Apocalypse Acres

Today I'm talking with Jess at Apocalypse Acres.

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00:00

You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jess at Apocalypse Acres in Florida, and you can hear the birds singing in the background. How gorgeous is that? Good morning, Jess. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. Thank you so much.  How's the weather, Jess?  Right now, it's beautiful. It's the perfect temperature to go outside and get stuff done, but that doesn't last very long.

00:27

probably have like another half an hour before it's almost unbearable to be outside. you're killing that half hour with me. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. That's okay. It's worth it. Okay, good. Um, I'm in Minnesota and it is cool and sunny and like a tiny little breeze happening. So that's kind of a welcome relief. Nice. We always have a breeze because we have, we have a big like 40 or 50 acre

00:54

pasture next door to us and it just happens to be that the wind is always blowing across that. So even when it's not really windy elsewhere, we always have a breeze. And so even when it's really hot, it still feels pretty good here.  must be nice. It's been real sticky hot in Minnesota up until yesterday. Yesterday was gorgeous and today's  looking to be pretty nice too.  Okay. So why is it called Apocalypse Acres? Well,  when I first moved here,

01:22

And I've been here for five years now.  I was travel nursing up in Wisconsin actually, and I lost my travel nursing contract because of COVID. So when I moved in here, it was about two, not even two or three months after the COVID lockdown started and happened and all of that was going on.  And it felt very like post-apocalyptic kind of at that point, or like things seemed really crazy.  people still weren't going out in public and people were still really focusing on like trying to

01:52

try to homestead for a purpose  of not, know, because the shelves were empty in the stores and things like that. So  Apocalypse Acres just ended up kind of making sense. And the reason we chose that type of a name is because growing up, my grandparents had a 10 acre farm called Pickery Acres. And so we kind of just put a spin on that.  Okay, um, on the whole COVID thing.

02:17

I was talking with a friend like six to eight months into it after lockdown started in March of 2020.  I said that it was the quietest apocalypse ever. I had no idea the first apocalypse I experienced was going to be so quiet.  In a good way. It was nice, wasn't it?  Yes. And I've said this a few times on the podcast, but I'm going to say it again.

02:46

COVID was a  horrible thing to have happen, but there are so many amazing things that came out of it. And I hear about them all the time from people on the podcast. Yeah, things have changed for sure. It was like a weird tipping point for everybody. Hold on one second. I'm so sorry. Alexa, stop. And I hear about things all the time and there's negative things too, like some stores and pharmacies and things like that not being open 24 hours and not planning to ever open 24 hours again.

03:16

Um, but I think that there are quite a few positives too, that kind of outweigh, you know, some of those negatives. Yeah, it was the craziest time and I'm glad that we're mostly through it. I actually had COVID diagnosed for the first time in January of this year. That was not fun.  And, uh,  I slept like 18 hours a day for four days in a row, and then I was fine. So  I got the very pale version of COVID.

03:45

Yeah, for sure. I had the bad one, but then I had it most more recently too. And I also had it when I was pregnant, which was really scary.  Oh, not good. Yeah,  but back to kind of the apocalypse thing, I think.  We, my wife and I, we go to Wasteland Weekend, which is out in California every year or every other year as we can. And it's a five day it's kind of like Burning Man, but it's post apocalyptic.

04:13

Costumes are required. It's fully immersive. No one's really on their phones and you go camp, primitive camping in the desert with like 1500 other people and it's fully like Mad Max, Furiosa, like, you know, a dystopian society. And so we want our farm to be kind of like that. So we've actually filmed a couple of movies here on our property  and we've, we actually won an award for like set design and production for a movie that we filmed here called Hinders.

