Faithful Friends Farm

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Connie at Faithful Friends Farm. You can also follow them on Facebook.

00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Connie at Faithful Friends Farm. Good morning, Connie. Good morning, Mary. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day. Yeah, it is here, too. You're in Maryland? Yes, we're in Maryland. OK. All right, well, tell me about yourself and Faithful Friends Farm.

00:28
Okay, so back in 2010, my husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We had just given birth to our second child, my daughter, when he started having all these fluke symptoms and, you know, he finally got a diagnosis of running to doctors, you know, for six to 12 months. They finally diagnosed him with MS. So, um,

00:56
In 2012, we worked our way from having a little garden, and then I wanted chickens. I talked the rest of my family into getting chickens, and it just took off from there. We started selling to customers, and then in 2014, we started offering meat to people, so we started processing chickens. So that's pretty much where...

01:24
It started from, it was from my husband's diagnosis. We wanted to eat healthier and that was just an easy way to do it. You know, the garden and the chickens. Yeah. And again, you are cementing my belief that people do things because they need to make something work for themselves and then it works for them and they want to share it with other people. Yes, exactly. I was, you know, my hands were laying so well. I had all these extra eggs, you know, and I'm like,

01:54
You know what, let me look into getting certified to sell these. You know, so that's what we did. And, you know, I, you know, I just fell in love with my customers and vice versa. And I mean, I've had customers from the beginning that have stuck with me, even with the move, because in 2020 we purchased a larger farm because we had started off on an acre and a half and it just, we outgrew that very quickly. We ended up leasing.

02:22
Uh, about five acres from the farmer who was next door to us, he, he let us lease his woods because he didn't have a use for his woods. And um, you know, it just, it's been step by step. It's been baby steps, but we've gotten to where we are through baby steps. Yeah. And those are the best steps to take because I'm telling you, a humongous leap is the scariest thing you will ever take.

02:50
Yup, yup. And you know, when you have little lives depending on you, you really want to make sure you, you know, you take your time. I know people who jump in to dairy animals right away and I'm like, why don't you just give it a little time? Start off with something smaller because you won't believe how much of a commitment it is just to have lives, you know, even a chicken on your farm. You got to make sure you're home at a certain time, you know, before it gets dark.

03:19
because the predators catch on pretty quickly, you know, you're losing your chickens one by one, you know, so yeah, baby steps are the way to go for sure, at least in my experience. Yeah, we have chickens and we also have coyotes that we hear in the field that around us, like it's a big acreage around us. And every night, as soon as the pole light by our pole barn goes on,

03:48
That's when the chickens get put in because otherwise we won't have any chickens because coyotes would be like, Hey, it's dinner time. Let's eat them. Yup. Exactly. And so it's such a commitment just to have, you know, chickens, you know, I've missed weddings and everything else before we had our guardian dogs. I'm, you know, I, that would be my first recommendation for anyone, you know, starting off with homesteading if they have birds is to get themselves a livestock guardian dog. If.

04:17
you're not sure you can be home at dusk, you know, cause this, yeah, they, like I said, they catch on quickly and then you won't have a flock, you know. Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't even have to be a big dog. We have a small dog and the coyotes have never come on our property because she has her scent all over the property. Yeah. And they don't want to get into scuffle. They want the easy meal. They don't want to have to fight for it, you know.

04:45
Yeah, so it's not like you have to have a great Pyrenees. She's a mini Australian shepherd and she is very good at making sure nothing comes on the property. So, yep, yep. Okay. Did I see that you guys sell? I looked at your Facebook page earlier and I saw some animal that had been butchered and I can't remember what it was. Okay, so we mostly specialize in poultry. Yeah.

