86. Tammy Hein and Gentle Giant Acres

In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Tammy Hein from southern Alberta, Canada. Tammy is the founder of Gentle Giant Acres, a family homestead turned therapeutic farm. She shares her unique journey into homeschooling, inspired by her intergenerational farm upbringing and challenges faced within the public school system. We talked about the influence of nature on education, blending traditional learning with practical life skills, and the impact on her children's development and learning. Tammy also discusses how Gentle Giant Acres serves as an educational and therapeutic haven for the community.

Connect with Tammy
https://www.gentlegiantacres.ca/

Proactive Homeschool Dad (PHD) Course

PHD Course

This Golden Hour

Transcript

Tammy Hein 0:00

when my youngest daughter. Really began to struggle and we took extra time to teach her in a way that she learned best, which is not the way the public school teaches. We came to understand that we actually were doing it at home and she didn't need to go to public school for those reasons anymore. And that's when we started our homeschool journey.

Timmy Eaton 0:26

Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill.

1:22

You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Tammy Hine from Southern Alberta, Canada. Tammy is the founder of Gentle Giant Acres, a family homestead turned therapeutic farm. She shares her unique journey into homeschooling inspired by her intergenerational friendship Farm upbringing and challenges faced within the public school system. We talked about the influence of nature on education, blending traditional learning with practical life skills, and the impact on her children's development and learning. Tammy also discusses how gentle giant Acres serves as an educational and therapeutic haven for the community.

Timmy Eaton 1:59

Welcome back to this golden hour podcast. We're very excited today to have with us Tammy Hein from Alberta. Tammy, thanks for being with us.

Tammy Hein 2:06

Thanks for having

Timmy Eaton 2:07

me. Yes, indeed. We're excited. I just wanted to say a couple things. First of all, Tammy is the founder of Gentle Giant Acres, which is basically a family homestead changed to a therapeutic farm here in Southern Alberta. And she is also the homeschool mother of three children and has her own unique story. Why don't you give us a bio of yourself and whatever you want to say, and then we'll jump into some questions.

Tammy Hein 2:28

Okay. Yeah, our journey to homeschooling was really unique. I think to us, maybe everyone's is unique. I guess that's the way it goes. I started as I was raised on an intergenerational farm. And some of the unique pieces of that developed me was my grandmother on the farm was the last of the one room school teachers in the rural area that we lived in. So she was an educator and there was a lot of different ages and groups on this farm and there was a place for everyone. Children were included. The education wasn't just at school. It was in the way that we lived. So we fast forward into when I had my children. And I just included them in the same way that I had known. So when we would go to the schools to look for help to, kids run into struggles and schooling in the traditional public school is not always a fit for everything, I wouldn't necessarily find what I was looking for, but I would hear these words, you're already doing it. And it took me years to figure out that the way that we raise them at home, the involvement, the projects, the critical thinking skills from raising livestock and raising your own food and being part of every life cycle. And being accountable within those life cycles was actually homeschooling. So we spent a lot of time sending kids to school and it was great because they learned a lot of great things that I couldn't provide those types of educations, but through all of their childhood, the missing links that I knew that needed to be filled, we filled. And then when my youngest daughter. Really began to struggle and we took extra time to teach her in a way that she learned best, which is not the way the public school teaches. We came to understand that we actually were doing it at home and she didn't need to go to public school for those reasons anymore. And that's when we started our homeschool journey. It was a little bit later, and through the years, the feedback from our older children is that the most important things that they learned on the farm, they learned at mum's house. side or at the neighbor's side. It was in the critical thinking, the accountability, the learning, how to learn, how to apply things, how to make mistakes and make small adjustments to rectify your mistakes. And it wasn't a terrible thing. It was just a thing that was natural. So we had really instilled a love of learning. Yeah, that, that's kind of where that went to

Timmy Eaton 5:08

how to learn and love of learning. I love that repeated in so many of these episodes. So let me ask you a few things about that. So first of all, like chronologically, you said your grandma was the last of the one room schoolroom teachers,

Tammy Hein 5:19

correct? That's cool.

Timmy Eaton 5:20

Like when was that?

Tammy Hein 5:22

So she was married in the fifties, late forties, early fifties. And my mother is the eldest of her siblings, and I am the eldest of my siblings.

Timmy Eaton 5:36

Wow.

Tammy Hein 5:37

I had on that farm my great grandfathers. And everyone below to my age.

Timmy Eaton 5:44

And that's the place where you still are? Like that's the same place?

Tammy Hein 5:47

It is not. Oh, okay. But that was my start. Having intergenerational knowledge. Watching my grandfathers talk about the new swather.

