Lazy Knoll Farm LLC

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Liz at Lazy Knoll Farm LLC. You can also follow on Facebook.

00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Liz at Lazy Knoll Farm LLC. Good morning, Liz. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm doing well. How are you? Great. You're in North Carolina? Yes, ma'am. Pilot Nob. Pilot Nob? Pilot Mountain. Mountain. Okay.

00:29
Alright, tell me about Lazy Knoll Farm LLC and what I really want to know is why it's called Lazy Knoll. Well I guess the name was just kind of situated on top of a hill and it's one of the highest points in the area. I was trying to find something that was more of like a relaxing name. It's a quiet area. It's in the middle of the country.

00:59
And to me, just a lazy novel is just a peaceful little place. But we actually got started in 2020. We started our first pumpkin patch and that was in the middle of us purchasing the property from my husband's family. And after that, the farm kind of began an annual pumpkin patch here and it slowly grew into what it is today with the chickens. We had pigs.

01:29
We ended up processing them and we have our cows, which is a variety of cows now. We have our Highland cows and white Galloways and belted Galloways and we have a Dexter and a ton of chickens. Nice. The Galloways, is that an Irish breed or does it just happen to be called Galloway? They're actually a Scottish breed. Okay. Yeah.

01:59
And I honestly, I was drawn to them originally before we even got howling cows. I liked the fact that they were smaller in size and polled. And we started looking at the different varieties of smaller cattle because we live on 40 acres, but you can only keep so many cows on each acre, especially when it comes to Angus or some of the bigger breeds that are so popular around here. And

02:29
And then we happened to be watching an auction. And I asked my husband, I said, it was for a Highland cows. And I was like, do you think we should try for it? And we ended up winning her. And that just started the snowball effect of getting all these different cows. OK. Polled means that they don't have horns, right? Yes. Yeah. How is it spelled? Is it P-O-L-L-E-D? Yes, ma'am.

02:56
Okay, I keep hearing it, but I never know if it's polled P-U or polled P-O. So thank you. Um, the Highland breed is the, the orange-ish colored cows with the real fluffy coats, right? Yeah, they, I mean, they come in a variety of colors, but they have, I guess most distinguishably their, their horns are those, um, similar to like long horns, but they, they curve a little bit and I mean, they all have a different.

03:26
shape to their horns. They're just, they're all unique. But yes, they had the long shaggy fur, which, you know, a lot of people call them the emo cows. Yeah, they look like a stuffed animal. They're the Justin Bieber's of cows. Cute. Okay. So what is the purpose of your farm? Are you guys just raising animals and

03:55
gardening and stuff for yourselves or do you sell?

03:59
We do sell our cows, but we sell them more to hobby farms, small homesteads, smaller farms. A lot of people like Highland cows for, you know, kind of, I guess, glorified yard ornaments, but they are actually sought after for their meat too, but they're so cute that a lot of people have trouble making that transition.

04:30
I do know that it was one of the, I believe it was the only beef that the Queen of England would eat. It was a highland beef. But it does take them at least two years to mature. And so you can't get it as readily as you would say an Angus or a Baldi or some of the more popular beef breeds.

04:58
They do. And it's actually rich in buttermilk. Okay. So it's, you know, if you're interested in churning butter or anything like that, it's one of the better cows for that. We don't currently milk any of our cows. We do have a mini Dexter, and she's our smallest. She won't get over 36 inches, and she has A2A2 milk.

05:25
She was tested genetically for that. And A2A2 milk is supposed to be better for people who have lactose intolerance, milk allergies, those sort of things. I guess it's easier to digest, which my five-year-old son has, he cannot drink milk or soy milk. He has allergies to both. And so it's been on my mind when she has her first calf that I've considered.

