The Naked Rancher

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Ginger at The Naked Rancher. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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 Ginger at the Naked Rancher. Good morning, Ginger. Good morning, Mary. How are you this morning? I'm great. You're in Texas, is that right? I am. The hill country of Texas.

00:26
I wasn't sure and I couldn't figure it out from your Facebook page, but then I saw something I was like, I think she's in Texas. Okay, great. Tell me about yourself and the Naked Rancher. Well, thank you. I appreciate you even talking about it. Well, I was married to a gentleman in the army for 40 years and after our divorce, I had a ranch to run and it was my 29th move and I thought I'm going to make this work and...

00:56
I had some girlfriends come over and they jokingly started calling me that. I'm not in the nude, so it's not about actual nudity. It's about being honest about trying to run a ranch and everything on it. From that, they suggested that I do stories about it and post about it. I also...

01:25
I started doing that and then realized I should get a trademark for it. So I applied for the trademark for the name and the brand and I've been posting for four years now. That's awesome. So if you were married for 40 years, you must be over 50 years old, I would assume. I am. I am 63 years old.

01:50
I'm impressed because I'm 54 and when I decided to start a podcast, I had a steep learning curve on all the technology behind it. So I'm impressed that you managed to do this four years ago. Yeah. Well, my children think I've got all adult grown children and they all think that I'm still not there yet. So. Oh, that's always going to be a thing. My 22 year old is like, I can't believe you're doing this now. I know. Isn't that funny?

02:20
I'm like, you know what, old dogs can learn new tricks. I actually said that to him this morning. Well, see, and to me, it's all about the learning process. So I'm not the only one out there that's like you, that's learning and trying to make it work in today's world. Yeah, and honestly, the minute you stop being curious and the minute you stop trying new things, you might as well be six feet under. That's my take. I agree with you completely, and I enjoyed.

02:49
learning new things and you know, I don't mind embarrassing myself or talking about things that I mess up on and have to redo. Yeah, because that's how you learn and how you teach. Yeah. Yeah. But I was going to say thank God for girlfriends. Your girlfriends helped out and I'm really glad we all have girlfriends because without them, I don't know where we would be. I agree completely. Okay. So I was talking with a lady

03:19
at a local, I'm in Minnesota, and I live in Sibley County in Minnesota. And I was talking with a woman the other day who I interviewed, and she is, I don't know what her title is, but she's involved with the Water and Soil Conservation District in the next county over from us. And she was talking about how trying to market what they do has been a bear.

03:46
and that they have not been really great at promoting what they do. And it's a county state agency thing. And I said, well, I said, it's a shame that the topics of homesteading and farming and ranching and growing things and raising animals for food or for milk or whatever you're raising them for isn't considered sexy. And I said,

04:13
We watch grown men run down football fields and they get dirty and sweaty and people pay big money to see that. And I think there's nothing sexier than watching people work hard at doing something that they love and they get dirty and sweaty. Exactly, I agree with you. So then I happened to watch a couple of your videos on your Facebook page and I watched the one where your pants are trying to fall down and I was like that right there. That's sexy.

04:42
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no part of that is sexy. But you know what? It happens. Yeah, it sure does. And you were working and you were getting dirty and sweaty and your pants weren't up all the way. And that's okay. So you proved my point because people probably see that video and they're like, oh, oh, okay. Okay. What is she, what is she actually doing? And then they're interested. So, so, um,

05:10
The lady that I talked to, her name is Holly. I was like, we need to enlist some people to make like promotional videos of people doing the work that they do in the garden or working with the animals or whatever they do and post that and be like, be a doer, it's sexy. There you go, I like that. So I said- It should be on a T-shirt. Yep, so I said on the interview, which will come out in two weeks.

