A Tiny Homestead

Hairy Farmpit Girls

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Today I'm talking with Swan at Hairy Farmpit Girls. 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. Talking with Swan at Harry Farm Pit Girls. And if you laugh, that's okay. So did I.  And I know she's in the South somewhere. Where are you, Swan?  I am in Bowman, Georgia, which is just kind of,  um, East, uh, Athens, Georgia. Okay. Cool.  So it's the northeast corner of Georgia.  All right.

00:29

That makes a lot of sense. That helps. How's the weather there this morning? I think that we're going to get into the mid 80s. So, you know, it's a little warm. It hasn't actually been too bad. I think it's probably about 70 something right now. So it's the delightful time of day. Give it about another hour and we'll be scorched again. Well, how cool do you guys get in January? Well, we have a little pond on our property and in January and

00:58

February in the summer upon freezes all the way over. Um, I'm not willing to walk out to the middle of it, but I can stand on the sides.  Um, so it gets to, I think about we've only been here for about four and a half years, but it gets to the twenties and the teens a little bit.  Um,  just a few times, but for the most part, we, during the day, we typically stay at the coldest above snowing temperature. Okay. Awesome. I just, I've never been further south than, uh,

01:29

I think Maryland. So I have no idea what it's like in the south in the wintertime. I don't think anybody's ever considered Maryland south.  it's not, but that's as far south as I've ever gotten, you know, in the United States. So the weather here in Minnesota this morning  is cool and overcast to the point that we are actually fog locked on my property. can't see an eighth of a mile away.  Oh, wow. Wow. That's incredible.

01:58

Yep, my son calls it uncanny valley when this happens because it makes you feel like you're the only person on earth.

02:07

My son, whenever we have a foggy morning, which we don't really have right now in this time of year, but he calls it, he's five. So he says it's froggy outside and we have always uh decided to never correct him from saying, from calling fog frog. So he says it's froggy or he can't see through the frog outside. So.  Oh yeah. We call it froggy. We also call, we also call humidity humdidity.

02:35

We call it a humidititty. It's the South. Yup. And there's one other I was thinking of when you brought that up. And of course it's gone because I have over 50 brain and I think of things that are funny and then by the time I get to say them out of my mouth, they're out of my brain and I can't find them again. I'll do that exact same thing and I have under 50 things. So. Yeah. It's just, I think it's just the way that we live now.

03:02

Yeah, there's just too much information and your brain can't possibly sort it as fast as say AI can. Ugh. So  anyway, uh we've tried to do a podcast twice before and had terrible technical difficulties. So Swan is back for the third time, hopefully the charm,  so that we can actually talk with Swan about what she and her wife do in Georgia. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do Swan.

03:29

All right, well, we have  a little 12 acre farm out here. um We are called the Harry Farfit Girls. And we started off just as we started off at a different farm  down in South Georgia.  Whenever we started building that farm, we had come from the city and we started building that farm.  I just started writing about it on social media, particularly on Facebook. um

03:53

So just watch, letting people like kind of watch our journey. Cause I know that not everybody could do what we were doing. And so just wanted to share it and I didn't want to bog all of my other friends down with like 4,000 photos of chickens. So I figured out if the internet wanted to see 4,000 photos of chickens, they could come and see them all the time with a social media page. So at first I just started writing about it and then we got pretty popular cause I have a little bit of a sense of humor.

04:22

So we added a product. started  raising goats and making goat milk soap and lotion and do with farmers markets and little shops around South Georgia. um And then we got more and more popular and we were able to buy a second farm up in North Georgia  and move all of our stuff to online.  So now we make soaps. m We make soap, goat milk soap still. But also um I've got a lot of people that just have gotten

04:49

have fallen in love with our animals over the past decade. We've been sharing for a little over 10 years. Oh, it's actually going be 11 years in January. We've been sharing this journey for 11 years now. And so now we have patrons that support us every month, usually from three to 20 bucks a month. They pledge and my dog's a barking, but they pledge some money. And so we're able to our goats and take care of our animals.

05:16

that support and this money that we make off of social media and just sharing about everything. So  everything that I post gets a couple bucks here and there  and we still sell  our solutions every day.  Nice. have learned recently that  the  system that you are doing where you make money from doing things online  and people get to enjoy the things that you're doing  is called value for value.

