Dawn’s Dirt - Farming In Midlife

Today I'm talking with Dawn about homesteading and farming as we age at Dawn's Dirt.

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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, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.  You can find them at homegrowncollective.org.

00:25
Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt and Dawn was a guest on my show, not two weeks ago, and told us about what she does. But today we're going to be a little more focused and we're going to talk about  homesteading and farming and gardening once you get past the age of 40, especially as a woman.  Good morning, Dawn. How are you? Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity again. I just love talking about these things. So yeah, it's good.  Me too. so

00:55
If we're talking about when you get past 40, obviously I'm past 40, I'm 55. I think you told me you're 44, is that right? I was just going to say who says I'm past 40, but I'm just teasing. I'm 44. I almost had to edit all that out. Okay. So the first thing I want to say is aging is a privilege denied to many. And so I'm really glad that I'm getting older and hopefully wiser.

01:24
trying anyway. But there are some real things that come  with getting older, especially with our bodies and  manual labor. So  how's that going for you Dawn? Because I will share mine after you share yours. For sure. Make me go first.  Well,  I'll tell you this. Like I'm not a

01:46
bigger, fatter woman, but I'm a bigger woman. I'm tall and I've got big bones and I've got good muscle structure. So I can actually lift  and outlift a lot of people.  I was just thinking back this morning, I went to the gym  for a couple of months just after I  got through my busy season on the farm. And on the farm, I could lift, you know, three buckets of potatoes, which was about 150 pounds.  And I went to the gym and dead lifted 185 pounds.  So

02:13
I can do it, I am stronger than most, but I'll tell you this, my back hurts a lot at the time and my lower back and my upper back and into my neck. It hurts a lot of the time and I've learned, I used to be able to do the 150 pounds in one shot and just do it and bust it done, but I've learned in the last couple of years here that I'm better off to do three trips of 50 pounds than one trip of 150 pounds.

02:42
It's harder. Everything aches a bit more and I fall into bed at night and I'm just physically exhausted, tired from  doing physical work.  Yeah. And it takes longer to recover  once you get past 40 as well. Yeah, for sure.  My youngest son still lives with us and he's 23 and his job is to help us out on the  quote unquote farm.

03:12
And this kid can just bust his ass for two days in a row,  be  mildly sore the next day. And  the fourth day from the first day, he's like, let's do it again. I'm like, nah, I'm not doing anything.  You can go play. You do it. For sure. And I found that too. know,  back when I had my farm, I would have to, in the spring, I'd have to get my boiler system going again. so,

03:38
What that involved was taking a ladder around the greenhouse and crawling up it and crawling back down it, know, opening the valves and things like that.  And so I was up and down ladders, up and down ladders, up and down ladders all day  for a full day. And I could do it while I was going because once I'm moving, I'm moving. But let me tell you, the next day when I try and do it again, my body says, uh-uh, you do not want to do this again. Like it just took  longer the next day. And I was sore for several days after that.  Yeah.

04:06
It's just your muscles don't recover the way they did when you were young. And  part of it is that your body has extended a metric but ton of energy up to the age of 40 because you had all the energy in the world. And at some point your body is just like, you can go easier now. I give you permission by telling you to stop. Yeah. The problem is, is my brain doesn't want to stop and I just keep pushing. And so

04:35
Yeah, it's not the same as I was when I sold my farm. I'm I and then starting this new this new farm I'm I'm starting over from scratch and I'm you know doing cleaning jobs and  you know have my animals and my gardens and things like that again  and I'm doing it on my own. I'm a single mama  and yeah, it was easier the first time around to keep up and do it all and work, you know 12 14 16 hour days and now I'm like  a 12 hour day like a 16 hour day right now is is it

05:04
It basically makes me  unusable the next,  on the Friday. I still have to work.  I still have to keep going. But yeah, I'm sore and I'm tired and I'm  a bit grumpy the next day.  And the thing that I get a kick out of is  I used to stay up till, you know, two in the morning  and I would get up at 5.30 a.m. and grab a shower and get ready to go to my job when I was 19, 18, 19.