05:38
I said, if anybody out there wants to help Holly and I start a campaign like this, let me know. Well, I'll join in. Okay. Well, I'm thinking about it real hard. I haven't quite got it fleshed out, but I'm working on it. I think, no, I think that is great. There's a lot of us out there. It's just like you said, it's not in the forefront of sexy. Yeah. And I'm not sure that the TV networks would be interested in running our campaign because

06:06
then all of their high paying advertisers would probably be like, we're not going to advertise with you if you're advertising people do it for themselves. Yeah. I don't know. It seems like a losing battle, but I thought it was a cute story. So I just shared it. I like it. Okay. So what do you do? What do you do at your place? Well, so I am rescue horses and have four that I've had now for five years. And

06:35
Besides that, I literally, I do all the physical labor myself, whether it's part of my house, renovating something or, you know, picking up manure or plumbing, septic. I won't do electric. I'm not brave enough to do that. But I mean, you know, there is always something on the grounds or the land, the earth.

07:03
that needs something and I literally record almost anything I do because you never know when something interesting will come out of it even if it's as ridiculous as do you turn the lights off when you leave the room or do you leave them on. So you think that's ridiculous but it's content and you know I just want to show basically what I do every day all day.

07:33
that I actually enjoy it. And it's such a different life from what I had before being a military spouse. But I love the earth and the land and animals. I couldn't be happier with the horses, they're such a joy. Yeah, I'm gonna say it again. I get real twitchy around horses. There's many reasons why I love them. I think they are beautiful animals, but they are a big.

08:03
animal and they are they are I feel like unless I got a Baby horse and raised it from whenever they can be away from mom I don't think I will ever be comfortable around a horse because I want to know What the horse is telling me as its owner? Yeah well, you know that's funny because it really is so true that they know whether you're sure about them or not and You just kind of have to be bossy with them

08:33
even though they, like each of mine, have such a distinct and different personality. And they're such social animals. Like I said though, it's selfish for me because I just find it such a joy. And I do ride both English and Western, but do not with these. I just let them basically be law and art in my field and enjoy life. Well, that's some lovely art. I know, isn't it?

09:02
Well, my eldest is 39. Yeah. So that's old for a horse. It is. Honestly, I think that the two most beautiful animals on earth are horses and deer. Oh, there you go. So anytime I see a horse, I'm just like, oh, they're so pretty. And then I'm like, I want to go hug it. And then I'm like, I'm not going to go hug that animal.

09:29
I want to, but I'm just going to let it be where it is and be pretty. Well, I'm so sorry you had an unfortunate circumstance somewhere. Yeah. I'm sorry. It wasn't me. It was a friend. She got thrown from a horse in front of me. I was little. I was like eight or 10 years old and it made a very, very distinct impression upon me that horses...

09:54
would require an inordinate amount of respect and wide berth on my part. Yeah, yeah. But I like them. You're right. They are huge beasts that, and I mean that lovingly, but you know, they definitely are stronger than us. Yes, yes they are. And the thing that scares me the most is that they, if you have one that's friendly, that's awesome.

10:23
But if they come up behind you and bump you and you're not expecting it, you're gonna go flat on your face. Oh yeah, you know, you're exactly right. That happens often. So I don't really wanna have that happen, I'll pass. Yeah. But I do love horses and I do have friends that have horses and one of them, her name is Ginger. The horse's name is Ginger, actually. Ginger is quite a popular pet name. Yeah, and so Ginger is beautiful and she's friendly and she's gentle.

10:53
and I will have her. But I'm just, I'm good. I like my dog. I like my barn cats who are friendly. I love both those too. But what about cattle? Same with cattle? I don't know because I haven't been around grown cattle. I have been around calves and I love the calves. They're so sweet. But I don't know. I don't think I wanna be around a bull. I think I'll pass on that. But.

11:22
Yeah, I'm with you there. I did get to pet the milk cows at my dad's, oh, my dad's friend's farm. And the milk cows, as long as they were in their stalls, they were fine to pet, but I was never around them when they were free to move. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's fine. I just, we don't have room to have cows or horses where we live anyway. So it's not like it's in my face all the time. It's all good.

