Permaculture Homesteading Chat with author Angela Farraro-Fanning

Welcome back to The Coop with Meyer Hatchery!
On this episode our host Linda has special guest Angela Ferraro-Fanning, joining us to discuss her writing and her permaculture homestead in New Jersey. Angela is the author of "A Little Homesteader: A Winter Treasury of Recipes, Crafts and Wisdom."

Angela shares her journey into sustainable farming and permaculture, as well as her passion for living in harmony with nature. She discusses her self-taught approach to farming and the evolution of her homestead into a permaculture farm, where every element contributes to the greater ecosystem.

As the conversation unfolds, Angela delves into the inspiration behind her "Little Homesteader" book series, aimed at promoting seasonal living and connecting families with the food they eat. She highlights the importance of children understanding where their food comes from and engaging in hands-on experiences, regardless of their living situation.

Angela also discusses her other books, "The Sustainable Homestead" and "The Harvest Table Cookbook," sharing insights into sustainable farming practices and plant-based recipes inspired by homegrown produce.

This episode is a great one to contribute to your ongoing journey of learning and hear about Angela's passion for sharing knowledge about permaculture and sustainable living.

Thank you for tuning in to The Coop.
And remember, life is good because we have chickens, ducks, and geese.

Transcript

00;00;07;18 - 00;00;37;05
Host - Linda
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Coop with Meyer Hatchery, where we talk all things poultry in hopes of educating chicken keepers and inspiring future flock owners. I'm Linda. Today we have a special guest, Angela Ferraro-Fanning. She's joining us to talk about her writing and the Axe and Root Homestead, her small permaculture homestead in New Jersey. Angela is the author of A Little Homesteader A Winter Treasury of Recipes, Crafts and Wisdom.

00;00;37;07 - 00;01;01;19
Host - Linda
There are also spring, summer and fall book titles to complete the series into the also wrote The Sustainable Homestead Create a thriving permaculture ecosystem with your garden, Animals and Land, and coauthored The Harvest Table, a collection of seasonal plant based recipes inspired by the home garden from the kitchens of AX and Root Homestead and Azur Farm with Annette Thurman.

00;01;01;21 - 00;01;11;10
Host - Linda
Welcome, Angela, and thank you for joining us. We'd like to start by asking how did you become interested in sustainable farming and permaculture?

00;01;11;12 - 00;01;40;03
Guest Angela
I have always been very interested in living a greener lifestyle. Before I was a farmer and a grower, I actually had an eco friendly graphic design business. So living a sustainable lifestyle that is in alignment with nature has always been really important to me. It only made sense that when I got into growing my own food and raising animals and then ultimately creamy, creating a permaculture farm that I would carry those values through to those endeavors.

00;01;40;04 - 00;01;48;05
Guest Angela
And so permaculture and sustainable farming just seems like the obvious fit for me.

00;01;48;07 - 00;01;56;09
Host - Linda
We love hearing how people got started. Having said that, what would you like to tell us about yourself and your farm?

00;01;56;12 - 00;02;20;17
Guest Angela
I did not grow up on a farm. I actually am completely self-taught. I have always been an avid ornamental gardener, but segueing into growing produce was something that I heavily became invested in about ten, 12, maybe even 13 years ago. From there, it snowballed into growing as much of my own food as possible, tapping trees for sirup, keeping bees for honey.

00;02;20;17 - 00;02;52;17
Guest Angela
But now I become a permaculture farmer, which means that everything that I incorporate contributes to the greater whole. So I don't really focus on bees for honey. Now I'm keeping them for their pollination contribution alongside attracting native pollinators to try to increase the yields by pollinating all of our plants. I keep ducks because we live in a wet climate, and so I want waterfowl to help assist with eradicating our snails and slugs, pill bugs and other pests that infect our growing spaces.

00;02;52;20 - 00;03;10;29
Guest Angela
We keep geese to act as alarm calls for those ducks. So if they see hawks or something in the sky or, you know, an intruder of some type, they sound their alarm. We also keep them as leaders to help in our growing spaces and they help to eat weeds that our sheep and our horses don't eat in our pastures.

00;03;11;01 - 00;03;35;22
Guest Angela
We have a livestock guardian dog that protects all of the birds so they can free range and forage. 24 seven. We have draft horses to help with manure and then to ride, and then we have them for plowing or pulling services. And then I have sheep and the sheep help to keep the horses healthy. And the way that the sheep and the horses do that together is most people don't realize that livestock parasites are host specific.