05:34
And I would do that for couple weeks in a row. I'd get a couple hours of good sleep. And then after that two weeks, I would take a weekend and just crash. would sleep most of the weekend because that's how I did it.  Now,  I can't do that anymore.  I really love  sleep.  sleep is where I recover. It's where I dream.  It's where I get to just not have to think about anything purposely.

06:02
I love sleep. I love sleep more than I love food.  I'm so sorry. I've got this little tickle still.  Yeah, absolutely.  People would say to me all the time when I had my farm and was running three companies and had 30 people on payroll and was doing  all the things that I had and the stress load and all of it, people would say like, how  are you even surviving? Like, how are you even doing it?  And I would say to people, I sleep.

06:32
That is how I survived it is I slept and I slept hard and I'm still like that when I go to bed at the end of the day, I sleep and I sleep hard and I don't wake up during the night  and  the next day I get up and I do it again.  And that's the only thing that saved me was my sleep.  If I  didn't sleep hard, I think I'd be a puddle on the floor. Yeah,  I have said this on the podcast a bunch of times and I probably should stop saying it, but it's the truth.  My husband snores.

07:02
And so I go, I try to be asleep asleep by nine o'clock at night at the latest so that I get at least four hours of solid sleep before he will wake me up with his snoring. And I'm telling you, we're gonna have to figure out a better sleeping arrangement because this four hours of solid sleep a night is about killing me. We have to figure something out. I don't know what's gonna happen because

07:28
I can do the podcast, obviously. I sit down, I talk to you guys, it gets my adrenaline boosted and all the happy endorphins kick in and I feel great.  But if I had to do a real job on somebody else's schedule, it would not be possible at this point, I swear to you. Yeah, well, sleep is what fuels us.  People discount sleep.  Sorry, I'm to to pick a drink.  I'm sorry.

07:58
Um, yeah, sleep is what fuels us. People need sleep just like they need sunshine, just like they need food, just like they need water. Sleep is another set of fuel that just feeds us.  And I know for myself, like I need, in the summertime, I can handle six to seven hours of sleep a night,  but, and then in the winter time, I like eight or nine hours of sleep. It's just the way my body is.  Um, but if I don't get that six or seven hours of good, solid sleep,  I'm,  I start to cry actually.

08:28
That's when I really start getting weepy is when I don't have enough sleep. And I've been like that. My mom has said, I've been like that even since I was little.  If I would start crying, my mom would say,  oh, Dawn needs to go to bed. And it's true. I wake up the next day and I'm okay again. Yeah, I get weepy or I get really snarky and I have to work really hard to keep my thoughts in my own head and not let them out of my mouth.  So yeah, it's not good.

08:57
I think that's an over 40 thing, you know?  You lose your,  you gain your confidence and you lose your inhibitions to like,  in some ways care. Like I don't care what you think or what you whatever, and it just comes out your mouth.  I think that gets worse and worse as we get older and older, because I can see it more in my mom,  and then I can see it even more in my grandmother now is that  the thought process and the thoughts are just coming out of the mouth.  Yeah, I...

09:26
This is going to be a very interesting podcast. used to have a really sharp tongue when I was,  probably from 10 years old  until I was in my early twenties. And it was partly because I was brought up on the East coast and East coast people are very blunt. So I was raised around very blunt people.  The other thing is that I was insecure. so insecurity sometimes comes out sideways, especially verbally. And it took me a long time.

09:55
to count to 10 in my head before I would say the thing that wanted to just pop out. And I'm a lot better  these days, but man, if I am exhausted,  I choose not to be around anyone because it's so much harder to keep that  mean streak inside of my head, you know? Yeah, absolutely.  I've gotten better too.

