Homestead Chaos & The Sunset Market

A Tennessee homestead can feel like Little House on the Prairie one minute and a high-tech control room the next, and today I’m giving you the honest, boots-on-the-ground update from the middle of it all. It’s Mother’s Day, I’m planting the garden and packaging chickens, and I’m trying to keep my head on straight while contractors come and go and the farm keeps moving.

I walk through the new idea I’m launching in June: a Sunset Farmers Market on our farm. Think string lights, food trucks, and live music, built for one reason, community. I’m not charging vendors and I’m not trying to make a profit. I want a welcoming place for neighbors to gather, support local makers, and slow down in real life, especially when so many people feel disconnected.

Then we get practical with homesteading systems: tomatoes and peppers going in, weed barrier and hilled rows, and an eight-foot deer fence to protect the garden. I share what’s working with chickens, including processing updates and why I had to fence in free-ranging birds to keep the milking area clean. We also talk rotational grazing basics, resting pasture, building soil fertility with chicken tractors, and the long-game mindset it takes to improve land.

On the preparedness side, I break down the Flojak hand-crank well pump install, plus a solar generator setup that can keep my milk chill tank cold during outages. I also address the pushback I got for using AI to make a flyer, why I’m taking a ChatGPT class for streamlining my small farm business, and a quick personal health update as I ease into menopause.

If you enjoy real talk about homesteading, preparedness, natural living, and building community, subscribe, share this with a friend, and PLEASE leave a review so more folks can find us.

Transcript

Mother’s Day And Farm Chaos

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey y'all, and welcome to Keeping It Real, the Gorham Homestead podcast, where we talk about real food, real natural living, the real art of natural healing, and real life out here in our Tennessee Homestead. I'm your host, Don Gorham, and today is Sunday, May the 10th, 2026. And this is episode number 26. First of all, this is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all you mamas out there. Um, I hope that you have a wonderful day. What I have planned for today is that we are going to finish planting the garden and packaging chickens. Because even though I have six children, historically, I have not don't normally see my kids on Mother's Day. They have other obligations and things to do. So the last few years, I've just started planning stuff on Mother's Day, work projects, and that keeps me busy and and I enjoy it and I'm doing something that I like. So it works out, it's all good. It has been absolute chaos around here this past week. I mean, there are contractors coming and going, chickens getting moved around, fences going up, trees coming down, garden planting happening, radios charging, and somewhere in the middle of all that, I am still milking cows and trying to remember if I brushed my teeth or not. Just kidding. Always remember to brush my teeth. But I told somebody the other day, sometimes I feel like I have one foot living in a little house on the prairie. Like I know truly I am Laura Ingalls at heart, but I'm also a little bit like George Jetson. Like I like the technology, I like things my you know friends have laughed and called me a high-tech redneck, and that was 20 years ago because I was very excited when the Apple phone came out and the Apple Watch and you know, all of the things I love technology, I think it's super cool, but I also like kind of at the extreme on both ends. I really like like the super primitive, most simple way of doing a thing as well. So I'm a little bit weird like that, but sort of I feel like that's what homesteading is kind of about nowadays. It's like finding where you fit, finding what technology works for you, finding what how you want to do the thing, and if you have time to do the thing, you know, the way that that you want to. And I love it. Well, you know, one minute you're planting tomatoes, and the next minute you're like researching solar backup systems and hand well pumps. Those are two opposite ends of the spectrum because you know the world's kind of gotten weird. So I just want to jump right in. I've looking at my notes, jump right in today and give y'all a big homestead update. Um, because like I said, there is so much happening around here right now. But first things first, I'm impulsive. Everybody knows that I'm impulsive. But when I say I'm gonna do something, I jump in and even if I haven't thought it through to its logical conclude logical conclusion, uh, nine times out of ten, I can make the thing happen. And I do my best work when I don't have time to think about something and get nervous about it, overanalyze it, all of that sort