04:44

That is so fun.  You're very talented. And  I had no idea that you did that. That's amazing.  I would love to talk about filmmaking. And if I was a filmmaking podcast that I would have you back, but I'm not.  what,  so what do you do at your homestead? Well,  our main crop, I guess, is super hot peppers. So we grow super hot peppers, and then we make hot pepper jelly. And then we make spicy fruit

05:13

jelly also.  like peach Carolina Reaper, we have one called the hateful eight, which is eight different super hot like Carolina Reaper style, like super high Scoville rating, I have to cook it with a respirator on or I'll have an asthma attack, kind of super hot peppers. So we grow those, we have a bunch of them, we have a  growing clientele that likes to come get them from us.  But we also have like a co-op in town that wants to carry them as well.

05:42

And so we're trying to branch out into some more like mid-level heat that are tolerable for most people because the super hots are tolerable for like 1 % of people.  And then we also have chickens for eggs and we're growing some other vegetables and things like that too. And then we also have some rescue animals like our wild boar who  we've had for almost five years now, but we got him when he was about two days old. So  we're just, we kind of have our hands in.

06:11

a few different pots over here, but the peppers is the main thing. Okay. Regarding the hot peppers, my son would love your jellies. I would die if I ate them because hot peppers make my throat close up and I can't breathe.  Yes, I have asthma and they really bother me too. I can eat up to a certain spice level, but the super hots, I don't even taste my jelly. I have people that do that for me.

06:41

Yeah.  Yeah, a couple of years ago,  I  was eating something with just  fairly mild jalapenos in it. And  I felt really weird, like my lips got cold and then they went numb. And then I felt like I couldn't breathe and I had no idea what was going on. So I just kind of put my head down, tried to breathe and I was fine. I came out of it. And then a week later,  my son had made something I didn't know, but he had put, um,

07:11

ancho pepper powder in it  and same reaction and I was like oh my god I've developed anaphylactic shock reaction to hot peppers this is not great and so I went about a year and a half without eating even barbecue sauce because I didn't know what was gonna cause it to happen again  and about six months ago I tried barbecue sauce again and I could eat it and I was fine so I think I may be

07:39

getting through whatever that is. But it is really disconcerting as an adult to find out that, I now have another thing on the list I cannot eat or I will die. Yeah, that's really scary, especially like you said, having something that you don't even know has that in there or not even knowing for sure what it even is. I mean, it could be like the actual capsaicin oil, which would be interesting, but I've not ever heard of that happening. That's so, so weird.

08:07

Yeah, I was not impressed. And I remember the second time it happened,  my husband was sitting across from me and I was like, I feel like I can't breathe. And he's like, you're talking. And I said, yeah, but  I feel like I'm hitching in my chest. And he was like, stop eating that right now.  And I did. And he said, put your head down like you did before. And I did. And he said, just try to breathe in as much as you can. And then.

08:36

blow it out and I was like, okay.  And that one scared the hell out of me because I actually for a moment or two could not get my breath back in and I was like, okay, is this really how I'm going to go out?  Wow. Yeah, that's something I'll have to ask around and see if anyone else has that experience with. Yeah. And I've had weird things happen all my life like that after my second child was born.

09:04

I developed an allergy to strawberries of all things. Could not eat strawberries for like two years. That stinks. So I don't know what is with me, but I have very strange biological makeup apparently. Yeah, that's frustrating. It's very frustrating and thank God I'm not allergic to dogs or cats because that would be the saddest thing ever and I am not. So if I have to be allergic to food, there are workarounds, but I can't imagine not having my dog.

09:32

Yeah. Okay, sorry. didn't mean to make that all about me, but yeah, allergies can come on even when you're 53, which is what I was when the pepper one happened. So do you sell your jellies? Is that what you said? Yeah. So we used to do a lot of farmers markets in the area. And for a while I was doing like contract nursing because I'm a full-time hospice nurse.

10:00

And so for a while I was doing contract nursing and working part time and then doing a lot of farmers markets and things like that. And it was going really well.  Um,  and  I don't want to like be depressing or anything like that, but about a year and a half after moving into onto apocalypse acres, my husband died.  Um, he was 34. was 37 at the time and he actually took his own life. So  that kind of threw a wrench in things in a really big way for me.

