Groovy Grazers - Autumn update

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers for an Autumn update. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers in Montana. Good morning, friend. How are you? Good morning, good morning. It's starting to feel like fall here, which is always exciting after a hot summer. So I'm super excited to be here today. Oh, honey, tell me it's starting to feel like fall.

00:28
Our heat is not working and it was 63 degrees in the house Saturday and Sunday. Oh my goodness. Afternoon. And our furnace is broken. We found out because we turned it on and it didn't work. So it was rather nippy this past weekend and I actually made granola to heat up the kitchen and blow some warm air to the living room.

00:55
and made apple crisp with our own apples. Ooh, apple crisp is my favorite. We're gluten free, so there's a lot of fall treats that I miss. And I'm going to try and recreate. I'm going to get a little more adventurous. Last time we talked, we talked about sourdough and making various things with that. So I'm kind of excited for this fall because I think I can be included in the pumpkin spice treats that we all love.

01:22
Yeah, I am not a pumpkin spice fan. I like pumpkin pie and I like pumpkin bread, but the whole pumpkin spice thing, I'm not into it. I don't know why. I'm not really, I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin spice per se, except for like a few drinks, but like, I'm not even an eggnog person. I don't know. I'm just not a normal person, I guess, when it comes to like the drinks. I like a Thai latte over pumpkin spice. I mean, any day.

01:51
Yeah, I actually freaking love eggnog. So we're kind of opposite on this, but that's fine. But the important part of my statement regarding the apple crisp is that it was made with our apples from our trees. Honey gold, our honey gold tree actually produced at least 150 apples this year. Wow. I remember you were excited to see the numbers that it was going to bring and you were slightly worried it was not going to bring a bunch of apples. So that's a

02:20
That's a lot of apples, a hundred apples over, you Yeah, over 150. Wow, that's a good producing tree. And I think that's really important with what we're going to talk about today. Did you buy the home with that tree? No, they were actually given to us as a housewarming present from an orchard guy that we know. That's even better because that's first year producing over a hundred. That's big amount. I took a

02:47
Master Gardening since we last spoke. I just did the course to kind of like freshen up and learn about Montana because I am not a Montana native. Yeah. And it's really hard when you go, especially here to plant trees. So we've planted two trees now. We planted a Liberty Apple tree and we planted some type of pear and neither took, but we have really bad alkaline soil and I've learned more history about our soil.

03:15
And so to even put a tree, think we'd have to do some major soil reworking and pulling out material and putting it back in. Yeah. I've kind of given up slightly on the tree idea for a minute, just until we have a better location. Yeah. And it's, it's hard because you never know what's going to grow where until you try it. And, and just as a caveat, took five years from putting in those apple saplings to get the apples.

03:45
Five years, wow. Okay, so I mean, that's still not bad though for a five-year-old tree when you look at production. mean, the amount of apples that I'm sure you're gonna get to put away, you'll get to make many apple crisps, I'm sure all the way through the winter. So did you can any of it? No, we're actually selling some of them to the community at the farmers market. You've been doing the farmers market. How's that going?

04:14
Um, it's been really good. We live in a fairly small town. think our town has like 6,000 people, maybe 10,000. And so it's hit or miss and it depends on what other festivals or the state fair or the Renaissance festival are going on. If there's other things going on, the farmer's market is slower. But the beginning of the summer is always really good because there's nothing really going on in June and the first part of July.

04:44
Yeah, that's kind of the same here. I mean, our seasons are a little different, obviously, but like the beginning of farmer market season, everyone's so excited to get out of the house. And I live not rural Montana, like kind of rural, but not really for now. We are looking at moving and going more rural. And that's something that we've had to consider is like, what does our profits look like if we move farther away from the town that most people congregate?

05:13
I can't speak today. know, common meeting is billings and we live on the outskirts of it. So that's something to like to think about um is the more rural we go, is a farmer market going to be as profitable as it is now? Yep. You can always put up a farm stand. Yeah. I think that's something that we'll definitely do after we sell potentially and move. um We still have to figure out details on that.

05:43
But I think it's coming together after hay prices this year. I don't know if you have to buy hay. I don't think you do. don't have any. No. Okay. Well, hay, let me tell you, was $4,000 this year. Yeah. And that's only six months. So I've now been doing this with my husband for about two years. We've talked quite a bit through it. Um, and all the trials and tribulations that we've hit, but, um,

06:12
we have learned that our ground is over exhausted, kind like I was talking about. So I met some people that have lived here for a long time and they said this used to be a hay field, which in Montana, once you hit hay, because it's kind of a wheat, they're more of like a, they're not a hay, it's not a hay country out here, it's like wheat country, it's kind of different. So it's grain growing out here. So once you hit hay,

06:39
then you're kind of at the exhausted point of your field. And then they put sweet clover in here, which is a cover crop. And it's one of the worst things you can do. It's great for baling it up and feeding it to cow, but it will found her a horse. And that's kind of why we got the goats, right? Was to kind of help clean up the field and try and get it to a better grazing status. And since learning all of this, we've learned that our field is just so exhausted that

07:07
to try and do the right thing and not till it up and replant it and go through all this, you know, really expensive steps to get grazing. It'll take years. Years, yeah, you're talking years, right? And it's alkaline out here. I learned in Master Gardening, that's kind of why I went, was to learn more about the land so I could treat it better and figure out what nutrition to put back into it. They said alkaline is soil.

