October 17, 2025 • 54 mins
Episode twelve of Food, Flowers, & Fun: Visits with farm women from around the world features Gail Hunsberger of Tumble-Tails Farm as we discuss:
- Using soap derby skills to restore a condemned property
- Creating a judgment-free safe haven
- Healing bodies, minds, and hearts
- Letting go
- Much, much more!
You will love this nurturing and energizing farmer!
Connect with Gail at:
- Website: https://www.tumble-tails-farm.com/
- Instagram: @tumbletails_farm
- Facebook: @TumbleTailsFarm22
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghunsberger/
Connect with K at:
- Website: https://www.penlightfarmers.com
- YouTube: @k.castrataro3466
- Facebook and Instagram: @penlightfarmers
- Podcast (audio): https://www.penlightfarmers.com/podcast
- Podcast (video): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIVBn53rrIsTwS4ag6hH4DHnxG_Lxqt7x
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:01):
Are you a fan of soapbox derbies, omelets and hot
showers? So are we! Join today'sepisode of Food, Flowers and
Fun, where I talk with GailHunsberger of Tumble-Tails Farm
about these and much, much more.As always, we are sponsored by
Pen Light for Farmers, equippingfarmers with more time, energy
(00:24):
and abundance.
if you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
(00:49):
Get away from the cares of theday. Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed stock. Chat withwomen around the world to raise
food, flowers and fun with yourhost, K Castrataro, that's me.
Welcome back everybody to Food,Flowers and Fun: Visits with
(01:10):
farm women from around theworld. I am your host, K
Castrataro, and today we havethe amazing Gail Hunsberger with
us from Tumble-Tails Farm inPennsylvania. She has such a
varied background, she is like amedevac nurse, and has just been
doing amazing things on her farmwith animal assisted therapy.
(01:31):
And so we're going to just turnright over and say, welcome
Gail. How are you today? Verygood. How are you I'm great, and
I'm totally envious of yourlocation.
By the way, for those of you whodon't yet know Gail, Gail has a
BNB, yes, yes, she does. So youtoo could go and hang out on her
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amazing property.
I just want you to be able toget a glimpse. Everybody be able
to see the farm, a little bit ofit behind me, you might see
piggies and goats kind of startbantering over there, a dog or
two might walk by. So just alittle glimpse of what it looks
(02:15):
like here. So so tell us how youended up there.
I had gotten divorced in 2015,
did two years in the transitionhouse, like some people do, to
find out who I am, what I wantand everything. And I decided my
dream was I'd always wanted anold farmhouse. I wanted a farm
(02:39):
and I wanted to fix her upperbecause I love doing that stuff.
So I bought a condemned propertyand a condemned house that was
falling down and collapsing onitself, and, yeah, and lived in
a camper and the little logcabin that I'm sitting next to
right now for about a year and ahalf till everything froze
(03:02):
solid, at which point I grabbeda mattress and went into the
house and slept inside in frontof the wood stove that is in
there. Mind you, the front ofthe house is still not on,
you know, potato technicalities.So that's how it came about, and
(03:26):
here we are, eight years later,and it is
beyond anything I thought itcould come to. And I am just
blown away that I get to shareit with so many people. So I'm
just going to start off and say,you know, as a fellow divorcee,
(03:46):
the divorce process is bothterrifying and horrifying, and
it can be completelyrejuvenating. So it's like kind
of that best of times, worst oftimes, sort of thing, depending
on how you both how you got tothe stage of divorce and also
what you do with it afterwards.Because, as you know, it's not
(04:09):
what happens to us that makes useither grow or shrink back. It's
what we do with what happens tous. And so I'm looking at what
you did, and, you know, I feltreally bold, because I, you
know, started a podcast,
you bought a condemned farm.
(04:34):
So now, now I'm like, wow,that's, that's amazing. Like, I
don't know how you did that, soI would like to know a little
bit of the details on that,because the idea of renovating a
a condemned property just soundslike a nightmare to me, one
of those things that I don'thave all of those skills,
(04:55):
neither do I want to learn themall like i i can do basic
demolition.
I can do basic construction, butI don't want to go beyond that.
So how much of this did you doyourself? How much did you have,
like support team? How did youhow did you do all that? I can
honestly say at this point, if Ithrow the barn in, because I did
(05:16):
not do the barn myself, I didhalf of it, but not the whole
thing, I would say probably 75to 80% of the work I did here
myself.
Wow, so what? What skills didyou have before you bought the
farm that that made you feellike you were equipped to do
this? Um, so I grew up. I'mactually a Philly girl, so I'm a
(05:40):
city girl who just wasaccidentally born in the city,
and need to get back out to thecountry where her heart was and
but we used to race. And somepeople know what they are.
They're called soapbox Derbycars, yeah. And so back when I
was involved with it, youliterally built the car from
scratch. So I learned how to usemy dad taught us how to use
(06:04):
power tools and big, giant saws,industrial saws, and how to do
things. And it stuck with me.And my dad always left as we got
older. You know how dad's andmoms, they give you cash because
they can't figure out what inthe world you want at this point
in time. So hear that mom anddad, cash, cash.
(06:29):
Buy what you want. So me, I buypower tools. I was buying
chainsaw.
Well, buying my chainsaw was oneof the most fun things I did.
Yeah, it is, like, amazing. SoI, I had the knack on how to do
it, like baseline. And I alsocame in here with the concept
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that I was not going to havethis be work. This was going to
be me. This was going to be fun.This was going to be growth for
the property for myself and thepeople around me, and I use
those that to just keep goingand just look at it and be like,
(07:18):
oh, I want that this way, and Iwant that this way. But there is
also things that I'm like,Alright, there's things we can
control in life. There's thingswe can't. So for one, one little
fun. Oh, my favorite story is Igo and
show up with radiators from aold, old, old house down in
(07:44):
Chester County. So I show upwith these ginormous, 1000 pound
radiators, and I bring themhere, and I get them the H back
guys. I thought they were gonnaI thought they were gonna take
me down. I was like, they'relike, What are those?
Where did you even find theseantiques? I got all kinds of
(08:07):
antiques. I got it off of letgo. There was a let go of way
before Facebook marketplace,there was an app called let go.
And so, yeah, I wound up gettingthem. And I got all these
radiators. And the guys arelike, seriously. I'm like,
seriously, this house, there'sno radius. It needs these
(08:30):
radiator needs it. What? What?Farmhouse doesn't have radiators
in it to put your gloves onafter you've been out playing,
and they got it warm, and they,you know, come on, is my
automatic towel rack in mybathroom and heats them right
up.
So in the process of doing thatagain, mind you that the people
(08:52):
I did hire, I've actually knownmost of them since I was a
child. So they just own theirown businesses and everything
now. So they're accustomed todealing with you. They're like,
they're like, Yep, all right,father's daughter got it, okay,
I got that. I got that. So theproblem is, when you bring
(09:12):
something from somewhere else tothen try and retrofit into your
place what you imagine may notwork. So most people will be
like, to a contractor, you gotto figure it out. I want it
exactly here at this point inthat spot, and done it. And they
were like, I was like, I don'tknow what sizes need to heat up,
(09:36):
what size room. I don't knowwhat it'll be. Too big. What'll
be, what? Whatever we don't use,I'll just resell. It's not a big
deal. And they were going backand forth, and they're like, a
couple times. They're like, thisisn't going to work over here.
I'm like, well, where will itwork and what will make it the
easiest for you to do? Andthey're like, well, right here
(09:58):
in the thing. And I was like,alright, so put it.
There. They actually didn't knowwhat to do with that, which to
me is hysterical, because I'mlike, well, well, you just said
it doesn't really work to do itthere, and it works to do it
there, so do it there. And like,they literally were like,
(10:21):
I'm like, No, seriously, child.It's like a child, when they
come and they ask you if theycan use their tech, and you're
like, Sure, okay. And they'relike, wait, wait, really, you
said Yes,
Mom, at least these are my kids.When I say yes to tech, it's and
I thought, and there wasdifferent things, you know,
around the house. And they'relike, look, you know, the one
(10:42):
room we had to take it down, andthe one room at one point had
been on fire, and so, yeah, atsome point. And there it's
again, an old, old, old housewith additions onto it, like
they would do. And theirquestion was, do you want it
functional or squared? I waslike, like, functional would be
(11:08):
good. They're like, great,because there ain't one thing in
this that we can have a straightwall off those old houses are
bad there. I've, I've lived inin turn of the scent like 1860s
type farmhouses. And, no, aftera certain amount of time,
nothing, nothing is square, likeyours aren't square. Walls
(11:28):
aren't square, like the factthat they're all standing up,
is, is good enough. Is, isbonus, right, right? And this is
stone and log cabin. Oh, my. Soyou're even more limited, other
than to the one section that wasa
concrete tower, kind of abuilding onto it, but that's,
(11:49):
that was my attitude. I'm like,the minute it felt like work, I
stopped and walked away. I like,if I get frustrated, and I'm
feeling like, I I have to, andI'm working and everything, I
walked away, and everythingabout it was like, Okay, what
works, and what do you think,and what do you envision? And
you know, really incorporatingthe workers into the process,
(12:13):
versus me being dominant in Iwant this this way, and I want
this that way. And so much ofsociety is kind of like that,
because it's like, no, I askedyou for this. I want this. And
there's times it's like, well,it doesn't work. So what are we
going to do about that? Like wewere saying earlier, it's like,
what do we do with thatinformation? Right? So
(12:36):
basically, that went on for along time. I scrapped,
and I scrapped and recycled andprobably made myself a good
extra 15, $20,000 to put towardsthe house and other things that
I've been able to upgradebecause of scrapping and
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everything.
