Today's episode is something that anyone can relate. We've talked about how the pandemic changed our perspective when it comes to being self-sufficient. We have been challenged by how some of our needs became unavailable in the market. Thus, it lead us to try new things and be more reliable of ourselves.
We have discussed 5 Tips to Become Self-Sufficient. We enumerated each one and explained how to achieve them.
Links mentioned in this episode:
2022 Seed Varieties
Pampered Gardener Box by Kitchen Botanicals
The Self Sufficient Life
Not So Modern Living
Episode Sponsor
Kitchen Botanicals
Use code GROUNDED for 20% off your first purchase.
If you enjoyed today's episode and you love this show, can you help us convince others to listen too? All you have to do is leave a quick review and rating (and subscribe if you haven't already). That would mean the world to us. Thank you so much!
Today's episode is something that anyone can relate. We've talked about how the pandemic changed our perspective when it comes to being self-sufficient. We have been challenged by how some of our needs became unavailable in the market. Thus, it lead us to try new things and be more reliable of ourselves.
We have discussed 5 Tips to Become Self-Sufficient. We enumerated each one and explained how to achieve them.
Links mentioned in this episode:
2022 Seed Varieties
Pampered Gardener Box by Kitchen Botanicals
The Self Sufficient Life
Not So Modern Living
Episode Sponsor
Kitchen Botanicals
Use code GROUNDED for 20% off your first purchase.
If you enjoyed today's episode and you love this show, can you help us convince others to listen too? All you have to do is leave a quick review and rating (and subscribe if you haven't already). That would mean the world to us. Thank you so much!
Welcome back to the Grounded and Simplicity Podcast where we are helping moms get back to basics and learn to find joy in being less busy. I'm Danielle from the Rustic Elk joined by my good friend Bonnie from The Not So Modern Housewife. And this week we're talking about 5 tips to become more self sufficient.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I think the last couple years have been interesting in terms of like all of us who thought that we knew what the heck we were doing. Kind of a wake up call. And we're likely learned we don't maybe we're not as well off as we though. Although on the flip side, going into lockdown, and buying locally was not as much of a, like culture shock to my family as it was to a lot of other people I know. Right? Really, that much from our life that changed that much. I now had an excuse to not take my kids to the grocery store. That was probably the best thing that came out of the entire pandemic, is I could go shopping by myself. And I could say, because the government said so..
Danielle McCoy:Well, and you know, that I think it has helped, like people like us that thought that we kind of had our ducks in a row realize what was missing was kind of like a practice run, I guess. And it definitely, I think, opened a lot of eyes of other people that you know, this kind of lifestyle. They're like, why would I even do that? It really wasn't even on their radar. So
Bonnie Von Dohre:I mean, yeah, we suddenly crazy, right? Just was no longer a waste of time. Um, you know, I have in the last two years I have not heard, why would you do this? If you can just go buy it at the grocery store?
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, I go. Hey, that I've heard that. Not Not recently. I've heard some other not so nice things.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I hear I hear those regardless, but that's whatever. Yeah, at least haven't heard that one.
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, I don't think I've heard it. And, you know, my, my little Facebook group went from like, 300 to 40,000. In the last two years.
Bonnie Von Dohre:There's that. And you can always tell when people are starting to get nervous again, because all of a sudden, yes. Like skyrocket. In terms of like, what I've learned, you know, as far as like where we are, with self sufficiency, and everything is I didn't have like, I had let all of my chickens get older. So my flock isn't laying as much. Which really is like a wake up call in the wintertime when all of a sudden nobody's laying and I've had to buy eggs for the last two months. That's not fun. And, you know, like, we hadn't really been doing any butchering. So the meat supply in the freezer has been waning. I did. I totally neglected my garden last year, but that was for health reasons. And so, you know, there are a lot of these things where I mean, I had, I guess you could say I had the systems in place, like I had the resources that are technically available to me. But I wasn't actively pursuing it. Because, you know, I could still fall back on the grocery store. I didn't, right, we have
Danielle McCoy:That comfort of you know, and then we didn't have that comfort anymore. So, yeah, I definitely I feel the same way I I neglected in my garden the year before the pandemic, and then I really wasn't planning on having much regarding the year that it started. And I was like, Oh, I don't even have very many seats. Like suddenly, I'm like, you know, oh, maybe we should go ahead and do that.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right. Me. Well, yeah, that was the year you guys put in like all the race boxes and stuff to write like, you guys really expanded the garden.
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, yeah, we ended up doing a lot of gardening, when we were really just planning on kind of, you know, taking it easy and kicking back and deciding what we wanted to do so
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right, right. Well, yeah, cuz Weren't you guys gonna, like do more are being and stuff and?
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, yeah, we
Bonnie Von Dohre:Had like a whole vacation plan to the guy.
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, we were going to go all the way back out to Montana and visit and look at properties and all kinds of stuff. And then we didn't go to New Hampshire, though. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, well, and I have to say even really, since I've been down to Florida, like when I was in Ohio, gardening was a lot easier. Like I my garden was so much more productive. because the soil was so much richer, and I mean, here, if I want to get a really good crop of something, I really need to put in the effort to produce it. And like, stay on top of it and monitor it, make sure my timings, right and all that happy stuff, right. And so I really haven't done a whole lot of preserving unless I go and buy it bulk from one of the farms around here, and then preserve it that way. So, you know, I mean, I used to, you know, put away salsa and spaghetti sauce and canned tomatoes, and pickles, all kinds of stuff. And I'm really like, feeling like, I need to get back into that. Of course, yeah, either figuring out how to grow up myself or finding a source to buy it locally, so that I can preserve it that way. Of course, if you're buying it, it's going to be more expensive. And ultimately, I want to get to where I'm producing it myself. So that way, I'm not having to rely on anybody else. Right. But that does kind of that leads a little bit into where we're going with this conversation anyway. You don't have to produce everything yourself, you figure out what you can produce reliably. I mean, it hey, maybe animals is just my thing. And you know, I leave harvesting to the full time vegetable growers, but
Danielle McCoy:Well, I mean, it's hard to grow enough tomatoes to make. Like, I think a lot of people don't realize how many tomatoes it takes how many pounds it takes to make, you know, just a little itty bitty pint of like spaghetti sauce will pay. Oh, yeah. Hey, I mean, you need a lot.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, I like I have not actually tried to make ketchup myself, but someone else was telling me the story of how, like they had several pounds of tomatoes and ended up with like, one little pint jar of ketchup, right. See, I'm like alright, maybe I won't be preserving ketchup.
