The Soft Focus

We are back with another solo episode on the podcast. Today, Corinne is diving into the (sometimes thorny) topic of motherhood. This time, the context is in agriculture. 

This isn’t about advice, and it’s not a how-to. This is simply a personal reflection on how Corinne wound up raising babies at Late Bloomer Ranch, and her general philosophy around parenting. 

In this episode, Corinne dives into: 

• A holistic approach to parenting, and life 
• The interconnectedness of ranching and motherhood
• Her personal resistance to getting married, and having children
• Her background and early preference for urban life
• How farming came into her life by accident
• The Late Bloomer Ranch Story with Corinne and Elliana 
• The ways that farming healed her, and her life in recovery 
• When things started to shift, and how she knew she actually did want to have children 
• The similarities of motherhood and farming
• How Corinne thinks about the core principles of holism in parenting 
• Accepting all feelings with boundaries and limits
• Dealing with overwhelm
• Asking for help
• Joys of children connecting with the more-than-human world
• Bringing children into all aspects of the birth-death cycle 
• Lastly, tips for selecting livestock for your own small acreage and homestead endeavors. 

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

Dani Beinstein is back on the podcast today, gracing us with her ever-growing wisdom and grace.  The topic du jour is change, from the inside out, and adapting to life as it is showing up right now.  

In some ways, change is inevitable— “the only constant is change”, as the cliche goes. Yet, on the other hand, letting go of challenging behaviors and patterns can be incredibly difficult and sometimes completely impossible. Where do these truths meet?  

If you’ve ever woken up and looked in the mirror and felt tired of your own self-deceptions, this episode is for you. It’s not a discussion about how to improve productivity or how to break old habits— this is a soul-deep discussion of who we really are at our core, and how we can come into deeper communion with that truth. 

 
Corinne and Danielle discuss:

• Danielle’s near death experience, and how it shifted her orientation from being “ethereal, to rooted” 
• How relationship has also changed her perspective on the world, and the natural world 
• The role of the body in change, and how cultural conditioning has alienated the body  
• Danielle’s belief that we get the lessons we need, in whatever form they will be most effective 
• Soul contracts, and how to explore them 
• Resisting the urge to reach for certainty, and to rush through life 
• How we are all “renting”, at the end of the day
• Danielle’s love for her dogs, and how they open up the exploration of loving with the awareness that this too shall pass  
• The role of resourcing ourselves to be steady through massive upheaval 
• The power of ritual to initiate, or guide us through, radical change 
• Danielle’s role in interpreting charts to see where the soul contracts and karmic patterns live 
• Outer planets— Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto— and what they might mean in an astrological chart
• Looking at the role of the massive, tectonic, technological shifts in our society today 
• Danielle’s experience coming of age in the time of the creation of the modern internet 
• The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain
• Rasputin by Douglas Smith
• How we’ve lost interest in what is true
• Using technology with intention 

 Interested in connecting with Danielle? Find her online www.daniellebeinstein.com and on instagram @danibeinstein. She is available for one-on-one astrological counseling sessions and new moon circles in Nashville and on Zoom.  

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

Dani Beinstein is back on the podcast today, gracing us with her ever-growing wisdom and grace.  The topic du jour is change, from the inside out, and adapting to life as it is showing up right now. 

In some ways, change is inevitable— “the only constant is change”, as the cliche goes. Yet, on the other hand, letting go of challenging behaviors and patterns can be incredibly difficult and sometimes completely impossible. Where do these truths meet? 

If you’ve ever woken up and looked in the mirror and felt tired of your own self-deceptions, this episode is for you. It’s not a discussion about how to improve productivity or how to break old habits— this is a soul-deep discussion of who we really are at our core, and how we can come into deeper communion with that truth. 

Corinne and Danielle discuss:

• Fundamental change requires we take stock of our present reality, no matter how painful
• How life’s events can catalyze big changes
• Grief and how powerful it can be in facilitating massive shifts
• Rites of passage
• Conducting a personal inventory 
• Temporary and topical change 
• The idea of “pulling a geographic” 
• Humility and asking for help during tumultuous times 
• The power of bearing witness, and being witnessed
• How critically important relationships are in our own growth and evolution
• The Story of Us 
• The Phantom Tollbooth
• Isis by Bob Dylan
• The key differences between changes we initiate versus changes that are forced upon us 
• Dani’s experience getting in touch with her own reactivity, and leaving the self-policing behind 
• The messy nature of entanglement, and accepting our deeper humanity 
• The critical role humor plays in our own personal evolution 
• For more on Dani’s near death experience, the nature of soul contracts, and more— check out part 2 of this episode. 

Interested in connecting with Danielle? Find her online www.daniellebeinstein.com and on instagram @danibeinstein. She is available for one-on-one astrological counseling sessions and new moon circles in Nashville and on Zoom. 

