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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 soil everywhere. So you dig up some soil, you put it in any kind of container, your old ice cream pail, I don't care, put some drainage holes in the bottom, plant some seeds.
03:42
water it and you're going to get lettuce and the amount of lettuce that you're going to get out of that little $2 package of seed is going to, if you were to buy that lettuce in the grocery store, it would probably cost you 10, 12, 15, $20, right? By the time you're harvesting over and over and over again. So you're taking your $2 and you're turning it into 20. And so that's where I'm saying is we, people have the power to look after ourselves. If we all grow whatever we can,
04:12
in the space we have serving ourselves, we would have less hunger issues actually globally if everyone did this in the world. I completely agree and that's why I wanted you to talk about it because you're a Homestead coach and you teach people how to do this. Yeah, absolutely. So just give me one second. Yeah.
04:39
I just have to write something now. um So yeah, I teach homesteading. I teach people how to garden. So I have a garden group coaching garden in the spring, group coaching garden program, group coaching garden program in the spring. And so I teach, yeah, it's like a little tongue twister there. So I teach people how to grow food in the space they have. So I teach that online in the spring.
05:06
And so you can be anywhere in North America, really the world, and I can teach you. was actually in an online class last night teaching people in Pakistan, ah India and Saudi Arabia how to have little greenhouses and how to grow food. So that was pretty cool. oh Good job. Yeah, thank you. I was hired actually by a local college here and it's super fun and super exciting. So I loved it. I was on a two hour call from 10 o'clock PM till midnight last night because of the time zones.
05:35
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. was a lot of fun. so I teach people in the spring how to garden and then I also teach business coaching. Like I do business coaching. And so if you have a piece of land, if you have a homestead, if you have a plot of land and you want to make some money off of your land, so you're not just growing for yourself, but then you're turning around growing extra or raising extra, extra chickens, extra pigs, extra whatever it is.
06:03
And I teach you, coach you through your business plan and we can then serve your community around you and you can make some extra dollars off of the items that you're getting off of your land. And so it's a business opportunity. So I coach that as well. So. I love it. And I love how you do it because you are a no bullshit lady. You are kind and you are clear.
06:31
but you don't pull any punches and I love that about you. Thank you. Well, that's the thing. Like if you're, when you think of a coach, let's say you were on a sports team and I'm not sportsy at all, but if you think of a coach, if you've got a coach on a sports team and they're always going like, uh oh, it's okay. Oh, you know, and oodles and coddles you, you're never gonna, you're never gonna like get further. You're never gonna like push yourself to the next level.
06:58
Whereas I am not the one to oodle and coddle. You're right, I'm very kind, but I'm very direct and blunt. And I'm just gonna call it like I see it in a kind fashion. But if I can see that you can level up in some way, just like I said with the lettuce packet, if you're on that card, slightly I'm calling you out saying, go buy the package of lettuce seed and help yourself level up because you have the power to help yourself.
07:26
We're human beings and we're able to do this for ourselves. We don't need the government to provide our food for us. We can do it ourselves. And so that's what I do with all my clients is I just push them a little bit in kind ways to just help themselves be a little bit better. And I love that you do. And I appreciate that you do because people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do things for themselves.
07:55
Sometimes that's not always possible. If you are a five-year-old and your parents don't grow food for you, five-year-old is probably not going to have any direction to know how to do that. Or if you are in your 90s and you're not mobile and people aren't around to help, you're probably not going to be doing this. But the people around you should be able to help. And that's kind what I'm trying to get at. Absolutely. I've told this story several times and it's the inspiration behind what I'm doing.
08:25
I was in Kelowna last summer, I think it was, and we were walking through the streets of Kelowna down to the lake and there was a zucchini sitting on an electrical box and I thought that zucchini right there on that electrical box is the key to our food system. If everyone would just grow what they can in the space they have, the five-year-old will have food, the 90-year-old
08:48
will have food because there will be extra food produced. And so you don't need a card. You don't need a grocery store even. Well, you need a grocery store for some things, but you know, if you can, if you can grow some of what you need and then you can get different things at the grocery store. And that's where, that's what it comes down to is you're, you're able to do more with what you have. You're taking the assets that you have and just stretching it that much further. And furthermore to that five year old,
09:16
Yes, the five-year-old can't grow food for themselves, but the five-year-old can learn how to grow food. So if mom takes the five-year-old into the backyard, plants some carrot seeds, waters the carrot seeds, has the five-year-old help pull weeds, help water, help tend to those carrots, however many months later when that five-year-old pulls those carrots out of the ground, the five-year-old is going to go, wow, that is food and it's the best food.
09:44
where it's at. It's about the education and teaching people. And I feel like as society, we have lost these skills and we need to get them back again. Yep, absolutely. um Speaking of a packet of seeds, I have a fun story that I want to share. My husband doesn't know about this yet. This is his birthday or his Christmas present. um One of the seed companies here in the States, they sell a specific kind of watermelon and it is a 60 day growth cycle.
10:12
And they're called mini-me watermelons, and they're like enough watermelon for two people. So the small watermelons. We've never grown these before. I didn't even know they existed. And my husband has been trying to grow big watermelons for the last four summers, and they just don't do well here. We don't have a long enough growing season for big watermelons. So I discovered this. It was like $6 for 12 seeds through this very reputable seed company. And I was like,
10:41
That's what I'm getting my husband for Christmas. 12 mini me watermelon seeds, because he will be so excited at the 60 day turnaround. I love that. That's amazing. Right. And that's just it. It's trial and error. That's farming. So if you buy that package of lettuce seed or watermelon seed or whatever it might be, welcome to farming. Farming is trial and error. Farming is actually gambling. Right. So sometimes it pays off big and sometimes it pays off small. So it can go either way.