And just, you know, friendswould come. My sister and her
two boys talk about the bestaunt ever, who gives, who gives
an eight and nine year oldsledgehammers, and says, go to
town. Yep,
you know. So I did that with mykids. We had, the former owners
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of our property had turned theupstairs of our barn into, like
they call it a man cave, but ithad, like this bar set up, and
all this kind of stuff, which Idon't drink, and the and the bar
was not quite square anywhere.You know that many stories
probably behind how that bar gotput up, but it was risingly
Solid. Let me tell you, like forsomething that did not look like
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it should be solid. Tearing thatdown was not easy. I did the
same thing. I I gave my kidshammers and sledgehammers, and I
was like, go to it. Let's find
let's, let's fast forward, wherein this process did you end up
bringing the animals in, and howdid you get into
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animal assisted therapy? So Iwas finally in the house, so
that's got to be two years intoit. Then at that point, the
outside of the property wasstill a hot, hot mess. And the
gentleman I'm seeing and his exwife were selling their farm,
(14:32):
and
I would was up there, and I waslike, What are you doing with
these two horses? And they'relike, We don't know yet.
Everybody else was a border. Sothey had had four horses of
their own. And so I wound upbringing the two, my two white
horses down. They're bothcrossbreed drafts, and Luna and
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Libby came down here. I had amakeshift.
Fencing set up to which theybroke out of all the time.
And my yard what then became,because I got tired of trying to
keep them in the backfield, andmy yard became pasture, pasture,
and I had the pleasure offeeding them. I'd sit in my bay
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windows and I'd open them and Iwould feed them carrots out
through the bay windows. I put adog door on. They kept trying to
open the dog door and everythingso that that's how they wound up
here.
And I had an idea beforehand,especially when I bought the
(15:38):
place it let literally when Ipulled in the driveway,
well, when I pulled up to whatwas going to be a driveway, I
should say it, it hugged me. AndI was like, oh, there's, there's
power here.
Yeah,
there is a lot of energy,positive energy. And that's when
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I was like, you know, this couldeasily be a judgment free safe
haven to for people to come to
and just
let go of whatever's here. Andthen I explored more into it,
and decided to get a mastercertification in
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human animal bonds. And throughthat, it's all based on trauma,
informed care and what we dowith it. And so it just kept
evolving, kind of the same asthe House and the property. It
just evolved into
what it is now. And I now havefour horses, four goats, two
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pigs, two dogs
and a partridge in a pear tree,you know.
But that's it. I just let itgrow, I let it be and let it
just take its own shape. Yeah,and the house was the same way.
(17:10):
It's like, okay, I have somewhatof a vision,
but if it didn't work, then thatdidn't work. You know, like the
radiators, okay? So the way Iwas gonna put the beds in the
room. Won't work. I'll changethem around, and I'll figure it
out. And, you know, trial anderror. And it's been the same
with here. It's like, okay,let's try this that doesn't
(17:31):
work. Let's try that, you know,and
getting people to people whocame
to just see what I was up to,
like, fell in love. And they'relike, this place is the energy
here. And I'm like, right,right? And they're like, Okay,
now we see what you felt andsaw. And I was like, exactly
(17:54):
like, who would I was? Like,that's the whole thing with this
place. It's just like, oh, comehere. Got you. And so this is
the end game of my
35
year nursing career, to be hereand help other nurses and other
people who've dealt with traumain their lives, and do it
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through interaction withanimals, because you can tell
the animal you're a whole darnlife story, and I guarantee they
are not calling anyone andratting you out.
Right, right? So you know, youtalk about us, you know,
judgment free safe haven.Alright? There you go. They're
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they're not calling your boss.They're not calling your you
know, ex husband. They're notcalling anyone you know to rat
you out. They're just going tobe there with you and be present
with you
to work through what you need toget out and through that, people
start talking, and once theystart talking all of us, that
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weight comes off your shouldersand you're like,
oh, I want to share more. Andwhat does that look like? Now we
go back to being nervous again.Now we go and have a
conversation, you know, and justslowly work with people to get
to a place that they're biggerin the world than they've been,
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you know, and they're out ofhere, and they're like, oh, I
can feel my heart beating. Oh, Ican feel the breathing I can Oh,
that is, that is nerves in mybelly, you know? It's, it really
takes its own shape, and it'scompletely individualized.
But to go back to your question,it literally just grew and grew
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and grew on its own. Again,started off with I had a therapy
dog and two horses, you know.And.
Now we got this, so I'm gonna,I'm gonna jump in a little bit
here, because,
you know, I growing up on amulti generational farm, and
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knowing a lot of farmers, ourfarms don't always feel like
that place of respite for us,like I have had many, many
experiences where people come onto visit the farm and they're
like, Oh, this is so beautiful.It's so restful, it's so
peaceful. And the farmerthemselves is like, What in the
(20:31):
world this is? This is a placeof chaos, and we're always going
non stop, exhausting. And yes,we love it, and yes, it's
beautiful. And it is not alwayspeaceful. And so I'm wondering,
I'm just thinking about thefarmers who might be listening
to this and might not have thesame kind of background in both
(20:55):
therapy type stuff, but also whonot be feeling about their farm.
I'm wondering if you could speakto that a little bit like, how
is it that we can maybe, andyou're completely unprepared for
this, because this question cameto me while we're talking. I
love it, but I'm just wonderingif you, if you can, you know,
give us, give us some ways thatwe can kind of reconnect with
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that life giving force of ourfarms, even when sometimes they
can be the thing that seems likeit's sucking the life out of us.
So what I encourage and what Itake out into the world is two
things. One, there's a positivein every negative. Okay, so the
positive is, you have a farm,you have beautiful land, you
(21:43):
grow beautiful vegetables. Youhelp feed the world. You help,
you know, provide to yourcommunity immediately. And then
further on, for some of thelarger, larger farmers.
And second,
what word would take for you andmake it not work? You know,
(22:09):
people go to the office. Think,I think New York City, you go in
is like, everybody's there yougo, and you're like,
I can do this, you know, and Istill work full time as a nurse
in a hospital, and so that chaosis there as well. And so I
(22:30):
go in there and just, I'm like,Okay, it's going to be it's
going to be okay. And you justgot to talk yourself into what
your day is going to look like.And in going in there, yes, it
can be utter chaos. And yeah,the farmer, you come out, and
many of us have come out, andthe fields are completely
(22:50):
flooded, and it's like, well,not getting that part done
today. And you can either chooseto get frustrated, or you can
choose to be like, All right,well, I've been wanting to work
on this over here instead. I'mgoing to go do that instead,
because there's nothing you doabout a flooded field. You're
certainly not taking a tractorout into it. And there's always
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something to be done. So findinga
a way within yourself to stopmaking it work. Stop making it
about I have to and down to thedollars, and down to how much am
I going to make? And up theregoes a whole, you know, months
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worth of tomatoes. There goesthis, there goes that,
to and fill out and be like, Allright? Well, I enjoy sitting on
my tractor and driving aroundand doing the hay and looking at
the sky and the beauty of it,and just letting yourself enjoy
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who you are in the moment. Yeah,and
just take it with you and thinkabout the things that made you
want to stay a farmer, becausesome way along the lines, you
chose to be like, you know, Iwant to be a farmer. I want to
still do this. No, my uncle is84
(24:16):
years old, and I love him. Wehave dinner once a week, and
they ran a beef farm for awhile. He's got 30 acres. He ran
they did vegetables, and theywould do a vegetable stand and
all of that. And now he's doinghoney and like you can't take
(24:38):
the farmer out of him, becausehe has such a love for doing it,
and
it's just the most beautifulthing. He'll be like, we're not
doing hay next year. We're notdoing this, we're not doing
that. And I'll show up for, youknow, dinner. And he'll be like,
Well, I only planted 75 tomatoplants this year, and 50
(24:59):
peppers. And.
I'm like, well, it's better thanthe 450
we used to and I'm like,alright, good, good. What do you
need help with? You know, where,where do you need me? He goes,
I'll let you know. Never calls,never anything. You know, he
like, we're not doing hay. AndI'm like, Alright, let me work
on where I'm going to get my hayfrom. Then I show up, and he's
(25:20):
like, uh, I already bailed thethat that field over there, is
done. I'm like, I noticed, youknow, and he just has such a joy
about it. Will he complain hereand there and this and that? He
loves it down deep in his heart,like it is him inside out. And
(25:41):
to watch that with him. He'llcome again. He'll complain a
little bit, but watching him belike, enjoying it. And he'll be
like, it's so much work. I'mlike, is it? Is it?
Are you really just enjoyingyourself?
