MeanderingCottage Homestead

Today I'm talking with Deb at the MeanderingCottage Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00

You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Deb at Meandering Cottage Homestead in Michigan. Good morning, Deb. How are you? I am fantastic. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Michigan?  It  is entirely too warm and very muggy.  Same in Minnesota.

00:28

literally under a heat warning,  excessive heat warning for the whole day today.  Yeah,  you know, you live in a northern state, you don't expect it to get this hot. This is just not right.

00:42

You would think that it would not happen, but global warming apparently is an actual thing, climate change. So  we're experiencing that.  guess that's what it is. My dad says that there are seasons and cycles to weather,  and he's not sure that we're actually suffering through anything new or different. It's just the seasons and cycles. But I have no idea because I am not a climate scientist.

01:10

Tell me about yourself and about Meandering Cottage Homestead.  Well, geez, I don't really know where to start.  My parents moved up to Northern Michigan from like the Ann Arbor area when I was 14 years old. And  I watched them build their own house. They saw their own lumber and everything off their property.

01:38

built their homestead from nothing. And I was  so intrigued and impressed and just all the things with that.  yeah,  it just kind of happened from there. I mean, after I graduated, I thought maybe I might want to go back to the city. So I went back to Ypsilanti.  That lasted about, I don't know,  maybe six months.  And I came back home.

02:07

I just, didn't want to be in the city anymore and here we are. Okay. Why is it called meandering a cottage?  Well, the little house that I have,  it's  a, I'm sorry, my cat wants to play right this moment.  It's the little house that I got. It's,  it reminds me of a little cottage. I used to go camping  and,

02:35

do little cabins and things like that with my parents when I was younger, the whole family did it. And I don't know, I just thought it was always so neat being in a  small little space just always felt so comfortable and cozy.  And I also like the idea of like little paths  around  your property. You just have all these cool little nooks and

03:01

just neat little places tucked away and out of the way places on your property. I thought, you know,  meandering cottage just sounds like where I want to be.  I love that. And I know exactly what you're talking about. When I was growing up in Maine, people had homes on lakes and here in Minnesota, it's a big deal to go up to the cabin up north.  And a lot of those.

03:28

going up to the cabin spaces are actually big homes.  They're not cabins.  And when I was growing up, these were actually little lake cabins and it felt like being in a dollhouse. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of, I mean, I decorated my place. It's, it's, um, you know, it's not your typical little cabin looking place.  I don't know. just.

03:56

In my mind, I just wanted something that was very, I like being hugged when I come home.  So,  you know, I just, I guess I wanted to do that and make that the vibe.

04:11

Very nice.  I'm thrilled that you are embracing the cozy  theme because cozy is so nice. And especially on a day like today when it's so hot,  our house feels, our house is pretty big. It's over 1400 square feet on the inside, but  it's warm and it's welcoming and it's cozy and it's comfortable.  as long as I don't actually go outside, I can pretend that it's not 150,000 degrees outside.

04:39

Oh, absolutely. Watch a Christmas movie.  Yeah, I made them. I made tortellini salad yesterday because I knew it was going to be super hot today.  tortellini salad is basically a cold pasta salad.  And it is waiting for me at about 11 o'clock this morning to dive into. I'm a little bit jealous.

05:02

It's super easy to make and that's part of reason I make it. takes like the time it takes to boil the water, cook the tortellinis and then,  can't talk,  slice up an onion  and of sweet bell pepper and dump a can of quartered artichoke hearts in it and some zesty Italian dressing, some balsamic vinegar  and whatever seasonings you like to put in your cold salads. That's pretty much it.  Oh yeah, that's easy peasy, isn't it?

05:32

Yup. I, when I was making it, I was like, it's hot today. I don't want to be cooking today either. This was yesterday. I thought, I thought when I went to bed last night, I thought I'm going to be so grateful that I did it today, which was yesterday instead of this morning when it's already hot outside. So, Oh yeah. Yeah. It hit 71 here by, geez, I think it was seven o'clock this morning. It was already 71 degrees out and like, Oh, come on. This is crazy.