11:09
I did a reel on my Instagram a couple of weeks ago and I said, some people go to Vegas to gamble and they'll throw $1,000 on the table. Me, when I had my farm, I threw half a million dollars worth of plants in the soil and hoped it didn't hail. Like we're not the same kind of people here. And so it's high roller gambling. But even on your $2 package of seeds, sometimes things happen. Sometimes it doesn't go well, but if it pays off, it pays off big.
11:39
Yeah, I'm really hoping that this works because if it does, we have a great big garden and I would love to grow more of these small watermelons because no one around here grows them. They'd be a great hit at the farmers market and especially a small watermelon. Maybe it's not practical for a family, but for sure for two people, that'd be amazing. Or for kids, I could see kids really getting into those little baby watermelons as well.
12:06
Yeah. And I mean, if you're a family of six, I eat three watermelons. Hey, why not? Right? Share it, cut it in half and eat it with a spoon. Like that's the way our food should be done is just, you know, the natural way that we've been raised with or yeah. Yep. So I can't hide the packet of seeds because he's the one that grabs the mail on the way home from work. So um
12:32
he's going to see this envelope from the seed company addressed to me and be like, what is that? I'm going to just turn around and give it to him and say, early Merry Christmas, I love that. I can't wait to see his face when he realizes what they are because he has been so sad that we have not been able to get any good watermelons in four years. And I keep telling him it's just too short a growing season here, but we can handle 60 days. Yes.
12:59
So watermelons need uh lots of heat units and they need lots and lots of water. I mean, they're a watermelon, right? So lots and lots of water and lots and lots of heat units. Yeah. And the last two summers, part of the problem we've had is that we've had lots of water, but it didn't ever dry out really well. And so I'm going to suggest to him that he plant them in our heated greenhouse in like April.
13:28
because then it'll be nice and warm in there from the sun. It gets over 100 degrees in there. he can control the watering. He won't have to worry about if it's too wet. For sure. And you know, one more bonus. This is where my business coaching comes in. I know that you go to farmers markets. So if you plant them in April, 60 days later, you're sitting at what? April, May? So June, yeah. In June, you're going to have watermelons. Yeah.
13:56
You're going to have watermelons at the farmer's market when no one else does. And you could probably charge a little bit more for those bad boys then, right? Because you're first to the table bringing something that no one has. And so that's that that's the business side of it, right? Right. And when I looked at this, when I saw the email come through from the company, I was like, hmm. And then I looked at what it was and I looked at how much it costs. And I looked at the the turnaround time and I was like,
14:24
Ooh, I can't pass this up. For $6, this is worth trying. For sure. Okay, so let's do it. Let's take tactician some math on that. So $6 for how many seeds? 12. 12. Okay, so it's 50 cents a seed. how many watermelons do think you'll get off of one plant? I have no freaking idea, Dawn. It didn't tell me, but I'm assuming at least two or three.
14:49
Okay, so let's go with the number two. Just keep it a little low just for the math sakes, but your 50 cents a seed, you're going to get two watermelons. You could probably sell those watermelons at three to five dollars. Boom. You've turned your 50 cents into six to, uh, six to ten dollars. Yeah. Right? Yes. Yes. And that was the other thing that I thought about. I was like, is it going to be worth it? And then I did the numbers and I was like, oh, it is well worth spending six dollars to see if this goes.
15:19
Absolutely, absolutely. Or, I mean, if there's a crop failure, like that happens. But the next crop, if you're doing multiple crops, if you're doing some lettuce and some tomatoes and things like that, something will work out. And in gardening, especially in vegetables, that's your margins. You're just out some time and labor and, you know, some water and things like that. But it's really not costing you a lot. it's some backbrain, like it's using your body, it's using what God's given you to
15:48
get food, right? And so if you're planting a couple of different crops, you know, even on a balcony, if you're planting lettuce, tomatoes and beans, let's say you're going to get something, you're going to get something. so something that the margins and the math works out on it so well that you're going to get something, you're still going to get your money back tenfold no matter what. Yep. And they're not sorry. I've had I've been sick for a month with some crap. So I'm not quite there yet. I'm at 98%.
16:18
So I'm little goofy still. The other thing is that they are not seedless watermelon. They have seeds. So we will definitely be saving some of the seeds from one of them and seeing if they will grow true because they are a hybrid. Amazing, right? Absolutely. So I think sometimes with your watermelons and your tomatoes and your squash and things like that, sometimes they'll cross pollinate and you'll get something a little bit different. still, it's super, super fun. And gardens and
16:48
and vegetables are the gift that can keep on giving. You know, if you plant some bean seeds and then you let some of those beans, a few of those beans really over mature, form the little bean inside the pod, you dry it out, you can plant them the next year. Peas are the same way. So again, you plant your 50 cents worth of bean seed and you may not have to buy seeds ever again if you do it right.
17:15
Yeah, that's what we do with our basil plants because basil plants produce so many seeds that we save some every year and then we don't have to buy anymore. Right, so you invested your seeds, you invested in your seeds the first time and now you're picking basil for yourself but you've also got basil that you're selling at the market and it's the gift just keeps on giving and giving and giving without any more real investment other than your time but I mean a little little hard work never hurt anybody.