07:37
you might as well just go buy new soil. You know, you can't put anything in it. There's no fixing it once it's alkalined out. And so that was kind of a bummer to hear because that's what we're on. And our name is Groovy Grazers, right? And there's no grazing at the home. It's one of those things where we're gonna have to feed hay. So it was about, I found good pricing, but it's about 130 a ton.

08:05
And that's pretty high. you know, that's about one round bale and a half typically. ah And that goes quickly. So I found a lot out about our land after moving here. So you talk about trials. Yes. Of just putting things. And we've learned that the whole ground, you've got to just scrap it and start all over. um And so that was pretty earth breaking, I would say for a farm.

08:32
to find out that our cost of hay has doubled. I mean, 8,000 a year, that's really expensive for one horse, a miniature pony, who by the way is being bred right now. She's at the stallion's home. you know, less than 20 goats, you've got five full-sized goats and most are dwarfs. So it's not a huge demand of hay, but it's a lot. um

08:59
And so that kind of leads me into like, might be moving. You hit these- And you are very excited about this. I am because I want water, right? So let me tell you about rural Montana. You don't have trash. You don't have water in most places. And it's really not cheap to have water hauled in and there's a lot of fires. So that's why I sound kind of raspy and you'll hear me coughing. We've had a lot of fires and this is year two.

09:28
of having a fire right around the corner from our home. And without water, I just don't like that. You know, that makes me feel really uncomfortable because most of the time it's me at home with my son homeschooling and to have to move, as I had mentioned, all those heads of animals by ourselves, it's almost near impossible with how fast these fires can roll in. Makes it hard to sleep at night.

09:55
Correct. And if you don't have water and you're hauling in water and you want to be self-sufficient, it kind of is like shooting yourself in the foot for like long-term. And my husband has tried for a while. Now, granted, they only went 250 feet, but you know, that was a few thousand back then. And now to go the full length that we need to go, we've had neighbors that have gotten 30,000 plus dollar quotes for a while.

10:23
And then the water's not drinkable because it's alkaline-y. So because the water has such a high alkaline content, even if you did an RO system, it would cost you more to pump the water, clean it out with the RO, than you'd actually get to drink. Yeah, so do you want to stay in Montana? Yeah, so I think the goal is to stay in Montana. And we kind of talked about that, right? So land pricing, oh my goodness.

10:51
I mean, the housing market in general right now is just chaos, right? It's so unstable. So to try and say like, yes, we're going to move was big. Now, granted, we have other like lawsuit things going on in the background with, you know, family and trying to get that sorted out. Part of getting that resolved would be selling because it's the most direct way to get everyone paid out as need be. then

11:17
we know that our land isn't good. So if you would have asked me, were we going to move last time we were on the podcast, I think I even said we're not going anywhere for a long time. Yeah, you were on in May. So yeah. So you're talking just a few months. I've, I've changed my mind because we're paying to live on 20 acres and the eight acres that we can graze isn't even grazeable. So you're talking no water, no grazing. Um,

11:47
and fires. It's not sustainable. No, but how do you decide in a housing market to play your cards and say, I'm going to sell? Well, you just got to do the damn thing. You know, that's my favorite thing to say. Yes. So long-term, we're not going to get 20 acres. Let's be real. We're never going to get 20 acres again for less than a hundred thousand dollars. Like my husband bought. This was before we met. It's just not going to happen. It was in 2019. You're not going to see that again. No, but

12:17
Can I find in Montana 10 acres or even more, right? But 10 acres with a home. We live in a tiny home. So it's not even, it's like a tiny home in a pole barn garage with, you know, there's a six car garage next to it that we kind of spill over living, but we don't even live in a traditional home. So for us an upgrade to get water, which long-term, even if it's from a well, I'm okay. But even ditch rights would be nice.

12:45
some actual grazing land. So I only have to buy hay, like, you know, normal people in the winter time, not 24 seven. And we would have hopefully a better place to do what the Groovy Grazers does, which if you haven't heard us before, do goat petting zoo parties. And we're adding a horse into it, but this started out as a traveling petting zoo just to educate people about farming. And so,

13:14
would we have a better chance of doing that? I think we would. So to play my cards, it's selling because long-term it's not sustainable. you said. Absolutely. So let me jump in here. Everybody who's listening to this episode send good juju, positive thoughts, prayers, whatever that Oregon and her husband and her son find a new place that has good water, the land and not near all the wildfires. Yeah.

13:44
Yeah, like in that it sounds like a tall list and it is in Montana because of the fires, but the water and stuff, not so much. So we're looking at moving more rural, like you're talking about rural, small town, you know, kind of depends on the market. And that's something that our realtors have talked about to us. like, well, if you leave Billings greater area.

14:08
Groovy grazers may not be a thing. So that even changes the whole direction of the farm. are we gonna keep being a petting zoo company that is in the Billings Greater area? Or are we going to branch out, go a lot rural, like more rural Montana, get more land, because that is the potential. The farther out we go, the more land we can get, but there's nothing out there. And...