10:22
But for me, I'm Dutch background, like my heritage is Dutch and the Dutch are known for being direct and I'm not necessarily unkind. I'm not necessarily mean,  but I just am very direct. it's in my head, I'm going to say it and it's not mean, it's just  literal and direct. And so, yeah, I think there's a bit of a difference between being just literal and direct and  mean.  I can't say I'm mean with my comments.

10:50
Yeah, and I mean, I'm not going out of my way to be bitchy with people. just have to think about the delivery because  how someone receives what you say is in how you deliver it, what words you choose and what tone of voice you say it in.  And the more tired I am, the less careful I am with both of those things.  Fair enough, fair enough. mean, I think we all are to some degree as women, you know.

11:18
We're just created like that. I don't know.  But I do also think that there's a difference between a kind bitch and a mean bitch. Have you heard of that before?  What's your thought on that? A kind bitch and a mean bitch?  I don't know.  I think a kind bitch is going through things and things that she says come out sounding bitchy.  And I think a mean bitch is just a mean bitch. Yes.  I agree.

11:45
Yeah, I think so. And I've run across both. I sometimes I've been called a bitch,  but it's just because I'm direct. But I'm not unkind in it. I'm just very direct and just  call a spade a spade.  Whereas a mean bitch is out to get you. I think one has selfish motivation and one has just. It's just direct. Yeah, and I think that the kind one has no spoons left. You know how people say I'm out of spoons, which means I have nothing left for today.

12:14
Yes. I've never thought of that. But yeah, you're right.  The kind one just,  yeah, you're right. She gives and she gives and she gives of herself till she's got nothing left. Yeah, you're 100 % correct.  Yeah. There are days where my husband's had a rough day at work and I've had a long day here  and things are going on for me. And I'm just like, honey, I'm out of spoons. I'm going to bed. And he's like,  good night. I love you. I'm like, I love you too.

12:44
Sorry, I cut you off. No, it's okay, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think that's a healthy relationship and a healthy couple to just say, hey,  I'm out.  I saw  a quote from, I think it was Brene Brown, I think.  And she said that she comes home to her husband at the end of the day and they'll say where they are on a scale of one to 10.  And she'll say, I've got a three and he'll say, I've got an eight. And so they'll just meet each other where they're at. And sometimes she'll be higher and he'll be lower.

13:11
You know, to just meet each other where they're at. And I think that's good communication.  And that's where you can really build a strong, healthy relationship is to know that if you're both at it too,  rather than wasting your energy on fighting, just stop for the day. Tell each other you love each other and  carry on.  exactly. And,  and there are times, I mean, this is really funny. I did not expect to be talking about this today, but we're going to talk about it anyway.  When you are in a long-term relationship,

13:41
There's a lot of patience and respect required to make it work. And when I started the podcast, I was so obsessed, you I was consumed with learning how to do it that I was putting in 45 hour weeks one way or another.  And after a couple of weeks, I was just swamped. was like, I need somebody else to do the dishes because I've got to do this thing for work. And I haven't really had a job in years.

14:10
And I finally sat my husband down and I said,  now that I've made myself a job where I'm the boss and the CEO and the COO and everything,  said, could I get a little help with some of the dishes and maybe folding laundry?  And he was like, oh my God, I didn't even think of that. Of course you can. I said, thank you. That would be wonderful. And so he and the kid have been pitching in.

14:34
And both of them love to cook. So two nights a week, I just give them free reign. I'm like, go make whatever you want to make for dinner. I will grab a bowl of granola. I don't care. I'll eat something else because they're like really spicy food and I do not. So two nights a week, I don't have to, I don't have to cook. And those are the nights, those are the nights that I try to schedule podcast episodes to record them with people who are, who need that time in the evening because they're not available during the day.

15:03
That's amazing, honestly.  And that's what a family unit is, is picking up where someone else  can't pick up.  And I'm single now. I've been single for six years now.  But to be really honest with you,  I'll tell you about some  parts of my marriage is we were not teammates. We were not team players.  My ex-husband, he's a decent man. He's not a bad man at all.  But  his work ethic and my work ethic didn't match and didn't align.