05:56
starting milking her and seeing how he can digest that. I also don't tolerate milk as well. So I'm curious to see what the difference would be in that. Yeah, you'll have to check back with me because I want to know too. That would be really interesting. Okay, so did you always want to do this or was this a new thing for you or what? It's kind of crazy. Our story is, I guess,

06:26
unique. I actually moved down to North Carolina from Alaska in 2016. I will say I was originally born in Virginia, but I moved to Alaska when I was six. My mom has this book from when I was in school. My preschool page, you had to mark what you wanted to be when you grew up. On my page, I had put farmer and a mother.

06:56
And now here I am with three children and we own a farm. And so I had a variety of jobs between them. You know, I'm working in Alaska. I did not do this. I worked in residential treatment. I had my degree in psychology and I worked in prisons and I worked as a probation parole officer and

07:24
My last job was actually in the courthouse. And when I had our third son, or our third child, I made the transition to being a stay at home mom. And that was about two years ago. And I started building the farm up then. And that's about two years ago is when we started getting our first cows.

07:50
I had gotten chickens before then, which everyone says chickens are the gateway drug. Yes, yes they are. Yes they are. And then it just doesn't, I mean, it doesn't end with chickens. You got to go beyond that. But we got the pigs and yeah, we never, I had met my husband after I moved to North Carolina. I met him in Pender County. We worked together and we moved up here when we had our first son. And

08:20
I fell in love with the property that we're on right now because of all the open pastures and it's got a huge wooded area also. We just decided to ask the family because it was family owned between his father's siblings. We just talked to them about buying them out on this property. It's been in his family since, I believe we traced it back to the 1930s.

08:49
It was originally a tobacco farm. And so we, they agreed to it and we started our pumpkin patch and just slowly grew into this and here we are. And we, I think we focus a lot more on homesteading as in providing for ourselves. We've done meat chickens. We processed our own pigs. My husband hunts. He, he processes deer. Um, but.

09:16
We've also gotten into the cattle and that's more of a, you know, I guess, farm aspect of, you know, selling beyond just our family and friends. And we do our annual pumpkin patch, which that sells to the community around here. But yeah, we never plan on it. It's the best life for us, I think, especially with the three kids being able to raise them.

09:46
on the farm and raise them getting dirty every day. I always talk about my daughter faceplanting into a cow patty. She's two years old and she couldn't care less. Yeah, they don't care. As long as they're clean when they go to bed, they're fine. Go cat. Go. Okay.

10:10
So is the plan to continue to grow it and grow it and grow it as you get older and the kids get older or do you have a different plan for it? We're pretty much good where we're at with the cows right now. We have 12 acres that we've fenced in for pasture. I do want to expand. It's been in my plan for this past year is to.

10:39
add babydoll sheep to the farm. A lot of it is the attraction. Highland cows, people like to take photographs of them. People like to pet them. It brings people here for the pumpkin patch. So I think we hope to expand in that regard. We do our sales for the pumpkin patch in the fall. We've talked about maybe expanding to selling Christmas trees in the future, depending on

11:09
how things go, just bringing our community in and bringing them together to, I guess, have a place they can get something local. We do have a couple other pumpkin patches around here, but ours is the only one in the Westfield area. But that's, I think that beyond that, we don't plan on expanding anymore, just maybe adding the sheep and then.

11:37
I think we're at our limit with animals beyond that. Okay. Sorry. I had a question when you were talking because this is what happens to me. You guys talk and I get so engrossed in what you're saying, I forget the prompt that kicked me when you were talking. Christmas trees. Is that a hard thing to start? And do you have any idea how long it takes for them to be cuttable size? Well for us, we would actually...

12:05
purchase from a local farm and then bring them in as already cut and just set up a sales stand basically. What I envision I guess is I see we would like to have like a little building on that side of the property that we can sell out of but also you know just at that time of the year having hot chocolate, having Christmas lights up and just…

12:32
a place where people can come and pick out their Christmas trees. That's not the grocery store. You're making me want it to be Christmas and we are literally just coming into spring in Minnesota. So I'm feeling really conflicted right now because the idea of an open fire and a mug of hot cocoa or coffee and sitting down and chatting with people and then picking out a Christmas tree sounds wonderful, but this is not the time. Mary Evelyn, no.

