speaker-0: Welcome to the wooly way of podcast specifically for dairy shepherds. is folks wanting to raise sheep for the purpose of harvesting milk. I'm your host, Rachel. speaker-1: and I'm Liv Fox. We cover all things pertaining to raising dairy sheep here via animal nutrition, housing, health care, lambing tips, cheese making, and even some butchery and fiber arts. speaker-0: After all, if you raise dairy sheep, you are going to have wool, and if your operation is successful, you'll eventually have surplus lambs to decide what to do with. speaker-1: Ethical animal husbandry is the focus here, as well as sustainable agriculture. We want to provide you with the information you need to start and continue your dairy sheep operation in the best way possible for you, your sheep, and the amazing world we live in. speaker-0: So grab a nice cup of sheet milk and let's dive in. Liv: Welcome back to the Woolly Way. Today we have a couple of special guests. we have Leslie with her farm is Grace Farm and then Amy and her farm is Lyndon Lane. and then of course my co-host Rachel. we're so thankful that you ladies are willing to come and be guests on this panel discussion episode. Rachel Hester: Thanks. Leslie Grace Farm: Well, thank a super fan. I'm really glad to be here. I love your podcast. I really appreciate the time you all spend, but I wait. It's like, my gosh, it's out. It's out. I get to listen. And then I listen to it two or three times. And so Liv and Amy are our dairy sheep mentors. They've spent countless hours with me as I transitioned from dairy goats to dairy sheep. And the minute I knew I was getting dairy sheep, then I of course went out and bought books, right? So I got Rachel's book, read it cover to cover. and so I feel like it's just a treat to be with all these folks who have so generously given their time. And the time that you spend you guys each week putting this together. I mean, you know, all the editing. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Liv: Mm-hmm. Amy Rappuhn: You Leslie Grace Farm: the finding the guests. thank you. Thank you very much. Rachel Hester: Well, thank you for being appreciative because yeah, it is when, uh, when I decided to start a podcast, I literally had about a nervous breakdown a week, months of January, February, and I think into March trying to figure out what to do. then Liv Texas, she's like, Hey, I have some questions about starting a podcast. I'm like, no, you do not need to start a podcast. You need to come help me with my podcast and we'll just be the dynamic duo and it'll be great. And I Amy Rappuhn: Bye. Rachel Hester: will say I have loved life a lot more since having a co-host. but it really is just like so funny where life takes you. Cause being someone that people think for jabbering about sheep and wool and milk is not at all what I envisioned when I was 16 and taping posters up onto the inside of the door of my closet. Amy Rappuhn: Mm-hmm. Liv: Yes, I would agree with all of that. Thank you for the the lovely compliment. it does mean a lot, especially since there have been times within the last few weeks where I've like there's there's zero way I could have maintained a podcast by myself. Like having two people do it to divide and conquer is the best of both worlds. So thank you, Rachel. Rachel Hester: Yep. Yeah. So, so on that, no, we should just dive into our topic. You're welcome. But that's segue into our topic of the day. Yes. Liv: For talking me off that ledge. Yes. Yeah, it is a perfect segue. Yes. So today's topic is we want to talk about time management and daily life on the homestead, the farm, you know, whatever label you want to put on it. because Rachel and I have talked several times about this this year specifically. social media is a blessing and a curse. it's really easy for people to look at social media and assume that. Amy Rappuhn: Yeah. Rachel Hester: Thank you. Liv: This person is out here just doing it all and it's beautiful and never messy. And they're not in a corner crying because, you know, they've had their sheep get out for the second time for the day, or, you know, a lamb sick or something like that. And so I think it's a good conversation for people to hear realistically how you ladies go about managing. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Liv: you your time in farm life and your family. and so that way people can hear it right from the horse's mouth. So we'll jump right in. Well actually if Amy Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv: or Leslie, you guys can decide who wants to go first. Why don't you give yourself a little introduction. you know if you work off the farm, on the farm, family business Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv: and what your farm life typically looks like. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: to go first Amy? Okay, I will. Amy Rappuhn: You go right ahead. Liv: Ha ha. Leslie Grace Farm: I'm so excited. So because f folks we are in our silos, right? And and we are we're unusual probably with Liv: Hm. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: Population, and so to have the opportunity to kind of talk through what we're doing in our individual lives is just a real treat, right? because it's unique, and the outside world for the most part thinks Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: we're strange, and but we know we're not, we know that this is what we what we need to do. So, our homestead, the goal of it is is to feed us, and I provide fleeces, raw fleeces to spinners and felt. Liv: Yeah. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: and occasionally lambs. our business is Graze Farm, Fleece and Fiber, and what I do is on off the farm and I've just retired, like I'm just weeks from retirement, but it doesn't feel like retirement yet because my I'm a college professor, or I guess I was a college professor. And so Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: And I'm guess we'll be talking about this more later, but that was a real nice marriage with the homesteading. I discovered that I wanted to be a college professor in college and I wanted to be a homesteader at about the same time. So I tried to weave those two together and it meant sacrifices in both worlds, I think. But we I have you know Rachel Hester: So. Okay. Liv: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: several large gardens, laying hens, and gore rabbits, and those are things that the minute in college I knew I wanted to The homestead, I started doing. And when I knew that it was a word, because I'm old, I'm 65. And so when I discovered this, this was the 80s. And so we'd gone through kind of like the 1970s homesteading thing, and it was kind of dead, which is what Rachel Hester: I. Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: makes me so encouraged to see folks your age and younger who are embracing it again. Because so I went to the library, you know, found books and knew that that's what I wanted to do. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: And so that's what I did from the beginning. And you know, I rented a house that had lands where I could have a garden and so forth. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: But we've been, you know, doing this for about twenty-eight years and I've in the place we're in now, which is kind of like the ideal for us. And I think that's important because my what I'm gonna talk about is somebody who's been established, you know, we thought about moving to the upper peninsula because we do have a home up there, and that's where my wife started her career, and we love it up there. But when I thought we did this about almost 20 years ago. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Leslie Grace Farm: So I was younger, I was like 45. But the thought of recreating that, like fences and bar, it's like no. And so I think that what I'll be describing is something where it's established, it's been going on for a long time. I've worked out the pastures, the gardens, you know, all that kind of thing. And now I'm I'm launching into this new phase where I want to do it until I die. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: So I'm starting to think about how to do things in a smart way because physically, I mean fine, I'm fine now, but I know that at 80 it's it's going to be different. And if I can't have sheep, it's like why live? I mean, you know, it sounds dramatic, but this is Liv: Yeah. Leslie Grace Farm: this is super, super important to me. So we in addition to those animals, we we used to have a herd of Oberhostly dairy goats, which we just said by to the last of. Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: And you know, it's just like people with their companion animals, dogs and cats, you you kind of gravitate. So I'm like a dog person. I didn't really notice, but I am not a goat person. The minute they left, it was like they're gone. Because they were the naughty ones. They were the ones Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: teaching the secretary come in and Dr. Hilderat, your sheep rat. And it's like, no, this is not ha ha ha. And it was the goats that did it. So the minute the goats were gone, it was like And sheep are my animal, like they are the ones that that nurture me. So we have a flock of about 40 sheep now, and which probably might pop end. And it's what I did before when I knew I was gonna retire with an income is I started kind of buying things. We close our flock, like I usually only breed for replacement, which I'm gonna have to shift that with the dairy sheep. But we've I've really mostly had fiber sheep and so Shetland sheep. So when I met Amy. Liv: Okay. Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: It's like, she has shutlands and she has the dairy sheep. That was pretty exciting for me. So but I breed for fine fleeces. And then the last 10 years I started to think, well, why not add a few of this and that that I like to spend? So I add Cormos, I added colored BFLs, I added watery, super cute. And a couple of tunis, because I saw this article in spinoff about how you could tunises wouldn't shrink when you wash them. It was like a sock article. Liv: Ha ha Leslie Grace Farm: And my wife is like super understanding. She loves animals. This is not her thing. We'll talk about that more later, but this is not her thing. But when I Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Liv: Ha ha ha. Leslie Grace Farm: said, you know, I want to buy tunis because of this article, she said yes, but in the back of her mind, she's thinking, Do you know how many fleeces you could buy for this? You know what mean? Because you're gonna be feeding that sheep. But but here in our we have a little bit of that, and then we just added high percentage East Frisians. like last summer. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: I bought a a small group of lambs from a breeder in Wisconsin. And then I bought this beautiful, sweet, awesome ram from Amy, Basil. Liv: Ha ha ha. Leslie Grace Farm: He is the best, okay? And so they're they're too young to to milk right now. So my milking experience I'll be talking about is really from the the goats. But I'm loving the lamb sharing idea because for almost twenty years I have been bottle feeding kids because that's what you did for disease prevention. The idea of like putting lambs with them and going out to dinner, it's like, yes. So I'm I'm excited. So Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Did you read that portion of my book when you read that? you just going, hallelujah? Leslie Grace Farm: I know. And then Liv: Yeah. Leslie Grace Farm: when these two reinforce that, like, yeah, you can do that. It's like, seriously, ladies. So this is something that is kind of a new horizon for me. But I do love the sheep. And so that's really our focus. We've gone through different kinds of animals. We had, you know, we'll talk about this later, but you know, when you've been planning this your whole life and like reading everything, you want to buy everything all at once and do it. Bad bad choices. we gotta Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: That's it. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: alpacas, we got ducks, we got some animals that we just, you know, it didn't it didn't work. But now it's from now until I die, it's gonna be sheep. And then the chick the chickens and then the Angora rabbits have kind of stuck, you know, for almost four years. I really I like them. They're a lot of work but but and I'm sorry you should never ask a college professor to be on a podcast. Rachel Hester: Okay. Ha ha! Leslie Grace Farm: I'm gonna shut up right now. Okay, I'm sorry. All right, baby. Liv: That's okay. If we have to make this a two parter, that's okay. Ha ha ha ha. Amy Rappuhn: So I think, boy, I think I've been doing this about 14 years. Yeah. I started dabbling in it, but now probably the last seven years. Yeah. I'm really doing it full-time. Now I'm retired. I was a small animal vet tech for 22 years. So I wanted sheep, I think because Rachel Hester: Yes. I don't think. Amy Rappuhn: I knit. knit. My great grandmother taught me how to knit. My grandparents had sheep when I was young. So I come by it honestly, I guess. I don't know. The whole milking thing, I started out with Dairy Goats too. And yes, they are naughty. They were getting out. So, right. I realized the sheep were just a little more my speed. Rachel Hester: . Yeah. Amy Rappuhn: Yeah, I'm having fun with the sheep. like milking them. You know, trying to start making cheese, yogurt, all that kind of stuff. I'm a stay at home mom, but I also am the secretary for my husband's business. He has a heating and cooling business. So I do that also on the side. Rachel Hester: Thank Amy Rappuhn: NADSA. And I'm also on the board for the Fine Flee Shetland Group 2. Liv: Ha ha ha. Rachel Hester: you Thank Amy Rappuhn: That's my life in a nutshell. Liv: Yeah, well I don't care for all you podcast listeners. I don't care if you whatever label you want to give it, stay at home mom. That that is that is not a cakewalk. that's a full-time job, maybe like times two or three. I I am thankful that I can get off the farm. I love my child. I love being with her. but I also love being able to like be an adult for like eight hours a day. You know what I mean? And like have Amy Rappuhn: Yeah. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Liv: adult conversations where we're not talking about super kitties or bluey, and you know, so It takes a special woman to do that and kudos to you ladies. So, because even though it Amy Rappuhn: Yeah. Rachel Hester: Well, it's like it's like it's choose your heart, right? I mean, because for me, I am I'm either hyperactive or ADD or ADHD or I don't know, pick an alphabet soup, but to just sit at a desk. Liv: Mm. Rachel Hester: for multiple hours a day, I can think of very few forms of torture that would be worse for me. So like to jump up and go do something else and do something else and do something else for me, I prefer that. But then like you said, I it's like, I told my husband the other day, your brain gets to stop sometimes. My brain does not ever to stop. I am constantly thinking. Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: What's for dinner? Do I have that ingredient? Do I need to go here to get that? Okay. Is the three year old into that right now? Is he not into that? Does he have shoes that fit when we go to the store that he can wear? he going barefoot? Okay. we go to the Omistore, they don't care. It's just constant. Like, you know, and then you walk outside and he's opened the gate and the ducklings are running around towards the road. And I'm just like, mother, pearl. And Liv: Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Rachel Hester: Then you hop on Instagram and it's like, and you only have 18 summers of this. So treasure every moment. And if you don't, you're a monster. And I'm like, don't send that to me, Christy. Anyway. Liv: Yes. So I did I did want to throw that out there because it takes a special woman, like I said, and I I am not that special woman. so we'll see how many of these questions we we get through. Like I said, if we have to, if if you guys are available, we can we can get through them all and make it a two-parter. It doesn't matter to me. but for Now we probably should have predecessed this. Leslie and Amy and myself, we are all in Michigan. so when Leslie made a reference to the UP, that's the upper peninsula of Michigan. For those of you who don't know that, as a Michigander, you're so used to people refer just saying the UP and you just know what it is. so we we get all four seasons in Michigan. so with this question, There's definitely some seasonality to it for sure for us. But what does a quote unquote typical day look like for you if there is such a thing? Leslie Grace Farm: Well, the seasonality aspect