Dawn's Dirt - Food Security

Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt about food security. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15 % off your registration costs.

00:29 and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt in Alberta, Canada. Good morning, Dawn, how are you?  Good morning, I'm doing really well. How about yourself?  I'm great. I'm so happy you could take the time to talk with me today.  Absolutely. I'm very happy too. Anytime. I love talking about this stuff.

00:59 Good. How's the weather in Alberta?  Well, we had a little bit of snow last night. So just a little skiff.  It's not too cold. actually still, even though it snowed,  I'm a crazy woman,  even though it snowed, I still wore my sandals  to go into town for a cup of coffee this morning.  I'm excited for you.  think that's great because that will wake you up for sure.  Absolutely, for sure.

01:23 Okay, it is  really beautifully sunny here. The breeze is very light and I think it's probably 45 degrees outside in Minnesota. Beautiful, beautiful, nice.  Yeah. So Dawn is a homesteading coach  and I wanted to have Dawn back. She'd been on the podcast before  to talk about growing food  and about preserving food and about how to not get caught up short.

01:48 if there's an emergency like we had in the States here over the last month with the SNAP benefits. And has told me all kinds of cool things before, but I'm going to open this up to Dawn to tell me about growing food. So tell me about growing food, Dawn. For sure. So I just want to back it up a little bit. So my understanding is that you have the SNAP program down there. You've got little cards that the government issues that that's how some people get their food and that's been cut off. Is that what's happened?

02:17 how they get some extra food, you know, for like low income people.  Right, which  again  is honestly in some ways a beautiful thing because, you know, everyone should have access to food.  However, having said that, if you're relying on a card and you're relying on the government for your food, that's a problem  because just like you just saw when that card doesn't have dollars on it to get food,  what are you gonna do? Right? Yes.  That's where it's at.  And so that's where I wanna take this today is

02:46 let's we the people have the power to make the change for ourselves. And so when you think of a package of seed, I'm going to use an example of a package of lettuce seeds. So if you go to the store and you buy a package of lettuce seed, maybe it costs you $2 for a package of lettuce seed. Now, if you take that seed and you plant it in your backyard and everyone, most people, 95 % of people have space of some kind, whether it's a balcony.

03:14 whether it's a backyard, whether it's a space, there's lots of  community gardens around in different towns and cities.  So find a piece of dirt or find some pots and you take that $2 package of seed,  you plant it in some soil  and you can be creative. You don't have to, it doesn't have to be an expensive venture. There's