13:02
Okay, I remembered the other question. The other question was, what's the biggest city near you? I'd have to say, we have Mount Airy here, which I don't know if you know, Mount Airy is known as Mayberry. Okay. From the Andy Griffith Show. Okay, yeah. And that is the closest city to us, but I wouldn't qualify that as a big city. Winston-Salem's 30 minutes away. Okay, yeah. And then just beyond that, 45 minutes away is Greensboro.

13:31
Okay, I don't know Greensboro, but I know Salem, so we're good. I don't know what I haven't been there, but I've heard of it. So yeah. Yeah. I have talked to a lot of people in your area in North Carolina and South Carolina in the last couple of months because apparently the Carolinas are a great place to have a homestead or a farm. And I assume that's because the soil is good and the climate is good. Yeah, I've noticed that too. We actually follow a lot of people around here.

14:00
Um, right, I think probably an hour or 45 minutes away is Polyface Farm, Bull Salton, and then Justin Rhodes is in Asheville area, which is another big name for homesteading around us. Um, I know there's Instagram and Facebook, YouTube shows, sow the land. Um, they're also by Asheville area. And we're kind of in the middle.

14:30
of this like the northern middle part of the state. A little closer to the west were 15 minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Okay. So, you're in a really beautiful area, number one. And number two, you lucked out and had a piece of land that you could buy in a really beautiful area. So, that's fantastic. Speaking of Joel and Polyphase Farm.

14:58
I actually interviewed him a week or two ago and released the episode this past Monday and he is such a nice man. Oh, yeah. We've been dying to meet him. We watch a lot of his stuff and actually when we did our meat chickens, we used his chicken tractor design. Yeah, he's the, what is it, the godfather of homesteading pretty much. Something like that, yeah. I don't know if you've listened to the interview.

15:27
time in between taking care of the kids and getting things ready for spring and summer, it's up on the podbean.com, a tiny homestead page. So if you want to listen to it, feel free. But yeah, if you have a chance to meet him, go meet him. He's very nice. Yeah. He seems like an open door policy with anybody interested in learning about what he's created.

15:58
Oh yes, absolutely. He's apparently out of the country this week teaching his methods to people in other countries across the pond. So I'm like, wow, I can't even imagine, I can't imagine number one, flying because I hate to fly. And number two, being so sought after that I would go across the globe to teach. Yeah, that says numbers about him.

16:27
Yeah. So, okay, so how old are your kids? Because I assume they're young and that's fantastic because they're going to be brought up in a lovely way. We have a five-year-old who's currently in preschool and he's our oldest. And then we have a two-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy. Oh my, you are busy. That's a...

16:53
That's a lot of little ones to take care of and start a business and run a farm and take care of everything. Yes, they keep us on our toes for sure. I mean, it is a little bit limiting when you're trying to focus on like we've been, my husband and I, we do pretty much all the work around here ourselves. Okay, he does 95% of the work. I do maybe 5%. I understand, yes.

17:23
And we've been pasturing in those 12 acres and we're down to just needing to wrap wire on the last, what is it, four acres. And when you're trying to wrap and watch the three kids and make sure they're not getting into things they shouldn't be, it slows things down a little bit. But they, just seeing them out here and just running around in the field and...

17:49
My youngest likes to go over to the chickens and just watch them and they love it. Yep. And those kids are going to be a huge help in about 12 years. So it's great. I mean, I, again, I've said this before on the podcast, I'm going to say it again. I wish that we had been in a position to do this thing that we're doing here now when my kids were young. We were not. We lived in town. We lived in a tiny house.

18:19
It just wasn't possible then. And of course, once the youngest hit 18, the opportunity came for us to buy acreage and move. And I was like, of course, now they're all grown, we can go. So I really envy you guys who are younger and have little ones and can do this while they're young because then they're raised in it. Yeah. Well, do you have grandchildren? Sort of, kind of.

