A Farmish Kind Of Life

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Amy at A Farmish Kind Of Life. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy sell trade in local garden groups and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org.

00:25
Today I'm talking with Amy at A Farmish Kind Of Life in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Amy. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Amy is who I want to be when I grow up. don't even know who I want to be when I grow up. That's funny. Amy is an author. She's a podcaster. She's a blogger. She falls under the homesteading umbrella.

00:55
but it's more of a farm, right? I mean, what is a homesteader? know, isn't that what we're always trying to figure out? What is the definition of a homesteader, I suppose? I still We do have a farm. Yep. We do have a farm. I'm here. I have five acres in central Minnesota with, you know, a ton of different animals. We've been through, you know, all the different animals and we got all the gardens and we've got space. So yeah, it is farming, although...

01:23
there are people around here that have such huge farms that they think we're just kind of playing farm. So, you know, our little five acres is just kind of a little thing. But it's not. It's a big thing. It's a big thing. So tell me what brought you to this whole farmish kind of life, Amy. What brought me to the farmish kind of life? You know, when my husband and I were first married, we lived right in town and he had always lived in town. When I grew up, I grew up at

01:53
I grew up out in the country, but we didn't have a farm. We were more like in the woods and we had a creek and you know, all of that didn't grow up with, you know, the farm animals or anything. And we got married, we lived right in town and knew that was going to be a temporary thing. But we just we really wanted to be out in the country and have space, you know, to just kind of breathe. And I don't know if ever intentionally in the beginning, it was going to be we're going to have all these animals, we're going to can all this food and all this stuff. just

02:22
You just kind of morphed into that, suppose. think part of it was when we were first married, you we were, you know, you're trying to make ends meet and stretch the dollars and then you have the babies, you know, and things get crazy. And I think frugal living and just trying to figure out, you know, can we make this from scratch? What can we substitute? How can we do without this? How can we do something different? That and various other things just led us to whatever you want to call this.

02:52
this life, this farmish thing or this homesteading thing. Right there with you. That's how we got found ourselves in this, this, uh, this quagmire of trying new things all the time. Oh yes. Yeah. There's always something new to try. Yep. I, uh, front of mine brought me sourdough starter Monday night. Thank you Tracy. And, uh, it's fine. The starter she, she brought me, I,

03:22
got up this morning and I have water on top of it. And I was like, that doesn't look good. So I had to go Google it and find out if it was still alive. And apparently it's doing really well. So I threw some more flour in there. It's good. And then I realized, yeah. And then I realized I didn't know anything about sourdough starter. And I've been doing home studying stuff for a long time. So I went back to Google and, and, when looked in Wikipedia and I Oh,

03:49
this is not as hard as I think it is. I'm going to start my own starter too and see if I can make it go from scratch. So that now has water on top of it. And I'm like, okay, this, don't know what to do with it. So. I feel like, you know, like home setting is such a big thing. there's, there's, there's so much to learn. think for us this year, it was, I mean, we've been at the farm for 14 years now and just this past winter. you know, like not that many months ago, we finally tapped our maple tree.

04:19
And we've been here 14 years and we're like, wait a second, we have maple trees. Why are we not tapping these and trying to do this whole maple syrup thing? And it went way better than I thought it would. it's just, you know, I think there's just only so much you can have on your plate and process at once. And then you're like, wait a second, we could do this thing. We could do this thing. So there's always something new to get into. Well, yeah, I've been dragging my feet on the sourdough thing for six months. And she texted me about selling duck eggs in our farm stand. And she said, when I bring the duck eggs over,

04:47
Do you want me to bring some sourdough started? It's already started because I think the reason that you're not doing it is because you don't want to start it. I was like, sure, I'll give it a shot. Why not? And the dumbest thing is I don't even like sourdough bread. So we'll see how this goes. You'll have to make it for someone else, I guess. Yeah, I it. took the discard yesterday from hers and made sourdough crackers. And my son was like, these are good. These would be really good in dip or in soup. And I was like, OK.

05:17
I can keep going. Winning, winning. Yeah. So how much rain did you guys get in St. Cloud yesterday? You know, I was at a meeting last night and people were saying two inches, but I was just on Snapchat and a friend sent me a picture and their rain gauge said three and a half inches. So our rain gauge is not out yet. So I don't actually know, but man, that rain was something else. That was epic.