14:37
have to change our direction of our farm. That's a really big why to be at as a farmer, especially with the crisis that's going on right now. So we've been helping out a hay farmer. um His name is David. He's been doing this a long time. He does dry land alfalfa. So we're dry land. That's where our property is considered. So if we were to do anything, it'd have to be a dry land mix.

15:03
And he keeps telling us that one, we're crazy for trying to get into farming right now. Two, nobody can afford to do this anymore on a large scale. You just can't. You can't afford the equipment. You can't afford all the overhead. You have to be a generational farmer to do this. So most of your listeners are going to be in our shoes. We're probably just trying to start out.

15:28
We maybe didn't get a bunch of land inheritance. We didn't get all the tractors and the tools and the fancy stuff. And here I have this big time hay farmer that works hundreds of acres, by the way, hundreds. And he's saying, stay small, stay small. The tractors are cheaper. The equipment is cheaper. Everything is cheaper. And you have a better buyer. I thought that was crazy.

15:55
I'm going to disagree. I think that you need to start small and work your way up. my son lives in Nebraska and he just picked up a really nice pickup truck with all the bells and whistles for think he said 15 or $17,000. And it's a fairly new pickup truck. He picked it up at auction.

16:22
So if you're starting out, know, smaller options, auctions are really good because a lot of people are getting out of this right now. is true. And the Montana and Montana may be a different climate than a lot of the other states too. This is like David Montana farmer saying Montana is not how it used to be. And the land is over exhausted here. Now it'll make you.

16:50
cringe, we spent over 45K on a brand new F-150 STX. that's why, I mean, we couldn't find anything at auctions. Auctions are a huge thing here. Things get scooped up. Now it's cheaper than buying a brand new, but you're not going to find like a truck that cheap. That's maybe Montana isn't the place to be to farm. Sometimes I question that even because of our climate here.

17:20
I don't know, honey, but I'm rooting for you. think we're going to end up where we need to end up. And what's going to happen is going to happen. I've been saying that since we started this, when we first spoke to you, we were a grazing company. I would have never thought we were going to be what we are today, a petting zoo company. I would like to be more established in the milk and dairy side of this than we currently are right now. But.

17:49
I know that what is paying the bills, the hay bill, um is the goats are going and doing events. And so to hear that in other states you can get old farming equipment and nobody is like jumping on it, that's interesting. You know, I think the climate is going to be different where we look. Now is Montana forever? I don't know because I'll say that I never thought I was going to live north. um

18:16
My body does better. I'm 100 % disabled. I'm a veteran. that's how we kind of fund what we do is that my VA income helps keep us self sustainable and kind of off of having to live a nine to five. So we're really like blessed, I guess you could say in that sense, where a lot of farmers or cottage farmers are having to work a job.

18:43
to get their field going. We have a friend that they just bought 100 acres of dry land, not far from us actually even. And she does uh beamer blankets, which is a magnetic blanket that helps heal. And uh I met her because she was doing treatments on my horse. Well, we've been going out there helping them doing some barter trade work, welding for uh horse body work, the beamer blankets. And I've learned quite a bit from them. They came from Alabama, I believe.

19:13
And they've done hay farming, but hay farming, said, is different out here. And the costs are a little different. You know, some of the pricing they were giving us on 100 acres to reseed was really interesting. Because as you go to buy, I don't think as a first time cottage farmer or even like a farmer, I would think of some of the things that I'm going to ask about now and even spend money on like water testing. That's something that's really big out here. um

19:42
is going and having your water tested. So if there's a well, testing it to make sure that there's not forever chemicals in it that have leaked from all these farmlands. I didn't know that. I wouldn't have known that 10 years ago when I was first purchasing my homes, but now I do. And so I think it's really interesting as you do this, the more you learn. And I'm on the same page as you. I want to start small.

20:09
I want to try and just grab some acreage that really fits what we need as a home base. And then I would love to go and purchase, you know, at a time, 50 acres or a hundred acres of just complete dry land, land that is barren, right? No water, no electricity, nothing on it. Just land that you could potentially graze something on, work later, build on, have a, excuse me, my throat really hurts. Just trying to have it be,

20:38
better because you don't know what's going to work. We could go buy a farm and the reality is, is that there could be fires or hail. That the roads could be darn near impossible to get through. During winter here, the plows sometimes aren't able to keep up with the rural areas as much as they can, like the city areas. I understand we went through that last winter here in Minnesota. How many times did you guys get snowed in where you couldn't leave?

21:08
We were stuck once for a weekend this past winter and it really wasn't that bad because we're always thinking ahead because we're homesteaders. So we were good. But, but the thing that scares me is our climate has been changing too. And it's been, it's been warmer in the winters than it really has been in the last 20 years. ah And the thing that scares me is ice storms more than snow.