06:02

So yeah, I'm not cooking today either.

06:08

Yeah, it's supposed to be cooler on Tuesday. The temps are supposed to drop, so I'm  just holding on till Tuesday.  So what do you do at your place?

06:22

Um, as far as like, like business. Do you grow a garden? Yes. So my property  is on a hillside where I have my little house sitting.  So it was  the soil here is super sandy. So I built Hugu culture beds. I'm not for anybody who's not familiar with that. It's.

06:50

basically building a forest floor. So you're adding like, like let's say a fallen tree. And then on top of that, you have the bigger branches and the smaller branches and then the leafs and then any other little fodder that happens to fall. So you're building that to build up your soil. So you're not actually depleting your soil. You're adding to it. So I built my gardens in something like that.

07:17

I skipped a couple of stuffs. You  also add like compost and things like that on top of it to help your plants grow.  But you're not taking anything away from the soil. So with that,  also, since my property's on a hillside, I needed a way to stop the water from washing everything away. Cause when I did landscaping, my property was vacant. So when I did landscaping  where my house is sitting,

07:46

It was completely sandy. was nothing  here and I had had to dig into the hillside. So yeah, it was like Lake Dub going on out here.  I did the hugo culture beds  and built them up enough to where I've kind of got. It's a kind of like the Aztec thing. So it like steps down my hillside. So I grow my gardens in that. So I have  some vegetables,  but I'm.

08:14

mostly at this point focusing  on fruit. So I've been putting in like pears and plums and peaches and apples and all the fruit things. So that's really what I'm doing at the moment  as far as gardens go. And then with my animals,  I have bunnies  and with them I use  their little poopy presence  for fertilizer in my garden.  And

08:43

then I only have two of them. And then I have chickens and  they  give me eggs and I sell those at a farmer's market to help feed them. I have a small herd  of Nigerian dwarf goats.  I have  four  does.  Well, I have two dollings, two does  and a buckling at the moment.  And I make goat's milk soap that I sell at the market to help feed them.

09:13

And  I make cheese and stuff like that with their milk. So you're, are you running it as a business?  I'm  trying to,  I'm just getting started. I just bought my property four years ago. we,  know, the first year was completely focused on the house and the barn and getting all that stuff set up. And then the last three years has been about,  you know, the gardens and all of that stuff.  And  during that time.

09:43

My mom got sick with cancer and I lost her and then her boyfriend got sick with cancer and I helped him through that and he's fine now. But it's been a serious roller coaster the last four years so I'm trying to get on my feet and get a business going. So  I'm hoping that's the end goal.

10:04

Okay, awesome. I'm sorry about the loss of your mom. That's terrible. Yeah. I'm glad that her boyfriend survived and it sounds like you like him. So that's good. He's such an amazing guy. He honestly is. I have to tell this little story because it's kind of cool.  He has an old sawmill. It's like this huge old thing. It's amazing this thing even runs. But he had a bunch of lumber sitting out in his  yard that he had cut with it.

10:34

And it had all the saw marks and everything in it, which I personally think is just fascinating.  And I was trying to build my house as frugally as I could. And he told me that I could have it all to burn or whatever I wanted to do with it. And I was like, well, I'm to put it up on my ceiling, Alan. And  he says, oh, you can't put it up there. That just looks so terrible.  And he like poo-pooed the whole idea.  And  I did it anyways, of course.

11:04

So when he came over and he actually saw it up there, he  just, he was so shocked at how it looked. He just could not believe that I had taken just lumber that had been sitting outside  and  refurbished it, which I did very little to it. I just bleached it out and gave it a light sanding. Cause I didn't want to lose all of the sob marks, you know?  I mean, he's like in his late eighties at this point and things like that don't last forever, you know?  So.