05:45
Yeah, my son went out to feed the new chickens and they are in a low spot, the coop's in a low spot. And he came in and his feet were wet up to his ankles, his sneakers were soaked. So yeah, we got a lot of rain yesterday here in Minnesota. It was not welcome. mean, everybody says we need the rain, but I don't know that we needed that much right now. I think the problem of it coming all at once was maybe the, yeah, we definitely needed it. have, you know, everybody's

06:15
The fields around us are planted and we already have corn coming up. But man, it was just driving around. It was so dusty and it was just crazy. so I think it was all the people saying, hey, we need rain. And then it all just came in one giant go. So apparently everybody's saying we need rain is equivalent to the rain dance and we need to stop doing that for a little bit. Maybe for a little bit. Yeah. Okay. So.

06:42
I was looking at your Facebook page, that's kind of how I found you. think we have a mutual acquaintance on Facebook, but I don't remember who it is. And you have a book that just came out called, don't say it, I wrote it down. It is Peace, Love and Bacon. Is that about your farm? It is about my farm. And the funniest thing is that it's actually the 10th book that I've published, but it is the first book that I've published about homesteading, which is so crazy because most people know me as a homesteader.

07:12
So I finally, know, 10 books into this process, wrote a book about homesteading and it is not a how-to book. It is not instructional. It is more, here's been our experiences on the farm, laugh at them, learn from them. You know, just, it feels very much like you're sitting down with your friend having coffee and talking about the homesteading life. So there's funny stuff, there's sad stuff, there's, you know, oh my gosh, that actually happened stuff. So yeah.

07:41
So it's like a homesteading memoir. Yeah. Nice. Very nice. And the cover is adorable. There's a little piggy on the cover, I saw it. That little piggy. How long did it take you to write the book from idea to published?

08:00
You know, I'd had pieces of that book written for many, many, many years. And so when I finally sat down and thought, what am I doing? I just need to put this book together. It really came together in probably two months. And it's self-published. so, you know, once you decide that's what you're going to do, you just, you know, do the process. And yeah, it's really nice to finally have it out because I was just, you know, it was fun to go through all the different files and reread the stories, you know, that I'd already written.

08:28
or maybe the things that I thought when I wrote this one part five years ago and I'm like, well, that's completely different or now I've learned this. And so was this, it was fun to put it together because I think when you're doing the home sitting thing and that's your life and it's your normal, you kind of forget, wow, we're actually doing this and this is how far we've come and this is what it used to be in here. we've, know, here's the progress that we've seen. It's kind of Yeah. Where can people get it and can they get it?

08:55
as a paperback, a hardcover or an ebook or all three? Yep, you can get it on Amazon. It is available as a paperbook. It is available for Kindle. It's also in the Kindle Unlimited program, which means if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, you actually can read it for free. And yes, I still get paid for that. So don't feel bad. I'm in the process right now of finishing up recording it as an audiobook.

09:21
I'm assuming next month sometime, maybe the end of June, maybe that will be out. We'll see. you recording it? Your voice? Yes. How's that? How is it? You know, it's really funny. When you write a book and like you're looking at it and you're reading it in your head, it's totally different than reading it out loud. And you realize how many like tongue twisters you put in there and like phrases you

09:47
skip over and you have to say them six times before they come out right and it's just, yeah. I have the podcast and so, you know, recording the audiobook is, you know, it's nothing. It's just like doing a really long podcast. But yeah, it's fun to be able to have the equipment and the ability to do that myself and not have to hire that out. So. You are a freaking Renaissance woman. I love you. You're great. Oh, This is funny.

10:16
It's funny though, because when you do it all the time, like this is just your normal, you forget, like, you know, maybe it's not what everybody does. I don't know. You just get caught up in your own world and that's just your thing. yeah. I'm pretty sure not everybody has written 10 books, does a podcast, does a blog, does social media and has a farm. That's me. It sounds a little weird now that you say it, okay. I love it. I think it's great.

10:45
I think you should just keep doing all your dreams in public and let the whole world applaud. That's what I think. I'll do that. I'll consider it. Okay. So, I wanna, I want to hear about your farm and then I want to ask you about your podcast cause I'm fairly new to podcasting. So I wanna, I want to talk to you about yours too, but let's talk about your farm. What do you do on your farm when you're not doing all this other stuff? What do I do on my farm? mean,

11:14
What do we have? have, let's see, what do we have right now? We chickens, have ducks, we have rabbits. We should be getting pigs here shortly. We've had all sorts of animals. We've had goats, we've had horses, we've had pheasants, we've had turkeys, we've had all the different animals. And it's fun to, like the animals, you move to the farm thinking we're gonna be awesome and we're gonna be your favorite. And then they weren't your favorite. Now you don't have them anymore.