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, tomato paste. And as a sauce isn't quite as bad. I mean, doesn't take as much I can usually yeah, but paste especially it takes a ton to make just a little pint. Yeah, I don't think well
Bonnie Von Dohre:And I graded back then I didn't really understand how much of a difference there could be between tomatoes. Like, because I was just I was growing, you know, beef steaks or better boys or something like that. And so that's what I was using for my salsa. My salsa was turning out great. But yet, like there was too much acidity, when I use the same tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce. And I couldn't understand why. And of course, thanks to culinary school, one thing I at least learned is that I need to be growing face tomatoes. And now I actually prefer the pace tomatoes, the salsa but yeah, there's just there's so many things like that, that I it's I don't know, it's a live and learn thing. Yeah, definitely. But I think I definitely done more spaghetti sauce if I had known which tomatoes to be growing for it. But then you know, then you got to plan out okay, okay, I need to have so many of this plant so many of that plant.
Danielle McCoy:Yeah. Or you just grow like 20 different tomatoes and then throw throw them all in your freezer and realize a year later that you still have three five gallon buckets of tomatoes in your freezer.
Bonnie Von Dohre:That's like going for you. Today we're talking about five tips to be more self sufficient. So tip number one is start in the kitchen. And that means learning to cook from scratch and also figuring out like what does your family use the most of and how can you replace that you know, produce it yourself you know, preserve it, buy it locally.
Danielle McCoy:Right like things like we're trying to get away from eating so many grains but things like your your breads and pasta and things like that knowing how to make them from scratch and at least having those you know the items that you need to make it from scratch on hand like your flour and a egg in yeast, things like that. You might not be able to source those locally, which we're going to talk about in a minute. But at the same time, you know you're you're able to buy that thing those things in bulk and have them on hands that you know how to make them so that you know like we're getting ready to have a snowstorm so when everybody buys all their french toast essentials at the store, and there's no bread left, you can still make a loaf of bread. Right? I don't understand or anyway.
Bonnie Von Dohre:My husband went through a loaf of bread making french toast yesterday morning. And my Kroger delivery comes tonight. Although I know we're talking about self sufficiency and I'm courting, versus, don't judge, so, but, um, like, you know, I can make my own bread, having time to make my own bread is sometimes an issue. But yeah, for me, like, I'm never gonna be able to grow my own wheat. It doesn't grow in Florida. They don't have the acreage for it, you know, so I'm going to be buying that. And I realized some people are gonna be like, Well, you could not eat wheat. Yeah, no, that's not gonna happen. So, but I really enjoy making bread and making pasta, and there is a learning curve to it, it takes a lot of practice, and you're going to have a lot of crap that comes out at first. But you just keep doing it. And the more you do it, the better it gets, and the easier it gets, right. And even if it's, you know, it's not something that you have to be doing every week, but you just you learn that skill. And now you've got it in your back pocket for when you need it.
Danielle McCoy:Right, just like we're talking about spaghetti sauce, pasta sauce, I make my own pasta sauce, that doesn't necessarily mean it's always all canned up and ready to just put together but I can have, you know, those single ingredients like paste or and, you know, like canned tomatoes and things like that, that I put in it. And just make it from scratch and it tastes better. And it really doesn't take that much longer, except for the fact that you know, obviously, I'm not just opening a jar and throwing the pan and warming it right, but
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, and that's like, yeah, we go through a lot of those tomatoes. And so I really do need to can some diced tomatoes. And I mean, maybe that means I go to the tomato growers den and Ruskin and I buy a couple, you know, 25 pound boxes of tomatoes, and I use that. But at least I've got it on hand. And I know what's in it. And it is, you know, I'm still sourcing it locally, right? I mean, it honestly, my family eats better because I'm cooking so much from scratch. Like my family does not even want box Kraft mac and cheese. Because their entire lives I've been making mac and cheese from scratch. So like they get the orange stuff. And they're like, why is it that color? And why is it so runny? And it doesn't taste right? And is this even cheese? You know,
Danielle McCoy:Right? Is it even cheese? No,
Bonnie Von Dohre:Cheese by product or something by product. But, um, but also like, as you're going through your pantry, and you're thinking about how you can produce it yourself. Or if you can produce it yourself. It also really kind of makes you look at the ingredients and look at, like what you're using, and determine if it's even a sustainable product, like you made figure out that you'd rather replace it, you know, with something else that you can get more reliably like for us. We've almost completely eliminated any like vegetable oil or Christgau or anything like that merch kitchen, because I've got a freezer full of pork fat, right? So you know, so I'm and, and it's funny, you know, we've had years of the health system telling us that lard is bad for you. And now all of a sudden we're finding out No, actually, animal fats are healthier for you than the vegetable oil. So it's kind of it's, it's nice to like not get the guilt trip from being like, oh, yeah, I cook everything in lard because all of a sudden that's the healthier option.
Danielle McCoy:Right? Right. Yeah, when you're talking about fat like margarine, use butter instead. Um Christgau you can use lard or tallow. And the only if you want to call it a vegetable oil, it's not like processed vegetable oil like olive oil. We can. We don't have all of groves here, but we do use olive oil in our cooking. Avocado oil is another one that's, you know, not so terrible. But like vegetable oil, Crisco, things like that really are so great. And there are definitely more natural alternatives that are much more sustainable than Yeah. Rancid vegetable labors.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, the flavors a lot better. We actually can grow olives down here. And we have a an olive grove on the other side of town where you can bring them they're your olives and they will actually cold press them for you and make them into olive oil. And it's, it's interesting, we went to a tasting there and so we could actually try the different olive oils made from different types of olives and determine the flavors and stuff and then of course, you know by trees so we can make grow those olives but and even you know, since since going there I'll either try to buy my olive oil locally, or I'll buy the California olive oil versus the stuff that being imported it's still at least it's being produced in the United States and there's actually been a lot of information come out saying that the the olive oils that are being imported are actually being diluted with less expensive oils and the California olive oils are actually the most pure obviously if you're you know pressing your own butt and so I've noticed like a much better flavor from the California olive oils than the stuff that you know I was the Italian olive oils that
Danielle McCoy:are right right but just looking in your pantry and finding you know what what your family normally eats if you eat you know refried beans on your you know, burritos or whatever it is and it's not hard to you know, use a can of pinto beans or jar if your own pinto beans and make them it takes a lot longer if you're cooking drives you can't but
Bonnie Von Dohre:right you just can't turn them into refried beans and then try to can them they're too desperate. Yeah, but you can can like you can go buy bulk dry pinto beans and Kandahar them and then Yep, right jar them the whole and then turn them into refried beans after you open the jar.