21:36
Yeah, I don't like when it gets warm here and that's something we experienced a lot of. So you talk about climate change. That's also something I've been taking account of because it's become more dry land, but humid up here, almost like, I don't know, we all joke that this is going to be the next banana belt up here. Yeah. Um, because it's becoming more humid and I left the humidity. left Louisiana and Texas like, but it's more humid here and it's hotter, but then it like switched like,

22:07
It was just summer a week ago and now we're in the fall, temperature's already starting. So it's more erratic and that's what worries me with not having water is that if it's drier and it's hotter longer or we have these, we've had awful lightning storms. Like we've never had them before up here. And that's what causes fires typically out here. It's hay, old hay that's been sitting around, which there's a lot of. And then you have the random lightning strikes.

22:37
So the climate change, think is something that's even hard to predict because nobody can predict it at this point. But I've been thinking about that too, because if you have those ice storms where we heat up above freezing, we'll hit like 36. And then at the night it drops to like, I don't know, but in the teens, well, everything refreezes and that ice is crazy. Yep.

23:04
And that's the kind of stuff I worry about here because if it does that, my husband has a full-time job half an hour away and he can work from home. He always has training classes to get to. But when we hit October, the grocery shopping thing changes for us because we could be stuck for a week. so.

23:29
We are always planning ahead for, okay, we need to make sure that we have enough to be stuck for a week. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, I, as we've been preparing to like move and have a realtor come through and start helping us get numbers and even look at whatever all of this is going to shake out and look like we may not sell. never know. Like, you never know. You have to look at the numbers and the reality of it with a lender. Um, I realized.

24:00
that I have so much food here. I've never had two different pantry areas. My fridge has never been full to the brim all the time because we live in such a rural area. And we only have one in and one out. That's another reason why I wanna move. If there's a fire, there's literally only one entrance in and one exit here. And it's the same road. I don't like that. It's really sketchy. um

24:29
in the sense of a fire because the fire could jump the road and you can't leave. Right. So I plan to always have a bunch of food and we are on a cistern because we haul our water and we try to like have our cistern three fourths full if not almost topped off pretty often. We don't really get below the halfway mark just because what if the water goes bad and that happens here the plant goes out.

24:54
You know, the plant will, you'll be on a boiled advisory. Well, I can't boil, I'd have to boil through 2,200 gallons. Yeah. You know, that's, puts you in a different mindset when you start looking at like sustainable living and off the grid and how to prepare for these, you know, these disasters. We always joke that I have a huge tin foil hat.

25:22
And my tin foil budget must be astronomical because of how much I wear. But I'm one of those where if you can be as self sustainable as possible and prepared, it's better. So that's why like for us, even looking at housing, it's something we have to consider like, what is the road in and out look like? If you have to haul water, where's the water station? We're really lucky the water station is 11 minutes away from us here. Some people have to drive 45 minutes.

25:51
I have a question about that. Do you have to pay for that water? Yeah. So guess what? Water just went up. So when the city hiked it 11%, we felt it as water haulers. one full cistern, think there's only, by the way, because it's one in, one out, there's only one water guy that will deliver to our area. So that makes it really inconvenient because he like, if his truck goes down.

26:18
But he charges way more than what you pay. If you're getting like a tote, which we have a cube, it's something like 375, 350 gallons, I think. um Could be wrong on that. But it used to be eight quarters, and now it's like 11 or 12. And sometimes it's really convenient to haul water because my husband can go to work, because he works a little bit still, get a load of water on the way home.

26:45
Other days will go and if there's like the water haul guy who has a 3000 gallon truck and everyone else is there, you know, five cars that could add up to an hour of waiting. Yeah. So it's a lot of time to haul on top of pain. So you can only pay with quarters, which is another inconvenience. Wow. Yeah. And you have to have the truck to haul it. Like we have an old F 250. If our water truck goes down,

27:15
we can't haul water. It's really hard to get on the guy's list that hauls water out here too, because he's pretty busy. you have like a schedule where like, okay, you're only getting water at this time, and he's only going to fill up. So let's say you run your sister and dry, we've had to help out neighbors by giving them a load or two of water to get them through until the water guy gets there. So yeah, there's a lot of like invisible costs involved too. So yes, you do pay for the water, but there's

27:44
There's a lot that goes into hauling. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot that goes into everything about farming and homesteading. And I'm so glad that you're talking about this. So, um, when you were talking about, you're not quite sure how this is going to go and where you're going to land and whether you're still going to be the, the part, the goat party people or something else. Pivot pivot is a word that's up a lot lately with people I'm talking with in real life.

28:12
with people I'm talking with on the podcast. Everyone, it feels like everyone made this jump to this lifestyle five years ago during COVID. And now they're like, okay, so we did the thing, but the thing isn't quite working out the way we thought it would. So what's the next thing? And we're going through it here too, because the last two summers have been really wet. And last year was rough, last two summers ago.

28:40
because it was so wet, had to replant three times on tomatoes, which is what everybody wants in August. And we didn't have very many. It was not a good year two summers ago. This year, we've had tomatoes. We've actually got 13 gallon size ziplocks of cut up tomatoes in our freezer right now to make sauce for us. And we've sold a bunch of flats of tomatoes. I think we've sold eight so far. And our tomato plants are almost done. Now,

29:09
I've talked about this a lot this summer on the podcast. My husband planted over 250 tomato plants. We should have had bins stacked full of tomatoes by now for sale and that did not happen. So my husband and I have a business meeting planned for a Sunday in October once everything's settled from the garden to figure out what we're going to do next year because one year's a fluke.