05:46

I didn't know that term until like three weeks ago.  I knew what it meant. I just hadn't heard it put that way before. Yeah, there's a part that, I mean, people have gotten to feel like they know us over the past decade.  And I mean, I definitely feel like we know some of our fans, I guess you would call them as well.  But  it is a value for value system. like things like one of the things that I'm very into these days is crocheting and doing all sorts of things with.

06:15

yarn and fibers and,  um, and I, it's crochet, if you're familiar with it, it's pretty hard to sell for as much work as you put into it. oh I am familiar. Yes. But my accountant, because I make money off of social media and just sharing things makes people happy. My accountant lets me write off all my yarn purchases and all of anything that I do that's fun that I talk about.  Um, I get to, you know, how our business.

06:43

cover those expenses and  so what, while I might not be sharing or selling the sweater that I'm making, I get to um still make it and make it for that value that other people are seeing and sharing it. And one of the things that I've done over the past year or two is kind of move our page a little bit more towards the art side of things.  So where I encourage everybody to share their art and everybody to have their community around um our farm, but then also like our

07:12

their own outside community. So I've built little places for eerie, far-fit girl followers to talk, interact with one another all over the place.  Nice.  Awesome.  So you've built an actual real community out of this and  I think that's what everybody's trying to do who's in this space. So one of the ways that I've done that is we have a Patreon. Are you familiar with Patreon?  Yes. I finally got mine set up after talking to you two years ago.  Excellent.

07:42

So we have a patreon and that is a wonderful thing and one thing that we do um So we have just people that want to support us. So they pledge three dollars a month. I think that's our beginning  um Our beginning tier but once you go up to six dollars a month you get access to me almost all the time Um, so we have tuesday wednesday and thursday. We have patreon calls and we do a big zoom meeting  and I think this one or

08:09

100 % tight that some of the people in our Patreon calls have become some of my best friends and closest friends.  So we talk face to face for two hours to sometimes five or six hours, three minutes a week. have text message chains. I've met a lot of them face to face. um And they've become like family. So, and then building that family and that kind of community, you know, where I have,  I have one group.

08:36

Uh, that's like 3,500 people full that people can all interact with one another. While I might not always be able to be there, I've got moderators and it's a like little happy place on the internet. And so whether you want to be a small group or a little group, just Harry Farfitt girls, kind of know, you know, people aren't really going to find us that don't share some of the same values. So it's kind of a nice little fun place where you have a sense of humor. You're crafty, you're a little bit feral and you just.

09:06

play around and you came together probably because of a story about a goat.  Yes. um You've told me the story twice already, but because the podcast episodes went into the ether,  I didn't get to put it out. So tell me about the goat, because you have a story about the first goat. um Oh, about Vincent being goat? Yes. Okay. So Vincent being goat.  And I know that you have a lot of people that kind of do home setting stuff that listen to you.

09:35

So lot of them might know about buck goat behaviors. Um, Benson being goat was our very first intact buck goat. Got him as a baby, but he was going to be used for getting our other goats pregnant.  Benson has some proclivities that other buck goats share, but he also  is not, he's also extremely, extremely sweet and friendly. um, Vincent is a very limber goat.

10:04

who has at times failed to get any of our other goats pregnant because he um likes himself as much as he likes female goats. So one of the ways, the first ways that I got popular was,  are you familiar with the goat mating call?  Sort of, kind of. uh I'm going to embarrass myself here and I don't know how it's going to come off on the podcast, but a goat mating call. Basically you stick out your tongue and you just go,  yes, yes. And it's really, really loud.

10:34

So Vincent van Gogh lived with one of our donkeys named David Asselhoff and they began a romantic relationship and Vincent's face, Lynn, goes right up to David's. So I'm going to say it because I use this word all the time, his butt hole. So we started marketing something with Vincent Vingo called Screaming into Butt Holes.

10:58

Um, because everything that he was doing rather than focusing on the girl groups, he was focusing on streaming into David's butthole  as well as some of his own limber issues. don't mean, I don't know what I can say on this podcast. Can I go all the way? No, no. I'm  just saying I'm going to, I'm going to self, uh, my fans will know what I'm talking about.  Um, and your fans can, you know, know about that.

11:26

He was enamored with his own body parts. He was very enamored with his own body parts. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. To the point that because we make goat milk soap and to have goat milk soap, we have to have milk and to have milk, we have to have baby goats. Vincent was so enamored with himself and with a rototiller and they would ask a lot that he failed to get anybody pregnant or only one goat pregnant one year.