Launching A Sunset Farmers Market

SPEAKER_00 3:36

of thing. So on a whim, I decided that here on our farm starting in June, we are going to do a Sunset Farmer's Market. It started because I was originally kicking around the idea of opening our farm on Saturdays to the general public and letting them come in and get, you know, things that are not milk related. Like I can't sell my dairy products to the general public, but we have bread products and we have other things that you know that I can sell, whole chickens and stuff like that. But I got to thinking, well, if I do that, why don't I open it up to other people? So then I was thinking I was going to do the Saturday farmers market and just let, you know, a few other vendors come in and sell their stuff too, so there'd be more to offer, like more things for the people who are coming. Well, that seemed like a really good idea, and I kind of put that out there, and then I got some feedback that number one, that kind of conflicted with the Dixon farmers market that happens on Saturday mornings, and we don't want to take business or conflict with them in any way because you know we love our other farmers as well, so we don't want to conflict with that. And some people said it's summer, a nighttime market when it cools off would be a lot of fun, and so I got to thinking about that and kicking it around in my head and looking at some pictures of some other people's nighttime markets and things like that, and I was like, yes, this is what we're doing, and it's not a moneymaker for me. I'm gonna have to pay to have porta potties put out here out of my own pocket. I'm not charging vendors, I'm not charging anybody for anything. This is strictly a community-building project for me. I want to provide another way for, I don't know, maybe people who can't get into the farmers market because that place is highly political. And if they don't want you there, you don't get a spot. And, you know, that's kind of not fair. So I'm trying to, you know, have another avenue where those people who are here in Dixon could have to sell their things. And for instance, like I couldn't get into the farmer's market because I'm a raw milk person and they don't allow raw milk. Again, politics. So anybody that wants to sell their stuff here, they can they can come and do it. We're gonna have live music and we're gonna string some of those cool little nighttime porch lights out on the big porch, you know, maybe run them across to the trees, make it seem really cool. And hopefully it'll just be a good time. It'll be a place where oh, and we're gonna have food trucks. I've already got a couple of food trucks confirmed so that people can get something to eat while they're here. And that'll be it'll be just a good place for people to just kind of relax, talk, socialize, buy from vendors, and just slow down for a minute because you know, my my vision is not just like a place for people to just come and buy things. That's not really what I'm trying to build. I want it to feel like community. I want people like out here under the string lights with kids running around and music playing and you know, people talking to each other because I think people are starving for that. Everybody's disconnected now, everybody's staring at screens, and then of course you look in the news and here comes another scary virus narrative to like stir people up and make people more afraid of other people and make them afraid of going to places and being in public venues and things like that. And I think people miss gathering in real life, and that's that's really what I want for people. I also think that evenings are smarter just because you know that Tennessee heat will literally melt your eyebrows off at two o'clock in the afternoon. So by six o'clock, it's kind of cooling down around here. And if we do it from six to nine, people can actually enjoy themselves. And I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to it. I know it's gonna be a lot of work, and I know midway through it I'm gonna be what like, why did I do this? And I'm never doing this again, and then it'll roll around again, and I'll be like, Oh, yeah, we're doing the farmer's market again because that's just how I roll. We're gonna do the kids' farmer's market again in September. That was so much fun. Uh, so this will kind of lead me into that. Uh, maybe some of these little kids will come back for that. Plus, I mean, it's just it's just a good thing for me to feel like I like to feel like I'm contributing to the community and I'm giving back to the community that supports me. And this is what this is the way I feel like I can do it.

