay Area and were just on complete overload and did not want to raise our kids in that environment. And so we made a pact with each other to get the heck out of there before our kids got uh in middle school and away we went. And we've been here since. That is amazing. I love that. Okay. So did you... 03:47 Did you grow up with people who did homesteading or gardening or farming or ranching at all? My grandparents um on my dad's side had a farm, but we didn't go there very often. uh My other grandma was the most incredible gardener that you had ever seen. She lived in a little town in Pemberville, Ohio. And um quite honestly, that woman could grow anything. And what was really amazing to me is she would 04:15 pull all of her flowers in from her flower beds and put them in what she called her breezeway in the winter months in Ohio. And she would hold those flowers over till next year and put them all back out in the beds. It was amazing to me. I don't have that gift that grandma had, but I can grow a thing or two. So what are the thing or twos that you grow? We grow a lot of our own food. um I think it's really important that you grow your own food, especially today. 04:45 with what's going on with the food chain and the modified foods and all the sprays and such that they're putting on our foods. think it's wildly important that you grow your own food today. So I actually have, one of the first things we did on this homestead was we built some raised beds, started some gardens with my kids. And then of course the deer came and ate everything. I didn't realize that I was dealing with some serious 05:15 predation with animals and such around here, but we were. uh Then we decided to put a hoop house over the raised beds and got wise and kept the animals out and started growing food there. uh If you look on my social media page right now, my husband finally finished uh our main greenhouse that we're going to be growing and I actually just started putting plants in there on Saturday afternoon. 05:39 That's exciting. It's super exciting. It's like over the top greenhouse, of course, my husband's that go bigger, go home kind of guy. um But the first greenhouse that we we grew food in was just a little raised bed area that we put literally sheet panels that we hooped over it and uh buttoned them down to both sides of the of the raised bed and then put um plastic over top of it. And that's what we grew and put a wall in the front. 06:07 some mesh in the back and away we went. And I grew in that for 20 some years. So it doesn't need to be elaborate, but you need to grow your own food. And now we've just stepped up the game to grow into this uh major greenhouse. And years ago, I took a horse barn that we had when we were actually raising paints back in the day. I took that horse barn and I rented it to somebody who cultivated. uh 06:34 inside of that and they have since moved out. So now I have an area where I can actually grow indoor produce all year long. So we're working on that next. That's our next big project. We've had one project after another here on this piece of land. Again, we drove up, there was nothing here, like literally nothing. No water, no power, no phones, no driveways, uh just a piece of land with some pin markers so that you knew what was yours and what wasn't and 07:04 We laid it out from there and it's been quite interesting. Okay. After everything you just told me, I have a couple of thoughts. I'm going do my public service announcement now because it plays into what you just said. I do this on every episode lately. If you live in America right now and you don't know how to cook from scratch, learn because you will save yourself a lot of money if you're buying ingredients instead of finished foods. Number two, if you 07:30 can't grow a garden, get to know your local producers and growers because they can grow a garden and you're feeding yourself really good food and you're supporting your neighbors. Love all of that. That's incredible. Yep. And then number two, I have been trying to figure out a way to explain the feeling that we homesteaders get when we have a project and we get it finished. And the only thing I can liken it to 07:57 is if you were in Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts or you took art class in elementary school and you learned a new skill, whether it was building a homemade birdhouse or Girl Scouts, they used to have you make an apron or in art class, did, I don't know what it was called, but we took a chisel and we chiseled out a design on a piece of vinyl board and then we would make stamps with that vinyl board. 