11:54

So then we had to get another goat named Jack Goatbloom. um that's Vincent and his proclivities and his sweet face. is, most buck goats are not cute. Vincent is cute. Most buck goats are not sweet and personable. Vincent is so personable. He wants to be loved. He smells like an ammonia factory, but he loves love. um So he's kind of stolen the heart of everybody and kind of.

12:22

launched us into that popular, over that hump of, you know, online farms being a mega popular online farm  that people follow and have just.

12:35

watched this adventure go for so many years. So that's my story  of Vincent a little bit. a circuitous route to become famous. Yeah, there was also a vulture in my chimney involved and a little peacock. So  there have been quite a few times that I've gotten a little famous from some things. We've just, you having you're sitting at you're sitting on a farm.  These animals become your family  and just being able to use my

13:04

I'm a writer, so just being able to put the things that I see into a fun and unique perspective has kind of helped everything move along and support us for the past, you know, 11 years that this is what we do. And that's pretty incredible. We don't sell anything other than goat milk soap and lip balm and stickers and stuff like that. But our online stuff, it's paper.

13:34

for all of our stuff for that long.  Awesome. You mentioned lip balms and soaps. We make our own for us and we sell them at the farmers market.  the thing that I love about making lip balms and soaps is that we are never without lip balms and soaps. You know, you can say that.  I own a company that makes lip balms. We make lip balms by the hundreds and thousands sometimes.

14:02

whatever we make some matches of lip balms,  I still can go into rooms of my house and  I'll be like, I don't have any lip balm anywhere. that's one thing. I know I'm never without soap, but I still manage to lose lip balm even though there's a good hundred tubes probably in this house and then in our studio, there's thousands. just try to find  that.

14:31

I think the only room that doesn't have lip balm in it right now is my kitchen. I know there's lip balms in the bathroom drawers. I can see lip balms on my dresser in my bedroom, which is where I record. I know my son has three on his bedside table in his room. And I know there's like three bags of lip balms in our living room right now. It's very convenient. I imagine that north where you are, you definitely need an extra there.

14:59

Oh yeah, we go through a lip balm like people go through uh chewing gum, guess. We'll use that as an analogy. um And the other thing about our lip balms, as long as they're not flavored or scented, you can use them as like for your dry elbows or your dry feet. Just make sure you know which ones you're using for that.

15:21

Just one second. Is my dog barking bothering you? That's Sarah Jessica Barker and she has one volume. I can go move her if you'd like me to. didn't know if you can hear me or not. I can hear her and if you'd like to move her that would be fine. Okay, I'll be back in one minute. Let me just go toss her somewhere.

15:40

Bye bye.

15:46

Ready? back.  Sorry. Is she a big dog? Oh my goodness. I have so many dogs right now. So Sarah Jessica Barker  is a 70 pound lab mix. She's, I think she just turned, she just turned 10. We have five dogs right now. We also have a 13 year old terrier who's always itchy. And he's very stuck in his ways and it's the quietest one out here.  And his name is Lionel Itchy.  It's here. We got.

16:16

puppies. So we decided, we have been discussing, we have a lot of coyotes out here. We've been discussing getting livestock dogs for a while  and Jen finally caved and was like, okay, let's do it. So we got a pair of Pyrenees mixes as puppies. Like we, we knew what they were  because they had been conceived. They were a combination of two of my different neighbors' And so we knew their parents and their grandparents and they were conceived right in front of our trash can.

16:46

Nice.  So this was  a year and a half ago. So we were able to find  their mom dog. We were able to find her a better home and get her fixed and everything like that later on. But whenever we found her the better home,  she moved, they had moved up to Ohio and they contacted like us and they were like, hey, is there a chance that this dog is pregnant? And I was like, you know what, there is a chance. And if so, I am so sorry. uh also like, because I said, this was a

17:15

neighbor's dog that came over to our house and, came over to another neighbor's house. And it was just kind of a community dog that one neighbor wasn't, was no longer interested in her.  So  I said, you know, if, if she is pregnant and if she has puppies, I'll actually take two of them because I would like to start livestock dogs from the start. And I knew that they were going to be Pyrenees Nixies. So they drove to that, at the pick of the letter, they drove these two dogs down from Ohio back to Georgia.

17:45

Um, and so now I have two livestock dogs that decided that they are more comfortable in the house than on the couch. Um, eating shoes and couches and everything. Um, so now I have 120 pounds, um, male dog and about a 90 pound dog, uh, female dog, Marfa and Wolfess, um, that live in our house and Marfa.