Danielle McCoy:Yes I didn't think about that.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Oh, we eat a lot of pinto beans. Well I took it back we a lot of refried beans
Danielle McCoy:right but yeah me
Bonnie Von Dohre:I need to can them so much
Danielle McCoy:quicker.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Can my own Yeah, well that's what one of my pressure cooker preparedness things was to buy a bunch of dry beans and keep them stored in the freezer. But of course that I don't use them because I have to soak them and like plan ahead I think we've had this guy right or and so I need to like soak them can them because we do we eat a lot of beans. The refried beans we do a lot of black beans there's like you know black beans and rice, kidney beans for chili
Danielle McCoy:beans in it.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yes, chili should have beans in it.
Danielle McCoy:So when you're going through your pantry, a lot of people think they don't have time to cook from scratch but a lot of stuff I don't think it necessarily has to take a lot more time like the canned beans thing is you know, a tip to make it quicker. But also just kind of planning ahead and making sure you you know have a menu of some sort so that you can pull those beans those dried beans out and soak them the night before or do meal prep at the beginning of the week. Or
Bonnie Von Dohre:I have a menu that doesn't mean that look
Danielle McCoy:I'm supposed to be making spaghetti right now.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well are you know I am I made six quarts of sloppy JOMAX for my daughter's birthday party on Saturday. So we're eating sloppy chose this week.
Danielle McCoy:See planning ahead.
Bonnie Von Dohre:That wasn't the plan for an army. sloppy joe mix. Well it was funny because he made hot dogs and I knew the kids are gonna eat all the hot dogs. But then some of the parents were getting a hot dog and putting sloppy joe mix on top of the hot dog. I'm like, That's a good idea. I'm gonna need more hot dogs
Danielle McCoy:not that I like to put chili on hot dogs, but I never thought of it in sloppy joes. Yeah,
Bonnie Von Dohre:well, this is just it's just sweeter. But then also, like I was putting sloppy JOMAX on top of a potato last night, that was pretty good, too. So we're gonna be finding all the ways to eat sloppy Chow mix this week, half of it's probably still gonna go in the freezer, I probably just need to like scoop it into a container and put in the freezer now just, you know, right, don't get overwhelmed with the thought of eating all that sloppy gemix. Alright, so starting the kitchen. I guess the only other thing I would add with that is if you're worried about like it feeling too complicated or taking too much time. Just get like five recipes that you know how to cook that you know, your family will eat and then you know, you know you can make in like 30 minutes or less and just start there. Because one, it's going to cut down on the amount of stuff you need to have in stock in your pantry anyway. And it'll really help like focus your efforts in terms of stockpiling or preserving or what you know, whatever you're needing to do to build up your pantry. But then also, it makes meal planning a whole lot easier. And you're, you know, you now have a bank of recipes to pull from that. You know, you can always build on it. But at least it gives you a starting point without getting overwhelmed. Alright, so number two, we already kind of talked about this a little bit was start a garden. Don't try to go all in your first year if you've never, you know if you've never grown a tomato or a carrot or a basil plant, and yes, I intentionally picked like the three most difficult things to grow that people don't think about. Start small, get a feel for it, you know, because if you start really, really big, not only is it going to be harder for you to maintain, but it's going to be much more discouraging when it doesn't work, right. And then you know, if you can, if you can just focus on a few things, and get that right, and then go bigger from there gradually, then it's, you're going to learn a lot more, you're going to be able to stay on top of it, and manage it and figure out your systems. There are a lot of things you can do in the garden that can automate for you. So that you're not having like, it doesn't become such a big time commitment. Right. But the biggest thing is just not getting discouraged. And I think that so many people, I mean, and not just with gardening, but with a lot of different things is they start too big, and then they get so discouraged, and then they never try it again, because they just think they suck at it.
Danielle McCoy:Right? Like I, I would recommend for most people, you know, like, maybe you put in a little raised bed so that you can bring in soil. So you're not having to mess with trying to test your soil and figure out you know, what you need to do to amend it, or even just a couple pots on your balcony are in your kitchen window. You know, something simple, it can be a tomato, you said tomatoes are difficult, but
Bonnie Von Dohre:I mean, you can get I love growing tomatoes.
