August 22, 2024 • 41 mins
---------- Originally Aired on the Good Foods Podcast ----------
Katie Krejci and I discuss her and her husband’s journey to become self-sufficient and how now her passion has become a thriving internet business that's helping people around the world with their vision of homesteading.
Katie brings her experience as a dietitian and a homesteader together as "The Homesteading RD" where she helps others become more self-sufficient, cook from scratch, and simplify their lives. She lives on a 240-acre homestead in the north woods of Minnesota with her husband where they have a large garden, raise their own egg chickens, meat chickens, tap maple trees, hunt, forage, and more!
Katie grew up in the city, so she is self-taught and loves sharing her knowledge with others via social media, her website and more.
Website ➡️ https://thehomesteadingrd.com
Courses ➡️ https://learn.thehomesteadingrd.com/
IG ➡️Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehomesteadingrd/
YouTube ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/@thehomesteadingrd
Etsy store ➡️ https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHomesteadingRD
The Good Foods podcast was created and hosted by Shardan Sandoval in March of 2023 and was active until September of 2024.
Katie Krejci and I discuss her and her husband’s journey to become self-sufficient and how now her passion has become a thriving internet business that's helping people around the world with their vision of homesteading.
Katie brings her experience as a dietitian and a homesteader together as "The Homesteading RD" where she helps others become more self-sufficient, cook from scratch, and simplify their lives. She lives on a 240-acre homestead in the north woods of Minnesota with her husband where they have a large garden, raise their own egg chickens, meat chickens, tap maple trees, hunt, forage, and more!
Katie grew up in the city, so she is self-taught and loves sharing her knowledge with others via social media, her website and more.
Website ➡️ https://thehomesteadingrd.com
Courses ➡️ https://learn.thehomesteadingrd.com/
IG ➡️Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehomesteadingrd/
YouTube ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/@thehomesteadingrd
Etsy store ➡️ https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHomesteadingRD
The Good Foods podcast was created and hosted by Shardan Sandoval in March of 2023 and was active until September of 2024.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello. This is Katie Crachie, the Homesteading RD and this
is the Good Foods Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
All of us are on a journey towards better health
and we're grateful that you've allowed us to join you
on your quest in this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I love fermentation at Delicious. It is so good for
us and it's easy, minimal equipment, you know, compared to
canning or freeze drying, where you need all these things
for this, all you need is salt water and a
container of some sort. And if the only type of
food preservation that actually increases the nutritional value.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
This is the Good Foods Podcast And now here's your host,
show Dan.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Welcome to the podcast. It's so nice to have this
chance to talk with you today.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Thank you so much for having me. It's going to
be such a fun chat today. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
So what was and where was life like for you
growing up? Did you come from a homesteadying background.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
My upbringing was very normal. I guess you could say
I just grew up in the suburbs, just in a
normal neighborhood. We didn't have a garden or anything, so
I am entirely self taught. My mom is a good
cook at least, you know, the cooking piece was instilled
in me early, and I feel like that's a good
(01:21):
core to anything. But as far as animal we only
had one dog growing up. For a little bit of time.
I had some fish, but that was about it. No chicken,
no livestock, no canning. My upbring was unique in some
respects though, in that I was homeschooled, and that was
(01:41):
before homeschooling was cool. My church had a big homeschooling
community and there are about one hundred families of us
there that homeschooled, so that was an unique part of
my upbringing. I was homeschooled for nine years, so from
second grade through tenth grade, and then I randomly decided
(02:01):
that I wanted to try high school. Why not, let's
give it a try, So my junior and senior years
went to It was a private high school, so it
wasn't totally jumping into, you know, a five hundred class
sized public high school. But yeah, I'm glad I did it.
I made a lot of great friends, and the friends
that I made in that high school are still my
(02:23):
best friend today.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So to be a successful homesteader, you've got to have
zero experience. Is that what you're telling me pretty much?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Or at least the willingness to learn and a willingness
to fail. I think those are the two key pieces
to being successful at home setting or anything really.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
So, what's the name of your farm or your place?
How do you how do you label it?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So I've been thinking that we don't have necessarily a
name for our property or the homestead. My business is
called the Homesteading RD, so I guess you could call
it that, But yeah, we need to think of a
good name for our actual property now that we've moved
in and we're settled at our new place.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, I would suggest the Good Foods Farm.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I'm just saying, Hey, that's a good one. I'll add
to the list.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
There you go. At the time of this recording, you've
been homesteadying for a decade, is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, about ten years. We bought our first homestead in
twenty thirteen, and that was on five acres and we
were there up until this spring when we moved.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
To our new place, which is where you are now, correct,
So how much acres do you have here?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So we upgraded from our five acre homestead to two
hundred and forty acres. We really kind of just went
for it.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Let's have zero experience at the beginning, and you know what,
let's try to do the entire North America. It's the acreage, right.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Our family motto is anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
We tend to overdo whatever we're passionate about may as well.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
So what did those early days look like like when
you first started, and did you capture it all on
video with the thoughts of posting it as it progressed.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, so home studing in general when we first bought
our plates than twenty thirteen, No, I did not post much.
I was just your normal person. I was just a
dietitian that worked at a hospital in downtown Saint Paul,
and I was doing my dietitian thing. And then when
I came home, I just did my gardening thing, got
(04:24):
some chickens, and kept that pretty private. I would sometimes
share little things on my own personal Facebook or Instagram account.
I didn't even think I had Instagram when I first
started home setting in twenty thirteen. I think it still
and Facebook at that time. Yeah, I was more just
sharing little bits with friends and families. I would bring
(04:44):
eggs to work to sell the coworkers, which was fun.
I was trying to get people into kombucha and I
would bring in my sour dough starter to work at
the hospital try and get people into it. But as
far as sharing, I didn't really truly start leaning into
the home steading r D I guess and create a
business around it until twenty twenty one when I quit
(05:07):
my hospital job and kind of had to reinvent myself
and create a new job.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
So you had met your husband and then you did
the homesteadying leap because there was a leap, Yes, how
did that come into the discussion? Did you just always
want to do this? Both of you wanted to do that?
How did that play out?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Great question? So we got married in two thousand and eight,
pretty young. I was just barely twenty one and I
was actually still in college and I had to finish
up college while he had moved to Kansas City to
do his first job. So we actually did a long
distant marriage for about six months, which is a little
crazy to think back at, but we did it. And yeah,
(05:50):
so our first house was just on a tiny little
city lot in Kansas City, and we knew that wasn't
going to be our forever home, but it was a
good starter home. And after we had been there about
four or five years, we started thinking what's next for us,
What do we really want to do. And my husband
did grow up on an acreage, so he does have
(06:11):
a little bit experience there. I wouldn't consider it a homestead.
It was more just an acreage and his parents would
rent out most of the land to neighboring farmers to
just do cash craps, so they didn't necessarily have chickens,
they didn't do a garden. It was just kind of
rural living. But he loved, you know, that part of
(06:34):
his life, just having space, being outdoors. And I always
loved visiting his parents when they were on the acreage.
And we both agreed, Yeah, that's what we want to do.
We want to get some land. And I already had
a little garden at that time in our little city lot,
and I wanted a bigger garden, so it only made sense.
So we started the search for We were really looking
(06:56):
for ten acres, but five acres is what we landed on.
Expensive and we were still starting from scratch, and we
found our little five acre property and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
So what does your life look like now for you
and mister Ryan and Zone three B.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, so things have changed dramatically in the last six months,
especially the last two years since quitting my conventional hospital job.