29:37
two years is a hint and three years is a pattern. No, for sure. And that's the hard part, pivoting. It's like, are you pivoting too soon? Are you pivoting too late? That was something that David, the hay farmer was talking about, because he went from hay to wheat to hay again with cows to no cows and hay now. Yep. And he talked about that.

30:02
pivoting, you've got to just be fluid with it. Like if you get too hung up on one portion of what your farm could be, then you're really kind of putting all of your eggs in one basket. And I know I've talked about on the podcast, all streams of income, any direction. We do milk, we do goat petting parties, and you know, we do selling of the goat babies. And I help broker goats where I call it gokering, but I help broker goats for my friends that have a harder time marketing. um

30:32
And that, and that's been the biggest thing is just pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. Now your tomato plants not producing like that. love that you call it like a business meaning, cause it is being a farm and in any capacity selling some type of produce is a business and it should be treated as such because hobbies can become so expensive that they, you know, kind of cost you and you want to do it as a business, a hobby. So that even adds more kind of the.

31:02
to the stakes and looking at, know, okay, what did we plant this year? What didn't work? Where did we plant it? What did we use different this year? Sometimes you can find kind of where the crux is because my husband works at a hydroponics store here in town. So that's what he does all day long is kind of troubleshooting plants and what went wrong? Because if you just change one thing sometimes,

31:31
it can cause a lot of issues. Yeah, absolutely. And we know, we know for sure that it's been the weather because last two summers ago, so not, keep saying last year, but we're almost done, almost done with this second year. So two summers ago, it was really, really wet until the end of June. And then it was a drought. And so basically everything was wet feet.

32:00
Then it was too dry. And so we know it was weather related that year this year It's been so weird. We've had like three or four days of rain off and on not not yeah But just off and on showers and then it would be hot and dry and sunny for three days You would think that would be perfect. It's not No, because tomatoes end up getting blight in those situations. They do so we know what caused it and

32:27
The only way to fix it is to put in raised beds. Well, the money isn't there for raised beds. No, it's expensive. So I have ideas and I will tell anybody who wants to go into any kind of business with a spouse, you have got to be patient. You've got to be able to listen to their ideas. You've got to be able to float yours without being aggressive about it. There's a whole art form.

32:57
to being in business with a spouse or a partner. Doesn't even have to be married to the person. It could just be somebody you love very much who you share a bed with. Yeah. It's an art form and it is tricky. And if your spouse happens to be stubborn, it makes it even trickier. Oh, I get it. Yeah. So I have ideas. We have the Heated Greenhouse that I mentioned last podcast in the talk. And I keep

33:25
trying to float the idea of microgreens because microgreens are a 10 day turnaround. They sell well. I have friends. Yeah. And my husband is not into this and we've made a little money this summer, but not nearly what we thought we were going to. Yeah. And I'm not going to lie to you. Money is getting really, really squeaky. The squeaky wheel is screaming. And so

33:52
I'm going to be pushing him on the microgreens because it's fairly inexpensive to do. The turnaround is 10 days and people like them for smoothies. So I'm going to try that. should just do a few trays, just a few, just start with it. I know people that have turned a huge profit with microgreens. Like we even talked about doing microgreens for a little bit, but

34:18
there was a huge rush of people doing it. So there was like 10 micro green people and then a small buildings is big, but it's not big enough for that. So we didn't do it. Now all the companies have kind of died out because they just for whatever reason it's you got to market to the restaurant and you have to carry a commercial.

34:43
here that, oh, I don't know if cut out. You're fine. going. Um, you know, there's certain things here that you have to kind of take into account. I think that they've been smothered out because of the cottage laws that we carry. Yeah. And so that's something we kind of looked at too as microgreens. And then I want to add one in for you to think about fancy mushrooms, blue oysters, oysters in general, lion's mane.

35:12
All of those you can grow at home. There's bag systems you can do, but people will buy fancy mushrooms. That was something that I haven't, they kind of are starting to pick up on it here, because my husband's job sells the syringes and spores for it. And I'm not talking filo-sibans, nothing like that. I'm talking literally edible gourmet mushrooms. And it's a huge market. I saw somebody make a killing selling them here.

35:41
And then I follow in Arizona, a group that is selling them and she has grown to the point that she has a 18 wheel trailer. You can buy them, they're like turnkey $100,000 plus, but you can have fancy gourmet mushrooms in there. And it's set up with everything you need. So we've kind of looked at microgreens before to get us through the winter time in fancy mushrooms. Because I'm not gonna lie, our winter here,

36:10
there is no work to be found. So if you don't have like a typical W2 job, you're not working in the wintertime here. It's normally your off time. Absolutely. We just, we're going to have to pivot. We're going to have to add some new things in because the things that we're doing in the summer are not working quite as well as we thought that they would. And that doesn't mean that we won't have a smaller garden next year because my husband loves to garden.