Danielle McCoy:Or, you know, like
Bonnie Von Dohre:five more tomatoes don't get along real well,
Danielle McCoy:right? But a five gallon bucket with some carrot seeds or, you know, it doesn't have to be fancy. I definitely for most people would say if you have no experience, I don't recommend putting your garden on the ground. Because soil sucks.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, and I mean, really, you know, a lot of people were like, Why can't I just like growing and growing in the ground should be the easiest option, right? Well, you're gonna, you know, there's probably grass over that soil. So now you got to get rid of the grass. And if you don't religiously get rid of the grass, you're going to be fighting grass the entire time you're trying to grow something. So now that you've gotten rid of the grass, either by laying down plastic and killing it, or by tilling it, well, one you got to find some he's got tiller, you can borrow? We're gonna rent one, you're gonna buy one or you know something? And then yeah, like you said, like, what if your soil sucks, I mean, you, you could get lucky and your soil is fantastic. But you're just as likely to have soil that's completely devoid of any nutrients. Especially like, I hate to say it, I saw this a lot in Ohio, we had a lot of these housing developments that were being built on old cornfields. Mm hmm. And the topsoil is completely depleted. And then they're just, they're just bring it or even better yet, if it's one of these farms that used to grow sod, and now they've completely like, basically the sod growers will only stay on one property for a few years, because they know after so many years of cutting the sod, there's no topsoil left, so therefore, they can't reliably grow the sod. So they move on, right, and sell it to a developer who's gonna bring in sod to cover the ground to make it look pretty, but if you try to grow anything in that, there's not like there's nothing left, there's no organic matter left in that soil to grow anything. And it's just dirt. Yeah, and there are a lot of methods for building up the soil. And I definitely think that anyone who was interested in gardening needs to also focus on building soil. But it's gonna take you a couple years before that soil is good enough to grow anything. And so like a lot of people here in Florida, I tell them just start with raised beds because you can bring in soil and you're not having to worry about fighting the sand. Now the other thing I'll say is if you go and purchase the soil like either I would avoid landscapers in terms of getting soil. A lot of times the landscapers are just bringing in the cheapest stuff they can get and it's not necessarily a good growing medium. Like I would actually I would find a garden supply store or, or even like like we've got a soil producer near us and someone who is actually like mixing compost and stuff in it and it's not like all bark and get your soil from them. But if you go and buy like bagged mix, don't go straight compost. Don't go straight black cow don't go straight garden soil. Those are way too dense. They're designed to be mixed with something that's lighter, because you need that aeration in the soil. It looks great. It's nice and dark, but it's gonna kill your plants. So it's gonna hold too much moisture. And please please stay away from Scotts Miracle Grow. Just don't Anyway, um, that's my tirade for the day. But if now we know, you know, we know a lot of you probably don't have a backyard that you can grow in. I mean, I, I'm amazed that even the people who are in urban areas like cities, big cities, have like rooftop gardens and things like that. But there's a lot of cities now that even if you have to go out of the city a little bit, it may be like a suburban area. But there are a lot of areas now that have community gardens available, and you can run a plot. And you know, it may just be like a little, you know, four foot by eight foot garden bed for your first year. But you're going to get that space available to you, you're also going to get the support from that community garden because you're surrounded by other people who have experience and know what they're doing and they can help make that first garden a success for you. Yeah, so actually, even if you have a backyard that may be a good option for you know, first year gardeners just your feet wet. And that way you're not having to build a bed for yourself. And you know, you get that support and that mentorship. This episode was brought to you by kitchen botanicals, your sustainable gardening headquarters. Stop by kitchen botanicals calm and get a look at our 2022 seed varieties as well as supplies and pest control products to help you with your organic garden 2022 is a great time to take care of yourself with our pampered gardener subscription box. 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And don't worry, there will still be plenty of gardening tools, seeds, we've created a subscription box like no other by gardeners for gardeners order your own box today. Number three. Raising your own livestock and hunting. Oh yeah. So having a source for meat, eggs and dairy around. I will say like we have a source for dairy. I haven't milked my goats in a couple of years. But I could do it if I wanted to.
Danielle McCoy:All right. And then for me, you know, we don't really have room except for goats and I don't like goats. So yeah, there's no dairy here.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I like the baby goats. How about that?
Danielle McCoy:Oh, so cute.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I actually I didn't mind the milking and the milk is delicious. And I like my goats because I'm a glutton for punishment. But my hands did not like hand milking and my kids are I can't trust them to completely milk out a goat. So I really do like this year I want to get a milker like an actual milker because I tried to build one out of the brake bleeder and it didn't work super well. So at least not on my girl
Danielle McCoy:to her out of a brake cleaner.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah. Okay, you haven't seen those before? No. So
Danielle McCoy:I don't like goats. And I can't have cows.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Ready to do a video just to show but um, so you've got the mason jar that's that collects the milk. You have three lines coming in. So you have one for each teat and then if one coming from the brake bleeder and the teats look so good. All right. So so on the teeth you have like these big syringes. And I mean we're talking like they're like the 25 30 milliliter syringes, big fat ones. And I put a silicone T cup inside of that so it's not like directly against the T and also the silicone helps to create a seal. And then I have a rubber hose like clear rubber hose that goes from the end of the syringe and down and goes into the top of that mason jar. So I have that. Oh and I Have a vowel and on off bell for each of those teats.
Danielle McCoy:Oh my help sounds complicated, it helps with the suction.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Okay, so and then and then I have the third line that's going to the brake bleeder. So first when I first start up or start up, when I first get started, I have the valves to both teats turned off, and I pump the brake bleeder just to build up suction inside of the jar. And then I turn on one teat and put it on. And then I turn on the other valve and put it on the other teat. And so now I've got suction go coming from the brake bleeder into the jar, or Well, I guess you could say, the brake bleeder is pulling the suction from the jar and then subsequently from each tea.
Danielle McCoy:Okay, I understand what you're Yeah, where you're going with and
Bonnie Von Dohre:the biggest thing is, you don't want to destroy the teats, so you can't have the pressure too high. Because if it's too much suction, it'll just it'll hurt them. Right. But it worked really well while the others were in gorged. As soon as they started to go slack, I'd lose the suction. Because I lose the sealer on the teeth, right. And like, like, it worked better on my larger dose, like my older girls because their teeth are larger. But on my little tiny dose who had these little like, first freshener teeth and inside my pinky, it like it just it wouldn't take much for to lose the section and it was just it was a big headache. So yeah, I wonder
Danielle McCoy:if it was on a standard size go better.
Bonnie Von Dohre:It might. Um, and I mean, even these like, I don't know if maybe my silicone cups for the wrong size because the holes are actually pretty small. So to get to even get it onto my larger dose, I need to have really good suction to pull their teeth down into it. Otherwise their teat was too fat. And if it didn't pull it down perfectly straight then it was doing I don't know it was it was
Danielle McCoy:the national merriment
Bonnie Von Dohre:Melkor no more, no more instructions off of YouTube. So that's that all right. Um, but one thing I will say with the goats because they are a Nigerian dwarf process is we're really able to help support the feed bill just from selling the babies. Because a lot of people want them for pets, or you know, they want to raise their own dairy and so we'll pass them off because I mean even my whole thing is if you're going to breed any, any animal breed it to make it better. Right? So even with mine, like not being registered, I want to breed them for the best dairy production the best structure like I want them to look good. And they don't have to be registered for our county fair for the open goat show. So I mean we have shown them at our county fair and actually got grand champion so I guess I'm doing something right. But um yeah in so a lot of people will come in by them because they want to start their own dairy herds. Then we have the pigs that are supposed to be for me, but I haven't had a litter in a few years. My last litter was two weeks after my daughter was born and my daughter just turned seven so yeah.
Danielle McCoy:Oh, wow. I didn't really yeah long.