08:26 When, if you've ever done those kinds of things as a kid, if you have the, I don't know, luck to end up having property and having some of your own choices be your choices, not the city planner's choices, and you can put in a greenhouse or you can put in a garden or you put in a raised bed and you see success with that. It's the same feeling as when you took on a project when you were a kid. 08:57 Boy, and to add to that, Mary, if you do have the property and you do have the means to do it, do some kids classes. One of the other things that we did on this property, we actually started it in 2023, is we built out an area on the west side of our property, which is called Montana Country Pines. um 09:18 Montana Country Pines is eight short-term rentals that we built over there that consists of teepees and a really cool 100-year-old sheep wagon and some vintage RVs. But one of the other things that I do with Montana Country Pines is I put a sign out at the road and the kids know that it's Craft Day at Montana Country Pines. And we have all the stuff here ready for them. 09:42 So all they gotta do is show up at noon on a Saturday when the signs out and they can come make something and take it back to their properties. So that's been really, really awesome to do those sort of things and teach kids that, you know, you can do things other than be in front of screens all the time. We can find things in nature and turn them into art. And I just love doing stuff like that with kids because when I was a kid, we used to ride our bicycles to a place called the 10:11 Miami Valley Rec Center, and there were volunteer moms that showed up with stuff in boxes that you could make something and take it home. And that was one of the most biggest highlights of my childhood is going and making stuff at the Rec Center. So that's why I do that. put a street sign out there, a little sandwich sign, and the kids know that tomorrow it's Craft Day at Montana Country Pines. So they show up, make something, and take it home. 10:40 That is so amazing, Diane. love it. uh Summer rec saved my mother's sanity. That's not bad. Mine too, I'm sure. 10:53 Yeah. And the same thing we would go and I mean, they were minor crafts. was like, I don't know. It's been so long. I'm 56. It's been forever since I went to summer rec. I remember having fun. I remember being outside for part of the day because it was at a school building. So we would play on the playground or play soccer or whatever. And then the other part of the day was indoor crafts. And I seem to remember having like little one foot by one foot boards and nails and we put nails in the wood. 11:23 And then we took colored strings and made really pretty designs on it. But I don't remember what the art form was called. String art, some kind of string art. was really fun and it was really Zen. I loved that because you couldn't focus on anything except getting strings right. And I think that's what's missing with kids today because with social media, it isn't Zen. It's just feeding your brain constantly in all different directions. 11:54 Yeah, that's why I grab my grandsons up and I say, let's go paint some rocks and leave them around. We're that family too, that paints a rock and leaves it and picks up a rock and leaves a rock. We're those people. But yeah, my grandkids, they paint rocks and they leave them out here in our park. And uh it's fun. You you walk by and you see a rock that looks like a Volkswagen itself. It's pretty cool. yeah, have all sorts of stuff like that. you do little rocks with them? 12:22 encouraging words like joy and kindness. yeah. Hippie rocks. That's what I call it. Hippie rocks. Hey, again, I'm 65. I grew up in the seventies. I am that old hippie at heart, but you we use it. We use that hippie spirit to do good things for kids and people today. I love it. I told you when we talked on the phone that I was so excited to talk to you for the interview, cause I knew it was going to be fun. And so far you have not disappointed me. And in the least. 12:52 So do you guys have chickens or goats or anything? We do, okay. So we used to raise horses, um got a little older and decided that maybe we'd let the younger people raise horses. um And um we do have a couple of goats. They are cashmere goats that we just use them for the fiber, um which is something else that we've got coming up here pretty soon. We're going to have a couple of gals come out here with a couple of spinning wheels and 13:19 bring a group of homeschool kids out here and show them how to actually take fiber and turn it into uh spinnable wool and then show them some finished products that these ladies have done. just to kind of plant that idea in some young kids' heads that, you you look at that animal and it's not just the animal, it's the fiber and the garments and such that can come from it. So we do have a couple of cashmere goats. Yeah, I have a flock of chickens. I've always had chickens. um 13:48 And a couple of Dobermans right now. Other than that, we normally get em a little bum steer that comes in every year that we'll raise up. We don't have one right at the moment. We do have a pig pen out there waiting for a couple of little pigs again, which I'm not overly excited about, but we'll deal with. Their food. Their food. Yeah. So when you say a bum calf, would you define that for me? 14:17 We usually find somebody that's got a calf that the mom didn't make it or ignored it or it got left when people rounded up the cows and what have you and they find a bum calf somewhere. We got a couple of local ranchers that we always tell them when you got something that needs a home and needs fed up and