Garden Planting And Deer Defense

SPEAKER_00 8:42

So, next on the updates, uh, we'll start with the garden. We are finally getting things planted. I planted some things last night when it cools down. Thank goodness my garden is in a spot where from about five o'clock on, it is shaded by big trees. We get plenty of daytime sun, but evening working in the garden is like the primo time. Um, so I'm very thankful for that. I got all my tomatoes planted, some of my peppers planted. We've got the weed barrier put down and healed a bunch of rows. Like we're making like big mounded rows down the center. I mean, I know it's later than I wanted to be. And, you know, I'm not gonna stress myself into an early grave over it. Because one thing that homesteading has taught me is that life does not care about my planner. I'm very married to my planner, y'all. Very. My calendars have calendars, my notebooks have notebooks. It is just one of those things where I'm a writer, I'm a planner. And I'd say 90% of it I stick to maybe 80%. Maybe 80%. 20% of it just keeps getting moved week to week to week to week, and it either doesn't get done or I kind of realize it wasn't as important as I thought it was. But you know, sometimes you spend half your day chasing chickens and you don't get the thing done that you thought you were going to get done, but we're making progress. And one of the big upcoming projects that we have, as soon as we get this planted and get all the weed barrier and everything down, right now we have a temporary fencing around the garden with just that old poultry netting that we had for the chickens. But we have purchased and is here in boxes, Deerbuster's eight-foot fence. And I've talked a little bit about that in a previous episode, but I'm really excited to get that installed. And part of it is going to be opened up to where, or not opened up, but it's going to have a gate where we can open it up to the chickens once we're done with the summer garden. We can let the chickens in, let that be extra space for them. They can scratch and do their thing, and that way it'll just be a really good way to do that. And hopefully we can keep the deer out. Because I'm telling you, these deer around here, y'all, they act like they pay my property taxes. They just come and go as they please. They eat what they want. Even with my dogs out, sometimes the deer just they're just not afraid. They just do what they want to do. Let me catch up to where I'm at. All right. Oh, the plan is that we're going to cover crop. So when we're done with gardening season this year, we plan to for the first time ever uh put in a cover crop of some sort. I don't know if we're gonna do winter peas or we're gonna do clover or whatever, but we're gonna do something to keep weeds from growing up, number one, because that was a nightmare. And number two, to continue to build fertility in that soil. That's the direction that we're going right now. We love systems. We're trying to layer everything together and overlap things so that these systems work together.

Processing Chickens And Fixing Fences

SPEAKER_00 12:09

And speaking of chickens, just so y'all know, Kale started processing chickens yesterday. I think he's got 40 done that he got done, 30 or 40. So we do have chickens available now. So you can reserve yours over at thegoramhomestead.com. If you are interested in getting chickens from us, he is we can get them for you whole. He can part them out. He's doing breast, he's doing tenders, he's doing thighs, he's doing spatchcock if you want it. However, you want your chicken cut up, he can do that for you. He's he's really good at that stuff, so yeah. So I'm glad to be getting part of that finished up and getting those chickens off pasture. But let me tell you something else about chickens. Getting my laying hens and my roosters to stay where I want them to stay has apparently become my own personal Olympic event this year. I have chased chickens all over this place and ducks and any other kind of poultry that you can think of, but I think knock on wood. I think we finally solved the issue. We put up a six-foot fence and they finally seem to understand that this is where they live. So I'm really hoping, but and it's not that I don't want free-range chickens, they didn't bother me as far as being around the property. What scared me was I did not want them in my milking area. And as long as my milking area is open air and the chickens can get back there to it, I don't want them out free ranging because I was having to spray and spray and spray and spray constantly to keep that area clean because I didn't want any sort of contamination from chickens being back there. So that is the reason for that. If I didn't have a dairy, I would just let them go, let them free range, spray off the porch, whatever. But I just cannot do that with any potential for you know contamination of the milk or anything like that. So they have a pretty decent size run. I mean, they're fenced in in a pretty good size area, so it's not bad. They got plenty of room to roam and do whatever it is that chickens do. We have chicken, yeah. I told you we have chicken tractors out on pasture. And Kale built three new chicken tractors this year, and we are we have fenced off an area where we're running them up and then running them back and trying to build fertility in that soil with the chicken tractors. And then with that same process, we've also finally sectioned off a dry lot on the front end closest to the house for the for the cows, and we're feeding them hay right now to let the grass grow a little bit because I don't have currently don't have cross fencing. All I have is perimeter fencing. So they were putting a a lot of pressure on the pasture and just kind of eating their dessert first. They ate what they wanted to eat and left the rest. So at least this way they're eating all the grass that in the section that they're on. And I also have hay supplemented just in case. So we wanted to make sure that they get plenty of forage, plenty of good stuff, but at the same time, we don't want them running all over the pasture. Um we're trying to think longer term, like I've said before, I want to leave this place better than I found it. And so we're trying to rotate, rest, build soil, improve the forage, and that's taking a lot of patience, which is not my forte. I like to see like results quickly. That's that's why I like vacuuming. Vacuuming is one of those things where like you clean the floor, you mop the floor, the floor is clean, and you see that the floor is clean. So it it I like that instant gratification, but homesteading sometimes just does not give you that. You have to take your time and let the things uh do what nature does.