Bonnie Von Dohre:It's been that long and I don't honestly I don't think that they're going to get pregnant at this point. But I'm going to try I'm going to do arm everybody hit him up with some vaccines. See if that helps. I mean I'm gonna have to order in semen
Danielle McCoy:Do you have any males
Bonnie Von Dohre:Oh, I have a bore he's like six six inches too short. And my girls will not lay down for him. I know everyone's like oh they'll find a way no they're not finding away and he'll try him out older your girls well the youngest is seven
Danielle McCoy:okay
Bonnie Von Dohre:and then we've got the meat rabbits that we don't eat and we're really good poultry I do need to be interested in ducks though. And I want to get I want to get back to meat chickens. Order some chicks so
Danielle McCoy:So are you homesteading or are you a Animal Rescue?
Bonnie Von Dohre:Oh, definitely not rescuing anybody. I think I might be on hoarding status but, um,
Danielle McCoy:actuary though. We're
Bonnie Von Dohre:looking for actuary. There we go. I mean, some of you some of my animals might classify. We just put down a 32 year old horse.
Danielle McCoy:That's not the samething.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, no, obviously, I'm not eating my horse, but me. No, but like, you know, my like, my one dough goat is at least 10. And I'm trying to avoid reading her again. And I have her daughter who had the gangrene met mastitis last year and lost half burrata. So I don't want to, I don't want to breed her again. No. Yeah. So yes, I'm probably going to know the farm full of Geriatric animals. But okay, yeah.
Danielle McCoy:So we have meat, rabbits, and chickens for eggs that we're getting ready to butcher because they don't want any eggs. And I'm tired of feeding them. We just bought chicks. And we raised ducks for eggs and meat, and chickens for meat. That's what we do here. And I bought a local pig.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, well, and I've got a bunch of roosters that I need to put in the freezer. But yeah, it's the thing is, is, you know, your, like heritage breeds. By the time they're big enough to butcher they're really only good enough for soup. Yeah, so that's why I still raised the meat chickens just for me. And I mean, they make a beautiful roast chicken. But and yeah, the ducks. I mean, we're raising heavy breeds. So they really make nice dual purpose birds. So I could butcher them. And, and they lay really nice. I mean, not, obviously not as nicely as like the egg laying duck breeds. But it's enough duck eggs for us, the duck eggs don't sell as well as the chicken eggs. So and that's the thing for us too, is I'm still like, even if we don't eat everything I can, I can sell extras to also help supplement things. So that's kind of part of our strategy for being self sufficient is also selling.
Danielle McCoy:Right, you can decide the
Bonnie Von Dohre:Cash is valuable to
Danielle McCoy:Fix or the or the actual end product, probably alive unless you're really lucky. Because I do like here, we have to sell everything on her, or it has to be taken to the venture.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right. For Florida, we can have a license to sell processed poultry and eggs. And it can be it can be off farm like we because for a long time, they had to come to the farm. But now like we can go to farmers markets, or I can even sell through a store, or I can sell to a restaurant or whatever. But I need for me, like if I'm going to be producing a lot of processed chicken for other people, I really need a better setup so that I can do like a large batch of chickens at a time. And I need somewhere to store them because my fridge is barely big enough for my family.
Danielle McCoy:Right.
Bonnie Von Dohre:But I do have a friend of mine that she's kind of scaled back. But she actually bought two commercial refrigerators that she had, like, in kind of her entryway, that that's where she kept all of the eggs in the process chicken that she was selling. She even has a well I am but she was offsetting it with you know what she was making for the schools really tough thing for her. She's, she's also a full time teacher. So it's not like, you know, she had a lot of time available to write, you know, take care of the birds. And so like, that's why she needed to scale back. But I want to talk about in terms of meeting livestock, cuz I know a lot of people worry about how are they going to be self sufficient if they have to buy their grain, or they you know, have to have to buy their feed. And I know for us we do. We buy all of our grain at a local feed mill. It's a lot cheaper than buying it like from Tractor Supply or one of the regular feed stores. This feed mill even do custom blends for us if we buy a larger quantity for it, of it. And you can order in bulk. For us, we still order by the bag because we don't have a real good way to like do long term storage. And we have to worry about you know, if we keep feed for too long, it's gonna mold or it's gonna get bugs in it. So we really just keep on hand what we need for a couple of weeks.
Danielle McCoy:Right. I think one thing is, like most animals that we raised today are definitely grain fed animals like a lot of like cattle Especially I know people that have bought cattle and tried to like just feed them grass like dairy cattle and end up having to feed them or grain ration because we've kind of like bred that into them over the years. But I will say that I do know people that don't feed grain, like they don't feed corn or soy or you know, any of those things. And they're able to sustain their livestock off of, you know, like, forage on their property. And, you know, like locally bought hay for cattle or whatever, in the offseason. And it's winter, like here, blanket of snow. So we're not gonna be putting them out of the pan, right, but, and, like rabbits, especially I have a book called Beyond the pellet. And it talks about how to feed your rabbits on just fodder and things like that, instead of feeding them a grain ration pellet, because those do have grain in them. So I think if you wanted to look at it from a self sufficiency standpoint, for like long term, like, if you didn't have a way to get feed, then you need to look at what you're going to be able to support on the property that you have. And it's not going to be near as much as you probably think.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, well, and I think you have to also look at it promote, like, what's feasible standpoint as well. Because yeah, like if you don't have enough acreage, to where you can be them solely on grass, and for large livestock, they say, like a minimum of two acres per animal, just grazing, that's not including, like the housing or whatever, right? Um, and yeah, you're gonna have to supplement with hay. But like, I know, for us, like, right now we're in the middle of a hay shortage, because there was so much rain for the summer, they weren't able to cut enough. And so our hay prices have, like, doubled. And so yes, he's available locally, but it's a lot more expensive, and it's a lot harder to come by.
Danielle McCoy:Right.
Bonnie Von Dohre:And then we can't grow fodder in the summer, because it molds too quickly, unless we're able to grow it indoors, but I'm not able to grow enough fodder for all my animals indoors, right? So if, if you're gonna go that route, make sure like you're, you're doing a research, but also testing it throughout the year. Because you may be like, oh, yeah, I can feed hay, which works really well, through the growing season and haze readily available. But then, you know, do you have a source for hay all winter long. Now, Ohio is nice, because the hay would store really well. So in the summer, we would buy enough hay to last us the entire year. Down here, we can't store the hay that long. So we can really only buy like what we need right now. And then in a couple of weeks, we got to go buy more, because we don't have a place to store it, where it's not going to get moldy. And you know, in a month or two, yes, we do spend more on grain, I kind of look at it as we're spending less on groceries. So you know, we're kind of moving that budget allocation. And we have a backup, like if we can't get grain from this female, which is obviously our preferred female. We have other females we could buy from and worst case, we can go by the bad stuff from tractor Spire, one of the feed stores, I realize it's still, you know, I mean, if crap really hits the fan, and we cannot find grain, then we're probably eating a lot of animals. Right. But, you know, come to that road, we get to it, because my girl can't grow grain here. I could grow amaranth that's about it.