15:31
And so I would work a 12, 14, 16 hour day and he would work, you know, a three or four or five hour day and I'd come home and he's watching TV and on a farm or a homestead, like that just, it doesn't work. You have to have high drive and high work ethic to make a farm go. And yeah, we just weren't aligned and I tried changing that, but 16 years of marriage taught me that I can't change someone.

16:01
And so ultimately it did enter our relationship. There was a few other things behind closed doors, but  yeah, the not being aligned in work ethic was a huge problem in,  you know, respect and love  within our marriage.  Yeah.  You've got to have  not the same goals, but I think you have to have the same core fundamental values as your partner.

16:29
For sure. And if you're not on the same page, like,  it's just not going to work, especially as teammates, especially on a farm or, you know, trying to  reach the goals when one person is, I always say I picked up all the drop balls behind him and the heaviest drop ball I picked up behind him was I took on all our, 100 % of our debt  and I bought him out of the farm and he moved to our house in town.  And  yeah, that.

16:55
It's just not,  we're not meant to do that. Like that doesn't work in a partnership. so, yeah.  And so I've been single here for six years now trying to build it back on my own. And  in some ways it's good because I don't have to answer to anybody. I don't have to  ask anyone's permission to do this or do that, but I do push myself because I am a single mom and doing this by myself. I do tend to push myself  just that much harder, you know?  And after 40,  it's tough.

17:24
Yeah, how old are your kids, So my girls, I've got three daughters. So they are 14, 16 and 18. And it's there. There's that little meme that says, you know, when I was a kid, I had to roll up my chores were rolling the garbage bin down the driveway. And my girls, the farm depends on it. So even when my girls were younger, they would come with me to farmers markets. And so they would work their little butts off and they would work with me and we would do it as a team. And we spent lots of time together.

17:52
And then when I sold my farm, interestingly enough, several people said, oh, you have more time for your girls now. And I said, actually, no, it's the opposite because I took a full-time job last summer  and  I did not see my kids because I couldn't take them to work with me.  And  so this summer I'm doing it on my own again  and they helped me. They helped me load my chickens, my meat birds into the trailer the other night.  They sure didn't want to,  but they did it. And I'm so thankful for my daughters for doing

18:21
the things that  they can do to help me for the farm, you know? And that meme is  my chores were rolling the garbage can down the driveway and,  you know, the other farm kids, the farm depends on it if they do their chores or not, because,  you know,  there's bigger stakes on a farm.  I am so proud of you.  You are a good mom because you are teaching them so many things are going to help them later on.  Thank you. Oh, thank you so much.

18:51
They are really good kids, honestly, and they have work ethic themselves. They are sought after in our community to do jobs and to work farmers markets and do different things.  And  ironically, like two of my children, well, all three of them in different roles are going to work for my former farm. The people that bought my farm are going to work.  They're going to work for them as employees this year.  it's pretty cool. know, last  summer we weren't ready for that, but this summer,

19:20
They genuinely want to help and see that that farm survive because farming is so important and  it's a way for them  to still feel connected to their childhood, to the way they were raised.  It's pretty cool actually. That's beautiful. I love that.  Okay. So now we've talked about relationships  and partnerships and coupling and  uncoupling and all the things I don't usually talk about on the podcast.  It's for me,

19:49
this whole thing about being over 40. It really kicked me in the ass when I was 44. So I was your age and I will tell you what happened. My husband was replacing a window in one of our son's bedrooms in the old house. It was a little tiny window and he needed help with something because he was actually out on the roof and I was in the room on the inside where the window was. And he had asked me to

20:17
give hand him something through the open window space and I knelt down and there was carpet in that room. It was like a ugly shag carpet. So it was a really long deep pile and I knelt down and I felt something under my knee and I tried to move so that I wouldn't put all my weight on my knee on the thing and rocked my knee funny and also ended up on this screw that was in the carpet and hurt my knee.