But now my husband still works his normal job, but
he can work remotely, which is great, so he still
does his normal you know, nine to five through the week,
but otherwise we're just doing all sorts of projects. It's
(07:36):
been a very crazy last few months since moving. In
June thirtieth is when we closed, so moving everything over
and then building the infrastructure. So the property that we
bought was just the seasonal hunting cabin, so no one
had lived here before and especially not in a homesteading sense,
(07:57):
so we had to create a chicken coop oop quickly
because we had to move all the chickens over. So
that was probably the biggest headache and just challenge on
how do we move forty chickens over? Well, actually it
was probably one hundred because we had our meat chickens too,
and then our egg laying chickens, and then I also
had my freshly hatched chicks, so we had basically three
(08:20):
groupings of chickens to move and then figure out housing
so my egg laying chickens ended up living in a
car port for many months surrounded by electric poultry netting,
and it worked for several months. I was really pleased
with how it worked, and that gave us some time
to finally build a true chicken coop. When just finding
(08:42):
places to put everything, we had to downsize quite a
bit if our infrastructure went. We went from a normal
house to a thousand square foot cabin, and my husband
had a six thousand square foot heated shop and then
we're down to two thousand square foot shot. So just
trying to figure out where to put all the projects
(09:02):
and tools, and after homesteading for ten years, you acquire
a lot of things and supplies, and we don't like
to throw anything away, so anytime we built something or
constructed something and had extra materials, we would save that
because you know, we could always use it down the road.
And then another big part that has really consumed a
(09:23):
lot of our time over the summer has been clearing trails.
So our property were so thankful that has had an
extensive trail system to kind of access everything. But this
past winter was really really challenging in our area. We
had record breaking snow and ice that really plastered a
(09:43):
lot of the trees flat. If you look at some
overhead views, it looks like hurricane damage or a tornado.
Everything's flattened and then it frozen to the ground and
stuck that way for months. And so when we first
moved in, we were like, yeah, we have two hundred
and forty, but we can't access any of it because
all the trails were completely closed in. So for day
(10:07):
it's solid four months there. We would get up at
five point thirty in the morning and go clear trails
for an hour or two. And it was a really
fun way to get some activity in and just explore
our land and get to know it in an intimate way.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
And you can get an overview because you've got a
new drone now right, Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It's in the mail. It should come tomorrow. I can't wait.
Everyone's been begging for an overhead view of everything and
it's coming.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah. We always want more, of course.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I can't wait to share it. I can't wait to
see it too.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Do you have ATVs? How do you access your land?
How does that play out?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So we did end up getting two different side by sides,
which has been absolute game changer. It's because our property
is about a mile long, so it's totally walkable, but
it takes a while. So if you need to get
somewhere quickly or just run, grab a tool, you know,
or go get more fuel for the chainsaw when you're
clearing trails, that really makes things a lot more accessible.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So is it just you Ryan, the dogs? You guys
for now?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
You got it? Yep, just that we're up to three
dogs now. We just adopted a third a couple of
weeks ago. His name is Tucker. So it's been fun
to have all the doggies and we'd love to head
out and do our pack walks and looking forward to
this winter doing cross country skiing along the trails.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
You have people working for you.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Nope, it's just the two of us and so we
have all long lifts of projects ahead of us. It's
going to keep us busy for a long time, that's
for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Before you even started doing this, and you know you
wanted the bigger space. What was from going from the
small acreage to you know, now over two hundred plus,
what was that thought process there? And is this the
forever home or is there is another spot? Is I
gotta be five hundred acres.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Great question. So I hope that this is where we'll
be forever. That's what I said with our first place,
our five acre homestead. We treated it like we were
going to be there forever and probably dumped way more
money in there than we should have looking back now
that we've moved. But no, this should be it. But
we will be building a forever home about half a
(12:17):
mile back on the property, so that will be something
up and coming down the road. We're probably going to
build a lot of it ourselves, just the two of us,
which will be fun. We just bought an excavator so
we can do some groundwork and everything and get that prepped.
So plan is to stay here again. Building the house
(12:38):
though will be a new change. And then we're going
to put in a runway, I hope. So my husband
has this private pilot's license, and that was the thought
behind or some of the thought and know why we
needed so much land. We needed enough space to put
in a full runway.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well that's not something you hear every day.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
No, definitely makes it unique and it's really kind to
open up doors for us. So my husband does travel
a lot for work in North and South Dakota, and
so having the plane makes work trips a whole lot
easier for him. And so he's been flying maybe six
years now, and we just currently rent some hangar space,
(13:19):
but now that hangar is about an hour away, so
it just doesn't really make a ton of sense where
it's located. So we're hoping to get the runway done,
build the airplane hangar, and move the plane over hopefully
by early summer.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Did you just want to be more self sufficient or
did you think early on that you wanted to teach
others how to live this way as well?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, so I've always had a drive to want to
be self sufficient from basically before we even got to
our first homestead. I've always been interested in anything to
be independent, whether like growlne food, preserve my own food,
learning how to fix things. I love to sew and
repair it myself. But once I quit my hospital job
(14:04):
and wanted to kind of start exploring some other avenue,
that's when I had the aha moment, like why don't
I take my passion and share that with others and
create a job out of that. And so that has
really bloomed beautifully and has opened a lot of doors
for us and cluing being able to move here. So
(14:25):
it's wonderful to have remote type work. I can do
it anywhere as long as I can create content, and
so it's just been such a blessing.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Well, Katie, fermenting carrots, I have never heard of such
a thing. How do they taste like? And how long
can they last in storage?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Great question? They are delicious. I love them. It's one
of our favorite snacks. I know it sounds odd, but
they still very much have a lot of that carrot
flavor and they still have a good crunch to them,
but they're a little bit more tangy, I guess, and
then I I like to add like lemon wedges or
garlic to kind of round out the flavor. They're really
(15:06):
good and they last about a year in storage in
the fridge.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You said something by putting a weight on it or
something that was on the top. Walk us through how
that goes.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah, So what you do is you slice up your
carrots and put them in a glass container ideally or
a crock at the have a fermentation crack, and then
you cover it with a brine so it's a salt
water solution, and then the key is to keep all
of your fermenting ingredients underneath submerged away from oxygen. Because
(15:37):
if oxygen, let's say a carrot floats up to the
surface and is exposed to oxygen, that risks for mold growth.
And so that glass weight that you put on top
just kind of pins everything down and then it ferments beautifully.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
So what else can you ferment? And what else have
you fermented? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I love fermentation. It's something that I just it's delicious,
it's so good for us, and it's easy, minimal equipment,
you know, compared to canning or freeze drying, where you
need all these things. For this, all you need is
salt water in a container of some sort. And it's
the only type of food preservation that actually increases the
(16:14):
nutritional value, where if you're freezing, if you're canning, you
lose some nutrition in the process, where fermentation is just awesome.
It actually makes more than nutrients bioavailable. But some of
my favorites are sauer kraut, kim chi I tried for
the first time this year. I'm pretty excited about that.
The fermented carrots, I do, fermented turnips. It's kind of
(16:38):
like sour kraut. And one that is surprising that actually
is good even though it doesn't sound good. It is
fermented eggplant. It looks terrible, that looks like mushy brown chunks,
but it actually tastes really good. Ah sure, I know,
maybe we'll say that one last, but you're feeling adventurous.
(17:02):
And then fermented hot sauce. That was another new one
that I tried this year.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
So last thing I'm fermenting. How long do you have
to wait?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
So it depends on what you're fermenting. It could be
as little as a few days or up to a
couple of weeks. Some things need to ferment a bit
a little bit longer, and then you put it in
the fridge. Just low down the fermentation process and just
kind of hold it so once it goes in the fridge,
it's usually good for up to a year.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
All right, Well, here's the math section of your questionnaire.
Percentage wise, how much would you say you get from
the grocery store or feed store versus what you take
care of on your own.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I would say as far as vegetables go, ninety percent.
You know, occasionally I'll go get some you know, bell
peppers or something if I'm short, you know, But in citrus,
I guess that's one thing I can't grow. I do
still buy citrus occasionally, but prode for pretty much that meat.