And he'll be Yeah. I'm like, Uhhuh, yeah, and that's where just
(26:04):
take, take your days, and nomatter what you're
doing, farmers, people, youknow, yes, it's a business, yes,
we have bills to pay. Yes, wehave mortgages. Yes, we have 12
animals that need feeding. Yes,we have to make money,
but we also have to be happy inourselves. And you're going to
(26:29):
find that you produce better andmore
if you don't make it work, awork I love so much what you
just said about that, that weproduce more when we're not
making it work. And I mean thatin the sense that you mean it,
(26:50):
that it's not like you'redragging yourself to do
something you hate to do. Youcan be working really hard, and
it can either be pleasurable orit can be miserable. And you
know, this is one of thosethings as I've been building my
business to support farmers, onething that I was always really
leery about telling farmers wasthat I could help them to be
(27:14):
more profitable, because I'mlike, Well, I can't guarantee
you're going to make more moneyfarming
if you work with me, I canguarantee you will be happier,
that you will have more time,that you will, you know, be
creating a life that is moresatisfying for you and
relationships that are stronger,like I can, I can promise you
(27:35):
that, but it can't promise youmore money. And one of my
consultants looked at me andsaid that that almost that exact
same thing, like, if people arehappier at what they're doing,
they're going to be moreproductive, they're going to be
able to work harder, they'regoing to be able to make more
money. Like, all of those thingsare byproducts, and you don't,
(27:57):
you don't look to be happybecause it's going to create
more money. Because, you know,for some of us, it doesn't
necessarily create more money,but it does create more
abundance and and I feel likethat whole idea of a life of
abundance is something I'mreally kind of stepping into to
say that that's what it's about.And it starts here, like it all
(28:18):
starts here and here, because itwas gonna say, Does it start
here, or does it actually starthere? I was like, oh, but the
first thing I have my farmers dois actually find out what they
really want out of life, whichis their heart starts here.
What's your heart cry? And thenalign your brain to say that
that heart cry is number one,doable. Number two, valuable.
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And number three, the thingyou're going to work towards,
yes, right? Yes. And that's withthe farm. I love having people
go from being here, here, here,here, here, here, here to again.
It starts very
(29:01):
simple. It starts with taking abreath and sitting and being
like,
what does that feel like? Whatdo you mean? What does it feel
like? I took a breath. No. Whatdoes your body feel like? Do it
again.
I'm like, Are your shoulders upor down? Are you this? Are you
that? And it's the same, likethat whole concept of, come out
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of here, go into here, and onceyou go into here, where does
that take you? Yep, does it takeyou forward? Does it take you
backwards? You know, a lot offarmers are like, Oh, nobody
wants to do anything. It's like,Well, did you take the time to
teach them. You know, it's likewhen you were 15, did you want
(29:46):
to do what Dad Mom asked you todo? Not necessarily, unless you
needed something. Come on. Andthere's a total difference
between growing up on a farm andbeing a.
15 year old and not growing upon a farm and being that same 15
years old, because theexperiences that those 215 year
(30:08):
olds have are worlds apart. Andit's not that one is necessarily
lazy and one isn't. It's notthat one is smarter, it's that
they have different experiences.And so the things that one
person is going to just know,like, by the time I was 15,
there was so much about farmingthat I just knew and assumed
(30:32):
everybody knew it, because I hadmy years of expertise, which
were, you know, a 15 year old'slevel, plus my dad and my
grandfather and my greatgrandfather and my great great
grandfather. So all of thatknowledge and experience in
history got passed down, boththrough my genes and through my
(30:53):
training. So
I mean, it's I've said thisbefore. I was six months old,
when I was in the cornfield forthe first time in a playpen. I
was a September baby, I was in aplaypen, and they were picking
corn, and I was there. So shouldI not have known how to pick
corn by 15 and and would I haveno idea how I learned that? I
(31:15):
would have no idea, because bythe time I was two, I'd already
spent two seasons doing that.
Yep, these other kids don't. Soyou do have to, like as a as an
employer, and I run into this alot with people close to me
that, you know, there's afrustration that these kids
don't know anything these days.Well, of course, they don't.
(31:39):
Some of them, it's their firsttime on a farm, and that's not
their fault. So we have tobacktrack and almost
reverse engineer all of thislearning we've done, or else you
need somebody to come in andhelp you to learn what they're
not going to know and how toteach them what they need to
know. So I think your questionabout, you know, did you tell
(32:03):
them what they needed to do? Areyou sure you're following
through?
Yeah, yeah. And, and it's funny.I love how you said your
generation six months old, youwere out in the field and
everything like this. I grew upin Philadelphia, Philadelphia.
City Yeah. City Girl, cityenvironment, you know, it was
(32:26):
the suburbs, but still the city.And yes, we had a garden on in
our yard, and yes, we did thecanning and all of those kind of
things.
But to get to this level, no,you know you were saying
earlier. How did you know how todo it? It's like, I actually
(32:47):
don't know if I did. And there'ssome things, again, my dad
taught me, and he followedthrough and but even those
things,
you still have to learn, andit's being patient with yourself
and being patient with theperson. And yes, there's a line
that you're like, you're justnot getting
(33:08):
it's like, maybe you're not cutout for this career, maybe
you're not cut out for thiscareer, but we take everything
on to be like, oh, I'll just doit. It'll be easier if I just do
it. Well, we can't have it bothways. You can't complain that no
one's helping you and they'renot doing it right if you don't
take the time to teach them andthe time to give them space to
(33:32):
make the mistakes that you madewhen your grandfather, when your
mom, when they were teachingyou, they had to give you your
space to make mistakes. Yes,it's going to take a little bit
longer to get things done, buthere we go again with does that
really make a difference?Because in the long run,
(33:56):
you enjoy the process and enjoygetting time with that person
and your goal? Like, what isyour goal like, if you're happy
having a one person homestead,there is absolutely nothing
wrong with a one personhomestead. Like, you know,
one person home business, if, ifyou want to do all of the things
(34:17):
and wear all of the hats and beall of the all of the personnel.
There is absolutely nothingwrong with that. If you want to
scale up, if you want to expandinto new markets, if you want to
add a new crop, then things haveto change and and that has to
start with a mindset shift thatsays, Okay, I can't do it all
(34:42):
now. I've got to figure out howto find the right people, manage
the right people, and continueto support the right people, so
that you don't have to retrain anew set of right people every
year, which is a whole nother. Imean, oh my gosh, the amount of
time we could put into labor.
Recruitment, management andretention.
(35:07):
There's a reason that I havecommunication as one of the big
pillars that I teach farmers,because, because that's that's
the key, like you have to beable to work with people and
figure out where they are, whatthey need, and stay calm
yourself.
You know, this is not a farmrelated thing, but, but it
(35:27):
happened with my kid today. Myson is 13, and he wanted an
omelet. And I am aperimenopausal woman, and we had
cereal in the house, and I wasnot making omelets. I was like,
you can have cereal, and I will,like, get you a bowl, yay. Or
you can have an omelet and youcan cook it yourself. So he
didn't want cereal, so he said,Alright, I'm going to cook it
(35:50):
myself. Now, I don't know if Iactually spoke the words, don't
forget to use butter in the pan,on my on my cast iron pan. I
feel like I did, but sometimesmaybe the words like, stop here
and don't come out. I don't knowall that to say no. Butter
happened in the pan. So now he'sgot the eggs in the pan, and
(36:11):
he's making the omelet. And I'mlike, oh, that's gonna be bad.
So he's trying to get them offand and he gets them off, and I
go to tell him, Okay, you can'tleave the pan with all of the
like burnt egg in the bottom.That's you're going to clean
this out. So I start coachinghim. You need a metal spatula
(36:32):
for this. Well, he gets allagitated and he takes off.
So I got all agitated, and Itook a deep breath.
Because, because deep breathingreally is my go to and and one,
one deep breath was not enough,so I did the whole cycle of
four, which, I don't know whatit is about four deep breaths,
(36:54):
but there really is somethinglike, by three, you've settled
your system down and yourparasympathetic is back online,
but by four, you're like,
All right, we're good. We canfocus. It's like a fresh start.
I don't know what it is aboutthat, but for me, anyway, that
fourth one is, is what does thething. So I called him back
over, and I very calmly walkedhim through step by step, and he
(37:17):
did it step by step. And we, youknow, re, re cured the pan and
all of that stuff. So it wasfine. It was absolutely fine.
But had I gotten angry at himbecause he hadn't used butter?
We'd have ended that learningexperience right there, because
in there, because he'd have beenlike, Well, you didn't tell me,
(37:39):
and then it would have been atit for tat. Did I tell you? Did
I not tell you? Which really, inthe in the scheme of things, is
that the important thing here?No, the important thing is, does
the kid know how to make omeletswithout destroying a cast iron
pan? That's the important thing.And he's not going to learn that
if I never get past, well, Itold you to use butter, but
(38:01):
he's also he also, we learnthrough our mistakes, yes, and
that's a thing that everybodyforgets. It's like, No, we learn
through making mistakes, youknow? And I, I have to say, I
You really made something clickfor me, like, boom, clicked.
Because I do live here bymyself. I do
(38:25):
manage
it by myself,
and I
do have stepdaughter comes uponce a week and helps out for a
couple hours. But other thanthat, six days of the week, I'm
managing it myself, and I'm atthat point where I want to grow
(38:47):
and I want to get bigger, and Iwant to this to be my full time
commitment. And there's a partof me it's like, I, I can't I
don't like social media. I, youknow, I don't like doing this
stuff. And most farmers don't,you like I love my hands in the
dirt. I love my hands cuttingsomething. I love refinishing. I
(39:09):
just refinished my floors. Youknow? It's like, I love doing
those things. And the thought ofsitting down at a computer
figuring out who to go to, andthen it's like, oh, that's going
to be $500 and now where do Iget that from? And how do I do
this? And, oh, and how, youknow, we all just get and it's
(39:31):
like, okay, I don't want to dothat. And you step away, yeah.