11:52
So do you grow a garden? I do not. I do not have a green thumb. And I have tried repeatedly. And that is one thing I wish I would improve about myself. Because I think it would probably be not only rewarding, but relaxing to work in the earth and do that. Like I said, I've tried different things.

12:23
videotape myself doing it and showing the fails that I have had doing it. Even with things that you think would be simple like tomatoes or potatoes or squash. I mean, I don't know. I hear those kind of things are easier to grow, but.

12:43
Well, I don't know that anything is necessarily easy to grow. It's just a matter of having the right conditions to grow the thing you're trying to grow. Yeah, that's a good point. I can do cactus. Yep, you're in Texas, yep. There you go, absolutely. It likes the soil, but surprisingly enough, I'm in an area that has,

13:12
quite a few vineyards. And in this soil, you'd be surprised, but that and olives seem to grow well. Yeah, it's because it's hot and I assume it's kind of dry. Yeah, you're right. You are right. Yep. And grapes and olives grow fantastically in Italy, so it would make sense that they would grow in Texas.

13:36
Well, there you go. And I just started following a site, I don't know if you've heard of it, called Permies. Do you know it? Not yet, but I do now. I'll have to look it up. Well, it is about homesteading and people that are doing it even much more so than me. I mean, I'm just, you know, enjoying a life on a ranch and what comes along with it. But it is so interesting

14:06
everything that they're doing. And there's a lot of people that, maybe they could be part of your interest in how sexy it is doing this. My doer campaign, yeah. There you go, it's called curlies.com. I have no connection to it except that I was interested in their homesteading and what they did on there.

14:33
Is it P isn't Paul E R M I E S dot com? That is correct. Okay. I think it's from permaculture. Yes. I will look it up when I'm, when I have a minute this afternoon, because I bet you're right. And I bet I could talk to them and they would be like, yes, how do you want to do this? Um, okay, cool. Thank you. I, I absolutely love talking with you and everyone else I've talked with on the podcast, cause I learned so many new things that I didn't know about yet.

15:02
There you go. That's why we should all do things like this or, you know, that's why I enjoy whether it's Tik Tok or Facebook or YouTube. There's just so much out there and so many people that are just brilliant at making it work. Mm hmm. Yup. I have.

15:24
I have a brilliant husband who is in the middle of building us a heated greenhouse. He's not in the middle of it right this second, but he started it. Oh, how wonderful. Yeah, he started a couple of weekends ago. We got a grant from a Minnesota organization. And so I said, hey, you want to build a heated greenhouse? And he said, I sure do. We don't have the money. And I said, we do now. Oh my goodness. That is fabulous. Are y'all recording the build? Yes. We're taking photos.

15:54
And the video, we're not really doing video because there's not much to video, you know, they're in the middle of building it and I'm doing other stuff. So, but it should be done by May 31st. Wow, that's soon. Uh huh. And once it's done, we're going to be able to extend our growing season. I've already talked about this on a couple episodes. I'm sure people are sick of hearing about it, but I'm excited about it. So I'm going to tell you about it real quick.

16:22
I don't know what you know about Minnesota, but basically, last frost date or chance of frost date is usually the 15th of May. And it can frost in August. It hasn't happened in a long time, but it can. So we were finding that we were really at the mercy of a very short growing season. And

16:44
we got asked by a private school if we could supply them with leafy greens and carrots and radishes and stuff for salads. And we can't grow that stuff past August, really. And so I was like, I would love to do that, but we don't have anything to sell you after August. And when I told my husband about it, he said, we need to build a heated greenhouse. And this was like two years ago.

17:12
And I said, we don't have the money to build the heated greenhouse. And so this grant opportunity came through and I basically answered their questions and emailed it back. And I was like, if we get it, we get it. And I completely forgot about it. And then I got an email last October and I rem I remembered the name of the place the grant was through and it said that name and I was like, Oh, I wonder if we got it and I opened it and I went, Oh.