(17:57):
We groweral meat chickens or razoral meat chickens, and then
we're leaning into hunting more now that we have the
land to do it on. So we got a deer
this fall, which is awesome. So between the deer and
then meat chickens that we raise, i'd say that's probably
half of our meat. So I'm still outsourcing from local
CSAs beef, pork, and I guess salmon.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You'll probably see that percentage go towards your advantage over the.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Years, right, correct, Yep. Every year we should keep getting
more and more self sufficient, which is really exciting.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Do you have a network of other homesteaders that you
communicate with around the country or maybe even around the world.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, I have a handful
of friends that I've gotten close with on the Instagram platform,
and actually I got to meet a handful of them
a few weeks ago at a local event, which was
really fun. I haven't yet been to any homesteading events
I hope too. I know there's a few big ones
throughout the year, So that would be really fun to
(19:01):
make more connection because that's someplace that's an area that
I went to lean more into.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
So how have the friends and family responded through this
journey of yours.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I'd say pretty positively. We've always kind of Brian and
I have been unique, I guess, a very gold driven
and we just do things against the mainstream. I guess
since the beginning of time. It wasn't a shock to anyone,
and they're like, well, of course you're doing this, and
they've all been really excited and have come out here
(19:31):
a few times. So it's so fun to show our
land to our friends and they've even helped with some
of the trail clearing. And yeah, it's just been really
nice and so thankful to have supportive family that understand,
you know, what we're doing and why.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
So if you want to have something or prepare something,
Let's take the Elderberry's syrup which I saw you posting
on Instagram. Yeah, before you grew the Elderberries, if you
wanted said syrup, did you settle for going out and
buying some at the store. Did you just buckle up
and say, you know, we're raising them this year and
then next year we'll have them. How does that work?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah? So for all the very specifically, I was lucky
that we had them growing naturally on our property at
our five acre homestead at a pretty common bush I
guess here in Minnesota, and so they were there, so
it was easy to just grab them. But I'm going
to have to get creative. I've searched high and low
at our new property. I thought for sure i'd find some.
(20:28):
I have not been able to find any. So I'm
going to need to locate some cuttings and get some planted.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Other than the gardening, what was the first thing you
did in the house, like fermentation or you know, canning,
What was the first thing indoors that you did one
of the first things you did.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I would say canning for sure. I did that pretty
early on. I think I even did canning at our
first house when we were at our first tiny house,
I think, And it's some grape jelly. I decided to
grow some grapes up our chain link fence and harvest
and those otherwise sewing that's always been, you know, a
passion of mine and just learning how to be creative.
(21:09):
There and fix things, and I even just sewed our
normal clothes for quite a while to save money.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
When you can something, how long can it last or
how long until you have to use it or read it?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I always try to eat mine up within a year,
but I think it does last longer. I want to
say two years. It's a shelf lifeline home canned food.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And how do you store it? You have to store
it all like in a freezer refrigerator or does.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
It matter just on the shelf if it's properly canned
in a shelf stable, which is awesome.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
So how do you keep track of everything, of what
you're growing, of your projects? Do you have some kind
of a system? Do you just kind of wing it?
I'm sure you don't win it.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I'm glad you asked, because I actually have made
my system open to the public, and so I have
what's called the Oldtimate Homestead Planner and it's available on
Etsy if anyone wants to go check it out, and
it has I think there's over two hundred pages in
there of all the different organization sheets that you could
ever want. So I have calendars in there. I use
(22:14):
that quite a bit, different inventory sheets, so the end
of the season, I write down how many canned goods
I have of each kind, what's in the freezer. I
can figure out what runs out, what I have extra of,
so I can tweak and make my goal for my
numbers for preservation for the next year. Different chicken spreadsheets
(22:35):
you can keep track of your flock and chicken wish lists,
and there's all sorts of fun things in there.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So how does somebody search for you on Etsy?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So my store is called the Homesteading RD. If you
just type in homestead planner or Ultimate homestead Planner, it
should pop up as one of the top results.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Katie, what was like something that you thought of making
or creating and when it finally was completed even you
were impressed with the outcome? M I.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Again.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Our family motto is anything worth doing is worth overdoing,
So we got the bar high for pretty much anything.
But i'd see. Our most impressive project that I dearly
miss is what we called the Poultry Palace. So that
was the chicken coop that we built maybe four years
(23:28):
ago now, so I only got to you that for
a handful of years before we moved. But it's essentially
a house that we built for the chickens, and it
was like a two story structure, multiple rooms. It was
gorgeous chandelier in there, the whole bit. You know.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
I just have this really, I hope someday that if
you want children, you and Ryan are blessed children. I
just have this bad feeling of your son doing something
really stupid and going, hey, anything worth doing is worth Oh,
we're doing right, and you're gonna be like, no to.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Your room Absoletely, you can't use it that way. Good
things though, Like.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
It doesn't work for children.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, but we are planning on making poultry Palace number
two at some point at our build site whenever we're
ready to start kind of developing that area. But for now,
just using a repurposed garden shed is what we're using
for the chickens right now.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
What would you say is one of the more common
reasons that people tell you that they can't do this,
or what intimidates them the most.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
That's a great question. I would say that people say
they don't have time or space the homestead, and those
are legitimate, you know reasons. I get that, But I
think the important message they always try to put out
there is that even though it doesn't look like a
(24:53):
milk cow and canning one hundred percent of your food,
there's still small steps that you can make no matter
where you're at in your journey. I would say that
I was starting my homestead journey in our small city lot,
you know, again, just growing grapes of our chain link fence.
Instead of landscaping with decorative plants, I landscaped with herbs.
(25:16):
Why not just PLoP those in there, and instead of
some ornamental tree in your sideyard, put in an apple tree.
And even things like canning and food preservation. You don't
even need a garden to do that. You can go
to a farmer's market when support your local farmers, get
it when it's in season, and a good deal, bite
in bulk, and start canning and learn those skills of
(25:40):
food preservation.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
You have online courses on how to become self sufficient,
Tell me about those.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, I have three courses, so two are pretty comprehensive courses,
and then I have a mini course. So my first
one is called how to plant a Garden Step by step.
That really stemmed from the need that I was getting
from my community that the garden planning part is a headache,
and I get it. It still kind of stresses me
(26:07):
out every winter when I'm sitting down and planning out
my garden, and especially for a beginner, where you're like,
should I do raise beds? Should I do an in
ground garden? Do I need to test my soil? Like
what is the best kind of compost to add? What
plants should be planted next to what which plant should
I grow? There's just a lot of questions there, and
(26:28):
so that course is centered around just walking you through
in a step by step fashion, exactly what you need
to think about to create the best garden for you.
So that one's been very popular, it's been a fun one.
And then my second course is all about raising meat chicken,
so especially the butchering part, because I can't show that
(26:51):
on social media. My account would probably be closed down
if I'm showing active butchering videos. And so I knew
I wanted to teach you there's a need for it.
And it's kind of scary, you know, to take a
life if you're not used to that didn't grow up
on a farm, and so you want to do it
the most humane way possible. And so my course kind
(27:12):
of walks you through the whole processing part, but everything
ahead of that too. So even just what breed you raise,
there's a lot of different options out there based on
your monetary goal. They can be really cheap to raise
or really expensive to raise, depending on what you want.
Even a health aspects or the nutritional value of that
(27:33):
meat depends quite a bit on the breed, how it's raised,
what it's fed, all of those things. So I kind
of walk my students through all those big decisions. Where
to get feed, what kind of feed, how to house them.
So they are totally different from an egg chicken, So
you're not going to keep them out in the coop,
you know. With the egg chickens. I raise them separately,
(27:56):
and we personally use what's called chicken tractors. They're kind
of temporary structures that just like a big flat square,
I guess, and we move them to fresh grass every day.
So they need to be strong enough to resist predators,
but also light enough that they are easy to move
every day. So it's a very delicate balance to get
(28:17):
it right.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
So what are you going to do, because I have
an idea for you, what are you going to do
with the cabin Once you build the real forever home.
I mean, are you going to have is the cabin
going to be for maybe some in person maybe week
long you know, retreats where you learn things from Katie
on the spot.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
It could very well be. I have those ideas rolling around.