18:11

just chase a tractor down the street. So she's gone to make sure that that doesn't come to our property, I guess. um And then we have  back in April, we were driving to town and there were three little tiny black puppies that had been, they're about six months old, that had been dropped off in the middle of the road. And  I can't leave anything, so I scooped them all  up. By that weekend, um we were going to visit Jen's family who live up in uh

18:39

Kokomo, Indiana. So we had to bring all three of these little puppies with us and a little pack and play like, you know, like we're baby sleeping. We brought that to her mom's house. m And I had somebody come over from Massachusetts and adopt one. It was one of my Harry Farbitt girl followers online.  Shout out to Erin and Lisa. Hey.  And then I had somebody come down from Minnesota.

19:08

Um, as well and came down here. She drove down a couple of months ago  and adopted another one. And we still have one left. Her name is Donna. And we decided that we're going to keep her unless we could find her a perfect home. She doesn't, um, she doesn't necessarily do the best on a farm. She's the sweetest dog, but she kind of gets bullied around by the other bigger dogs and she's scared of them.  Um,  and she also wants to chase chickens and goats and stuff like that. Yeah.

19:37

But we love her and we'll take care of her forever. And if anybody is interested, all they have to do is just reach out to Harry Farpett Girls on social media and  we can hook you up with the world's sweetest little puppy. we have her. So we have five dogs.  And her name is uh Donatella Versace.  I love all the names you come up with.  Thanks. Everybody's a pun out here.

20:02

Yeah, we have a dog and her name is Maggie. It's not anything funny.  just, well, maybe it is.  I lied. um I have this thing where I am not the most Christian girl ever, but I really like names from the Bible. Okay.  And  I don't know why, but I was thinking of Mary of Magdalene when we decided we were going to get a puppy and if we got a female.

20:28

I wanted a name or Maggie because of Mary of Magdalene and I'm like, I'm Mary Magdalene. Whatever you say. And my husband was like, what is your obsession with, with biblical names? He said, you're not even, you don't even go to church. And I was like, I don't know. There's just really neat names in the Bible.  You know, sometimes you just get a theme and you just kind of go with it. Like I have some friends that name all of their animals, like just really blunt human names, like Ligery and stuff like that. Yeah. And for me, I do most things.

20:58

based on celebrities or politicians or somewhere along there. I have just, everybody gets a pun and musicians and everything like that. So I have the puns, but go with your theme. If you like all the biblical names, go with it. I have a chicken out in the yard, a rooster, who, whenever he was a little, I hatched him from my own eggs. Whenever he was a little chick, he used to always stand in the water bowl. So I would say he walks in water. So of course, you know.

21:27

I had to name a one thing, but then I decided just to put a little bit of a spin on it. So that way I wasn't going around calling him Jesus all the time. So his name is Jesus.  He is about nine, nine years old now, I think. And he's still doing this thing and rocking it, but he's got the best little rooster or huge rooster. Um, so yeah, I get it. So, so I have my own biblical name.

21:51

The thing that really got me is that my son, my youngest still lives with us. He's 23. He'll be 24 in December.  And we got barn cats from the Humane Society.  And  one of them was a two to four year old black cat, male, fixed.  And they told us that no one would ever be able to pet him. He was completely feral. They had a hard time vetting him and getting him his shots and stuff.  And so my son decided to name him Satan.

22:21

And I looked at this kid and I was like, oh, so I'm the one who's weird because I like biblical names, but you named the cat Satan. I love it. mean, not like that, but I think it's hilarious.  And turns out, turns out that Satan actually is a lovely cat. My son is a cat whisperer  and Satan and my son are the best of friends. That cat comes up to him and licks his feet. If he's barefoot outside,  he wants pets, he purrs. He's fine.

