Blair Episode
[00:00:00] Kate: Howdy. I'm Kate Kavanaugh, and you're listening to the Mind, body and Soil Podcast where we're laying the groundwork for our land, ourselves, and for generations to come By looking at the way every threat of life is connected to one another, communities above ground, near the communities, below the soil, which mirror the vast community of the cosmos.
[00:00:40] As the saying goes, as above so below, join me as we take a curious journey into agriculture, biology, history, spirituality, health, and so much more. I can't wait to unearth all of these incredible topics alongside you.
[00:01:03] Hello everyone. I am your host, Kate Kavanaugh, and this is the Mind, body and Soil Podcast. And I am so excited to dig in with you today. Been thinking a lot about hope and the balance of hope and realism. And this was really furthered when I had a really beautiful weekend with a friend in New York City and we had a lot of conversations that were both full of the, the realities that we face as businesses, as farmers, as consumers in our current culture and the hope that we continue to cultivate even when things feel a little, a little slim and.
[00:01:48] I paired this with, and I talk about this towards the, I'll talk about this a little bit more at the end of the intro, the upcoming, what Good Shall I Do Conference that I'm, I'm going to be a headlining speaker at Exploring Things from a Space of Hope. This podcast today has a really beautiful balance of hope and realism and just the juiciness that happens when we connect to farming.
[00:02:15] My guest is Blair Prevo, who you might know as start a farm on Instagram. Her and I have been in communication for many years across this platform, and it's such a pleasure to finally get to sit down with people that I've, I've seen in this space, even if it's remotely and to really connect in real time, and I think.
[00:02:40] One of the things that this podcast and these interviews have given me is a sense of hope. We're kinda in the bottleneck of winter, especially those of us that live a little bit more northern. It's that time in winter where it's kind of worn you down. You're a little tired of it, and you're ready for spring, but you've still got a leg of winter to go.
[00:03:04] And I think this is a moment in time where that hope for warmer days begins to wane and reality feels a little heavy. And maybe this is just a reflection we're at of where I've been, in which case, this is where I've been, but. I think that this is when hope comes into play. And I think that we can take this as an analogy for those times in life where we're kind of in the deep winter of work, of business, of a relationship of whatever it is that that dark night, and you gotta hang on to some hope and you have to balance it with the realities that we face.
[00:03:44] And I think that this is a really interesting. Tension between these two things, between hope and reality to begin to explore and untangle a little bit. And so I hope this, this podcast is a decent dose of both. And I'll tell you the work that Blair is doing as a single mother on a farm, homeschooling for kids, connecting them back to skills, back to the land, and a sense of deep nourishment, not just of the bodies of herself and her family, but the land that she's on is just a really beautiful and hard and inspiring and hopeful tale.
[00:04:29] And I think as we navigate the realities of business within the context of this podcast, there is this overarching bit of just how hopeful farming can leave you. That there is a positive feedback loop between eating this nourishing food and having it bring us into a sense of deeper connection and a sort of mending, as it were.
[00:04:58] And so I just can't wait for you to hear this podcast. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I am always open if you want to reach out via email, via DM on Instagram and to connect and talk about this and let's begin to find some of this, this tension between, between hope and realism and really just dig in deep.
[00:05:23] It is always a pleasure to be here with you. I have a little bit of accounting to do, so we'll dive into that. Then we'll dive right into this podcast with. I have just a couple of bookkeeping situations before we dive into this episode. And one of them is I want to return to this idea of exchanging letters for written reviews on Apple Podcasts.
[00:05:48] And this is something that we did early in the podcast, and it's part of my desire to connect with people in the tangible real world through snail mail. And so if you wanna leave a review and send me a snapshot on Instagram or on k@groundworkcollective.com, I'll shoot you a little note in the mail. And.
[00:06:11] In honor of that, I'm going to read a review. This is from Love, this movie 74, and it's entitled, favorite New Podcast Through Friends. I was introduced to Kate's podcast. Kate is such a spectacular interviewer and such a warm person filled with wisdom and hope. I actually chose to read this review because right now I'm feeling really passionate about leaving us hopeful and.
[00:06:35] I want to balance that with a hearty dose of realism, which I think you'll find in this podcast is Blair and I explore some of the financial aspects of running a farm. But I want to leave us really hopeful for what building more connection in our life, and that doesn't have to be farming. It can just be the connection with the food on our plates or the connection with our loved ones at the table, what that can really begin to foster.
[00:07:02] And so please, if you're so inclined, leave a rating and a review for the podcast. It really helps us grow, really helps others find these words and these stories that I'm just so passionate about telling. Instead of reading any sponsorship or affiliate this afternoon, I really want to get into two different exciting and short-term opportunities, and one starts the day of this podcast released February 14th, and it is Irene Lyons Smart Body Smart Mind program.
[00:07:38] I've had Irene on the podcast a couple of times, and we recently sat down to do an Instagram live where we teased out the connections and parallels between regenerative agriculture and beginning to do the work to restore health to our nervous systems. And I think that these are two sides of the same coin and the work that she's doing to really help.