05:14
We've started with processing pork and eventually we'll try beef. You know, maybe it was a pig. I can't remember. Okay. It might've been goat too. Um, you know, a lot of people are like, when you tell them you butcher goat, but goats actually very sustainable. You don't need a whole lot of property. They can survive. If you have good pasture solely on pasture, you know,

05:41
They're great to have around. So we breed for milk, but if we have a male is born, we will calf straight and we'll grow them out for meat. And we do new beans. So it's a good dual purpose breed. Yeah, I still have not had goat meat. I need to find somebody who I can just buy a little bit from so I can try it. Yeah, just to try it. Yeah, the last thing I wanna do is buy a whole goat and butcher it and try it and not like it and have it.

06:09
sit in my freezer for four years and get tossed. That would not be okay. Exactly. Exactly. Yup. So, yeah, we... Oh, go ahead. I just need to find somebody who has goats and be like, do you ever butcher any? If you do, could I get a steak or two so I can try it? Yeah. Give it a try. It's actually, you know, a lot milder of a meat than people think. They're thinking it's going to be more similar to lamb. But in my, I mean, I don't think in my opinion, it's very similar at all.

06:37
I think it's a much milder meat and it's the number one most consumed red meat in the world. But Americans just haven't caught on to that yet. You know? Yeah. Yep. I know. I, I always think of it like deer meat, but I'm sure it's not nearly as dark or as gamey as deer. No, it's, it's, uh, as far as like fat content, I would say it's comparable, but you know,

07:05
You know, people don't like the gamey taste of animals, but that's actually what, you know, we're so we've been so Americanized, you know, chicken should taste like chicken and goat should taste like goat and beef should taste like beef. But we've gotten so used to very mild meat, you know, can be off putting some, you know, but I guess we've we've we've had squirrel. I mean, we've tried everything.

07:34
So we're really open to the idea of different meats. You know, we even raise a guinea fowl here and we process guinea fowl and that's one of my favorite meats. Huh, you know. Yeah, we do a large variety of poultry. That really is our specialty. And we purchased equipment back in 2014 when we decided to start producing chicken for our customers.

08:02
We dumped head first, jumped head first into it and we started processing on farm. And then we went to quail, you know, we do Guinea, we do turkeys, we do Muscovy duck. But you know, poultry really is our specialty because everything's done in house. We don't have to ship it to a processing facility. So it works really well for us. Yeah. And it's better for the animal too.

08:30
because they don't get stressed by the trip to the butcher. Yes. Yep, yep. I think that plays a large part in unhealthy meats, is if that animal was stressed before it was processed. I really do think that makes a difference. Yeah, absolutely. They have a fear thing that happens when they're moved. Yep.

08:55
I don't know if it taints the taste of the meat, but it just puts them under stress and their hormones go crazy. Yup. And it just, it's not good for them. No it's not. So you know, this was, this whole thing to begin with was a healthier lifestyle for us. And with my husband's MS, we can really, the farms worked really well for him because he can't work outside of home. He just has too many bad days. You know, he'll...

09:23
You just never know, it's so unpredictable. So this has been a really good lifestyle choice for us because we can work around his disease. You know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do understand on a low level because migraine headaches run in my family on the female side.

09:46
For me, it's a stress thing or a storm front thing or it used to be a PMS thing before I didn't have to worry about that anymore. I'm 24. I don't have to deal with that anymore. And I could not hold a job because I never knew if I was going to be able to function to get in the car to drive to work.

10:07
Exactly. We're have days where, you know, we're running up to Lancaster PA to pick up our chickens. We don't have our chickens shipped to us anymore. You know, we get to day old peeps. My husband will be driving and all of a sudden he'll be like, I can't keep my eyes open. I'm feeling really fatigued. Like he feels like just the way of the world's on him. You know, he feels like an elephant's sitting on him and he's like, I gotta pull over, you know. So.

10:36
Like I can't imagine if I wasn't with him, like what he would do. Yeah. You guys are a team and when he can, when he can give his all, I'm sure that he does. And when he needs you to step in, I'm sure you do. Yup. So it's been really good for us. We even share a phone, you know, cause we're together all the time. You know, we don't have a use for two cell phones, so we just share ours. You know, great. Yeah.