Rotational Grazing And Soil Building

SPEAKER_00 16:23

But speaking of systems, we are thinking more sustainably and long term in more areas than just uh the the grounds as far as our preparedness. I'll give you our preparedness update. One of the things that we have done this past week, since you know, preparedness is a huge topic for me. I'm not just a homesteader, I'm also a prepared-minded person. So we got the flow jack hand crank well pump installed on our well head this week. And my neighbor across the street, God love him, came over and he's a like he's a plumber by trade. And he came over, and this thing was like 150 feet long. So the boys had to like stand on the tractor and one at the very end, like one in the middle, one at the well head, and they had to like feed this thing down into the well like 150 feet. I think my my well pump is sitting at 160 feet, and my actual bottom depth of my well is 175 feet, but my static water level is right at 100 feet. So this the way they did it, I think is perfect. We did not get to get it primed though, so we don't know yet if it actually works because the storm was coming, the boys ran out of time, they got it in, they got it installed, and you know, got every all the fittings fixed and all that kind of stuff. So hopefully one day this week we'll get out there and get that thing primed and see what it's like to try to pump it. And the hard part's done, you know, and it gives me a huge peace of mind. It's one of those things where I'm a big believer in redundancy because redundancy matters, backup systems matter, having layers matters. And honestly, that's why I get so excited about this stuff. Like I get really jacked up because it makes me happy to know that I have more than one way to do a thing. And speaking of that, also we purchased a solar generator in the last two months or so. And I may have talked about that a little bit, but the the reason that I got it was initially to charge small things like electronics. Like I wanted to be able to charge my Bale Fang radios, I wanted to be able to charge cell phones, headlamps, flashlights, rechargeable batteries, whatever we needed that was a like a small electronic, that's what I thought that would be the best for. And it is, it's great for that, but we had a little power outage that lasted, I don't know, six, seven hours. And generator on at the house came on, but you know, down here at the cannery, I have to worry about milk refrigerators and the chill tank and things of that nature. So on a whim, I just decided I'm gonna bring this little generator down here, this little solar generator, and see if it will actually run my chill tank with the comp when the compressor kicks on. And sure enough, we ran that thing and have discovered now that we can leave it, leave the generator plugged into the wall, the chill tank plugged into the generator, and if the power goes out, it's a seamless transition. So if nothing else, at least I don't have to worry about the milk that is in the chill tank dropping below 40 degrees. And that thing will run, we know, at least 12 hours, which covers most of my power outages around here. I don't, except for when the tornado came through, I don't remember ever being without power at our house for longer than 12 hours. Now my neighbors were out of power for over a week with the ice storm that came through, and that's a possibility, but we also have a a gas generator for down here. So if you know, if we need to run something more long term, we can do that. But at least this way, if I'm not home and the power goes out, that little plugged-in generator will just kick in and handle handle the chill tank. I'm thinking about adding one for the refrigerator that I have my customers' milk in just to have just one more little peace of mind until I can get a full-on built-in Generact generator down here on the cannery, which brings me to my next thing.

