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Homesteading the Right Way - Farm Updates and More!
278 Plays7 months ago
Mathew & Carissa discussed a pitfall that can damage the success and experience of homesteading - striving to homestead the way others do. This episode also discussed farm and homestead updates from Little Way Farm and Homestead during May of 2024.
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Transcript
Introduction to Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast. Little Way Farm and Homestead is a regenerative and educational farm in southeastern Indiana. Motivated by the Catholic faith, we strive to inspire, encourage, and support the development of homesteads and small-scale farms in faith and virtue. I'm Matthew. And I'm Carissa.
Challenges of a Rainy Growing Season
00:00:18
Speaker
We're excited for you to join us on the podcast.
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of the little wave farm and homestead podcast. Wow. Growing season is finally underway. Animals are out there thriving. The Forge has grown so quickly. Now we already need to figure out how to manage it all. And yeah, this has been a very exciting fast paced growing season thus far.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah I feel like all this extra rain has almost brought the chaos of summer and having to be out in the gardens and keeping weeds down and all of that just a little bit earlier it feels like. I don't remember it being this rainy over the last two years and it's definitely been a bit of a challenge truthfully. Yeah.
00:01:07
Speaker
trying to manage all the garlic patches too and make sure that they were as weed free as we could. I've spent quite a few nights or day time effectively on my hands and knees going through each of those rows and weeding them. Between keeping the grass down and the weeds and the garlic pastures down, I think that you have been pretty busy between those two things. It's been humbling, that's for sure.
Homesteading Misconceptions and Doing It Right
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:36
Speaker
Well, I want to start this episode out with some farm updates and then an episode topic that I think is going to be particularly relevant to many people. The topic of which I'll just go ahead and say now is you're probably homesteading wrong. Or someone has probably told you that you're not homesteading the right way. And so I think we're going to figure that out and talk about what homesteading really is and what that means to homestead the right way.
00:02:01
Speaker
But before that, we have some farm updates and just want to share a little bit about what's going on at Little Way Farm and Homestead.
New Animals on the Farm and Future Plans
00:02:07
Speaker
Well, we might have mentioned in the last episode that the two of us talked about some of the upcoming things we were expecting for this year, but we're really into that point now where we have most of the new things on the farm and settled in. So first of all, we have some new animals on the farm this year.
00:02:28
Speaker
We have a lot of new animals on the farm this year. And I think once we have some coming next week and once they get here and settled in, I think that will pretty much be, that'll be it for this year. And we'll just enjoy the ones that we have for now. And then we can always talk about what comes next year or goes or.
00:02:51
Speaker
later this year yeah we'll figure it out so primarily so beginning we got some milk goats we got dairy goats on the farm which is primarily a homestead animal it's mostly for our family to make sure that we have a constant supply of milk
00:03:08
Speaker
We have a dairy cow and she's not currently being milked by us. Well, she has a calf. She's not being milked by anyone but her calf. But just having a dairy cow, we learned that there are seasons that you go through where
00:03:24
Speaker
you have to dry her off and you're not getting milk from her and being able to have something another option for milk and for dairy for our family was really important and so we decided to try out dairy goats and
00:03:40
Speaker
We have pretty young
Introducing Young Dairy Goats
00:03:41
Speaker
ones. They won't be in milk until next year, but we've really enjoyed having them out here on the farm so far. Yeah, they've been a lot of fun. Definitely that old adage about goats getting out. Definitely true. They test everything. I literally have watched them test the netting and the wires and it's kind of funny to see it. Yeah. Thankfully they're very, they're relatively respectful too. And they do follow us around a little bit and they're, they're, they're pretty good, but they do get out occasionally.
00:04:08
Speaker
ours are a little bit like puppies they I don't know if it's just the breed or if we like got lucky or maybe all goats are like this ours are they're pretty like little puppies they they were timid at first they didn't come right up to us but they're just very
00:04:26
Speaker
calm, docile, they do like want out of the fencing. But beyond that, they're not like, they're not trying to start trouble. We can get them back in pretty easily and we just work with them. We really have been letting them out for fun. And they're fun and they're fun and they're adorable.
00:04:45
Speaker
So so far so good with the goats. We are enjoying that and hopefully it stays that way. We've heard lots of people have different opinions on goats. Yeah.
Breeding Stock and Heritage Breeds for Sustainability
00:04:54
Speaker
And then next week we have pigs coming and we have some sheep coming and we're very excited about that. One thing that we're really excited about that I would like to share with everyone is that the style of animals that we're bringing out are designed to be as fit for pasture as we really can manage.
00:05:12
Speaker
And that's really important because it helps us in the way that we want to farm, which is this idea of stewarding the land. But we also have taken a certain leap into the animals that many people might be interested in. And what's interesting or what we're trying to do, which is interesting, is we brought out breeding stock for pretty much everything.
