Homesteading-ish 2025

Today I'm talking with Dawn at Homesteading-ish. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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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.

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Today I'm talking with Dawn at Homesteading-ish  in West Virginia. Good afternoon, Dawn. How are you?  Great. It's nice to be here.  Oh, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. So  you are  not  the, I don't know, founder of Homesteading-ish. You are part of Homesteading-ish. So tell me what Homesteading-ish is. uh

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um So I'm actually one of the organizers for the event.  There are a couple of us that got together and decided that we wanted to bring something different to our community and trying to help people establish a homestead, know what to do, kind of help them build those foundational skills that they need in order to live off the land or be more sustainable, to  work on things that  they would like to do to help support their family,  providing

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food or um whatever other things they might need in order to make their homestead work. So we put our heads together and kind of decided that we would go this route by bringing some non-traditional resources to the table and bringing people from not just the talking head and university world but from real life experience to the table that  could have an influence over how people view homesteading and small farm life. um So

01:37

That's how it was kind of born. uh it last year was our first year. It was a fantastic event. We had a great turnout. And  one of the things we love the most is that we really wanted to bring a more intimate environment. Um, we were able to really bring people together,  let them  talk with one another, meet one-on-one, actually have real life conversations in real time with people that are living a lifestyle that they are seeking to  be better at. So we were able to do that.

02:08

oh This year, I hope we're going to be able to bring that same kind of intimate atmosphere, the same kind of energy, the same kind of feeling to the table where people are really going to get to get into the bones  of what they're doing and why they want to do it and how they can  accomplish all of their goals.  Awesome. And when you're referring to last year, last year was the inaugural conference for Homosteading-ish.

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It was, it was our very first one. So we were excited that it was so well received to be able to bring it back again a second year. Okay. So when I, when I interviewed Troy last year, cause Troy is the one that, that kind of kicked this all off from what I've been told.  He was just getting ready for the first conference and he was very, very, very excited  and a little bit nervous. I am not sure that.

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I'm not sure that he really knew what he got himself into, number one, and how it was going to go, number two. That's kind of what was coming through.  And so how did last year go?  it, was it well received? Were there a lot of attendees, that kind of thing? So we were all a little bit nervous last year, not really knowing what we were going to get ourselves into and what people were going to think or how the event was going to go. But honestly, um there was

03:31

It almost was, I hate to even say it, but it was almost flawless. It went so well.  We had a lot of people that came from all across the country, people from as far away as  California down to Florida. um I think at one point we had at least a dozen states that were represented at the conference.  A lot of people were really hungry to receive the information that we were trying to invest in them.

03:57

people came and they loved it. They were screaming to come back and hoped that we would do it a second time. Again, it goes back to that  kind of we brought people to a place where it felt like home, where they were comfortable and they could ask the hard questions and get the hard answers and dig a little deeper into topics that they were interested in and actually get to speak with our presenters one-on-one. In some instances, we had a lot of opportunity for them to be able to mingle with each other and really

04:26

You know, talk to people that were like minded be able to just make connections with people around here. The chairman of our board says that more gets done before and after the meeting than during the actual meeting. And so people were able to make meaningful connections with one another and then have those conversations even before or after the conference in order to follow up on topics that they were interested in or get more.

04:53

connected with someone that knew more than they did about something that they were working on. So was really, really great.  We had a great turnout.  People were really very interested  in hearing  from a different perspective. uh One of the things that we tried to do was to bridge some gaps in between, you know, the  local community and then finding resources of help for them. So if you

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catch the ish part of our home setting ish.  That's the in search of help part where we're saying we want to help you because this is like,  you're working on the home setting part. We're kind of in the ish part where we're here to assist you and help you. And so we wanted to be able to provide those services and bridge gaps between  maybe some.

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federal or state level government or whether it's a local partner or connection or another community partner or even just people in the communities that wanted to connect with one another to find better resources to help  be more sustainable with their funding or with their product or just know more about what it was they needed to do next on their homestead.  Everything from

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how do you even locate the property that you want all the way through to, know, now that I have my property, I want to have a high tunnel or I want to have  a, you know, work on getting things to farmers market, or  I want to find finances and funding for my farm, or, you know, I want to raise livestock.  Just  a lot of, a lot of things that were able to be  talked about and discussed and brought to light.  Resources and opportunities available  on all sides.