20:45
And I didn't think any of that. I was like, oh, that's going to hurt tomorrow and  I'll walk it off and I'll be fine.  And a year later, if I move my knee wrong, it still hurt. And I was like, oh, we have hit the,  I can't necessarily walk injuries off anymore stage. That's when I knew that I was over 40. Okay. You're putting some fear into me because I haven't  had that experience yet, but I'm sure it's coming.

21:14
Because I'm that same way, like,  oh, I hurt myself or that smarted a bit. And  yeah, I've always been the one to walk it off. You know, if it hurts in some places, like it'll, if it comes by itself, that's what my mom always said, if it comes by itself, it's going to go away by itself.  you know,  I'm very much like that. kind of personally avoid the doctor, like the plague. And yeah, I just  grunt it off and walk it off.  so you're saying it's coming. It's going to hit that one of these days I can't do that.

21:44
Yeah, it's coming. I'm sorry. I hate to be the  bearer of bad news, Dawn, but yes, at some point you're going to injure yourself and be like,  think I might want to get that looked at this time. Yeah. Well, and I can see it in my mom. mean, my mom is,  I got my work ethic from my parents and  my kids are getting it from me.  And my mom has recently, yeah, hurt her knee. And it was one of those things she thought if it comes by itself, it'll go away by itself. And yeah, it's

22:11
she's going to end up with a surgery over it. she's been limping. the thing with my mom that I must say, and she's older than both of us, she's 65 and she, it doesn't stop her. even though she's limping and even though she's using a crutch to walk a lot of the time and you know, things like that, she's still going on holidays. She is still planting her gardens. She is still doing the work required. Like she's just a bulldozer. She's still doing what she needs to do.

22:39
And she's not letting it stop her. I think that there's  something to be said for that. When you let something stop you, when you get an illness or when you let something,  you know, hold you back, I think it can hold you back from other possibilities as well. Whereas if you just  accept it and work within it, I mean, she, went to Cuba  last January and she, we got a wheelchair for in the airport, right? So she's still.

23:07
She still allowed us to help her, but she still did the things that she wanted to do. She just didn't say  to us,  well, I have a bummed knee, so I'm going to not go.  exactly.  So we've spent 23 minutes talking about stuff I don't need to talk about and some of the stuff we wanted to talk about. So let's talk about  how to support your own self, your body and your mind to stay strong past 40.

23:35
to doing the things.  What I would say is you gotta stay hydrated, number one.  You gotta get sleep and you have to eat food that supports your body because if you just eat junk food, you're done for.  I couldn't agree more. I've always been a proponent of my guts are like a dog,  but I noticed the other day, I forget what I had, but I had something the day before and it was.

24:00
It was probably pasta. I've noticed it with pasta actually. If I eat pasta with, you know, a sauce or whatever,  especially if I've gone to a restaurant,  the next day I'm quite lethargic.  And I think that's to do with the food. And so quality food, quality water, quality sleep, I think  those help you.  They're the fuel for your body and you're right. And so when you've got a homestead or you've got a farm,  you've got access to these great foods and

24:27
Yeah, sometimes I used to say with my farm, I sacrifice meals at my table to put food on others, but I'm still able to make different choices. can grab the vegetables or a salad or  just even a burger in a lettuce wrap even is something different than  the burger and fries or the chicken fingers and fries, you know? And so just making those different choices.  Yeah.

24:53
I'm going to say this and I could be totally wrong, but it's my take. So it's my podcast. So I'm say it.  I feel like all of the fried  foods  are  not great for me. And I think they're not great for a lot of people. My husband and my son really do like to have like,  they like to make homemade donuts.  Homemade donuts are made in vegetable  oil or lard if you have it.  And I can't do it. Like I eat one donut and I'm like, okay, that's good for six months.