10:29

because we've rented this place for five years. And so the plan was to move on to it during COVID and buy it as quickly as possible and tear down the house that was on here and build a new one. Well, we got the appraisal on this place probably three weeks before he died.  And then after that, I was like, oh my gosh, I don't even know what to do anymore. So him and I made a lot of the pepper jelly together  and recipes and hot sauces and  things like that. And then I just had to take a break after he died.

10:58

Understandably.  Um, so within the last year and a half or so, I've been trying to get back into it, but it's kind of slow going. So we started out with spicy honey, which is another thing that we do with the peppers.  Um,  and, but I started working full time, so I don't have as much time now. I wish I did.  Um, yes. And so  on to  a better topic. Um, I'm really trying to kind of.

11:27

ramp up our pepper production and get back to making pepper jelly because it really did really well. We had an Etsy page, we sold a lot online, we shipped a lot out, but then we kind of lost our momentum when that happened. Well, yes,  I'm sure that that was  hell for you to go through and I am so sorry for your loss. And honestly,  I hate that statement. I like the Jewish blessing of may his memory be a blessing. Yeah.

11:56

I like that. So yeah, I really like that one and I'm not even Jewish, but I heard it and I was like, that's beautiful. I like that one much better.  Um, okay. So  I'm trying to think of things.  You're in Florida and I know you guys have  alligators or crocodiles. One of them. We have alligators. Yes. And we have water on our property. So we have a creek that runs through our property pretty much right through the very center of it. And then at the front of our property, we have like a little retention pond area that looks like a green swamp.

12:26

Um,  we, our property is actually in the green swamp, which is the main Florida aquifer that free that feeds the Everglades. So the aquifer is here. And then when the water comes out here, it flows south to south Florida and fills up the Everglades.  So we live in that swamp. And so we've had some crazy stuff happen.  Um, like during hurricane Milton, our property flooded somewhat bad. Like when we got home, we couldn't get up to the house. We had to kayak.

12:53

the animals that we had taken with us on the kayak back to the house.  And there was fish swimming in our yard.  But thankfully the part of our property with our house on it and all of our animals stayed dry, it's up by the creek that floods a little bit.  But yeah, there's alligators and otters and a lot of snakes.  We haven't seen too many venomous ones, but we've seen coral snakes and water moccasins.  But the alligators are a very  regular occurrence.

13:23

So do you just get used to having them around? Because if I had an alligator go in my yard, I would freak out. Well, I love it. So prior  to this and prior to nursing, I was actually a vet tech and a zookeeper. So I used to work at Gatorland in Orlando as a zookeeper and I learned how to wrestle alligators and care for venomous snakes.  so being out here in the country where that stuff literally lives on my property is like the coolest thing in the world to me.

13:54

And so I get like the best of all of these worlds, like all kind of wrapped into one.  And I know I mentioned earlier that we rented this place for five years, but it was a five year struggle to buy it. So we actually just closed on it in June and it is now ours and we don't have to go anywhere.  Congratulations. I know how that feels. Um, we're coming up, well,  July  31st, five years ago, we closed on our place that we live at now. And I actually posted about it on Facebook.

14:24

because it was a big deal. We worked and saved and scrimped and planned and manifested for like 15 years to finally find our place. And we've been here for five years and we love it. So I understand how you feel. Yeah, it was really, really hard. We literally, it took us a year from the time that we first got our pre-approval till the time that we closed. It took us 11 months.

14:49

And it was the biggest nightmare. was so scary. And we thought for most of that time that we were going to have to leave and try to figure out how to take our whole homestead with us when there is nothing else available here to rent or buy. Like it's just, it's not out there. This is the perfect spot. I'm like, I want to spend the rest of my life on this land. I do not want to sell it. So I mean, buy it. I don't want to leave. I don't want to go. I want to stay here. And so we ended up being able to finally make it happen.