11:06
Okay. So do you do garden as well as raise poultry and pigs and goats? Yeah. So we do have a small garden. It's not much to talk about. We, you know, we do, I don't even know like as far as acres, what it would be. But we do have a small garden. And if I produce extra, I will sell it to customers, but most of the time, you know, I'll can the extra, you know, or we're consume it. But.

11:35
You know, that is something I'd like to get more into as well, you know, by finding myself not being able to find the time for everything I want to do. You know, but yes, yes. The bane of homesteaders everywhere. There are not enough hours in any given day. No, there's not. There's really not. I'm thankful now that the days are getting longer because I can accomplish so much more, you know, than winter time because, you know, most our work's done outside. So.

12:03
These short days aren't any good for me. So I'm thankful the days are getting longer. Yes. And with more, with longer days comes warmer temperatures. Thank you, God. I'm so ready. I'm so ready for it to be nice out again. I mean, and I should not say that because this winter in Minnesota has been unseasonably warm. So this winter has been.

12:26
a blessing in some ways because last winter it was terribly cold and we had tons of snow. This year it's been unseasonably warm and we've gotten maybe a foot of snow here. Yeah, yeah. It was an unusual season for us as well. It didn't get brutally cold. We had some cold snaps last winter though, pretty bad. My first calf was born on the farm and

12:53
It was right around Christmas and the temperatures just dropped into the single digits and the wind, it was the wind that made it so unbearable. And I'm like, how am I going to keep this calf alive? I can't bring it in the house like my goats, it's too big. So I called my dairy friends, they're like, just lay her the hay, or the straw rather, real deep and she'll be fine. So that's what I did. But yeah, so we had like a cold snap last year. I can't say we had much.

13:21
this winter either. It was an unusual year for us as well. You know? Yeah. This, this winter has been crazy. I'm really concerned about the weather patterns for the rest of the year. Because yeah, it's been really odd. We've gotten tons and tons of rain. We had a drought last year and now I think, you know, the weather is making up for that now because boy, like we've had so much rain in the last month, you know,

13:50
Yeah, and we're just the opposite of you. I heard on the news yesterday morning that we are likely looking at drought in the next week and a half, starting again. And that doesn't do a lot of good for us because we grow a huge garden and sell at the farmer's market and our farm stand. So this weather is making me nervous for this choice we've made in having a homestead and growing a huge garden and having chickens.

14:19
so much. I mean, we're at the mercy of nature, you know? So, yeah, last year we had that drought and my pasture's dried up and, you know, we heavily depend on our pastures because not just for the goats and the cows, but for our poultry as well because we grow them in movable chicken tractors. So we move them onto fresh pasture every day. And it was like just

14:45
getting drier and drier and drier every day we would move them and I'm like, oh my gosh, like, there's not any grass left. It's just dirt we're moving them on. So it's refreshing for me that we're getting all this rain, but it's made everything really, really muddy. You know how that is with farming, you know? Yep, absolutely. And anyone who has chickens knows how much the feed has gone up in cost in the last year.

15:13
It's crazy. It's ridiculous. You know, we charge five fifty a pound for chickens and the only reason we're able to do it at that cost at that price is because we process our own. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to raise it up six this season because it's just so expensive. But my brother also works for the Maryland Department of Agriculture and they just had a meeting and apparently China's not buying up our grains as much and I'm hearing the prices are going.

15:42
come back down and I pray they do. Yeah, me too. Because I really don't want to have to raise the prices because people are looking at my prices and they gasped and it's like, we spent $40,000 in just feed last year, which is an insane number, if you ask me. I mean, but most of our, you know, a large majority of our money just, most of it goes back in the farm and most of that's feed, the cost of feed. Yeah.

16:11
It's not, it's not cheap to raise animals and it never will be. Nope. Whenever I talk to people and they want to get into raising their own chickens for eggs, I'm like, just so you know, I'm just letting you know. I think it's, you should raise, I believe everyone should have a flock of chickens, but it's not going to save you money. It doesn't. Unfortunately, the eggs are like a thousand times better, but it doesn't save money.