Danielle McCoy:Well, but my point is, you know, like, I have having a backup plan for a different grain mill or whatever is great. But yeah, you know, worst case scenario, I think that you should at least have a little bit of knowledge about how to feed your animal. Now, whether or not you can is a completely different scenario. But you know, how do you feed your animal if you can't get food? Like if there's no feed, just like, you know, dogs, for instance, we'll talk about pets for a minute. My friend was talking about how she's got like, 500 pounds of dog food. And I'm like, well, that's great. But what happens when the dog food runs out? You know, like, you know, what are you going to do if there's no more dog food, and she's talking about how she gets dog food? And I'm like, so how do we feed everybody? Like
Bonnie Von Dohre:Star Wars has expiration dates, right? And if it starts to go bad, it will actually make your dog sick. Right. And that's why Yeah, I know. But, um, and I, I'm not necessarily pro raw diet. I think that people need to do more research. And actually, I think there's a lot of people not doing it correctly. But I do know people that you know, raise rabbits just to feed their dogs. So it's an option I mean, they need more than just rabbit meat, just like, if humans only rabbit meat, we would also make ourselves sick. But it's, you know, it's kind of it's their main protein source, I think they're still adding other stuff. But it's just, you know, it's something to look into, there are other ways that you can produce. I mean, you know, I could always feed my cats off of hamsters, right? So yes, build your knowledge base, right?
Danielle McCoy:Grab books, to, you know, help you learn skills, watch YouTube videos, take classes or courses online or locally. You know, pick a couple things that you want to learn how to do yourself, and learn how to do them, it could be something as basic as you know, like, sewing a patch on your kids pair of jeans, or, you know, making your own soap or, you know, baking bread, like we talked about, you know, earlier, you know, just different little things. And I think that we could definitely include how to feed animals in that knowledge, man,
Bonnie Von Dohre:First aid for your animals. Yes, because I mean, even like, full time farmers, they would go broke in a heartbeat if they had to call the veterinarian for every little thing that their animals got into. And I, you know, I fully believe in having a good relationship with my vet. But even my vet doesn't want to come out every time. My horse colics or, you know, my chicken needs a stitch or something stupid, like, their needs like it, especially with as overloaded as most veterinarians are right now with COVID. is, I mean, it sounds dumb. But code COVID isn't affecting pets, and yet the veterinarians are overloaded, but they are. Um, maybe it's everybody got their pandemic puppies, but like your vet, your vet wants to equip you with being able to do like some basic first aid. No, no, you should still take your animal to the to the vet when something is beyond your scope of knowledge. And you need to be smart enough to recognize when something is beyond your scope of knowledge. But that also goes to building yours goes into building your knowledge base, is not only knowing how to do something, but then knowing when you're in over your head.
Danielle McCoy:Right? Well, you know, like some animals, it sounds terrible, but like a chicken, most people aren't going to take their chicken to the vet. Right? You know, it's either if it's beyond your scope and knowledge and the chickens probably going on the chopping block, or, you know, you're gonna look and see if you can fix it. Like, you know, if you have an egg bound chicken, there are ways to, you know, help them right, but you have to catch it in Saudi Arabia. Right? You have to catch it in time, or, you know,
Bonnie Von Dohre:So recognize that something's not normal with the chicken, they need help.
Danielle McCoy:Right, right. Which goes into, you know, make sure you check on your animals on a routine basis. But
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yes, yeah, you need to be laying eyes and hands on them. Daily, so that apparently
Danielle McCoy:You need to look at both sides.
Bonnie Von Dohre:This is on Danielle not on me. Let me just put that out there right now.
Danielle McCoy:Do you know how hard it is to catch those things? I mean, seriously, because our hutches really big and they hop up to the front part. And I just, you know, I mean, I looked at all of them. only been like a day since I'd had them all picked up. Oh, yeah. I mean, it wasn't like it was.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, it doesn't take much especially with eyes. Right. But yeah, no, I mean, it's it's not anything that you you didn't give the rabbit an eye infection and is going to be fine. You caught it when you caught it.
Danielle McCoy:Oh, yeah, way, way better today. But anyway, yeah. Make sure you look at both sides of your animals.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Fully stocked first aid kit when you have animals. My first aid kit for my animals is bigger than the ones for my humans.
Danielle McCoy:Oh, I have like all kinds of stuff. Just I didn't have I only meant so. But it was $23. A little. I told the kid at the Tractor Supply, though. I'm like it's cheaper than the vet.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, this is true. Well, and okay, so that was something like I went out and help someone with their down cow one time. And they were so against calling the vet to come out and look at the cow. I'm like, Ah, I don't know. Maybe people just imagine that. That is going to be like astronomically expensive. But I'm like, it's like, probably 100 $200 to have to vet out. Right? How much is the new cow? Like, and guess what? They lost the cow because they refuse to call the vet right there or? No, I don't think I don't think they ever did call the vet. And it was probably something dumb. Like it probably had worms or I don't know something.
Danielle McCoy:Or blow or something.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, yeah. But I mean, it's something that could have treated right It's like, Come on people, if you're gonna have animals don't be cheap. And trust me, I'm coming from a point of being like dead broke right now. But if some Sup, well, you know, I had to put down my 32 year old horse last week. Um, so you know, you just you have if you're, if you're going to have the animals, you're going to have that bills. I mean, no, yeah, I'm not taking a chicken to the vet. I'm sorry. PETA can come and take me away. But I'm on the same token, you know, it's just whatever.
Danielle McCoy:Well, but you know, like basic chicken things, you know, like before putting, you know, like, coconut oil or Vaseline or something on their combs so they don't get frostbite.