I think that would be awesome. I also have ideas
of Airbnb, just to kind of help generate some extra income,
you know, overflow for gifts. So so many opportunities and
who knows, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
You can have two chair prices airbnbbs just want to
stay your Airbnb and you want to help us in
the garden. It's this price now.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, I love that idea.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
From packages, that's right. So when I saw the courses,
I didn't see a course on teaching people how to
grow an internet based business because I think you've accomplished
something pretty amazing with that and now there's a market
for that. So yeah, I just added more possible word
to your list.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, I think that's a great idea. It might be
something that I'm interested in developing and sharing what works
for me, Because you're right, it is kind of crazy
for me to think back that just two years ago,
a little bit longer than that now I was staring
from scratch, and honestly, my first year in my business
it was really slow too. I think I lost three
(29:37):
thousand dollars my first year of starting this business. So
it's definitely a commitment. You have to stick with it
and have another source of income while you're building it,
which means you're doing this on evenings and weekends, which
I did for a whole year. It was exhausting, but
now that I'm on the other side, it was worth it.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Well, maybe you start small. You have a little tab
that says, you know, hire me as your consultant. Yeah,
you can answer questions, you know, help people out there.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, absolutely so, I think there's a lot of opportunity there.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So how would you help someone other than the suggestions
you've made that lives in a you know, the heart
of a major metropolitan area or in a food desert
and they want to start, even in the smallest of ways,
to do what you and Ryan do. How would you
guide them?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, So, if this person has some land, even just
like you know, a patio, something to do growing something,
if they can, whether it's some containers or vertical garden,
if they don't have access to that, I highly recommend
looking into community garden so those are really starting to
spring up where there's hopefully a location semi nearby where
(30:43):
you can go and do a shared garden plot and
grow a little bit there. Otherwise, if that's not an option,
I highly recommend partnering with a local TDSA so you
can get seasonal produce from them, or go to a
local farmer's market and just really trying to get basically
closer to our food source instead of getting produce that
(31:05):
was shipped up from Mexico at the grocery store and
it is probably at least a week old. Trying to
get fresh stuff it's more nutrient dent. I have that
traveled halfway across the globe. And yeah, just getting connected
with your local community I think is important and supporting them.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
What's the farthest is someone has been that's reached out
to you for advice or just to check in.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
All over the world. Really, I have quite a few
course students, even some in Australia. Yeah, it's so fun.
That's the beauty of an online business as you can
reach people anywhere.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
What is your day, like, let's start there, when does
the day end? Then when does it start, and what
does it look like like? What do you have going
on today besides you know the several podcasts that you're doing.
I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
So it depends on the season. For sure. Is it's
winter and out mid December, so things are a lot
lower as far as the homesteading chores. So for today,
for example, or usually early risers and let me go
to bed early. So usually when five point thirty we're
up and it's kind of slow morning. I like to
spend a little bit of time reading my Bible and
(32:12):
spending time with God. And then this morning I spent
time editing a YouTube video, so I'm working on kind
of building up our YouTube channel. So that's been fun.
And then I did some chicken chores, went out there,
fad sure everyone's still alive and stay warm, fresh water,
through some treats out there, got eggs, and then check
(32:34):
some email. It's not as exciting as it is in
this summer. And then here we are. I ate lunch
and now it's podcasts, and then afterwards I'm going to
take the dogs out for a pack walk. We'll do
a big loop around the property. They're all antsy and
need some exercise, so that'll be fun, and then tonight
probably get back into the kitchen room model and get
(32:56):
back to painting cabinets.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
You say early bedtime, what's early bedtime?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Usually around nine o'clock. That's when we're shutting down for sure.
But I think tonight is going to be super exciting.
We just got a new to us hot tub and
it is officially up to temperature. We filled it up yesterday.
We found it on Facebook marketplace hot tubs. We had
one at our old homestead and it's even I'm not
a huge fan of the chemicals, like half me hates
(33:22):
it for that reason, but it's just such a great
extension of the house in the wintertime. It's easy to
get stir crazy in the wintertime here in Minnesota, and
it just feel like it's so refreshing when we're out there.
It's a good time for us to just sit and
chat and then relax. We're so physically active that I
feel like one of us has pulled something at any
(33:42):
given time, and it really just helps repair. So looking
forward to with soap tonight.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
What do you have on the list that's like the
most fun to do and on the list that you've
really dread doing, but both you have to do. What
are those things?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
So we both love building. That is our jam. We
just get so excited and we work well together. So
really looking forward to you know, the house build and
like the chicken coot build was really fun. Of course,
I love anything in the garden that's good time in there.
But as far as the things that I don't look
(34:18):
forward to, I guess really tedious stuff like right now
the kitchen cabinets, having to fill in the grain and
standing a million times. That stuff isn't very much fun,
I guess, But most of it is fun. Like I
love mowing. Ryan loves mowing too. We actually have to
fight over mowing most of the time and who gets
to do it. But we just love anything outside, so
(34:44):
there isn't too much we don't like that we absolutely despise.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I guess, are you guys fight over the mower? Okay?
Where else?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Pretty much?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
How big is the garden? What do you grow? What's
the size of the garden.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
My garden is like twenty five by fifty. I wanted
it to be a little bit bigger, but we had
to frantically put it in. It was actually a blessing,
so we were We didn't close on our new property
until June thirtieth, which is pretty late to start a garden,
(35:16):
and especially in Minnesota where everything freezes by mid September,
so we don't have a lot of gardening time. Our
windows pretty short, and so thankfully the previous owner allowed
us to come in a month early, so end of
May to put my garden in at least, And so
my parents came over to and it was a big
family event. We got the tailor and got it all in,
(35:39):
so we did as much as we could. But it's
feeling a little tight. I would like it bigger, like usual.
I've always tried to add onto the garden, but I
think what's going to be perfect is I'm going to
leave that garden space as is, even after we moved
back to our final spot. So I'll put in a
new garden by our new house while we put that in,
(36:01):
but I think I'll leave this one down here for
extra overflow space.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
And what do you have in the garden? What do
you grow?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. I guess a
better question is what do I not grow?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Okay, what excuse me? What do you leave out?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I think I grow pretty much everything except for beet.
Neither of us like beets. Someday I might warm up
to them, but don't do beefs and I don't do melons.
I just have never really had very good luck with
watermelon or you know, honey do that type of a thing.
But otherwise everything else, you name it, I'm growing it.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Can you ferment beats? Maybe they taste better for you
that way.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Hey, that's a great question. Maybe I would like fermented beet.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
So how did you start? Did you have to buy
the seeds? And now do you keep reusing them?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So some plants do come back a perennial, mostly just herbs.
There's not much that survives our Minnesota winters. But yeah,
so I tend to grow all of my plants from seeds,
and I love high mowing seeds. That's my favorite seed supplier.
They're based out in Vermont. I've been using them exclusively
for yeah, probably eight years. And then the next level
(37:13):
would be saving your own seeds for the following year.
I do some of that, but not as much as
I would like. That is something that I'd love to
lean more into.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So you said that you've got a deer this year,
are you the plans to maybe someday have your own
livestock and some sort.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That was our initial plan when we first bought this place.
We were just kind of running ideas on what we
want to do with the place, what opportunities are there
for us. Then we were thinking cattle initially, you know,
maybe we'll get into farming, raise a head of cattle.
But then once we figured out that this is such
good hunting land. Our place came with somewhere between fifteen
(37:51):
and twenty deer stands. I'm not even sure exactly how
many there are, we thought we don't need to raise cattle.
We can just lean more into hunting and do deer
that way. And so I have a feeling that our
freezer is gonna look less like beef, pork, chicken, you know,
and look more like benefit and rabbit, you know, growth,
(38:14):
and start to really look more like wild game over
the years.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
What does a train look like.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
It's mostly wooded, I would say, we're ninety eight percent
just dense forest.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
And are you going to turn that into a kind
of a cash crop firewood in any way you're thinking
about that or down the road.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
So we did have to clear out a decent chunk
for the runway, so we already got that done this summer.
We had a logging company come out and that was nice,
made a little bit of profit, which then paid for
the excavator which we're going to use to pull out
all the stumps are left. Not a very good runway
right now, so we just move it all out. But yeah, yeah,
(38:54):
I don't think we'll clear much more. Though I love
the forest, I don't want to deserve it too much.
I still want to mean that natural habitat, and I
think that's an important thing to make too. When people
first here two hundred forty acres, their first thought is
that so much to maintain. And I don't want to
maintain two hundred forty acres. I want to leave most
(39:14):
of it wild and just be able to explore in it,
forage in it, and just keep you know, our immediate
areas around the house, you know, groomed if you will.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
How far is your nearest neighbor.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
So it's largely seasonal cabins around here. So we do
have a couple cabins that are I don't know how
far they would be, exactly half a mile or so.
Some of them are a little closer right across the street.