36:39
We just won't be planting 250 tomato plants to get, you know, a few tomatoes. Yeah. And that is, that is the hard part is when you put, when you put so much into just one crop and it doesn't produce, but then if you do a bunch of different things, we've been told here that it doesn't all sell. Like only one or two things that you grow are really phenomenal and people will buy that from you.

37:07
Yep. So we deal with a lot of Amish and who'd right. So they come and it will be like one Amish community, but they'll have five different booths. And so they kind of like, I mean, it's great. I'm glad they're there, but they kind of like suffocate out the really small cottage farmer that isn't in a whole community that's growing, you know? Yeah. It over saturates the market. Correct. It's an over saturation and like,

37:36
their prices can be half of what you and I can be. You know? And so it's hard sometimes even when you're growing the same things that they grow, you almost have to grow something different or unique out here because we're the hub here. So I think even like if we were more rural, what I would grow if I was in your situation would be different than if I was near a hub like we are now. Oh yeah.

38:02
I don't know. It sounds like your apple trees are producing pretty well. You should maybe look at like figuring out how to can up some pie filling or can up apples. have apple sauce. People would probably buy that from you guys too. Yeah. There's not enough apples to make that work this year. Okay. That makes sense. But as long as the blooms don't get blown off the trees next spring, we should be in a good situation to do that. And that is the plan. Cause

38:30
I like apples. I don't want to eat applesauce every day, so I would be happy to make applesauce and sell it. That would be great. And apple pie filling is really weird. We made some a couple of balls ago out of other people's apples. We didn't have any then. Yeah. We made it the way that my mom made it with cornstarch. And that is not an acceptable practice anymore.

38:56
There is a thing that you put in your apple pie filling that is not cornstarch because apparently the cornstarch goes bad in the canning sitting around in the jars for some reason. I didn't know this. I haven't said anything to my mom because she's going to make it the way she makes it. But yeah, there's some things we have to look into for that. And that's the other thing with this particular lifestyle choice is

39:23
Every single state has different regulations about what you can make, where you can make it, how you make it, and whether you can sell it. So don't anybody assume who's listening that it's just make it and sell it. You really do have to check with your Ag Department or your Department of Health or whatever in your state. Well, there's normally like a cottage farmer. So ours is SB 199 and it's the Montana Freedom Food Act. I

39:53
where I could probably recite that at this point until my face goes blue because I've had to read it because we've had neighbors that have questioned if we're in compliance. I mean, and all it takes is just one person questioning if you're in compliance or not. And you you just got to know. I know that I can have up to 10 milking does uh and that's goats. If they're cows, it's half that, it's five.

40:21
ah But you know, I look at other states and it doesn't matter about how many goats you're milking. It's the volume of production that you have. um And that's not, it's not that strict here. And it's really interesting. We just can't sell things with meat in it. So like even jellies and jams, there's not even rules on it. And like you said, cornstarch. Your mom did it with cornstarch. Now we've learned that it goes bad.

40:51
I'm on Facebook, there's this rogue canning group where they can me and all these things that people say you shouldn't can. And it's crazy to think that some of the things we did even 40 years ago, now, you can't do. uh

41:09
That's why I use the word the term acceptable practice because yes, my mom's apple pie filling was fine and still is there's nothing wrong with it because she knows what the hell she's doing when she makes it correct, but acceptable practices and that's what the states are basically saying are acceptable practices to be able to sell what you make our ABCD. So.

41:34
Yeah, it is really interesting. And that's something too, like if we were to look at moving out of state, I'd have to do all this research on whatever state we're looking at. And I think that's why I've kind of just decided to stay in Montana. I also really just love Montana for Montana. um I'm glad that you do because honey, I grew up in Maine. I loved that state more than life itself. And then I moved to Minnesota when I was like 22. I

42:03
love Minnesota now and I didn't think I ever would. So I get it. I completely get it. Yeah. You just hit a point where you're like, ah, I could live here. Now I want to move more up towards the highline or like the border. I like the cold. So I didn't think I was going to like the cold. came from Arizona before. I don't know if I've told you that, but I came from Arizona before I moved here. And so the cold is like something new, but it's

42:32
So I like it, my body likes it. And seeing that's the thing with having chronic illness, everyone's body is so different. ah Do you kind of have to find where your body likes and then also where you can do the things that you like to do. So if I live out in the cold, I can do more farming things. Part of also too the dynamic change with the farmers, like you talked about pivoting.

43:01
Because my body is feeling better, I haven't been spending as much time with the goats or doing, I guess you could say, much preparation with them because I'm downsizing since we're moving and cutting back and making the program more cutthroat. But I also got a horse and I don't think, I might have just bought the horse in May when we talked. I can't remember actually when I bought him. I don't know, I don't remember.

43:26
Yeah, I don't think we talked about a horse. think I bought him shortly after it was like a hair. Yeah. Kind of like one of those like, I'm just going to do it type deals. Uh, so I have a horse now too, that I need to get up and writing. And you've been working with him, right? Yeah, I've been working with him quite, quite a bit. He had an injury and now he has ulcers. And so having to learn about husbandry with horses, I've been writing since I was a young child.

43:54
But owning a horse is very different than leasing, exercise, riding, doing lessons. uh It's a lot to learn and they're not as hardy as one would think. No, horses. I love horses, Morgan. I do. I absolutely think they're beautiful. I think that they are lovely when they're well behaved.