[00:08:02] Orient and connect to our environment, I think is the same work of connection that we often speak of on this podcast. So she has her major program, smart Body, smart Mind coming up soon, and I have links for that in the show notes. If you are interested in joining this cohort, one of the things I love about this program is that once you join this 12 week intensive, you can come back every time she runs the Smart Body Smart Mind program.
[00:08:33] My next little bit of business is really, uh, something that is near and dear to my heart that I am incredibly excited about, and that is the force of Nature meets what Good shall I Do. Conference this April 21st and 22nd in Fredericksburg, Texas. I'm one of the, I'm honored to be one of the headlining speakers and we are gonna go down to Texas and we are going to raise a whole lot of hope.
[00:09:02] And I think that, That's really why I wanted to talk about this on this episode because I think that this hope is so important, and I've been reminded of that through some of the conversations that I've been having with Taylor and Katie who are two of the three founders of Force of Nature meets, and I got the incredible opportunity to go down there this December and was just really touched at the way that they are moving through the world and considering some of these questions and bringing people together.
[00:09:34] And so I invite you to come down and join me in Fredericksburg, Texas and let us all become that. Connected community that is spreading these seeds of ideas that can take root in our own ecosystems. I'll also have a link for that in the show notes. And without further ado, in taking up any more of your very precious time, I would love to introduce Blair Novo.
[00:10:03] And please reach out to me and tell me what you're thinking of this podcast here We. So we were just talking about how we finance our farming habits, which is a, yeah, it's
[00:10:15] Blair: a thing. Supplement our farming habits. Sure. It's knowing, like the fact that the money, like the amount of money it takes to produce whatever, you know, food or item that you're growing, you're raising, it costs more money to produce it than what you can make off of it, for the most part, unless you do it in bulk.
[00:10:38] You know, you have to have like a lar you can't raise one bovine, you can't harvest, you know, a small amount of something. No. And make, cause you need it. You need it. And then it'd be nice to have a little excess and then to raise like an appreciable amount to, to then pedal somehow. It's a lot harder than I think most people who eat food acknowledge
[00:11:01] Kate: Absolutely. We end up, we end up paying to raise our own food. And that doesn't even include labor. Right. And I think that this is something that gets left off of that equation oftentimes is how much we're out there at least two plus hours per day tending to everything. Yeah. At
[00:11:19] Blair: all hours of the day sometimes and like night.
[00:11:22] And when there's little emergencies and Yeah, you're always on. You're always on the clock. Really. I mean, it's the same with children. Animals. There's no timeframe. . It's always So, it is always, isn't it? I think it's, and
[00:11:37] Kate: financially. Oh, financially it takes a lot. We were talking about this recently, like we're trying to scale everything back for winter so that it's not, it's not pulling more.
[00:11:48] Everybody needs to go. Yeah. If you're not, if you're not doing anything, you're going to the freezer. Yeah,
[00:11:52] Blair: exactly. Harvesting, harvesting the male ducks is on our agenda and, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I wanna buy a plucker so we can, we have a bunch of turkeys and after doing one bird plucking, one bird, two birds, actually by hand, it's like, okay.
[00:12:07] The plucker is an important tool. Um, it is. I think it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah. The time to make the process stream.
[00:12:17] Kate: The time it saves is actually shocking. There are some things that aren't really worth it. The plucker is really worth it. I remember the first year that Josh and I came out here, we did 80 chickens by hand in a two day, gosh, in a two day succession.
[00:12:33] And my hands were frozen, like little claws, uh, for days
[00:12:39] Blair: afterward. . That's badass, dude. That's, that's a lot of birds to harvest.
[00:12:45] Kate: Yes. And pluck by hand. But now we can do, we can do 80 in one day because we have a pl and I find the gutting to be a very soothing process,
[00:12:55] Blair: actually. you. Yeah. Spoken like a true butcher
[00:13:01] Kate: I just love the gut stuff. It's really true. I do, I really love the gut
[00:13:05] Blair: stuff. Well, getting your hands in there, being a part of it, and. I mean, that's, that's, it is, it is. It's part of like the ritual of doing it and yeah. There's like a soothing, a soothing effect. Yeah. , yeah. Harvesting
[00:13:22] Kate: in general. We've been talking for so long and I don't actually know your story, and one of the things I was thinking about as I prepared for this podcast was how you started a farm, because for years I only knew you by your Instagram handle.
[00:13:38] I called, you start a farm in conversation. .
[00:13:43] Blair: Yeah. Gosh, I, it was, I, I graduated high school in 2002 and I, oh, run of the mill youth, you know, just upstate New York, suburban upbringing and. And was expected to go to college and do the career path, whatever. My, I was into writing and I was into, uh, like communications and had thought about going into the newspaper business, so to speak, in some form, whether it was, you know, on the, like writing, I mean, writing was my focus, but then I went to school for one year for communications and, and did like English classes and I guess I was just discontent with that path for quite a while.