00;03;35;22 - 00;03;56;27
Guest Angela
So when the sheep graze, they are eating different parts of forage that the horses don't necessarily eat, and they're also ingesting parasitic eggs and larva that would ultimately want to infect a horse. But since the sheep is ingesting them and that's not the desired host, they die. And so that protects our horses from those parasites. And then in exchange, the horses actually do the exact same thing.

00;03;56;28 - 00;04;19;02
Guest Angela
They disrupt the parasitic lifestyle of the parasites that would infect the sheep. So we have this closed loop rotational grazing system. So nothing that comes here to the farm is here because it's cute or cuddly. Granted, they all are, but they all perform a certain service or a function. This is a historic homestead. It was established in 1775 in central New Jersey.

00;04;19;05 - 00;04;25;21
Guest Angela
I took it over about eight or nine years ago and it is entirely based on permaculture practices. Since then.

00;04;25;24 - 00;04;35;01
Host - Linda
You certainly have a lot going on to keep you busy on the farm with all that you're doing. Why did you decide to write the little homesteader books?

00;04;35;03 - 00;05;02;19
Guest Angela
I had posted a lot of family friendly homesteading content on my Instagram feed for my farm acts and Homestead, and as a result, a publisher actually reached out to me and said that they thought that I would be a good fit for creating a seasonal series, one book to reflect each season that would help families, whether they live in an apartment high rise in the middle of a major metropolitan area, or whether they have a thousand acres and a ton of animals.

00;05;02;21 - 00;05;28;10
Guest Angela
It would help these families to get into a seasonal living mindset. And as a permaculture farmer and homesteader, I am hugely dependent on weather patterns. And so the way that I eat, the way that my day is scheduled, the care and the chores of how into the routines I go through to take care of my animals, everything is seasonal based.

00;05;28;13 - 00;05;48;26
Guest Angela
And so they really wanted me to take these ideas and put them into a book that would be attractive to people regardless of where or how they live. And so I wanted to create something that was engaging for adults. They could learn something that that was also illustrated and that would be really eye catching and fun for children to participate in.

00;05;48;29 - 00;05;59;29
Host - Linda
I'm glad they approached you to write the book. Thank you for writing it and sharing your passion with upcoming generations, no matter where they might be. What else are you hoping to teach our youth from your books?

00;06;00;03 - 00;06;41;01
Guest Angela
I think a lot of people think that in order to live closer to the land, you have to have a ton of land. And I think it's really important, especially for younger generations, to know where their food comes from and to have some sort of a connection with that or to land regardless of their physical dwelling. So somebody in an apartment high rise could still go to a u-pick farm, collect strawberries, for example, and go home and make jam and know that that jam, those strawberries were produced in the late spring or early summer, depending on your climate or where you live or your growing zone.

00;06;41;03 - 00;07;04;25
Guest Angela
And then have the hands on experience of turning that fruit that was harvested with their own hands from the ground into something that they could eat and preserve, and that can ultimately be put on their table. I want to make these connections between food coming out of the ground, the process of harvesting and preparing or preserving and then ultimately consumption.

00;07;04;26 - 00;07;26;17
Guest Angela
I think that there is so much gratification, pride and a sense of accomplishment that comes through all of those steps. And I think you can even take it a step further by encouraging children to grow something simple in a windowsill. Everybody has access to sunlight, regardless of whether it's a balcony or a window or a full sized garden, a rental garden or community garden.

00;07;26;24 - 00;07;49;29
Guest Angela
It's easy to plant a seed in a pot and grow it. Water it, tend to it, care for it, and reap the fruits of your labor through harvesting a tomato or even if it's just a bouquet of flowers. So I want children to understand those feelings, those senses of accomplishment, because they really, really get invested in those plants.

00;07;49;29 - 00;08;04;03
Guest Angela
It's pretty amazing. My kids won't eat blueberries from the grocery store. They eat blueberries from the garden when they're in season. So maybe I'm raising food snobs, but really I just love how enthusiastic they are about home grown produce.

00;08;04;05 - 00;08;32;19
Host - Linda
I love that you are hearing this information for anyone in any environment and allowing for realistic accomplishments so anyone can pick a place to start understanding and connecting to their food. It says a lot that your children can differentiate between the home grown and grocery store blueberries. Your homestead must be producing beautiful, tasty fruit. Building on that. If there is any one lesson to learn which do you think is the most important?