Backup Water And Power Systems

SPEAKER_00 21:08

I have contractors. Oh my goodness, I have four contractors coming this week. I've got a plumber coming, I've got my propane guy coming, I have got my contractor, my regular contractor that builds things coming, and I've got a tree guy coming. So there's lots, lots, lots going on and lots of chaos around here. My plumber's coming to fix my leaking frost-free spigot down in the chicken yard. It only leaks when it's on, but that's a problem for us because in the summer we like to turn it on and leave it on and put a timer on to water the garden. So that's what we're going. We're going to get that fixed so that we don't have to worry about leaking and causing my tank to run or my well pump to run constantly because of. Leak. So my propane guy, he's coming to move the propane tank off of the back porch because that is where I'm going to add another stanchion so that I can milk two cows at once. And I'm I cannot wait. I cannot wait to get that done. That is going to make my morning so much more efficient to be able to do that. But he's moving that tank. It's only a hundred-gallon tank because right now all I have hooked to it is my stove. But he is going to upgrade the line so that when I get ready to put in a generator down here, I can upgrade to another thousand-gallon tank, which is what we have up at the house. So I'll put another thousand-gallon tank down here and put that generic generator in down here as well. And then everything will be seamless. I won't have to worry about it. But that's going to be a really good. Plus, I also want to add like a tankless water heater down here. And that way that line is big enough that whatever gas or propane thing that I want to add will be set up for that. There won't be any more additions that we need to do. Tree guys coming. We've got several large dead trees in the pasture that I do not want to fall on my fence. They're red oaks. And so we we burn wood as our uh primary heat source in the winter. So my tree guy is coming to take those trees down for me. He's going to cut them up in manageable sections. And then we're going to split that wood, and that's going to be our firewood for the winter. So I'm very excited about getting that and getting that put into the wood pile. And for us, you know, having stacked wood is basically like having money stacked in the yard. And last but not least, I am so excited about this. My contractor is finally coming to completely close in the loft in the cannery. And the reason that I'm so excited about this is because when my kids come to visit, the cannery gets really busy and loud because I have customers coming and going all day. We're cooking, there's pots and pans clanging, the freeze dryer's running, the milk room, people are going in and out of. I may be podcasting, there may be projects happening. I may be teaching a class. And this building is literally the heartbeat of my business. It's the heartbeat of my farm. And I can't shut things down just because one of my kids is coming in town. So the only real solution that I came up with was to create a dedicated private guest room up there. And it's not going to be hard to do. It already has a half wall for safety. So all my contractor's going to have to do is just finish framing up that wall all the way to the ceiling. We're going to try to put some soundproof stuff in there, like you might use in a recording studio, just to kind of keep that echo down, because the cannery has a metal ceiling and concrete floors. So everything echoes and it's really loud. So hopefully, if we can get that soundproof done when my daughter's here with my grandbaby, you know, they can have some privacy and they can have some peace and quiet. And, you know, for me, as they say, at the end of the day, that's what really matters for me. That's what I'm trying to build here is something meaningful for the people that I love. I want my children to want to come here. I want my grandchildren to want to come here. So I want to make sure that the space is, it doesn't have to be fancy, but it needs to be comfortable and it needs to be quiet.

Contractors And Cannery Upgrades

SPEAKER_00 25:46

And some days everything around here feels extremely overwhelming. And some days I look around and I wonder what in the world I've gotten myself into. But then I step back and I kind of realize that what I'm building is layers and it takes time. I'm building layers of food security for myself and my children and my community, my neighbors. I'm building layers of preparedness for myself, for my children, for my neighbors. I'm building layers of family with my children and my grandchildren and you know, people that we kind of brought in and have uh become adopted family, layers of systems, everything overlapping, you know, having five ways to do a thing. Like I want five ways to get water, whether it's rainwater catchment, the well pump, a hand crank well pump, buckets from the creek with the Berkey water filter. I want multiple ways to do every single thing that keeps us alive and keeps the animals alive on our farm. And lastly, I'm building layers of community. That has been my mission ever since I've moved out here. Is excuse me, I have to have to have a drink of coffee. I wanted to build community like what I grew up with. I wanted that sense of neighborhood, of people helping each other, of farmers helping each other, of neighbors helping each other, and at least knowing who each other is. In some places, neighbors don't even know who their next door neighbor is, don't know their name, don't know anything about them. And that is not what I want. That's not what that's not going to sustain the world in the future. People have to know each other, they can't do everything alone. And I I enjoy that. I enjoy doing that's my love language. I enjoy doing things for other people. Not a big money money spender or a big gift giver. I'm not really good at giving gifts, but I will give you my time all day long, especially if you mean something to me. And time is something that is finite. I don't know how much of it I have, I don't know how much of it I have left. So when I give a person my time, that is giving the biggest gift that I have to give in my the way that I see the world in my love language. We're never really finished. We're always learning, always adapting, always building.