Timmy Eaton 6:00

Yes.

Tammy Hein 6:01

That my uncle was running. And I desperately wanted to run, but in those days I wasn't on the swather. There was different roles and different role definitions, but I was in the house listening to the conversations because I was young and I was always included. We weren't in front of a TV screen. We didn't have one of those. It was a different world, and the children learned by osmosis from every aspect of their world.

Timmy Eaton 6:29

Many

Tammy Hein 6:29

generations. Yeah. I learned a lot faster.

Timmy Eaton 6:32

Yeah. I always call it the economy of the home and in the area you're talking about, like that really is the economy of the home. Literally. And so that it's so good that type of learning is happening. So when she was being that teacher, that would have been in the 50s, 60s then. So it would have been in the forties in the forties. Wow. Wow.

Tammy Hein 6:51

As she got married, she couldn't she couldn't teach anymore because those were the rules then. And the last of that rural schoolhouse, they closed it. All the kids were then bused into town.

Timmy Eaton 7:04

Now and when you fast forward to your experience, you said that as you were, navigating through having kids and their education, people would say you're already doing it. And so what, who said that and what do they mean by that?

Tammy Hein 7:16

So when my kids would run into trouble, or I would find pieces in their education, in their class, their school projects that I felt were missing. They were struggling with, and I knew that there had to be resources to be able to help them bridge these gaps. So I would go seeking that at the principal's office, at the teachers, or in the school system resources. And they would not be able to offer me anything and they would send me, you need to go speak to the homeschooling department, go over there to that building. And I would walk in and speak to them and they would say, you're already doing it. I'm like, no, I'm not, no, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. So I just couldn't wrap my head around what they were saying to me. I was already homeschooling them in all the things that mattered.,

Timmy Eaton 8:03

I

Tammy Hein 8:04

couldn't let go of this picture of the classroom

Timmy Eaton 8:08

where education takes place.

Tammy Hein 8:10

Yes.

Timmy Eaton 8:11

That's so interesting to me that they, that you went to these, public educators and they actually sent you to homeschool facilitators or.

Tammy Hein 8:18

They did. They sent me to the alternate school because what I was looking for, they couldn't help me with.

Timmy Eaton 8:23

So what's an example of that? What's something that you were looking for that and I think you referred to it as like these missing links that you wanted to fill. So what were you looking for as an example?

Tammy Hein 8:32

So for one of my daughters, one of the missing links was she very much struggled in math. I knew she just needed more time. They had expectations of what they had to accomplish in the classroom, and I knew she needed more time. So I asked, how can you take her out of that class, and this was elementary school, and send home all of the information that you want her to know, and I will teach it at home. So instead of using a calculator for two digit multiplication, I will actually teach her The two digit multiplication. And they didn't know how to deal with me wanting to do that. And it wasn't a bridge that had been built yet.

Timmy Eaton 9:18

Yeah, like they weren't equipped to give you what you needed to be able to do what you wanted to do.

Tammy Hein 9:23

And many of the teachers would become very overwhelmed and we now, these days, we call it, we're triggered because they felt the expectation was placed on them

Timmy Eaton 9:33

to

Tammy Hein 9:33

change their entire curriculum. And I understood that and trying to explain, I will do it. I'm not expecting you to change and teach my one child out of your classroom of 30 differently. But I will do that. And it was just so overwhelming to them that. They would say, you should just go talk to the homeschooling department or to the alternate school,

Timmy Eaton 9:56

right? Yeah. Anything out of whatever they consider to be the norm they're going to direct it somewhere else because they're going, man, we've got too many kids. We don't have the ability to help with with a particular needs.

Tammy Hein 10:07

At that time, they had not seen a bridge, a blended.

Timmy Eaton 10:11

Program.

Tammy Hein 10:12

Platform like that. They had not experienced it. So they did not know what that looked like and it, you know, they're human beings the same as me and it projected they had fear.

Timmy Eaton 10:21

Yeah.

Tammy Hein 10:22

That it would disrupt their classroom and fair enough. They didn't understand at the time that I was so willing to do whatever it took to not disrupt their classroom, but to help my child.

Timmy Eaton 10:32

And then on the other side, you have the alternate school people that understand the homeschooling side of things going it sounds to me like you're already doing what you need to do.

Tammy Hein 10:40

And the kids already had business projects. Our homestead ran on the, a wheel, a wagon wheel. You have the things and activities on the outside that everyone sees that have to, you have to execute to make it roll. Mealtimes, travel, paying the bills. And then you have the centerpiece where all of the decisions come from. What are we going to eat next winter? Then we best start raising it now, right? And all of your spokes, every piece is important. You're So whether the children were doing the weeding in the garden or taking the scraps from the chicken out to feed the chickens, or from the kitchen out to feed the chickens, each part of that ecosystem is important.