[00:14:28] I mean, end of high school, I, I guess I kind of started seeing through. What we were supposed to be doing as, as humans in the world. Like I went to actually, my, my senior year, I did like a, an internship type of thing at the local newspaper in Albany called Times Union. And so I went there every day in the morning hours.
[00:14:51] And so I had this glimpse into the real inner workings of the newspaper and we had like a rotation around. And so I, I did see the business side of life, uh, in my senior year and. I think it turned me off to it , uh, a bit more than I would, you know, and I read like Emerson and Thoreau and was like, interested in transcendentalism.
[00:15:15] And, uh, it just, it all sparked this, uh, seeking for more, uh, you know, I, I didn't, I didn't want to get a job and just go make money for something, but I didn't know an alternative either. No. So it wasn't like, you know, I'm, I, I didn't have any idea really what to do. I just knew that I didn't like what I was being offered.
[00:15:38] And so somehow in my, I did one year of college at SUNY Purchase and then, Somehow, well, I knew I wasn't gonna go back to college, and then somehow I came across some woofing websites. You know, it was the early days of the internet . Um, and somehow I came across like work trades on organic farms, and I, I didn't even really know.
[00:16:03] What that, what organic meant. I mean, I maybe had started seeing it in grocery stores and like I had, I had a friend whose mom was definitely a more hippie kind of lady, and I remember seeing, like, she bought items in bulk, you know, so I, I like had this awareness of like the bulk buying concept. And then I found out about the, uh, co-op in Albany and I kind of started shopping there sometimes instead of the Hannaford or whatever it was.
[00:16:34] And, uh, and then I, I just decided to try to go work on a farm and I connected with this farm in Hawaii, just randomly picked it up, thought that Hawaii would be a good idea to start and yeah. Yeah. I mean, why not a farm in Hawaii? Yeah. I went to work on a farm. It was a coffee farm and they had. Well, they had little gardens and, but coffee was like their main crop that they, that they made, made money on.
[00:17:03] And so it was kind of the off season. So there wasn't much like coffee related work. So it was, we did other things and we did, we, we did a lot. And it actually, it was the, the first place I ever harvested an animal. Uh, that was where we, I think basically they just had like some free-ranging roosters and they said, yeah, you can, you can eat the roosters that are hanging out.
[00:17:29] And so that was pretty impactful because I'd been in vegetarian for about 10 years and, but, I think that was actually also the farm where I discovered the book Nourishing Traditions. Mm. And so from working there and seeing how their farm was, which of course I won't, I don't need to get into it too, but much.
[00:17:48] But there, it wasn't all, you know, perfect for a war trade. I mean, they kind of , it was, it was eyeopening just to see how, you know, it was, it was free labor essentially. And so we would be doing labor like, like I remember one day we weeded in their easement and I was like, what are we doing? You know, I'm 19 years old.
[00:18:11] I'm like, what exactly am I doing right now? Like, this isn't farm related, you know? But anyway, so from there, I pretty much instantly knew that I wanted a farm. I'd say it didn't take long, like it didn't matter what the situation was surrounding. As soon as I was there and working and even doing those silly labor tasks, you know, it was.
[00:18:34] Pretty clear to me that that farming was my path and I just had to kind of figure out how to get land . That was what I knew. And yeah, from there, I, I went back to upstate New York for a little while and then pretty quickly found a place in California to go work. And that was in Leggett and it was, uh, I guess it was Mendocino County.
[00:19:00] I was there for a couple of months and it was , I'd say it was a loose, uh, situation because the owner wasn't really into doing the farming thing anymore, and we were kind of left to our own devices to like figure out what we wanted to do. Like if we wanted a interesting start a guard. Somewhere it was really open.
[00:19:22] Yeah, it was a weed farm, you know, which is . Oh, nice. It's nice to have some autonomy. Yeah. Yeah, it was. But I also wanted guidance. And so from there is how I, uh, met Tabor and my friend, my friend, longtime friends now Tabor and Stan and Tabor had, had used to live at that property and had since moved over to the Nevada city, north San Juan.
[00:19:48] Well, it's like right above the Yuba River is where they live, and I connected with them and they were milking the goats and growing the food and doing more like work together, homestead. It wasn't a commune by any means or you know, but it was more of a communal living situation. And I, and they said, yeah, come on over, like, come live with us.
[00:20:10] And so I ended up going there. And that was that, that living there pretty much was. What really pushed me in the direction of cows because we, they, when I was living there, we got a cow and that was where I milked the cow for the first time. And that say was that was it for me with cows. It was like the first time I drank milk there that said, okay, well I, cows are gonna be my path.
[00:20:37] Like I need to have raw milk in my life. And so that dictated it. And then pretty much like all of my early twenties was. A, a farming journey, but also in my head, I was focused on saving money to try to buy my buy land. And it always seemed kind of out of reach because land was so expensive, like in upstate New York or in Massachusetts or Maine.
[00:21:05] I had looked a little bit back in my mid twenties and it was just so expensive. I couldn't really figure out how to , make the money stretch. And, um, but then I guess when I li I lived in the, I I did a work, another work trade, uh, at some point in the Redding area. And I recalled an area about an hour or so west of Redding called Oh no, which is where my first property.