06:36

Okay, so I know that you have the second one coming up, the second year conference. And before we get into what's going to be new at that one, I have a question for you. During the year when you aren't doing the conferences, can people still reach out to you guys for information? Yeah, so one of the things that we're building for this year is just a network of community people where we can actually

07:04

um address some questions and kind of they can reach out to us and find us and we can help with resources. um For me personally,  I work  directly for the Conservation District here in our local area. So we are always available.  know,  every day we're here in the office working with people in our local community, with NRCS and with the Conservation Districts and opportunities for them to get technical assistance

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to help fund financial assistance. um So we're always available and that's one of the great things about bridging some of these gaps is helping people understand what resources are available to them. We provide services for free to the public and to the community. We also provide financial assistance um in a form of  reimbursement grants. So there's a lot of resources that are available and people can reach out to us. uh

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anytime that they  have questions and we'll try to hook them up with the correct resources. Fabulous.  Minnesota's Department of Agriculture is  really, really good. I'm in Minnesota.  I don't know if you know that, but I'm in Minnesota.  Minnesota's Department of Agriculture is super helpful. Every time I've had a question,  I try to email people first because they can get back to me on their own time instead of having to answer questions on the phone.

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And every time I've had a question, I have just emailed whoever is in charge of who would handle my question. And they get back to me within 24 hours usually. And it's so amazing to me that these state departments are so quickly helpful. Yeah. I mean, we have the same thing here. Our department of Ag is great to work with. They have, you know, a wealth of resources.

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We also work with two local universities. So we work with WVU extension and we work with WVSU, which is Western U State University extension.  they have extension agents there that were also working  as partners along with our federal and state level partners that can answer  questions or  get into topics. And  all of our presenters are very approachable as well. So if you are interested in a specific topic or you have a specific presenter or someone that you met,

09:24

They're all very, very approachable and very willing to answer any questions you have and get back to you just as quickly as they can, which is a great networking tool for all of the things involved. Yeah. One of the things that's wonderful about people who are in ag or in homesteading or farming or whatever, they all tend to be very helpful and very giving souls. And it's part of the reason I love my podcast so much because I reach out to people. I'm like,

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I do this thing, would you come talk to me?" And they're like, of course.  And  I just love it because everyone is so willing to share what they know  or dig into it and try to find answers for me if I don't know. Yeah, I mean, we're always happy to assist. em I think sometimes it's  just important to us as it is to the other person that's asking because sometimes we want to know too.  you know, one of the reasons why we...

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get into the lines of work that we get into is because we do want to assist people. We do want to  be available to help them, to make them, um you know, have the resources that they need so that they can  move forward on their projects,  whatever that might be. Yes,  and you don't, okay, I was always afraid to reach out and ask a question because I wasn't ready to do the thing. I was doing research.

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And I felt like I might be wasting someone's time if I asked a question, got the answer and then was like, no, I'm not doing that.  That's what you guys are there for, right? You're there to help us figure out what the next step is. Absolutely. Yeah. mean that we, found that a lot of people have an idea, right? Just like you said, they have an idea there. They might be interested, but they don't really know what to do yet.

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And then sometimes they get into it and they get in over their head or, you know, that's more than they thought it would be, or maybe they just don't have enough resources. And so we kind of want to be able to help assist them through those processes  in order to  not be overwhelmed and not just throw them the towel and decide they're going to quit, right? We want you to be successful.  We want you to be able to do what you've set out to accomplish. And so we want to provide  all the right tools  to help, to assist you in that.