11:42
When we moved to the farm, wanted, or I, I wanted goats. That was my whole thing. I mean, we already had chickens, so, you know, they came with us, but I was like, oh, we're going to have a barn. We're going have all this space. We're going to get goats. And my husband was all going home about getting horses and we got goats. And they weren't my favorite. And then we got the horses and they weren't what he thought it was going to be. So it's just funny. Like that was our whole thing. We were going to get to the farm and do these things. And then that wasn't...

12:12
It didn't start out, you know, like we thought it would. So, um, what else? Oh yeah. Yeah. We have big gardens, big vegetable gardens. Um, we've got the raspberries and strawberries and blueberries and fruit trees and grapevines. And I just started garlic last year, asparagus. Um, yeah.

12:36
Lots of different stuff. I walk all over the yard and I'm like, oh yeah, there's one more thing I can do. It's good because it keeps me busy and I'm one of those people who really need to stay super super busy. So it's just my personality. So a farm is a really good thing to have if you want to stay busy, right? Oh, absolutely. So do you sell your produce or does the farm generate an income for the farm?

13:07
No, no. mean, we have, I'm one of those people where, you know, I could sell stuff, I almost like we have enough extra that we just end up, we give it to people that we know, like we're passing it along the neighbors, or I bring it to church, or my husband will bring it to work. And it's just, I don't know, I've never, I've never gotten too into the selling thing. And I think that's maybe because I just feel like it would be more work.

13:36
You know, like, I don't know, I feel like there's a certain thing that comes along with that. I feel like if I, you maybe we got to be a little bigger or I did a little more stuff, maybe I would sell, I don't know. That's just not where the drive is for me. I would rather the farm do the food and do the things. And then, you know, I work on my books and do all that stuff for the income. Okay. Well, that's fine. You don't have to sell anything off of a farm. You can just grow it for the hell of it.

14:06
Right, right. Well, then the other thing is like, you when we first worked out, it's like, oh, we have all these chicken eggs and we can sell them. Well, the problem is when you live out in the middle of the country and everybody's got chickens, everybody has eggs for a sale, you know, so then it can get a little bit tricky to find customers who, you know, are there all the time that you can depend on that make it, you know, kind of worth it. It's so funny you said that because we got 12 chickens back a couple months ago and we

14:35
We have a farm stand that we open in usually June. We opened it in beginning of May this year. And we got 12 chickens. That's a dozen eggs a day if they all lay. we can't keep eggs in stock in the farm stand. my husband just picked up 14 more laying hens on Saturday. They're not laying yet. We have to wait three weeks. Right, right.

15:02
That is so awesome though that you can do that. You know, that you have the community that will support that. That's so awesome. Yeah, I thought maybe we'd sell a dozen every couple of days. No, we put them out there and they're gone within an hour and a half usually. That is awesome. To the point that we didn't have any fresh eggs for us. So that was the other reason that he picked up 14 more chickens on Saturday.

15:29
You gotta have eggs for the farmer. Yup. So, so very excited that we are able to provide our community with really good eggs at $5 a dozen instead of really crappy eggs from the store at $8 to $10 a dozen right now. That is awesome. You're doing good stuff. Yeah. And our gardens are doing really well so far. They've been being put in over the last three weeks because we did it early.

15:57
Don't tell Mother Nature we put stuff in early. will ruin us. But yeah, think, fingers crossed, I probably shouldn't say this out loud on a podcast, but we think we might have our first tomato by the end of June. Because we started them in the house and then we moved them to the heated greenhouse and then put them in the garden. So they have like a month or so head start. Yeah. And then are you going to sell that as well?

16:26
At the farmer's market, yeah. And in the farm stand. The farm stand ends up with the produce that doesn't get sold at the farmer's market. is so cool. We have this really old, what is it? It's not a, oh, a really old corn crib. Okay. And so we moved it out to our, like close to our dirt road.

16:50
And that's just where we moved it when we moved in. So it's been sitting there for 14 years. And last year I was looking at it going, we could do that. And that would be such a cute farm stand. Like that did go through my mind. You know, like I could fix that up. That could be a farm stand. We could sell our stuff out of there. And then I, I lose the ambitions for that. We live on a dead end dirt road that nobody goes on. So it's that whole thing. Like we don't have a like a good spot for it. And then I don't know. I don't know. That was an option, but.

17:21
We live off of a two-lane highway that connects Lasur to Arlington. I think it's going to count over, I think. So you've got some traffic then. Constant, constant traffic. Wow, that's perfect. And lots of semi-trucks, is, wow, but it's okay. It's okay. It's better than the church bells and the train that went through town in Jordan where we used to live.

17:50
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, very excited about all of this stuff this season because last year was rough with all the rain. I don't know how it was for you guys in St. Cloud, but it was really hard to grow anything here last summer. we're trying to keep the enthusiasm tamped down because we're afraid if we say anything that will set off the universe, nothing will go right. So. It happened.