18:49
Um, my, my, uh, stepson who I consider my son, I have four kids. I have a daughter, my stepson, and then two sons after the stepson. My stepson and his wife, she has a daughter from a previous marriage and my stepson and his wife just got married in September. So officially I am a grandma and she's, she's like 11 or 12. Oh, I'm sure she loves it. Um, she's been up once like.

19:18
Oh my, it was a while ago. It was like four years ago. And so we had just moved here and things were really, really crazy and stressful. We literally had moved in two months before they visited and we had a brand new puppy. So things were a little nutty because I was still trying to get the house situated and know where things were and we had a puppy underfoot and they came to visit and.

19:45
It was insanity here when they visited. So I'm not sure she had a great time when they were here, but they are now only about a five to six hour car drive away. So I expect to see them this summer. And then it will be better because we're more settled and the gardens will be going and she can go pick whatever she wants and she can hang out with chickens and hang out with the dog that was a puppy when we met her. So it'll be a little less.

20:14
crazy.

20:17
What kind of dog do you have? I have a mini Australian shepherd and I have talked and talked and talked about her on this podcast and I always feel weird about it. Her name is Maggie. That's a cute name. Yep, she's been Maggie since before we actually brought her home. Friends of ours are the owners of the parents of Maggie.

20:45
when we said we wanted one of the puppies, my friend Jean said, what's the name going to be? And I said, it's a girl puppy. She's like, yeah. I said, Maggie. Maggie has had, Maggie has been Maggie since she was about five weeks old. What made you pick that name? I'm kind of weird and I love biblical names, even though I'm not religious at all. And I have always loved Mary of Magdalene. I love Magdalene.

21:14
And so I was like, I want to name the puppy Maggie after Mary of Magdalene. And my husband was like, I don't care what we name her because you're always good at naming things. So, so she's, she's Maggie after Mary of Magdalene, even though I am the least Bible person you will ever meet. I don't know why I keep doing this, but I do it. So I usually proper names. So I understand that.

21:38
Yeah, I mean, we should have named her Bandit because if she's out in the yard and she's a good 20, man, not even 20 yards, 10 yards away, she has a white stripe in between her eyes and she has the little brown markings that look like eyebrows above her eyes. And so when she's far away, she looks like she has a mask on. And when I noticed it, when she finally came into her adult coloring,

22:08
I was like, I should have named that dog Bandit. And my husband looked at me, he said, it's too late now. I was like, I know, she's Maggie. But Bandit would have been really cute. So I do this all the time. I said, well, Maggie's cute too. Yes, and she is very, very cute actually in person. She's a beautiful dog. She's the black and white tri with the tan points.

22:34
And she is just a lovely dog and I don't want to say anything else because I've talked about her so much. People are like, oh no, we're talking about the dog again. Yeah. Does she help you with the chickens? No, no, she does not because she's a gross dog and she wants to eat the chicken poop. That's just a dog thing. Yes. And it just, I'm completely grossed out by it.

23:01
And because she's a house pet, she lives indoors and I don't want her licking my face knowing she was eating chicken poop. It's just gross. And there's no stopping her from licking your face. I mean, she must lick your nose if she can get to you. So it's just gross. I don't want her doing it. And we only have 18 or 19 chickens and they have a big run so she can't get to them, but she can see them. So.

23:30
She's not, she doesn't really have a job. She's a watchdog mostly. Well, that works. That's a job. Yeah, we needed a watchdog. We live five miles outside of town and we live on a busy highway because of the semi trucks that take, I don't know, the produce from the farms around here in and out all the time. And so I wanna know if somebody pulls in the driveway and she knows immediately and she barks really loud. So.

24:00
Oh, that's good. Yeah, she's fabulous. I love her so much. She is my favorite, favorite, favorite thing on earth right now. Just don't tell the kids. Ah, I've told my husband, I've told my kids. I'm like, you're just going to have to accept it. She is my favorite thing on earth right now. And she's the first dog I've ever raised from a puppy to a dog. My husband and I had never had that experience before. Yeah, that does change things.