we'll just put it in this pen over here, but we usually get one every year. 14:42 And then one of my dearest friends in the world has a bison ranch just about an hour and a half from here that we always have fresh bison meat here. And we go and help on the ranch and that sort of thing and barter for m boxes of wonderful meat from the ranch. there a big difference between how cattle beef and bison beef tastes or is it pretty much the same? 15:09 It depends on how you cook it, but yeah, it's pretty close to the same, but bison meat is much better for you cholesterol wise. It's the good cholesterol that you want. It's just a better protein source. At one point on this homestead, we actually had a USDA certified organic meat facility that my husband built out of a, he put up a hundred by 80 foot pole barn and we actually built inside of it. 15:38 a certified organic meat plant. actually produced a bison jerky product for several years. We took it then from that particular plant that we built here on our place and took it to a co-packer because we kind of outgrew our space here. And then COVID pretty much took care of that. COVID pretty much took care of a lot of things. COVID took care of a really good business there. 16:04 But it was awesome that we were able to create it right here from our own homestead. uh We got uh certified trim that came in from Bison facilities and actually produced the product right here on our property. I'll tell you that that was one of the learning curves that uh took me a minute. Learning uh nutritional labeling, um recipes that. 16:29 actually produce the nutrition that you were looking for that didn't have too much sodium or too much fat or too much whatever. um I actually formulated the recipes. My husband did the cook and um smoked everything and then we put it into the marketplace for years. It was pretty incredible right here from our homestead. Very cool. I didn't even know you could do that. Yep. We had to have certified inspectors come out here every week. We had inspections and 16:59 um Yeah, it was quite the process, but we built it from the ground up, bought every piece of machinery, put it all together, did the packaging, the labeling, the production, and then actually put it into the marketplace. uh I want to touch on the labeling because uh we have a farm stand here at our property and we sell cold processed lye soap. 17:26 and we sell candles and we sell roller balls with with essential oils in them and things like that. And as soon as I renew my cottage food registration, which I haven't done yet, we can sell breads and cookies and things too. Nice. And what I didn't realize when we decided that we wanted to do this is that it was going to cost money for the labels and for the ink to print the labels. 17:51 God forbid we actually get the labels printed for us by ordering them because even it's even more expensive then. So so what I would like the listener to know is that when you're paying I don't know ten dollars for a loaf of sourdough bread not only are you paying for the bread you are paying for the work that it took to make the bread you are paying for the bag that the bread is in you're paying for the paper 18:20 that the label is printed on because without the label, we can't sell you that bread because the state of Minnesota won't allow us to. Correct. Correct. So it's not that we want to gouge anybody as producers, but we have to make it worth the time to do the thing. Yeah. And the consumer needs to understand the fact that they are paying for all of those things, but they're also paying for a better quality product. 18:48 rather than buying something that's jam-packed full of preservatives that you're going to feed your family. So there's a cost to all of that. What was really surprising to me when we went organic with our product, uh well, there's two sets of inspectors that would come out. There was the USDA would come out and inspect us just based on the fact we were meat, we were a meat product, but then we'd have the organic inspectors come out. 19:16 And the first time that she came out, she said, I need to see all of your ingredients that you've bought over the past six months. And I need to see your production runs for six months because we need to see that they match. And it just kind of struck me funny. I said, what do you mean see that they match? Of course they'd have to match. Well, she kind of filled me in on the fact that there's a lot of fraud in certified organic labeling that they have found massive fraud that, you know, it, 19:45 The label says it's certified organic, but you haven't bought enough organic materials to create that amount of product. it just struck me. oh I didn't realize that people would defraud that system as well, but apparently they do. So for me, buying local, buying from a farm stand, if I don't have that particular vegetable in my garden. 20:09 is important. Buying meat from my local ranchers and so forth is important because I don't want to buy meat from the counters that are full of formaldehyde and funky stuff to make them stay pink for a while so that they look good for you to pick up. I'd rather have it wrapped in paper in my freezer knowing that my neighbor took it to the butcher that I know. They processed it the right way and it's what I think it is rather than what's all in everything else you're buying today. 