11:34

I just thought it was a cool kind of story.  absolutely. And you are cementing something that I say all the time.  Homesteaders are  absolutely ingenious at taking things that nobody else wants and turning it into something beautiful. Oh, girl, my whole house.  I host so many things from  like Habitat for Humanity. did a shower, like the back wall in my shower.

11:59

I couldn't find enough tile to do the whole thing, so I just busted up a bunch of tile and did a mosaic.  So,  you know, you got to work with what you have.  That's  just the best way to do it. You're not,  you know, don't know, catering to the big corporate.

12:18

Yeah, and it becomes a one of a kind. It makes it unique and special. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I there. I mean, of course, I'm probably biased because this is my place and I love it so much, but there will never be another place like me in Dern Cottage ever. And and I'm so excited about that. And it's all still so new. I'm I keep telling my daughter all the time. I'm like, man, I can't wait to see this place in 10 years. If it's this far in four.

12:47

10 is just, it's gonna blow my mind. I'm excited. I can attest to that. We bought our place in August of 2020, so it'll be five years coming up here real quick. And basically there was nothing here except a big old ugly pole barn and our home and three acres. And it was a blank slate. And in that almost five years we have put in

13:16

a 100 foot by 150 foot garden. Oh wow. Which we grow, we grow produce in obviously. there's like three or four other little small gardens because we're like, oh, we need to put something in over here. Oh, we need to put something in over there.  And we've also put up  a heated greenhouse.  We have put up a cute little barn red farm stand. Oh cute.

13:44

three years ago, three and a years ago. And best thing we've  ever done with about $3,000  because  people come and  buy our produce and our eggs and they visit and they love it. And  it's so funny because we moved from in town to outside of town because it felt like living in a fishbowl when we lived in town. Oh, absolutely.

14:10

And my husband is the social one of us. We,  I am not, I do not like being out with people. It makes me anxious.  Right. And he's the one, he's the one that goes to the farmer's market. And he tells me all the time about how people say,  Oh yeah, I drive by your place all the time.  I see you guys working on stuff all the time. And it doesn't feel like a fish bowl because they're driving by. They're not literally in the yard next door.  Right. Yeah.

14:40

Yeah, I, when I got this place,  um, so I divorced like 11 years ago  and I moved into,  used to own a store in the town that I live in. So I had to move into that cause I didn't really have anywhere else to go. So that's where we went anyways, me and my daughter and I lived there for,  you know, until four years ago when I bought this place and

15:06

I was right on the main drag and I'm not kidding you. Oh, hey, I saw you out in your yard doing this. And the only thing that ever went through my mind is, you know, you could have stopped and helped.  know, that would have been cool of you. But I know the fishbowl thing is ridiculous. And when I bought my property, I wanted as far off the road as I could get  without condemning myself to getting stranded all the time, you know, because I just, don't.

15:35

I love my privacy. And it's so hard to get these days because everybody,  people are just so nosy.  But then when you get to like your farmers market and stuff like that, it's like a whole different scene because now  you're excited to share your life and you want everybody to know about your things and it's all great and everything like that. But my home, my home is like my serenity. And yeah.

16:03

I could not do the town thing.  I agree with you on that 100%. I hated it. Yes. And the thing is with my husband, he is so social that it really does his heart good to have people comment on what they see him doing and they're  smiling and it's, it's like such approval for him. And I love that because it matters.

16:33

Oh, it makes you feel good when you can. mean, not only are you doing something that's good for your soul, but you're helping other people be,  you know, healthier in their lifestyle.  That's just  and if they see you doing things, maybe it's encouraging them to do something to instead of sitting down. They see other people moving forward. It helps them move forward. It's, you know, it's hopefully a cycle.

17:02

Hopefully.  I really hope so because we need that cycle to grow  right now and  forever, but really right now.  You mentioned  that you've been putting in fruit trees.  The best thing about fruit trees is that they bless you twice. When they bloom, they're beautiful and they smell good.  And then in the fall, they put out whatever it is they put out, you get to eat it.  know. I know.  I'm so excited to.