17:45
Yup. um, yeah, my husband, um, it's so funny because the first few weeks that he's doing the garden, he's so excited and it's his baby and he just is so lit up. He's out there all the time. And about the third week he'll come in and he'll go to bed, you know, he'll get up in the morning and he's, he's doing the wiggle thing when he's sitting and I'm like, um, are you okay? And he says, back's a little stiff. And I'm like, well, yeah, cause you've been busting your back for two
18:15
three weeks now, every day. He forgets that he's not 25 anymore. That's hilarious. I mean, I had those days too. When I had my greenhouse, I had a big 36,000 square foot greenhouse. And every year when we got the greenhouse going up and going again, I had this big heating system, hot water heating system. And to get it going, I had to fill it with water and then I had to climb ladders all day, every day for a couple of days on end.
18:43
just bleeding out these pipes to get them to go again to heat my big greenhouse up. And so yeah, you just do what you gotta do. And those are my favorite days. My favorite days are when I've worked so hard physically during the day that I'm just exhausted at night. I fall into bed, I sleep through the next day and I go, wow, I'm pretty stiff and sore, but you wanna know what the best cure for stiff and sore is? More work. up the next day.
19:08
Yeah, and do it all again. Don't just lay in bed the next day. Do it all again. I think that's the biggest cure. And I think that's what a lot of people don't do actually is they go, oh, my back hurts. And then they sit in a chair all day. Yeah. And that actually leads me into my next comment or my next thought about all of this. We as human beings have gotten really soft. We've gotten really soft and we want everybody to do everything for us. And nobody wants to be a producer anymore. They want to be a consumer.
19:38
Yeah. And that's not good. mean, I don't think we're created like that. I don't think we're designed like that. And I think if you're relying, if you're soft, which we're just going to call a spade a spade in kindness. But if you're soft, if you're relying on the grocery store, like that's not a great way to live because what happens when things go sideways? I'm not a crazy, like, prepper by any stretch of the imagination, but I do want to know.
20:07
that I can look after myself if something crazy went down in the world. Yes, and that's part of the reason I wanted to chat with you is because I talked with a lady, I don't know, a couple of days ago, and we talked about SNAP, and we talked about how to find help during this shutdown and how to be a helper in the situation. But the other thing that I kind of want your thoughts on, I'll share mine, is
20:35
How do you not find yourself in a bind in a situation like this? What can you do to prep for a situation like this thing was not being available for over a month? And I actually have some things that I already do and that I looked up. And honestly, if you can have a couple of chickens, you have a protein source. You have eggs.
21:03
If you don't have, you're not allowed to have chickens, someone nearby has chickens for eggs and you can get eggs from them. Because eggs are the easiest thing to produce if you can come up with the money for the chickens and if you can put together a safe coop for them. For sure. Chickens are your easiest way to get protein because if you do a hybrid bird, if you get a hybrid chicken,
21:31
and you have some hens and you have some roosters, then you've got eggs and you also can let the hen sit on those eggs and she can make chicks so you're going to get more chickens um if you need to or you can eat the eggs. Also, um if it's a hybrid chicken, you can butcher those chickens for meat. So you get too many roosters, you just butcher a rooster and put them in the soup pot, right? So they're very dual purpose
22:02
animals and they're small so you can keep them in small spaces. I think every backyard um should have a few chickens and have a garden. um And then you were talking about prepping as well. The easiest way that you can prep even just on a small scale is by canning. We've talked, you you mentioned canning earlier today. uh So if you get the, like if you get into the fall and you get a box of tomatoes, uh
22:28
You can put those tomatoes, first of all, you can do it two ways. You can put them in jars and can them. So then you've got canned tomatoes, your tomatoes are going to be less expensive in the fall than they are going to be like, let's say in spring when they're not readily available. Right. And you can put, can put, you can can things. You can also freeze tomatoes. Did you know that? You can take a whole tomato, you can wash it and you can just pop the whole thing in your freezer. And then you've got
22:55
tomatoes all year round, as long as your freezer doesn't go down. um The other thing too, when I moved from my big farm and I looked at moving into town, the biggest thing I looked for in a place to live is where can I hide my chickens and where can I plant a garden? Those were the two biggest things that I looked for when moving to town. And thankfully I landed back in the country and so I've got a little chicken business going now.
23:20
One more thing that you can do to prep and help prepare yourself for these times is honestly a bag of rice. Go with your snap card, plant your seeds, get your seeds and grow your vegetables. But if you can just get that extra bag of rice, big bag of rice, it's inexpensive and just have it on hand so that if something like this where it shut down,
23:49
If something like that ever happens again, you have something. And it's not that hard. It's not a big prepper. You see all these shows, Prepper, the YouTubes, or the Instagrams. You don't have to go all out like that. But if everyone just did a handful of things for themselves to prepare, if things go sideways, or if the government shuts down.
24:15
Yeah, and along with the rice suggestion, beans are good, pasta is good, lentils are good because they're all dry goods, which means they can be stored for quite a while in case something happens and you can rotate them out. You can use them when you want to and then add back in. Absolutely. actually know, back in my farmer's market days doing vegetables, I know of another vendor and she would actually go down to the seed company and pick up like big
24:44
50 pound bags of lentils and beans and things like that that were meant for seed, but they're the food. So she just packaged them up and she sold them just like that. So a big bulk bag of beans or a big bulk bag of rice. If you have a big bulk bag of beans and a big bulk bag of rice, you've got meals for a long time if you need to. Yeah. And the only real problem with that is that
25:12
food can get boring if you're eating the same things over and over again. So if you're growing some herbs on your balcony or in your little yard, you can add herbs to your beans or your rice and it makes it taste different and taste better. For sure. And that's the thing. We're talking prepper style. We're talking like having something on hand. I'm not saying that you should eat rice and beans and rice and beans and rice and beans because you're correct. That's very, very boring. I'm just thinking.