00:05:30
Speaker
So we have breeding stock for the Nigerian dwarf goats. We have breeding stock for the sheep. We have breeding stock for the pigs. And I'm intentionally not saying the breed names just yet. We'll announce it in the coming weeks. But we have these breeding stock and we're even looking at specific breeding stock for a heritage style of chicken as well.
00:05:49
Speaker
And one of the reasons that we're doing that is so that as more people get into homesteading, you know that you have a trusted place to get good quality animals for your homestead or your farm. And that's something that we want to be able to provide people from little way farm and homestead. And we're excited to hopefully be able to do that in the very near future.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah we really like to take the experiences that we've had in getting out here to the land and figuring out getting our homestead up and running and we like to think about how can we help others that are also going to be taking this journey alongside us and just behind us and so for us
00:06:31
Speaker
There's a great reason to have heritage breeds and breeding stock. It helps us to be able to rely on our own farm, our own land, what we can produce and we don't have to look outside of our farm for certain resources. But it also helps us to be able to provide something good and reliable for other people and primarily all in one place. It's just been a lot of work
00:06:57
Speaker
for us to search around and find these good strong breeds that are well raised and done the right way. And so to be able to have that opportunity to share that with others is something that we're just excited about. Yeah. I think that'll be really neat. It'll be a really fun offering and it helps us to get to meet more people and have people come visit us here too, which has been a blast.
Community Interactions and Strengthening Faith
00:07:20
Speaker
And to kind of pivot to that topic, the last month or so has been full of visitors.
00:07:26
Speaker
And we've had a children's camp going on in April and again we're having it in May and then again in June. We've had folks travel from around the country to come visit us and see what's going on here at Little Way Farm and Homestead. And wow, these conversations and the folks that we have met
00:07:45
Speaker
have been so amazing and we know that sometimes people come here to meet us, but I can't stress it enough. We are just, we are so much probably more inspired to meet you all. Yes, we're just as changed and inspired by meeting other people along this journey.
00:08:01
Speaker
I love that we get to share what we share, but having people reach out to us and we had somebody send us a book and a letter today and we've had people call and have great conversations and drive out and meet us and walk around the farm and share about their lives. And all of it is just such a blessing. And it's truly helped us grow in our faith as well.
00:08:27
Speaker
It has. And one thing I think it is really solidified for us that I hope people take away from this, if you ever do come here or if anything that we do is inspiring, I hope it's this, that the homestead, the land, the farm is a backdrop for something more important, which is really orienting our lives towards God. And that's the most important part
Spiritual and Family Growth through Homesteading
00:08:50
Speaker
of this. Yes, it's all so beautiful. It's fun. It's romantic.
00:08:54
Speaker
There's extremely hard parts about it that are very trying, but it's worth it. And ultimately what the homestead serves to do is protect and support the family unit, the family society. But it also opens up this ground to basically take care of the temporal needs.
00:09:13
Speaker
even the need for productive labor and good work and virtue development, all so that we can focus on what's most important, which is getting to heaven and being in communion with God. Yeah. And what a blessing to have community of other Christians and Catholics that are on that journey with us. Yeah. It's, it's amazing. This is so fun. And yeah, we hope we get to meet so many more of you.
00:09:38
Speaker
So I guess we'll stop there real quick before we get into the topic of the episode. If you have a story you want to share with us, or maybe you know someone that you think should be a guest on this podcast, send us an email. Hello at littlewayhomestead.com. Send us a letter in the mail. You can find the address on our website, but we want to hear from more of you.
00:09:59
Speaker
And we love these conversations and we're honored to be a part of them and we encourage you to reach out. We have quite a few things coming up in the very near future that we're excited to share. We're going to hold off on explaining just what those are just yet, but we've got some things coming up and we think they're going to be a little exciting.
00:10:17
Speaker
So we look forward to meeting more of you. And if you're willing to spread this podcast to others through social media or let someone else know about it or leave us a review or a rating or send us a message, we'd really appreciate that. And we look forward to it. Yeah.
Varied Homesteading Experiences
00:10:33
Speaker
So I think the conversation that we really want to get into today has actually been pretty inspired by some of the people that we've met in the last couple months and the conversations that we've had with them.
00:10:46
Speaker
Agreed. So one thing that we find when you first start homesteading is oftentimes you're looking at someone who is a little bit ahead of you in doing so. Maybe someone online, you saw him on a social media platform or a friend or a family member that you know who is homesteading or farming a certain way.
00:11:03
Speaker
And what ends up happening is that a lot of people are coming to certain conclusions based on their experiences, based on some knowledge that they have, and it can be really easy for that to accidentally or even intentionally be communicated that that's the right way of doing this. And what I mean by that
00:11:22
Speaker
is when you are homesteading, you are uniquely interacting with the land. You're uniquely interacting with animals. You're bringing your own physical capabilities, mental capabilities, your own bandwidth, your own family structure, your own problems.