20:39 So it is important. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Yeah. And the other thing is that if you spend your money locally, it tends to stay local. True. Very true. Very true. I was reading something on Facebook because everybody reads something on Facebook every day at this point. But it was a story about how a guy went to the local dude who sold 21:06 And he bought a box of steaks from the farmer. And the farmer then took that money and he ended up going to the local barber for a haircut. He donated some of that money to the tithing thing at church. He put some of that money in his local bank and he spent some of it at the local grocery store. And by the time he had done all that, he had spent money locally, not outside of a 15-mile radius. 21:36 And I was like, you know, that's how it used to be. Yeah, that is true. And it's important, you know, if we don't, if we don't keep our, our own towns funded, they die. True. Community is everything. And that's one of the things that I have specialized in for years and years and years is creating communities of people. I've been in the network marketing space in the background of everything that my husband and I have done for 35 years. 22:06 Our first child was born autistic. We could not do the daycare thing, nor did I want to for that matter. So uh when our first boy was born, I quit my job as a pediatric dental assistant and became that stay at home mom and did the books for my husband's construction company for years. And I was the one that was kind of filling in in the background. Cause if you've ever done construction, it's feast or famine. It's either really good or it's really bad. uh 22:34 So I was kind of that buffer for all those years um until, uh oh, about 10 years ago, I was able to step up my game in that space and uh create a really, really good network of people and create that leveraged and residual income that my husband tells everybody now that I'm his sugar mama and have taken over to the point where he does not have to build. 23:02 homes any longer. He doesn't have to do projects he doesn't want to do. can pick and choose what he'd like to do. He's been doing a lot of volunteer stuff is what he's done. ah He can't sit still. We figured that one out. So uh there's always a project around here on the homestead he can deal with, but he does not have to travel and go build someone's homes any longer, which I'm pretty excited about. take it that you really love each other because you've been together for quite a long time. 23:31 Oh yeah, 47 years. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, my parents were married in 1965. They've never been married to anyone else. My mom was 19. My dad was 22, I think, when they got married. Yeah. And they are still just smitten with each other this many years later. And I'm just like, how in the heck does that work? Well, you either grow together or you grow apart. And we grew together. 24:00 and raised three incredible boys into nice young Ben. And it's been a whirlwind, I can tell you that. um I followed him from Ohio to Florida to California and now to Montana. So yeah, I think I'd follow the boy over a cliff, but um needless to say, Montana is where we really fell in love with the people, the surroundings, the opportunity um and a way to 24:30 to create a really nice lifestyle for our family. And that's why we've been here for 30 years. This is home for us now. Congratulations on knowing what you wanted, going after it and making it a success. That is fabulous. We are pretty driven people, I must say. We're that go bigger, go home. That's kind of been our attitude forever. So we kind of overdo it when we do it. 24:56 just like the meat plant, you know, we started out, that started out with us taking our buffalo jerky that we normally made to hunting camp. And everybody kept saying, you guys should sell this stuff. You guys should sell this stuff. Well, he heard it one too many times and took the building that he had just built that he didn't know he was gonna do with and said, let's just put a meat plant in there. And we did it. And it was crazy. 25:24 Okay, well, you've been doing this for a long time. So I'm gonna ask you the question that's always really weird for people to answer. What would you tell a young couple who wanna get into homesteading? How would you tell them to get started? Plan well first, okay? Do the planning, figure out what it is that you really want from your homestead. Do you want it to produce food? 25:51 And is that in the source of animals and vegetables or one or the other? um Figure out what your own gifts and talents are that you have. Because here's the thing, if you can live on a homestead and you can take your own gifts and talents and monetize them, and today there's hundreds of ways to monetize your talents via the internet. um So if you can take your gifts and talents and figure out a way to monetize those from your homestead. 