25:41
ahead to the, you know, what if and so, but until what if happens, you're right, grow your garden, plant your vegetables, have your chickens and you're going to have a lot of great variety in your meals. And it's so much better. The carrot that you pull out of the ground and you wash up and you have that in your salad, like that is going to be the best salad you've ever had. Yeah. I just, part of the reason I started the podcast on is so that
26:09
I could help people learn this stuff and be exposed to it. And a lot of the people who listen to my podcast are already doing these things, which is really interesting to me. But it used to be a hundred years ago that everybody had a kitchen garden. That's okay. Yep, good.
26:32
100 years ago, almost everybody had some kind of little kitchen garden. And we just don't do that anymore. And everybody should be doing it. That's what I think. mean, that's where I've talked to my grandmother and she was in the Netherlands during World War II and grew up in the Netherlands in the countryside. And that's what they did. They had food from their yards. Like they had milk, they had, because they had dairy cows, they had
26:59
You know, some beef, had some pork, they had some chicken, they had, they grew their gardens and that's how they were raised. And then my grandparents immigrated to Canada and they had a dairy farm. And I said to my grandma once, said, grandma, what did you eat when you were on the farm? What did you eat? And she said, well, for the most part, we ate what we had. And I said, well, what did you buy in the grocery store? And she said, oh, sometimes some flour and some sugar and.
27:26
We didn't have a lot of fruit in the yard. So sometimes I bought some fruit. And so that was their diet, was they just ate meat, potatoes and vegetables and bread. you know, they didn't buy a lot of groceries because they ate what they had that they produced and raised on their farm. Yep. is absolutely crazy making that we don't do that as much anymore.
27:53
I'm trying so hard to get people back into it. And I know you are too. For sure. Absolutely. But that's the thing. we as society, I'm going to call out one more little thing. We as society, we've actually gotten kind of lazy in how we do life. you know, it's easier sometimes to go to the McDonald's drive-through than it is to go home and peel potatoes. But we just need to get back to that for our health, for our wallets, for our food security, and just even for our mental health.
28:23
get back to quitting going to McDonald's and I'm not saying you can't go to McDonald's. McDonald's is a treat once in a while potentially, right? But stop doing the drive-throughs and start cooking at home more and growing more of your own food and doing it from scratch more because it's just healthier and so much better for you and you're just in that much more control. And it's more satisfying when you cook what you grew. Absolutely.
28:50
Absolutely, for sure. So I have one more question for you. Does Canada have a program like we have here like SNAP? No, not that I know of, but Canada has something called food banks. So you've got your food bank and so people, um so lots of towns and cities and things have a food bank. So that's where people donate extra food. And unfortunately, the food that's donated to these food banks are usually from the centre aisles of the grocery store, non-perishables.
29:19
And so it's not the healthiest food that they're getting. So people will go once a week and pick up their food from the food bank and then they'll take it home and they'll eat it that day or that week. And so it's to supplement your income. And honestly, in the last several years, um the food bank usage has gone way, way, way up as things are getting tighter and harder for people. um
29:44
more more people are relying on the food banks for their food and that's, it's scary and it's sad. Okay, so we're not alone in that here in the States. Canada is going through it too. Oh, absolutely. I think everywhere is going through it. And that's the thing. That's where I'm a proponent of, you know, you can help yourself and maybe you can't, maybe you're like we said, the five-year-old or the 90-year-old or maybe you've got some reason that you just can't. But if more people who can,
30:13
do something or doing it, then that will just share around and make it so that all of us can eat. So even if you're listening in like around the world in countries anywhere, grow something in your backyard, get the seeds and put some things in the ground and grow something. Do whatever you can to be self-reliant and get some food for yourself. For sure. Do you have any coaching classes coming up?
30:40
Yeah, so I'm starting a microgreens class this Saturday. And so the link will be in my stories on my Instagram to sign up for that. It's just it's just a really inexpensive class. So it's $100 uh Canadian. So that's really, really inexpensive. And then yeah, book a jumpstart call with me. So I'll have my my garden coaching in the spring, we can cover chickens with that too. I'm always happy to cover chickens with any kind of my coaching. And then
31:08
I'm yeah, and then I'm business coaching. So if you have a small homestead and you want to make a little extra pennies, nickels and dimes off of the land and the space you have, book a jumpstart call with me. It's a free jumpstart call. We talk about your situation and we'll see if I'm able to help you make some dollars, nickels, dimes, pennies off of your farm. Yes. And having having done the run through with you, just the example one that we did with my farm. The thing I will tell you guys about Dawn is Dawn
31:38
knows that there's no such thing as a stupid question. And so you can ask her anything and she will have an answer for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. The only stupid question is the one that doesn't get asked. For sure. All right, Dawn, um tell me again where people can find you. Dawn's the... You have a podcast, Dawn's Dirt. You have... Do have a website?
32:01
Yeah, so I'm not sure if my website's really up and going right now. I'm just working on a few things, but I'm Dawns Dirt. So I'm on Instagram, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, ah Apple Podcasts, Facebook. Yeah, so just look up Dawns Dirt and you'll find me. So I've got my own podcast and then I've got my social media pages as well. And my YouTube is very hot these days. So that's really cool too. Subscribe, subscribe to my YouTube channel. That'll help me a lot.
32:30
All right. You heard it here first guys. Subscribe to Dawn's YouTube channel. Okay. um As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com and check out my Patreon. It's patreon.com slash atinyhomestead. Dawn, thank you for taking the time today. I really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate you. I really appreciate what you're doing for our food system and for homesteads and for people. And it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
32:59
You're welcome. I hope you have a great day. You too. Thank you. Bye.