00:11:40
Speaker
You're bringing a lot of things that are culminating in certain experiences. And what's really important to recognize is that the way you approach the land might look very different than someone else. One of the prime examples of this is there are uniquely unique ideals. I think people strive for in home setting and in small scale farming. You can see a lot of this on the very best practitioners in regenerative agriculture or, um,
00:12:10
Speaker
you know, these various practices associated with agriculture like rotational grazing and mob grazing and the right way of raising pasture raised chicken, etc. And when you look to those folks, it's easy to mistake that they don't have certain things that you don't that, that they may have certain that you may have all the same resources and the same experience, the same climate that they do.
00:12:32
Speaker
And that's probably not accurate because wherever you live is going to present unique challenges and that you could be in the same growing zone. You can be on the same County and you may have different topography, different water access, different water levels. You have all kinds of different things that you have to uniquely wrestle with in order to make your land or the land that you're working with work for homesteading. And that's a hard thing for people sometimes to recognize. I think it's hard for us.
00:13:02
Speaker
I think so too. And that's just the first side of it. That's like the hands on the agricultural side of it. But then you have whatever family, whatever season of life your family's in, however many people you have in your family currently, your family's needs and all of that really plays into
00:13:23
Speaker
how you do things. Of course, there's the side working with the land that you have, the climate that you have, the resources that are available to you. And then you marry that with your family and your family's needs and the particular calling that God has put on your family and how he's led you to where he has. And all of that makes such a unique picture for each individual household, homestead, and family. That's right.
00:13:51
Speaker
sometimes people are gonna fall into this trap of thinking they absolutely have to do every little bit of this. I was thinking of this as I was driving and I noticed today that everyone it seems out in the country today was cutting their grass. And that's because we have finally a break in the rain and it was the first day where people really could get outside and cut their grass. And the rain's coming back so they had to get out today. Right.
00:14:15
Speaker
But I did have this thought about how everyone has their own lawnmower effectively. And what if we didn't do things exactly like that, but instead we chose to consider a different way of doing it where maybe we borrow one another's stuff or we barter with one another.
00:14:31
Speaker
Well, you know what's interesting? We live amongst an Amish community. We have a lot of Amish and Mennonite neighbors. And I actually noticed that there was an Amish girl who has a lawnmower who had been going around and mowing a couple of different yards. So it is interesting the ways that you can see how they do take on and
00:14:55
Speaker
carry each other's burdens sometimes take different people take on different responsibilities in the community.
00:15:02
Speaker
But the reason I bring that up is because it opens up this conversation really early on that I think will help people as they begin home setting, which is when they get into home setting is really starting to consider what's best for their families and how to go about making that happen.
Community and Resource Sharing for Resilience
00:15:19
Speaker
And one thing that we all really should consider is what is it that we can do really well with the resources that we have and what can we barter or exchange or work with someone else to also do.
00:15:31
Speaker
And I think that opens up a very good opportunity for community, which is really a way of making a resilient homestead is creating good relationships. But another thing, and I think it gets down to probably the more practical, which is what you were referencing.
00:15:46
Speaker
is there's going to be seasons in your life which are not going to look like other seasons in your life. And what homesteading looks like for you at one point in history might look very different in the next year or the next season. Maybe one season you learn to can everything. You do a phenomenal job of canning all kinds of foods for the winter and then the next season something happens in your life and you have another priority that takes over and you don't get that done.
00:16:16
Speaker
That's okay because not a failure just because the season changed and you had to adjust and do things differently Yeah, I just think it's a trap that people end up falling into I've fallen into it and I think it's something that we do need to that we do need to be reminded of because The homestead is there to serve us in our pursuits of getting to heaven We're not there to serve the homestead and that's super important that we all recognize and understand
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's not this perfect picture of what a homestead looks like.
Homestead Serving the Family, Not a Burden
00:16:50
Speaker
The homestead is what you need it to be. And that need can and will change. And it's okay to adjust with it. It's okay if you can handle having every type of meat your family wants to eat, raising it, butchering it, doing it all yourself one season. And then the next season you're like, we can literally only handle chicken.
00:17:11
Speaker
And we need to source our meat from somebody else that we know yeah for this season like that's that's completely okay, and it's not a failure and We don't need to see it as a failure and in some ways even that could be a way of creating community which creates stronger homesteads is Supporting one another in their own enterprises not necessarily because everybody's trying to farm for a profit but because
00:17:38
Speaker
It's hard to get a homestead started now and it requires a certain degree of resilience. And if you have a neighbor who's willing to raise chicken or raise beef or raise some type of meat for you or grow some plants so that you don't have to start them, that's a phenomenal way of supporting them economically or with something else that you can barter or trade with. But it can also be a great way of taking a certain degree of pressure off of yourself to have to do everything so you can focus on something else that can help to strengthen your homestead.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's something that we're really stepping into right now. Just trying to see and understand what things, what things can we take off our plate right now? Because one, maybe it's not as necessary for our family in this season, but two, we have, we have a neighbor or friend family that is doing it and is happy to trade for something that we're doing that they can't take on right now. Right.