22:50

So  Satan isn't necessarily a good moniker for this cat anymore, but that's his name.  I have some, we have a five year old  and  one thing that I love doing is he is  very creative and he has very different naming protocols than I do.  And I think his is just based on obscurity or whatever he's thinking at the moment. And so I let him name random things. um

23:18

Right now he is named,  we have a chicken that he named Rocks Flat.  This was whenever he was four. So he named her Rocks Flat. And then we have Dale, who actually stands for Drink A Lot Energy.  We had Treia, which was Tummy Rumble Eat A Lot. So a lot of times I'm kind of trying to reach for  the  acronym to try to give them a normal name as opposed to giving a, here Tummy Rumble Eat A Lot, come here Drink A Lot Energy. uh

23:48

We have a fish named lightning fast  and we had to compromise.  have a new kitten. We had to compromise on naming her. So I wanted to name her Tabitha Christie and he wanted to name her fluffy. So we compromised on fluffy Tabitha, mighty super cloud Christie. So I'm sure you can figure out who gave her the middle name of mighty super cloud.  is a, that is a huge name for a little cat. mean,  it's, it's.

24:14

Naming is very important. So that's her Christian name. That's her baptism name, I guess. Uh-huh. That's very funny. Yeah. Your son is adorable. The pictures that you share of him, he's beautiful. Thank you. I'm sitting here as we talk, as we do this podcast, I'm actually sitting here. Did you see my new project about crocheting the whole class cardigans? Yes. So I'm, oops, are you still there? Yeah. Okay. Sorry, my computer just went black and so I think it just went to sleep. So

24:43

m Currently, if any of your listeners are there, I make hexicardies, which are just making a hexagon, two hexagons and folding them together and turning them into a cardigan. And I let our son design all of his own. um So he has very opinionated color taste and style choices. And he's always going to school dressed in just brightly colored, amazing little cardigans.

25:11

Because we're rural, we live in a very small community and we have a Title I school. One of his teachers reached out to me last week or on Friday. I was like, Hey, did you ever sell any of the sweaters that you make  your son? We call them little carpet just for his own privacy. um said, you have any of those, do you ever sell those sweaters that you make your son and preferably in adult sizes? And I said, I don't sell them. You know, with crochet, too much effort to sell and make anything back. And so you just do it because you love somebody.

25:41

Um, I said, don't tell them, but you know, have it under good authority that you'll probably be getting something handcrafted very soon. And so if you just want to tell me your favorite colors, let me know. So this teacher told me her favorite colors and the other teacher's favorite colors.  And, um, and I started thinking about it  and the kids, you know, it's starting to come up on fall and winter and the kids go to school and you know, it gets chilly and sometimes it's chilly in classrooms.  Um,

26:11

It gets chilly and putting on your winter coat or whatever is not always the most cozy thing to do while you're sitting there and trying to learn. So I decided to make, I want to make every kid in his class, a little cardigan all in bright colors. And so little farm pit is actually designing all the cardigans for his class. went online and we registered for yarn. We put up a, like a little crowdsourcing idea of, Hey, if you may wants to send yarn to us, you can mail it.

26:40

here, you know, bright and colorful acrylic, so it's easily washable.  Um, and so  I, this week is going to be,  um, a test and seeing how much I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of yarn that shows up at my house and at my, I use a, my favorite local yarn shop, LCD originals in Hartwell as a public mailing address.  Um, so I have a feeling we're going to get a lot of stuff and I cannot wait to see.

27:08

how these kids look and how they react to these cozy little cardigans that I'm calling classroom cardigans that they can leave there, they can take home with them. And then that way they can have something nice and warm that the teacher wants to take them home on Friday and wash them and dry them and bring them back to class. can't.  So, but nobody knows about it. Like I don't, imagine that nobody really knows who we are in this town because we're rather new here. um I haven't recognized a little bit in this town, but not.

27:38

much more so because I was MTV for cicadas in my yard.  Um, but I'm really excited about seeing how this little cardigan project goes and all the yarn that comes from crowdsourcing to our awesome followers online. So it's going to be super  cute. I have two things on this whole train of thought.  Number one, how generous of you to take the time to do that. think that is so sweet.

28:06

Oh, love it. Number two, I really hope that little farm pit keeps his, I don't know, freedom of expression. Oh, me too. That's one thing that I try to protect in him so much. Like he wanted all of his fingernails painted a different color yesterday. And a little part of me is like, Oh, I hope that he doesn't get picked on a skull. like, but he's not going to. Kindergarteners are cute and they're going to be envious of his gold and green and purple and blue fingernails, you know? So.

28:36

I hope so too. This, um, sat this Friday is hat day at school, like where you can pay a dollar and it goes to the PTA or something like that. And you can wear a hat to school. And most people just wear a baseball cap. Little farm cat wore a hard hat that he put, uh, metallic cat stickers all over for his first hat day. And so last night, whenever we were doing story time, said, Hey, you know, you have another hat day coming up. Do you want to design another hat?

