A Tiny Homestead

By: Mary E Lewis
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  • Summary

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

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

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

    Waddle and Cluck
    Nov 20 2024
    Today I'm talking with Lindsay at Waddle and Cluck. You can follow on Facebook as well. You can visit Nature Notes, as mentioned in the episode. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Lindsay at Waddle and Cluck. Good morning, Lindsay, how are you? Good morning, I'm doing good, how are you? Good, wanted to make sure I pronounced the cluck with the C-L because it could have been misconstrued, and that would be really bad on my podcast. 00:28 Yes, it's Waddle and Cluck, an old English pub for birds. Oh, okay. Cool. I was going to ask you the story behind it. So is there an actual story behind it? Yes and no. We started off with chickens and ducks and so Waddle and Cluck. And I just, I thought it sounded like when I went to London and I was visiting some of the places around there. 00:56 I just like the way it sounded. So that's what we went with. Yeah. I feel like if you go to the UK, you can't throw a stone without hitting a pub. Is that about right? Yeah. Yes. I've never been, but every time I read a book about it or see a story about it, there's always a pub somewhere involved. So all right. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Well, we are a family of six. We're a blended family. 01:24 We have four kids, three boys and a girl ranging from 14 to 19. The oldest is in college. And we have a little hobby farm. So we have chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, quail, and turkeys. And we plan to expand that once we can finish off fencing. 01:52 I think fencing is the bane of existence for anyone who has animals. And then we also do a lot of gardening. I am also a business owner in addition to that. So we also, there's a couple of local markets around here, indoor markets that are geared towards local products that we sell eggs and baked goods and some handmade goods. 02:21 And so we do a lot of things. Yes. I was looking at your, uh, your Instagram page and your Facebook page. And I was like, does this woman ever actually sleep for more than an hour at a time? Yeah, three. Yeah. You know, it's, it's one of those things when you want to have your dream life. Um, you're willing to work harder for it. 02:51 Absolutely. And sometimes if you're lucky that dream life happens and you realize you don't have to keep pushing so hard, that's kind of what happened with us which was really nice because my husband and I are in our mid-50s and we worked really, really, really hard until we moved in here four years ago. And we still work hard but we're not quite as stressed about it as we used to be. 03:21 Yep. And you know, once you really get the hang of things and you get systems in place, it does become a lot easier to do all of the things. I am intensely organized and we have all of our farm stuff on a pretty good schedule. And so other than getting up at sunrise, things flow pretty smoothly around here. 03:50 Yes, and there is a huge benefit to getting up at sunrise. I have a kitchen sink that has a picture window above it. And so when I get up in the morning and get my coffee, I try to get up before the sun comes up because I didn't have the luxury, I guess, of seeing the sunrise from where we used to live. And now there's an open field out that window and it looks due east. And every morning if there's a sunrise, I get to see it and it just makes my day. It starts my day. So. 04:20 peacefully and beautifully that the rest of the day can't go wrong even though there's a chance it will. That's a great way to start your day. Our daughter is currently obsessed with sunsets. Every time there's a sunset, it's prettier than the last one and her phone is filled with pictures of sunsets. 04:45 So is mine because my husband does the same thing. He goes out in the morning if it's a pretty sunrise, he's taking six or seven pictures, and he's always out in the evening at sunset. It doesn't matter what time it is, but he's outside. So I have thousands of pictures of sunrises and sunsets in my phone. I told him we should make calendars every year. You should, you should. Yeah. 05:09 My thing is that in the house that we lived in before this one, there was no window in the kitchen. There was a window out the back door that was in, you know, it walked, it entered onto the kitchen, but it looked north. So you could not see a sunrise or sunset from the kitchen. And when I did dishes, I was looking at a blank wall. So I'm so incredibly thankful for having a window over my sink. 05:36 And that sounds really, really stupid and small, but it's not, it's huge to me. It is. And you know, there's, I have in my office here at the house, ...
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    50 mins

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