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By Mary E LewisToday 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 soil everywhere. So you dig up some soil, you put it in any kind of container, your old ice cream pail, I don't care, put some drainage holes in the bottom, plant some seeds.
03:42
water it and you're going to get lettuce and the amount of lettuce that you're going to get out of that little $2 package of seed is going to, if you were to buy that lettuce in the grocery store, it would probably cost you 10, 12, 15, $20, right? By the time you're harvesting over and over and over again. So you're taking your $2 and you're turning it into 20. And so that's where I'm saying is we, people have the power to look after ourselves. If we all grow whatever we can,
04:12
in the space we have serving ourselves, we would have less hunger issues actually globally if everyone did this in the world. I completely agree and that's why I wanted you to talk about it because you're a Homestead coach and you teach people how to do this. Yeah, absolutely. So just give me one second. Yeah.
04:39
I just have to write something now. um So yeah, I teach homesteading. I teach people how to garden. So I have a garden group coaching garden in the spring, group coaching garden program, group coaching garden program in the spring. And so I teach, yeah, it's like a little tongue twister there. So I teach people how to grow food in the space they have. So I teach that online in the spring.
05:06
And so you can be anywhere in North America, really the world, and I can teach you. was actually in an online class last night teaching people in Pakistan, ah India and Saudi Arabia how to have little greenhouses and how to grow food. So that was pretty cool. oh Good job. Yeah, thank you. I was hired actually by a local college here and it's super fun and super exciting. So I loved it. I was on a two hour call from 10 o'clock PM till midnight last night because of the time zones.
05:35
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. was a lot of fun. so I teach people in the spring how to garden and then I also teach business coaching. Like I do business coaching. And so if you have a piece of land, if you have a homestead, if you have a plot of land and you want to make some money off of your land, so you're not just growing for yourself, but then you're turning around growing extra or raising extra, extra chickens, extra pigs, extra whatever it is.
06:03
And I teach you, coach you through your business plan and we can then serve your community around you and you can make some extra dollars off of the items that you're getting off of your land. And so it's a business opportunity. So I coach that as well. So. I love it. And I love how you do it because you are a no bullshit lady. You are kind and you are clear.
06:31
but you don't pull any punches and I love that about you. Thank you. Well, that's the thing. Like if you're, when you think of a coach, let's say you were on a sports team and I'm not sportsy at all, but if you think of a coach, if you've got a coach on a sports team and they're always going like, uh oh, it's okay. Oh, you know, and oodles and coddles you, you're never gonna, you're never gonna like get further. You're never gonna like push yourself to the next level.
06:58
Whereas I am not the one to oodle and coddle. You're right, I'm very kind, but I'm very direct and blunt. And I'm just gonna call it like I see it in a kind fashion. But if I can see that you can level up in some way, just like I said with the lettuce packet, if you're on that card, slightly I'm calling you out saying, go buy the package of lettuce seed and help yourself level up because you have the power to help yourself.
07:26
We're human beings and we're able to do this for ourselves. We don't need the government to provide our food for us. We can do it ourselves. And so that's what I do with all my clients is I just push them a little bit in kind ways to just help themselves be a little bit better. And I love that you do. And I appreciate that you do because people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do things for themselves.
07:55
Sometimes that's not always possible. If you are a five-year-old and your parents don't grow food for you, five-year-old is probably not going to have any direction to know how to do that. Or if you are in your 90s and you're not mobile and people aren't around to help, you're probably not going to be doing this. But the people around you should be able to help. And that's kind what I'm trying to get at. Absolutely. I've told this story several times and it's the inspiration behind what I'm doing.
08:25
I was in Kelowna last summer, I think it was, and we were walking through the streets of Kelowna down to the lake and there was a zucchini sitting on an electrical box and I thought that zucchini right there on that electrical box is the key to our food system. If everyone would just grow what they can in the space they have, the five-year-old will have food, the 90-year-old
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will have food because there will be extra food produced. And so you don't need a card. You don't need a grocery store even. Well, you need a grocery store for some things, but you know, if you can, if you can grow some of what you need and then you can get different things at the grocery store. And that's where, that's what it comes down to is you're, you're able to do more with what you have. You're taking the assets that you have and just stretching it that much further. And furthermore to that five year old,
09:16
Yes, the five-year-old can't grow food for themselves, but the five-year-old can learn how to grow food. So if mom takes the five-year-old into the backyard, plants some carrot seeds, waters the carrot seeds, has the five-year-old help pull weeds, help water, help tend to those carrots, however many months later when that five-year-old pulls those carrots out of the ground, the five-year-old is going to go, wow, that is food and it's the best food.
09:44
where it's at. It's about the education and teaching people. And I feel like as society, we have lost these skills and we need to get them back again. Yep, absolutely. um Speaking of a packet of seeds, I have a fun story that I want to share. My husband doesn't know about this yet. This is his birthday or his Christmas present. um One of the seed companies here in the States, they sell a specific kind of watermelon and it is a 60 day growth cycle.
10:12
And they're called mini-me watermelons, and they're like enough watermelon for two people. So the small watermelons. We've never grown these before. I didn't even know they existed. And my husband has been trying to grow big watermelons for the last four summers, and they just don't do well here. We don't have a long enough growing season for big watermelons. So I discovered this. It was like $6 for 12 seeds through this very reputable seed company. And I was like,
10:41
That's what I'm getting my husband for Christmas. 12 mini me watermelon seeds, because he will be so excited at the 60 day turnaround. I love that. That's amazing. Right. And that's just it. It's trial and error. That's farming. So if you buy that package of lettuce seed or watermelon seed or whatever it might be, welcome to farming. Farming is trial and error. Farming is actually gambling. Right. So sometimes it pays off big and sometimes it pays off small. So it can go either way.