[00:21:30] And I just remembered that land was really cheap. And so after a handful of years of working and saving, I had, you know, $20,000 or so pretty much, which was enough for a, a down payment of sorts, uh, on a parcel that was 40 acres for 75,000. I mean, it was cheap, cheap bear land with No, well, we ended up putting in a, well after we bought it and it had an unpermitted, an unpermitted 16 by 24 cabin on it, which was what we lived in for about nine years there.
[00:22:08] And yeah, just roughed it. roughed it to make, make do and yeah, that. I guess I bought, I bought that property in 2008 or 2009, so that was when I started. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's been kinda hard, honestly. Yeah, it's been kinda hard, like do it all. I mean, it's funny looking back on it, thinking like, gosh, that was well over 10 years ago now, and, and.
[00:22:38] Yeah, it's, it ain't easy. Farming, farming from scratch ain't easy.
[00:22:43] Kate: It is not. I wonder if we, I wanna, there's something I wanna tease out before you continue. Yeah. Um, yeah. Every time I would look at your Instagram handle at Start a farm, it felt like this invitation and it felt like a summons. Like, come, come start a farm and listening to your story.
[00:23:02] I think there's a, there's a really interesting point in there where, and I too was a lover of Throw and Emerson and we aren't shown, most of us that, you know, grow up in the blurbs or in the city, don't know that this is an option. And I spun my wheels for a long time in college. And I think that if I had seen this as an option, farming, not that it's easy, but that I would've connected with that much sooner.
[00:23:32] And. , I think there is something about the way that you write and the way that you talk about this, that there's, there's an invitation to come, come live in a different
[00:23:42] Blair: way. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, and that this kind of relates to the money concept because it's like, well, if everyone was farming, then . I mean, and that's, that's obviously a really broad generalizing concept.
[00:23:57] But gosh, what if everyone was farming? Then you wouldn't, there'd be, you know, a lot less need for, for capitalism. a lot less need for having these kind of, like, I'm not, not to say that it's that any, any job can be worthwhile. And so you have jobs, you know, people have jobs, but I think a lot of the time, like people have unfulfilling jobs in order to support themselves in order to, you know, maintain our way of life.
[00:24:27] And it's, yeah, having know, knowing it's an option, knowing that you can, even if you're, you know, just growing a little garden to supplement your food or have some chickens or some meat rabbits or, you know, Yeah. It's, it's fulfilling in a way that is, and it's almost like you, you have to do it to know how good it's too mm-hmm.
[00:24:49] And so it's like sort of addicting in that, in that way, where it's like, once you have the chickens, well then you're, maybe you're gonna want the cow, you know, . But yeah.
[00:24:59] Kate: And I think there's purpose in this work, and I'm not saying that there isn't purpose in other work, but there is a deep purpose here.
[00:25:06] Yeah. And I pulled, I pulled a lot of quotes from you, so I'm gonna read you back to you Oh, a couple of times. But. You mentioned cows being this real inflection point where you wanted that really sealed the deal, and I pulled this quote. Yeah. Keeping cows is my form of staying in love focused moments, held still and quiet.
[00:25:28] Wonder, studied by dedication to necessary tasks and doing them tethered to purpose in service of animals and land. These gifts are not given to us. We must dig for them. Milk the cow, feed the cow, drink the milk. And I think there's a lot in there about we have to dig for them, right? Like we have to dig for this purpose and.
[00:25:50] There is, there is a feeling tethered to this earth in doing it and to our own place
[00:25:57] Blair: in it. Yeah. Yeah. Every day. I mean, every day when I sit under the cow, it's, it never gets less important feeling, you know, only more. Right. Only more important, like when in, in whatever type of inner emotional. It's time to milk the cow.
[00:26:14] And you go and you do it, and you're there. There's no, there's no alternate , you know, moment. And you're, you know, squatting and you're next to the ground and you are touching an animal. You know, there's, you have to be there. You have to be present with the animal. You have to be, you have to be tethered, literally by, by tugging on her tits.
[00:26:35] And, you know, there's, it's a little esoteric, but, um, this was some, and I, I've mentioned this before, I think on, on Instagram because I love it, and I think about it all the time, is that years back, my friend Tabor heard from this old timer, I don't even know who that the, the action, the milking of the cow is like this, this jogging of the memory, this, this motion, this, this.
[00:26:59] When people talk, there's sometimes when they talk with their hands, they're, and they're gesturing, they're grabbing at, you know, oh, what was that thing? Um, uh, you know, and they're grabbing at something. They're pulling at some. Some thread, and that's the, like the milking motion, similar to spinning wool and weaving and you know, these, these motions.
[00:27:19] You know? And so to me that's something I think of frequently when I'm milking, you know, it's, it's like this jogging of this memory, this, that we don't have, I mean, I don't, I didn't milk a cow as a child. I have no memory of that as a kid. But there is some memory, whether it's, you know, collective or, or cellular or muscle memory or, um, yeah, just.
