Annie’s Homestead

Today I'm talking with Annie at Annie's Homestead. You can follow on Instagram 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 Annie, Annie's Homestead in Idaho. Good afternoon, Annie, how are you?  Hi, Mary, I'm doing so well. How are you? I'm all right.  What's the weather like in Idaho this today? It's actually very beautiful today. We're  sitting at about 90 degrees,  so it's warm.

00:29
Our skies are clear, thank goodness,  and it's just a beautiful, bright, sunny day. So I have no complaints over here yet.  Well, give it time. My dad used to say, you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, it'll change. He sounds right. Yeah, and I'm in Minnesota and it is about 70 degrees out. It is bright and sunny and big, puffy marshmallow clouds.  It's really lovely.  Those are my favorite. I love those. We don't get those too often.

00:59
No.  love them. We  are really hazy. Our skies have been just like the sun, you know, has just having a hard time come through all the haze that we've had lately. So it's nice when we have clear skies and it's even better when we have puffy clouds.  I love those. Yeah, I remember laying on my back as a kid finding shapes in the clouds. I haven't done it in years. That might be something I have to do this fall. I don't know yet.  It's a good exercise.

01:29
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do. So  I  am  a homesteader. I'm actually off grid  in the mountains in Idaho where  my husband and I, we are in the Sawtooth mountain range  and we  love, love, love being out in the middle of nowhere. So we got really lucky when we were searching for land. We found

01:57
a 40 acre property. It's  all undeveloped when we bought it  and two sides of the property border at the Boise National Forest. So  we  are just secluded and we love it. We have elk and turkey and mule deer, little baby quails running through the property all the time. And it's just, it's heaven on earth. It's amazing. So we actually bought our property in 2021.

02:27
and started developing it very soon after. My husband is just a mastermind. Like this property would be nothing without him. He helped design all of the infrastructure. So we've got our solar panels. We've got really large solar panels. I'm not sure exactly what the size of them are. I just know that they're really big.

02:53
We've got a lot of those. We have about six of those. And so that's where we get all of our solar power to run our electricity. And we are on a well. Our well is probably dug about 150 to 200 feet down. Most of our neighbors, they were having to drill down about 400 feet. So we feel really fortunate to have the very strong well that we have. We've got a really strong stream.

03:22
down under all of the rocks, which is just a blessing. So... Let me jump in really quick for anyone who doesn't know,  the deeper you have to dig a well, the more expensive it gets. Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out.  I know. have just, we spent so much money homesteading, you know, and it's everybody's dream, but it's almost so hard to do it because it's so expensive. And we live out in the mountains.

03:51
So we always joke, you know, it's not a funny joke, it's kind of a painful joke, but we always say that we have to pay the mountain tax  to any of our contractors coming out there because  everybody  is always more expensive  when of course you have to, you know, go through the back country and drive on roads,  you know, that are full of ruts. So it's been a really fun adventure.  got occupancy  on the home that we built.

04:21
last May. So we've been living full time out there for about a year.  And oh my gosh, it's amazing. So we've got a garden, a greenhouse,  we built an indoor grow room, because for those weird people who  are always watching the aerials spraying and the chem trails and we're like, oh my God,  how can I grow produce that isn't covered  and all of these chemicals falling from the sky?

04:50
So we did that. I do outdoor garden as well, just because of space. And then we've got our small flock  of about 70 birds. We do chickens, geese,  and ducks,  and we use them all for meat and eggs. I love goose meat, so I think we'll always have geese.  As much of a pain as they can be, they're very delicious. So I think we'll keep them around for a little while.  Okay.

05:20
Number one, I'm a very live and let live kind of lady. And so if you want to have, if you want to grow plants inside so that the stuff in the air outside doesn't get on them,  I am all for that.  I love that. It has been a challenge.  I am kind of new to gardening. I've, you know, I've had houseplants, you know, for about, you know, 10 years, but gardening is so different. I mean, I'm sure you know.