And now it doesn't get done. Andnow you're not moving, and
you're not progressing, andyou're beating yourself up,
like, well, I should be and Ishould be
so I, I love how you just were,like, you got to do the things
you don't like to do, you know.Like, you didn't want to make
(39:53):
omelet this morning, you know.And he didn't want to hear from
you that you didn't want to makean omelet.
It, and he wasn't doing itright. So I can't tell myself, I
don't have, you know, a kid hereto do it. It's like, I can't say
I want this done and
complain about it not being done
(40:16):
right, until I learn how to doit. And be patient with myself,
and be patient in the conceptof, I gotta remember next time
put butter in the pan. And I'lltell you what that child is
never going to forget to putbutter into a cast iron pan,
never, never, because he hadthat experience, you know. And
(40:40):
the case. That's the whole pointof building the next generation.
Yeah, you know, it's building itup, and building who we can be,
and letting go
of
the control that everybody praysis human nature, yeah, and
(41:06):
letting it just being like,Okay, let, let, let that go,
buddy. No, did you? Did you needthat done? Yes, did it get done?
Yes, but No, no, buts take yourbutts out of it. Yeah, you know
the should have, coulda, woulda,blah, blah, blah, stuff that we
(41:26):
can all go through. And it'sjust, it's the letting go
component of it again, it'schoosing what how do you want to
enjoy your day, right? How doyou want to enjoy this moment?
And people like, Do you want aconstant and my son and I, you
(41:50):
know, this is no secret. My sonand I have a rather contentious
relationship sometimes, becausehe has got a lot of challenges,
and his challenges are notchallenges that I necessarily
naturally handle well, like, heneeds a lot of structure.
I'm not a person who works wellwith a ton of structure. I like,
(42:11):
I kind of like having, sort oflike music where, if you're an
improv artist, you have, like,the baseline that you follow,
you know, there's a chordprogression, there's some kind
of structure, but then what youdo with that structure is, like,
all over the place and and I'vecome to see that I need that
(42:31):
structure, I need that chordprogression, but I also really
need the freedom to, like, goall over the place on top of
that, that going on top ofthings is really hard for my
son. It doesn't work for him.Does not work for him at all. So
from the time he's like four,and I started realizing this
(42:53):
through the help of many otheroutside sources, I realized that
my idea of, come on, get yourshoes on. We gotta go like, as
we're about to walk out thedoor. That works for me. It
works for my daughter. Does notwork for my son. That puts him
into an absolute tailspin. So Ihad to switch gears and become
(43:14):
one of those moms who's like,Alright, we're going to be
leaving in an hour.
Okay, we're leaving in half anhour. Okay, okay. Titus, you
need to get your shoes onbecause we're leaving in 10
minutes. And and I couldn't, Ican't even now he's 13. I still
cannot just say we're leaving in10 minutes. I have to go through
(43:35):
his steps. You need to go brushyour teeth. Just, just one
thing, go brush your teeth, goput your shoes on, because he
gets really easily distracted,and anything more than that, it
just it doesn't matter to him.So he's like, forget it. And
then I'll get impatient, thenwe're in a fight, and then we're
in the car, and I'm like, he'sin the background,
(43:58):
and it's not necessary. Like, noone's enjoying it. No one's
enjoying the time. No, and it'snot his fault, like he's got
he's wired differently and needsextra support while he learns
how to provide that externalsupport for himself and that. I
mean, think of how many adultsdon't know how to do that. How
(44:21):
many adults have not learned tomanage their emotions? How many
adults have not learned how toscaffold their own days to be
able to keep on track? So thefact that my 13 year old son,
who's neurodivergent, struggleswith that, well, of course he
does, kind of like 15 year oldwho's never lived on the farm.
Of course, they struggle withpicking corn properly,
(44:45):
and not
because it makes sense. It makessense you're you know that whole
nature versus nurture component,everybody's like, it's either
this or that. No, no, no.
Nope, it's a blend of both andcrisscrosses. And it's
(45:06):
understanding
the person you're interactingwith, you know. And
for me, understanding who I amin the moment, you know, and
helping people realize, like,yes, who are you in the Moment?
Moment, are you already, like,grasping on what you want to say
(45:30):
and you've toned out to whatthat person is saying? Or are
you open to
really listening? And that's thething we don't tend to do very
well as human beings, is listen,
and there's some people that arefabulous at it. My brain will
(45:51):
kind of bounce around a littlebit here or there,
same as your sons. It's like,okay,
and
how do we find that balancewithin ourselves? Is again, take
and take that breath, like yousaid, take a deep breath and be
like,
(46:13):
Okay,
I'm back. Yeah. Okay. What? Whatdoes it feel like right now?
What do I want to feel like? DoI want to stay angry? Okay,
that's where you want to be.Enjoy
if you don't, then
figure out how to get out of itand work your way out of it, you
(46:36):
know, and learn the strategies,because there are so many
strategies that can help us
to change who we are in themoment. I love how you said that
about being who you are in themoment. I don't want to let
that, let that, like, disappearinto the ether before we really
hone in on that a little because
(46:56):
it really is true that who weare in the moment is not
necessarily who we are ingeneral, it's not necessarily
the person we'll we're trying tobecome, and and it might not
even be the person we were fiveminutes ago. You know, it can't
be the same person you were fiveminutes ago. You catch if you
catch me before my computercrashes in the middle of a
(47:20):
podcast interview, and after itcrashes, you might not get the
same k,
you might not and this k, this kover here, after the crash,
knows that who she is in thatmoment is not the person she
wants to be, and definitely notthe person she wants to be on a
podcast. So what is she going todo about it? Because there are
(47:42):
people who will tell you, Well,I can't control my emotions.
Well, you can manage you canmanage them, baby,
not to and so that's where thedeep breathing, it's like you're
using your body, you're trickingyour brain into feeling calm.
And the fact that we can do thefact that our minds and our
emotions and our bodies are soconnected that we can fake, fake
(48:06):
ourselves into being like, Oh,I'm not stressed out. And then
we're not stressed out,
right?
I'm literally living in acamper, frozen solid and no
running water because it's allfroze, right? I'm showering at
the medevac basis, right? And
(48:29):
I'm like, Alright, I don't haveanywhere. I gotta go somewhere
and do laundry, because I don'thave a spot to do laundry, and I
can choose to be
frustrated and angry and like,Why did I get myself into this?
And, you know, I have to go towork now. Now I gotta work a 24
hour shift, and nothing's goingto get done. And I can keep
(48:50):
going there, or I can be like,Oh, this place is going to be
amazing, and I get to hang outwith, you know, so and so this
week, because I'm
dropping in their house anddoing my laundry there, and I'm
going to take a hot shower attheir place. You know, it's
a mindset,
yeah, and it's like you canappreciate a shower. It's like I
(49:12):
can appreciate having runningwater. I can appreciate,
you know, clean clothes that Ididn't hand wash in cold water
with a garden hose. It's like,you know, but in the same
breath, I learned how to wash
clothes the garden hose becauseI forgot, you know, work out to
(49:35):
be at somebody's house
when the zombie, a cop, a coupleof Apocalypse
Yes, I'm not even going to go towho, who zombie is, or what, or
none of that, none of that. Whenthe metaphorical zombie
apocalypse occurs,
(49:56):
I'm going to.
Indeed,
exactly. But isn't that thetruth, like these things can
either make us or break us andand so much of it really is, how
are we going to approach it? Andand I have really learned that
so much over the past year, likejust realizing that when I
(50:20):
change my mindset, when I refuseto frame things in a negative
language, like when I usepositive I love what you said
about this place is going to beamazing. You didn't even say
this place isn't horrible,because your brain doesn't hear
that. Not all it hears is thisplace is horrible. You put it
into the positive. This place isgoing to be amazing. And look at
(50:45):
it. It's stinking amazing. Wecan it, you know. So this is,
this is what? Oh my gosh. AndI'm looking at the clock, and
I'm saying, My goodness, Gail, Icould talk to you for hours. I
feel like I can. I can talkabout this all day long. We
gotta hang out and have, wegotta have you on again. And
(51:05):
yes, we're gonna, we're gonna bechatting together, because I
just, I totally love whereyou're coming from, and I think
you have such amazing wisdom.And so I'm gonna ask you to
sprinkle a little bit one finalpiece of wisdom on our farmers
today, at the end of everyepisode, I ask our guests to
share the one thing that theythink every farmer should know.
(51:29):
So what do you think everyfarmer should know?
That you're loved.
It's very simple
that you're loved and to loveyourself.
You know, people may take forgranted. You know, having corn
(51:53):
on the cob, and others are superduper appreciative that they get
to have a can of corn
is still corn that was grown bysome farmer somewhere doing it,
and
it's appreciated, and they'reloved. So love yourself back for
(52:18):
taking care of the world. It'sjust,
you know, it comes back to doyou love who you are in the
moment, and if you don't, thenchange it, but love yourself,
and it's love that they areloved. Everyone is loved.
Oh, Gail,
(52:38):
thank you for that. Yeah, I'mnot going to add anything to
that. I'm just going to thankyou so much for coming on here
and and I'm going to echo whatGail says, that each one of you
out there is loved, and ifyou're not feeling loved, then
come and talk to somebody youknow. Send me, send me a letter,
(52:59):
because come talk to the horses.Go visit Gail in Pennsylvania.
Visit, come visit the animals.
They talk back less than I will.
But doubt about the goats.They're
pretty noisy. The support thatyou need if you're not feeling
(53:19):
that love like, Please, yeah,because, because you're worth it
and want to see you thriving. Sothank you so much, Gail, and I
can't wait to have you back andall of you guys, we'll see you
next time on Food, Flowers, andFun.