[00:27:43] Yeah. A feeling of of knowing, well, this is where I am, this is what I'm doing. This is the milk that we are gonna be nourished by. And yeah, I mean, having, having Matt as part of your daily ritual, your routine, it is, it's important just personally and then beyond , maybe, I mean, I like to think
[00:28:07] Kate: that, I like to think that too.
[00:28:09] And you said something in there. I, I'm just kind of, I, I'm a little speechless at the idea that when we're reaching, when we're just stipulating as we're talking, we're often going through these motions that I think are in our d n a, in our bones, in the collective unconscious, however you wanna put that.
[00:28:28] And one of the things that I think you're writing elicits in me is that I think that this connection that we have with earth, with animals, there's this aspect that it's almost one of our birthrights that to be rooted in this thing. I have a. I have another quote from you. I have a lot of these. Uh, you say, I believe this bond , I believe this bond with beasts is one of the most vital elements of existence that was stolen from us.
[00:28:56] This direct link to our sustenance. Yeah. Humanity can stay busy and distracted, but at the center of it all nourishment matters more than the noise and super, super fluidity that we are bombarded with, considering the state of humanity severely overfed and tragically undernourished ever yearning for more when we actually need less, but better quality.
[00:29:17] Yeah, I
[00:29:17] Blair: believe it. believe that. Yeah. I think, you know, I, I don't wanna sound like, um, well, to say they stole it from us, you know, in, in a way. In a way they did directly. They, I don't know. They is so . It's a diaphanous concept of
[00:29:36] Kate: a concept, concept, concept. But, but I understand, and I think
[00:29:39] Blair: listeners do too.
[00:29:40] Yeah, so, so like, and it's still happening. You know, they, there's cultures still that are like, I think the last thing I was reading about was in Malaysia, maybe, I mean, anywhere, they're just, they take the people off the land, they take the animals from the people. They, you know, force nomadic, animal husbandry for century or for forever.
[00:30:04] Like these cultures that have been tied to the land, whether they're nomadic or they, you know, not, but they're, they're tied to the land. They're tied to their animals. That's how they sustain themselves for years. And we take that, I mean, we're still, it's still happening. It's not even over. Um, and then of course, for most of our culture, it's not even, um, a notion anymore.
[00:30:29] It's, it's, uh, you know, I think maybe now more, at least in certain niche, niche markets, certain areas, people know about small farming and they know to that there's these options out there they can seek out. But I think for the majority of people going to the supermarket and buying food is, is just what you do.
[00:30:53] And that in itself is a travesty. I mean, to think that there, like I think even, I remember when I was little being. I mean, it's like you don't think about the cow when you go and drink your milk. I mean, you don't, it's not, it's sort of, you're just detached. I think it's, uh, we're disconnected. It's like we're so removed.
[00:31:15] Yeah. We're removed from it, and so it's not part of our reality. And the farms are obviously far away from the cities. You know, the , you don't even see it. It's like a outta sight, outta mind.
[00:31:27] Kate: And yet it lives in our muscle memory somewhere. Even for those of us that have never done it, it's still there.
[00:31:34] It's still present. It's still, I think it's, you know, tens of thousands of years of humans connecting to land and hunting and tending to animals that you cannot, that you cannot sever us from that in a couple of centuries.
[00:31:52] Blair: I think that there, that the lack of it is to blame for a lot of our problems as as our species is, you know, medicated out of their depression or, you know, just in shambles kind of emotionally.
[00:32:11] Yeah. I mean, if, if you're, if you're looking at the, I don't wanna be a downer, but , I mean, Humanity is not, is not at a super connected place. You know, where we're not, we're desperate for something else. I think, you know,
[00:32:31] Kate: and I wonder if farming, is that something else? I wonder how many people out there are like you and me, that are spinning their wheels looking for something that they don't know the name of their hands, you know, seeking this action that they've never done.
[00:32:48] And if that thing is to be connected Yeah. In, in the way that it is to raise all of your own food. Yeah.
[00:32:56] Blair: Yeah. And, and so my thought. Well then all, and I've thought this for years, is that schools could be working farms. I mean, to start it if we really wanted to like, make this vast change in the way that our society is run and what we do as, as people on, on this earth.
[00:33:17] Can you imagine, , can you imagine if all, all the, all the schools were just working farms and, you know, you could have your, you could have your curriculum of, uh, math and social and, and English and all of it surrounding, but, you know, have, have that connection. Have the animals there, have the kids being raised.
[00:33:38] If they're not, if they're not raised at home in a farming circumstance, at least , at least in the schools, they're, they're learning all of these. To give them that foundation of connection and nourishment. I mean, actually today when I was milking, I got into thinking about hospitals and how amazing it would be if all what if, what if all the hospitals were working farms?
[00:34:04] Like what if all the food that, that they're trying to heal you with was. Was actually this healing food instead of what we know . Yeah, what they're serving at hospital. Yeah, it's
[00:34:16] Kate: hospital food is as far from healing as, as I can fathom. I mean it's, it's pudding cups and Yeah, and white bread made with glyphosate soaked wheat and there's very little protein and there's certainly no microbes that might come from something fermented or something like raw milk, and we've sterilized it.