Bonnie Von Dohre:in Florida freezer. Freezer. Need to go to bed? You know, because we don't want those crabs to have freezer burns chicken heads. That's the only reason I could think of having chicken heads in your freezer. But anyway, okay. That's what we have. We have so many miscellaneous chicken parts that we are never going to eat because my husband is convinced that he's going to become like a professional crab fisherman or something.
Danielle McCoy:You can use the chicken heads to make broth.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, no, they go in my scrap bucket. But anyway, I also has the feet. I have the feet in my freezer. I've made broth with the feet once. And it kind of tasted like dirty feet. So I need
Danielle McCoy:Did you clean the feet?
Bonnie Von Dohre:I did peel them.
Danielle McCoy:30 chicken feet. Have you had a chicken foot? No.
Bonnie Von Dohre:No, no, no, I have not eaten the chicken foot. Um, I'm in Florida, but I haven't gone that far anyway. Oh, just one of the things I want to mention though, is learning the skills doesn't mean that you are committing to like doing them 100% of the time for all of your, for all of you purists out there who are doing it 100% of the time, good for you. They're not listening. They tuned out a long time ago. And yes, a lot of these skills are use it or lose it. So you should probably dust off the breadmaker, you know, once every six months. But you don't have to commit to doing it 100% of the time. And don't let other people tell you that you are wrong because you're not doing it 100% of the time because they apparently don't have anything better to Alright. Number five, yay, we made it to number five. When any of these any of the other four steps that you're going, but I can't do that because of this. And I can't do that because of that source locally. Yes, that means that you're you can't find oranges grown in Indiana. I'm sorry, Daniel. But I don't like orange as much as possible. Find local sources that you can buy from it likes it. I've got Kroger delivery coming. So I'm not saying you need to be religious about this either. We were never meant to like do this 100% By ourselves, right? I mean, sure, I guess if you really want to go and live on an island and do it 100% By yourself. Make sure you take a volleyball with you that you know you can name Wilson and it can be your companion because at some point you're going to go crazy. But um you know, we're meant we're meant to have community. And I'm not saying you have to be buddy buddy with everybody because trust me this introvert is still recovering from the birthday party on Saturday. But, um, I will still talk to people. Sometimes I don't shut up, but
Danielle McCoy:You can, you know, join a CSA where you don't really have to talk to people. There you go. In You know, there's farmers markets and like I found the woman who raised the pig that we bought on Instagram. So I mean there are you know, but you do have to do your own homework and your own footwork and it's not as easy as going to the grocery store and buying you know, a package of pork chops as it is to go find the person that produces the thing that you can't produce but
Bonnie Von Dohre:You're going to need a big freezer if you want to buy half a cow half a pig. Yeah. Right. I mean, I'm working on clearing out my freezer so I can buy a quarter of a cow but yeah, and it almost goes back to the It'll be cheaper but like Don't, don't be so insistent, like ask yourself, do you really want to die on the do it yourself Hill? Right? Because, you know, yes, we can do all of the things ourselves. But like, this is one thing that drives me nuts with my husband. He will constantly tell me, we don't need to hire someone because I can do it. Or don't worry about that I'll get to it later. Or, you know, I put that somewhere where no one else can possibly reach it. But don't worry, I'll, I'll get it out for you. And then like, four weeks later, when I'm still waiting for him to find the thing and get it out for me, I just go and buy another one off Amazon, because because the man works 80 hours a week, and he can't do all the things that he thinks he needs to do, or that he can do. Yeah, I know. But also, like I mentioned, you know, part of our part of our self sufficiency strategy for our farm is selling extra livestock selling extra eggs. You know, some people there, their strategy is doing extra tractor work doing extra handyman work for other people. In order for those people to be self sufficient, someone else needs to hire them over in order for us to be self sufficient, someone else needs to buy from us. Right? Oh, I guess I should also mention part of my self sufficiency is selling extra plants. But so no, yeah, I have a business selling plants and seeds. And I forget about that. So, you know, it's like, you can't be an island, and do all of these things and make all this money to pay your bills, because guess what, the bank still won't take your mortgage payment and chickens I've tried is you still like, there's still has to be someone out there to buy it from you. So we can't all be self sufficient and never pay any money to anyone else, because it's never gonna work. Right. But it's our community that needs to be self sufficient. And Hispanic, you know, and we saw with like, the whole pandemic, and everything, the food wasn't coming in on the semi trucks, right, we were going and finding the farmers who were producing it, buying it directly from the farmers, the way we should have been doing it the whole time. Right. And those are the ones who are keeping us fed. Right. And I think that you know, a lot of people,
Danielle McCoy:You started talking about the expenses. The real food is expensive, it was never meant to be cheap. And the only reason that you can buy cheap food at the grocery store is because the government subsidized everything. So you have to your dollars talk. And if you support more, even though it costs more, you support more local producers. Number one, you're going to be healthier, which means you're actually gonna spend less money because you don't have to buy health care. You know, you're not, they say, for every dollar of cheap food you spend you spend $3 in health care. So if you take that into consideration, and you know, you're like Bonnie said, you're helping support those local producers, they can't be self sufficient if you try to do everything yourself, or if you buy everything from the grocery store. So you know, sometimes it costs a little more, but in the long run, it's cheaper. Yeah, it's put that out there. Well, and because it's not cheap to produce these things, you know, like my eggs are cheaper than it is to go buy them from the grocery store, but they're better and I know where they came from. And I know what kind of chicken you know what kind of life my chickens lead and what they're fed and all of those things.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right? Well, and I'm not going to buy any more pork from the store after having raised my own because it tastes so much better. I mean, how often have we just assumed that pork chops are supposed to be dry and flavorless. Guess what? They're not. No, neither is a chicken. They can be juicy, and they can have just as much flavor as a steak.
Danielle McCoy:Right? They should actually look more like steak and much less. Yeah,
Bonnie Von Dohre:They are a red dragon. Yes. So, you know, the whole reason that we ever they ever said to cook them fully, right?
Danielle McCoy:No.
Bonnie Von Dohre:It was takeout. Yes. Yeah. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And even like commercial pigs nowadays don't come into contact with the dirt. So they're not actually they're not picking up any parasites.
