Her Wholesome Homestead Life

Today I'm talking with Helana at Her Wholesome Homestead Life. 

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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 Helana at Wholesome Homestead, and I don't know what state you're in.  I'm in Michigan.  In Michigan. So good morning, Helana. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. I'm really excited to have you talk with me because you said that you're new at the homesteading thing.

00:28

So first off, how's the weather in Michigan this morning? It's beautiful this morning. It's been really hot here lately, but yesterday we got a nice rainy day, so we definitely needed that. So yeah, today is beautiful.  Here too in Minnesota. I mean, I'm kind of your lateral neighbor. We're a couple states apart,  but good morning neighbor. It's sunny and it's cool. Thank goodness. So it's a great day. I love it. Our weather lady said that she wanted to call it a top 10 weather day today.

00:57

Yes, I can agree with that today.  Yeah, so I hear a little one in the background cooing. Do you have a new baby? Um, yes, he's only a couple months old so he's new  Nice and you have another one, right? Yes. I have a daughter who is a toddler  Okay.  Well, hopefully they'll let you chat with me without making too much noise  Notice how I heard the baby cooing and I turned my voice down. That's really funny

01:25

Okay, so tell me about what you do at your homestead.  So I am just getting started as we talked about. So basically I just have a garden and this is our second year doing it. So we're in a learning curve with what grows well here. So that's been fun. And then  I've also dabbled in making sourdough bread. That's definitely what got me started in the whole homesteading thing.  Like they always say, once you start doing sourdough.

01:54

You kind of go down that road of getting into everything else. So yeah. How is it going with the sourdough? The reason I ask is I have  two sourdough starters on my counter downstairs  and  they didn't rise for like four days, even though I fed them and they're a good month old at least. And I was like, what am I doing wrong?

02:17

And then the temperature in the house went up and I fed them and they doubled. And I was like, oh, it's too cool in my house. That's what's going on. So how are you doing with it? I'm doing well. My sourdough starter, I started in February of 2023. So it's two years old now. And yeah, they're definitely very finicky with the temperature in your house. I've always found that if I feed it and I put it in the microwave,

02:45

and just let it stay in there. Then I usually have better luck with it rising when it should and all of that. I'm going to have to try that trick this winter because I know it's not going to be warm enough in the house. just know it.  I always feel like such a dork  when I notice that it's doubled in size the way it's supposed to. It's risen double.  Because my sourdough for some reason, I started it from scratch. I built this thing.

03:10

There's so many big bubbles that you can see on the side of the jar on the inside. And every time I see that, I just have this big  note of happiness ring in my head because it works. Yes.  It's so exciting when it goes how it should because it's definitely a craft. And especially when you are making like a loaf, that's definitely a craft and a learning curve to like getting the bulk fermentation and everything right. Yeah. And it takes such a long time.

03:39

If your loaf comes out like a brick, all you want to do is cry. Yes. It's awful. I haven't had that happen. I've only made one loaf and it wasn't a brick, but it was definitely bagel texture. Yeah. And it tasted great and I love bagels. So I was quite pleased that I didn't come out with a brick. As long as it's edible, that's all that matters, right? Yeah. Yeah. They always say just bake it anyway and see what happens. And I'm like, I'm gonna stick to that. That's good advice.

04:07

So what made you get into homesteading? Like what was the impetus that sent you down this path? Honestly, it was when I was on maternity leave with my first child.  I just like started going down the rabbit hole of being more natural living  and trying to make as much as I can myself. So I know exactly what's in everything  so that I feel more confident feeding it to my children and my family. So that's kind of what.

04:34

started the whole thing and like I said it started with the sourdough and it just kind of blossomed from there.  I'm really proud of you and you're not the first person to tell me that they got into this because they were having kids  because kids change your whole perspective on the world they really truly do. They do for sure.  Yeah I had my daughter  many years ago she's 35 now  and I was brand new  I had just turned 20.

05:03

10 days  after turning 20 when she was born. And I don't know  what I was thinking, but I was just like, oh,  it'll be fine. Everybody has kids, it'll be fine. And after she was born, I was just so  on eggshells for the first month, because I was like, I'm going to break her. I'm going to ruin this child.  I did not. I did not ruin her. She turned out to be a fantastic young woman, but...