of homesteading, especially in the upper Midwest, is kind of one of the reasons I like it. Is that you have you have the through lines, like with the goats, their lactation periods longer, so you've got milking more as a through line or certain jobs, you know, taking care of rabbits or chickens as a through line, but then you have that variation of the seasons. And so, Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: And again, some some folks have jobs where really the summer in their workplace looks the same as their winter. But in my work it's it's got that cycle that kind of goes with it. So my summer, and again, I'm just retired, but when I wasn't retired, the summer was spent writing up manuscripts from research that I had done, which is extraordinarily flexible. So I'm kind of a weenie with the heat, so right now Now we've had a great week in Michigan. It's nice and cool. But if it was a typical June, it would be cool in the morning and then hot in the middle of the day you know later in the day and then cool at night. So you know I'd wake up in milk and I don't need to tell you guys Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: what a gift it is to wake up with a cup of something and milk your animals and like wake up with them you know that connection with them as you're milking and then the beauty of being where you know we live is that then you're just rotationally grazing you're making sure your fences are there your portable solar fencers are operating and then you're putting them for whatever rotational you know grazing pattern that you have you're putting them out there and making sure Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: Everybody has water. and then because I have a lot of gardens, weeding is just, you know, really a good portion of the day. And so I'm weeding until it starts to get hot and then Weenie Leslie goes in in the house. that's when I'm doing like Liv: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: cheese making, cooking, skirting fleeces, because I like to really skirt it heavily, like I would like it as a spinner. you know, stuff that's in the cool of the day. If I am on the screen, like answering emails for customers, I'm doing it then. Rachel Hester: you Leslie Grace Farm: And then when it starts to get, you know, cool enough, then I'm back out in the gardens. And, you know, sometimes people say, well why do you go to the farmers market? I like gardening. It's just like spinning to me. Spinning to me is mental health. Like I have to spin every day. otherwise something doesn't happen right with the biochemistry in my brain. Weeding as much as I complain about it and feel it because I've been hoeing a lot it's something that really is important and it's my physical activity. My wife goes out and walks for two miles around the country roads or excuse me, nine miles for two hours. You know, it's a bye. I'm gardening. I'm working with sheep. I'm doing those kinds of things. And I think that Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: The beauty of homesteading is you can kind of weave it around. I mean, everybody needs to get fed, you need to make sure everybody's fine, but you can do that. Where in the winter, some of those things are still happening, but it just shifts. Now it's heated Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: buckets, it's hauling water, it's doing hay. And and then there are those times, and we all know these times where You're doing the absolute what you have to do, and then whatever farm job is gonna encompass that. Like one of the things I'm really looking forward to when I'm not working is cleaning the barns when they should be cleaned. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Amy Rappuhn: Yeah. Leslie Grace Farm: We're now part of this is we were supposed to be cleaning barns this week, but Terry had to suddenly go to Colorado because her father got kicked out of his facility. He's ninety-five. She had to help her sister. So we're not barn cleaning. But the minute she gets home, we are barn cleaning. Life stops. Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: Right. And we used to do it by hand I can't with with with wheelbarrows and pickaxes and usually I had two strapping college students that would come and help us. we got a tractor, that's kind of changed things, but with small barns, because we have a really old farm, some of that's you know, my sheer goes, Well you should just knock out that wall because you can just it's like no, you know, so we used wheelbarrow work. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Liv: Ha ha ha. Leslie Grace Farm: But everything stops and when you're shearing, it's like everything stops. But you can kind of r roll with that. And if you have somebody you love that's Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: gonna pony up and do that like I do. Terry, this is not her thing. It is not. But she supports it. And the way she does is by doing barn cleaning. You know, she knows when she comes home from Colorado, that's boom, what we're gonna do. And we don't need our audience probably knows that that's probably the least fun job on a on a farm from a variety of reasons. And so I think that what's beautiful about Liv: Mm. Yes. Amy Rappuhn: huh. Leslie Grace Farm: homesteading is you can kind of, you know, move it through. and have it accommodate whatever work you have. But again, I feel kind of spoiled that yeah, when a class is at eleven o'clock, Leslie needs to show up and teach. But my grading can you know, you can work long hours but weave it around. Where Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: You know, being a stay-at-home mom is kind of like what Terry's describing with her dad right now. It's like, I can't go for a walk because I don't know when my sister's gonna need me to help him go. That to me is what raising kids would be like, is that you are there and you have to kind of move with that lack of predictability. Where Terry and I were not with children, so the animals are only our are, you know, yes, when an animal needs you, everything stops and and you do that. Have never over thirty two years of teaching ever had to cancel a class because I had a sick animal. You know, but but that's had to, my workplace probably would have understood it. My students definitely understood it. And then when we had COVID and everybody was like teaching online, the beauty of that is I could have recorded something. So I feel like I'm a little spoiled Amy Rappuhn: Yeah. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: in that work compared to someone who is like a barista or someone who works in a store where they're they can't do that. And and so it seemed like a good Rachel Hester: Nope. Leslie Grace Farm: marriage of those two things. But as you pointed out, there's no typical day. But when you've been doing it for a while, you kind of know June's gonna look like this and July's gonna look like that. And yeah, weather like I never thought I'd be so connected to the weather app. And that's what you do. It's like I was gonna have somebody over for lunch tomorrow. It's like nope, it's not raining. You cannot we're gonna reschedule that. Liv: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: You know, 'cause it was thunderstorming yesterday. You did you just and so but I like that. It's kinda like Rachel was describing with you know always having these many things. That's what makes it really satisfying. And you know, as women, and I I I don't know how you guys decide to enter into this, but I entered into this as a single Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: woman at the time. That didn't last long, because I was a month into buying this house when Terry and I met. Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: And I go, this is homestead. She didn't know what it was, you know? And it's like, this is what it is. And and so this is what our life is is gonna look. It's like if you love me, you've got to love this. You've got to get to know this because this is going to rock your world. And now it's normal. Liv: Mm. Absolutely. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Leslie Grace Farm: But you know, when you're first starting to do this, you're you're you're worried. And again, early on, your fences are probably not where they need to be. Because you don't know what you need. And so I think that having the patience to try to weave this through, if you want this life and that's what your heart says, you need to make your job work. Rachel Hester: Thank Leslie Grace Farm: around it in a way. Rachel Hester: Hey guys, I just wanted to interrupt quick to give a shout out to our sponsor, the North America Dairy Sheep Association. Natsa is open to any sheep breed or crossed use for milking purposes. Natsa supports dairy shepherds and is elevating dairy standards in sheep in America. Natsa now offers a Milk Star program, has sanctioned dairy sheep shows, and is now offering a breed up program. You can become a member or get more information by going to the website www.northamericadarysheep.org or you can email the association at northamericadarysheep.com We are so thankful to Natsa for sponsoring this podcast and helping bring more resources to the dairy sheep community. Stay tuned for future podcast episodes where we talk to NADSA board members about what NADSA is trying to accomplish in America for the dairy sheep community. Leslie Grace Farm: And that may mean you don't get every Rachel Hester: you. Leslie Grace Farm: animal that you've ever wanted to have. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I spent a solid four years reading, reading, reading, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. And then you just want to do everything that's in the book. And you don't ask yourself, Do I need to do it all now? Rachel Hester: Thank Leslie Grace Farm: And is every piece of it right for me? And I know this is a message that you guys have said in the podcast. It's like I have like out loud said, Yes, you guys are If somebody else raises fruit and you have just been trying to get your orchard started and it's not working out real well, stop buying trees. Just Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv: Ha ha ha. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Pardon me while I cry a little bit because I'm looking at where our orchard is supposed to be and the hundreds of dollars Because when they say let your sheath raise your orchard, they mean your established orchard not your new orchard Just throwing it out there not the new No, no Amy Rappuhn: you Leslie Grace Farm: I know. Amy Rappuhn: Yeah. Liv: Yes. Not a new planting. Yes. Leslie Grace Farm: Rachel. I am still mad at Bjorna because Bjorn, my Shetlin U, basically decimated all of our treats. We have two left. It's my ram pen. It's where a gorgeous Shetland Ram that I just bought from Amy. He is so gorgeous. That's where he is living with his little friend before I interviewed him with the ramp. I have you and that's another part you guys that you said that's so important. You're not going to make money doing this. You kind of have to have the mindset of letting it go. Rachel Hester: So thank you so much. Thank you. Leslie Grace Farm: Just so you spent money on the fruit trees, you learned an important lesson. Let's just let it go. It's not gonna change anything, but Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Leslie Grace Farm: What I would find is that I kept doing it over and over and over. And it took my wife to go, you know, do you really need to buy blueberries over and it's like Michigan. This is the blueberry state. Why can't I blow I did all the additives and this, that, and the other thing. And I finally realized I've got people an hour's drive that I can buy blueberries from. Why why do this? And so I just right. Rachel Hester: Bye. Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Liv: Right. If somebody's already doing it well, why why kill yourself trying to do it yourself? Leslie Grace Farm: Right. Right. Right. Right. And I love these Rachel Hester: Well, and on the side, it's community, right? I mean, because I think when the 1970s homesteading movement started, there was, because of the geopolitical environment that this movement started in, there was very much a mindset of, if the wheels fall off and the lights go out and it's just me on these three acres, will I make it? And, you know, I'm not going to speak to politics at the time or why that was, but I feel like there's kind of this to use the modern term generational memory in the modern homestay movement of, we have to be completely self-sufficient. And, you know, the last three years, we've really, Kyle and I have really realized is you've got to build your local community. Like I have not had a vegetable garden since. Well, since we got dairy sheep because it's been trying to figure out how to make dairy sheep work on a knob and Appalachia. So just for you Michiganders, you will have the UP, we have knobs. There's the mountains and then there's the knobs and the knobs are like at least the mountains, you know, you're in the mountains. But if you're on a knob, it kind of psychs you out. You think you're in the place where you can just throw a tomato plant in the ground. It'll grow. That is not the case. So You know, we've had to kind of pick our battles, like you said, but like, it's been so cool going to farmers markets and like seeing these farmers and they'll have like these four containers of blueberries leftover. I'm like, Hey, I'll, I'll buy your blueberries and just seeing that relief. And then we start talking and they're like, you have a cow. And then next thing I know, I have a new friend and I'm supporting a local farmer and they're able to speak life into me and I'm able to speak life into them. And, know, then, you know, God forbid being on wood, I sprained an ankle and I can't go do stuff. Now I have someone I can call to help. And it's, it's building that community of, we don't have to be completely self-sufficient, but we, we do need to find people who respect what we're doing and can't do it every day with us, but we'll not weed their blueberry patch if we need them to come help move paddocks. Liv: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What's a typical day like for you, Amy? Amy Rappuhn: Actually, it's pretty similar to Leslie. mean, right? Get up, feed the animals, make sure everybody looks good. Milk the sheep, cool the milk, get that all cleaned up, put away. Try to tidy up the barn because yes, Leslie, I'm in the same predicament. I need to clean my barn out. Trying to find the time though, right? And my husband Jason too, right? It's not his thing also. Rachel Hester: Peace. Amy Rappuhn: But he really does like to help and, but yeah, he has a full-time job. So it's easier when the two of us can clean the barn out together. But also right now we're trying to cut hay. We still haven't got first cutting hay done because of the weather. There's just been too much rain. So we're kind of like on hold. Our life is on hold right now. Rachel Hester: Thank you. Amy Rappuhn: Trying to figure out, you know, people will say, hey, you want to do something this weekend? Well, probably not because we might be cutting hay. So that's, yeah, it is what it is. So hopefully soon get that done. But right. Yeah. I also have a garden. I'm dabbling in that too. So glad to hear you say, just give up on something that's not working for your Rachel Hester: Thank Amy Rappuhn: your homestead because, yeah, the, apple trees and it's not the sheep, it's the deer. They're just so bad. And I gave up and, yeah, I'll find some of that sells apples. Leslie Grace Farm: I can hook you up with an Amish farmer. It's I get the whole year's worth like in October, put in the basement, eat it throughout the year we ate our last one, actually last week. So Liv: Yeah. Amy Rappuhn: Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah. so the listeners, Leslie and I actually, what is it? 30 minutes that we live from each other or so. We're really close, which is great to have that connection. Rachel Hester: Happy holidays. Leslie Grace Farm: Yeah, yeah, that's great. It's great. Rachel Hester: In homesteading terms, you're practically next door neighbors because I feel like all my really good friends are about half an hour away and it's like, that's not actually a neighbor compared to like city folk, definitely. Leslie Grace Farm: Pretty much. Liv: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. When life gets overwhelming for you on the farm or homestead, how do you reset or regroup? Leslie Grace Farm: Well, I mentioned the spinning. I discovered spinning in college. I was dating a guy whose mom spent sponge, she wove. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: And she agreed to teach me how to spin. And that opened my world. I mean, I always did stuff with my hands, kind of like I mean I knew knitting and crocheting. I sewed my own clothes, used sewing as a way of putting myself through college. And I cook and preserve and you know do all those kinds of things. I'm surprised I didn't end up as like a home ec major instead of nutrition, but here nor there, spinning, not that knitting doesn't do that same thing, but spinning Liv: Okay. Rachel Hester: Thank you. Leslie Grace Farm: Will just center me in a way. Like The suspended spindle's great because you can click I don't have one at arm's length, but I usually do. It's like I've got one close to my kitchen and I just waiting for things, you know, cooking I will spin or if I'm talking on the phone I will spin. It's it's something that now is integrated. I certainly have, okay, way too many wheels. And those are positioned w you know, like by the television and and things. But if I went and found it and sat at it, that may be Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: the the suspended spinning spindle spinning is really kind of cool. But one thing I found that really surprised me, because I don't know about you guys, but I always had like over my head Dealing with the fleeces. Like you get through shearing, it's like okay, we got through shearing. And I would always shear like around spring break so that I had a little bit of time. But they were just a monkey on my back, like going through we skirt when we Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: shear, but then we do like I call it spinners sh skirting where I'm really brutal. We put we coat our sheep so as like all the fleece, you know, that's not under the coat I would pull away and use for other things. And that would just be the monkey on my back. It's like I need to do this. And when you have somebody who tear Rachel Hester: Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: Don't spin, she felt, but she was always like, Take those fleeces in the barn and let's just throw them out. It's like, no. And so she's always threatening to do that. So I had this pressure, but I didn't have the time to skirt them. And what I've discovered, and I fell into fleece. Okay, I used to give away fleeces to my girlfriends, my spinning girlfriends. I mean, I'm I'm not a businesswoman. I'm trying to be, but I'm not. Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: And so somebody on Ravelry, that's the only kind of site I go to. I do no social media. I went on Ravelry and they just they posted, I'm looking for fine fleeces. So I like said, I've got fine fleeces. Sure, unsskirted fine fleeces. So I spent, I think a couple of years ago, my prep week when I'm supposed to be getting my classes ready. I'm skirting fleeces, you know, I'm getting it ready. I'm trying to figure out my marketing, how I'm gonna package it, because really it's a skanky dirty fleece, right? It's gotta be Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Leslie Grace Farm: experience so I develop I can't imagine I actually wrote down notes of how I did this because it's not my normal thing okay and so what I discovered is that I love skirting I love smelling dirty skanky fleece I love washing it's like and it's right exactly Rachel Hester: You know your shepherd, Gwen. Leslie Grace Farm: And then I discovered combing. it's a drug, you guys. You it is a drug. you take DM rich food. Rachel Hester: Thank Amy Rappuhn: It is a drug. I second that. Rachel Hester: Yeah, it is. They're all the different steps are a different type of relaxed. mean, because I'm knitting right now, because like I said, I'm kind of hyperactive. I just need to do something. But I remember when I got my first wheel, because my husband's in emergency services. like cortisol levels never come down. And I got the wheel and he was like, do not use this against me. But whatever you need to spend or do to keep that sucker running, it's an automatic yes. because it was like so relaxing for him to hear the whir of the wheel and to look over and it was that rhythmic movement on my side. And I was like, you know, men did used to spin and he's like, I'll read to you out loud while you spin. So now we're like the old 16th century couple, like they the kid to bed, I spin, he reads to me some kind of romantic smile, confession. And I mean, it's great. Liv: Ha ha. Ha ha. Olivia Fox: Hey guys, I wanted to interrupt real quick to give a shout-out to one of our sponsors. Brother Drum Carter is a small American family-room business that makes quality processing tools for wool and other fibers. They started in 2009 making smaller carters and in 2018 bought out Patrick Green Carters, the company associated with Paula Simmons, an author who wrote extensively about building wool-based businesses and known for making quality wool processing equipment. Not only do they create beautiful tools for the homestead flock, but they are the only American manufacturer of mini fiber mill equipment in the United States of America. Brother Drum Carter is operated by three brothers in Oregon and are committed to maintaining quality small batch equipment. They do ship globally, and if you have questions regarding their equipment, you can email them at infobrotherdrumcarter.com and expect a speedy reply from one of the brothers. Having their swing wool picker And Motorized Little Brother Drum Carter has been a phenomenal game changer for wool processing at Whoopsie Daisy Farm. Using their tools, I can easily take my raw wool from my sheep and transform it into fluffy wool, perfect for felting, hand spinning, or whatever fibercraft I want to use it for. Check out Brother Drum Carter and if you place an order, make