17:32

So in my hugo cultures, along with the garden, gardening thing, I'm trying to do a food forest. So I'm planting the fruit trees and then beneath the fruit trees, I'm doing berries and my berries are starting to produce now. So I'm kind of, I'm getting to kind of walk around. And so the goal is to live my life like an old bear and just kind of walk around my yard and graze. that's, that's like my life goal is to.

18:02

Ultimately be an old bear and just roam around my yard and eat food  That's a fabulous goal what kind of berries do you have  I have blueberries  three varieties of blackberries  black raspberries red raspberries golden raspberries  Goji berries mulberries  Did I say blueberries yes, okay

18:30

strawberries. I have three varieties of strawberries.  And currants  and  wild autumn olive.

18:45

What is that? Bottom olive? It's actually, an invasive species.  It's horrible here, but I love it because it brings in all kinds of birds and wildlife and stuff. But the berries,  I want to say it came over. I don't even want to say that it came over from China, but I think that it did.  But  it gets little berries on it and it's like, they're almost like a silvery. They get like a  silvery

19:17

speckle on them. And if you wait until after a frost, they're actually sweeter and better. It's like a little red berry and then the later it gets into the season, they start getting like a little silver speckle on them. But they're definitely worth looking into because especially if you're in a northern state, they're probably growing wild around you.

19:39

Autumn olive, I've never heard of it. I'm going to have to Google it. Yeah. And you can mix it with  like the wild blackberries and stuff makes really great jam. It does have a seed. It's  okay. I'm going to look it up later when I'm not quite as enamored with the idea of eating when I get done talking.  how big are the berries?  Oh, they're tiny. They're maybe...

20:08

maybe the size of like a pencil eraser.  And they do have a small pit in them as well. So you'll have to  more like a jelly berry than a jam because you know, it'd be pretty crunchy.  Yeah, let's let's not have crunchy jam. That would be gross. Yeah, right. I can I can do raspberry jam with seeds in it, but I still don't love the fact that it crunches. It bothers me.  Oh, yeah.

20:38

So  we're working on building our food forest here too.  And we have two elderberry trees that I still have not managed to keep the birds from getting to before I do. And I just talked about somebody  about this on the podcast the other day. We're going to get some of the bird netting and put it over the trees in the spring. And maybe that will keep the birds from getting to the berries before we do.  We have wild plum. We have

21:08

black raspberries and then the stuff that we put in, have strawberries, have honey berry, we have apple trees, we have peach trees, we have cherry trees  and we have rhubarb and we have asparagus, which isn't a fruit, but it's something that takes care of itself, which is kind of the goal  with the food forest is to have it just,  you just start it and then it kind of takes care of itself. Yeah, I have.

21:34

I have the asparagus, which I forgot. I have four different varieties of grapes. I also have elderberries. And then I have pear trees, plum, peach, a couple different varieties of apple.

21:55

trying to think.  I have a kiwi.

22:00

Oh, nice. Yeah.  I'm trying to think of everything I have because I just  it's  this last four years has just been such a whirlwind. It's like I'm finally and finally at a point to where life is starting to kind of calm down. The barn's done. The animals are set. You know, I can start doing the farmers market. And it's almost like, you know, as I'm talking to you, it's like, wow, yeah, OK, I have that, too. I forgot about that.  But I've also put in a lot of different herbs and stuff, too. So I probably have

22:31

over I know I have at least over 40 different kinds of herbs planted here too.

22:39

Okay, I don't know if you mentioned this in the beginning, how big is your property?  I have 10 acres.  I homestead. And how much of that is growable?

22:57

Geez, I am gonna have to say I may be doing what I'm doing on...

23:07

I would have to say maybe a quarter of an acre. Maybe. Wow. Okay. But  I also am planting things like.

23:19

or not necessarily planting things, but I also wild forage a lot too. I  didn't wanna,  I'm trying to keep my property as natural as possible. So I didn't wanna encroach on,  I'm gonna say maybe seven acres of my land is hardwoods. And then maybe a half acre to three quarters of an acre of that might also be pine trees. So I have all these different kind of diverse little systems going on my property.