00;08;32;21 - 00;09;04;00
Guest Angela
I think it's important for children and adults to recognize that they do not need to have a certain type of dwelling or a certain amount of land in order to have access to fresh food. Home grown food can easily be grown vertically on a balcony. There are cities that allow balcony beehives. Urban areas there are. There are metropolitan areas, cities that are starting to allow chickens in backyards, even goats in some places in backyards.

00;09;04;00 - 00;09;32;03
Guest Angela
And if you don't have the time or the resources to be able to bring in or grow a potted tomato or keep bees or have chickens or ducks or have a goat, you can support community supported agriculture. You can buy subscription based boxes of produce something that's local to your area, completely seasonal, that you can plan your family's weekly meals around.

00;09;32;05 - 00;09;54;01
Guest Angela
You can go to a local farmer's market. I don't think whether you live in a city or whether you live in the country should determine whether or not you have access to fresh food. It's more about seeking it out and finding the avenue to get that, whether that be growing it yourself in your own backyard or relying on another farmer to do so.

00;09;54;03 - 00;10;01;26
Guest Angela
And instead of going to a grocery store and getting it from directly from the farmer through a CSA or farmer's markets.

00;10;01;29 - 00;10;20;22
Host - Linda
I would completely agree. Fresh food for anyone, anywhere is very important. I think you mentioned some perfect steps toward a better connection with food, regardless of one's location. I'd like to continue on with the little homesteader books. Which is your favorite and why?

00;10;20;24 - 00;10;50;24
Guest Angela
I think for me personally, the spring the spring title is probably my favorite because one spring I think is full of promise and so many fun activities. It's a busy season on the homestead, but the kids are excited because we've got new life, we've got new ducklings or goslings. We're starting to plant our seeds or planning our garden and I think it's just really exciting season, especially one to ask and allow kids to get involved.

00;10;50;24 - 00;11;10;04
Guest Angela
And it really is something the whole family can take part in. I think there's a there's an activity in there about the right way to give ducklings a bath. And the idea behind that isn't that everybody is going to have ducklings at home, but it's okay if we did, this is how we would do it. And look how fun this is.

00;11;10;04 - 00;11;31;15
Guest Angela
We're engaging with them where we're having hands on experience with the children, with these. That's we're holding them carefully. We're making sure they stay warm. They're only in the water for this long. We're giving them a treat. And I think it's just it's just such a fun title, etc.. It's just such an enjoyable and uplifting and hopeful time of year.

00;11;31;17 - 00;11;50;13
Host - Linda
I'd have to agree. I love the hopefulness that comes in the springtime. The longer days, pleasant temperatures, the smell of soil ready for seed. It really makes me look forward to all that will come from the garden or markets in the summer and of course, plenty of fresh eggs. So please tell us how pork.

00;11;50;14 - 00;11;50;29
Guest Angela
I guess I'm.

00;11;50;29 - 00;11;53;25
Host - Linda
Sort of excited to be a sustainable regenerative.

00;11;53;25 - 00;12;13;24
Guest Angela
Farm here. So as a permaculture farm, every animal and plant that comes here has to offer stepped functions, meaning it has to provide more than one service. So to a lot of people that might look like I just have a bunch of cute ducks for eggs. And while that certainly is a perk, I myself actually don't eat eggs.

00;12;13;24 - 00;12;34;15
Guest Angela
I donate them to the food pantry or we sell them at the farm stand. The reason I have ducks is because I live in a wet climate. Number one, and so waterfowl are very conducive and hardy to cold, wet climates. I live in central New Jersey along the Atlantic coast, so we're definitely considered a humid, wet location and we have winters.

00;12;34;15 - 00;12;50;13
Guest Angela
So I need to think it's going to be hardy too, that I don't want to be going out and rubbing Vaseline on wattles or worrying about that. So the ducks are very hardy. But number two, when we live in a wet climate, we have to look at a lot of the pest and in fact, our growing spaces snails, slugs, tail bugs, worms.

00;12;50;13 - 00;13;17;15
Guest Angela
And so while each of these things might offer a certain function in a growing space, waterfowl such as ducks are going to be their natural predator and so it makes sense to have them here. The other thing is we can sell them as as ducklings. We can hatch their eggs. I'm passionate about trying to revive some of the endangered breeds that are on the Livestock Conservancy list.