44:20
I'm scared to death of them. I get really nervous around them, but I think that they are beautiful. But you're right. They are actually far more fragile than anyone would guess. Yeah, like you can't have dust in their hay. That was something else. So David, the hay farmer that I've kind of brought up, he's kind of taken us under his wing. Andy bailed hay with him and we've just been kind of learning, you know, about hay through David and he was explaining dust and

44:50
round bales versus the small square bales and all these different things. And I was just shocked at the level of high maintenance that you could say a horse was. Um, and my horse, course, because this is how it works, has to be one of those that just will make a hole for his nose to be in the hay piles and they have huge nostrils and they just suck all that dust up with it. Oh yeah. then they cough and then you can't

45:19
exercise them because then they start coughing and it hurts their lungs and the smoke up here that also like hurts their lungs like there's just so many things that go into horsemanship and the care of them. Now I wouldn't trade it at all like it's a built-in therapy tool especially there's something about veterans and horses that just go really well together so I absolutely adore having him and all the challenges that he's brought with like

45:46
His background, I paid a thousand for him. Anyone that knows horses knows that's very cheap. Oh yeah. He was on sale, not for sale. So that should tell you a lot too. I love him to death. He has a great brain. just is, uh he needs a lot of correction, which is fine. He's coming around well, but I have a miniature pony and her name is Bugsy. And she's, like I said, she's with the studs. She's being bred.

46:13
because eventually we want to do mini pack mules. So there's like so many different things that we could pivot to. Like you were saying, we, our motto is not keeping our eggs in one basket with the farm. Cause like you said, if something, one thing doesn't work out that year, I don't want it to make or break our program because we don't.

46:36
essentially really have a program if that makes sense. We're not established in any one area to know what actually is going to work or not work because we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks at this point. As are a lot of people right now. You're not alone. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. And the economy's changed. Like cows are up at a market. You know, the market for cows is record breaking right now. Yeah. But trying to get into it is unbelievably expensive.

47:05
It is. And that's where Dave, you know, talks about being a generational farmer, that that's really the only way to make it right now. He's not saying that that's only way to do it. He's just saying the only way to get to have the tractor not broken, the trucks working just fine and the bills paid with what he calls one in the basket, which is one like you should be one crop ahead if you're doing some type of crop like that.

47:32
ah And he's like, it's just not possible. This is the first year in a long time that he's been without one crop in the basket, as he would say. that's a generational farmer. Now, not generational beyond him though. So he's been doing it for a long time, which people would think generationally, but he has no kids that he's passed this on to. So he is a first generation farmer also, like a lot of us are, but he's just been doing it the long haul way.

48:02
And he said like tractors are very expensive. So auction, auction, auction. I agree with you. We should all be looking to find the best deal that we can. Buying new is not sustainable if you want to be a farmer. Yeah. And I don't quote me because I can't remember, but I think when I interviewed Joel Salatin, he said, if you want to be a rich farmer, start out rich. Yeah. I could be wrong. I heard it somewhere else, but I think that's what he said.

48:29
That's like honestly the truth. We are not rich by any means. We are all about sustainable. So when you look us up, like we are definitely your penny pinching farmers. But the biggest thing is, is we're doing the damn thing. We're doing the thing that matters. When farming is falling apart, it's a dying art. Nobody wants to learn it. We're gonna be there to say, actually we do wanna learn it. So give us your information that you wanna share because

48:58
They want to share it. Those farmers do. um And learning it, because guess what? AI is not going to replace me. I always say that now. That's my new saying. AI is not going to replace my job. AI is not going to replace a lot of jobs. It's not. The one thing I am concerned about is writers. Yes. AI does a really good job of generating words because what AI is is a large language model.

49:27
That's what it is. Correct. Yeah, correct. It's going to kill all the fun jobs, the art jobs, the writer jobs, the like compassionate jobs. That's why I tell people like it's not going to take the jobs that we all think it's going to take like probably some computer programming jobs where the rules are really like black and white. My mom does cobalt coding. That's a whole different language. Like that's it's not taking her job. It's going to take all the fun jobs is what I would say.

49:57
Uh huh. Yeah. The rewarding jobs, the rewarding where you have to be, you have to have an imagination. You have to be able to think you like art is off. I hate AI generated images. I won't use them. They creep me out. And the thing is the thing I keep hearing from people about AI who are the people, they actually human beings who are sort of self aware. some of them, the experts are saying just

50:26
be human. Like if you have a business, be yourself, be human, be vulnerable because a lot of people are not trusting what they're seeing online. Yeah, that's one of the biggest things I've done throughout Groovy Grazers is I sold the accounting software. I've been in the top 10 % of big companies and sold things. I've just been myself.

50:52
And selling yourself is the best thing you can do just be who you are like there are low days that I post about where I just Hate farming and I want to throw the towel and I'm just gonna go live in the city Which I would never do but there are days we hit that point or I don't know why the heck this isn't working Does anyone else know or like you know just the simple things be who you are? Everyone can read what?