23:49

and where I'm at is kind of at the front of the property, but I'm only growing.  I don't have a huge vegetable garden because I, I,  in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, if I grow fruit, fruit, can barter that for any vegetables that I need. I'm just one person. I don't need to, I don't need a huge stockpile. And I only have my daughter and she's  like 28 years old. So she's not.

24:18

You know, we don't have a big family, so I don't have to grow these huge gardens. And when you put in one zucchini plant, you can feed an army  with it. So I guess in my mind, I'm thinking, OK, I'm just going to take up this small space. I'm going to use it for fruit. I'll grow a little bit of vegetables because I like my fresh stuff here and there. But like to have a big corn patch and a vegetable garden just didn't really make sense to me.

24:47

to have to weed it and upkeep it and do all the things. When if I can just grow really awesome fruit and barter that out, it'll work itself out.  Absolutely. And did I see on your eBay page description that you live in a tiny house? I do. Yes.  Can you tell me about the tiny house? Sure.  My house  is  finished  less than, well, let's see, it's probably

25:18

I'm trying to remember the exact square footage. think it's 233.  Oh  my goodness.  233 square foot finished. Nice. Yes.  And that does your daughter, does your daughter live with you or does she live somewhere else? No,  I inherited my mom's place  and she is living in that. And that's another acre. I'm, I want to turn that into a whole other.

25:45

fruit property, but that's a whole other story. Well, that's okay. I need all the stories I can get. So I want to say this about tiny houses. When my husband and I were talking about our future, and this was a good 15 years ago, he was very interested in a tiny home because we lived in a house that was only about 850 square feet anyway with four children. Oh.

26:13

And so we were used to making small spaces work with six people in 850 square feet.  And the more I looked into tiny houses, I was like, think a tiny house is a thing for a single person or for a young couple who really, really just wants to see each other naked all the time.  and  I said to my husband, I said, this is not a good plan for us. And he said, why? I said, because I said, you.

26:43

like your space and so do I. I said, do you understand that we're gonna be basically on top of each other in a tiny house in our  late  40s and early  50s if we do this? And he went,  oh,  I hadn't even thought of that. And I said, yeah, no, we can't do a tiny house. So I love the idea of a tiny house, but I think that in practicality for us, we would probably be divorced by now.  Well, I guess I...

27:12

You know, going back to when I was little and doing all the little cabins and stuff with my family.  I knew  also going into doing all of this that I really wasn't going to be in my house  a whole lot, except in the wintertime. So I do have little outdoor spaces. And I,  I don't I guess I don't I do spend time inside, but  also it's just me.

27:42

But...

27:45

And  having a family and doing a tiny house, there's  absolutely no way I would have done. No, I would not have done a tiny house. Not something this small. Absolutely not. I have seen some that,  I mean, they do set them up really nice  and all that kind of stuff. But if, mean, if you live in a nice climate and your family can be outside a majority of the time, that's cool. But living in a Northern climate where you're indoors four to six months out of the year.

28:15

I'm with you. Yeah, I really, I mean, I don't want to belabor this too much, but I really did have to pull the two yeses are a yes and one no is a no card on him. was just like, I don't want to live in a tiny house. I have lived in what I consider to be a very small house for 20 something years. I would really like more than 850 square feet in the next home.

28:45

And he said, but it's only going to be you, me and the youngest kid. And I'm like, I know I cannot live in a tiny house. This is a deal breaker.  And he was like, Oh, and I said, yeah, I said, I have very few deal breakers with you, but this is one of them. And so we compromised. And when we looked for our place that we bought almost five years ago,  the, the rule was that it had to be bigger than a thousand square feet on the inside. It had to not be a fixer upper.

29:13

You know, if it needed a couple things fixed, that was fine. But not a fixer-upper. And it had to have a place for a garden. And all of those things came true. Deb, I'm so thrilled with where we live. cannot tell you. Yay!