11:36

Well, let me say thank you because it's people like you that make things go, you know,  we need that. mean, yeah, absolutely. For sure. We need people to start growing their own food or their own livestock or  whatever right now. It's so important. And if you have the room, start something growing. mean,  if you live in a Northern tier state right now,  it's getting late in the season and  you know, you could do cold weather crops, but

12:05

What I'm saying is if you have the means to start something growing that you can eat,  probably ought to look into it.  I think that's what I'm going to say for today.  We just had that conversation actually. em And we had a committee meeting this morning  for the upcoming conference and we just had that same conversation.  Everybody can do something no matter how big or how small, like  everyone can start somewhere. And I think that's the important part. oh

12:30

You may not be ready to tackle the big things, but you can certainly tackle the small things. Have a small  backyard garden, maybe just a few herbs, or maybe you want to start with a couple of chickens, or maybe you want to start with something small and you can build your way up.  I think that's the great part about the community  of homesteaders and small farm operators is that we're always willing to help one another and we learn from each other. mean, we learn new things every single day.

12:56

I think helping people to understand what the expectations are, helping them to manage their expectations and understand what the balance is between where you start and  where you see people are when they've been doing it for five or six or 10 years.  There's a big difference in getting those  resources available to fill in the gaps, I think is really important, but everyone can certainly start somewhere em and do something in order to make their  journey better, right?  Yeah.

13:26

I always tell people that when you start growing produce or you start raising animals,  not only are you growing produce or animals, you're growing yourself. For sure.  Absolutely. We learn something new every single day. um It's an amazing opportunity to really just get back to the way nature has intended things to be. um Growing your own food and providing for your family.

13:55

There's something special that happens in that circle um that doesn't come from the grocery store and that doesn't come from, you know, other places. comes  directly from you and your connection to nature or  you and your connection to the community folks around you that are doing those things. And I think there's something really special about that. is really special. And  I have, I have such a hard time with the word special because people have overused it so much that they become

14:24

It's become trite, but  in the truest sense of the word special, it is special when you grow your own food. um So I wanna, we've got 15 minutes and I wanna know, I have questions about last year's conference so that we can compare it to what's coming up for this year's conference. So  how many um presenters did you guys end up having last year? So last year we had a little under 30, I think we had about

14:53

27. This year we actually have 31 total presenters. We have 36 different sessions that people can choose from to attend and that's over six different tracks. So you kind of have six different subjects and you can pick one of those subjects and stay with that whole track for the full two days or you can bounce around and pick and choose whatever session you feel like is going to best suit like your need or your information or your lifestyle or whatever.

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it is that you'd like. So em I'm really excited about the lineup for this year.  The schedule is fuller this year than it was last year.  And there's really a lot of great information and really amazing presenters that are coming to the table. em I really think this year's going to be better than last year. And last year was going to be hard to top.  I was going to say it's always better the second year because you guys were just getting your feet wet last year. Yeah, for sure.

15:51

For sure.  You you learn  from the first one.  You figure out how to make it better. And so I think hopefully that's what we've done. We've um added some things this year,  but we've also continued to keep that same kind of  feeling of intimacy and that same kind of feeling of community that we wanted to continue to bring to the table. Okay. So  I'm trying to,  I'm trying to do a comparison thing here, but I'm failing at it.  Last year.

16:21

Last year, what were the tracks that you guys kind of had in place for people? So  last year, what we had on the table,  we talked about  land preparations and management.  We had a homesteading uh Appalachian skills track where you could learn about different types of Appalachian skills. We had an Appalachian specific track. So things that were only specific to the  Appalachian region,  we had

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talked about financial food and security or how about security like financially and like food security. We kind of put those together. We had a track on organic and then we talked about having an urban homestead. so this year, do you want me to talk about this year? Yes. So this year we kind of changed that up a little bit and I think we

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Took all the things that people had from last year that they loved and then the things that they wanted to learn about. And we came up with six  new tracks. So,  um, we're going to have a farm and land management. Nice. Um, we're going to have an Appalachian homestead skills.  So again, we're going to be bringing some skill to the table. Um, growing on farmstead. So are we talking about,  uh, growing your gardens and maybe growing a market, um, those kinds of things.

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And then we have a whole series on small livestock and remnants. So we're gonna be talking lot about small livestock. We're gonna be talking a lot about  animals and their care and their maintenance on your homestead  or small farm. We're gonna talk about building sustainability on your farms. That's gonna bring a lot of different topics to the table as well. um Funding and opportunities to  find support. How do we make our farms sustainable? How do we continue to do this year after year?