05:31

There's just this shift that happens where you're like, Oh, I am responsible for another  human being. Yes. It is very, very intimidating. The moment you leave the hospital, you're like, Oh wow. Like I'm the one that has to take care of this little person and no one to feed them and all of that stuff. It's definitely a big learning curve, but it's amazing. It is. It's wonderful. And the one thing I remember from when she was  little, you know, baby little,

06:00

is she had a horrible time cutting teeth. And we lived in an apartment building and there were five other apartments in the building. And we knew our neighbors and they knew we had a newborn and they knew she was teething because she was very loud when she cried. And two of my neighbors on two different days came over at about 10 o'clock in the morning because they could hear her crying. And I could not get her to stop crying no matter what I did. And they were like, would you like a break? Would you like me to walk her for you for a while?

06:31

And of course, being exhausted and a new mom, I broke down in tears both times and said,  thank you so much. And they would stay in my apartment and just walk her.  And the change in body rhythm and the sound of their voice was enough to get her to stop for a while. That's so amazing that they were willing to help you like that. New moms definitely need that. Yeah, and they were both moms themselves, you know, of older kids. So they remembered too. It's hard work and it's hard learning.

07:00

but it's wonderful. so  again, really proud of you for  taking the steps to provide a safer environment for your babies because that's impressive. Thank you.  Yeah, everybody should do that, but not everybody knows how and not everybody has the courage to step into it.  For sure. And it definitely is. It's a lot of work sometimes like when you could just  go to the store and conveniently buy something that's already  ready to go versus

07:29

starting it from scratch at home.  So I can see why some people don't do that or they don't have the time.  Yup. So do you cook from scratch?  I try to as much as I can.  Obviously there's sometimes I'm not able to. I do also work part-time as a nurse. So  some days that I'm actually that I'm at work, I have a little bit harder of a time being able to cook completely from scratch. But what I can't cook from scratch, I buy organic from the store.

08:00

Nice. Awesome. Um, I'm assuming there's a daddy in the picture. Yes. Okay. Good. Good. Good. I always worry when I ask that question, I'm going to open a can of worms. So yay. That's, that's working out. Good. Yeah. My husband and I actually met when we were in high school. So we're high school sweethearts. We've been together for, well, let's see what almost four, it'll be 14 years this year and we're 28 and 29. So wow. Wow.

08:28

I love high school sweetheart stories. That's great.  Yeah. So is he, again, I don't want to sound rude, but I want to know,  is he hands on with the kids? Oh, yes. He's amazing with our kids.  I'm very blessed.  You are. You absolutely are because that's not always how it goes. My husband, my current husband, he's my third husband,  was very,  very into the kids when they were little.

08:57

And we share a baby together. He's 23 now. And he would, I would be laying on the couch because it was nighttime and baby was moving and I'm like, I need him to calm down. Cause we knew it was a boy. And he would come over and kneel down beside me on the couch and put his head to my belly. And he would talk to that baby inside of me. And I remember him singing to the baby through my tummy. And it's one of my favorite memories. That's so sweet.

09:27

Yep, and he absolutely was changing diapers.  He would give our baby a bottle if the baby needed it because I nursed, but I would also express milk for the baby  so my husband would have chance to feed him too. Yeah. He was just  right in the trenches with me the whole time that they were little. And it's such a blessing because  moms get tired. And when you have, it's hard enough when you have one baby.

09:51

but then add in other kids and you're like, wow, I'm going to die of exhaustion at some point here. Yeah, we have two under two over here. So it's been a lot and he's been an awesome help. I definitely wouldn't be able to do it without him. So I'm very thankful that he's as hands on as he is. Yeah. Is he, is he on board with the homesteading lifestyle? Yes. Yes. And he's helpful in those aspects too. This year when we planted our garden,

10:20

He pretty much did all of the planting for me since we have two little ones and I was stuck inside and  he goes outside every night to water the garden for me. So yeah, he's super helpful. Awesome. Awesome. You guys are a team.  Um, so what are you growing in your garden this summer?  Oh, we have a lot of stuff. So we have, um, beans, have peas, we have corn. Um, I have some sunflowers, musk melon, watermelon. We have tomatoes, but we

10:48

We didn't get a good yield with the tomatoes this year. Um, I figured out that they got something called Fusarium wilt. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but it's something in the soil that there's nothing we can do about that killed all the tomato plants. So that was unfortunate, but, um, we've gotten a lot of pickles. So I've got to can some pickles for the first time, which was fun. Um, what else?