But as far as people that actually live here, ooh,
I would say our nearest living neighbor that is here
(39:48):
all the time. It's maybe three or four miles away.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
That's a good distance.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, we're okay with that. So there are people here sometime,
but not especially not this time of year. It's very
quiet right now.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Katie, what would be the big pie in the sky
dream project for you and your family and for others
that to want to follow in your footsteps?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So I think a big dream of mine that I
would absolutely love is to have a heated greenhouse. That
would just really open up the doors for us, especially
knowing how we have such a short growing season, and
so it's it's on our wish list. I'm hoping that
we'll build one. The goal to have one built onto
the house and you can just walk directly into it,
(40:30):
and then maybe I can grow my own centrists and
fun things like that. So that has been my dream forever.
We'll see if it happened, Katie.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
It was wonderful to talk to you. Thank you for
taking time of your very busy schedule to be with
us today.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Oh, You're so welcome. It was an honor to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
The Good Foods Podcast is that entertainment purposes only. The claims, comments, opinions,
or information heard should never be used in place of
your medical provider's advice or your doctor's direction. Thank you
for listening, Follow us on social media and wherever you
get your podcasts. Good health through good food, Good Foods
Grocery
Hello. This is Katie Crachie, the Homesteading RD and this
is the Good Foods Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
All of us are on a journey towards better health
and we're grateful that you've allowed us to join you
on your quest in this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I love fermentation at Delicious. It is so good for
us and it's easy, minimal equipment, you know, compared to
canning or freeze drying, where you need all these things
for this, all you need is salt water and a
container of some sort. And if the only type of
food preservation that actually increases the nutritional value.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
This is the Good Foods Podcast And now here's your host,
show Dan.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Welcome to the podcast. It's so nice to have this
chance to talk with you today.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Thank you so much for having me. It's going to
be such a fun chat today. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
So what was and where was life like for you
growing up? Did you come from a homesteadying background.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
My upbringing was very normal. I guess you could say
I just grew up in the suburbs, just in a
normal neighborhood. We didn't have a garden or anything, so
I am entirely self taught. My mom is a good
cook at least, you know, the cooking piece was instilled
in me early, and I feel like that's a good
(01:21):
core to anything. But as far as animal we only
had one dog growing up. For a little bit of time.
I had some fish, but that was about it. No chicken,
no livestock, no canning. My upbring was unique in some
respects though, in that I was homeschooled, and that was
(01:41):
before homeschooling was cool. My church had a big homeschooling
community and there are about one hundred families of us
there that homeschooled, so that was an unique part of
my upbringing. I was homeschooled for nine years, so from
second grade through tenth grade, and then I randomly decided
(02:01):
that I wanted to try high school. Why not, let's
give it a try, So my junior and senior years
went to It was a private high school, so it
wasn't totally jumping into, you know, a five hundred class
sized public high school. But yeah, I'm glad I did it.
I made a lot of great friends, and the friends
that I made in that high school are still my
(02:23):
best friend today.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So to be a successful homesteader, you've got to have
zero experience. Is that what you're telling me pretty much?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Or at least the willingness to learn and a willingness
to fail. I think those are the two key pieces
to being successful at home setting or anything really.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
So, what's the name of your farm or your place?
How do you how do you label it?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So I've been thinking that we don't have necessarily a
name for our property or the homestead. My business is
called the Homesteading RD, so I guess you could call
it that, But yeah, we need to think of a
good name for our actual property now that we've moved
in and we're settled at our new place.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, I would suggest the Good Foods Farm.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I'm just saying, Hey, that's a good one. I'll add
to the list.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
There you go. At the time of this recording, you've
been homesteadying for a decade, is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, about ten years. We bought our first homestead in
twenty thirteen, and that was on five acres and we
were there up until this spring when we moved.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
To our new place, which is where you are now, correct,
So how much acres do you have here?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So we upgraded from our five acre homestead to two
hundred and forty acres. We really kind of just went
for it.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Let's have zero experience at the beginning, and you know what,
let's try to do the entire North America. It's the acreage, right.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Our family motto is anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
We tend to overdo whatever we're passionate about may as well.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
So what did those early days look like like when
you first started, and did you capture it all on
video with the thoughts of posting it as it progressed.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, so home studing in general when we first bought
our plates than twenty thirteen, No, I did not post much.
I was just your normal person. I was just a
dietitian that worked at a hospital in downtown Saint Paul,
and I was doing my dietitian thing. And then when
I came home, I just did my gardening thing, got
(04:24):
some chickens, and kept that pretty private. I would sometimes
share little things on my own personal Facebook or Instagram account.
I didn't even think I had Instagram when I first
started home setting in twenty thirteen. I think it still
and Facebook at that time. Yeah, I was more just
sharing little bits with friends and families. I would bring
(04:44):
eggs to work to sell the coworkers, which was fun.
I was trying to get people into kombucha and I
would bring in my sour dough starter to work at
the hospital try and get people into it. But as
far as sharing, I didn't really truly start leaning into
the home steading r D I guess and create a
business around it until twenty twenty one when I quit
(05:07):
my hospital job and kind of had to reinvent myself
and create a new job.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
So you had met your husband and then you did
the homesteadying leap because there was a leap, Yes, how
did that come into the discussion? Did you just always
want to do this? Both of you wanted to do that?
How did that play out?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Great question? So we got married in two thousand and eight,
pretty young. I was just barely twenty one and I
was actually still in college and I had to finish
up college while he had moved to Kansas City to
do his first job. So we actually did a long
distant marriage for about six months, which is a little
crazy to think back at, but we did it. And yeah,
(05:50):
so our first house was just on a tiny little
city lot in Kansas City, and we knew that wasn't
going to be our forever home, but it was a
good starter home. And after we had been there about
four or five years, we started thinking what's next for us,
What do we really want to do. And my husband
did grow up on an acreage, so he does have
(06:11):
a little bit experience there. I wouldn't consider it a homestead.
It was more just an acreage and his parents would
rent out most of the land to neighboring farmers to
just do cash craps, so they didn't necessarily have chickens,
they didn't do a garden. It was just kind of
rural living. But he loved, you know, that part of
(06:34):
his life, just having space, being outdoors. And I always
loved visiting his parents when they were on the acreage.
And we both agreed, Yeah, that's what we want to do.
We want to get some land. And I already had
a little garden at that time in our little city lot,
and I wanted a bigger garden, so it only made sense.
So we started the search for We were really looking
(06:56):
for ten acres, but five acres is what we landed on.
Expensive and we were still starting from scratch, and we
found our little five acre property and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
So what does your life look like now for you
and mister Ryan and Zone three B.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, so things have changed dramatically in the last six months,
especially the last two years since quitting my conventional hospital job.
But now my husband still works his normal job, but
he can work remotely, which is great, so he still
does his normal you know, nine to five through the week,
but otherwise we're just doing all sorts of projects. It's
(07:36):
been a very crazy last few months since moving. In
June thirtieth is when we closed, so moving everything over
and then building the infrastructure. So the property that we
bought was just the seasonal hunting cabin, so no one
had lived here before and especially not in a homesteading sense,
(07:57):
so we had to create a chicken coop oop quickly
because we had to move all the chickens over. So
that was probably the biggest headache and just challenge on
how do we move forty chickens over? Well, actually it
was probably one hundred because we had our meat chickens too,
and then our egg laying chickens, and then I also
had my freshly hatched chicks, so we had basically three
(08:20):
groupings of chickens to move and then figure out housing
so my egg laying chickens ended up living in a
car port for many months surrounded by electric poultry netting,
and it worked for several months. I was really pleased
with how it worked, and that gave us some time
to finally build a true chicken coop. When just finding
(08:42):
places to put everything, we had to downsize quite a
bit if our infrastructure went. We went from a normal
house to a thousand square foot cabin, and my husband
had a six thousand square foot heated shop and then
we're down to two thousand square foot shot. So just
trying to figure out where to put all the projects
(09:02):
and tools, and after homesteading for ten years, you acquire
a lot of things and supplies, and we don't like
to throw anything away, so anytime we built something or
constructed something and had extra materials, we would save that
because you know, we could always use it down the road.
And then another big part that has really consumed a
(09:23):
lot of our time over the summer has been clearing trails.
So our property were so thankful that has had an
extensive trail system to kind of access everything. But this
past winter was really really challenging in our area. We
had record breaking snow and ice that really plastered a
(09:43):
lot of the trees flat. If you look at some
overhead views, it looks like hurricane damage or a tornado.