15:18

Two years ago, I married my wife and  she so my husband died by suicide and her partner died by suicide and her and I have known each other for like 12 years. So one thing led to the other and things have been perfect since and now we have a 16 month old son  and our little family because I have a 16 year old from before. yeah, so everything's good and now we own this and we don't have to go anywhere. you know,

15:47

Gosh, it's been  quite the adventure getting here.  I am sending you the biggest hug from Minnesota to Florida.  Thank you so much.  So you said, did you grow up in Wisconsin? Yeah. Yep.  I'm Ojibwa. And so I grew up in Wisconsin, but my family all lives on an Indian reservation in Northern Minnesota, actually, in Duluth. OK. OK, actually.

16:13

So my sister and my mom just moved there last week and I'm kind of jealous because I wish I was up there a little bit,  but only at this time of year when it's nice because  I don't want to go back to the sun. So I to the snow. So I moved to Florida when I was like 19 or 20 and I just never looked back. I love it. The hot, I love the tropical. I love the snakes and gators and the fact that there's lizards and tree frogs everywhere. I think all that's great.

16:39

You've ended up exactly where you were meant to be. I'm so excited for you.  The whole alligator and snakes thing.  Do you lose your chickens to the alligators or do you have them fairly well locked up so they don't have any chance to get hurt? The creek is probably a hundred yards from  the animals.  And so my water buffalo goes and swims in the creek, but the gators are smaller than him, so they don't bother him.

17:07

and they don't come up by the chickens, thankfully. We do have a bobcat here and there once in a while, so we do have to be really careful about the chickens, but I've never ever lost a chicken to a gator or a snake. But I do have snakes that go in my coops because, and they eat the eggs once in a while, and I just call it my egg tax because they keep the rodents away. So we don't have any rats, we don't have any mice, but we have snakes. So that's totally fine with me, it's just not fine with most people.

17:37

Mm-hmm.  Well, I'm kind of impressed because we have, well, for the first time ever in five years, we had a mama raccoon with three babies show up a couple weeks ago. they ate four of our chickens. Raccoons are terrible. Raccoons. Chickens, yeah. They're brutal. So raccoons  ate our chickens, but you have not lost a chicken to an alligator. So how dumb is that?  Well, we did just lose a chicken and a duck to a raccoon not long ago, which

18:07

was really irritating, but  it happens. Yeah, I had heard of it happening, but I didn't believe it. Another crazy thing was that we have silky chickens and silkies are just really known for being dumb. chickens are dumb in general, but silky chickens are even dumber and they were free ranging. And now we can't let our silky's free range anymore because the vultures were picking them off. And I didn't know vultures ever ate live prey. I thought they just ate dead stuff.

18:37

No, I think they actually fall under raptor definition. think I didn't know that until they ate a couple of our silkies and I was like, where are our silkies going? And then my daughter caught the vulture actually sitting right over by the coops, like waiting for them to come out. So that was a surprise. But the chickens are all much safer now. Now that we know. Good. We have we have ospreys we have

19:07

bald eagles, have hawks, we have  turkey vultures. I don't think we have just regular old vultures. We have turkey vultures here.  And we had a litter of like seven barn kittens born a couple summers ago. And then there were five and then there were four  and we couldn't find these kittens.  And we think that probably one of the raptors picked them off because they were little and they had just started coming out of the barn. Oh, that's so bad.

19:38

Yeah, so raptors will go after the most,  I don't know, convenient, easiest food source that's in front of them. Yeah, and silkies can't see above them. So they just  don't have many survival mechanisms.  And so now they stay in their  run and coop all the time. Yeah. And  are silkies the ones that have the feathers on their legs? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we don't have those fancy ones. We just have the ISA brown.