26:20 For example, if you have goats and you like making cheese, that should be something that you figure out how to monetize. Or if you're that person that wants to make soaps and candles and that sort of thing, then you need to hone in on that craft and that talent and figure out where on your homestead will you be doing that. uh Create the space so that the space is for that. We have so many buildings on this homestead, it's insane. It looks like a village around here, it really does. uh 26:51 But at the same token, each one of those spaces has its own purpose on the homestead. And I think that would be one of the first things I would tell somebody. Figure out what you want from it. Make a good plan to go after it and know that you're gonna work your little butt off for a while. Yes. Living doesn't come easy. If you want... 27:12 If you want to live well and you want to be in a place where you're not breathing smog and everybody's exhaust from their cars or hearing all the sirens and all the stuff in big cities, um it takes a little extra work to live in an area like we live in. um So plan on that. That would be my first advice. 27:37 That is really good advice because that's what I would have said too. You have to... 27:44 You have to have a plan. It's just the way it is. And when we bought our place five and a half years ago, our plan was to start with a clean slate. And boy, did we, we started with a clean slate and we had to put in a garden and the field where the garden is had not been grown on or in for 50, think 40 or 50 years. last thing that anyone grew on it was a big old field of pumpkins. 28:14 So it was all grass and weeds and my husband played hell getting that garden plot dug out to plant produce in. I bet. And uh this year we now have our hard side of greenhouse that we put in three maize ago and every single seed that's planted so far is planted in trays in the greenhouse for the first time ever. Doesn't that feel wonderful? 28:41 Oh, I'm so happy to not have my kitchen table and my desk in my living room covered with seat dress. But uh the garden went from like, I think it was 50 by 20 feet. And now it's, I think it's a hundred feet by 150 feet. Awesome. Nice garden. So we have been here for five, well, six years this August. And it took until last year to really feel like we maybe had 29:10 some kind of a handle sort of kinda on our plans. And that's the other thing is that if you're on a homestead, plans constantly change and grow and morph. Yes, absolutely. That's what happened with the west side of our property. There was an area over on the west side that I said, honey, one of these days we should build a little cabin over here because when our grandson Mason gets old enough, he may want to be out here. 29:38 And if we had a little cabin over there for him, that would be great. Which by the way, my husband was a log home builder for a year. So when I put him to task with stuff, he usually can just get her done. So I may mention that we should probably put a cabin there for him. Well, the space that we were going to put the cabin actually is what houses a 14 by 20 wall tent. That's part of Montana country pines, which is. 30:06 Our business, operate from the west side of our property, the short-term rentals. We set up what is an Airbnb style camping trip for people where you just bring your clothes and your food and we've got everything else handled for you. But again, those plans changed because I was just going put a little cabin over there for my grandson. And as it is now, there's a whole village there in that area. Actually on that top side where I wanted to put that cabin. 30:35 there's the two hand painted teepees, the tent, and then the sheep wagon, which is kind of like a frontier area up top. And then we put a road that goes in down below where we've got the vintage RVs at. ah yeah, those plans changed dramatically and they changed because we got into vintage RVs. We started refurbishing some vintage RVs and flipping them and then. 30:59 We kept one and went to a show, went to a vintage RV show and got ribbons and was like, okay, we love this. uh And then again, that go bigger, go home attitude. My husband said, well, we just create a little RV, you know, like a little Airbnb thing. Well, here we are now, uh three years later. And uh it's pretty exciting to be able to host people from all over. We had people here last year from Sweden, which was really awesome. 31:29 but to host people from all over the world now uh here at our place and share a little piece of paradise with them has been pretty awesome. I bet it has. I love what you're doing, Diane. Where can people find you online? The park itself is under MontanaCountryPines.com. We have Facebook page, but we also have a website page for Montana Country Pines for the booking engine and such. uh You can see pictures of 31:58 The inside of the a hundred year old sheep wagon is just, it's all original. It's epic. uh It came off of the largest sheep ranch, which was in Martinsdale, Montana, just up the road about an hour or so. uh It came off of the largest sheep ranch in Northwestern America. And that particular sheep wagon, someone lived in it and actually 32:25 tended to the sheep of that ranch for years. It's pretty incredible. So yeah, we've got some interesting things going on out here. I'm a firm believer in taking your property and utilizing it for what it can produce for you uh income wise. And uh my biggest thing I must say for the last several years uh has been on a little mission to empower women, just women in general. 