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And then we're going to talk about adding value to your homestead. So what are the things that you can do that  are going to add additional value to your homestead or to your small farm? Whether that's through a value-added product, whether that's through an agritourism tract,  or just things that you want to  add that give your property value. So I think there's going to be a lot of really interesting things that we're going to cover on these new tracts.  Awesome. I have a question about the small animal tract.

18:40

I'm assuming in that small animal track, you're talking about chickens, quail, goats, sheep, that kind of thing.  Yeah. So we actually have a couple of tracks on sheep, a couple of tracks on quail, chickens, goats, pigs, all of them. We're going to cover all of them. Are rabbits included in there? So we did not include rabbits this year. It was  on the um discussion table, but  ultimately we need to find  someone who can really speak.

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clearly to that community. with  all of the other ones that we already had on the table, there just wasn't enough room to add that. But it is something we hope to add next year.  OK, cool. So I have a big question for you and it's something I don't know if you guys have floated it yet or not.  next, like the third time you guys do this,  any chance you would be willing to do an online version of it while it's going on?

19:36

Well,  so we've kind of discussed that even last year, even as the first year  into this year.  Right now we don't have capacity to be able to stream or to be able to  video record all of our sessions.  But  it is something that we're hopeful that we'll be able to do maybe going into next year or into the future if we can um secure funding that would support uh live streaming or that would support the opportunity for oh

20:06

You  know people to view our sessions afterwards the  the the caveat to all that really is that we're trying to build this community and when you do things online you don't necessarily get the same sense of community that happens  when you're there in person and meeting people and having conversations with people and  you know we have opportunity in between each of our sessions for people to you know get a little deeper in conversation  so you miss out on a lot of that when you start going to the lot.

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or to the live or an online platform. However, that being said, our real goal here  is to make sure that we're bringing quality education to the community wherever that is. And so if we have an opportunity  to do that and we can still provide educational resources and  opportunities for people to learn things that are important to them, learn new skill sets and so on, we want to still be able to do that. So we're looking at that.

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trying to figure out if that's an option that we can do for next year because I know that not everyone can travel to West Virginia, not everyone  that might be interested in hearing what is being said has the opportunity to be available. So um I really wish that we had had the opportunity to record all of our sessions from last year and then to record them all again from this year because there was so much valuable information.

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And if you weren't present, we hate that we missed it, you know, we hate that you missed it. So  that is something we hope to be able to do.  Cause  I am not coming to West Virginia.  I can't.  I would love to, but I just, I don't have the fundage right now to do that.  But I absolutely would sit down and listen to a presentation from

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home setting issues conference. Well, that was a really weird way to say  that. We do hope to provide that. I can't confirm anything just yet, but there are a couple of sessions from this  year that I'm hoping we will be able to record and then those hopefully will be available um after the conference. So we're working on uh a  small portion that may be available for the public to see if that's something that people will be more interested in. think there's what we've selected would be

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Um, really great opportunity, um, for people to hear from more than one person, um, on the topics that matter most.  Super awesome. hope that works out.  Um, okay. So it's  two questions. One is about price  and days for this thing.  And the other question is about, mentioned Appalachian skills, Appalachian skills,  Apple Appalachia. What exactly is the region for that?

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So um we live right in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains and the Appalachian region. So it stretches all over the East Coast. uh It actually starts in the southern part of the United States and Georgia  and Alabama and reaches all the way up through  way beyond us into the Northeastern states.  So it's just the mountain trail. And a lot of people know it as the

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you know, from the actual trail, the avalachian trail that runs, you know, over 2000 miles up and down our coast. And so um we really wanted to focus on the things that are important to this region and this area because it is so different from other areas of our country.  If you are here in West Virginia, you're pretty much probably living on a mountainside or a hillside somewhere. And so you don't have a lot of flat land like you would in Minnesota  to be able to

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really have wide open spaces and wide open farms. So last year, know, for example, we had a track that Troy did that was pigs on slope. Like how are you going to raise pigs on a slope? Like what does that look like in our area as compared to someone who has a flat river bottom somewhere or somewhere where they would be able to be more expansive. So we really tried to bring some things that are specific to what happens in our mountainous region.