16:41
Yeah, not unless they are eating, not unless they are literally free ranging as often as they can, like you're doing with your chicken tractors. That will save you money and feed. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. Yeah. But it's not... Okay, I don't think people raise chickens to make money, really. I think people have chickens because they want the good eggs. That's what I think. Yeah, and they want the good meat, you know.

17:10
Yeah, we do a slow growing either a red ranger breed. We get them from freedom ranger up in Lancaster and they take conventionally, conventionally they can grow a chicken out in six to eight weeks. It takes us about 10 to 12 weeks to get them butcher size. Yeah. You know, so that's, that's a little more expensive as well. Cause you're feeding them for the extra month, but.

17:35
man, the difference in quality of that meat, it's got so much more flavor. You know, it's not like mush, you know, it's got a little bit of a consistency, like a nice, you know, it's like chicken should be, you know, it's got a good chew. Yes. I always go back to my childhood and I'm like, you know, chicken's not the way it was when I was a child. You know, it was so much different just in the 1980s than it is now. You know.

18:05
But yeah, so we're trying to educate people on how meat should taste, you know, and the texture that chicken should be, you know, you shouldn't open up a pack of chicken and it shouldn't, you know, shouldn't be slimy. It shouldn't even have a smell, you know? No, no, no. If it stinks, don't eat it. Exactly. You, you know, I don't even notice a mild smell with our chicken.

18:31
Maybe I'm accustomed to it, but I really don't notice the smell. You know, who knows how long that chicken's been on your grocery store shelves. You know, but, you know, I think the majority of our customers are well educated in, you know, the way food should be, not just like the flavor, but, you know, the nutritional values as well.

18:57
Yeah. And the other thing about having animals, whether it's chickens or goats or cows or whatever, is that they have other things to offer too. The manure. Chicken manure is the best thing for a garden once it has cooled down. Never use fresh chicken manure on a garden because it will burn your plants. But it's great. We did it one year when we lived at the old house. I don't know what

19:27
in townhouse to an acreage, a 3.1 acre place. And we put chicken manure that had cooled on our gardens at the old house. And we had the most beautiful produce that year. It was astounding. Yep, you know, that's the thing about regenerative agriculture. You know, you have a lot of hate about cows right now, but if people educate themselves, they'd realize that

19:57
That's the only way we're going to put nutrients back in the soil is with animal manure. That's the only way to really do it. You know, but people are thinking of the feedlot cows and how that's, you know, that is bad for the environment. But if you're doing regenerative agriculture, that's like the best thing for this world. You know? Yeah. It's a circle. It's a circle of production. Yup.

20:26
So I think it's important and we put our chicken manure and straw, that's what they have in there, that's what their bedding is, is straw. We put that in a compost pile and we let it sit and then we put it in our garden in the spring. And your plants grow twice as big. And the plants have more flavor too. It's not just the size of the plants or the nutritional value.

20:56
Whatever you're growing is going to have a better flavor. Yeah. Um, we just got some goat manure from friends that had a huge pile of manure that had been sitting. So it wasn't hot either. And we put that on the garden back, um, Oh, in October, I think. So that it could sit for the year, for the winter. And so I figured between the chicken manure and the goat manure, we should have the most fabulous garden we've ever seen.

21:24
Yeah, as long as the rain doesn't rain. That was my problem last year. My garden suffered because I wasn't out there watering it like I should. Now that's what you do. I guess that's a big part of your business. So you're probably a lot more diligent with that than I am. Oh, yes. And we have a well, thank goodness. Oh, yes. That's a game changer right there. Yeah. That way if it doesn't rain, at least we can make it rain.

21:54
Yep, exactly. But the other thing that's really nice about having critters, which is what I call animals critters, is I'm sure that when your cows have babies, when they're a little bit bigger, like at a week old, you're probably out there talking to those babies and if mama will let you, you're petting them and they bring you joy, yes? Oh, yes. So much joy. Yeah. And the goats and...