20:07

laying hens. Oh, they're good layers though. They are. They're really good layers. My son went out and got the eggs yesterday and he came in and he was like, one of our chickens laid a golf ball and the egg looked completely round.  He says, he says, how does this happen? I said, I don't know. Mother nature is crazy. I don't know everything. Well, that's what keeps it interesting.  Sure does.  Um, so is your 16 year old part of the homestead? Yeah, she,  uh,

20:37

chose to take care of all the chickens as her main chore. So I was talking to someone earlier this morning and they're like, yeah, our teenagers like to try to make the chickens like them more. And that's what she does. She'll buy them treats with her own money and she'll go sit in and take a chair in the run with the chickens and just sit in there with them and let them eat out of her hand.  She loves the pig. He's like 450 pounds, wild boar, big old tusks. And she goes and plays with him and you know,

21:05

She was in his mud puddle with him the other day. I'm not even joking. There's like a whole photo shoot of it.  But yeah, she likes it here  most of the time.

21:17

Okay, cool. Um, I always ask because kids aren't necessarily as into it as their parents are. And we didn't get our place until my youngest was in 19, I think. And so, um, the older three never have lived here on the property with us and they've come to visit and they're like, it's really pretty. And my

21:44

my,  I always stumble over this. He's my stepson, but he might as well be my son. He and his wife just moved to Nebraska two winters ago and they now have their own one acre place that they're quote unquote homesteading. And this is the first summer he's been able to start a big garden and he's so tickled with it. That's great. And then you guys have more stuff in common. you, do you talk more or talk about it?

22:10

I swear he calls his dad like two or three times a day. gosh. love that. That's great though.  Yeah. And I, it's funny because I will, I will  interject into the conversation after I ask if I can hijack it for a minute because he's on speaker.  Oh my gosh. And, they're like, yeah. And I ask him questions or I tell him something about here and he's like, that's so cool, mom, blah, blah. And then I'm like, okay, I'm out. Keep going.  And they will talk for an hour and a half at a shop.

22:38

Oh my gosh, that's awesome for them. Yup, and considering that that particular child of the four was  difficult, it's the nicest word I can use, he had some things going on and it made him  more difficult and he knows that. He came to me and apologized when he was an adult because he was kind of a pain in the butt. I hope my daughter does someday. I'm holding a pope.

23:06

Yeah, but it just, made it hard to be close back then in teenage years. And so I'm so  thrilled that my husband and his son have this  really tight, really close relationship. It's so good for them. I love it. So they're bonding now more than they did then, but hey, better late than never.  Oh, absolutely. If you can bond with your parents at any point in your life before they're gone,  do it. It's really important.  Um,

23:35

Okay, so what's the nearest big city in Florida near you? Oh, Orlando.  We're actually, we're really in a really nice location. So Tampa is almost exactly an hour and Orlando is 45 minutes. So we're really centrally located to go to either of those places. And then Gainesville is about an hour north of us. So I love where we live.  We're in Orlando pretty regularly and we're in Tampa pretty regularly. Okay, awesome. So you're not

24:05

It's not like you're off-grid stranded in the middle of nowhere. And  for the people who enjoy that lifestyle, good. But I worry a little bit about people who are  way, way out because if something happens,  if that's bad, it's going to go real bad. That's true. I'm grateful that we're not. My wife is just born and raised in the city in Orlando, so I don't know that she could handle that.  This was a perfect compromise.

24:33

So I've lived here for five years, but she moved in two years ago just after we got married. And it's been like a whole culture shock for her, but she loves it. And most of the chickens are actually hers.  But yeah, so we're, have like a gas station about two mile, two and a half miles away. So we're not out out, but it really feels like it where we are. Like from  our house, we can barely see another house.

24:59

Which is nice because we only have five acres so we don't have another property right next to us. Yeah, we can only see one house from our property, but our nearest neighbor is actually a quarter mile away.  The reason we can't see more than one house is we're surrounded by a 10 foot tall cornfield right now. Oh my gosh.  That's cool.  Yeah. And it's funny because the corn has never grown this tall in the five years that we've been here and they just started planting corn three years. It was alfalfa.