(53:40):
Farmwork's calling our show isall done, goodbye, farewell, so
long, Adieu, see you next week.Same time, same place for food,
flowers and fun. Go in peace.
Visit us atwww.penlightfarmers.com
Bye.
Are you a fan of soapbox derbies, omelets and hot
showers? So are we! Join today'sepisode of Food, Flowers and
Fun, where I talk with GailHunsberger of Tumble-Tails Farm
about these and much, much more.As always, we are sponsored by
Pen Light for Farmers, equippingfarmers with more time, energy
(00:24):
and abundance.
if you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
(00:49):
Get away from the cares of theday. Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed stock. Chat withwomen around the world to raise
food, flowers and fun with yourhost, K Castrataro, that's me.
Welcome back everybody to Food,Flowers and Fun: Visits with
(01:10):
farm women from around theworld. I am your host, K
Castrataro, and today we havethe amazing Gail Hunsberger with
us from Tumble-Tails Farm inPennsylvania. She has such a
varied background, she is like amedevac nurse, and has just been
doing amazing things on her farmwith animal assisted therapy.
(01:31):
And so we're going to just turnright over and say, welcome
Gail. How are you today? Verygood. How are you I'm great, and
I'm totally envious of yourlocation.
By the way, for those of you whodon't yet know Gail, Gail has a
BNB, yes, yes, she does. So youtoo could go and hang out on her
(01:54):
amazing property.
I just want you to be able toget a glimpse. Everybody be able
to see the farm, a little bit ofit behind me, you might see
piggies and goats kind of startbantering over there, a dog or
two might walk by. So just alittle glimpse of what it looks
(02:15):
like here. So so tell us how youended up there.
I had gotten divorced in 2015,
did two years in the transitionhouse, like some people do, to
find out who I am, what I wantand everything. And I decided my
dream was I'd always wanted anold farmhouse. I wanted a farm
(02:39):
and I wanted to fix her upperbecause I love doing that stuff.
So I bought a condemned propertyand a condemned house that was
falling down and collapsing onitself, and, yeah, and lived in
a camper and the little logcabin that I'm sitting next to
right now for about a year and ahalf till everything froze
(03:02):
solid, at which point I grabbeda mattress and went into the
house and slept inside in frontof the wood stove that is in
there. Mind you, the front ofthe house is still not on,
you know, potato technicalities.So that's how it came about, and
(03:26):
here we are, eight years later,and it is
beyond anything I thought itcould come to. And I am just
blown away that I get to shareit with so many people. So I'm
just going to start off and say,you know, as a fellow divorcee,
(03:46):
the divorce process is bothterrifying and horrifying, and
it can be completelyrejuvenating. So it's like kind
of that best of times, worst oftimes, sort of thing, depending
on how you both how you got tothe stage of divorce and also
what you do with it afterwards.Because, as you know, it's not
(04:09):
what happens to us that makes useither grow or shrink back. It's
what we do with what happens tous. And so I'm looking at what
you did, and, you know, I feltreally bold, because I, you
know, started a podcast,
you bought a condemned farm.
(04:34):
So now, now I'm like, wow,that's, that's amazing. Like, I
don't know how you did that, soI would like to know a little
bit of the details on that,because the idea of renovating a
a condemned property just soundslike a nightmare to me, one
of those things that I don'thave all of those skills,
(04:55):
neither do I want to learn themall like i i can do basic
demolition.
I can do basic construction, butI don't want to go beyond that.
So how much of this did you doyourself? How much did you have,
like support team? How did youhow did you do all that? I can
honestly say at this point, if Ithrow the barn in, because I did
(05:16):
not do the barn myself, I didhalf of it, but not the whole
thing, I would say probably 75to 80% of the work I did here
myself.
Wow, so what? What skills didyou have before you bought the
farm that that made you feellike you were equipped to do
this? Um, so I grew up. I'mactually a Philly girl, so I'm a
(05:40):
city girl who just wasaccidentally born in the city,
and need to get back out to thecountry where her heart was and
but we used to race. And somepeople know what they are.
They're called soapbox Derbycars, yeah. And so back when I
was involved with it, youliterally built the car from
scratch. So I learned how to usemy dad taught us how to use
(06:04):
power tools and big, giant saws,industrial saws, and how to do
things. And it stuck with me.And my dad always left as we got
older. You know how dad's andmoms, they give you cash because
they can't figure out what inthe world you want at this point
in time. So hear that mom anddad, cash, cash.
(06:29):
Buy what you want. So me, I buypower tools. I was buying
chainsaw.
Well, buying my chainsaw was oneof the most fun things I did.
Yeah, it is, like, amazing. SoI, I had the knack on how to do
it, like baseline. And I alsocame in here with the concept
(06:54):
that I was not going to havethis be work. This was going to
be me. This was going to be fun.This was going to be growth for
the property for myself and thepeople around me, and I use
those that to just keep goingand just look at it and be like,
(07:18):
oh, I want that this way, and Iwant that this way. But there is
also things that I'm like,Alright, there's things we can
control in life. There's thingswe can't. So for one, one little
fun. Oh, my favorite story is Igo and
show up with radiators from aold, old, old house down in
(07:44):
Chester County. So I show upwith these ginormous, 1000 pound
radiators, and I bring themhere, and I get them the H back
guys. I thought they were gonnaI thought they were gonna take
me down. I was like, they'relike, What are those?
Where did you even find theseantiques? I got all kinds of
(08:07):
antiques. I got it off of letgo. There was a let go of way
before Facebook marketplace,there was an app called let go.
And so, yeah, I wound up gettingthem. And I got all these
radiators. And the guys arelike, seriously. I'm like,
seriously, this house, there'sno radius. It needs these
(08:30):
radiator needs it. What? What?Farmhouse doesn't have radiators
in it to put your gloves onafter you've been out playing,
and they got it warm, and they,you know, come on, is my
automatic towel rack in mybathroom and heats them right
up.
So in the process of doing thatagain, mind you that the people
(08:52):
I did hire, I've actually knownmost of them since I was a
child. So they just own theirown businesses and everything
now. So they're accustomed todealing with you. They're like,
they're like, Yep, all right,father's daughter got it, okay,
I got that. I got that. So theproblem is, when you bring
(09:12):
something from somewhere else tothen try and retrofit into your
place what you imagine may notwork. So most people will be
like, to a contractor, you gotto figure it out. I want it
exactly here at this point inthat spot, and done it. And they
were like, I was like, I don'tknow what sizes need to heat up,
(09:36):
what size room. I don't knowwhat it'll be. Too big. What'll
be, what? Whatever we don't use,I'll just resell. It's not a big
deal. And they were going backand forth, and they're like, a
couple times. They're like, thisisn't going to work over here.
I'm like, well, where will itwork and what will make it the
easiest for you to do? Andthey're like, well, right here
(09:58):
in the thing. And I was like,alright, so put it.
There. They actually didn't knowwhat to do with that, which to
me is hysterical, because I'mlike, well, well, you just said
it doesn't really work to do itthere, and it works to do it
there, so do it there. And like,they literally were like,
(10:21):
I'm like, No, seriously, child.It's like a child, when they
come and they ask you if theycan use their tech, and you're
like, Sure, okay. And they'relike, wait, wait, really, you
said Yes,
Mom, at least these are my kids.When I say yes to tech, it's and
I thought, and there wasdifferent things, you know,
around the house. And they'relike, look, you know, the one
(10:42):
room we had to take it down, andthe one room at one point had
been on fire, and so, yeah, atsome point. And there it's
again, an old, old, old housewith additions onto it, like
they would do. And theirquestion was, do you want it
functional or squared? I waslike, like, functional would be
(11:08):
good. They're like, great,because there ain't one thing in
this that we can have a straightwall off those old houses are
bad there. I've, I've lived inin turn of the scent like 1860s
type farmhouses. And, no, aftera certain amount of time,
nothing, nothing is square, likeyours aren't square. Walls
(11:28):
aren't square, like the factthat they're all standing up,
is, is good enough. Is, isbonus, right, right? And this is
stone and log cabin. Oh, my. Soyou're even more limited, other
than to the one section that wasa
concrete tower, kind of abuilding onto it, but that's,
(11:49):
that was my attitude. I'm like,the minute it felt like work, I
stopped and walked away. I like,if I get frustrated, and I'm
feeling like, I I have to, andI'm working and everything, I
walked away, and everythingabout it was like, Okay, what
works, and what do you think,and what do you envision? And
you know, really incorporatingthe workers into the process,
(12:13):
versus me being dominant in Iwant this this way, and I want
this that way. And so much ofsociety is kind of like that,
because it's like, no, I askedyou for this. I want this. And
there's times it's like, well,it doesn't work. So what are we
going to do about that? Like wewere saying earlier, it's like,
what do we do with thatinformation? Right? So
(12:36):
basically, that went on for along time. I scrapped,
and I scrapped and recycled andprobably made myself a good
extra 15, $20,000 to put towardsthe house and other things that
I've been able to upgradebecause of scrapping and
(13:00):
everything.