05:49
and trying to grow indoors where I'm responsible for controlling the humidity  and  the moisture,  the soil temperature and all of these things. You know, there's a lot of variables. So  I definitely flopped my first round  of seedlings  and I had too high humidity in my grow room.  And I think it was sitting at maybe 70 % humidity inside, which is high.

06:17
I had a mold problem. So I took everything out  and I just aired it out. I let it breathe.  And I think we're down to 30 % humidity for the most part now. And I'm starting to see things grow that's not mold and fungus,  which is really nice.  But it's a lot. I'm learning how to manage everything.  And it's a lot of fun, but it's exhausting all in the same.

06:45
as every farm and homestead is? In one way or another or another, yes. Yeah.  Okay, so I have questions. Number one, I'm guessing you guys do not have children. We don't, not yet. We're working on adding those.  That's next year's plan. Okay, well good luck with that. I wish you all the best.  And number two,  how big is the home that you built?

07:15
Our home is 1200 square feet in the living space and 1600 square feet in the shop or the garage section. Okay, so you didn't go the tiny house route, so that's good. Yeah, I need a little bit of space. We came from a rental home in the city that was, I think it was 2200 square feet and we had an indoor gym.

07:42
One of the bedrooms was a little art studio that I had so I could go in and I could paint, I could do my watercolors.  So we had a lot of space  and I think 1200 was  probably like the smallest that we were comfortable going. So we have two bedrooms  and the second bedroom is our office and our gym and our guest bedroom. It is like so multifunction, but we spend most of our time outside so we don't notice.

08:11
a small space too much.  And then how far is the nearest big city to you?  One hour. It's a hour drive. So that's not terrible, but you want to make sure you take a list and hit everything all in that one trip.  Absolutely. Yeah. Our city days are usually like a full work day and then some we'll leave the property sometimes  at like 8 a.m. and then we'll get

08:40
back home about six or seven, just in time for evening chores. Okay, so that leads me to my next question. Do you, I don't even know how to ask this without sounding like a jerk. Do you stock up when you go shopping? Do you have room in your home for storing things? We do. We stock up big time. So we have multiple freezers and we buy

09:10
one cow a year and we'll pick it up in town. We have some friends who they don't live in the nearest big city. They live a little bit just beyond that. So that is a whole trip in itself. And so we stock up on beef and then I love, love, love to buy produce at the end of the season. So I'll go to the farmer's markets or I will go to the farms directly.

09:37
and  I will place orders for like 50 pounds of tomatoes and those will be all the tomatoes that I can.  Or I'll do a big order for potatoes or onions, because those always store really well.  So we do a lot of bulk orders, but I like to buy at the end of the season because a lot of these farmers will slash prices because they're looking to offload everything. So it's kind of a win-win for both parties.  Definitely. I wish you lived closer, Annie.

10:06
We have 250 tomato plants in our garden right now and they are all going to be producing. We're going to be swimming in tomatoes in about three weeks. Oh my God, what kind of tomatoes are you growing? Early girls, some variety of cherry tomato, San Marzano tomatoes, which are amazing. And I think my husband put in some heirloom varieties too, but I don't know the names of them.

10:34
Yum. Do you guys do any sun dried tomatoes?  No, because we don't have any place to do it. We have, we have roasted tomatoes in the oven. Ooh, those are so good. So we don't dry them. just roast them and then freeze them. That's cool. I think that would be my problem too. That's why we've never done them because we have bugs everywhere. So as soon as I put anything outside, I mean, I've got wasps and bugs and

11:02
flies and everything just right to the food. Because in Idaho, we're actually in high desert. So  anytime there's any moisture anywhere, like the bugs are immediately right there. Yeah, they need water too. Yeah, so it makes it hard too, you know, when we go to dispatch birds, we  usually try to do it in the fall when it's a little bit cooler. And a lot of the bugs,  you know, have gone away.

11:31
for the season. Otherwise, we're just swarmed by wasps. Wasps, especially, we have a lot of those because we do live in the forest. It's really hard to mitigate all of them because they just, they're everywhere. So we have a pretty easy time getting rid of them  near the house. I just do some water wasp traps, but oh my gosh, there's so many.  It feels so silly trying to get those under control.