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA. 

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

Today’s guest is Lauren Palmer of Bloomsbury Farm in Smyrna, Tennessee. Bloomsbury Farm is a diversified organic farm, with a host of vegetables, fruits, flowers, events, and even a small school onsite. It’s a cornucopia in a beautiful and romantic area of the country, less than an hour outside of Nashville.  

On today’s show, Lauren walks Corinne through the evolution of her farm business, how she has grown as a farmer and entrepreneur, and all the things that keep her excited for new growth. Lauren shares the importance of leaning on her amazing team, the important role of her family members in building out her bigger vision, what she loves most about her multi-faceted farm business, and so much more. It’s a great conversation for anyone who is looking to diversify their farm, or is interested in small-scale farming in general! 

Corinne and Lauren discuss: 

• Lauren’s family farming background
• “In the worst-case scenario, we are all gonna eat” 
• The evolution of Bloomsbury Farm in collaboration with chefs and farmers’ market customers 
• Why Lauren likes to leave all the proverbial doors open, and keep things fresh and moving on her farm 
• The importance of trusting amazing staff 
• Employee appreciation and the “Bloomsbury Hug” 
• The changes at Bloomsbury farm over the years, and how that brought everyone closer together
• The challenges of growing sprouts, and the growth that came from overcoming the challenge
• Lauren’s experience of her own creativity in her marketing and displays
• Bloombury Events and how that came into creation
• When selling kale at $4/bunch isn’t cutting it
• How Lauren has balanced risks and rewards with agritourism at Bloomsbury Farm
• The challenges in farming that have made Lauren a better business owner, mother, friend, etc. 
• Why Lauren decided to add Bloomsbury School 
• The evolution from summer camp to school
• Lauren’s role in learning the new curriculum and stewarding the school project 
• The ways that Lauren’s family share their skills and perspectives to help her develop new projects and programs 
• How Lauren crowdsources ideas and filters them through her own intuition 
• The ways Lauren unwinds to stay fresh and inspired on her farm 
• Lauren’s hopes and dreams of creating a cookbook, or coffee table book in the future

Find Lauren and Bloomsbury Farm online and on instagram!  

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA. 

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

Do you just love local flowers? Are you a designer or grower yourself? This episode is for you. 

Ellen Frost is a floral designer, and owner of Local Color Flowers in Baltimore, Maryland. Over the past 16 years, Ellen built a business from a passion for flowers and a connection to local farms in her area. Through several key changes and evolutions, Ellen has taken her original concept of arranging local, wedding florals for friends into a multi-faceted business with both brick-and-mortal and online offerings. 

Through the story of the growth of her business, Ellen also illuminates how she built up personal confidence in her craft, resisted the endless push to scale her business, developed her own supply chains, and found her voice as an educator. It was such an illuminating episode for us, and we know you will learn so much from Ellen, too. 

Corinne and Ellen discuss: 

• Why Ellen was initially attracted to working with local flowers 
• Ellen’s journey from working with affordable housing development to a custom flower shop focusing on local production
• Ellen’s intention to make local flowers available for any wedding at any budget 
• The differences in flower quality and pricing with local versus commercial flowers 
• How Ellen spends just as much time educating clients, as she does designing 
• Factoring employee wages, land access, and environmental inputs create higher pricing in flower markets
• Ellen’s practice for choosing clients, and helping them understand her business
• Growing into confidence in her craft, and learning to say “no” to opportunities that are not the right fit
• How Ellen navigates the potential pitfalls of working with smaller, local producers
• Ellen’s journey building relationships with farmers in the mid-Atlantic 
• Building a supply chain from zero
• Why seeing the long-game is essential 
• Ellen’s experience as an entrepreneur learning the floral business
• Getting out of the growth-at-all-costs mindset, and Ellen discovering her sweet-spot in terms of scale
• The way Ellen has added more educational opportunities in her business, and how that has accommodated her changing vision and needs
• The excitement Ellen sees burgeoning around local flowers
• The three flowers Ellen *always* purchases locally 
• Ellen’s free weekly newsletter— you want to subscribe! 

If you want to connect with Ellen Frost (and trust us, you do), there are a few places to find her online: Local Color Flowers, Ellen Frost’s personal site, and instagram. 

Find her newsletter here

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA. 

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

Today we are doing something a little bit different: taking time to reflect on some of the major lessons from a year of podcasting, and interviewing incredible guests. 

Corinne is on the mic today, solo, unpacking the major takeaways from the formative episodes on the podcast. Taking the time to look back and review is a life hack that always leads to big breakthroughs and improvements. Using that same tool to assess the podcast, and field some questions from our regular listeners, is the name of the game today. 