22:22
I don't know, baby chickens are baby chickens, but goats and cows, baby ones, oh my goodness. Yeah, so we're doing a big event at the end of March, which what we just started off as a goat petting session for people has turned into like a whole farmers market. So we'll have like a dozen vendors, you know, as of right now we have about a dozen and

22:49
But it's revolving around goat cuddles. That's a big thing right now. Oh, I'm going to hop a plane. I'm going to cuddle Joe. You should. I should. I can't. I'd love to. Yeah. You got, you got homestead to run. Yeah. It makes it a little difficult. Yeah, I do. And, um, plane tickets are not that inexpensive right now. So I think I'll just, I'll just stay here and you can post pictures and I will grin at the pictures. I will.

23:16
So that's a big thing I try to do is just bring joy to other people's lives. My Facebook page has brought me the most business out of every type of social media or advertisement you can have, but my main goal since the beginning is just to bring a little light into people's lives by posting pictures and telling stories. Because like you said, these animals

23:45
these critters bring you joy. And I want to share that with everyone I meet, you know. Yeah, absolutely. We have friends that do a baby animal day every, I think it's April. And last year they had lambs, they had puppies, they had kittens, they had everything. And we went and visited because our dog is one of their dog's babies.

24:11
She's my dog. My dog is three and a half now, so she's not a puppy anymore. But they had puppies and they had great Pyrenees puppies as well. They're so cute. And the the other puppies that are related to my dog are many Australian shepherd puppies. So there were these little tiny two and a half pound, four pound many Australian puppies. And then there were these 15 pound great Pyrenees puppy. I know they grow so fast. It's crazy.

24:41
And oh my goodness, I got to hold both kinds and I got to smell them. And you know that any baby smells good. It doesn't matter where it's a human baby. Well, puppy breath. I'm like obsessed with puppy breath. Some people are like, ew, it's so gross. Like it just takes me right back to happy memories when I smell puppy breath. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It was funny because I was holding one of the baby mini

25:11
My dog still smells just like that. And Maggie's not a dirty dog. You know, she's not out rolling in the chicken hay and she's not rolling in the dirt in the garden. So she's not yucky. And I smelled that puppy and I was like, Oh, Maggie hasn't lost her puppy smell. And she's three. This is great. Well, I'll be posting pictures in about two weeks. One of my great Pyrenees is having her first litter of pups.

25:38
So I'll be sure to post pictures, you know, and I've already decided, we lost my great Pyrenees back on the second of March from Lyme's disease. And she was, of course, she was my favorite. We've had her since before we moved to the new farm in 2020. She's been with me through it all. And she, I think she got Lyme's when we moved, we moved the dogs and the goats.

26:04
to the farm before we moved our birds to the farm. Cause we were commuting back and forth for a year between the two places, you know. And there was so many ticks here when we purchased a property. We were driving in T-posts, put fencing up on, every single post had at least two ticks on it. And I know that's when she, yeah, I know, like really bad. And I know that's when she caught limes. And I think she's, excuse me, been sick for some time. But she, so we lost her.

26:34
from a battle of limes, you know, she had kidney failure. And I'm already saying to myself, I've already planned, I'm going to keep one of these pups, you know. Good. Yeah. There is nothing that heals the heartache of losing your favorite dog, like having a new baby dog. Yup. Exactly. And they're going to have the badger markings. My Bailey had badger markings. It's in the great Pyrenees. I had the masks, you know, and she was my only girl who had that. But the male.

27:04
who bred with my other girl has the badger marking. So I'm like, some of them, at least some of them are going to have that. So I'm going to keep a little girl with badger marks. Good. I've already made up my mind. Awesome. That's great. I'm so glad because it's really hard losing a pet. It's so hard. I mean, I can't even imagine what's going to be my life when Maggie goes. I don't even want to talk about it.

