The Forbidden Farm “our farm, your secret”

Today I'm talking with Andrea at The Forbidden Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Andrea at The Forbidden Farm in New Jersey. Good morning, Andrea. How are you? Good morning. How are you today? I'm good. How's the weather in New Jersey this morning? It is actually bright and sunny and it was supposed to rain. Oh, well it's bright and sunny in Minnesota too, but it's nippy. I think it's maybe 57 degrees outside.

00:29 Already? uh My brother was from  Minnesota. Oh cool. Where did he live?  Don't even tell me I went. Like one time went to the Mall of America, which was amazing.  That was it.  Okay. All right. Cool.  So he must have lived somewhere nearby. Yes. that's where the mall is. Yes. Yes. Okay.  All right. Awesome. So

00:55 Tell me a little bit about yourself and why it's called the Forbidden Farm.  Well, you know, that's a little secret, so I got to keep that to myself.  Oh.  I  started out running an environmental company for 20 some years.  And when I left that company, I came home  and literally decided I really I just had a little temper tantrum, was stomping my feet and said, I'm going to get goats  and make soap.

01:25 So that was May, June,  I  LLC'd my company. And then from there, I had my first event on, I started out in my, my sunroom,  um, making all my products and doing stuff out of the house with my middle son, Dean. He was the big help in the beginning. We made all our soap together, just him and I mostly. then

01:51 we decided to branch into  like fairs, like wineries and stuff like that.  During this timeframe, my mother uh was diagnosed with dementia. So we had um set her up  in one of um the nursing homes actually ends up being right across the street from my now shop. ah And then she came to live with us.

02:19 So I had to move the stuff into the basement. So we continued doing that. We had our first event in September of last year on a Sunday at Terra Nono Winery, which was amazing. It was so much fun, had a huge setup, never done anything like this. And that was on Sunday and Thursday, I ended up getting the shop, which was insane. All within like a three month timeframe.

02:48 all again while my mother was going downhill.  So it was a huge struggle. ah family, everybody pulled together. uh Sadly, my mother passed and we buried her and then opened up the shop the next day, which was a struggle. But the community has been amazing. Like everybody, like I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don't hold anything back.

03:17 authentically myself from the day you meet me, probably too much so, but you know, open book. I'm like that too. And right now I feel like there's a lot of wearing your hat on your sleeve because things are just so crazy in the world. really feel like you have to. Yeah. I talked to my daughter who lives in Florida for three hours on the phone the other day and

03:42 We both teared up at least six times in three hours over things that we were talking about that are impacting the world right now. And I ended up with a terrible migraine from it because I'm one of those people where if I try to like stem the tears, it makes my head hurt. Me too. Oh my God. I was like, I love talking with her, but I wish it had been more positive. And we tried. We tried really hard to find positive lights in things, but it's just so hard right now.

04:10 Sometimes you can't, it is hard.  So I  need to clarify here. So you have a shop where you sell things that you make, is that right? I have a shop and cafe. Okay. And then do you still have your goats?  I do.  Okay. So do you live on like  acreage or do you just have No, the farm is outside of where

04:40 We live, it's not in Vineland. Okay. So  I'm trying to get to this. uh So my podcast is conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers and crafters. So