12:02
Yeah. And the thing is it's all  nature. Everything in nature has a purpose and I hate wasps too,  but they are pollinators. So you got to pick and choose your battles, I think. Yeah.  I struggle with that.  Yeah. So I know nothing about Idaho other than the fact that it gets really cold and really snowy in the winter time.  What kind of trees grow in your forest? We have Douglas fir.

12:32
and ponderosa pine specifically in our forest. Those are our two main pine trees. And of course we have a lot of choke cherries  on our property as well that I'm working on getting rid of. I really want to replace them with a different variety, you know, that I enjoy to eat a little bit more. We also have a lot of elderberry trees growing on our property specifically. There's a lot of elderberry around the area, but

13:00
Our property has a lot, a lot of those. So we feel really fortunate because we've got a lot of medicine just hanging out and growing. Have you made elderberry syrup yet? I have. Yeah. It's so good. Awesome. And tea? Yes. A lot of tea. I have a friend in town who makes elderflower soda  and she ferments the elderflower  and

13:29
that's something that I really want to give a shot  at because it just sounds so delicious. It's light and floral and bubbly and because it's fermented, you know, it's gut friendly too. So  a  lot of good check marks there. Definitely.  Do you have to put the bird netting over your trees so you can actually get the berries? Because here we have two  elderberry trees. They're fairly young. I think they're probably 10 years old and the birds get to  the

13:59
to the berries before I can get to them. We actually are so fortunate. Like we have so many trees that we have berries like everywhere.  And a lot of our trees, I don't know how old they are, but they're very large. So I'll pick the low hanging fruit  and the birds will usually grab the ones up top,  but I've noticed, you know, that they don't even clean the trees all the way through. And so

14:28
going into the fall and winter, like there will still be berries on the tree that have dried up and shriveled up a little bit that they're still chomping on. So we're lucky. We have honey. Yeah, I've been wanting to do elderberry syrup since we moved here in August of 2020. And I never get to the berries in time. By the time I remember they're probably ripe, they're gone. Dang it. So I'm gonna have to wait.

14:57
Have you put the net on your trees? No, I forgot to ask my husband to get some  this year, but I'm going to go out to Amazon in February, actually the next Prime Day, which is in  what, November, October, and get some netting. I'm going to order it and I'm going to put it right by where he would go  to walk toward the trees and be like, when you have them in it next spring, put this netting over these trees, please.  I love that.

15:27
Please  save the berries. Well,  we have a very special resource in the elderberry trees that we don't use. And we have black raspberries growing wild in the tree line that we use every summer. Well, every other summer, because they're every other year thing. OK.  And so I'm like, we can remember to pick the black raspberries, but we can't remember to put the netting over the elderberry trees. What is wrong with us?  Well, one's a little bit easier than the other.

15:57
Yup, we're really lucky we have wild plum growing in our tree line too and we're going to make  wild plum jelly here in November.

16:07
Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. We have a lot of wild roses growing. So we get a lot of rose hips in the fall  and those are always super fun.  Rose hip tea is so yummy. It's so yummy. I found a recipe just recently for rose hip wine  and I thought that was super cool. I'm like, okay, I might have to get that a shot this fall.

16:36
Isn't it fun, finding out all the things you can do with the things that you have growing? Oh my God, it's so fun and so exhausting. I want to do it all. I just don't have the time to do that. So it's hard to cherry pick what I have time for and what I want to do.

16:57
Well, once you have kids and they get to be about 10, 12, and 14, you will have more time because you're going to teach them all the things and then they will do some of the work too. That'll be awesome. Do you guys have kids? I have grown kids. I have a 35-year-old daughter, a 33-year-old stepson, a 27-year-old son, and a 23-year-old son. And the 23-year-old still lives with us, so he helps out a lot.