And just, you know, friendswould come. My sister and her
two boys talk about the bestaunt ever, who gives, who gives
an eight and nine year oldsledgehammers, and says, go to
town. Yep,
you know. So I did that with mykids. We had, the former owners
(13:23):
of our property had turned theupstairs of our barn into, like
they call it a man cave, but ithad, like this bar set up, and
all this kind of stuff, which Idon't drink, and the and the bar
was not quite square anywhere.You know that many stories
probably behind how that bar gotput up, but it was risingly
Solid. Let me tell you, like forsomething that did not look like
(13:47):
it should be solid. Tearing thatdown was not easy. I did the
same thing. I I gave my kidshammers and sledgehammers, and I
was like, go to it. Let's find
let's, let's fast forward, wherein this process did you end up
bringing the animals in, and howdid you get into
(14:09):
animal assisted therapy? So Iwas finally in the house, so
that's got to be two years intoit. Then at that point, the
outside of the property wasstill a hot, hot mess. And the
gentleman I'm seeing and his exwife were selling their farm,
(14:32):
and
I would was up there, and I waslike, What are you doing with
these two horses? And they'relike, We don't know yet.
Everybody else was a border. Sothey had had four horses of
their own. And so I wound upbringing the two, my two white
horses down. They're bothcrossbreed drafts, and Luna and
(14:56):
Libby came down here. I had amakeshift.
Fencing set up to which theybroke out of all the time.
And my yard what then became,because I got tired of trying to
keep them in the backfield, andmy yard became pasture, pasture,
and I had the pleasure offeeding them. I'd sit in my bay
(15:18):
windows and I'd open them and Iwould feed them carrots out
through the bay windows. I put adog door on. They kept trying to
open the dog door and everythingso that that's how they wound up
here.
And I had an idea beforehand,especially when I bought the
(15:38):
place it let literally when Ipulled in the driveway,
well, when I pulled up to whatwas going to be a driveway, I
should say it, it hugged me. AndI was like, oh, there's, there's
power here.
Yeah,
there is a lot of energy,positive energy. And that's when
(16:05):
I was like, you know, this couldeasily be a judgment free safe
haven to for people to come to
and just
let go of whatever's here. Andthen I explored more into it,
and decided to get a mastercertification in
(16:27):
human animal bonds. And throughthat, it's all based on trauma,
informed care and what we dowith it. And so it just kept
evolving, kind of the same asthe House and the property. It
just evolved into
what it is now. And I now havefour horses, four goats, two
(16:50):
pigs, two dogs
and a partridge in a pear tree,you know.
But that's it. I just let itgrow, I let it be and let it
just take its own shape. Yeah,and the house was the same way.
(17:10):
It's like, okay, I have somewhatof a vision,
but if it didn't work, then thatdidn't work. You know, like the
radiators, okay? So the way Iwas gonna put the beds in the
room. Won't work. I'll changethem around, and I'll figure it
out. And, you know, trial anderror. And it's been the same
with here. It's like, okay,let's try this that doesn't
(17:31):
work. Let's try that, you know,and
getting people to people whocame
to just see what I was up to,
like, fell in love. And they'relike, this place is the energy
here. And I'm like, right,right? And they're like, Okay,
now we see what you felt andsaw. And I was like, exactly
(17:54):
like, who would I was? Like,that's the whole thing with this
place. It's just like, oh, comehere. Got you. And so this is
the end game of my
35
year nursing career, to be hereand help other nurses and other
people who've dealt with traumain their lives, and do it
(18:19):
through interaction withanimals, because you can tell
the animal you're a whole darnlife story, and I guarantee they
are not calling anyone andratting you out.
Right, right? So you know, youtalk about us, you know,
judgment free safe haven.Alright? There you go. They're
(18:41):
they're not calling your boss.They're not calling your you
know, ex husband. They're notcalling anyone you know to rat
you out. They're just going tobe there with you and be present
with you
to work through what you need toget out and through that, people
start talking, and once theystart talking all of us, that
(19:03):
weight comes off your shouldersand you're like,
oh, I want to share more. Andwhat does that look like? Now we
go back to being nervous again.Now we go and have a
conversation, you know, and justslowly work with people to get
to a place that they're biggerin the world than they've been,
(19:26):
you know, and they're out ofhere, and they're like, oh, I
can feel my heart beating. Oh, Ican feel the breathing I can Oh,
that is, that is nerves in mybelly, you know? It's, it really
takes its own shape, and it'scompletely individualized.
But to go back to your question,it literally just grew and grew
(19:50):
and grew on its own. Again,started off with I had a therapy
dog and two horses, you know.And.
Now we got this, so I'm gonna,I'm gonna jump in a little bit
here, because,
you know, I growing up on amulti generational farm, and
(20:10):
knowing a lot of farmers, ourfarms don't always feel like
that place of respite for us,like I have had many, many
experiences where people come onto visit the farm and they're
like, Oh, this is so beautiful.It's so restful, it's so
peaceful. And the farmerthemselves is like, What in the
(20:31):
world this is? This is a placeof chaos, and we're always going
non stop, exhausting. And yes,we love it, and yes, it's
beautiful. And it is not alwayspeaceful. And so I'm wondering,
I'm just thinking about thefarmers who might be listening
to this and might not have thesame kind of background in both
(20:55):
therapy type stuff, but also whonot be feeling about their farm.
I'm wondering if you could speakto that a little bit like, how
is it that we can maybe, andyou're completely unprepared for
this, because this question cameto me while we're talking. I
love it, but I'm just wonderingif you, if you can, you know,
give us, give us some ways thatwe can kind of reconnect with
(21:17):
that life giving force of ourfarms, even when sometimes they
can be the thing that seems likeit's sucking the life out of us.
So what I encourage and what Itake out into the world is two
things. One, there's a positivein every negative. Okay, so the
positive is, you have a farm,you have beautiful land, you
(21:43):
grow beautiful vegetables. Youhelp feed the world. You help,
you know, provide to yourcommunity immediately. And then
further on, for some of thelarger, larger farmers.
And second,
what word would take for you andmake it not work? You know,
(22:09):
people go to the office. Think,I think New York City, you go in
is like, everybody's there yougo, and you're like,
I can do this, you know, and Istill work full time as a nurse
in a hospital, and so that chaosis there as well. And so I
(22:30):
go in there and just, I'm like,Okay, it's going to be it's
going to be okay. And you justgot to talk yourself into what
your day is going to look like.And in going in there, yes, it
can be utter chaos. And yeah,the farmer, you come out, and
many of us have come out, andthe fields are completely
(22:50):
flooded, and it's like, well,not getting that part done
today. And you can either chooseto get frustrated, or you can
choose to be like, All right,well, I've been wanting to work
on this over here instead. I'mgoing to go do that instead,
because there's nothing you doabout a flooded field. You're
certainly not taking a tractorout into it. And there's always
(23:11):
something to be done. So findinga
a way within yourself to stopmaking it work. Stop making it
about I have to and down to thedollars, and down to how much am
I going to make? And up theregoes a whole, you know, months
(23:32):
worth of tomatoes. There goesthis, there goes that,
to and fill out and be like, Allright? Well, I enjoy sitting on
my tractor and driving aroundand doing the hay and looking at
the sky and the beauty of it,and just letting yourself enjoy
(23:53):
who you are in the moment. Yeah,and
just take it with you and thinkabout the things that made you
want to stay a farmer, becausesome way along the lines, you
chose to be like, you know, Iwant to be a farmer. I want to
still do this. No, my uncle is84
(24:16):
years old, and I love him. Wehave dinner once a week, and
they ran a beef farm for awhile. He's got 30 acres. He ran
they did vegetables, and theywould do a vegetable stand and
all of that. And now he's doinghoney and like you can't take
(24:38):
the farmer out of him, becausehe has such a love for doing it,
and
it's just the most beautifulthing. He'll be like, we're not
doing hay next year. We're notdoing this, we're not doing
that. And I'll show up for, youknow, dinner. And he'll be like,
Well, I only planted 75 tomatoplants this year, and 50
(24:59):
peppers. And.
I'm like, well, it's better thanthe 450
we used to and I'm like,alright, good, good. What do you
need help with? You know, where,where do you need me? He goes,
I'll let you know. Never calls,never anything. You know, he
like, we're not doing hay. AndI'm like, Alright, let me work
on where I'm going to get my hayfrom. Then I show up, and he's
(25:20):
like, uh, I already bailed thethat that field over there, is
done. I'm like, I noticed, youknow, and he just has such a joy
about it. Will he complain hereand there and this and that? He
loves it down deep in his heart,like it is him inside out. And
(25:41):
to watch that with him. He'llcome again. He'll complain a
little bit, but watching him belike, enjoying it. And he'll be
like, it's so much work. I'mlike, is it? Is it?
Are you really just enjoyingyourself?
And he'll be Yeah. I'm like, Uhhuh, yeah, and that's where just
(26:04):
take, take your days, and nomatter what you're
doing, farmers, people, youknow, yes, it's a business, yes,
we have bills to pay. Yes, wehave mortgages. Yes, we have 12
animals that need feeding. Yes,we have to make money,
but we also have to be happy inourselves. And you're going to
(26:29):
find that you produce better andmore
if you don't make it work, awork I love so much what you
just said about that, that weproduce more when we're not
making it work. And I mean thatin the sense that you mean it,
(26:50):
that it's not like you'redragging yourself to do
something you hate to do. Youcan be working really hard, and
it can either be pleasurable orit can be miserable. And you
know, this is one of thosethings as I've been building my
business to support farmers, onething that I was always really
leery about telling farmers wasthat I could help them to be
(27:14):
more profitable, because I'mlike, Well, I can't guarantee
you're going to make more moneyfarming
if you work with me, I canguarantee you will be happier,
that you will have more time,that you will, you know, be
creating a life that is moresatisfying for you and
relationships that are stronger,like I can, I can promise you
(27:35):
that, but it can't promise youmore money. And one of my
consultants looked at me andsaid that that almost that exact
same thing, like, if people arehappier at what they're doing,
they're going to be moreproductive, they're going to be
able to work harder, they'regoing to be able to make more
money. Like, all of those thingsare byproducts, and you don't,
(27:57):
you don't look to be happybecause it's going to create
more money. Because, you know,for some of us, it doesn't
necessarily create more money,but it does create more
abundance and and I feel likethat whole idea of a life of
abundance is something I'mreally kind of stepping into to
say that that's what it's about.And it starts here, like it all
(28:18):
starts here and here, because itwas gonna say, Does it start
here, or does it actually starthere? I was like, oh, but the
first thing I have my farmers dois actually find out what they
really want out of life, whichis their heart starts here.