32:53 Not that I don't like working with men, but I really enjoy working with women more so. I was raised back in the 60s by a single mom, which back then was not the norm. You were frowned upon if you didn't have a father in the household back in the 60s and 70s, which was my era. And I realized that if my mom would have had the skill sets that I have today and the knowledge that I have today, my life would have been really different as a kid, like real different. 33:23 And here's the cold raw statistic. One in four women survive either being divorced or widowed without having to change all the circumstances around them, like leave their homestead or drive a different vehicle or a lot of circumstances change for women. So I have been on this mission for the last 10, 15 years to empower as many women as I can to be that one. 33:53 Right? To be the one that can survive whatever comes at you, that you know how to create income, you know how to handle the income, you know how to invest the income, you know how to take care of yourself. And I realized that real wholeheartedly when my father-in-law passed away and I realized the situation that my mother-in-law was in, she had always had dad taking care of everything financially for her. 34:23 quite honestly, she was 72 and did not know how to balance a checkbook. Didn't know how to get the bills paid because dad did it all the time. So that's when I really realized she became a project person for me there for a while. But uh that's when I really realized that, my mom was one of those three women, she wasn't the one in four that survived a divorce, right? She worked really, really hard to take care of four kids and keep a roof over our heads. 34:52 Um, but that one in four really just struck me. And I thought, you know, I need to help other women. I am that one in four. I've, I've created businesses for myself. I've created businesses for our family. Um, and I've made sure that, um, everything's in order that if by any chance I'm the one that's left behind, which I keep joking with my husband that I'm going first and there's going to be a casserole line down our driveway. 35:22 which is about 300 feet or so, 300 yards or so. Anyways, I keep joking with him that I need to go first and he needs a casserole line because I don't want to be a widow. But uh again, you gotta be that one in four. So you gotta know how to take care of yourself, how to create income for yourself, how to monetize your gifts, your skills, your talents, because everybody has something, right? Everybody's got something that they have a passion for, um something they enjoy that they can monetize. 35:52 And so I've been helping women do that for a long, time. I'm so glad that you took that upon yourself because it's really important. Thank you for doing that, Diane. Yeah, it's a big deal. Really, it is. It is. 36:07 All right, as always, people can find me at tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Diane, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. You are certainly welcome. And here's one other thing I wanna make sure everybody does. So Montana Country Pines is our park over here, the Airbnb. But at Montana Country Homesteading on the Facebook page of Montana Country Homesteading, we're doing a drawing for a trip here to Montana Country Pines. You get a consultation with us on 36:36 on your home setting plans. We're going to make a really great meal for you out of our chuck wagon that we've got. So there's a drawing there. There's no purchase required. We just want to get uh people aware of the fact that this is here. And we want to give away a weekend to somebody so that they could come here, maybe learn a little bit off of our homestead that they can go take back to theirs. But we're offering that to our home setting community. So go register for that. It's free. uh 37:05 And you just might end up here for a couple of days hanging out with my crazy husband and I. That sounds like fun. What's the deadline for that? What's the last day? The drawing is actually going to be live on a Facebook live on May 2nd. any by May 1st, by May 1st, get in the drawing. So go to Montana country homesteadings Facebook page. The drawing is on there. The link to that's there. 37:30 Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. All right, Diane, I hope you have a great day. Thanks. You as well. And this was really fun, Mary. It's really good to get to know you and I'm sure we'll do more things in the future. I hope so. All right. That's just going on it. Thanks, Mike. All right. All right. Bye. Bye.

10 Apr 2026 - 37 min

A Tiny Homestead

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