Timmy Eaton 11:24

And

Tammy Hein 11:24

that's how we lived. They lived it at home, they lived it in 4 H, they lived it in guiding, and all of the things that we did supported that accountability and that inclusion. The way that I understood it.

Timmy Eaton 11:37

And what's the span of your kids age, like from what do they range?

Tammy Hein 11:40

So they're all five years apart.

Timmy Eaton 11:42

A five, a

Tammy Hein 11:43

10 and a

Timmy Eaton 11:44

15, three different worlds. No kidding. For sure. You're all stages at once. I'm just fascinated that your kids said to you, you said in later years that. The most important learning that they gleaned was, on the farm and doing the work at home. And I'm just wondering, like, when you were going through it and again, how old was your oldest when you started consciously homeschooling? It sounds like you were doing it the whole time, but like, when did you start going, okay, I'm going to do this without the help of the school?

Tammy Hein 12:10

When I understood that I no longer needed to send them to school. I had already had my first two graduates.

Timmy Eaton 12:16

Okay.

Tammy Hein 12:16

So my youngest daughter was in grade eight.

Timmy Eaton 12:20

I see. And so they really were having A home experience, but it was blended. It wasn't consciously called that at the time, but that's really their experience. Did you ever personally, as their, as the mom feel like. What happens at the home was not enough for their education and, in preparing them for their futures and post secondary and whatever. Did you ever have that feeling? Or were you aware the whole time? No, this is just, this is true learning and this is the best thing for them.

Tammy Hein 12:45

I really felt that there was some huge disconnects in what they were learning in the schools because they're learning these, I want to say tree houses, but there's no roots. The root of what they needed to ground them in their learning at school, we had to provide at home. So a lot of the things, understanding why the teachers would teach you these, Shakespeare is for one. Why would you need to learn to look from someone else's perspective? They couldn't understand that until we brought it home and integrated it into the environment that we lived. So if you just look from your perspective at the garden. What about the birds that live alongside it? What about the plants themselves that live within it? If all you're doing is tending your garden for yourself, and it's not for the benefit of your plants. You are not actually attending, understanding how all of those transferable skills and layers of the onion, they all connect whether we are doing it in a classroom using Shakespeare to teach someone how to put themselves in someone else's place, understand different points of view in the world and consequences, critical thinking.

Timmy Eaton 14:02

Yeah. And your kids had these live lessons at the home that illustrated or demonstrated to them, the real learning behind it, the roots, like you said.

Tammy Hein 14:13

Correct. So for some of the things, it was great because they could argue all they wanted about what they were learning, but they knew there was a reason for it. So they did it.

Timmy Eaton 14:22

Yeah. Yeah.

Tammy Hein 14:23

I didn't like the reason for it, but they did it. Other times it was a struggle because you're putting the cart before the horse. Now that's great. If you have a horse that has been taught how to push the balls with their nose, right? But they're trying to learn the things, but they don't have the basis for it. So sometimes we would have to have those. Family dynamics where your children are supposed to grow up and challenge you on things, and then we'd have to go back and relearn some of those foundations.

Timmy Eaton 14:54

I was going to say the foundations are so crucial. So so you would say that you're. Your older kids didn't they weren't like being homeschooled in the in the deliberate sense they just naturally they were, but your last child was for a time. Is that right? And did she go all the way through?

Tammy Hein 15:15

Absolutely.

Timmy Eaton 15:16

Like she went all the way through homeschool and once you started in grade eight? Yeah.

Tammy Hein 15:20

So she graduated from the alternate program in Raymond in 2020 in COVID. Oh,

Timmy Eaton 15:26

no way. Oh, that's a tough time.

Tammy Hein 15:28

It was amazing because she thrived. She understood biosecurity. We live it. All of the connecting pieces

Timmy Eaton 15:38

She didn't have the same struggles that so many kids had. Isolation or even as a parent, like not knowing what to do with your kids when they're at home and that kind of thing.

Tammy Hein 15:46

Exactly.

Timmy Eaton 15:47

Yeah. So did you ever get to a phase where you really studied homeschooling, where you wanted to learn and go, okay, what kind of philosophy am I going to approach this with? Even though you had already been living principles of just, family living, basically. Did you have any mentors or people you look to, like, where did you go for information and curriculum and like, how did you approach all that?

Tammy Hein 16:07

I'm a firm believer of looking at what you have in front of you and figuring out how to create a solution for your problem with what's existing. So I simply looked at what we had and what we had was Learn Alberta, the website. So when the homeschooling facilitator gave me the jurisdictional password to this place that I had been trying to unlock for years, because I could see the potential there. And I was able to see how much pre education is actually available.