17:42
And my husband was in the kitchen and he said, what is somebody dead? And I'm like, no. I said, you want to build a heated greenhouse? He said, I do. I said, good. I said, uh, I said, you want to build it this coming spring? And he was like, did we get the grant? I said, we did. So plan congratulations. That is fabulous. Thank you. So the plan is to be able to put the seedling babies that are on my desk in my living room and my kitchen table right now into the greenhouse.

18:11
at once the greenhouse is actually dried in. You know, it's got the side door. And that way we can get stuff out of my house and then they get more sunshine instead of grow lights, which would be great. And then this fall, we're gonna do raised beds in the greenhouse and plant- I love it. Lettuces and carrots and radishes for this school. I'm so excited. That is fabulous. Because Farm to School,

18:38
is just as good, if not better, than Farm to Table. And pretty much the same thing. Yeah. So that is great. Long story short, sorry, I'm so lit up and it's beautiful here today. And my tulips and my daffodils are blooming. And I'm just like, yes, spring is finally here. Oh, I'm happy for you. Oh, I'm telling you. It has not been a long, miserable winter. It's been a long, weird winter. And I'm really glad to see it go. Interesting.

19:08
Anyway, I don't really know what else to ask you because I didn't know what you did. And I looked at your Facebook page and I was hoping you had a website, but you don't have a website. So I do actually you do. There's no link on your Facebook page. I do. There's not that's because we are in the midst. I mean, it's there, but we're in the midst of adding merchandise and other information to it.

19:34
So it's boring at the moment, but it is the naked rancher.com. Oh, well, I should have just typed that in and check cause that would have been really obvious. But I mean, right now, like I said, we're in the midst of morphing it. So it's, it's, um, just a cover page right now, basically with me on it. But, um, yeah, no, I mean, it's there and we're expanding it and hope to, uh,

20:02
I mean, fortunately, I've got people that call me to want to ranch it and come take care of their livestock, which is great. And to do some other friends do things at their homes and renovating and ideas. So it's, surprisingly enough, it's growing this late in my life. I think it's fantastic. I don't think that people die at 50, even though they're still alive. I think.

20:31
I think the minute, especially women turn 40, a whole new version of your life opens up. You may not know what it is, but you hit 40 and you're like, I have no, I can't say the words left to give. Yeah. And I'm just going to do what comes next. And I feel like I'm going to get myself in trouble. I'm going to say it anyway.

20:55
You know the old cliche about when men go through midlife crisis is they buy a sports car and get a 24 year old girlfriend? Absolutely. Women start businesses. There you go. That's great. Why would you get in trouble for this? Because I don't want to slam men because I don't think men are that cavemanish anymore. I think a lot of improvement has happened. Yeah.

21:23
in the last probably 25 years where men have been more, I don't know, welcomed into cooking and childcare and caring and nurturing. And they've stepped up. I know my husband, when I was pregnant with our son that we have together, we have four kids but two I had, one he had with a previous relationship and then my husband and I have the youngest who still lives here. And when I was pregnant with the youngest.

21:51
My husband was all in on knowing everything about the pregnancy, about how it works, about talking to the baby. Oh, that's fabulous. And he just embraced the entire thing. And when he was home, because he was the breadwinner, he was gone 10 hours a day. But when he was home, when Littlest was a baby, he changed diapers and he gave baths and he read stories and the whole bit. Oh, that's wonderful.

22:21
people and I don't want to man bash because I don't think it's fair and I don't want a woman bash because I don't think that's fair either. I think there are good people in the world. I think there are not so good people in the world and if you're lucky enough to know good people, keep them. Agree. That's my take on that. I agree completely. But I do. I think that women are so lucky to live in this day and age who are over 40.

22:51
and your body is eventually gonna give out. There's no question, no one gets out alive, but while you can do what you can do, we have so many opportunities available to us now. Agree, and we shouldn't bash each other, so you're right. We should support and let people enjoy and start the second part of life or third part of life or wherever you might be and be successful at it.