Everything's flattened and then it frozen to the ground and
stuck that way for months. And so when we first
moved in, we were like, yeah, we have two hundred
and forty, but we can't access any of it because
all the trails were completely closed in. So for day
(10:07):
it's solid four months there. We would get up at
five point thirty in the morning and go clear trails
for an hour or two. And it was a really
fun way to get some activity in and just explore
our land and get to know it in an intimate way.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
And you can get an overview because you've got a
new drone now right, Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It's in the mail. It should come tomorrow. I can't wait.
Everyone's been begging for an overhead view of everything and
it's coming.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah. We always want more, of course.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I can't wait to share it. I can't wait to
see it too.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Do you have ATVs? How do you access your land?
How does that play out?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So we did end up getting two different side by sides,
which has been absolute game changer. It's because our property
is about a mile long, so it's totally walkable, but
it takes a while. So if you need to get
somewhere quickly or just run, grab a tool, you know,
or go get more fuel for the chainsaw when you're
clearing trails, that really makes things a lot more accessible.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So is it just you Ryan, the dogs? You guys
for now?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
You got it? Yep, just that we're up to three
dogs now. We just adopted a third a couple of
weeks ago. His name is Tucker. So it's been fun
to have all the doggies and we'd love to head
out and do our pack walks and looking forward to
this winter doing cross country skiing along the trails.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
You have people working for you.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Nope, it's just the two of us and so we
have all long lifts of projects ahead of us. It's
going to keep us busy for a long time, that's
for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Before you even started doing this, and you know you
wanted the bigger space. What was from going from the
small acreage to you know, now over two hundred plus,
what was that thought process there? And is this the
forever home or is there is another spot? Is I
gotta be five hundred acres.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Great question. So I hope that this is where we'll
be forever. That's what I said with our first place,
our five acre homestead. We treated it like we were
going to be there forever and probably dumped way more
money in there than we should have looking back now
that we've moved. But no, this should be it. But
we will be building a forever home about half a
(12:17):
mile back on the property, so that will be something
up and coming down the road. We're probably going to
build a lot of it ourselves, just the two of us,
which will be fun. We just bought an excavator so
we can do some groundwork and everything and get that prepped.
So plan is to stay here again. Building the house
(12:38):
though will be a new change. And then we're going
to put in a runway, I hope. So my husband
has this private pilot's license, and that was the thought
behind or some of the thought and know why we
needed so much land. We needed enough space to put
in a full runway.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well that's not something you hear every day.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
No, definitely makes it unique and it's really kind to
open up doors for us. So my husband does travel
a lot for work in North and South Dakota, and
so having the plane makes work trips a whole lot
easier for him. And so he's been flying maybe six
years now, and we just currently rent some hangar space,
(13:19):
but now that hangar is about an hour away, so
it just doesn't really make a ton of sense where
it's located. So we're hoping to get the runway done,
build the airplane hangar, and move the plane over hopefully
by early summer.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Did you just want to be more self sufficient or
did you think early on that you wanted to teach
others how to live this way as well?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, so I've always had a drive to want to
be self sufficient from basically before we even got to
our first homestead. I've always been interested in anything to
be independent, whether like growlne food, preserve my own food,
learning how to fix things. I love to sew and
repair it myself. But once I quit my hospital job
(14:04):
and wanted to kind of start exploring some other avenue,
that's when I had the aha moment, like why don't
I take my passion and share that with others and
create a job out of that. And so that has
really bloomed beautifully and has opened a lot of doors
for us and cluing being able to move here. So
(14:25):
it's wonderful to have remote type work. I can do
it anywhere as long as I can create content, and
so it's just been such a blessing.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Well, Katie, fermenting carrots, I have never heard of such
a thing. How do they taste like? And how long
can they last in storage?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Great question? They are delicious. I love them. It's one
of our favorite snacks. I know it sounds odd, but
they still very much have a lot of that carrot
flavor and they still have a good crunch to them,
but they're a little bit more tangy, I guess, and
then I I like to add like lemon wedges or
garlic to kind of round out the flavor. They're really
(15:06):
good and they last about a year in storage in
the fridge.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You said something by putting a weight on it or
something that was on the top. Walk us through how
that goes.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah, So what you do is you slice up your
carrots and put them in a glass container ideally or
a crock at the have a fermentation crack, and then
you cover it with a brine so it's a salt
water solution, and then the key is to keep all
of your fermenting ingredients underneath submerged away from oxygen. Because
(15:37):
if oxygen, let's say a carrot floats up to the
surface and is exposed to oxygen, that risks for mold growth.
And so that glass weight that you put on top
just kind of pins everything down and then it ferments beautifully.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
So what else can you ferment? And what else have
you fermented? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I love fermentation. It's something that I just it's delicious,
it's so good for us, and it's easy, minimal equipment,
you know, compared to canning or freeze drying, where you
need all these things. For this, all you need is
salt water in a container of some sort. And it's
the only type of food preservation that actually increases the
(16:14):
nutritional value, where if you're freezing, if you're canning, you
lose some nutrition in the process, where fermentation is just awesome.
It actually makes more than nutrients bioavailable. But some of
my favorites are sauer kraut, kim chi I tried for
the first time this year. I'm pretty excited about that.
The fermented carrots, I do, fermented turnips. It's kind of
(16:38):
like sour kraut. And one that is surprising that actually
is good even though it doesn't sound good. It is
fermented eggplant. It looks terrible, that looks like mushy brown chunks,
but it actually tastes really good. Ah sure, I know,
maybe we'll say that one last, but you're feeling adventurous.
(17:02):
And then fermented hot sauce. That was another new one
that I tried this year.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
So last thing I'm fermenting. How long do you have
to wait?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
So it depends on what you're fermenting. It could be
as little as a few days or up to a
couple of weeks. Some things need to ferment a bit
a little bit longer, and then you put it in
the fridge. Just low down the fermentation process and just
kind of hold it so once it goes in the fridge,
it's usually good for up to a year.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
All right, Well, here's the math section of your questionnaire.
Percentage wise, how much would you say you get from
the grocery store or feed store versus what you take
care of on your own.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I would say as far as vegetables go, ninety percent.
You know, occasionally I'll go get some you know, bell
peppers or something if I'm short, you know, But in citrus,
I guess that's one thing I can't grow. I do
still buy citrus occasionally, but prode for pretty much that meat.
(17:57):
We groweral meat chickens or razoral meat chickens, and then
we're leaning into hunting more now that we have the
land to do it on. So we got a deer
this fall, which is awesome. So between the deer and
then meat chickens that we raise, i'd say that's probably
half of our meat. So I'm still outsourcing from local
CSAs beef, pork, and I guess salmon.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You'll probably see that percentage go towards your advantage over the.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Years, right, correct, Yep. Every year we should keep getting
more and more self sufficient, which is really exciting.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Do you have a network of other homesteaders that you
communicate with around the country or maybe even around the world.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, I have a handful
of friends that I've gotten close with on the Instagram platform,
and actually I got to meet a handful of them
a few weeks ago at a local event, which was
really fun. I haven't yet been to any homesteading events
I hope too. I know there's a few big ones
throughout the year, So that would be really fun to
(19:01):
make more connection because that's someplace that's an area that
I went to lean more into.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
So how have the friends and family responded through this
journey of yours.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I'd say pretty positively. We've always kind of Brian and
I have been unique, I guess, a very gold driven
and we just do things against the mainstream. I guess
since the beginning of time. It wasn't a shock to anyone,
and they're like, well, of course you're doing this, and
they've all been really excited and have come out here
(19:31):
a few times. So it's so fun to show our
land to our friends and they've even helped with some
of the trail clearing. And yeah, it's just been really
nice and so thankful to have supportive family that understand,
you know, what we're doing and why.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
So if you want to have something or prepare something,
Let's take the Elderberry's syrup which I saw you posting
on Instagram. Yeah, before you grew the Elderberries, if you
wanted said syrup, did you settle for going out and
buying some at the store. Did you just buckle up
and say, you know, we're raising them this year and
then next year we'll have them. How does that work?