[00:34:38] I think that that tugs at something else. Like everything in our culture and in our food has been sterilized. We've taken the life out of it, and I think with it, we've taken a lot of the vitality out of what it is to be human.
[00:34:56] Blair: Quite literally taking the life out of it, because now if they're gonna be, I mean, there's little animal fats and little animal proteins, and now if they're moving to, you know, imitation meat mm-hmm.
[00:35:08] at this point, then they're truly taking life, all life off the menu, you know? Yes. Um, but I mean, imagine, like, I was thinking, this is what I was envisioning was like a 50 gallon batch of bone broth or something, you know, like brewing bubbling away in a, in a hospital kitchen or like, like, have you ever seen those huge fur old fermentation vessels?
[00:35:29] I mean, they would make like 50, 80 gallon Crocs. Wow. Um, what? No,
[00:35:35] Kate: I haven't seen that.
[00:35:37] Blair: Yeah. Yeah. Back in the day, I, I saw a couple, I've seen a couple of those, like in a basement somewhere in Massachusetts, you know, like, yeah. 80 gallon cronk
[00:35:47] Kate: of sauerkraut. Can you imagine
[00:35:49] Blair: just the life? Yeah. We're we, we've gone, we've gone to the direction of ta of sterility.
[00:35:54] Yes. I mean, we're, if you're born, I was born, I was born at a hospital. Um, I was so no shade, you know, like I wasn't raised this way at all. I was actually born by a C-section. So like, I, I didn't even get the , the, uh, first bacterial, you know, and I was not breastfed and all, all these things that are kind of like, Have built, built in.
[00:36:18] I've like built an opposition to what? I come from a li in a little bit. I mean, not, not completely. My parents instilled in me a, a work, a work ethic for sure. And they did, we did eat healthy, you know, we ate healthy, I guess, but, you know, not, not in the way that is, you know what, what not how I eat now. I mean, I am, I tried to do a lot of like animal fats and proteins and whereas, you know, growing up I'm, I'm sure that it was just all like the , the just your average, you know, standard American diet was pretty much how I was raised and.
[00:37:01] Yeah. I mean, I didn't come from it, so, but you've broken the definitely cycle, everything . Yeah.
[00:37:08] Kate: You've broken the cycle. I mean, not just by inoculating yourself, but the work that you do and the animals that you touch and the soil that you tend and strengthening the microbiome that you might not have, not have gotten an infancy, but you've also raised, you're raising four children with all of those things Yeah.
[00:37:30] That you didn't have and sort of giving that back to
[00:37:34] Blair: them. Yep. Yeah. I'm trying to give that to them for, for certain, and. It's become, well when you have kids, it's every, they're everything. And so that's, you know, the farm is for them and all of it is building the world for them now. You know, that's kind of the, that's the deal, I think, when you have children.
[00:37:56] And so to teach them to do better than I have done and Oh, I hear them whistling, actually. and two. Yeah, I, it's, it's interesting, like, I think I, I started my farming endeavors with a more selfish goal, you know, of like growing my own food and now it truly just feels like I'm growing food for the kids. I mean myself too.
[00:38:22] I, I eat. But , the mission, the mission definitely shifts shifted when you have children and. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely
[00:38:31] Kate: affirming for them too. I have another, I have another quote from you because I think that this is really to, to raise to raise kids on a farm. It's not just to feed them. I think there are these intangible benefits to being raised on a farm and a sense of autonomy and a sense of capable ness and work ethic that gets instilled.
[00:38:54] I, I can't speak from personal experience, but you write in this quote, and while farming and parenting is dang hard, and I often feel inadequate and overwhelmed, my eldest can harvest and process animals with her own wise little hands. Some lost ancient power can be switched back on within our offspring, and I reap hope from knowing that they will be strong enough to resist the pull of disconnection and homogenization and automation unafraid to get blood on their hands to fill their belly.
[00:39:26] Blair: I love that. I hope I do. I mean, clearly you're, yeah. Yeah. I mean, but they're gonna grow up, you know, they're gonna grow up and they're going to still be people in this world. I mean, they're, it's, I also have, I think, a measure of, well, you can't have too much expectation, I guess, you know, I can teach them now with the hope that it'll stay with them, and yeah, it's, it's amazing.
[00:39:54] I mean, to see Willa, she just turned 12, and to see her be able to do, she, she did actually even, I think she killed a couple of them. And she did, and she, yeah. Can do the whole process. And that's, it's, it's amazing. I mean, it's, yeah, she's, it's, she's like my hero, you know? . Yeah. To be able to do that at such a young age and it's no big deal, you know?
[00:40:20] I mean, it's a big deal. It's important. It's a big deal, but to her it's no big thing. It's like, yeah, I can do that. Just, you know, she actually, we have a pellet gun and they, the kids have all shot it a few times, and now Willa has shot a couple of quail cuz there's. Uh, these little gangs of quail, like it'll be 2020 quail or so to a group, and occasionally there'll be some batches on our, on our property.