• The concept of taking stock of your experience, right now
• How being present with our challenges is not always the same as being challenged in the present
• Leaning into the discomfort of a growth edge
• Making decisions from a place of response instead of reaction
• Seeing the challenges in life as opportunities for wholeness
• How the values we have are not always reflected in our actions
• Practices for coming into communion with our values, and being more whole-hearted
• Why deep, soul-level self-care is important
• The ways that we convince ourselves that our nourishment isn’t important 
• How outsourcing our personal responsibility to care for ourselves can seem easier
• Why gadgets and hacks will not replace true self-care
• The joy of connecting with your natural environment
• Starting with exactly where you are, physically
• How the place where we live can often mirror the same principles we work through on 
• daily basis 
• The birth > growth > death cycle on a macro and micro scale 
• Podcast guest feedback
• Updates on the Late Bloomer Ranch farm incubator
• How Late Bloomer Ranch approaches crop planning
• Advice for those new to crop planning, a loose framework
• How and why children are important on the farm 
• Here’s to another great year!

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA. 

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

For some, in the digital age, life feels faraway and disconnected. As if each and every part of life comes from a separate factory, Amazon’ed right to our front doors. Today’s guest, Grace Gurganus, wanted to connect the dots and have a more immediate connection with her lived experience. She set out to make an impact in her local food system in southern Oregon, and experienced a radical change in lifestyle and career.  

Grace is a mobile butcher, meaning she earns her keep traveling from farm to farm and slaughtering animals onsite. It wasn’t the life she expected to have, but the life she found from following her heart and trusting the process along the way. On today’s episode, Corinne and Grace not only discuss the story of how Grace wound up on the “kill truck”, but also how her work experience has shaped her life and healed some deep wounds. It’s a powerful conversation for anyone interested in getting to the heart of the matter— the line between life and death, and how by doing challenging things, life becomes easier.  

Corinne and Grace talk about:  

• Grace’s circuitous journey to become a mobile butcher 
• How Grace’s vision transitioned from a future of being the butcher cutting meat, to the butcher performing on-farm slaughter
• The power of Grace showing up, and being willing to learn
• Grace’s first day on the “kill truck”
• Grace’s relationship to her empathy, in context with her work
• Slowdown Farmstead
• Start a Farm 
• Where flowery language meets the lived experience 
• “There’s no practice cow”
• Why Grace is always going to be the person who slaughters her own livestock
• What is lost when we prioritize efficiency over everything else in animal agriculture
• How Grace embraces the varying shades of morality in her work
• The reason doing hard things made Grace’s life so much easier 
• The ways butchering brings Grace home to herself
• Grace’s journey with her mother’s cancer diagnosis, and eventual death
• Walking through the fears around losing loved ones, and learning to let go
• The way Grace feels her mother’s essence in her everyday life
• The power of beginning change right in your own community 

 
Connect with Grace on instagram @gracieg_goodkarmafarm 

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA. 

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

Creating something beautiful requires talent, humility, and grit. In our digital world, we often want to gloss over the less glamorous parts of the process, and focus exclusively on the end-product, the perfected image of a job well done. But, underneath any craft or creation is a story of a maker, and how they developed their unique gifts.  

Christy Sing Robertson, today’s guest, wasn’t always a hatter. In fact, the decision to create custom hats came later in life by way of an intuitive pull. Since starting on her journey, Christy has created not only a custom hat company focused on premium-quality bespoke hats, but also a new way of life and flow for herself and her family.   

On today’s episode, Christy generously walks us through her journey in finding her creative passion, her commitment to timelessness and quality, how she overcame adrenal burnout, and all the ways that connecting with her boundaries and non-negotiable needs have driven her to grow personally and professionally.  

Christy and Corinne discuss: 

• What’s the ethos of Sing Hat Company
• Christy’s intuitive nudge to take a hat making apprenticeship 
• How Christy chose to trust her process in making a big pivot and developing her craft 
• The humility to learn something new, and put the time in to learn 
• The way Christy imprints her personal style and interest in timelessness in her hats
• How COVID changed the trajectory of Sing Hat Company for the better 
• Why making a hat the slow way is better 
• The ways obstacles in business can be gateways to creating better outcomes
• Christy’s journey learning to appreciate imperfections, and creating balance in her life 
• Boundaries in business and why they matter
• How Christy has learned to care for herself on a deeper level, so she can better care for her family 
• Christy’s choice to have her business revolve around her family life, and not the other way around
• The ways mothering and motherhood can reflect internal healing and personal growth 
• They ways Sing Hat Company has taught Christy how to mother
• Christy’s experience with adrenal burnout 
• Where Christy finds her inner creativity
• Chop Wood, Carry Water by Rick Fields
• The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield
• The systems Christy uses to make her creativity flow better
• Episode with Meghan Wallace James
• Christy’s flow working independently and also connecting with other makers
• Find Christy at the Old Salt Festival! 