00:18:37
Speaker
Homesteading is an amazing opportunity in life to grow in holiness.
Spiritual Growth in Homesteading
00:18:43
Speaker
And I think it presents that challenge if you allow it to present it. And I think if you lean into it, you can have a phenomenal experience, not just for yourself, but for your family. And I think you really set up children in a great way to thrive in life on a homestead. And I think it also opens up a lot of opportunity to recognize faults and vices that you need to root out of your own life. I know it has for me.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think in full transparency, I feel like this season that we've come to right now has felt very overwhelming for us. And in a lot of ways we're looking at what have we done the last couple years? What do we want the next couple years to look like? Or even just this year? What do we want this year to look like for our family?
00:19:32
Speaker
And we're really just figuring out where we can readjust and make things settle in and find better order. And I think that being able to share that this season, this spring, seeing all of the things that are ahead of us and all the responsibilities we've taken on and feeling a little overwhelmed by that.
00:19:56
Speaker
But at the same time, we see the beauty and the goodness in what we're doing in the way that we're living even more, even through like, wow, this season's hard. And, and that hardness doesn't make it feel like we need to give up. It just, it's very much a like, let's look at this. Let's slow down and look at what we're doing and figure out what is most important.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, we're definitely coming into that season, I think, on the homestead where the newness of it has worn off, the difficulty of it has set in, but I think we're hitting a certain stride. Maybe it's in just maturity. Maybe it's in actually settling in. Truthfully, for those who don't know,
00:20:41
Speaker
is pretty much the longest we've ever been in one place for a long time. This is true settling in for us. We are usually getting ready to pack up and leave wherever we are right about this time of life. But yeah, we are truly settling in. And I think there's this huge encouragement that we've hit this hard season, but neither of us are like, oh no, what have we done? We have to turn around. We have to go back to how we were doing things before it.
00:21:11
Speaker
there's just so much goodness and beauty and truth to it. Like I just can't, I can't get past that. There's no reason for us to turn back. There's plenty of reasons to adjust when things get hard. And when you're like, this might not be working, but adjustment is totally different than like giving up or wow, we screwed up. We, I don't think we screwed up even if we took on
00:21:35
Speaker
more than we can handle right now in this season. We've learned with everything that we've done. And I think that's important. I think that people shouldn't be afraid to take on something and know like this might work and it also might not work. And if it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. We can sell it, we can eat it, we can
00:21:57
Speaker
do whatever we need to, you readjust to it. And I just, I'm really encouraged and I think rejuvenated in what we're doing by the fact that we're in this place where we are figuring out readjustment and just moving into the next season of what we're doing out here.
Weather Relief
00:22:16
Speaker
Right. I also am generally just glad that we had a break in the rain.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, the rain giving you a break or that it just stopped for the day so you could get out there again. Yeah, definitely that. Well, if I had to give any point of encouragement to anyone and maybe the point we're trying to get across is as you consider the homesteading journey, there's going to be a lot of people that you can look to.
Balancing Homesteading, Family, and Faith
00:22:44
Speaker
that are going to give you an amazing amount of inspiration. And it's wise to consider much of that advice, recommendation, but it's also really important to look at where you are, what you can do where you are, and what you can do yourself and with your family. And at the end of the day, remember always that the homestead is a fun, awesome experience, but it's there to help you in a greater pursuit, which is to get to heaven.
00:23:15
Speaker
Anyway, we have a whole bunch of amazing interviews coming up and we've got quite a few left to release. Actually, we took a couple of weeks off of there, obviously because well, springtime was crazy.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, the land keeps us pretty busy right now. Yeah, it's a busy time of year. But we've got some awesome interviews coming up. And we're excited to share those with everybody.
Listener Interaction and Community Support
00:23:40
Speaker
And we look forward to hearing from more of you. And again, just want to encourage you, if you're having a good time with these episodes and you find them inspiring and they're helpful, maybe consider sending us a review wherever you're listening to it. Shoot us a message at hello at littlewayhomestead.com. And if you know someone that you think would be a good guest, maybe even yourself,
00:23:59
Speaker
Let us know and we look forward to talking with you. And with that, I hope you all have a good day and a happy growing season. Thank you for joining us on another episode of the little way farm and homestead podcast. Check out the show notes for more information about this episode and be sure to tune in next week.