17:26
Oh, that's good. Maybe she can go put those netting on those elder trees.  If mom can remember to remind him, yes, I'm sure he'd be happy to. It's mostly my fault. I just forget. Dang it. I know. It's not like, you know, you don't have many other things to be doing. Yes, but the reason that I said,  wait until you have kids,  is my son just put together meatballs from scratch to have with our spaghetti and  sauce and meatball dinner tonight. And he makes the most

17:56
fabulous homemade meatballs and it makes the most wonderful dinner. So  you have so many cool things to look forward to.  my gosh, you're getting me so excited. I just now have to wait 23 years.  Yes, and enjoy every freaking second of it when you're in it because it gets really hard and you get really tired.  And then they're grown and they move out and you're like, oh my God, I worked myself out of a job.  Isn't that just crazy?

18:24
And now, you you're almost an empty nester, but you still sound like you got a lot of work. 250 tomato plants.  that's a lot. That's a gargantuan amount of tomatoes we're looking at in about a month. And  luckily, there is a food shelf not six miles from us, and we give our tomatoes to the food shelf.  We sell them in the farm stand. We sell them at the farmer's market.

18:51
and we can at least 100 pints every winter. So they'll get used, but I suspect we're probably going to be throwing away some tomatoes this year because there's just going to be so many of them. Yeah. Dang it. Do you guys have livestock?  We have chickens. Okay. They like tomatoes, right?  Eh,  not a lot. Dang it. What else are you guys growing?  Um, cabbages.

19:21
And zucchini, of course. Of course.  And we were growing lettuces, but  they've bolted because it got so hot, so the lettuces are done.  Winter squash. Yum. Yep, that's my favorite. Out of everything, that's my favorite.  And part of the reason it's my favorite is if our dog gets sick,  I cook up, I roast up squash and smash it and mix it with

19:49
them fried up burger and some rice and it makes her tummy feel better.  my god, that sounds like it would make my tummy feel better.  Uh huh.  Yep. And she loves it. She didn't get sick this year at all. This past year, like 12 months in a row, her tummy has been fine. But when she was younger, she had a really sensitive stomach and the vet was like, do you have any ground beef? And I said, yeah. She said, can you afford to cook it for your dog? And I was like, no, but I will.

20:16
And she said, okay, do that and cook up some rice with no seasoning. Just cook it up with water. And I was like, okay. She said, mix those together and give it to her. And I said, I heard pumpkin is good too in this. And she said, it is. I said, I don't have pumpkin, but I have butternut squash. She said, yes, mix that in there. Our dog lost her mind. Like she was turning her nose up at everything. I was mixing that together in a bowl and she was sitting at my feet looking at me like, can I please try it?

20:48
I love that. So yeah, if you have a dog with a sick tummy and it's not anything major, their stomach needs a break, that's a good thing to make for them. That's so good to know. We do a lot of sweet potato with our dog. She loves sweet potato.  I notice, I don't know if you have a tip for this, but our dog loves to eat chicken poop. We'll go up to the chicken coop  and...

21:16
grab eggs and check on everybody.  And every single time I turn around, Noah's on the ground and she's licking poo.  Did your dog do it?  No, because she can't get anywhere near the chicken run.  But when she was younger, she did the same thing. So  I don't have a tip for you because dogs are just gross and they like things like that. Great. Okay. told him like, oh my God, gross.

21:44
coming to me and now she's gonna lick my face. I'm like, Yeah, the one tip I will give you is if you can break her of licking your face, do it. Because I didn't let Maggie lick my face when she was a puppy, killed me. But I didn't let her do it. I let her lick my hands, but not my face. Okay, that's a fair trade. I can do that. Yup, and I hate it. I mean, I would love to be able to let her lick my face, but.

22:13
She's outside with the barn cats and I don't want her licking my face. Yeah, we just had a new litter last Thursday of barn cats on our homestead and I was getting ready to leave the property and I noticed our cat, she was going into labor. So I was just checking on her and hanging out with her for a little bit. I watched her birth two kittens before I took off.