25:24
You know, that's it.  Because I just feel so terrible that  evening into the next day because it's not good for you. And it's not so much that the oil isn't good for you. It's what happens to the oil when it gets hot and then it's in the food and then you eat it. Yeah, I, well, they made canola oil. Excuse me, they made canola oil.

25:50
for fuel. It's meant to be biodiesel. I have no issue with  canola that's being used for biodiesel. I actually understand why big grain farmers use canola in their fields. It does clean up the weeds.  I know of a really cool farmer around these parts. He has a five-year rotation.  He only puts canola, which means he only uses Roundup in his  field once every five years. It does. It cleans up the weeds.

26:16
But yeah, I don't think canola oil is meant to be food. I think it's meant to be fuel  for our cars, gasoline, or diesel, biodiesel.  it's not meant to be ingested. I think we've just had,  just like with a lot of things, I don't know if I can say these things now, but you can edit them out if you don't want me to. But  I do think there's a lot of things that it's big business, you know, and if you've got a big business and you've got money generated around it. So if you can  sell it off as

26:46
the canola as food, someone's going  to profit from that. And  they've just done a really good job of  trying to  trick us into thinking that canola is food.  Well, it's like soda,  or cola, or pop, or whatever people call it. You're in Alberta, What is a fizzy drink called?  Pop. We call it pop. Okay.  In Minnesota, it's pop. Where I grew up, it's soda. But

27:14
There are name brand pops and sodas. I'm not going to disparage anybody by name because I don't want to get sued.  But that's like a hundred and something calories per can  that is completely empty calories. Your body doesn't gain anything from drinking it.  And I would much rather have water with a squeeze of lemon juice and  maybe a half a teaspoon of sugar. I have no problem with sugar.

27:43
I have a problem with grams and grams and grams of sugar. It's not good for you.  you know, water is the thing that hydrates you and sugar makes you, sugar converts to, don't know, carbs convert sugar, sugar converts to whatever energy.  But if you're not actually burning the energy, it just builds up in your body and it makes you fat. So I just feel like we as Americans, Canadians, people in general,

28:11
We eat things because we've been told it's okay and it's not necessarily okay and it's not necessarily good for our systems.  No, and I do think that there is a full  pandemic, epidemic, I don't know what the right word would be  of that. You know, if you look in your centre aisles of a grocery store,  a lot of that quote unquote food does turn to sugar and sugar turns to fat if it's not burned off or not used.

28:38
And I do think, and again, with our sodas or pops,  it's just not healthy. Like there are some types of pops that can even be used as cleaner. Like they'll clean the rust off of screws even. Like  how is this healthy to be putting into our bodies? Like  it just isn't. I don't think we've been designed for these foods and I don't think, well, I don't even think they're food.  And so that's where we need to get back to our roots. That's where it's so important. And that's why your podcast

29:06
my podcast and you know,  teaching people to go back to their roots, eating from the land, having your eggs  and your butters and your milks and your chickens and your garden and your vegetables and your lettuces and eating seasonally.  I think that's how we're designed. We're supposed to eat those things from the land  and be stewards of our land. that's why these things are so important. And I think that's why there's a whole shift.

29:34
back into this is because people are recognizing that the other food quote unquote is not food and that the stuff that you're growing in your backyard is actually nourishing good for you food. exactly. And since we're rolling toward 30 minutes, I want to get this in. Once we women hit 40, it's really that 40 to 50 stage. You really do have to take care of yourself because if you don't,

30:04
Your  50s,  60s, and 70s are going to be exhausting and painful and you will wonder why you're even still here.  So,  and I don't want women to feel bad because there's things that happen like, oh,  I raised four kids. I spent a lot of time on the floor playing blocks and Legos with them. And I would get down on the floor on my hands and knees and play with these kids.