18:18
Uh huh. Yeah. Don't, don't jinx it. Tell God, play your plans and he laughs. So, yeah. All right. So we're 18 minutes and I want to know how you got into the podcasting part of this because not everybody starts a podcast. Oh my God. How did I get into podcasting? So I think I started my podcast back in 2018. Why did I start a podcast? I think I was just one of those things I've been starting to listen to podcasts and I thought,

18:48
Maybe that's something I could try and then I decided that'd be cool and then my husband and my boy, know who are now adults You know, they were like, oh we're gonna set this up for you mom. It's gonna be so awesome And then I was like, well crap now they now they set it up for me. No, I You know, like they set up this whole office and all this system, you know, they're like, alright mom go and then I was like, okay, so we're gonna do this So, um, I don't know like I've always liked this

19:16
I grew up in theater, in musical theater. was in competitive speech when I was in high school. So I was like speaking to people. And so I think when I started listening to podcasts, I was like, oh, that's another way that, you know, I can get the message out about homesteading, not just, you know, writing, you know, and having the blog, because the blog and the website was, you know, big back in the day. And then I feel like things kind of shifted to podcasting and YouTube and all that. So this is another way for me to be able to talk.

19:44
And let me ask you a question. So when you started your podcast, did you, when you hear yourself, are you like, who is that? Like, cause it doesn't sound like you. you know that it's doing? I hated it for the first six episodes. I would listen to it back and be like, I hate listening to my voice. And then I got into like the 20th, 21st one and I was like, it's fine. Yeah.

20:08
Isn't that crazy? just like listening to yourself. It doesn't sound like you, know, because obviously you're hearing yourself in your head and now 307 episodes in so it doesn't even bother me anymore. But that was so weird to get my head around. And here's the other question I have for you. Do you realize, have you always lived in Minnesota? No. Okay. Where did you live before? I grew up in Maine. Okay. Okay. Cause I was going to say you don't have a super sick Minnesota accent.

20:36
No, I don't have any as far as I know. Nope. So when I started my podcast, and I started listening back to when I would say certain words, I was like, oh, there's the Minnesota accent that I literally have never heard out of myself until I started podcasting and listening back to myself. There it is. There's a long, oh, there's almost a boot when I say about, you know, it's, it's pretty crazy. yeah, it's not bad now.

21:04
If I didn't know, I would really have to listen for it. So really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, yeah. You learn things when you listen back to yourself. So, well, I have a question for you since you started doing the podcast. When you listen to people talk on TV or on the radio, are you way more aware of how they say things now? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how it just changes.

21:32
like how you listen to that. And that's the same with like when I do YouTube videos now, like I pay attention to how people film things, you know, and like how they put videos together. I never, I never would have done that before. Like I was just watching the thing on TV. Not anymore. No, that's a whole filming thing. It's a whole speaking thing. It's crazy how you get into these new things in your life and then it just makes you pay attention to other things. See, yeah. See, this is why I'm really glad I never learned to read music.

22:02
Because if I learned to read music, my brain would have been translating every sound I heard into a note on a piece of paper. Yeah, that's true. That's true. your podcast is really good. Like, I listened to two episodes and I thought, huh, I really like this. This is really, really good. Oh, thanks. I like doing it. I've been a little...

22:31
I've been a little lax on my recording lately just because of life stuff that's been going on. But I love to sit down and do it. I love talking to people. I love hearing from people. you know, my podcast episodes are pretty short. They're usually 20-ish minutes long. And I hear from a lot of people that they really appreciate that they're not hours and hours long. know, because there's some people that do some podcast episodes that are pretty long. And I'm like, oh, it's fun to listen to that. I want a little bite size.

23:01
Okay, let's go. Right? Yes. For the record, I had never listened to a Joe Rogan episode because people are always talking about Joe Rogan being the dude in podcasting. So I finally, finally went out and looked him up and I pulled up the Jeremy Renner interview. Okay. From the guy that got run over by the snow cat or whatever it was a year or so ago. And

23:28
I was like, I don't understand why he's such a big deal. Like I'm not saying he's a bad podcaster, but I do not get it. Yeah. So I have officially listened to one episode. got about half an hour into it and went, yeah, I'm good. I now know what Joe Rogan podcast is. I'm good. Yeah. I feel like I need the quick notes, you know, of.

23:52
Am I dating myself there by using the term cliff notes? probably am. know, there a thing with cliff notes anymore? don't even know. Spark notes? Maybe. I don't know what they're called now. I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't matter whether you're dating yourself or not. You are as old as you are and you have earned every day of it. I like the perception. Well.