22:42
And  she had just birthed her placenta after the second kitten  and immediately started eating it.  And I took that as my sign, okay,  I'm going to go home now. I'm going to leave.  She's got it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I was on a dairy farm doing a farm tour  and  the same thing happened. know, as soon as that cow birthed her placenta, I mean, she just went right for it. Just started eating it like it was nothing.

23:13
So I found that really interesting. Yeah, it really makes me wonder if women way, way, way back in time, like caveman time,  did the same thing. I wonder if we did it too. Yeah, you know, we were really a primal species at one time. We're pretty domesticated now. Yeah, I just, I wonder because it's such a thing with all mama animals. Right. Yeah.  And

23:40
there's a huge market now to get your placenta encapsulated.  And I know some people who  have taken theirs, put it in the freezer for a year and didn't quite know exactly what to do with it. So  I had one friend who actually buried her placenta and then planted a tree on top of it. And I thought that was sweet.

24:05
I had a friend who did that and she actually had a plaque made with her baby's name and date of birth on it.  Oh, that's so cute. Yep. So she had a tree and she had a little sign that stood in front of the tree in the ground. Oh, I love sentimental things.  I like sentimental things that are really long lasting. Like they don't break. I don't like scrapbooks because scrapbooks can burn or they can get ruined.

24:35
but like a plaque outside, may fade, but it's not gonna get broken. Yeah. Oh, I love that.

24:46
So I wanted to talk to you about the fact that you guys are off-grid, because off-grid has a whole new meaning and feeling now compared to even 50 years ago because of the solar power that we have access to. do  you feel like you're off-grid or you just feel like you're camping?  We feel like we  are just living  in a regular home.

25:14
Uh, our solar power powers,  all of our electricity,  our, you know, washer, dryer, our dishwasher, um, we're very comfortable in our home  as well, like, like temperature wise. So  we, we actually don't  notice that we're off grid probably until about the winter time when we don't have as much solar power because our days are shorter. And that.

25:43
It doesn't really change  a lot. We just are a lot more cognizant on how much energy we are using to make sure that it will last us all day. We do have a backup propane generator that we can turn on in the wintertime if we don't have enough charge throughout the day or if it's a particularly cloudy day, maybe it's snowing that day. My husband, again, he's mastermind. He has a backup for a backup.

26:12
for backup. His backups have backups. It's crazy.  So we do have a wood boiler as well that we haven't had to use, but that is our backup to our propane generator.  And that would heat all of our water and heat our home in the case where we didn't have any solar power or we didn't have access to propane. And limited forest, we have almost unlimited

26:42
wood. So that is that's our fail save. So if the grid goes down, they don't have any propane, solar panels get hit with an EMP attack, at least we've got a wood boiler to keep us comfortable.  That is so funny, Annie, because we have a wood boiler as well. And that is our heating for the winter. And our backup  is a propane fueled generator.

27:10
for electricity to the house if the power goes out. So we're kind of backwards to you. Yeah, we're just a little different. Our issue is, was the glycol was so expensive to get it filled up. And then how often do you have to drain the glycol? Not very. Like maybe, maybe once every five years. We haven't done it yet. Oh, wow. That's awesome. We filled ours up with water one time just to give it a

27:39
nice test run and it was really awesome. It heated everything up so fast.

27:47
Yeah, the reason that we use it is because we have someone that we get  a big old dump truck full of wood from  for like 150 bucks and it's at least two cords of wood,  at least when it's split. Oh my God, that's amazing. And so we're heating our house for about 300 bucks a winter and winter starts here.  We start the wood stove about October  and  run it through usually end of March, 1st of April.

28:18
Yeah, that's about us too. And propane  is like, I think my husband checked it the other day and when it's not on the summer pricing sale number, I think it's going for $279 a gallon right now. I think that's about close to what we are. I think we're just under  or around $2. Yeah,  so we would much rather get the big old logs and put the sweat equity into it.

28:48
and only spend about $300 for the winter, then have to  rely on the propane. Yeah.