24:28
Yeah, because they're babies. You fall in love and then you're screwed for the rest of their lives. Yeah. So, but anyway, do you guys have any pets? We do. I don't mean animals, I mean pets. Well, we have four dogs, but they're livestock guardian dogs. Yeah. So they're outside 24-7. And then we have our farm cat, Hanks, after Tom Hanks. Yeah.

24:55
We had his mom and then we named her Pumpkin. And then my husband and I just get a kick out of that Saturday Night Live skit with Tom Hanks, David S. Pumpkins. And so we named the Pumpkins' son, Hanks. Nice. And then we have a 50% Anatolian

25:22
50% great Pyrenees dog named Zeus. And he came with me from Wilmington. And then we adopted a full Pyrenees female named Lady. And they had a surprise litter last year. And we found great homes for all of them, except Sophia was the runt and we have her.

25:52
And she's been my mom's favorite and also my daughter's favorite. And then we actually just, I, when we, we've never had puppies or anything before. And so I had told everybody who was getting puppies at, if anything didn't work out, please bring them back, do not bring them to the shelter or anything. We'll take them back. And so we had one brought back to us this past week.

26:20
and he was not in good shape. And so he's back here and we're getting him up to the weight he should be and getting his little muscles stretched, but he's doing good. He was actually the, he looked identical to his dad, Zeus. And so when he was a puppy, just because they looked so similar and I assumed he was going to be going to a good home, I had named him Zeus the second just because they were

26:50
twins. And now that he's back, we've had to pick a different name. And for whatever reason, Murphy just fits him. And the mom and I called him that. He would come to me. So he knows his name is Murphy now. But that's been a little journey with him. I love Murphy for a name for a dog. Yeah. I really wanted to name him Killian.

27:17
We were trying to stick with like, he, he, I don't know why he resembles kind of an Irish Wolfhound look to him. So I was like, well, we've got, you know, the Scottish cows. It's like, maybe we can find a good Celtic name for him. And I tried calling him Killian because it means dealing with strife. He's dealt with that with what he went through and it just didn't fit. And for some reason, Murphy just.

27:46
sounded right. You know, when you look at them and you're just like, that's it. Yeah. Um, so when you found homes for the puppies from the surprise litter, when you, when you had to give those puppies to their new owners, did you cry? Yeah. Well, I was attached to a couple of them, very attached. Um, but it's kind of amazing when you find the right home, you just feel good about it.

28:16
And there were, I mean, everybody else from that litter went to farms in the area. And I still talk to a bunch of the owners and they send me pictures and updates and, and they all just went to great homes. But this specific family was a young couple and they live in an apartment. And at the time they had had a house with the yard and that's okay with it. And

28:44
But them being young, I was kind of unsure about it, but I got my first Pyrenees when I was 20, so I couldn't judge them. So I was thinking I was just being kind of motherly and too worried about it. And, but he did seem to hide behind me a little bit when they had come and were gonna take him, but I thought maybe he's just nervous and in my gut. I should have just trusted my gut.

29:13
that it just wasn't gonna be a good fit, but we didn't realize.

29:20
what was going on and they had contacted me about two months ago saying that they weren't going to be able to keep them. So we said, okay, bring them back. It's no problem. They changed their minds and then this past weekend they said they're going to bring them back. All the other puppies were at six months about 90 some pounds and he is probably roughly 50 pounds at 10 months.

29:50
And you can feel his bones in his hips, his ribs. You can see that he was kept in a kennel too small for him because his spine is curved and his hips are, they sag. So it's just, it's very frustrating. Even his pads on his feet are so soft. They're like a puppy's pads because he hasn't been out to use them. Wow.

30:18
I'm really glad that he came back to you. Yeah, it's very, I don't know, it's just disheartening that anybody can do that to anything but you just, you hope for the best and we tried to be so selective about who would get him because, you know, I've had dogs my whole life and I've never gotten rid of them and you just want the best for them but I am glad he's back and...