[00:40:48] And she's now, so I think that the fact that they're, the fact that the kids are so connected to their food is pretty much, I think, for them, almost no big, like I say, no big deal. Like it. Yeah. I They just, they're so used to it. Yeah. You know, they're so, it's like their, that's their reality. It's just Yeah.
[00:41:10] Kate: it's all they've ever known and it, right. I'm sure it flows from them naturally. That, that that is their state of being, that that ancient power that you speak of has been turned on and they are seamlessly within this space. And, well, I know that you can. Raising our kids this way doesn't ensure anything.
[00:41:33] Like there is no insurance in raising children. Right. But I think that it gives them a different space to build, to build their life on and to have this knowledge that they can return to if they want to or if they need to.
[00:41:49] Blair: Yeah. I think they all seem really into it, and I hope that as they grow it, it grows too.
[00:41:58] I mean, I hope they get more into it, of course, but I just have to also remain a little bit unattached to outcome. I know so, cause you know, they're all, they're just, they're own little people and. Soon to be big people. I mean, my oldest is practically, almost getting up here. You know, she's getting close to being as tall as I am.
[00:42:19] So yeah, they, I guess in my, in my dream, they would all wanna stay on the farm and we could all keep farming together. But I also have to know, well, this is farming is my path, and for now it's theirs. And they are, they're definitely filling, filling the roles that they find, you know, Willa is especially, oh, that's what I was saying.
[00:42:43] Willa is especially into like, hunting for small game and I, I didn't grow up shooting guns. I didn't, you know, like I'm, I'm still, I, I need to learn better. I mean, I, I actually, that's one of my goals for this year is to start like harvesting our own bovine and shooting my own animals, because that's something I've never done.
[00:43:09] I've always had someone else shoot them, and I, I want to be able to, to do that part and fill that role. So yeah, the fact that my, my daughter can do that is phenomenal to me. Like, uh, you know, it's, to be connected to something that you're willing to eat is a concept that I, it wasn't a part of my life until I was like 20 maybe.
[00:43:35] And that, yeah, like when I, that was how old I was, I guess, was when I, when I first harvested that chicken and yeah, it's, It's pretty life.
[00:43:43] Kate: It is. It changes your life. This being connected to something that you're going to eat is, I think it's truly life changing and I don't know if it's life changing, if you grow up that way.
[00:43:54] I think, I mean, it's life structuring if you grow up that way, but I think for me, To be connected to my food and to have this level of intimacy. I keep coming back to this idea, like I'm trying to figure something out around this intimacy that we can be gifted with our food. That we can have with our food.
[00:44:15] And I think that one of the things that, one of the many things that you have been incredible at is giving all of us a peak of the level of intimacy that is possible between you and your food. And I, I think about, and I have, I have the entire. Post here about Genie, but about what it means to become close to and to love and care for an animal and to develop a deep relationship with them and to have them give of themselves for nourishment, whether that's meat or milk.
[00:44:51] And I, I recently had a very intimate moment with a, a beloved goat of mine, and it was life changing to have something that I cared for and loved so much make its way into the freezer. And I, I was hearken back to Jeanie and I wondered if you might be willing to share about that, or, I'm happy to read what you wrote, if you'd rather do it that way.
[00:45:15] Yeah,
[00:45:15] Blair: either way. Well, it's funny cuz I was just thinking about Jeanie this morning. I mean, I think about her all the time, but it was, it's been exa just exactly a year since we, since I killed Jeanie and yeah, it's, so, I, I got her in 20, she was my first cow, and we got her from a, a dairy down in Davis.
[00:45:37] Said they were just, it was the, the Rouse Infa herd of milking Shorthorns. And she was just one of the masks of cow, you know, she was just kind of a random cow there that they had so many cows, you know? And he just said, this one's pregnant and expecting, so how about this one? I said, sure. You know, no. You know, it was just, it, it was interesting because the, uh, the farmer there, Stuart Rao, he had been a dairy man his whole life, and he was just one of those saltier, 80 year old thin milking cows his whole life kind of guys and.
[00:46:16] I like that. It was the, the day before we bought Jeanie, he had a, a cow that he was selling to somebody else and he had tied it up and it had essentially, they had to put it down because it had tangled itself. And that had happened just the day before. And I mean, the fact that this man, this 80 year old guy could admit to his mistake from that previous day was one of those moments I'll never forget.
[00:46:46] I mean, and he is like, I didn't do it with your cow . I'm like, yeah, but he is like you, you're always learn. It was just this like really stark memory for me of you're always learning, you know, like even at 80 something years old tending cows, it's like, that was this man's lesson. And anyway, so we got, we got Jeanie Cow in 2010 and yeah, she was, The cow that I learned how to have cows on.