25:28

And the corn has done exceedingly well this year in this field. And I wonder if they tried a new variety because this is craziness. My husband was over by the apple trees  and that corn is a good three feet taller than he is and he's five eight. That's nuts. Cause I grew up next to corn fields too. We don't have corn down here. It's really weird.

25:54

Having grown up in I think it's weird. It's too hot. I've tried planting corn and it just shrivels up and dies every time I try, no matter what I do to it. I was gonna guess it's too wet, but yeah, the heat makes sense, because it doesn't really know. Yeah. hot heat, yeah. And when I've tried growing corn in the past, it's actually gotten dry, just because even though it's wet,

26:16

It's so hot during the day and then it'll downpour in the afternoon. But like the heat during the day and the beating sun just like shrivels everything up. All of our tomatoes died this year and I was talking to some other farmers in the area and they're like, no one has tomatoes. I don't know why it was just too hot, too dry for too long. I wish you live closer because I could give you tomatoes every day until mid September at this point.  It's my husband planted over two months.

26:43

My husband planted over 250 tomato plants this year. That is insane.  Drowning in We're going to be  swimming in them here in about a week and a  half. we have people who want to buy pounds and pounds for canning. So it's all going to work out. But last year our tomatoes did terribly because of the weather here in the Midwest. It's a crab shoot. Yeah.  It's such a weird gamble. Yeah, it really is.

27:15

But either way, it's a worthy gamble because I am so excited that I get to have my first batch of bruschetta probably tomorrow.  Nice.  Yeah, that's exciting. With our own basil and our own tomatoes, and that is always the best kind. Yeah, for sure. I don't have basil. I'm not really great at growing herbs, but  I know people who are, so that's fine.

27:41

We have a really nice community set up here with people that try to barter as much as possible. And  we're trying to intentionally just build community, the whole apocalypse acres thing. Like, I do think that in our lifetime, the crap is going to hit the fan  and things are going to get crazier. And so I have people that actually have directions to our house printed out in case they can't use their GPS  that are planning to come here if they have to. you know, we're not

28:09

preppers by any means, but the option's always there. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with being a prepper. I, I have such a hard time with this because preppers are people who prepare and that can mean preparing for a snowstorm in the middle of winter in Minnesota and not being able to get out your driveway for a week, or it can mean going much, much further and prepping for an apocalypse.

28:39

And I think that everyone has to come to their own  definition and their own way of prepping. So  it's okay if you're a prepper. Jess, it's fine. Be a prepper. I love it.  That's a good way to put it. We  don't let it control our lives.  But obviously we have hurricanes here and the last hurricane last October, Milton, hit us really hard. We're still cleaning up from it.

29:08

So we know what it's like to not be able to even get to our property because the power lines were laying over the front of it like we couldn't get home at all. So yeah, there's definitely a little bit of what if we know we need to be able to survive for about a week  on our own out here with no power and no water because our well pump doesn't work when the power is off.

29:28

Yes, my daughter lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. Oh, and when the hurricanes, yeah, when the hurricanes came through last summer, last summer, right? Last fall. Last fall. Yeah. The second one or the first one, she called me and she was like, so just so you know, we're probably going to get hit by the hurricane. And I was like, yes, are you ready? And she's like, oh yeah, it'll be fine. And I said,

29:57

I would say her name but she doesn't like it when I do that.  I said, daughter of mine, I said, you were raised in Minnesota with blizzards and ice storms and terrible thunderstorms. I said,  what do you think maybe you should be doing right now? And she said, probably going to the grocery store and stocking up on things that we can cook without heat or without power. And I said, yes.  And she said, and probably  getting some bottled water in the house. And I said,  yes.