29:04

And he said he did, and he was very particular, said he wanted it to be pink and yellow and purple and maybe a brown stripe with grapes all over it. So,  um, it's a little farm. I am currently designing a little farm that's pink and yellow and purple hat,  um, for Friday's activity. And I'm trying to figure out how to put grapes all over it, um, for that. So while every other kid is wearing baseball hats and stuff like that.

29:30

He's going to, you know, be representing his own style. And I'm trying to keep that as long as he can keep that because he's just, he's magical.  I love his vision of the world.  Well, is such a great age too. mean, as long as no one stomps on him for expressing himself,  he has, he has so much potential to just have the best life ever. He is, I hope so. He is, and I will, like I said, I will protect that.

30:01

Love it. So I love it for him and I will do everything to make that little kiddo have all of his little colorful dreams come true. Cause you know, I'm be able to wear ridiculous hats and sweaters. I mean, all over the place, whatever you want. And I hope that he does. I hope he's able to for his entire life, but you know, just letting him have that little bit of autonomy and pride of designing, you know? So.  love it.

30:30

I love that you support him in that. That's so great.  My daughter used to get clothes at the thrift shops and at Goodwill because she loved thrifting.  She would rip clothes apart and redesign them the way she wanted them and they looked better than when she bought them.  That's awesome.  Yeah. I don't know if she still does it. I think she does like  little projects now, but she used to just revamp her entire wardrobe. It was very fun to watch.

30:59

I've been embracing my, for the longest time, always just kind of, didn't really care about clothes that much. just, I think everything in my closet was black or brown or dark green. uh But now in my kind of, I don't really, you know, I don't care too much what people think anymore. I'm just embracing the eclectic art teacher vibe. And so I've been wearing brightly colored mu-mus and comfortable shoes and

31:27

bright sweaters that I make all the time. And I am so happy. I get so many comments from other people out just like, Oh, I love this. I love that. And I'll find other fiber artists that'll automatically like see something I'm wearing and they'll know like, Oh, I know you made that.  I love just the show it off, know, be like kind of peacocking a little bit with our clothes and with our coziness and just enjoying what you're putting out there.

31:57

Mm-hmm.  Yeah neutral colors  Yes, exactly  Um, so I feel like we haven't even talked about your animals. I want to do that real quick  You have you have chickens and I know you have silky chickens, right?  Okay, so I have I think 30 something goats  I know it's I don't count That often maybe I have in the upper  20s, but I have a bunch of goats um

32:24

I have Nigerian dwarf  and  that's how I started off with Nigerian dwarf. I think that was a good starter goat.  Now I believe I would rather have a small herd of some bigger goats, but  Nigerian dwarf goats are all getting older. ah So I think my, you know, my, I'll get some good corner store stone, big goats on my next go round. uh

32:47

But I've been breeding Nigerian Dwarf goats to La Manchas for five generations now. And so one of my things that I've been doing is trying to make a more efficient milk goat. So a goat that eats a smaller amount of feed like a Nigerian Dwarf that produces a large amount of milk like a La Mancha. So I've been breeding, I've got down to, I think F5s are my smallest La Manchas right now, which is...

33:14

Are you familiar with like the F5, F3, whatever? I am not. So tell me in poundage, how big is the  goat that you're going for? Oh, the one that I have right now,  my smallest mini La Mancha is about 50 pounds. less uh than the La Mancha, but she melts really, really well. um But the  F categorizing is just like the generations. So an F1 would be a Nigerian dwarf and a...

33:43

straight limaunch and mixed together. And F2 would be the next generation down, know, bringing the Nigerian Dwarf to that goat. F3 will be the next generation down. And so you're getting the smaller and smaller and getting further away from the pure genetics of the others. So you're kind of making a nice little combat. I also have four miniature donkeys named David. Everybody loves my donkey's names. David Hasselhoff, who I already mentioned.