30:30
My knees freaking hurt a lot now because I had so much stress on my knees.  I carried my kids on my hip  until they were at least 60, 70 pounds. If they wanted to be picked up, I picked them up. And so my back took a lot of wear and tear. And there's a thing called repetitive motion injury.  That's what I was doing to myself raising my kids. So

30:58
Expend all that good energy, live your life, do all the hard things you can do, all the  physical things you can do.  While you're young,  you will probably pay for it when you're older, but at least you got to do the things you love.  I agree. I  think that we  were supposed to do that. We're supposed to care for our kids. We're supposed to do the work.  And I do think that

31:22
It's about taking care of your body later on and don't feel bad if you got a few extra pounds It's all about how you feel. It's not about how you look  That's for sure.  And I just think too like if your knees hurt or your back hurts, you know Just do what you can  go for a walk if you can only you know walk a little ways  just do that It's it's doing what you're able to and and pushing yourself just a little bit even  That's what's gonna keep you young and keep you going. I can think of my grandmother who's

31:50
She's in well into her nineties and she's still a go-getter, you know, even when she was late eighties and early nineties, she was still  working at  the tickle trunk thrift store  in her hometown because that kept her busy, that kept her going. And I think it's when we become stagnant and stop and go,  my knee hurts, therefore I have to sit on the couch for, you know, days and days on end.  I think that's where the trouble comes in,  not in,

32:20
It's not the fact that your knee hurts.  It's if you,  and I'm not saying push yourself to the point that it hurts even more, but you know, just do what you're able to do. Yep, absolutely.  And I guess what I'm getting at is don't beat yourself up in your heart and your head if you're not as active as you used to be,  because you're not necessarily meant to be as active as you used to be. You're supposed to be as active as you want to and can be at the age that you're at.  I agree.  Absolutely.

32:49
It's doing what you can do with the body you have. And I'll admit it,  I actually had to do a bunch of  online computer work yesterday and that is not my strength. Like I would rather be outside gardening and  you know working with my animals and doing the physical thing outside.  I would much rather be doing that but yesterday I had to be on my computer more  and it tuckered me out that mental strain and that mental whatever and  I took a little 10 minute cat nap.

33:17
at three o'clock. I just did. I hit a bit of a wall. I put myself into bed. I closed my eyes and  it was 10 minutes, but it just gave me a slight bit of fuel to keep going.  was a power nap. Yeah.  And those are great. Do that. And you can do that when you're 15, let alone when you're 50. Yeah, absolutely. Just listen to your body and give it what it wants, you know?

33:43
And I find too, even with food, my body is craving protein and my body is craving,  my body craves the  good whole foods, the salads, the things like that.  Yep, absolutely. I've been into a fresh,  well,  store bought fresh sweet bell pepper.  A month ago we had gotten some for some recipe and it was a decent pepper. wasn't terrible. And I hadn't had quote unquote a fresh pepper since September.

34:12
I was like, oh my God, I always forget that I love bell pepper because I eat it for like two months in the summer and then that's Yeah, for sure.  So I had the greenhouse and I'll tell you what, my little girls,  they weren't actually tomato eaters. They didn't love, the tomatoes,  but they would eat those peppers as apples. Like I would even throw a pepper in their lunchbox as an apple because  they loved them and my peppers were so sweet. That's the thing, colored peppers.

34:41
A green pepper is an immature  red, yellow, orange,  purple, or whatever. A green pepper is an immature pepper like a green tomato,  but a coloured pepper, they're  right. Especially a sweet bell pepper,  should be sweet in flavour, not that bitter flavour.  Are the yellow, red, and orange, are they different  levels of sweet?  Yes,  I always found that my orange peppers were the sweetest, then red, then yellow.

35:12
Here's another little tidbit of information. People always think that peppers go from green to yellow to orange to red.  And I'm always like, no, they go green orange or green yellow or green red or green white or green purple, whatever  the color pepper is.  It starts off green, which is immature, and then it goes to the color. It doesn't go through this color changing process. I learned something brand new today. Thank you, Dawn.