What's your heart cry? And thenalign your brain to say that
that heart cry is number one,doable. Number two, valuable.
(28:40):
And number three, the thingyou're going to work towards,
yes, right? Yes. And that's withthe farm. I love having people
go from being here, here, here,here, here, here, here to again.
It starts very
(29:01):
simple. It starts with taking abreath and sitting and being
like,
what does that feel like? Whatdo you mean? What does it feel
like? I took a breath. No. Whatdoes your body feel like? Do it
again.
I'm like, Are your shoulders upor down? Are you this? Are you
that? And it's the same, likethat whole concept of, come out
(29:23):
of here, go into here, and onceyou go into here, where does
that take you? Yep, does it takeyou forward? Does it take you
backwards? You know, a lot offarmers are like, Oh, nobody
wants to do anything. It's like,Well, did you take the time to
teach them. You know, it's likewhen you were 15, did you want
(29:46):
to do what Dad Mom asked you todo? Not necessarily, unless you
needed something. Come on. Andthere's a total difference
between growing up on a farm andbeing a.
15 year old and not growing upon a farm and being that same 15
years old, because theexperiences that those 215 year
(30:08):
olds have are worlds apart. Andit's not that one is necessarily
lazy and one isn't. It's notthat one is smarter, it's that
they have different experiences.And so the things that one
person is going to just know,like, by the time I was 15,
there was so much about farmingthat I just knew and assumed
(30:32):
everybody knew it, because I hadmy years of expertise, which
were, you know, a 15 year old'slevel, plus my dad and my
grandfather and my greatgrandfather and my great great
grandfather. So all of thatknowledge and experience in
history got passed down, boththrough my genes and through my
(30:53):
training. So
I mean, it's I've said thisbefore. I was six months old,
when I was in the cornfield forthe first time in a playpen. I
was a September baby, I was in aplaypen, and they were picking
corn, and I was there. So shouldI not have known how to pick
corn by 15 and and would I haveno idea how I learned that? I
(31:15):
would have no idea, because bythe time I was two, I'd already
spent two seasons doing that.
Yep, these other kids don't. Soyou do have to, like as a as an
employer, and I run into this alot with people close to me
that, you know, there's afrustration that these kids
don't know anything these days.Well, of course, they don't.
(31:39):
Some of them, it's their firsttime on a farm, and that's not
their fault. So we have tobacktrack and almost
reverse engineer all of thislearning we've done, or else you
need somebody to come in andhelp you to learn what they're
not going to know and how toteach them what they need to
know. So I think your questionabout, you know, did you tell
(32:03):
them what they needed to do? Areyou sure you're following
through?
Yeah, yeah. And, and it's funny.I love how you said your
generation six months old, youwere out in the field and
everything like this. I grew upin Philadelphia, Philadelphia.
City Yeah. City Girl, cityenvironment, you know, it was
(32:26):
the suburbs, but still the city.And yes, we had a garden on in
our yard, and yes, we did thecanning and all of those kind of
things.
But to get to this level, no,you know you were saying
earlier. How did you know how todo it? It's like, I actually
(32:47):
don't know if I did. And there'ssome things, again, my dad
taught me, and he followedthrough and but even those
things,
you still have to learn, andit's being patient with yourself
and being patient with theperson. And yes, there's a line
that you're like, you're justnot getting
(33:08):
it's like, maybe you're not cutout for this career, maybe
you're not cut out for thiscareer, but we take everything
on to be like, oh, I'll just doit. It'll be easier if I just do
it. Well, we can't have it bothways. You can't complain that no
one's helping you and they'renot doing it right if you don't
take the time to teach them andthe time to give them space to
(33:32):
make the mistakes that you madewhen your grandfather, when your
mom, when they were teachingyou, they had to give you your
space to make mistakes. Yes,it's going to take a little bit
longer to get things done, buthere we go again with does that
really make a difference?Because in the long run,
(33:56):
you enjoy the process and enjoygetting time with that person
and your goal? Like, what isyour goal like, if you're happy
having a one person homestead,there is absolutely nothing
wrong with a one personhomestead. Like, you know,
one person home business, if, ifyou want to do all of the things
(34:17):
and wear all of the hats and beall of the all of the personnel.
There is absolutely nothingwrong with that. If you want to
scale up, if you want to expandinto new markets, if you want to
add a new crop, then things haveto change and and that has to
start with a mindset shift thatsays, Okay, I can't do it all
(34:42):
now. I've got to figure out howto find the right people, manage
the right people, and continueto support the right people, so
that you don't have to retrain anew set of right people every
year, which is a whole nother. Imean, oh my gosh, the amount of
time we could put into labor.
Recruitment, management andretention.
(35:07):
There's a reason that I havecommunication as one of the big
pillars that I teach farmers,because, because that's that's
the key, like you have to beable to work with people and
figure out where they are, whatthey need, and stay calm
yourself.
You know, this is not a farmrelated thing, but, but it
(35:27):
happened with my kid today. Myson is 13, and he wanted an
omelet. And I am aperimenopausal woman, and we had
cereal in the house, and I wasnot making omelets. I was like,
you can have cereal, and I will,like, get you a bowl, yay. Or
you can have an omelet and youcan cook it yourself. So he
didn't want cereal, so he said,Alright, I'm going to cook it
(35:50):
myself. Now, I don't know if Iactually spoke the words, don't
forget to use butter in the pan,on my on my cast iron pan. I
feel like I did, but sometimesmaybe the words like, stop here
and don't come out. I don't knowall that to say no. Butter
happened in the pan. So now he'sgot the eggs in the pan, and
(36:11):
he's making the omelet. And I'mlike, oh, that's gonna be bad.
So he's trying to get them offand and he gets them off, and I
go to tell him, Okay, you can'tleave the pan with all of the
like burnt egg in the bottom.That's you're going to clean
this out. So I start coachinghim. You need a metal spatula
(36:32):
for this. Well, he gets allagitated and he takes off.
So I got all agitated, and Itook a deep breath.
Because, because deep breathingreally is my go to and and one,
one deep breath was not enough,so I did the whole cycle of
four, which, I don't know whatit is about four deep breaths,
(36:54):
but there really is somethinglike, by three, you've settled
your system down and yourparasympathetic is back online,
but by four, you're like,
All right, we're good. We canfocus. It's like a fresh start.
I don't know what it is aboutthat, but for me, anyway, that
fourth one is, is what does thething. So I called him back
over, and I very calmly walkedhim through step by step, and he
(37:17):
did it step by step. And we, youknow, re, re cured the pan and
all of that stuff. So it wasfine. It was absolutely fine.
But had I gotten angry at himbecause he hadn't used butter?
We'd have ended that learningexperience right there, because
in there, because he'd have beenlike, Well, you didn't tell me,
(37:39):
and then it would have been atit for tat. Did I tell you? Did
I not tell you? Which really, inthe in the scheme of things, is
that the important thing here?No, the important thing is, does
the kid know how to make omeletswithout destroying a cast iron
pan? That's the important thing.And he's not going to learn that
if I never get past, well, Itold you to use butter, but
(38:01):
he's also he also, we learnthrough our mistakes, yes, and
that's a thing that everybodyforgets. It's like, No, we learn
through making mistakes, youknow? And I, I have to say, I
You really made something clickfor me, like, boom, clicked.
Because I do live here bymyself. I do
(38:25):
manage
it by myself,
and I
do have stepdaughter comes uponce a week and helps out for a
couple hours. But other thanthat, six days of the week, I'm
managing it myself, and I'm atthat point where I want to grow
(38:47):
and I want to get bigger, and Iwant to this to be my full time
commitment. And there's a partof me it's like, I, I can't I
don't like social media. I, youknow, I don't like doing this
stuff. And most farmers don't,you like I love my hands in the
dirt. I love my hands cuttingsomething. I love refinishing. I
(39:09):
just refinished my floors. Youknow? It's like, I love doing
those things. And the thought ofsitting down at a computer
figuring out who to go to, andthen it's like, oh, that's going
to be $500 and now where do Iget that from? And how do I do
this? And, oh, and how, youknow, we all just get and it's
(39:31):
like, okay, I don't want to dothat. And you step away, yeah.
And now it doesn't get done. Andnow you're not moving, and
you're not progressing, andyou're beating yourself up,
like, well, I should be and Ishould be
so I, I love how you just were,like, you got to do the things
you don't like to do, you know.Like, you didn't want to make
(39:53):
omelet this morning, you know.And he didn't want to hear from
you that you didn't want to makean omelet.