11:09
I did a reel on my Instagram a couple of weeks ago and I said, some people go to Vegas to gamble and they'll throw $1,000 on the table. Me, when I had my farm, I threw half a million dollars worth of plants in the soil and hoped it didn't hail. Like we're not the same kind of people here. And so it's high roller gambling. But even on your $2 package of seeds, sometimes things happen. Sometimes it doesn't go well, but if it pays off, it pays off big.
11:39
Yeah, I'm really hoping that this works because if it does, we have a great big garden and I would love to grow more of these small watermelons because no one around here grows them. They'd be a great hit at the farmers market and especially a small watermelon. Maybe it's not practical for a family, but for sure for two people, that'd be amazing. Or for kids, I could see kids really getting into those little baby watermelons as well.
12:06
Yeah. And I mean, if you're a family of six, I eat three watermelons. Hey, why not? Right? Share it, cut it in half and eat it with a spoon. Like that's the way our food should be done is just, you know, the natural way that we've been raised with or yeah. Yep. So I can't hide the packet of seeds because he's the one that grabs the mail on the way home from work. So um
12:32
he's going to see this envelope from the seed company addressed to me and be like, what is that? I'm going to just turn around and give it to him and say, early Merry Christmas, I love that. I can't wait to see his face when he realizes what they are because he has been so sad that we have not been able to get any good watermelons in four years. And I keep telling him it's just too short a growing season here, but we can handle 60 days. Yes.
12:59
So watermelons need uh lots of heat units and they need lots and lots of water. I mean, they're a watermelon, right? So lots and lots of water and lots and lots of heat units. Yeah. And the last two summers, part of the problem we've had is that we've had lots of water, but it didn't ever dry out really well. And so I'm going to suggest to him that he plant them in our heated greenhouse in like April.
13:28
because then it'll be nice and warm in there from the sun. It gets over 100 degrees in there. he can control the watering. He won't have to worry about if it's too wet. For sure. And you know, one more bonus. This is where my business coaching comes in. I know that you go to farmers markets. So if you plant them in April, 60 days later, you're sitting at what? April, May? So June, yeah. In June, you're going to have watermelons. Yeah.
13:56
You're going to have watermelons at the farmer's market when no one else does. And you could probably charge a little bit more for those bad boys then, right? Because you're first to the table bringing something that no one has. And so that's that that's the business side of it, right? Right. And when I looked at this, when I saw the email come through from the company, I was like, hmm. And then I looked at what it was and I looked at how much it costs. And I looked at the the turnaround time and I was like,
14:24
Ooh, I can't pass this up. For $6, this is worth trying. For sure. Okay, so let's do it. Let's take tactician some math on that. So $6 for how many seeds? 12. 12. Okay, so it's 50 cents a seed. how many watermelons do think you'll get off of one plant? I have no freaking idea, Dawn. It didn't tell me, but I'm assuming at least two or three.
14:49
Okay, so let's go with the number two. Just keep it a little low just for the math sakes, but your 50 cents a seed, you're going to get two watermelons. You could probably sell those watermelons at three to five dollars. Boom. You've turned your 50 cents into six to, uh, six to ten dollars. Yeah. Right? Yes. Yes. And that was the other thing that I thought about. I was like, is it going to be worth it? And then I did the numbers and I was like, oh, it is well worth spending six dollars to see if this goes.
15:19
Absolutely, absolutely. Or, I mean, if there's a crop failure, like that happens. But the next crop, if you're doing multiple crops, if you're doing some lettuce and some tomatoes and things like that, something will work out. And in gardening, especially in vegetables, that's your margins. You're just out some time and labor and, you know, some water and things like that. But it's really not costing you a lot. it's some backbrain, like it's using your body, it's using what God's given you to
15:48
get food, right? And so if you're planting a couple of different crops, you know, even on a balcony, if you're planting lettuce, tomatoes and beans, let's say you're going to get something, you're going to get something. so something that the margins and the math works out on it so well that you're going to get something, you're still going to get your money back tenfold no matter what. Yep. And they're not sorry. I've had I've been sick for a month with some crap. So I'm not quite there yet. I'm at 98%.
16:18
So I'm little goofy still. The other thing is that they are not seedless watermelon. They have seeds. So we will definitely be saving some of the seeds from one of them and seeing if they will grow true because they are a hybrid. Amazing, right? Absolutely. So I think sometimes with your watermelons and your tomatoes and your squash and things like that, sometimes they'll cross pollinate and you'll get something a little bit different. still, it's super, super fun. And gardens and
16:48
and vegetables are the gift that can keep on giving. You know, if you plant some bean seeds and then you let some of those beans, a few of those beans really over mature, form the little bean inside the pod, you dry it out, you can plant them the next year. Peas are the same way. So again, you plant your 50 cents worth of bean seed and you may not have to buy seeds ever again if you do it right.
17:15
Yeah, that's what we do with our basil plants because basil plants produce so many seeds that we save some every year and then we don't have to buy anymore. Right, so you invested your seeds, you invested in your seeds the first time and now you're picking basil for yourself but you've also got basil that you're selling at the market and it's the gift just keeps on giving and giving and giving without any more real investment other than your time but I mean a little little hard work never hurt anybody.