Timmy Eaton 16:40

Yeah.

Tammy Hein 16:40

I did not feel the need to remake the wheel. We just used what was right there. And what we didn't like of it we didn't grade it. Here's great learning in these exercises, these worksheets, the science program was phenomenal. We were able to find all the textbooks online. So we were able to do her exercises and teach her the things that, she couldn't teach herself while we were driving around or doing the other things in life that were more important.

Timmy Eaton 17:10

Yeah.

Tammy Hein 17:10

Because we could just go on the go. her passion is equine, is horses. Yes.

Timmy Eaton 17:14

Yes.

Tammy Hein 17:15

So she ended up schooling in equine studies, and before she actually graduated, she had her equine technician green certificate, her coaching, national certification program for coaching. She had all of the components to be an instructor and was way too young to take that. And five years of in depth study driven by herself. So she has A very unique skill set in that way.

Timmy Eaton 17:46

And is she doing stuff with that right now?

Tammy Hein 17:49

She is. She instructs, she designs programs. She's a certified equine assisted learning, personal development coach. She has a whole ton of skills at a very young age before she got her high school diploma.

Timmy Eaton 18:03

And she did get her high school diploma too?

Tammy Hein 18:05

She did, oh yes, she got her high school diploma. I was, I encouraged her to stay until they aged you out. Stay in the system, don't credit out, just get kicked out because you're too old now.

Timmy Eaton 18:16

Yeah.

Tammy Hein 18:17

Then you have access to all of that free knowledge that's out there.

Timmy Eaton 18:21

So she did the diploma side of things as far as like Alberta programs of study in the Alberta context, but then she really went deep into her interests. And so she did this kind of blended. That's a lot of work.

Tammy Hein 18:35

He did a lot of things. Yes. So you can sample in that, online, the government website, we found companion animals. So all of the strains and the sample classes for moving towards veterinary studies. Then there was recreational therapy. So if you like to help people and she does, she's great with youth. It's a gift. She has to be able to connect with them, help them build supports for them so that the youth experience self-esteem. Wow. So she went and did a bunch of the recreational therapy components. Accounting business is important, right? So accounting is important, knowing how to do that. She completed those modules, some of those classes as well.

Timmy Eaton 19:18

What did she do that through?

Tammy Hein 19:20

That was through the Learn Alberto. website. Oh, okay. So she was able to just go through and we were able to guide her and make lists of these are things that would be important in your world. If you want to build an instructor business, you want to have, work with clients, with people, these are people's skills. So we went in and found all these potential classes and put them all together. Just work your way through them. Some of them she finished. Some of them she didn't finish, but she took knowledge from it. And that's the most important part. And some of it she learned, I'm not doing that. And that's a very important part too, to find the pieces that you're not interested in.

Timmy Eaton 19:58

Wow, what an enriching way to do it and I love that it was different from so did you with your older kids who went through school and had their experience at home, compared to her education, if you had gone back, would you have just had everybody, do you conclude that you didn't really need this school? I mean, Your experience is what it is, but I'm saying, if you were to go back.

Tammy Hein 20:18

If I, there is one thing, and I'm not a big person for regrets or going back in time to change anything because I pretty much like where we are today and I understand the value of all the experiences leading to where we are now. But I would be very tempted to go back and homeschool. All of them from the start. And for me, that would look different, in my mind, that we would just have so much more time to have fun.

Timmy Eaton 20:44

I know. It's true.

Tammy Hein 20:46

Yes. I remember the arguing, they're overwhelmed, they're tired, they're used up in their brains, and then come home and know you still have to turn them back on. Life didn't stop because the bell rang. And there was, a lot of challenges with that. I think it has developed them very well. They're all very lovely people. And they're independent. They can problem solve. They do things that just astonished me.

Timmy Eaton 21:13

Oh, no, that's great. But I see what you're saying though. There's, it's not like necessarily a regret, but just something that if you had, you known at that time, you may have done things differently. If somebody were to ask you, Tammy, if they said, Hey, if they had asked you when your kids were younger and they said what is the purpose of education? Like by the time they're 18, 19, or when they go out on their own what results do you want to have accomplished or want to see? What is the purpose of their education?

Tammy Hein 21:40

For me, my purpose was to equip them with as many skills as I possibly could. So that they were good citizens and would be independent in their worlds. They could go and do all of the things that they wanted to do and figure out how to do that.

Timmy Eaton 22:00

Yeah, and I love that you actually, you emphasized before knowing how to learn and then to love learning. Because when you have those two things, really, that opens up everything.