35:41
You're welcome. Yeah,  yeah, absolutely.  And  the little things and that's why these podcasts are so important too,  is it's just the little things to connect people to their food and to farming and to agriculture, you know,  to know the little things. And so when you see a picture, I've seen this a couple of times,  I've seen a picture of a pepper plant online  and it's got green, red, yellow, orange, you know, what all the colors on the plant all at the same time. And I'm like,  that's fake. That's not possible.

36:11
Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, that leads me to a thought that I will leave you with.  I have been seeing commercials online on TV when we're watching YouTube, because we watch a lot of YouTube, because we're homesteaders, we need to learn things.  And there's all these AI commercials now. And I swear to you, they creep me the hell out. They look like real people, except they don't move like real people. And I keep saying this, like, I hate this so much.

36:41
Yeah, yeah.  That's,  AI, I think there's positives to it, but I don't know. think the ultimate big picture  and  whatever  of AI could be a little dicey and slicey. And  that's why we need to get back to nature and homesteading and just doing things in our own spaces, because  to rely on this big technological system  is a little, for me, it's a little dicey, you know?

37:11
Yeah, remember the toilet paper wars of 2020? I  just think if something happened to,  this is me getting slightly tinfoil hatty  again, like  I just think if something happens to our big system,  we still need to get back to basics and we just need to get back to food and hopefully nothing ever happens. Hopefully I'm always wrong.  But I just, that's part of wanting to be on a farm or a homestead and have my own food is just to know that I'm in control of it, not someone else.

37:38
Yeah, two really important words, self-sufficient and self-sustainable. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then teaching my kids where it all comes from. My kids know where good food comes from.  Yeah, my husband just told me that he talked to our second kid. So I have four. I have a daughter,  son, son, son. So first, son.

38:02
called last night, he lives in Nebraska and he and his wife are thinking about getting five goats, four does and a buck.  And I said, um,  two questions. And my husband said, what? I said, where are they going to put them and what are they going to feed them? Because they have like an acre. That's it.  And they don't have a whole lot of  tree line that belongs to them. And so my husband was like, don't know. didn't ask. And I said, okay, I will message him later. Cause

38:32
I have friends that have goats. grew up with a friend that had goats and I know that it's going to get real expensive to feed those goats if they don't have some grazing area for them. So I think my kid and I are going to have a chat about goat husbandry at some point in the next week. Yes, for sure. And they do. They eat a lot of food. They're constantly eating and they'll eat anything. Yeah, I've got mine.

38:57
I rotate them. I've got two  doughs left and I'm milking them actually for myself.  And yeah, I rotate them. I don't own this property, but I have access to a lot of property and yeah, I rotate them through,  I have to be careful where I put them because if there's a tree there or if there's  a small tree there, they're going to eat those leaves and they're going to kill that tree.  yeah.  Yup.  Okay, Dawn, thank you so much for coming back to visit. I appreciate it. Where can people find you?

39:27
So I'm DawnsDirt.  You can find me online, Instagram, Facebook,  YouTube. I've got my own podcast, DawnsDirt.  And I love these collaborations. So thank you so much for having me on the show yet again. And  we just need more of this. need, I appreciate that you do this all the time and we need more of this, you know, homesteading farm to table talks. So thank you so much for having me. And a little bit of psychology and marriage counseling in there too.

39:53
Well,  you know, to me, nothing's I'm very raw and open and honest and authentic and  I got no secrets. I'll just call. I  just say it. And so, yeah, I'm always happy to have a  raw, real conversation. So thanks for thanks for going down some rabbit holes of,  yeah, life with me.

40:14
I feel like it's all part of life and homesteading is absolutely real and raw life. So we're doing it right.  As always, you can find me at AtinyHomesteadPodcast.com.  Dawn, thanks again. Have a great day. You too. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.