51:18
is written by AI at this point. I've even stopped doing hashtags. I have found that there's more interactions when it's just an authentic, normal looking post, like we all would have done 10 years ago. And then just being who you are. Like they don't want to read that everything's great and fine and dandy. Like everyone right now is experiencing some type of crisis with the economy or their job or their home or

51:47
family or whatever has it, like they just want to connect. And I think that's something we're seeing is that people are wanting to gather and connect again, which is really cool because it's going to make things like farmer's market or, you know, a goat party or something like that, you know, be more fruitful. And I think that that is the biggest thing. Just if you want to be a rich farmer, then you got to start out rich and just be yourself like.

52:14
Don't oversell yourself, be who you need to be because your community is going to tell you what they need from you. And that's what I did. I just listened into my community. There was nothing to do really beyond a jump park for kids' parties. And when it was thrown out there, why don't you do kids' parties? I said, well, why the heck not? Let's try it. And then here we are two years later. Yeah. You know how I said that I hear a lot of the word pivot. I hear a lot of why not and a lot of what if.

52:44
when I talk to people. Yes. Yeah. that's just the reality of farming. Like, yes, farming is dying in a sense. I think commercial farming, I don't even like to say that farming is dying. It's the art of farming is dying. So like the tradition of passing farming down is dying. And then in another sense, it's growing though, the cottage farmer is coming back and like,

53:11
To be honest, cottage farmers during the world wars is what fed the American people. So it's a really noble thing to be a cottage farmer, I feel like in America. It is, it's a noble calling. And I think that's the part that's important is the calling part. Because when you are called, when you feel called to do something, it means that your heart and your soul and your mind are aligned to work at that thing to make it good.

53:41
And I feel like this podcast that I started two years ago is a calling because Morgan, the only time I feel like I take deep breaths is when I'm listening to you guys tell me about your lives. That's how anxious I am about the world. I look so forward to recording podcast episodes because I get to hear really brilliant, giving healthy people tell me their ideas. I can go, okay, all is not lost.

54:11
Yeah, I found just getting off the news and just focusing on my community. Like I can't even do anything for the greater state of Montana, but I can do something for Billings, Montana. And that is what I'm doing because I like you. I loaded, I loaded missiles for the military in Okinawa, Japan. If you want to talk about a tinfoil hat, I wear one. I don't trust anyone. I don't trust a single government entity. There's I'm, I'm not one way.

54:40
I am anti-government is what I tell people when they want to start talking to me and they want to get into this, that. I'm like, no, no, no. I'm anti-government guys. I just don't trust anyone. We need to all be self-sustainable. And so that's the thing. This was a huge calling for me to teach other people to be self-sustainable and to learn from my mistakes because I'm not scared of people laughing at me or making fun of me or saying, you know, I'm an idiot for doing this. I don't care what other people think. It's just that

55:09
I feel that cottage farming is a noble thing to do in America. And I honestly raised my right hand to serve for this community, like serve for the US because it was a noble calling. Instead of just going and working up a like small wage job because I didn't want to go to college and being a bum in my hometown. was like, well, I guess I'm going to go serve for the military. I can, so I should. um And it was just one of those things of why not?

55:39
I think my dad, he was a Marine, he told me that. said, well, why don't you do that? I said, well, why not? Like, well, what's the worst thing that's gonna happen? And I mean, I ended up in Japan and I ended up being a mama. know, like life is full of what ifs and why nots and pivoting and just doing the damn thing. And if I can do that for my community and just keep being noble in all of the ways that I act, which to me means acting with the most

56:08
integrity that you can, then it makes for a better community. And then all these things that we're having anxiety about, they go away, you know? And so for me, it's serving my community. Yours or podcast, mine is serving my community because that's where I get to hear, just like you do, the real stories from people, you know, and what they're going through and their trials and tribulations. then, and then we all feel a little bit more human, I think, when we hear that other people.

56:35
are struggling, that we want other people to struggle, but we're like, oh, okay, it's not just us, or oh, okay, we're not the only ones that are having extreme anxiety about this. And I think that's the hardest thing too, is when you're a cottage farmer, it's really easy to become anxious about the world because of the farming that you're doing, you understand how important it is that you're producing food, and other people don't understand it at the level we do.

57:01
Yes. And when you're doing it yourself, you also realize how fragile the system actually is. And that's the part that I'm trying to get people aware of. So, All right, Morgan, I usually keep these to half an hour, but I really wanted to talk to you for a long time. So we're almost at an hour. Where can people find you? So you can find us at our domain is www.groovygrazers.com.

57:27
You can find us on Facebook. There are two pages. There's one with an empty and one without. Okay. Um, and you can also find us on Instagram and tick tock. We're kind of all over the page. Uh, that you can most interact with us is going to be our website. Please reach out. There's a form. If you just have questions or you just want to talk to us, or if you even have, um,

57:57
You know, I'm running into this with my goats. Have you ran into this before? I think the biggest thing for me is just communities. So please reach out, ask some questions, or if you're doing something cool with a farm, then just let me know. So. Awesome. Thank you so much. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Morgan, thank you again for your time. I hope you have a great day.

58:23
Thank you so much. It was good talking to you. I'm sure I'll talk to you next spring. Have a good one. You too.