Tammy Hein 22:08

Absolutely. And that's something that my father always told me, is you can do anything you set your mind to. Just have to do the work.

Timmy Eaton 22:16

Yeah. Oh, that's great. And when you say skills, what are some specifics that you think of? Because you said that I would want to equip them with the skills that help them to become independent. And then that basically leaves open every option. And so what comes to mind when you think of that? And I think of in

Tammy Hein 22:32

inputting skills, it's behaviors, it's holding boundaries. So they learn. what they need to know to be successful. So if they want to raise goats to sell, then I can provide them with a multitude of tools and supplies, fencing, things like that. But ultimately they have to put the posts in the ground. They have to put the wire on the posts and they have to feed the animals. So it's the discipline. It's the consistency. It's the desire, it is the delayed gratification, it is the doing the hard things today because I want what's coming down the road. Even though it's cold and I don't want it. And through those experiences, they learned that they can do anything they want. They just have to do the work. And sometimes they didn't want what they thought they did, because when they examined the work, that wasn't what they wanted to do. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 23:29

And you almost have to be careful what you get yourself into because then you got to do the job. Absolutely.

Tammy Hein 23:33

Yeah. Absolutely. And that would, so if you're responsible for something, and you have an animal, and this is part of the learning from my history, my family's history, you have an animal in a pen that animal eats before you do, you must take the fridge to them because they can't just go help themselves in the fridge. In doing that they. You take pride in that.

Timmy Eaton 23:56

Yeah. Yeah, it does. It teaches that, like you said, like that discipline and that responsibility and the stick to it, it miss what about challenges? If somebody said, Hey, so what did you see as a challenge to the homeschooling decision? What was difficult either for you or your children or just the home? Is there anything that you saw is that you would categorize as a challenge because of the choice to homeschool?

Tammy Hein 24:17

Oh the getting to there was a challenge. I didn't have too much for support from far away family. We didn't have a lot of family that was close. And the community that we were in was all in the public schools. So I didn't really have any connections to anyone else who was doing the things that I was doing in the way that I was doing them. Always felt a little bit like an anomaly because if there is a harder way to do things, I will find the value in the harder way rather than taking the shortcut.

Timmy Eaton 24:46

So there are other people homeschooling or doing the alternate school, but you guys were doing it in a unique way from others, basically,

Tammy Hein 24:52

right? We couldn't, we didn't have anyone to connect with that way in the way that we were doing things. So for the first little bit, I felt fairly alone. And then we met some really great people through the parent group, the mom's group. Our facilitator was great at introducing us and sending us to different places. Yeah. It brought us to some really cool people that became our sounding board. So I could send my daughter over. I'm not a sewer, but I could send her over to someone else who could teach her those skills better than me.

Timmy Eaton 25:26

Excellent. So community and mentorship and being able to outsource was was meaningful. Once you were able to tap

Tammy Hein 25:33

into it. It was very

Timmy Eaton 25:33

meaningful. Yeah.

Tammy Hein 25:34

I really felt that I had to do all of it myself because I didn't have that community and for me, I came from a background where I had seen all of the things done by hand in groups of people. So I've been trying to build this community and hold the space for all of those skills to come here. And it was really neat to be able to reach out and touch base with other people who had those skills and say, Hey, let's partner together. I'll teach this part. You teach that part.

Timmy Eaton 26:03

So just like a natural co op without trying to be like, without formalizing some kind of co op, just naturally.

Tammy Hein 26:08

Exactly. For me, that was just the community I grew up in. That's how things worked. Now we call them co ops. We have to name things. Yeah. Yeah. Let's

Timmy Eaton 26:17

give it a name.

Tammy Hein 26:18

Yeah.

Timmy Eaton 26:18

And then I don't know, we haven't talked about this before, but what was the role of your husband and all this? What was his role?

Tammy Hein 26:24

He went to work and made sure that we had what we needed fixed and running when basically I would break things.

Timmy Eaton 26:32

Yeah.

Tammy Hein 26:33

So yeah, background support is hugely important because you can't do things if you don't have a team,

Timmy Eaton 26:39

right?

Tammy Hein 26:40

So it doesn't always mean that your team is front and center.

Timmy Eaton 26:45

Yeah. There's different roles.

Tammy Hein 26:45

I wouldn't exactly. It's, is the roles. And we have become a society, I think, of disconnected roles. People have forgotten that there must be someone in that role. Every role is important.

Timmy Eaton 26:59

I agree. It's like any, it's like a sports team. It's every position, every player makes a difference.

Tammy Hein 27:04

It's the spokes of a wheel. Every piece is important. I used to explain to people who would, make a little bit fun of homeschooling and cut down, they have some negative thoughts about that.