29:28

So  we have a couple more minutes and I have a couple more questions. Well, at least one more question.  You said that you make goat milk soap, is that right? Yes. OK, how did you decide to do that? Because normal people, and I use that term loosely, don't just go, hey, I'm going to learn how to make soap.

29:51

So story time.  My dad,  when my dad was alive and I was younger and they were doing their whole home studying thing,  he taught me how to use like all the old hand tools and all that kind of stuff.  I don't know, I guess from just a young age, I've just always been intrigued by just the old ways, I guess,  say.  And  I wanted to learn how to make my own lie from

30:19

the rainwater with the straw and the ash and all that, which I have not done yet, but it's on the agenda.  But  I just, I wanted to make all of the things. I don't want to have to go to a store and buy everything.  And  one of the biggest things that you use in your home  is  something to clean with.  And if I could figure out how to make goat's milk soap,

30:49

or  any kind of soap, lye soap, anything like that, that I'd be able to do my dishes, do my laundry, shower, do all the things.  And that would be one less thing or several things that I could take away from having to purchase from a store. Well, then I started doing research because  when I was younger,  I wanted,  or my dad was into dairy cattle. So that was where

31:20

I started getting into the whole idea of dairy and then goat's milk. So started getting into the mainstream. So I started looking into that. And at the time that it started going mainstream, I was just not in a position to be able to make it myself. But I always wanted goats and I always wanted to be able to  be as self-sustaining as I possibly could. And it just kind of went hand in hand. So it was just

31:50

one of those things that.

31:53

just kind of came with the territory, I guess.  Okay, that is a great answer. And the reason that I asked is because I'm sitting here in my room  in front of my computer talking to you staring at the rack where we have our unscented,  um, cold process, lye soap drying on a rack.  And honestly,  it's, I think that people think that making soap is  hard. Baking bread,

32:23

is hard. Growing  a garden is hard. It's not hard. It's time and intent. It is. It takes it takes time. Yeah.  And that's the thing is that's that's what happened  is society just decided that, OK, I'm I'm  I'm just going to go work this eight hour job for somebody else. Eight to 10 to 12 hour job for someone else.

32:52

And then I'm just going to go buy my bread and I'm going to go buy this and whatever. And then there's  the other kind of people  who do not want to work that eight to 12 hour job and slave for somebody else and wants to  make their life as self-sustaining as possible. And that's the category that I think me and you fall under.  I don't want to live that  get up in the morning and go.

33:20

hate my life and even if you do love your job, which I've had jobs that I love that are 9 to 5, but it's not this. It's not

33:30

the animals  and the  air and the sunshine and it's not the soul that you get from being here.

33:42

Agreed. And what I will say, and pretty much this is it for the podcast today,  is that when you work a nine to five for a corporate company, you don't get to see what you create from beginning to end. You don't see what your part in it  is from beginning to end. And I think the joy of homesteading or farming is that you see it from beginning to end. I agree. So.

34:10

Deb, this has been a lovely conversation. Thank you for brightening my Sunday morning. I appreciate it. Where can people find you? They can find me on Facebook at the Meandering Cottage Homestead. And I am also on TikTok and once in a while I do stupid stuff on there. and I'm in the Meandering Cottage on there as well. And people can order things from you on eBay. Is that right? Yes.

34:36

meandering cottage on eBay as well. have a small store. It helps me get money to feed my little animals here.

34:44

And do you sell your soaps on eBay? do, yes. Yep. And I'm going to be coming out with a few more here within the next couple of weeks. There'll be new, I don't want to call them fragrances because I don't use any fragrances or dyes or anything like that in my soaps, but there'll be new scents coming out. Let's put that way. New formulations? Yes. Yes. Within the next few weeks.

35:10

All right, awesome. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Deb, I hope you enjoyed the very end of your weekend, because it is Sunday. Yay, thank you. You too. Thank you. Bye. Bye.