17:45
Yup. um, yeah, my husband, um, it's so funny because the first few weeks that he's doing the garden, he's so excited and it's his baby and he just is so lit up. He's out there all the time. And about the third week he'll come in and he'll go to bed, you know, he'll get up in the morning and he's, he's doing the wiggle thing when he's sitting and I'm like, um, are you okay? And he says, back's a little stiff. And I'm like, well, yeah, cause you've been busting your back for two
18:15
three weeks now, every day. He forgets that he's not 25 anymore. That's hilarious. I mean, I had those days too. When I had my greenhouse, I had a big 36,000 square foot greenhouse. And every year when we got the greenhouse going up and going again, I had this big heating system, hot water heating system. And to get it going, I had to fill it with water and then I had to climb ladders all day, every day for a couple of days on end.
18:43
just bleeding out these pipes to get them to go again to heat my big greenhouse up. And so yeah, you just do what you gotta do. And those are my favorite days. My favorite days are when I've worked so hard physically during the day that I'm just exhausted at night. I fall into bed, I sleep through the next day and I go, wow, I'm pretty stiff and sore, but you wanna know what the best cure for stiff and sore is? More work. up the next day.
19:08
Yeah, and do it all again. Don't just lay in bed the next day. Do it all again. I think that's the biggest cure. And I think that's what a lot of people don't do actually is they go, oh, my back hurts. And then they sit in a chair all day. Yeah. And that actually leads me into my next comment or my next thought about all of this. We as human beings have gotten really soft. We've gotten really soft and we want everybody to do everything for us. And nobody wants to be a producer anymore. They want to be a consumer.
19:38
Yeah. And that's not good. mean, I don't think we're created like that. I don't think we're designed like that. And I think if you're relying, if you're soft, which we're just going to call a spade a spade in kindness. But if you're soft, if you're relying on the grocery store, like that's not a great way to live because what happens when things go sideways? I'm not a crazy, like, prepper by any stretch of the imagination, but I do want to know.
20:07
that I can look after myself if something crazy went down in the world. Yes, and that's part of the reason I wanted to chat with you is because I talked with a lady, I don't know, a couple of days ago, and we talked about SNAP, and we talked about how to find help during this shutdown and how to be a helper in the situation. But the other thing that I kind of want your thoughts on, I'll share mine, is
20:35
How do you not find yourself in a bind in a situation like this? What can you do to prep for a situation like this thing was not being available for over a month? And I actually have some things that I already do and that I looked up. And honestly, if you can have a couple of chickens, you have a protein source. You have eggs.
21:03
If you don't have, you're not allowed to have chickens, someone nearby has chickens for eggs and you can get eggs from them. Because eggs are the easiest thing to produce if you can come up with the money for the chickens and if you can put together a safe coop for them. For sure. Chickens are your easiest way to get protein because if you do a hybrid bird, if you get a hybrid chicken,
21:31
and you have some hens and you have some roosters, then you've got eggs and you also can let the hen sit on those eggs and she can make chicks so you're going to get more chickens um if you need to or you can eat the eggs. Also, um if it's a hybrid chicken, you can butcher those chickens for meat. So you get too many roosters, you just butcher a rooster and put them in the soup pot, right? So they're very dual purpose
22:02
animals and they're small so you can keep them in small spaces. I think every backyard um should have a few chickens and have a garden. um And then you were talking about prepping as well. The easiest way that you can prep even just on a small scale is by canning. We've talked, you you mentioned canning earlier today. uh So if you get the, like if you get into the fall and you get a box of tomatoes, uh
22:28
You can put those tomatoes, first of all, you can do it two ways. You can put them in jars and can them. So then you've got canned tomatoes, your tomatoes are going to be less expensive in the fall than they are going to be like, let's say in spring when they're not readily available. Right. And you can put, can put, you can can things. You can also freeze tomatoes. Did you know that? You can take a whole tomato, you can wash it and you can just pop the whole thing in your freezer. And then you've got
22:55
tomatoes all year round, as long as your freezer doesn't go down. um The other thing too, when I moved from my big farm and I looked at moving into town, the biggest thing I looked for in a place to live is where can I hide my chickens and where can I plant a garden? Those were the two biggest things that I looked for when moving to town. And thankfully I landed back in the country and so I've got a little chicken business going now.
23:20
One more thing that you can do to prep and help prepare yourself for these times is honestly a bag of rice. Go with your snap card, plant your seeds, get your seeds and grow your vegetables. But if you can just get that extra bag of rice, big bag of rice, it's inexpensive and just have it on hand so that if something like this where it shut down,
23:49
If something like that ever happens again, you have something. And it's not that hard. It's not a big prepper. You see all these shows, Prepper, the YouTubes, or the Instagrams. You don't have to go all out like that. But if everyone just did a handful of things for themselves to prepare, if things go sideways, or if the government shuts down.
24:15
Yeah, and along with the rice suggestion, beans are good, pasta is good, lentils are good because they're all dry goods, which means they can be stored for quite a while in case something happens and you can rotate them out. You can use them when you want to and then add back in. Absolutely. actually know, back in my farmer's market days doing vegetables, I know of another vendor and she would actually go down to the seed company and pick up like big
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50 pound bags of lentils and beans and things like that that were meant for seed, but they're the food. So she just packaged them up and she sold them just like that. So a big bulk bag of beans or a big bulk bag of rice. If you have a big bulk bag of beans and a big bulk bag of rice, you've got meals for a long time if you need to. Yeah. And the only real problem with that is that
25:12
food can get boring if you're eating the same things over and over again. So if you're growing some herbs on your balcony or in your little yard, you can add herbs to your beans or your rice and it makes it taste different and taste better. For sure. And that's the thing. We're talking prepper style. We're talking like having something on hand. I'm not saying that you should eat rice and beans and rice and beans and rice and beans because you're correct. That's very, very boring. I'm just thinking.