Timmy Eaton 27:18

Yeah.

Tammy Hein 27:18

And I would say, wasn't it Toronto that found out in about three days that the most important person was the garbage man?

Timmy Eaton 27:26

Yeah, seriously.

Tammy Hein 27:27

It only took about three days, but they figured out who was the most important person when they broke the chain, right?

Timmy Eaton 27:34

Yep.

Tammy Hein 27:34

And that was my way of telling them every role has value. If you have a garbage man who is the best garbage man in the world, and he picks everything up and he's cheerful and he's joyful and everything's on time and your bins are treated well, that's a win. I would rather have a cheerful garbage man than, a high level CEO that's miserable.

Timmy Eaton 27:56

It's like you said, every role is important. And what was your husband's thought when you actually said, okay, we're actually gonna do the homeschool thing full on. Was he like into it or did he have reservations or was he on board or did you guys do that together?

Tammy Hein 28:07

That was a, Oh no, that was a, my decision. And there was support in the way of, okay, I believe you can do this. Let me hold all of these other things so you can.

Timmy Eaton 28:19

Yeah. And that comes back to what we just said, right? Like that, those roles are essential to be able to carry it out in a way that you want to.

Tammy Hein 28:26

Exactly. And he was wise enough to know that where his role was and let me do my role and that it worked really well. I couldn't have done it without the support. I should have given a lot more credit, or thought beforehand to how that would actually impact all of my support. Yeah. Hindsight is 2020.

Timmy Eaton 28:47

You live and you learn. And so one thing I was wondering for you were there times where you, as the mother and the principal educator at home, were you thinking Were there times where you felt overwhelmed and needed ways to fill your bucket? And if you, and if so what did you do? Like, how did you. How did you like stay motivated to to do that? Cause that is that's quite a bit extra, the education was with you.

Tammy Hein 29:08

But because I had done this for so long in this way, I didn't change what I was doing. We simply stopped sending her to a place for six or eight hours a day. So we shifted all of those energies and resources into doing things slower at home. Adding different components that would enrich her day, enrich her life, but it was enriching mine as well. So by doing more things together in our life, which is where the learning was, I didn't have that. I didn't feel overwhelmed with the education component.

Timmy Eaton 29:47

Yeah, it sounds like it was like win win.

Tammy Hein 29:49

It absolutely was. And when we got tired of arguing over whether the balloon should go up or down we would go to the garden or we would go out to the horse pen, we'd go get a different horse. We could just switch what we were doing and chain activities. But the energy and the learning and the joy of learning never stopped. We just would move it when we got a little bit done with something, we'd move on to something else. Just if you're in a house and you're house cleaning, you get tired of cleaning the kitchen go clean a bathroom or go do something else. There's always something else you can do, but the learning never stops.

Timmy Eaton 30:23

And that's one thing I was going to ask you about is this uh, well, let me ask you two things. Like one, I was thinking do you imagine if you had let's say three more kids under your daughter, Would that have taken more of a toll? Or do you think you had already been in this rhythm that it would have just been the next kid? It

Tammy Hein 30:38

would have just been the next kid. So we actually took in other people's kids. So when she graduated, I took all of the homeschooling, the desks, right? Things out of the house. And then that fall moved all them and six more in because we hosted a homeschooling co op through COVID. And they did farm school at our place. So she moved right into the role of mentor.

Timmy Eaton 31:04

That's so cool. That's really cool.

Tammy Hein 31:07

It was a great experience.

Timmy Eaton 31:08

And you said that how she works so well with youth. Now, I can only imagine that was a precursor and a, a learning experience for her to prepare her for what she would be doing in the future.

Tammy Hein 31:19

It was a natural flow. It was a natural order of things when you look at how children would grow up and become involved in work in projects, there is learning, there is observing, there is trying, there is hand over handing, and then there is the adult now observing them and supervising. Until they, they have it and then they run with it, regardless what that, that work is. This just became the next thing to do. You've just finished this kind of a program and these kinds of things. Hey, these kids need a place. They're scared. Families don't know what to do. None of them have homeschooled before, but we've been there. So walk along with us.

Timmy Eaton 32:03

Wow. And what a blessing to those families for sure. I was thinking when you're talking about the balloon and you go out to the garden and everything you've been saying about animals and equine and I'm just wondering what difference does this being outside and being with like life but really particularly this idea of outdoors, what difference did that make to the education and the living of your family? It

Tammy Hein 32:25

is, it has made all the difference. Being connected with nature. It means that you have to assess and judge and make decisions all the time. You have to look forward, you have to look back, your spatial awareness, your judgment in am I going to make hay today in the snow or should I make hay, when it's more appropriate. You learn all of those things. Being outside in the fresh air, grounding, all of the things that we have studies now showing and encouraging people to get back outside into the nature connection. We lived and we knew it. We just didn't know what it was called.