23:20
Yeah, and I also tend to not bash because I feel like the world has a way of dealing out its own, I don't know, rewards and punishment without my opinion being involved. So I'm just like, living well is the best revenge and I just leave it at that. It's just easy. There you go. I like that. That's good. So I try to be positive. Now, I'm not saying there aren't days where I'm like, oh, so-and-so has me so angry, you know, in my head, but I will never ever ever

23:50
in public bash anybody because there is no point. It doesn't do any good. No, there's not. And it's a choice. Yeah. So, you know, anyways, well, no, I mean, I've enjoyed it. It's nice of you to even reach out to think about asking about the Naked Rancher who is not naked. No, you're transparent. You're not naked. That's it. Exactly. Yep. Exactly. So,

24:18
So what's a typical day like for you? Well, I normally get up at 4 30 and I revise cause I post every morning on my social media accounts by 6 AM and then the horses, you know, they don't care if you're sick or whatever it is, there's, I go out to take care of them and check on them and.

24:48
There's always something. This morning I was finishing, I've got a second floor. The home I live in was built in 1874 and was a stagecoach and pony express stop for two counties in Texas. Awesome. So just a wonderful historic home. But anyway, so on the second floor I had sanded and was sealing and repainted the

25:15
porch on the screened-in porch on the second floor. And a couple of weeks ago, I did my concrete front porch again and the columns there. So there's always something around. I need to do the window sills. And then there's some earth I need to take care of, because the horses pulled the grass from the roots versus chomping on the top like a cow.

25:43
And so I have to reseed and I need to get to that. And fortunately I've got some new growth there, but that's kind of it. It's just what's happening around here and whatever is on my list to have to do to keep up with it. So never a dull moment. No, never at all.

26:06
And like I said, firstly, now I'm really enjoying the physical labor aspect of it. And like you said, we won't be able to do it forever, but right now I can. And I can't lift more than about 75 pounds at a time, but that's enough. You're doing better than I am. You know, we end up doing what we can, right? Yep. Absolutely. Um, part of the reason that I.

26:34
One of the minor reasons I started the podcast is because I know that at some point I am not going to be able to do all the things that I can do now. And I wanted something that I could do sitting down and just talking with people. I think that's wonderful. And I know you know that, but just how many people enjoy listening to podcasts. And another thing, I do record audio books. And so...

27:03
That's something else that I can do in the future, but I have 53 audio books to my name. Wow. In the big picture life, that's not very many. But at least I hadn't been fired. And with my ridiculous Southern accent, people still hire me to read their books. I love your accent. I think it's awesome. I worked. Well, you're generous. Thank you.

27:30
I had to work really hard to get rid of my Maine accent when I moved to the Midwest, and I kind of miss having a Maine accent. Well see. Okay, but when you talk to friends and family, does it come back? A little. Not as much as I expected. My dad is 80, and he has lived in Maine basically his entire life. And he had to tone down his accent because he worked in hospitals as a...

27:59
I can't remember the name of what he did, but he used to repair all the machines. Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so he had to talk to people all over the place. So he really had to clean up his accent so people could understand him. So he had his work voice and he had his at home voice. There you go. And he had the most amazing down east Maine accent. It's the one that you think of when you think of a Maine accent.

28:24
Oh, how cool. So he makes fun of me because I say things and I am very careful about trying to pronounce every letter in the word that I'm saying. And once in a while I slip into the big O that Minnesota uses. Like if I say snow, it's usually snow. And he laughs at me and he's like, you have been assimilated. He said, I don't hear any main accent in you at all anymore. Wow. I'm like, well, that was kind of the plan, babe.

28:54
Yeah, yeah. I wish I was that good. I'm not. I mean, like I said, I'm on my 29th move, and you would think after all these years I would have lost this accent, but I have not. So, you know, I just got to accept it. It makes you sound like a Southern belle. Ah! That gets dirty. Oh, yes, that gets dirty. Yes. That gets dirty, yeah. Yup.

29:23
All right, well, I can't think of anything else to ask you right now. Well, I've enjoyed it, Mary. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it, Ginger. Absolutely. Have a great day. You too. Bye.