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em in order to make it applicable em for the people that live here. I hope that makes sense.  does, but I didn't know  how far south the Appalachian Trail went because I grew up in Maine. read about the Appalachian Trail a lot, but I wasn't sure how far south it went, but I guess it's Georgia.

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It does. Yeah, it goes all the way south to Georgia and Alabama is like the trailhead. And then of course it runs all the way up through the northeastern states. And so, I mean, it's a wide, broad range of area, but we're kind of right in the heart of it all. And so that's kind of where we wanted to start with that. And as far as the skill part of it, you know, it goes back to, you know, what I mentioned about the types of the terrain. And then there's things that are just kind of specific to

25:09

Um,  you know, our culture that's here, um, you know, the Appalachian people have, um, sometimes have specific cultures in various different areas. And so  I remember not too long ago having a workshop on heritage seeds. so  there was a family there that was trying to figure out about a particular seed that  that had been passed down through their family. And so there's a lot of things that happen and seeds  that, you know, kind of.

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become  part of a culture. And so we were trying to help them  trace like that  seed back to where it came from. And it was an interesting path because it wasn't quite as straight and narrow as you would have thought. It was a little windy because,  you know, grandma had grandma's beans and she called it one thing, but it's really part of this other bean family. That's like kind of a broader range. And so we just want to bring some,  um, something.

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to our culture and something to our people, something to the region that would be powerful and meaningful to them specifically. That is so fabulous. I love that. That's great. uh So what are the dates for this year's conference? So  we are going to stick with  until further notice, it will always be the second weekend in September. So this year it's going to be September 12th  and 13th, which is Friday and Saturday. It'll be right uh

26:33

Just outside of the Charleston, West Virginia area,  it'll be at the same location we were at last year, which is a beautiful location at Bible Center Church.  It's like being in a  camp cabin somewhere. It's just a gorgeous facility. And so  it brings a lot to  the culture or the atmosphere that we're trying to culture.  Awesome.  And how much does it cost for tickets?

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So tickets right now, if you get your tickets early next year, tickets are $55. Tickets right now are $75. But because I kind of like you, I'll share my code. We do have a code right now that you can get, buy one, get one on tickets. So buy one ticket, get a ticket for a friend at half price. And so you can use code B-O-G-O-BOGO50. So B-O-G-O-5-0.

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And that'll get you a one and a half tickets um for the conference. So that's a, that's a great deal, especially this late into the season. Is the B O G O all capital letters?  Yeah. B O G O five zero. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. I like you too, Dawn.  Thank you.  Yeah. I mean, we're having a really good time. had a great meeting this morning, trying to wrap up all of our details and we're super excited.

27:53

Little nervous again, because I think there's always, you know, that the nerve not knowing what to expect. But I mean, we have a full slate with 36 different sessions. And one thing I'm really excited about this time that we did not have last year is we have each day we have two things that are going to kind of be a little different. One is a demonstration. So we're going have demonstrations live on the grounds. And then we're going to have a roundtable discussion both days also. So two days worth of

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classes and two days worth of demonstrations and two days with uh really great roundtable discussions  on topics that are going to be super important and valuable, I think, going forward.  What are the hours each day? So on Friday,  registration opens at 10 a.m. We start at noon and we'll end around 7 after the  evening roundtable discussion and then on

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Saturday morning registration will open at 730. We'll start at 8 and we'll end about 415 on Saturday afternoon.  Okay, awesome.  And where can people buy tickets? Can you buy them online? So you can find us on Facebook and Instagram and at our website. So the website is homesteading-ishish.com um and you can get your tickets there. Okay, cool. uh

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want people who are in your area who can afford to go to go to the home studying is conference for 2025. But  what I also want people to know is that there are conferences like this all over the United States  all year long.  So if you can't get to the one in West Virginia that Dawn is part of, find one in your area that you can go to because she's right. Dawn is absolutely right.  The community that you find at these conferences.

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where you can talk with people who are in the same place as you are with your journey  or talking with the presenters or talking with people who are a little bit ahead of you  can only benefit you.  Absolutely. I agree.  100%. So,  all right, Dawn, thank you so much. As always, people can find me at tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Thank you so much, Mary. It was great to be here with you. All right. Thank you.