Using ChatGPT Despite The Backlash

SPEAKER_00 28:39

And my next step in building my business is I start tomorrow. Very excited about this with Chat GPT class, you know, the Become Dangerous with Chat GPT. And it's not about making graphics or making fake posts or anything like that. It's actually how to organize your business, to streamline things, to make your life better. And man, I have taken some flack this past week. I used AI to generate a flyer about the farmer's market that we're doing. And somebody who is posting as anonymous hopped on there and talked about how ironic it is that me being a homesteader and I'm using AI to generate a graphic and they're killing all the farmlands with these data centers and blah, blah, blah, blah. And and then I had a little musician girl that was going to come to the farmer's market, and she sent me an email the next morning after that guy had accosted me on Facebook saying that she was withdrawing her application for singing at the farmer's market because she was morally opposed to the fact that I used AI to generate the farmer's flyer, the farmer's market flyer. That is probably the biggest shoot yourself in the foot thing that I've ever seen anybody do. And so my only response back to her was your information has been withdrawn. Because I just don't have time for people like that. I'm not dealing with it. It is what it is. AI is neither moral nor immoral. It is a tool, it is a thing, and it is to be used no different than email, cell phones, electricity, any other tool. And by those people's logic, I guess anybody with a cell phone is responsible for EMF problems. Anybody that's using electricity is responsible for pollution. Anybody that's driving a diesel truck is responsible for the depletion of fossil fuels. I mean, come on. This is me using AI for my little business or for myself personally is not hurting anything and it's not making a difference at all in the use of AI. That is more corporations and big people using lots and lots and lots and lots of data. So I'm not gonna worry about it. I am not gonna be left behind. I am going to learn how to use it because it's gonna be like anything else. When the time comes, everybody else is going to be knowing how to use this tool. And the people who don't know how to use this tool are just gonna be left in the dust. And that's okay. I'm not worried about those people.

Menopause Support And Morning Supplements

SPEAKER_00 31:48

The last thing I really want to talk about is what I've added to my health regimen. So, like a health update. And I'm fairly healthy, I've told you all that, but I am getting and before I say this, let me just say I'm making no claims. I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. Speak to your doctor before you do anything. This is just me and my personal experience, but I am gradually easing in to menopause. At least I think I am. I I feel like I am, although I'm not having just a whole lot of symptoms. So one of the things that I've done to try to help ease that is I've added two drops of colloidal iodine to my morning coffee with two scoops of collagen and one scoop of MSM. And then on the side, I've added two raw Brazilian nuts. Now, let me just say my doctor only advised me to do the iodine drops. And he said, put it in water, I'm putting it in coffee. So that that is what it is. But I decided after some research that personally for me at my age that I probably needed to balance out that iodine with some selenium. And Brazilian nuts are a really good natural food source for selenium. So I have added that to my morning routine. You know, we can, I'm gonna talk about my what I'm doing personally for this stage of my life in an upcoming episode. I'm not gonna go into all of that today. Men, you can probably just skip that one. But, you know, it could be helpful. It might have some little info nuggets in there if you want to, you know, if you have a pre-menopausal woman in your life and you need some tips and tricks, or maybe you want to pass along some tips and tricks to her, I'll talk about that. And I think I'm just gonna do a whole episode on that because that's where I am in life. That's what's going on with me. And I'm 51, and like I said, I really don't have a whole lot of symptoms, but I think it's because of what I'm doing. So we will chat about that next episode.

Keep It Real Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 34:07

And I've been on here, whoo, been on here for 35 minutes. I just I'm gonna go ahead and wrap this up. Turn in or tune in next week to see the updates, and I'll give you all the homestead updates of what's going on. If you want to order chickens, please go on the website and reserve your whole chickens, or if you want some parted out, email me and let me know. I hope you enjoyed today's homestead update episode. There's like I said, there's a lot happening around here, but I wouldn't trade this life for anything. Sometimes I get stressed out, sometimes I feel like I I can't do it all. And then I have to realize I can't do it all. I don't have to do it all. I can do what I can do, and then I move on. And I hope that if you're homesteading or you're just venturing out in your journey to natural living, I hope that you understand that you don't have to do everything all the time. Just do what you can. Bake a loaf of bread, buy some eggs from a farmer, whatever little thing it is that you can do to improve one thing in your life will make a difference because the next week you add another thing, and the next week you add another thing, and you just take it one little thing at a time. So, to my babies and grandbabies, I love you big. So, so big. I hope you listen to this someday. Whatever y'all have on the docket today, y'all just remember you gotta keep it real. I'll see y'all around here next week. Have a good one.

Outro Music

SPEAKER_02 35:53

My daddy was a top pet laying all the local club. And my mama was a picket with it up and make it We didn't have much money.