30:48
Sorry, I could ramble about that for forever. No, no, no, that's okay. I'm sure it was just heartbreaking to see him when he came back. But I'm gonna flip it and tell a happy story about giving a pet to some, or a puppy or a kitten to someone and that way we don't have to end it on a sad note. My barn cat had kittens last September and she had six and then she had four because two of them disappeared. We think that probably an eagle or a...

31:18
Osprey or a hawk got two of them and We ended up finding a home for one Two of the four passed away from an upper respiratory thing because they're barn kittens and that happens And so we had one one we kept one. Her name is chirp. She still lives here We love her and one of them we found a home for and the one we have found the home for Her name was Rocky

31:47
when we named her, because we named all the barn kitties. And this family wanted a kitten. And I was like, which one do you want? We have this one and we have that one. And they picked Rocky. And they came to get her on a beautiful morning. I think it was back in November, I think. And they had two little kids and they looked very excited and they had bought a cute little carrier to bring her home in.

32:17
And I was very excited for her to have a home because we don't need a thousand cats here. No one needs a thousand cats. So I knew they're coming. I was very excited. I talked to the mom. She was nice, blah, blah, blah. And they pulled out of the driveway with that cat and I just cried. My husband was like, what is wrong with you? I said, I don't know. I wasn't even that attached, but maybe it's just happy tears. I don't know. And so the next day I messaged her and I said, how's...

32:45
How's the kitten doing? And she sent me a picture before she even answered me in words, she sent me a picture of the kitten with her little girl. And she followed it up with, she seems to be settling in fine. And I said, what's her name? And she said, toast. T as in Tom, O, A, S, and T. Toast. I said, toast. She said, yeah, the kids named her and the kids were like four and two or something. I said, okay. Well.

33:14
keep me posted on toast because I want to know how she does. And she sent me a picture at Christmas time and toast was all curled up under the Christmas tree. And I was like, Oh, this cat is living its best life. So, so sometimes you can do all the research in the world and all the vetting in the world of people who are going to take your baby animals to their homes. But sometimes you just luck out. Yes. Yeah, I can say.

33:43
of all the puppies, I mean every other puppy when the families came to get them and they're, one of them went to the roost homestead and that was Apollo and we had on Instagram there's a page called growing up pier for growing up Pyrenees and I mean they groom them and

34:12
They just take amazing care of them. And then another family, they got one of the puppies named Bear. She'll send me pictures. And she actually came back and bought some laying hens. And they're getting started on their homestead. There's just so many amazing families that got them. Even the ones that I was very attached to, I came in and I was like, I'm just relieved. I'm really glad that they're going to great places.

34:43
I'm trying to think, let's see, Gallagher's, Pumpkin's, up in Sparta, North Carolina, they got Theo. He was the last male to go. And they've got four other dogs, but he's still spoiled. They are great families out there. Yeah. One of the things that I think is beautiful about this whole farming, homesteading, is

35:12
community thing is that that community is what lifts you up when things are when you're not feeling so great about something because you have All these other puppies that went to these other places that are doing great and they keep in contact with you So you know that you did the right thing? as far as you possibly could and You got the one back. So now you can fix him. You can you can help him have a better life

35:41
Yes, yeah. Yeah, I do. I can't preach it enough about the homesteading and farming communities. It's kind of a different world when you know other farmers or other homesteaders and and we try to be as welcoming as possible. Anybody who comes to get chickens or anybody who comes to get cows or anything, we have an open door, open phone policy. Just if you have any questions or need any help or...

36:10
Um, when we were processing chickens, I, I let folks know like, Hey, if you want to come and you want to see how we do it, by all means, come on by, we know you can help if you want, or you can just stand back and watch. Um, I feel like everybody really supports one another. And, and I mean, I've been lucky in that I don't really have, haven't gotten to the point. I don't know if we're just not big enough yet, but.

36:37
having gotten to the point where we're being trolled or anything, it's all very positive people. And it's nice. Yeah, I really hope that you don't get to the point where that happens because it's just, it's no fun. We haven't had it happen to us yet. I figure it probably will at some point. But I really want people to understand in the world that we who are doing this thing with

37:06
growing food for other people or for ourselves or trying to be sustainable or trying to leave the earth better than we found it. We really want that to be important and we want that to be something we can continue to do. And when people get trolled or harassed or bothered, it makes you want to give up. So don't do that people. Don't harass other people. It's not okay.