 Connect with Christy online at SingHatCo.com!  

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the contine

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

What does it mean to feel fulfilled, feel secure? Today’s guest, Sena Maria, has a few ideas to get you started on your path of low-anxiety living and radical nourishment. It all starts with real, whole, animal-based foods.  

Sena Maria is a mineral nutritional balancing practitioner, and she’s going to walk you through why animal foods matter, how to learn to trust your body’s cravings again, and become more resilient and healthy overall. Instead of overly-complicated instructions with ingredients from far-off places, Sena encourages her clients to look towards foods that excite them, and to plug in ingredients from responsible small-farms raising animals the right way. The results are nothing short of radical, and today’s episode is definitely worth a listen if you find yourself feeling run-down, under-fed, or restricted by food.  

Sena and Corinne discuss:  

• Why we need to focus on nutrient density instead of calorie density in food
• Why meat is important, and the magic of minerals 
• How plant-only diets are deficient 
• Sena’s view on supplementation and whole-food diets
• Mother nature’s mineral rations in foods, and how minerals are balanced
• Exploring animal foods beyond meat 
• Utilizing traditional cooking methods 
• The real problem with the Standard American Diet 
• How Sena focuses on food that is exciting and palatable for her clients
• The beauty of bone broth 
• The deeper sense of stability and fulfillment that comes as side effect of becoming deeply nourished 
• Psychological symptoms of mineral deficiency
• Sena’s metaphor of a “mineral bank account” and how we borrow from the future to pay for the present 
• Stress as the number 1 offender in mineral depletion
• Why our systems in the modern day are so much more sensitive than they used to be in the past 
• How Sena looks at basic metabolic factors of health
• Using our experience in the present to “know” if we are healthy 
• Viewing sugar cravings a sign that the body needs energy
• Feeling empowered to eat what our bodies crave 
• The relationship between “boss babe” culture and the prevalence of fertility-related health issues 
• Societal judgements around inherently feminine traits
• Building community around motherhood and creating new paradigms for business and parenting

Find her on instagram @sena__maria, or sena-maria.com, and join her amazing group program!  

This episode was brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch. Be sure to check our farm-raised yarn, flower essences, and BloomBoxes available to ship in the continental USA. 

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne

If you’ve ever wondered about natural fibers, you are going to love this episode. And I’m not just saying that because today’s guest is my sister, Claire McAndrews Oliver. Claire is a Product Line Manager at Patagonia, and has spent her career working in apparel and understanding the process of imagining a garment and bringing it to life.  

Claire and I delve into the world of fiber and apparel, and attempt to shine a light on how the industry works, and why fiber matters. In today’s world, the process of creating a garment is complicated, and can cover several continents. If you want to add another layer of intentionality to your life, maybe start with your closet.  

Claire guides me through the following: 

• What are natural fibers? 
• The history and process of synthetic fibers 
• How technical performance changes the fiber landscape
• Late Bloomer Ranch yarn
• How wool is keratin-based, just like human hair
• The performance attributes of natural versus synthetic fibers 
• Why body odor can be impacted by synthetic fibers 
• The sheer number of distinct chemicals required to create polyester 
• How to read your clothing material label
• The difference between manufactured cellulose and natural cellulose fibers 
• Implications beyond chemicals in fiber processing and production 
• PFAS in clothing production
• Issues and constrains in regulating the apparel industry 
• Why slow-fashion is more expensive
• Making consumer choices based on values and first-principles 
• How the downfall of American manufacturing plays into the revival of ethical apparel 
• Opening our eyes to the truth of the manufacturing industry
• How the apparel industry can be a black box 
• How Claire celebrates regional and ancestral knowledge in the production of natural fibers 
• Fibershed
• Why Claire likes to shop small brands, for the artistry and commitment to the craft
• The connection between agriculture and textiles
• How Claire crafts her closet 
• Why more people need to pick up the craft of tailoring
• Embracing limitations as inspiration 
• How Claire brings the fun, the art, and creative ways of being back into clothing 

 Connect with Claire: On instagram @good_chit 

This episode is brought to you by Late Bloomer Ranch, a holistic ranch in the Teton Valley raising meat, eggs, wool, and cut-flowers of the utmost quality with integrity to match. Late Bloomer Ranch has Bloom Boxes for sale— the choicest cuts of meat packaged to ship throughout the lower 48 states. Check out Bloom Boxes, Flower Essences, Yarn & more at latebloomerranch.com 

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or leave a review—it helps this work grow.

• Subscribe to The Soft Focus Podcast

And if you’re craving food that aligns with your values, don’t forget to order from the ranch. It’s nourishment that supports your body and the soil.

Connect with us:

[email protected]

IG@latebloomerranch

Thanks for being here.
– Corinne