Danielle McCoy:I don't know. The pig farm smells terrible down the road. So I'm just gonna go with oh,
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, no. And yeah, I mean, I grew up. Trust me. I grew up across the street from commercial pig farms. And so I swore off ever raising pigs until I realized that hey, if you don't just stack them on top of each other. They don't they're not so bad, right. I mean, I like I still have all the respect in the world for commercial farmers, at least I mean, yeah. But it's it's just I think they're trying to do the best they can because Honestly, the prices are not being set by them, which is a big part of what is wrong with the food system in this country. Right and why I have always been in support of buying directly from the farmer, because, you know, everyone's screaming about fair wages, but we don't want to pay a farmer a fair price for the food that we eat. Right. And so they're being told, Well, we're only going to pay you 20 cents a pound. Now, they have to figure out how to produce enough pigs to make a living, when they can only turn around sell them for the price they're being told someone else is gonna, but
Danielle McCoy:They still have to meet all these requirements by, you know,
Bonnie Von Dohre:Big, which is also why so many of them are in debt to their eyeballs. Yep.
Danielle McCoy:And have three jobs on top of all right.
Bonnie Von Dohre:So it's, yeah, I mean, it is not, it is not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination. And that's why like I, I really get frustrated with these homestead bloggers that are just anti commercial farming, and want to say all these awful things about commercial farmers, and I'm like, I'm not saying that. The way everyone does, it is perfect. And I think even they acknowledge that it's not, like, maybe ideal, but I also think there's so much misinformation out there from a consumer standpoint. Right. And I mean, there's propaganda on all sides. Oh, yeah. I've had, I've had commercial like conventional dairy farmers telling me that organic dairy farmers don't care about their cows, because they don't give them antibiotics. And then I've had organic dairy farmers telling me that, you know, conventional dairy farmers are just pumping them full of chemicals. Like, it's like, it's not true on either side. I mean, okay, yes, it's true about they're not giving them antibiotics. But that doesn't mean they're just like leaving them with an infection to die. Right. Yeah. And if worse, comes to worse, and nothing else that they have tried is working, they will still treat with antibiotics, they just have to turn around sell that cow, but they're still going to do what's best for the cow. Absolute. So
Danielle McCoy:In this whole, you know, like, farmers don't care about their animals. It's just that's, I know, other hill that I would die on right now.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I know. And I mean, you know what, guess what, I worked for a dairy farmer who did not take the best care of his cows. And hit the production number showed it, right. And he went out of business,
Danielle McCoy:because he didn't make any money because they have to produce as much as they can to make right and and enough to pay their bills.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Modern farmers have gotten smarter that they know, they know better. And they are doing everything they can to create a stress free your stress, you know, minimizing the stress for the animal. Because if it's a meat animal, the stress increases the toughness of the meat. And if it's a dairy animal, the stress decreases their milk production. If it's laying hens, it decreases their egg production. Like we were saying, you vote with your dollars, if there is a specific way that you want your animals to be raised, then what better way to make sure that the food that you're eating is being raised the way you want it to be raised, then by buying it from the farmer who raised it right,
Danielle McCoy:directly to that farmer and ask any question that you have of most especially small farmers, you can even go visit the farm.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right? I mean, even if they've got biosecurity and you can't go past the gate, you're still probably going to see like what the what the setup is right and Brian outside and and not to mention, you're going to you're going to find out like that farmers reputation local community, because more than likely, you're going to be asking around like on your local Facebook groups. Hey, where should I buy this? Where should I buy that? And other customers who have already tried their products and already can tell you how good it tastes? And how, you know, well the animals are cared for? can say, hey, this is who I buy from in this, so I recommend, right. But yeah, I mean, you know, if so many of these terms, like when you go and buy something from the grocery store, or just marketing terms. Uh huh. So you know, cage free, guess what? They're still living in a giant barn with like two inches of floor space. All right.
Danielle McCoy:And they don't lie and then free range thing. They just have to leave the door open, but most chickens don't even leave the barn and
Bonnie Von Dohre:right, well, and because of biosecurity, they've got giant fans above those doors, and there's so much air being pushed down that none of the chickens want to go through those, like through his doors, right? Because it's gonna like blow them away. Yeah. So okay, yes, if I have to buy a store, if I have to buy grocery store eggs, I am going to pay extra and I'm going to get the pastured eggs because they take better. If I'm putting all of this effort into raising my chickens and I have to go and I have to buy eggs when they're not laying because they're freeloaders, then I'm going to invest the money into having just as good quality of food
Danielle McCoy:as I'm used to. Right?
Bonnie Von Dohre:Because, you know, I, I guess you can call me spoiled, whatever.
Danielle McCoy:Well, but you know, I know this wasn't one of our points. But before we wrap it up, I want to say, you know, I think people should learn to eat more seasonally to like, when you eat locally, you need to realize that all things including eggs, whether we like it or not, are actually seasonal things you know, they're not I know, I buy store bought eggs, because my chickens are free letters. My chickens
Bonnie Von Dohre:should be a my chickens should be laying right now. I either have an egg eater, or I just really have old hens. But I need to, I need to figure out something out there. I am working on I have I have I'm working on hatching out chicks right now. Right. So it just like because I or
Danielle McCoy:even any, any things like that are actually seasonal. Like, you know, when when we traditionally would butcher things seasonal compared to, you know, just because it's available, just because you have a green pepper in the grocery store in January in Indiana doesn't mean that it's in season.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right? Well, and I mean, you can still buy in season and preserve it and have it right, absolutely. But, um, yeah, I mean, there are there's a season for everything. I mean, it's also why like, you tend to see different recipes that are like trending during certain times of the year. Because traditionally that is where there was usually an abundance of that particular food available. And so that's when people were eating the most. But also like, as we're going into winter, we normally want like heavier things that are going to keep us warm and also kind of build up that fat layer. In the summertime. We want stuff that's lighter, and he's going to get, you know, help cool us down. Well, those are typically our lettuces and our fruits and things that are in season in the summer. So yeah, definitely. Well, if you want to learn more about this, we've got some blog posts that we will link to in the show notes. And Danielle had mentioned that she will she didn't mention this episode, she mentioned to me that she's going to have a webinar coming up. Well, I think that is it. Thank you for joining us and we will catch you next time. Thank you for listening to this episode of the grounded simplicity podcast. If we were able to help you in any way, please share this episode with a friend. And also leave us a review on Apple podcasts. You can also join us over on Patreon at Grounded simplicity and help to support this podcast as well as become a patron and get a behind the scenes look at the creation of our podcast and even have some input on future episodes.