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah? So for all the very specifically, I was lucky
that we had them growing naturally on our property at
our five acre homestead at a pretty common bush I
guess here in Minnesota, and so they were there, so
it was easy to just grab them. But I'm going
to have to get creative. I've searched high and low
at our new property. I thought for sure i'd find some.
(20:28):
I have not been able to find any. So I'm
going to need to locate some cuttings and get some planted.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Other than the gardening, what was the first thing you
did in the house, like fermentation or you know, canning,
What was the first thing indoors that you did one
of the first things you did.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I would say canning for sure. I did that pretty
early on. I think I even did canning at our
first house when we were at our first tiny house,
I think, And it's some grape jelly. I decided to
grow some grapes up our chain link fence and harvest
and those otherwise sewing that's always been, you know, a
passion of mine and just learning how to be creative.
(21:09):
There and fix things, and I even just sewed our
normal clothes for quite a while to save money.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
When you can something, how long can it last or
how long until you have to use it or read it?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I always try to eat mine up within a year,
but I think it does last longer. I want to
say two years. It's a shelf lifeline home canned food.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And how do you store it? You have to store
it all like in a freezer refrigerator or does.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
It matter just on the shelf if it's properly canned
in a shelf stable, which is awesome.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
So how do you keep track of everything, of what
you're growing, of your projects? Do you have some kind
of a system? Do you just kind of wing it?
I'm sure you don't win it.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I'm glad you asked, because I actually have made
my system open to the public, and so I have
what's called the Oldtimate Homestead Planner and it's available on
Etsy if anyone wants to go check it out, and
it has I think there's over two hundred pages in
there of all the different organization sheets that you could
ever want. So I have calendars in there. I use
(22:14):
that quite a bit, different inventory sheets, so the end
of the season, I write down how many canned goods
I have of each kind, what's in the freezer. I
can figure out what runs out, what I have extra of,
so I can tweak and make my goal for my
numbers for preservation for the next year. Different chicken spreadsheets
(22:35):
you can keep track of your flock and chicken wish lists,
and there's all sorts of fun things in there.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So how does somebody search for you on Etsy?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So my store is called the Homesteading RD. If you
just type in homestead planner or Ultimate homestead Planner, it
should pop up as one of the top results.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Katie, what was like something that you thought of making
or creating and when it finally was completed even you
were impressed with the outcome? M I.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Again.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Our family motto is anything worth doing is worth overdoing,
So we got the bar high for pretty much anything.
But i'd see. Our most impressive project that I dearly
miss is what we called the Poultry Palace. So that
was the chicken coop that we built maybe four years
(23:28):
ago now, so I only got to you that for
a handful of years before we moved. But it's essentially
a house that we built for the chickens, and it
was like a two story structure, multiple rooms. It was
gorgeous chandelier in there, the whole bit. You know.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
I just have this really, I hope someday that if
you want children, you and Ryan are blessed children. I
just have this bad feeling of your son doing something
really stupid and going, hey, anything worth doing is worth Oh,
we're doing right, and you're gonna be like, no to.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Your room Absoletely, you can't use it that way. Good
things though, Like.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
It doesn't work for children.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, but we are planning on making poultry Palace number
two at some point at our build site whenever we're
ready to start kind of developing that area. But for now,
just using a repurposed garden shed is what we're using
for the chickens right now.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
What would you say is one of the more common
reasons that people tell you that they can't do this,
or what intimidates them the most.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
That's a great question. I would say that people say
they don't have time or space the homestead, and those
are legitimate, you know reasons. I get that, But I
think the important message they always try to put out
there is that even though it doesn't look like a
(24:53):
milk cow and canning one hundred percent of your food,
there's still small steps that you can make no matter
where you're at in your journey. I would say that
I was starting my homestead journey in our small city lot,
you know, again, just growing grapes of our chain link fence.
Instead of landscaping with decorative plants, I landscaped with herbs.
(25:16):
Why not just PLoP those in there, and instead of
some ornamental tree in your sideyard, put in an apple tree.
And even things like canning and food preservation. You don't
even need a garden to do that. You can go
to a farmer's market when support your local farmers, get
it when it's in season, and a good deal, bite
in bulk, and start canning and learn those skills of
(25:40):
food preservation.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
You have online courses on how to become self sufficient,
Tell me about those.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, I have three courses, so two are pretty comprehensive courses,
and then I have a mini course. So my first
one is called how to plant a Garden Step by step.
That really stemmed from the need that I was getting
from my community that the garden planning part is a headache,
and I get it. It still kind of stresses me
(26:07):
out every winter when I'm sitting down and planning out
my garden, and especially for a beginner, where you're like,
should I do raise beds? Should I do an in
ground garden? Do I need to test my soil? Like
what is the best kind of compost to add? What
plants should be planted next to what which plant should
I grow? There's just a lot of questions there, and
(26:28):
so that course is centered around just walking you through
in a step by step fashion, exactly what you need
to think about to create the best garden for you.
So that one's been very popular, it's been a fun one.
And then my second course is all about raising meat chicken,
so especially the butchering part, because I can't show that
(26:51):
on social media. My account would probably be closed down
if I'm showing active butchering videos. And so I knew
I wanted to teach you there's a need for it.
And it's kind of scary, you know, to take a
life if you're not used to that didn't grow up
on a farm, and so you want to do it
the most humane way possible. And so my course kind
(27:12):
of walks you through the whole processing part, but everything
ahead of that too. So even just what breed you raise,
there's a lot of different options out there based on
your monetary goal. They can be really cheap to raise
or really expensive to raise, depending on what you want.
Even a health aspects or the nutritional value of that
(27:33):
meat depends quite a bit on the breed, how it's raised,
what it's fed, all of those things. So I kind
of walk my students through all those big decisions. Where
to get feed, what kind of feed, how to house them.
So they are totally different from an egg chicken, So
you're not going to keep them out in the coop,
you know. With the egg chickens. I raise them separately,
(27:56):
and we personally use what's called chicken tractors. They're kind
of temporary structures that just like a big flat square,
I guess, and we move them to fresh grass every day.
So they need to be strong enough to resist predators,
but also light enough that they are easy to move
every day. So it's a very delicate balance to get
(28:17):
it right.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
So what are you going to do, because I have
an idea for you, what are you going to do
with the cabin Once you build the real forever home.
I mean, are you going to have is the cabin
going to be for maybe some in person maybe week
long you know, retreats where you learn things from Katie
on the spot.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
It could very well be. I have those ideas rolling around.
I think that would be awesome. I also have ideas
of Airbnb, just to kind of help generate some extra income,
you know, overflow for gifts. So so many opportunities and
who knows, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
You can have two chair prices airbnbbs just want to
stay your Airbnb and you want to help us in
the garden. It's this price now.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, I love that idea.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
From packages, that's right. So when I saw the courses,
I didn't see a course on teaching people how to
grow an internet based business because I think you've accomplished
something pretty amazing with that and now there's a market
for that. So yeah, I just added more possible word
to your list.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, I think that's a great idea. It might be
something that I'm interested in developing and sharing what works
for me, Because you're right, it is kind of crazy
for me to think back that just two years ago,
a little bit longer than that now I was staring
from scratch, and honestly, my first year in my business
it was really slow too. I think I lost three
(29:37):
thousand dollars my first year of starting this business. So
it's definitely a commitment. You have to stick with it
and have another source of income while you're building it,
which means you're doing this on evenings and weekends, which
I did for a whole year. It was exhausting, but
now that I'm on the other side, it was worth it.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Well, maybe you start small. You have a little tab
that says, you know, hire me as your consultant. Yeah,
you can answer questions, you know, help people out there.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, absolutely so, I think there's a lot of opportunity there.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So how would you help someone other than the suggestions
you've made that lives in a you know, the heart
of a major metropolitan area or in a food desert
and they want to start, even in the smallest of ways,
to do what you and Ryan do. How would you
guide them?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, So, if this person has some land, even just
like you know, a patio, something to do growing something,
if they can, whether it's some containers or vertical garden,
if they don't have access to that, I highly recommend
looking into community garden so those are really starting to
spring up where there's hopefully a location semi nearby where
(30:43):
you can go and do a shared garden plot and
grow a little bit there. Otherwise, if that's not an option,
I highly recommend partnering with a local TDSA so you
can get seasonal produce from them, or go to a
local farmer's market and just really trying to get basically
closer to our food source instead of getting produce that
(31:05):
was shipped up from Mexico at the grocery store and
it is probably at least a week old. Trying to
get fresh stuff it's more nutrient dent. I have that
traveled halfway across the globe. And yeah, just getting connected
with your local community I think is important and supporting them.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
What's the farthest is someone has been that's reached out
to you for advice or just to check in.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
All over the world. Really, I have quite a few
course students, even some in Australia. Yeah, it's so fun.