37:34
And all it does is reflect poorly on themselves. Mm-hmm. And messes up the people they messed with, but yes, it does reflect very poorly on the person that does the offense, whatever the offense is. And I hadn't really thought about that until you brought it up, but yeah, it's live and let live, honestly. If you don't want to do what somebody's doing, don't do that. But don't make them feel bad because they've chosen that life, you know?

38:04
So busy that we don't even have the time to, you know, like if you're busy and you're working and you're doing the best you can and you live in your best life, you don't have the time to worry about others offending you or, you know, like, yeah, absolutely. Okay. So do you have anything else you would like to share? I know you guys will be doing the pumpkin patch in the fall, but is there anything you have planned for the summer for the public to come play?

38:34
play to? Not yet. We're still, we're kind of feeling things out. I would just, I don't throw that out there if there's photographers in the area that would like to come take pictures. We'd be open to that. Really I'm just kind of checking out what other people are doing and we're slowly growing it. It's gonna be a lot easier and I feel like we're gonna get a lot more done.

39:01
in the coming years because the kids are going to be a little bit older and we'll be able to apply more attention to events. But for right now, it's the pumpkin patch. We always begin it in September and then end about halfway through October. So we're hoping the growing season goes well this year and we've got the cows out there in that pasture right now where our patch is spreading their gold for us.

39:31
Yeah. Yep, I bet it is. I hope your growing season goes really well too because this winter has been the craziest thing I've ever seen. And I don't think it was just Minnesota. I'm assuming your winter was a little weird too. I don't think it was as bad as what you guys got. We got a lot of rain, that's for sure. It would be nice to have a little bit of a

40:01
You guys got... Whew. We actually didn't get anything, which was the weird part. We only got about a foot of snow for the winter here and that's really unusual. Yeah. So, I don't know. Because I had a minute of being like the lower 48 Alaska. That makes sense. Usually. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. But I'm sure you guys had...

40:29
cold weather and winds, right? We had a week where it was really, really cold. One week. Wow. Yeah. It's been unseasonably warm. It's been unseasonably snowless. And we just got a ton of rain two days ago. Thank goodness, because we were cruising toward being in a drought again already. So I'm just hoping that...

40:59
Mother Nature settles down a titch and goes back to being moderate and we'll be able to grow our gardens this year here because if we don't, that's not going to bode well for the canning for next winter. Yeah. I understand. I kind of joked last year about wishing we could just have like a pipe going from North Carolina to everywhere in the Midwest.

41:27
having a drought because we were just flooded here. Mm-hmm. And it's bizarre. Yeah. My folks live in Maine and my dad basically said they got hardly anything from their garden because it rained so much. Nothing, nothing could grow. Mm-hmm. That's that we had to actually cancel our pumpkin patches last season because we just couldn't keep it dry. You know, it.

41:54
They have a big issue with different fungus and downy mildew and powdery mildew and then the bugs and when it's moist out the bugs come and you just, it wasn't an easy year that's for sure. Yeah, I always say that the good years make you really, really thankful because the bad years will just destroy you. Yes, absolutely. And you gotta try. You can't.

42:21
You can't give up. You got to try because there's always that hope that the following year will be the year that makes the year before not as bad. Yes. So. That's our main slogan right there, right? Yeah, pretty much. It's a gamble every year and you just do what you can and try to work with nature and sometimes nature wins and sometimes you win. So.

42:49
All right, Elizabeth. Well, it's been over half an hour and I really appreciate you sharing your time with me. I know you've got stuff to do. So thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Yeah, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. Oh, absolutely. It was great talking to you and getting to know you. Yeah, it was great finding out about what you guys are doing. And I wish you all the luck in the world with your plans. Oh, thank you so much. All right. Have a great day. You too. Bye.