11:14

I think that, we have some asparagus growing, but we planted that last year and it has to, we planted it from seed. So it has to take a couple of years to get a good patch going. But yeah,  it's fun to watch everything grow and see what you make from seed and all that. It's, really cool.  If you love asparagus,  make sure that when that patch really starts to produce,  you only take a little bit that first year when, they start putting up shoots.

11:43

Because the less you take the first year, the better it does the next year. Awesome. That's good to know. And value that patch with your life because we have one and I love it. We got our first really good yield  this year after four years. And it is so  good. It's so sweet. I love asparagus.  Yeah, me too. It's like  I grew up on the East Coast. I'm in Minnesota now and I call it landlocked lobster.

12:13

because I eat it the same way I would eat lobster. steam the asparagus and then I dip it in melted butter and a little bit of salt and pepper. And so that's my version of lobster because I don't want to buy lobster in Minnesota. No. I'd rather grow my own asparagus. We only had to pay for the crowns once. Right. Exactly. So how big is your garden? Do you know how many feet it is? Oh, my husband had it written down on paper and I cannot remember.

12:42

Exactly. But I want to say it's like,  I'm looking at it right now. I'm going to try to guess. I feel like it's like 40 feet by 20 feet. So it's like a good, it's a good size garden.  That's a good starter garden for a small family. Absolutely.  Ours is like 50 feet by a hundred feet. Oh, that's awesome. And it's almost too much work because my husband is the gardener. I am not.  And he has a full time job, but he wants to garden.

13:11

That's his habit. So  every day after work from  May 15th till it's done, whether that's September or November, he's out there doing something in the garden. Yeah. Yeah. It is a lot of work, but it's definitely very rewarding.  It absolutely is.  And for him, he gets to have quiet time. That's where he's then  out in the garden after he's done that's  very true.

13:41

And then he gets to eat whatever I cook from the garden, because I'm the chief cook and bottle washer. Yeah. That's great. I keep hearing your little one in the background. I'm so jealous. I haven't seen a little baby in a long time. I have him in the baby carrier on me and he's just snoring away. So cute. We should just make a whole five minute stretch of him making cute little baby noises in the background.

14:08

It's the best noise to listen to, I swear. Yeah, the second best is chickens cooing and clucking at each other  in the coop. Oh my gosh, chickens! That's what I'm trying to convince my husband to get us next is chickens.  Well, how big is your property? We have like two acres. Oh, you have room for chickens?  Yes.

14:33

You should just tell him that the lady you talked to on the podcast today said it's not that hard. Get chicken. Okay. Yeah. He's nervous that it's going to be a lot of work. And I was like, yeah, well, we'll be, we'll be able to figure it out though. Well, how many chickens would you like to have to start with?  I don't even know how many I would like to start with. I don't know what a good amount would be, but I told him that it would be a cool thing to be able to have, um, egg laying chickens and meat chickens. So that way we don't have to buy chicken from the store anymore.

15:04

You are not wrong, but, and there's always a but or a,  or an it depends.  If you're not really into the whole butchering the chickens for meat,  do some research and see if there is a traveling butcher, cause that's a thing here for chickens in Minnesota. And there's a guy who actually lives in our town who comes to your property. You pay him.

15:29

He butchers the chickens. I  swear he said he wraps them in freezer paper too. I can't remember.  But either way, look into that kind of service because that would probably help  with the first year or so  if you don't want to really dive in whole chicken as it were. That's amazing. I didn't even know that there was something like that that existed. Yeah. And I don't know if there is in Michigan, but there is here. So maybe somebody is doing it in Michigan too.  And as for egg laying purposes,

15:59

Chickens lay  one egg every 24 hours.  So you have your husband and you and a toddler and a baby. So I'm assuming you would want at least two eggs for you, your husband and your toddler each a day. So that would be six chickens. Okay. And so what I would do, and I mean, we've done it a bunch of times, is I would actually get probably eight or 10 chickens.  Yeah.