That's the beauty of an online business as you can
reach people anywhere.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
What is your day, like, let's start there, when does
the day end? Then when does it start, and what
does it look like like? What do you have going
on today besides you know the several podcasts that you're doing.
I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
So it depends on the season. For sure. Is it's
winter and out mid December, so things are a lot
lower as far as the homesteading chores. So for today,
for example, or usually early risers and let me go
to bed early. So usually when five point thirty we're
up and it's kind of slow morning. I like to
spend a little bit of time reading my Bible and
(32:12):
spending time with God. And then this morning I spent
time editing a YouTube video, so I'm working on kind
of building up our YouTube channel. So that's been fun.
And then I did some chicken chores, went out there,
fad sure everyone's still alive and stay warm, fresh water,
through some treats out there, got eggs, and then check
(32:34):
some email. It's not as exciting as it is in
this summer. And then here we are. I ate lunch
and now it's podcasts, and then afterwards I'm going to
take the dogs out for a pack walk. We'll do
a big loop around the property. They're all antsy and
need some exercise, so that'll be fun, and then tonight
probably get back into the kitchen room model and get
(32:56):
back to painting cabinets.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
You say early bedtime, what's early bedtime?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Usually around nine o'clock. That's when we're shutting down for sure.
But I think tonight is going to be super exciting.
We just got a new to us hot tub and
it is officially up to temperature. We filled it up yesterday.
We found it on Facebook marketplace hot tubs. We had
one at our old homestead and it's even I'm not
a huge fan of the chemicals, like half me hates
(33:22):
it for that reason, but it's just such a great
extension of the house in the wintertime. It's easy to
get stir crazy in the wintertime here in Minnesota, and
it just feel like it's so refreshing when we're out there.
It's a good time for us to just sit and
chat and then relax. We're so physically active that I
feel like one of us has pulled something at any
(33:42):
given time, and it really just helps repair. So looking
forward to with soap tonight.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
What do you have on the list that's like the
most fun to do and on the list that you've
really dread doing, but both you have to do. What
are those things?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
So we both love building. That is our jam. We
just get so excited and we work well together. So
really looking forward to you know, the house build and
like the chicken coot build was really fun. Of course,
I love anything in the garden that's good time in there.
But as far as the things that I don't look
(34:18):
forward to, I guess really tedious stuff like right now
the kitchen cabinets, having to fill in the grain and
standing a million times. That stuff isn't very much fun,
I guess, But most of it is fun. Like I
love mowing. Ryan loves mowing too. We actually have to
fight over mowing most of the time and who gets
to do it. But we just love anything outside, so
(34:44):
there isn't too much we don't like that we absolutely despise.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I guess, are you guys fight over the mower? Okay?
Where else?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Pretty much?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
How big is the garden? What do you grow? What's
the size of the garden.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
My garden is like twenty five by fifty. I wanted
it to be a little bit bigger, but we had
to frantically put it in. It was actually a blessing,
so we were We didn't close on our new property
until June thirtieth, which is pretty late to start a garden,
(35:16):
and especially in Minnesota where everything freezes by mid September,
so we don't have a lot of gardening time. Our
windows pretty short, and so thankfully the previous owner allowed
us to come in a month early, so end of
May to put my garden in at least, And so
my parents came over to and it was a big
family event. We got the tailor and got it all in,
(35:39):
so we did as much as we could. But it's
feeling a little tight. I would like it bigger, like usual.
I've always tried to add onto the garden, but I
think what's going to be perfect is I'm going to
leave that garden space as is, even after we moved
back to our final spot. So I'll put in a
new garden by our new house while we put that in,
(36:01):
but I think I'll leave this one down here for
extra overflow space.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
And what do you have in the garden? What do
you grow?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. I guess a
better question is what do I not grow?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Okay, what excuse me? What do you leave out?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I think I grow pretty much everything except for beet.
Neither of us like beets. Someday I might warm up
to them, but don't do beefs and I don't do melons.
I just have never really had very good luck with
watermelon or you know, honey do that type of a thing.
But otherwise everything else, you name it, I'm growing it.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Can you ferment beats? Maybe they taste better for you
that way.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Hey, that's a great question. Maybe I would like fermented beet.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
So how did you start? Did you have to buy
the seeds? And now do you keep reusing them?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So some plants do come back a perennial, mostly just herbs.
There's not much that survives our Minnesota winters. But yeah,
so I tend to grow all of my plants from seeds,
and I love high mowing seeds. That's my favorite seed supplier.
They're based out in Vermont. I've been using them exclusively
for yeah, probably eight years. And then the next level
(37:13):
would be saving your own seeds for the following year.
I do some of that, but not as much as
I would like. That is something that I'd love to
lean more into.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So you said that you've got a deer this year,
are you the plans to maybe someday have your own
livestock and some sort.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That was our initial plan when we first bought this place.
We were just kind of running ideas on what we
want to do with the place, what opportunities are there
for us. Then we were thinking cattle initially, you know,
maybe we'll get into farming, raise a head of cattle.
But then once we figured out that this is such
good hunting land. Our place came with somewhere between fifteen
(37:51):
and twenty deer stands. I'm not even sure exactly how
many there are, we thought we don't need to raise cattle.
We can just lean more into hunting and do deer
that way. And so I have a feeling that our
freezer is gonna look less like beef, pork, chicken, you know,
and look more like benefit and rabbit, you know, growth,
(38:14):
and start to really look more like wild game over
the years.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
What does a train look like.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
It's mostly wooded, I would say, we're ninety eight percent
just dense forest.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
And are you going to turn that into a kind
of a cash crop firewood in any way you're thinking
about that or down the road.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
So we did have to clear out a decent chunk
for the runway, so we already got that done this summer.
We had a logging company come out and that was nice,
made a little bit of profit, which then paid for
the excavator which we're going to use to pull out
all the stumps are left. Not a very good runway
right now, so we just move it all out. But yeah, yeah,
(38:54):
I don't think we'll clear much more. Though I love
the forest, I don't want to deserve it too much.
I still want to mean that natural habitat, and I
think that's an important thing to make too. When people
first here two hundred forty acres, their first thought is
that so much to maintain. And I don't want to
maintain two hundred forty acres. I want to leave most
(39:14):
of it wild and just be able to explore in it,
forage in it, and just keep you know, our immediate
areas around the house, you know, groomed if you will.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
How far is your nearest neighbor.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
So it's largely seasonal cabins around here. So we do
have a couple cabins that are I don't know how
far they would be, exactly half a mile or so.
Some of them are a little closer right across the street.
But as far as people that actually live here, ooh,
I would say our nearest living neighbor that is here
(39:48):
all the time. It's maybe three or four miles away.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
That's a good distance.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, we're okay with that. So there are people here sometime,
but not especially not this time of year. It's very
quiet right now.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Katie, what would be the big pie in the sky
dream project for you and your family and for others
that to want to follow in your footsteps?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So I think a big dream of mine that I
would absolutely love is to have a heated greenhouse. That
would just really open up the doors for us, especially
knowing how we have such a short growing season, and
so it's it's on our wish list. I'm hoping that
we'll build one. The goal to have one built onto
the house and you can just walk directly into it,
(40:30):
and then maybe I can grow my own centrists and
fun things like that. So that has been my dream forever.
We'll see if it happened, Katie.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
It was wonderful to talk to you. Thank you for
taking time of your very busy schedule to be with
us today.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Oh, You're so welcome. It was an honor to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
The Good Foods Podcast is that entertainment purposes only. The claims, comments, opinions,
or information heard should never be used in place of
your medical provider's advice or your doctor's direction. Thank you
for listening, Follow us on social media and wherever you
get your podcasts. Good health through good food, Good Foods
Grocery
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.