28:57
You guys got that nailed down. Yeah, it was kind of a surprise when we found this place.  Five Augusts ago, this August will be our fifth year here.  We did not realize that the place had a generator to run the house.  And when the realtor explained to us how it works and what it does, I said, you're kidding me, it will run the entire house?

29:26
the electricity. And she said, oh yeah, she said that's one of those permanent things that  it just kicks on when the power goes out. And I said,  we need to buy this house. That would be fabulous. I love that. They did a good job on that construction.  Yes, yes. I love this place so much. I have raved about this place so many times on the podcast that I'm not going to do it again today.

29:56
But you can hear it, I  love our home. It is my favorite place on earth.  Oh, I love that. So how big is your home? It's a little over 1,400 square feet. Okay.  And a lot of that is kitchen and living room downstairs and there's two bedrooms upstairs. Yeah, a lot of our space is kitchen and living room too. I mean, that's where we spend the most time. So it just makes the most sense for those,  you know, to be the biggest.

30:25
Yep, absolutely. So do you have plans on getting like goats or mini cows or anything like that? I think goats are definitely more feasible for our future. The only issue that we have is housing for them. right now our chicken coop is on top of a mountain. Everything that we build is on top of a mountain. And it's so silly.

30:54
We had a couple contractors out not too long ago  and they were doing road work for us  and  they were driving skid steers, but they were mentioning, they're like, everywhere I turn, like I'm on an edge.  And it's very true. Our house is set back about 12 feet from the edge of the cliff and then we're tucked back up against rock. So the chicken coop is almost situated uphill  on the city situation.

31:22
So if we did want to add any livestock, we'd have to cut into a mountain somewhere, flatten some land and add like an outbuilding for them. So I think that's part of, you know, the next five to 10 year plan, because I would love to have some goats on the property. I love goat cheese.  I would love a milk cow. But I think for right now, goats make more sense for us. OK, I didn't realize that you were in that situation with

31:52
with your topographical, is that how you say it? Yeah. Layout. Yeah, it is very mountainous. And it's so hard for me to show that, you know, just with my phone on the internet when I'm talking about interior homestead. And, you know, we just need to bust out a drone and get some drone footage to get people some perspective because our driveway is a 17 % grade.

32:22
And we actually  had to get approval from our volunteer fire department when we were building our home.  Because they would be the ones to  come out with their equipment if we were to ever  have a fire close to home  and they would need to be able to get up our driveway.  And they have an  old jalopy  fire engine. I mean, this thing.

32:51
is so old. It's so loud inside the engine that like you're wearing headphones with a microphone to like talk to the person right next to you.  So I don't know when this thing was built. I need to ask my husband, but it's old.  So they just had to come out and make sure that they could get up our driveway in an emergency. And thank goodness they did  because otherwise we would have had to spend quite a bit more money, you know, bringing in more material and bringing that up. But we

33:20
are situated on top of a mountain  on our property. So it's beautiful  and  I love the view, but it does get a little scary in the winter time  when we have snow and ice and slush. But in the summertime, I love it. Yeah, I feel like off-grid is a trade-off on a lot of things. And  if you love it and you want to be there, you will figure out how to make it work.

33:48
Absolutely, know, like freedom, having the freedom that we do is so good. Like I would trade it and do it all over again. You know, I love that we're just out in the middle of nowhere. You know, I told my husband, he thought I was joking, but I was like, when you are looking at land or looking at a house, if I can't walk out my front door and be butt naked, I don't wanna buy it. I wanna be.

34:16
in the middle of nowhere. I don't want to see neighbors. I don't want to know that they're there.  And  he delivered. Awesome.  Okay, Annie.  I try to keep these to half an hour.  Where can people find you? You guys can find me at annieshomestead on Instagram and annieshomestead.com.

34:39
Fantastic. I really appreciate your time and I loved chatting with you.  And thank you to the people who listened to the podcast. I always forget to say that, but I appreciate everyone who listens.  And you can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Annie, I hope you have a wonderful evening. Thank you so much for having me, Mary. This was so fun.