16:27

and then you would have eggs to give to family or to sell to people. Yeah, that's a great idea. And it's really not that hard. The hardest part about having laying hens is that you have to clean out the coop at least once every two weeks in the summer  because it will get stinky. Yeah, I can imagine that. But in the wintertime, the thing that works out really great is that if you leave their bedding in and you just keep adding straw or shavings,

16:55

it composts and it throws heat so that it's not so cold in the coop in the wintertime. That's very clever. And you can use that and put it in a compost pile in the spring if that's allowed where you are, I assume it is on two acres. And you can use that six months later to put on your garden over the winter and it will compost down even further and then you have great fertilizer in your garden in the spring. Yep. See, we need chickens.

17:25

Now, I don't know if you have a building that you can use for a coop already in existence. No, we would probably have to build one. So that's going to be the probably most difficult part.  Yeah. And that doesn't have to be difficult either. And I didn't know I was going to give a talk on how to do chickens today. It's totally fine. I'm going to do it anyway, because you really want chickens.  What you can do  is if you have a place that gives away pallets, wood pallets.

17:54

You can make a small coupe with the sides made out of that. And then you put plywood on the outside. Brilliant. And then you would have to figure out a way to roof it. And I would just put up beams and put the tin roof stuff. I don't know what the hell it's called. Lake siding, but it would be for a roof. Yeah.

18:18

I know what you're talking about. don't know what it's called either.  Yeah, and it's not cheap, but people sometimes have scraps left over and they list them on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist  or if you have a next door app on your phone.  People have scraps left over from projects all the time and you could do that and that would keep chickens dry. So you could do it on the cheap for now and then if you wanted to improve it,  know, later you could.

18:46

Yeah, but basically they just need a place that is ventilated and warm and dry and warm is relative because chickens adapt. We don't have heat in our coop and they handled minus 30. Um, wow. Last winter for a week and none of them, none of them really suffered for it. They were fine. Okay. That's good to know. Now I have more stuff to convince my husband to get us chickens. Yeah. And don't drop a ton of money. If you don't have it, don't.

19:16

don't overextend yourself because it's not worth it because those first eggs are like hundred dollar eggs, you know? Yeah. But there are ways to do it on the cheap and still do it so that your chickens are taken care of correctly. And if you like chickens, you can always hang out with them and pet them and talk to them. That's up to you. I love all animals, so I'm sure that I would be doing that. Yeah. There's just there's so many ways to do it as a homesteader that

19:45

I'm sure other people have made coupes out of other things, but I know you live in Michigan and it gets damn cold in Michigan in the wintertime. It sure does.  And in the summertime, what we've learned is that if you take like ice packs or ice packs work best, like the ones you get at the store for your lunch pail. Yeah.

20:08

If you can find some of those for cheap, I don't know,  we haven't had to do that, but you can freeze those and just put those out in the coop and they will go sit on that to cool down.  Aw, that's a great idea. They sound like such fun little creatures to have around.  They are, and they're stupid, but they're not stupid enough to die on purpose,  usually.  Unlike  quail. Quail apparently have a suicide pack. They like to...

20:36

kill themselves for no reason. Oh really?  They startle really easily so if their coop isn't tall enough they will they when they startle they go straight up and they will break their necks. Oh my goodness.  Yep and  lots of people have good luck with quail. I'm afraid we would have terrible luck with quail so we haven't tried it yet. Yeah.  But anyway chicken education 101 here today.  I appreciate all the information.

21:04

Yeah, and if you want anything else, just message me and if I have an answer, I will give it to you, I promise, because we've had chickens for over 20 years. Okay, thank you. And a laying hen, a young laying hen right now costs us $23 per bird. Okay. And if you get the laying, I'm not saying it right, if you get chicks, if you order chicks through the mail, they're going to cost you anywhere between

21:33

$3 and $10 a piece. Okay. And then you have to wait at least 20 weeks before they start laying. So you're feeding them for that amount of time before you get any return. Is that how you started was chicks through the mail? Absolutely not. We have a friend, we have a friend who has laying hens and she raises them in late winter to sell them in the spring. So when we get ours, they're about 18 weeks old.