Timmy Eaton 33:05

And did you have like tech ideas and things? Phone, I don't wanna say rules, but I'm saying, was that just a natural thing for you to be disconnected that way? Or what was your involvement with like technology using the internet and education the kids having phones at certain periods, that kind of stuff. How did those two influence each other? Like your emphasis on the outdoors. And your use of tech.

Tammy Hein 33:27

So with the outdoors we had spent years trying to figure out how to communicate between the barn and the house.

Timmy Eaton 33:33

I think

Tammy Hein 33:33

I've got every walkie talkie and, intercom, none of them were effective. Cell phones are wonderful for that. Especially when you pair it with a Bluetooth. Now I can do all kinds of things. And so can she, and we can communicate while we're in different fields. It's wonderful to blend your technology and have it serve you.

Timmy Eaton 33:52

Yes.

Tammy Hein 33:53

The balance is. Is that serving you, or are you serving it?

Timmy Eaton 33:58

So

Tammy Hein 33:59

when it would become the distraction, and now we're sitting in the field scrolling on our phones, you have to put boundaries around that.

Timmy Eaton 34:06

That's right.

Tammy Hein 34:07

But being able to recognize that, recognizing that I don't feel good. My head hurts because I'm squinting. Oh, I've been looking at my phone all day. You miss that connection to your horse, right? Your animals are seeking your attention. It breaks your focus on your phone or on the technology and brings you back into reality. So it can give you a very strong nature connection. And it doesn't matter how much we want to mess with nature. Nature is nature.

Timmy Eaton 34:36

You can't change

Tammy Hein 34:37

when the sun comes up and it goes down. If there is things that you need to tend to in the daylight you could go get a headlamp or you could just adjust your expectations and do the things in the daylight that you should do in the daylight.

Timmy Eaton 34:50

Yeah. No, I like that. That natural way of living. And then just like inside, like at night. Were your kids, were you and your husband like careful about time on television and movies and gaming, that kind of stuff, or was that just not something your kids did?

Tammy Hein 35:05

It was just, we always had all the Disney movies. We've never had cable or a satellite, TV per se. We've always had just what we could get on the rabbit ears. Yeah. So it was limited. And. The kids would get bored with TV and they'd want to go do something else. They were, they like to build things, they like to create. I did a lot of laundry because they, they built a lot of forts. with everything out of the linen closet. They just, they did things. Some of the things people now, don't think is very wise, but they really learned how to adjust and find their balance points and their risk points

Timmy Eaton 35:42

and save

Tammy Hein 35:42

themselves. They learned how to save themselves. And it's wonderful.

Timmy Eaton 35:46

Yeah. I think it is too. I've talked a lot about just doing things with risk because that just informs so many things that you do in the future. I've talked to my brother in law about this. He he owns a a landscaping business. And he said so many of the risks and even the mischief he was involved in his earlier years have led to his entrepreneurial spirit of and his I might be inhibited by, what people think and all that, but he was pretty uninhibited because he took those risks and went after things. So I do like that.

Tammy Hein 36:15

And he had that, he would have gotten that internalized, I can do this. It doesn't matter what you think. I know myself and I know what I can do.

Timmy Eaton 36:22

Oh, and we don't cultivate that in the schools. And that's not a, that's not a criticism as much as it is an observation and my own experience. And I know that's not across the board, but it's common that we're not cultivating curiosity and certainly not entrepreneurship in that same way. We just don't teach that way because of the way the school is and set up and students but it's a shame. Yeah.

Tammy Hein 36:44

That's not something I feel we can teach. It is something we must hold space for and allow to develop.

Timmy Eaton 36:49

Yeah, that's great. Y'all I'm glad you said that. Homeschooling is looked at as unconventional and it is compared to what we call is, compulsory education, but yours is even unique within the homeschooling realm because your experience was unique and everybody's is. But what would you say to new families that are homeschooling that are overwhelmed like today? I always say this, but there's so much curriculum and there's so many things in different ways and types of homeschooling and, unschooling and just tons of different ways to approach it. So what would you say to a new family? That's Hey, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I know I want to do this, but what do I do? And how do I go about this? What's your advice?