24:13
The other option is not being alive. I think that living is a really wonderful privilege and everyone should think that too. Okay, so with the podcast, how long have you been doing it? 2018, I believe. The year that I started it, right at the beginning of the year. Wow. So seven years. I say things like that and then I'm like, oh my gosh, I've had a podcast for...

24:42
That's why I have to talk to people, you know, like you, to be like, hey, you're actually doing something. This is good. This is good for my, this is good for my mental health. Thank you. You're welcome. And I'm sorry, eight years, really, if you started it to a 2018, it's almost eight years, right? I can't do math on the fly. It's been at least seven, been at least seven years. Um, I've only been doing mine. I've done my, mine will be two years old in August. Yeah. Yeah.

25:12
And I've done over 250 episodes and I still freaking love it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So how often do you do an episode? Well, right now, not as often as I should be. Everybody I talk to right now, the people I'm trying to get hold of right now are all farmers and farmers are busy right now. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I have to really dig tomorrow and Friday and Saturday and Sunday to get some

25:42
interviews lined up for next week or I'm not going to have a podcast Amy it won't be good. Do you ever run out of content doing it that often or you just talk to other people? Around Christmas time it gets real dicey and May and June get hard because like I said everybody's busy in May and June so if I have to I will

26:11
to a solo episode and it'll be 10 minutes. I don't want to do that. I haven't done that yet and I really don't want to. But either way, your podcast is about your experiences on your farm, right? much. Everybody should go listen to Amy's podcast. It's really good. It's a far. The podcast is the same thing. It's a farmer's kind of life podcast, right?

26:38
podcast. it know, it started off being very I'm going to teach people about homesteading and then like COVID hit and all of that craziness. And I started talking about other stuff and I kind of branched out into more, just kind of life stuff. And I've had a lot of people say, what they like about my podcast is that I don't just talk about homesteading. It's homesteading, but it's like it applies to a lot of different things. And so sometimes I'm doing the deep thought sometimes I'm

27:07
I'm talking a lot about homesteading now because it's that time of year and people are getting excited about homesteading and gardening and animals and all of that. So yeah. Yeah. And the thing is homesteading is life stuff. Oh yeah. I mean, you're, you're building a life, you know, it's, it's not just, you're building a homestead. it branches out into everything. So yeah. interviewed a lady the other day and she

27:36
She has four kids and two of them were adopted. Two of them were embryos when they were adopted, as in she carried them. And I so wanted to like ask a billion questions and I didn't, I was going to only ask two. It only took like five minutes of the whole thing. And I said, ma'am, said, if this was a podcast about adoption, we would be talking for six hours straight because I think it's so interesting the things that people can do now to have.

28:06
kids. Yeah. And so I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't fall off the adoption cliff that day. was like, okay, no, we're not going to do this. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, I find myself getting into these philosophical, psychological discussions with people because that's where they're at with their, their experience with homesteading. Right.

28:31
Yeah. So it's just like, Oh my God, why am I talking about marriage counseling and adoption and my dog, you know, all part of it. And I think that's, that's kind of the fun thing is that sometimes with the internet and with social media and with all of this, you get into the thing where we're homesteaders and we're doing the homesteading thing. And then we forget, like everybody has a life and everybody's deal. You everybody has a favorite TV show and everybody has a

28:58
know, stuff that they like to do after the chores are done. And they have a favorite restaurant they like to go to. And they have family stuff they're dealing with and, you know, like junk in their life. And so when you start bringing that in, it's like it reminds everybody that everybody's people and we're all just here doing our thing. And so I think, you know, that's really important to celebrate. Yes. And not forget. And yeah. Yeah. We all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time.

29:26
This is true. just depends on whether your label says Gucci or if it says Levi's. That's right. Okay. tell me one word that describes a farmer's kind of life.

29:43
Honest. Honest? That's what I would say. Honest or real. I Yeah. I love that. That's great. Honest sounds good to me because we need more of that right now. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yep. So where can people find you, Amy? You can find me at my website, afarmishkindoflife.com. You can find just about anything you need to know about where to find me. Otherwise on that.

30:11
website, but I'm on social media. Facebook is mostly where I hang out. yeah, FarmishKindOfLife.com is pretty much going to tell you what you need to know, I guess. Awesome. you need to be found. I love everything that you're doing. The books, the podcast, the blogging, the gardening, the animals, the everything. You are a fabulous person. I love it. Oh, thanks.

30:39
And everybody can find me as usual at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, let me know, because I'm looking for people to talk to right now. Perfect. All right, Amy, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Have a great day.