22:02

Oh, that's amazing. I'll have to see if I can find somebody like that around here.  Oh, I'm sure you can. Michigan seems like a great place for people who are doing homesteading stuff. Yes. So you could easily start any time as soon as you convince your husband that it's okay to get them  and you find a place to buy feed and a waterer. You would be set. And  I'm not pushing you to get chickens. Honest, I'm not. But I know. But if you want chickens, there are ways to do it that will not

22:32

break the bank too bad. So that's great to know. I really appreciate it. Okay. And I didn't realize I knew as much as I knew about this. I'm so impressed that I could talk to you about this. You're very knowledgeable about chickens. Apparently might be the only thing I'm really knowledgeable, knowledgeable about, but that's not a bad thing. Yeah. And you're knowledgeable about sourdough. So you actually helped me a little bit too. I'm happy to Yeah.

22:58

So you want to get chickens, do you want to get anything else like, I don't know, goats or sheep or a milk cow? Well, I do think that goats would be a cool thing to do in the future.  Eventually, our goal is to build behind my parents' house. They have some acreage and they're going to give us some, so we would have like three acres. And I think once we move out there, we'll probably get goats.  Awesome.

23:28

I  assume you said you love all animals. you  ever seen a newborn goat? No.  They are the sweetest thing ever. Oh, I'm sure they are. I don't have any. We don't have room. don't want any.  Neighbors have some.  And  my best friend in high school, her parents raised goats. And so she would call me every spring and be like, your mom  bring you over? Because there's brand new baby goats here. Oh, that's awesome.

23:55

I would go and hang out with the baby goats. It was so amazing.  My friend actually just bought a  month or so ago, she was bought an eight week old buck to  extend their breeding genetics for their herd. And she stopped by and he was in a crate in the back of their truck. So I got to pet an eight week old baby goat that day.  Oh, it probably made your day.  Oh, I loved it. I hadn't pet a baby goat in so long. I was like, oh, I forgot they're really shy.

24:25

Yeah. He was also hot and he didn't want to come over to me and I just slid my arm right into the crate and I was like, you will eventually come say hi to me. Yeah, you'll warm up. did. He was just as cute and soft as the ones I remember. So it was really fun. But  there's so much good  in this lifestyle. And  if you don't have people in your life who are doing these things,  get some, make some friends. Yes.

24:51

Do you have any yet?

24:56

I would say I have one that I met through work who  she kind of does some home studying stuff. Like she has the sourdough and she has a garden,  but she doesn't really have much. Oh, she has chickens too. So  I forget she has chickens, but yeah, she's shared some knowledge with me on things and yeah.  Nice. I need more though. Yeah. I was going to say keep reaching out, keep, keep trying to find people who are local to you  because they're going to know things that you don't know.

25:25

You're going to know things that they don't know and you can help each other out. Yes, share the knowledge. We just got a mama cat who's pregnant from friends because we needed more barn cats and it's easier to just have a female that produces than it is to spend $50 per barn cat every time. And she spent the night in her crate for two nights when they brought her over and we let her out yesterday morning.

25:52

have not seen her since she must be exploring her property. hopefully she's not, hopefully she'll stick around and we'll have baby kittens here soon. How many acres do you have? Three. Okay.  We have three, but the garden takes up a good percentage of what isn't, doesn't have buildings on it. Yeah. So,  so anyway, um, uh, I don't know what else to ask you cause you are, you're very new at this, but I can hear the excitement in your voice and  I'm

26:22

So excited to kind of keep track  of your future and see how it goes for you. Thank you. I'm really excited to see where this journey takes me as well. Yeah, you sound so happy and you sound way younger than 28. Well, thank you.  When you started talking, I was like, she sounds like she's 20.  And then you said 28 and I was like, oh, she's got one of those voices. You're going to sound like you're 20 for the rest of your life. Well, that would be amazing.  Yes. Yes, it would be.

26:52

All right, so where can people find you, I  have just an Instagram page right now.  It's called Wholesome Homestead. I had to have my username be at her wholesome homestead life. So if anybody would like to follow my journey, feel free to follow my page.  I think that people should follow your journey because you are a  willing student.  I'm assuming that you will take information about homesteading  from anybody and vet it and then use it.

27:21

And as someone who's brand new,  you have all the potential in the world to teach other newbies how to do it too. Don't think you don't know enough to share because you do. Thank you so much.  You're welcome.  And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and I really appreciate getting to hear the baby noises in the background.  Yeah, they're very soothing.  They are.  As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.

27:50

Helana, I hope you have a great day and kiss those babies for me. I will. Thank you so much for taking the time to let me be on your podcast.  Absolutely. It was a joy.  Thank you, Helena. Bye. Bye.