30:26

And she said, probably some other stuff too. said, yes. Do you want to go do that? She was like, yes, I will talk to the husband right now. We'll go stock up. said, that would be good.  Make your mother's heart stop racing. Please go do the things you know you're supposed to do in case of emergency. And she was like, I will. I said, OK. And she's 35, Jess. She knows this.  Oh, yeah. But you don't want to have to go to the store. You know it's when you guys are getting a blizzard. You don't want to have to go to the store when everyone else is panic buying everything too. It's awful.

30:56

Yeah, and the worst experience I've ever had with that, and I've told this story too, but whatever. they did the, I swear it was March 30th of 2020 that our governor said, hey, really don't go anywhere if you don't have to. And if you do wear a mask and wash your hands and blah, blah, blah. And we shop every other weekend and stock up because it's Minnesota. You don't know what's gonna happen with the weather and you don't know if you're gonna be stuck in your house for a week.

31:25

And so we were very used to that and we went to Sam's Club  and I'm telling you the panic and the anxiety  all through people's bodies at that store that day.  It was just, I don't even have a word. It was unnerving. That's the closest I can get. And you could hear people talking amongst themselves, you know, their shopping groups  saying, what do we do? What do we buy?

31:54

if we're going to not be able to be shopping the way we  usually do. And I looked at my husband and I said, I think we should probably just get our stuff and get out of here.  And he said, he said, me too. We got out to the car, looked at each other and I was like, we are one step away from people rioting. This is really scary. And it didn't happen,  but people were  so upset and didn't know what to do with themselves. It was awful.

32:24

Yeah, I think it was a really eye opening moment to realize how precariously our society in the United States is balanced. And how  one thing, even if it's not a big thing, could throw everything off to the point where people do start wiring or doing who knows whatever else. So it was eye opening for us. And so that's, yeah, kind of how this all started. Yeah, and there's

32:51

Okay, I want to reiterate there's nothing wrong with being prepared for things that you can't see coming.  And  there are things coming that we don't know about. That's how the world works.  And  if you're smart in this day and age, you will know your local growers and producers and be able to buy  within a five to 10 mile radius of yourself.  If the supply chain goes down, that's those are the things that I really want to hammer on for today.  Yeah, that's a really

33:21

concise way to kind of put it and so we had  yesterday we had a farmer over at our house who's starting a community exchange in a CSA who wants us to have our peppers and things in the CSA and pepper jelly.  Who is trying to do that within five to 10 miles I think is pretty close to his radius that he wants to do.  Just starting more community and being more intentional about actually seeing people in person and not just interacting on social media.

33:51

because we've gotten really complacent.

33:56

Yeah,  absolutely.  So  where can people find you Jess online? Yeah, we're doing mostly everything right now on Facebook.  So apocalypse acres on Facebook, our logo is a little calf in a gas mask.  And  we also have a TikTok account which went crazy viral with a spider video that I hope I never have to see again because I've seen it like 200,000 times it's been viewed by like 18 million people and it's been shown on like

34:24

other podcasts and things and I'm so sick of hearing it.  But our TikTok, if you search Apocalypse Acres on TikTok, we're on there too. We also have an Instagram, but we don't use that quite as much.  And we're trying to figure out like where best to put our pepper jelly online because  Etsy is not the greatest spot for something like that. So we're figuring it out, but it'll be on one of those places.  Oh, awesome. So you'll be able to ship it. Awesome. Great.

34:51

All right, as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  thank you for taking the time to talk with me this morning. And I,  you work nights, so I was very excited that you said yes. Yes, it was perfect. I drank lots of caffeine and I'm still up. actually made bread after I finished working at eight o'clock this morning. So I'm about to go in and have some fresh bread that's hot, still out of the oven. And it was a pleasure and I really appreciate you asking me. This is really fun.

35:21

All right, have a great sleep, Jess. Enjoy your sleep today. Thank you so much.  Have a good day. All right, bye. Bye-bye.