34:13

And then Jacqueline Oasis, Butch Acety and Mama Ass. uh You know about my silky chickens,  but I also have uh regular chickens of all sorts and types at a big barn.  I have chickens and guineas out there. And  recently I've been campaigning for the past two years to get emus. I don't know why I want emus, but I do.  And  it's like an obsession. So Jen has, my wife has finally given me a

34:42

go ahead for the emu and um for emus and so in march  i will be getting um i found somebody local who hatches emus and has them and has agreed to sell me a couple so come march i will be getting baby emus  whenever they hatch and i'm so excited because i love ridiculous animals and the only reason why i want emus is just for the ridiculous dancing and i like to laugh

35:11

And I have two miniature pigs.  Okay. All right. So you, definitely have a farm going on there.  We have 12 acres out here.  Um, since we talked last, I just finished a big,  uh, five and a half acre pasture for all my critters to move over to. So, or, or at least all  the, the critters that don't have parts and won't get each other pregnant to move over to. Yep. We have, um, they have all sorts of stuff going.

35:39

It sounds so fun and it sounds so messy and I think fun and messy are supposed to go together. Oh yeah, no, my wife will definitely tell you I am an absolute mess and there's no Joey and I games in here.  We're not painting everything white and keeping things nice and clean. Like there is a mess every two seconds  and we painted our, you know,

36:04

Do you have T-post at all in your property? keeping your animals in? Yes, we have T-posts in the garden. With my little beautiful rainbow child, we got six different colors of spray paint and went out and painted every post uh in rainbow.  So like one post will be purple and the next one will be blue and the next one will be green. And so for five acres, you have a rainbow fence going all the way around. So oh we let him play like.

36:33

pretend video games out there. Like we'll go and we'll put things along the fence post and give him clues and he'll go and just be Oh, I have to find the yellow fence post and I'll find a star there and do this. um, so we've just, we just let ourselves do what we want to do because why not?  You know, have some fun.  Yeah. Any dignitaries out here?  No, absolutely. And  I would love to see a photo of your rainbow fence if you have one.

37:03

Uh, there is one on, uh, on Facebook right now. Okay. And so if you want to, I will, I know that we have communicated on Facebook, so I will hunt that one down and send it over to you. So if you want to put it in your show notes or anything that you do. Well, I don't, I don't put pictures in the show notes. It's a total pain in the butt to do, but I will, but when I share the link for the podcast, when it's live, I'll, link to that picture on my Facebook high episode today is blah, blah. So.

37:32

Excellent. All right. So where can people find you, Swann? Predominantly on Facebook because I write. I'm very, it's the only place that I can really do long form on social media. And I've realized that I make, I can reach more people on social media than I can just do my own private webpage. But now I do have a website, which is HarryFarmpitGirls if you want advice. So just harryfarpitgirls.com. I'm on Facebook and Instagram somewhat.

38:02

I don't really care for videos, so I don't do the big video sites, but also I am on Patreon. So if you want to, our biggest support comes through Patreon. So if you do feel like supporting a small farm, you can do it. You can pledge $3 a month. And it comes out if you want to have weekly and regular access to talking to us and just kind of hanging out. We meet on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. If you sign up for our Fiber Fanatics for up.

38:31

level, which is a month and you'll get a little zoom link and you can just come and hang out. Sometimes it's like,  sometimes there's only three of us. Sometimes there's, there's more. So,  um, you can come and hang out and just chill. We call it stitch and bitch and you can sit or you can, you know, talk about your day.  So, um, and you don't have to do anything. You can also just sit there.  So is that, is that patreon.com slash Harry farm pit girls or is it?  Okay.

39:01

uh And there is also one more thing. There is a private group online, but you can find it through our Facebook  and you can send a request and join it. It's called Harry Farmer Girls, a Safe Pastor. And what that is,  is it's a group that you have to be a member of, but it's a page. So it's a group so that way you can make your own posts, you can comment, you can talk to other people that happen to have found this little nook on the internet.

39:31

And like said, we build community all over. I've tried to build community all over while I can't necessarily always be there through every single thing because I'm  but one human. ah You can still interact with, we find a lot of our people are very similar, have similar loving, empathetic values  and  just, and great sense of humor. So if you want to,  join Carrie Farmer for Girls of Safe Posture on Facebook and

39:59

I think there's 3,500 members right now and it's a very active group. Wow. Okay. Awesome. Thank you for giving me all of that because I think after people listen to this podcast, they're be like, I want to go be part of that. sounds fun. And  as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com  and I have a Patreon now too. It's patreon.com slash  atinyhomestead.  So Swan, hopefully this one worked.  I hope so.

40:29

It's always a joy to chat with you. had a great time talking with you too, Mary. So I'll stay online.  Maybe we'll do this again, but hopefully this one will work.  All  right. You have a great day. Thank you. You too.  Bye.

 

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A Tiny HomesteadBy Mary E Lewis