Tammy Hein 37:28

This was actually my daughter she is now homeschooling my grandchildren. And she had that pretty much same question, do what you know, live your life, get a little more organized, make sure that you're breathing a lot and slowly and do the things that you know to do and do them well, everything else will come. We are in this rush, we're in a hurry all the time to meet an expectation that someone else has placed on us. And in our homes. And that's the hardest piece to internalize. In your home, you are in charge. It doesn't matter what someone else says this expectation needs to be. You know your children. You know your home. Slow down, include them, and breathe. Everything else will find a way, because they'll ask. All of a sudden, they'll start asking questions, and then you can give them knowledge. If they're not asking, they're not willing. So you have to cultivate that calm curiosity. It is good for them to get bored. Let them get bored. Boredom is facilitated by parents who don't interfere. And then they get curious and then they take over the learning themselves. So breathe. I would say, come to the farm, put your feet up, watch them jump off the bales, they'll learn things.

Timmy Eaton 38:43

And that's a perfect segue into what I was wanting to ask. I just feel like my audience should know about gentle giant acres dot CA and just what you offer. And so maybe just give people a little bit of background because we've intertwined it in this discussion, but you Just like what they can find on your website. And also just like how people can get in contact with you as far as what you offer and the business that you're running. And I'm hesitant to even say business. Cause I know, like you said, it's more like this natural way of this homestead turned into like a a place of therapy.

Tammy Hein 39:11

It has been a growth and an ecosystem that has grown on its own. And as we meet more need. You it just it grows itself. So there was people that needed places for their animals to go. So we had the experience. We took them in. Now we have to feed them. How do we create a job for that animal so that it can contribute to the economy of the place and everything comes in and has a place and a role. So we have taken our animals from our livestock herds and turn them more into educational ambassadors. Because they're hand raised their bottle raised so they can provide interactions for people to experience pieces of that living ecosystem without having to buy the farm and live it for 30 years. So we've been able to take our environment and just open it up and we run different programs. We've run, like I said, the homeschooling co op was there for a whole school year and they did an hour a day of writing lesson, an hour a day of farm school, which is all of your life cycles and science and health, critical thinking, and an hour a day of personal development. And then they would take that. Which they learned in their personal development and give it back to the community. So throughout COVID, they went and they did the visits with families and seniors when no one else could go out and do things because we were outdoors. So all of this comes together and all of those components, we run preschool. camps from preschool to 17 years old. We are looking at including adult camps because a lot of the moms really want to come to camp and learn how to spin and work with the wool that we produce on the farm. So all of the components of that life are still there. We preserved them and now We have people come and be able to experience that and get the grounding within it. So we have a lot of different programs and they are continually evolving. As more people show up that fit into the network, into the ecosystem, we grow more programs. We've had a request for a farm school to come back. We have people with young children that want, a program where they can bring their kids and they can experience real hands on collecting of their food back to nature. And we've taken the risks out because we understand those as well. The critical risks, but left the learning risks.

Timmy Eaton 41:40

Yeah. Good, good. And are your kids helping with this?

Tammy Hein 41:43

This is a family enterprise. Yes.

Timmy Eaton 41:46

All of your children are around to do that or

Tammy Hein 41:49

so the grandkids are living quite far away, but they come back very often. And they spent most of the summer with us. So when we go out and we do our mobile events, and we take our farm to community events as a petting zoo, the grandkids are able to educate people. About how to interact with them appropriately. They set the example. They do guided tours when people come to the farm. It's amazing.

Timmy Eaton 42:14

That is awesome.

Tammy Hein 42:16

They are participating in the same way that I was raised. Oh, that's gotta be

Timmy Eaton 42:22

that's gotta be so fulfilling to see that just continuing with your children and your grandchildren. That's, it is.

Tammy Hein 42:27

It's good to know that. The skills, the knowledge of how to do that will be passed on. And we include other families who are willing, we're looking for our community and people keep showing up.

Timmy Eaton 42:39

Oh it's been a great conversation with Tammy Hein. I just want to say again, like for people to check out gentlegiantacres. ca and Tammy, if people do have questions, are you reachable personally, or is it more just like just go on the website and, and call us? Do contacts that way.

Tammy Hein 42:54

Oh, you can contact through the website. We've got email, text. There's a telephone number on there. Cool. Gets you directly to me most of the time.

Timmy Eaton 43:01

All

Tammy Hein 43:02

right.

Timmy Eaton 43:02

That's perfect. Again, thank you so much for taking time. We really appreciate the conversation and learning from your experience.

Tammy Hein 43:08

Thank you so much. I appreciate you

Timmy Eaton 43:09

having

Tammy Hein 43:10

me.

Timmy Eaton 43:10

Have

Tammy Hein 43:10

a

Timmy Eaton 43:10

wonderful evening.

Tammy Hein 43:11

Okay, bye now.

Timmy Eaton 43:15

That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.