00;13;17;18 - 00;13;43;25
Guest Angela
So we have and kona's, for example, we have magpies and we try to help increase their numbers by hatching their eggs. We keep them in our incubators and then we can sell those ducklings and create a little bit of money for the homestead. So they perform a lot of tasks when it comes to the farm. The other thing they do is at the end of the season, the growing season, when everything is kind of died back and I'm not really growing anything outdoors.

00;13;43;25 - 00;14;04;02
Guest Angela
They're a great cleanup crew, so their job is to do sanitation. They go into the garden, they eat all of the fallen, produce. They are leaving their droppings as they go when they're fertilizing. And so because I don't use a coop, we have a livestock guardian dog and I keep them outdoors. They have the option to use a three sided shelter, but they're outdoors.

00;14;04;02 - 00;14;31;22
Guest Angela
24 seven. The Livestock Guardian Dog Protection. I don't have bedding that I would compost and then put on the garden. So allowing them to have direct access means that's how I get the fertilization from the birds. So the ducks do a lot in the way of the garden. As for the geese, I mentioned before how they act as alarms so a geese isn't physically fit to take on a coyote or a fox, for example.

00;14;31;22 - 00;14;50;00
Guest Angela
I'm not using their physical stature to try to deter a predator. What I'm using is their call. So if they see a hawk, if they see an intruder that they don't like, they'll sound their alarm. It alerts the other birds. They can go high, but it also alerts my livestock guardian dog. So we have like a multi-tiered security system when it comes to the safety of the ducks.

00;14;50;03 - 00;15;16;27
Guest Angela
The geese go through our pasture spaces and they graze plants that are left over from the sheep and the horses. So now everything is being evenly mowed. They also go around fence posts, they go into the lawn and they take care of grass and weeds. And so they're eradicating that for me. And then they go into my garden spaces and actually I am video and pictures of them leaving my kale alone and instead eating the crabgrass that's growing next to it.

00;15;16;27 - 00;15;39;01
Guest Angela
So I think there's a lot to be said for preferred forage when having animals do these functions. They're returning nutrients in the soil and this is sort of the way that nature intended it to be. In order to have healthy soil, you need to have a, you know, a bunch of different efforts in place like cover crops and erosion control.

00;15;39;01 - 00;15;59;23
Guest Angela
But you also just really need to have animals. Animals are definitely a very important part of the soil nutrient lifecycle. And so our geese and our ducks are a wonderful way to make sure we maintain that. And then lastly, we have the Guineas. I brought in the Guineas because they specifically seek out ticks after myself and my dogs came down with Lyme disease.

00;15;59;25 - 00;16;16;28
Guest Angela
We had already had the ducks for several years. I needed something that was going to look specifically for takes and eradicate them. And we have seen maybe one or two takes in the year, year and a half that they've been here. So the Guineas certainly keep everybody safe and healthy by removing our tick population.

00;16;17;01 - 00;16;35;27
Host - Linda
It sounds like the poultry, sheep, horses and dog provide you with a hard working team for your homestead pest control, fertilizing, weeding, cleaning up, and even helping each other with predator protection. So with this hardworking crew, what are your favorite types of poultry to raise and why did you choose them?

00;16;36;00 - 00;17;08;05
Guest Angela
I talked before about how they live in a wet climate and why ducks are conducive to our wet climate with winters, but they really are my favorite. Specifically the white layer ducks. The white layer ducks are well, they're just really cute, first of all. But the white layer ducks are very, very good layers, as their name implies. They they, I found, are pretty good foragers and they do a good job in our growing spaces of eradicating pests.

00;17;08;07 - 00;17;39;28
Guest Angela
But they provide the reliability that the Peking duck does of of laying eggs. A high egg count without a lot of the hip and the bumble fit issues that I have found the pecans have. So we are a vegetarian farm. None of our animals are processed for meat. If I was processing the ducks for meat, I probably wouldn't see those hit problems that I see in the Pekinese or the Bumble foot because I would be processing them before they were a year or two old.

00;17;40;00 - 00;18;04;09
Guest Angela
But because the birds that are brought in here are lifers, they're going to really use their joints for quite a lot of years. And so as a result of that, we see the peak ends with a lot of double foot. And I think I've had one or two with some hip dislocation issues that they've had to go into the vet for the the white layers just don't have that.