27:32
My parents had a Samoyed dog for years and they got him when he was like eight, ten weeks old years ago. I think I was 15. My dad brought him home and we didn't know they were getting one. All three of us kids were sitting on the braided rug in the living room. My dad walked in and I looked up and he had this white fluff ball in his arms and he came over and put it in my lap and he said, there's your new dog.

28:01
His name is Pearl. And of course, all three of us kids lost our minds because we didn't know we were getting a puppy. That boy lived to be, I think, 14 or 15 years old. And he died of cancer of all things. And my dad was so sad because that was his dog. You know, I mean, he was our kid's puppy, but he was my dad's dog. My dad was so sad. He was just destroyed.

28:31
So yeah, I'm really excited that you're going to keep a puppy. I think that's good. Yeah, me too. But I'll be posting pictures of those. Give her kisses from me when she's big enough. I will. I love babies. Babies are great. Every time I see a puppy or a kitten, I'm just like, oh, I need to pet it. I need to love it. And the baby goats. Oh my goodness. Oh, yes. Baby goats.

28:59
Yep, I've talked a lot about my love for baby goats in the episodes that I've done. So I'm not gonna go too deep into that again. Baby goats are the sweetest, cutest, softest things ever. Yes, and they're the most lovable. You know, they just want your affection. Yeah. Yeah, they are aggressively needy on love. They are. And the mamas are looking at you like, what are you doing with my baby?

29:28
Yeah. I got some bottle babies living in my living room right now. So that were rejected. You know, sometimes you have lambs and kids that are born and their moms reject them for some unknown reason most of the time. So yeah, we have two living in our living room right now in a plate pen. Nice. I bet that's real hard to get up to in the morning. Oh my, yeah. Terrible. So difficult.

29:56
Oh no, I have to go feed the baby goats now. This is terrible. My five-year-old will sleep downstairs because he wants to stay with his babies because those are his babies. He gets very protective over them. We have customers and friends come by the farm and they want to see the baby goats and he's like, they're my baby goats. He makes sure they know that they can't take them home with them. Yeah, I could see that.

30:25
I'm going to say this and we'll chat about this for a minute and then I'm going to let you go. Sure. Animals are the best thing for kids because kids learn about being responsible and having compassion for something out of themselves. You're right. I've seen that development in my five-year-old and where he has, excuse me, it's not just about him. You know, he's got these baby goats to care for as well.

30:55
So you're absolutely right. It's a great learning tool for a child. Yeah, and even if they don't, even if the kid doesn't realize that they're learning that, it's so natural to them to want to take care of it. Yup. My son, who still lives with us, he's 22. Long story about why he still lives with us, but COVID, he graduated high school, COVID hit, and it's been real hard to find a job here, so.

31:23
So he's the farmhand, he helps out a lot. But when we got Maggie the puppy, he didn't want a dog. He really didn't want us to get a dog. And I was like, I'm pulling a rank, we own the house, we're the parents, we're getting the puppy, this is what we've wanted to do forever. And he was like, okay, fine. And I said, you don't have to take care of her, it's fine. He's like, okay, fine. And he fell in love with her within a month. So, and she...

31:52
adores him and he plays frisbee with her outside and she just loves it. So even when you think that you don't want something, sometimes they grow on you anyway. Yep, yep, you're right. All right, Connie, number one, thank you so much for talking with me. Number two, I know how busy everyone that is kind enough to talk with me is our whatever. And so

32:22
To you and to everyone else who's talked with me so far, I really appreciate the fact that you guys share your time and your thoughts and your words and your joy with me. I'm glad you chose me. I'm happy to be a part of your podcast. So I thank you for that. Well, you're welcome and I love doing it. So I'm just so happy people wanna talk with me. It's so much fun. Oh, yeah, you know, like I said earlier,

32:50
People come first for me. So, you know, if I can help educate, you know, education's a big part of what we do too. I do a lot of workshops and whatnot. And if I can educate and bring some joy and insight to people who might not have the privilege of farming, I'm happy to do it. Awesome. All right, Connie, you have a great day. You too, Mary. Good talking to you. You too. Bye. Bye bye.