25:41
ahead to the, you know, what if and so, but until what if happens, you're right, grow your garden, plant your vegetables, have your chickens and you're going to have a lot of great variety in your meals. And it's so much better. The carrot that you pull out of the ground and you wash up and you have that in your salad, like that is going to be the best salad you've ever had. Yeah. I just, part of the reason I started the podcast on is so that
26:09
I could help people learn this stuff and be exposed to it. And a lot of the people who listen to my podcast are already doing these things, which is really interesting to me. But it used to be a hundred years ago that everybody had a kitchen garden. That's okay. Yep, good.
26:32
100 years ago, almost everybody had some kind of little kitchen garden. And we just don't do that anymore. And everybody should be doing it. That's what I think. mean, that's where I've talked to my grandmother and she was in the Netherlands during World War II and grew up in the Netherlands in the countryside. And that's what they did. They had food from their yards. Like they had milk, they had, because they had dairy cows, they had
26:59
You know, some beef, had some pork, they had some chicken, they had, they grew their gardens and that's how they were raised. And then my grandparents immigrated to Canada and they had a dairy farm. And I said to my grandma once, said, grandma, what did you eat when you were on the farm? What did you eat? And she said, well, for the most part, we ate what we had. And I said, well, what did you buy in the grocery store? And she said, oh, sometimes some flour and some sugar and.
27:26
We didn't have a lot of fruit in the yard. So sometimes I bought some fruit. And so that was their diet, was they just ate meat, potatoes and vegetables and bread. you know, they didn't buy a lot of groceries because they ate what they had that they produced and raised on their farm. Yep. is absolutely crazy making that we don't do that as much anymore.
27:53
I'm trying so hard to get people back into it. And I know you are too. For sure. Absolutely. But that's the thing. we as society, I'm going to call out one more little thing. We as society, we've actually gotten kind of lazy in how we do life. you know, it's easier sometimes to go to the McDonald's drive-through than it is to go home and peel potatoes. But we just need to get back to that for our health, for our wallets, for our food security, and just even for our mental health.
28:23
get back to quitting going to McDonald's and I'm not saying you can't go to McDonald's. McDonald's is a treat once in a while potentially, right? But stop doing the drive-throughs and start cooking at home more and growing more of your own food and doing it from scratch more because it's just healthier and so much better for you and you're just in that much more control. And it's more satisfying when you cook what you grew. Absolutely.
28:50
Absolutely, for sure. So I have one more question for you. Does Canada have a program like we have here like SNAP? No, not that I know of, but Canada has something called food banks. So you've got your food bank and so people, um so lots of towns and cities and things have a food bank. So that's where people donate extra food. And unfortunately, the food that's donated to these food banks are usually from the centre aisles of the grocery store, non-perishables.
29:19
And so it's not the healthiest food that they're getting. So people will go once a week and pick up their food from the food bank and then they'll take it home and they'll eat it that day or that week. And so it's to supplement your income. And honestly, in the last several years, um the food bank usage has gone way, way, way up as things are getting tighter and harder for people. um
29:44
more more people are relying on the food banks for their food and that's, it's scary and it's sad. Okay, so we're not alone in that here in the States. Canada is going through it too. Oh, absolutely. I think everywhere is going through it. And that's the thing. That's where I'm a proponent of, you know, you can help yourself and maybe you can't, maybe you're like we said, the five-year-old or the 90-year-old or maybe you've got some reason that you just can't. But if more people who can,
30:13
do something or doing it, then that will just share around and make it so that all of us can eat. So even if you're listening in like around the world in countries anywhere, grow something in your backyard, get the seeds and put some things in the ground and grow something. Do whatever you can to be self-reliant and get some food for yourself. For sure. Do you have any coaching classes coming up?
30:40
Yeah, so I'm starting a microgreens class this Saturday. And so the link will be in my stories on my Instagram to sign up for that. It's just it's just a really inexpensive class. So it's $100 uh Canadian. So that's really, really inexpensive. And then yeah, book a jumpstart call with me. So I'll have my my garden coaching in the spring, we can cover chickens with that too. I'm always happy to cover chickens with any kind of my coaching. And then
31:08
I'm yeah, and then I'm business coaching. So if you have a small homestead and you want to make a little extra pennies, nickels and dimes off of the land and the space you have, book a jumpstart call with me. It's a free jumpstart call. We talk about your situation and we'll see if I'm able to help you make some dollars, nickels, dimes, pennies off of your farm. Yes. And having having done the run through with you, just the example one that we did with my farm. The thing I will tell you guys about Dawn is Dawn
31:38
knows that there's no such thing as a stupid question. And so you can ask her anything and she will have an answer for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. The only stupid question is the one that doesn't get asked. For sure. All right, Dawn, um tell me again where people can find you. Dawn's the... You have a podcast, Dawn's Dirt. You have... Do have a website?
32:01
Yeah, so I'm not sure if my website's really up and going right now. I'm just working on a few things, but I'm Dawns Dirt. So I'm on Instagram, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, ah Apple Podcasts, Facebook. Yeah, so just look up Dawns Dirt and you'll find me. So I've got my own podcast and then I've got my social media pages as well. And my YouTube is very hot these days. So that's really cool too. Subscribe, subscribe to my YouTube channel. That'll help me a lot.
32:30
All right. You heard it here first guys. Subscribe to Dawn's YouTube channel. Okay. um As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com and check out my Patreon. It's patreon.com slash atinyhomestead. Dawn, thank you for taking the time today. I really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate you. I really appreciate what you're doing for our food system and for homesteads and for people. And it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
32:59
You're welcome. I hope you have a great day. You too. Thank you. Bye.