00;18;04;09 - 00;18;28;11
Guest Angela
And so because they're smaller and more nimble, you know, they give us our account that we need without running into some of those more physical issues you would see with the with the larger dog breeds. We also really love the magpies in the encounters. They're very, very friendly, excellent foragers. They're so cute with all of their unique individual eyes, black little markings and spots that they have.

00;18;28;13 - 00;18;33;03
Guest Angela
The blue eggs are stunning. So those are some of my favorite breeds on the farm.

00;18;33;06 - 00;18;49;14
Host - Linda
Thank you for sharing those insights and your favorites with us. I love my white layers too, and their eggs as we approach the end of our time together. Would you like to tell our listeners anything about the sustainable homestead or the Harvest Table Cookbook?

00;18;49;16 - 00;19;11;09
Guest Angela
So I wrote The Harvest Table Cookbook with a coauthor, and we both eat plant based primarily home grown food as much as possible. And so we wanted to create a cookbook that was based on food you could eat all year long from either food, fresh from the garden or something that's been preserved from the garden in the colder months.

00;19;11;11 - 00;19;42;16
Guest Angela
So that's called the harvest table. The sustainable homestead is my passion project. The sustainable homestead is the resource that I wish I would have had when I got into permaculture farming. Originally I thought it was just called I or I dubbed it Holistic Homesteading. I didn't know that it was called permaculture. And so imagine when I learned that there's this permaculture movement that's been around for decades and cultures have been practicing it around the world for centuries.

00;19;42;18 - 00;20;16;15
Guest Angela
It was something that opened up an entire window of resources for me. And so this is sort of taking all of the research, you know, the articles that I poured myself over the books, the the videos, the everything, I put it all from getting your homestead, assessing your site to, okay, let's improve and manage the soil to growing food, bringing in animals, what animals are appropriate, What breeds of those species are appropriate?

00;20;16;18 - 00;20;39;26
Guest Angela
How do we create a sustainable pasture system? And then talking about composting and the orchard and and the future of the farm, because that's kind of really what permaculture is about. We're here now in this moment, but we want this land to be sustaining over a long period of time so that the people that come in after us can benefit from it and the work that we've done.

00;20;39;26 - 00;21;04;06
Guest Angela
So I talk about capturing and storing energy and all of the fundamentals of permaculture that were instilled by its founders. And I kind of put this together in a resource book that was a series of steps and also diagrams and illustrations that I created as I went, you know, as I created the farm in hopes that I could create a resource that would help someone else.

00;21;04;08 - 00;21;30;28
Host - Linda
Holistic homesteading Sounds like a beautiful way to farm. I love that you're concerned about the land still being able to sustain those who come behind you. That's a terrific gift to give to future generations. It sounds like the sustainable homestead is a valuable resource to help learn about permaculture. Finally, before you go, are there any plans you can share with us about upcoming writing projects?

00;21;31;00 - 00;21;58;02
Guest Angela
I definitely would like to write another book. I have been waffling on the topic. I did take a year off. I had written The Sustainable Homestead, The Harvest Table Cookbook and the four little Homesteader series books, all in the span of two years. And it was it was a lot. I took off 2023 so that I could get my certification in permaculture through Cornell University.

00;21;58;04 - 00;22;16;20
Guest Angela
And now that I have that under my belt, I think I'm ready to create or write another piece. I'm not quite sure what that is yet and how I want all of the different pieces that I'm mulling around. I'm not sure how I want that to fit together, but there will absolutely be another book at some point.

00;22;16;23 - 00;22;42;15
Host - Linda
I'm very happy to know you would like to write another book. I'll be on the lookout for it. Thank you so much for sharing your passion and plans with us. Angelo, we appreciate you being with us on the coop today. Thank you. And with that, I thank you for listening to the coop. Be sure to subscribe. And if you would be so kind to drop us a review.

00;22;42;18 - 00;23;09;18
Host - Linda
Did you know that you can save $5 off your next minor hatchery purchase of $50 or more? Enter the coupon code the coop. That's THG c op at checkout. We'd love to hear your thoughts and want to know if you have any ideas or topics you'd like us to talk about on the coop. Please send an email to podcast at my your answer ecom.

00;23;09;21 - 00;23;18;04
Host - Linda
We're looking forward to hearing from you. And remember, life is good because we have chickens and ducks and geese.