It, and he wasn't doing itright. So I can't tell myself, I
don't have, you know, a kid hereto do it. It's like, I can't say
I want this done and
complain about it not being done
(40:16):
right, until I learn how to doit. And be patient with myself,
and be patient in the conceptof, I gotta remember next time
put butter in the pan. And I'lltell you what that child is
never going to forget to putbutter into a cast iron pan,
never, never, because he hadthat experience, you know. And
(40:40):
the case. That's the whole pointof building the next generation.
Yeah, you know, it's building itup, and building who we can be,
and letting go
of
the control that everybody praysis human nature, yeah, and
(41:06):
letting it just being like,Okay, let, let, let that go,
buddy. No, did you? Did you needthat done? Yes, did it get done?
Yes, but No, no, buts take yourbutts out of it. Yeah, you know
the should have, coulda, woulda,blah, blah, blah, stuff that we
(41:26):
can all go through. And it'sjust, it's the letting go
component of it again, it'schoosing what how do you want to
enjoy your day, right? How doyou want to enjoy this moment?
And people like, Do you want aconstant and my son and I, you
(41:50):
know, this is no secret. My sonand I have a rather contentious
relationship sometimes, becausehe has got a lot of challenges,
and his challenges are notchallenges that I necessarily
naturally handle well, like, heneeds a lot of structure.
I'm not a person who works wellwith a ton of structure. I like,
(42:11):
I kind of like having, sort oflike music where, if you're an
improv artist, you have, like,the baseline that you follow,
you know, there's a chordprogression, there's some kind
of structure, but then what youdo with that structure is, like,
all over the place and and I'vecome to see that I need that
(42:31):
structure, I need that chordprogression, but I also really
need the freedom to, like, goall over the place on top of
that, that going on top ofthings is really hard for my
son. It doesn't work for him.Does not work for him at all. So
from the time he's like four,and I started realizing this
(42:53):
through the help of many otheroutside sources, I realized that
my idea of, come on, get yourshoes on. We gotta go like, as
we're about to walk out thedoor. That works for me. It
works for my daughter. Does notwork for my son. That puts him
into an absolute tailspin. So Ihad to switch gears and become
(43:14):
one of those moms who's like,Alright, we're going to be
leaving in an hour.
Okay, we're leaving in half anhour. Okay, okay. Titus, you
need to get your shoes onbecause we're leaving in 10
minutes. And and I couldn't, Ican't even now he's 13. I still
cannot just say we're leaving in10 minutes. I have to go through
(43:35):
his steps. You need to go brushyour teeth. Just, just one
thing, go brush your teeth, goput your shoes on, because he
gets really easily distracted,and anything more than that, it
just it doesn't matter to him.So he's like, forget it. And
then I'll get impatient, thenwe're in a fight, and then we're
in the car, and I'm like, he'sin the background,
(43:58):
and it's not necessary. Like, noone's enjoying it. No one's
enjoying the time. No, and it'snot his fault, like he's got
he's wired differently and needsextra support while he learns
how to provide that externalsupport for himself and that. I
mean, think of how many adultsdon't know how to do that. How
(44:21):
many adults have not learned tomanage their emotions? How many
adults have not learned how toscaffold their own days to be
able to keep on track? So thefact that my 13 year old son,
who's neurodivergent, struggleswith that, well, of course he
does, kind of like 15 year oldwho's never lived on the farm.
Of course, they struggle withpicking corn properly,
(44:45):
and not
because it makes sense. It makessense you're you know that whole
nature versus nurture component,everybody's like, it's either
this or that. No, no, no.
Nope, it's a blend of both andcrisscrosses. And it's
(45:06):
understanding
the person you're interactingwith, you know. And
for me, understanding who I amin the moment, you know, and
helping people realize, like,yes, who are you in the Moment?
Moment, are you already, like,grasping on what you want to say
(45:30):
and you've toned out to whatthat person is saying? Or are
you open to
really listening? And that's thething we don't tend to do very
well as human beings, is listen,
and there's some people that arefabulous at it. My brain will
(45:51):
kind of bounce around a littlebit here or there,
same as your sons. It's like,okay,
and
how do we find that balancewithin ourselves? Is again, take
and take that breath, like yousaid, take a deep breath and be
like,
(46:13):
Okay,
I'm back. Yeah. Okay. What? Whatdoes it feel like right now?
What do I want to feel like? DoI want to stay angry? Okay,
that's where you want to be.Enjoy
if you don't, then
figure out how to get out of itand work your way out of it, you
(46:36):
know, and learn the strategies,because there are so many
strategies that can help us
to change who we are in themoment. I love how you said that
about being who you are in themoment. I don't want to let
that, let that, like, disappearinto the ether before we really
hone in on that a little because
(46:56):
it really is true that who weare in the moment is not
necessarily who we are ingeneral, it's not necessarily
the person we'll we're trying tobecome, and and it might not
even be the person we were fiveminutes ago. You know, it can't
be the same person you were fiveminutes ago. You catch if you
catch me before my computercrashes in the middle of a
(47:20):
podcast interview, and after itcrashes, you might not get the
same k,
you might not and this k, this kover here, after the crash,
knows that who she is in thatmoment is not the person she
wants to be, and definitely notthe person she wants to be on a
podcast. So what is she going todo about it? Because there are
(47:42):
people who will tell you, Well,I can't control my emotions.
Well, you can manage you canmanage them, baby,
not to and so that's where thedeep breathing, it's like you're
using your body, you're trickingyour brain into feeling calm.
And the fact that we can do thefact that our minds and our
emotions and our bodies are soconnected that we can fake, fake
(48:06):
ourselves into being like, Oh,I'm not stressed out. And then
we're not stressed out,
right?
I'm literally living in acamper, frozen solid and no
running water because it's allfroze, right? I'm showering at
the medevac basis, right? And
(48:29):
I'm like, Alright, I don't haveanywhere. I gotta go somewhere
and do laundry, because I don'thave a spot to do laundry, and I
can choose to be
frustrated and angry and like,Why did I get myself into this?
And, you know, I have to go towork now. Now I gotta work a 24
hour shift, and nothing's goingto get done. And I can keep
(48:50):
going there, or I can be like,Oh, this place is going to be
amazing, and I get to hang outwith, you know, so and so this
week, because I'm
dropping in their house anddoing my laundry there, and I'm
going to take a hot shower attheir place. You know, it's
a mindset,
yeah, and it's like you canappreciate a shower. It's like I
(49:12):
can appreciate having runningwater. I can appreciate,
you know, clean clothes that Ididn't hand wash in cold water
with a garden hose. It's like,you know, but in the same
breath, I learned how to wash
clothes the garden hose becauseI forgot, you know, work out to
(49:35):
be at somebody's house
when the zombie, a cop, a coupleof Apocalypse
Yes, I'm not even going to go towho, who zombie is, or what, or
none of that, none of that. Whenthe metaphorical zombie
apocalypse occurs,
(49:56):
I'm going to.
Indeed,
exactly. But isn't that thetruth, like these things can
either make us or break us andand so much of it really is, how
are we going to approach it? Andand I have really learned that
so much over the past year, likejust realizing that when I
(50:20):
change my mindset, when I refuseto frame things in a negative
language, like when I usepositive I love what you said
about this place is going to beamazing. You didn't even say
this place isn't horrible,because your brain doesn't hear
that. Not all it hears is thisplace is horrible. You put it
into the positive. This place isgoing to be amazing. And look at
(50:45):
it. It's stinking amazing. Wecan it, you know. So this is,
this is what? Oh my gosh. AndI'm looking at the clock, and
I'm saying, My goodness, Gail, Icould talk to you for hours. I
feel like I can. I can talkabout this all day long. We
gotta hang out and have, wegotta have you on again. And
(51:05):
yes, we're gonna, we're gonna bechatting together, because I
just, I totally love whereyou're coming from, and I think
you have such amazing wisdom.And so I'm gonna ask you to
sprinkle a little bit one finalpiece of wisdom on our farmers
today, at the end of everyepisode, I ask our guests to
share the one thing that theythink every farmer should know.
(51:29):
So what do you think everyfarmer should know?
That you're loved.
It's very simple
that you're loved and to loveyourself.
You know, people may take forgranted. You know, having corn
(51:53):
on the cob, and others are superduper appreciative that they get
to have a can of corn
is still corn that was grown bysome farmer somewhere doing it,
and
it's appreciated, and they'reloved. So love yourself back for
(52:18):
taking care of the world. It'sjust,
you know, it comes back to doyou love who you are in the
moment, and if you don't, thenchange it, but love yourself,
and it's love that they areloved. Everyone is loved.
Oh, Gail,
(52:38):
thank you for that. Yeah, I'mnot going to add anything to
that. I'm just going to thankyou so much for coming on here
and and I'm going to echo whatGail says, that each one of you
out there is loved, and ifyou're not feeling loved, then
come and talk to somebody youknow. Send me, send me a letter,
(52:59):
because come talk to the horses.Go visit Gail in Pennsylvania.
Visit, come visit the animals.
They talk back less than I will.
But doubt about the goats.They're
pretty noisy. The support thatyou need if you're not feeling
(53:19):
that love like, Please, yeah,because, because you're worth it
and want to see you thriving. Sothank you so much, Gail, and I
can't wait to have you back andall of you guys, we'll see you
next time on Food, Flowers, andFun.
(53:40):
Farmwork's calling our show isall done, goodbye, farewell, so
long, Adieu, see you next week.Same time, same place for food,
flowers and fun. Go in peace.
Visit us atwww.penlightfarmers.com
Bye.
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