sure you let them know you heard about their company on our podcast. This lets them know that their sponsorship of the Woolly Way is mutually beneficial and brings them quality customers. Liv: Ha ha ha. Leslie Grace Farm: I am so playing this for Terry. Okay. I'm playing this one little section. Not the program. But that one section for me, that would be so what I do is I sit and watch football with Terry. I never watched football before we met. Okay, ever. So now I actually understand football after twenty-eight years of spinning. I would bring my spinning in or a rabbit. And it was my way of like being there, but not really being there. You know what I mean? Like spinning. It's it's yeah, it's Rachel Hester: Sorry, Terri. Liv: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Yes. Leslie Grace Farm: It's great. I I agree with you. The other thing that I want to kind of point out, especially to people that are scrambling in those early years, is look around. Just if you're feeling overwhelmed, just stand and pause and watch the moon coming up over your woods or a couple days ago, I don't know about around the rest of you, but the fireflies started to come out. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Amy Rappuhn: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: It's gorgeous. And you just it's like you live in this place, you work like a dog to be there. You need to occasionally just pause and also stand out with your sheep. It's a narcotic for you guys, right? You just stand Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: with them. They come over to be petted. And you just like like Amy was saying, they just slow you it down. And I think that sometimes we get so frantic in meeting all the needs of our animals in our place and looking at the weeds and all that stuff. You're not really in the moment of why you decided that this was feeding your heart in the first place. a I mean, I don't know about you guys, but that little noise is like does something in my brain, right? Yeah, totally. Liv: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: I'm outside. Yeah, Liv: Yes. Rachel Hester: or someone else come over because I always like I get really caught up in being the hostess with the most this and like there's the 15 piles of shame everywhere. I don't want anyone to see but whenever I let people come over Amy Rappuhn: Boom. Rachel Hester: and see this little sanctuary built, they're always like, this is just a bite of paradise. And I'm like. where like that's the junkiest pile you're looking at calling paradise because you know you just kind of get caught in your to-do list and they're like it's falling down pallet fence could be a painting with the sheep standing right next to it not jumping through the broken down part of the pallet fence and i'll just put in a little flower there and it will be beautiful and you know as the farmer you're going the sheep's gonna jump through the hole on the fence and get lost i'm gonna have to catch her but the artist is going it's a beautifully like Leslie Grace Farm: Mm-hmm. Liv: Mm-hmm. Leslie Grace Farm: Yeah. Rachel Hester: I mean, you just need other people to like speak through your mental clutter and say, you know, just take that snapshot and enjoy it for a second. Liv: Yeah. Well, Rachel and I have talked about this a little bit. so I don't know how you ladies feel. I have a sneaky suspicion I know how you you feel, but like I mentioned in the beginning, social media is really good at like just painting this beautiful scene, like everything's just butterflies and rainbows and nothing bad ever happens, you know. Social media is really good at painting that because most people don't want to hear about, you know, the the chickens are got in the road and you know they got hit or a fox came and ate them, or you know, like all these horrible things. And s but every once in a while someone will post about this horrible experience on social media that they had. And you know, and to me it they're just being real. And sometimes Rachel Hester: Thank Liv: I I need to see that because it's like a light bulb goes off on me where I'm like, I don't have to be one, you know, Wonder Woman. I don't have to do all these things where you know, I work off farm full time. I have a part-time side hustle plus NADSA plus the podcast. Rachel Hester: you. Okay. Liv: Pretty involved with 4-H. there's just so many things that sometimes I'm like, I also want to enjoy my family, right? Or my sheep, or I have horses. And if I'm just like running the rat race to make sure that I get everything done because this is what, you know, my homesteading friends expect of me. I'm like, they don't know what I am and am not doing. And for sometimes our own mental health, it's okay to take a step back Rachel Hester: Okay. speaker-0: Thanks so much for listening to the Woolly Way Podcast. speaker-1: We hope you enjoyed our episode and have gleaned at least one tip you can implement in your flock right away. If you like what you heard, please hit the subscribe button. And if you wouldn't mind, leave us a review. This helps others find our podcast so that they can enjoy learning about dairy sheep along with you. The Woolly Way podcast is a production of Whoopsy Daisy Farm and Crafty Fox Bakers. For updates and information about our show, follow us on Facebook or Instagram. speaker-0: Subscribe to our YouTube and email list and look us up at whoopsydaisyfarm.com to find both. Have a particular guest you'd like us to host or a topic you'd like us to cover? Fill out our contact form on our website or shoot us an email at whoopsydaisyfarm.gmail.com. See you next time!