[00:47:15] I mean, she, she came pregnant and so that's, that was, so I think it was like two months that we had her before she gave birth. And then from that point on, I've been milking a cow ever since, I guess. Um, yeah. And, and yeah, she's ha she had maybe like 10, nine or 10 calves I'd say over the years. I had her for 12, about 12 years.
[00:47:44] And yeah, she was just, she was the matriarch of the herd. And even though she didn't, she didn't have her horns, they had, uh, she had come dehorn, you know, they, they, uh, burned their horns at the day. Yeah. So no horns, but all of her offspring had horns. So even though she didn't have horns, she was. Up even up until the end.
[00:48:05] She was the matriarch, uh, the alpha, alpha cow. Yeah. , she nourished
[00:48:10] Kate: you guys. I mean all of that meat and milk and I mean, through pregnancies, your children, you
[00:48:19] Blair: years worth of milk and, and meat from her bowls and like her offspring and a couple heifers over the years, which we kept, which also made more animals and she just, you know, that they exponentially multiplied and yeah, she was, A dear friend, dear friend, for that long.
[00:48:41] And yeah, it's, it, I think the most intense part of farming is knowing like all, all in that timeframe, I knew that there would be the day that we would have to say goodbye to Jeanie Cow. And she's not gone. You know, like her, her skull is, is I see every day when I walk by, it's under the almond tree kind of next to one of the cow pens and her hides actually in the garage salted still.
[00:49:13] And we actually. I had been, I think there's even some of, we did end up saving her meat and at a point when we didn't have a ton of meat. And so it was good timing. And I'll be honest, it's not, it wasn't the, the best meat. I mean, she was a 17 year old Yeah. Milk cow. And there, there, like in a, a perfect world, uh, where I had lush, endless pastures of green grass.
[00:49:41] I mean, frankly, she might have lived longer. I, I don't know. She was just, I, I actually made the decision to have her put down and that was so. My decision was based on like if a cow, if, if an animal can get up and it eats and it poops and it drinks and it does what an animal should, then an animal has the will to live.
[00:50:06] Yes. And for, for Jeanie Cow, she was thin, uh, and hadn't had a calf in a year. So it'd been like one cycle where she didn't, she didn't ever get bread and, but I didn't wanna, I, well, I wasn't ready yet, I don't think. , yeah. I wasn't ready. And, but so around this time last year, it was cold and she had been looking kind of just slower to get up, but she still had been getting.
[00:50:35] and then that morning that I made the decision, it was, she, she couldn't get up. She was, I, I went out to the pen in the morning and she was on her side kinda scraping her hers into the dirt. And so I kinda pushed her head up so she could write herself and she got her legs under her and then got up right away.
[00:51:03] So she did eventually get up on her own, uh, which I was really glad about, but, That moment where she could have, well, she could have been laying on her side trying to get up for hours. And so I just, I decided it was time. I mean, maybe I was ready at that point. Cause I didn't, I didn't wanna see her suffering.
[00:51:23] I didn't want to, you know, like she wasn't sick. She was unwell. She, she actually got up and walked around and drank some water. And then I had called the butcher and we, I ended up like leading her out of the pen and she was eating some grass that I had harvested for her. And then, yeah, the butcher came and shot her
[00:51:49] I mean, that's what it. And yeah,
[00:51:52] Kate: you right towards the end of the story that we are not trained to connect so deep and then be forced to let go so fast. So we must learn by doing and soak it up. Years of earnest effort and care and then it was. And then it is most kind to bring a friend's life to an end.
[00:52:09] It is heavy and it is not meant to be easy, and that is what makes this work meaningful and transformative. We ride the circle together, a birth, a death, a birth, and everything in between. To cultivate that level of intimacy where you are touching and in contact with, and sharing a life with a, an animal that is nourishing you in return.
[00:52:32] To go out there and milk her and to touch her, to be with her, to have her be with you, you know, it's not one-sided. There's so much reciprocity in these relationships and then to, it's fleeting. And I think that something that we're not taught as kids that grow up in the suburbs and the cities is, is witnessing and being close to that fleetingness.
[00:52:55] Blair: Well, yeah, you're not, we're not , we're not, and you're just sort of, I think farming throws you into those dynamic. You're just thrown into it and you have to ride it , you have to do it learn by doing and experiencing it, and well surrendering to it. Right. You know, it's like this, this holding on. I think of it like as a holding on and a letting go.
[00:53:19] It's, it's, you're holding on so tight and, and simultaneously almost letting go. And, you know, you can, you can steal your heart to it a bit. You, you can harden your, you know, and sometimes you, maybe you have, like, for certain people, maybe they have to, you know, like different people are gonna take, are gonna take this.
[00:53:39] Situation differently, and it'll affect, I think it can affect anyone differently. And you know, like I've known people who have animals but can't eat them, and yet they do eat meat. Like they're not vegetarian, but they're, oh no, I could never eat a cow that I pet. And I, I mean, I can't. I I understand. I, I get it.
[00:54:01] I mean, , I get it. It's an enormously heavy truth to hold and eat and. When I, I remember first eating genie's meat was really emotional feeling. It wasn't just, oh, here's some meat stirred up in a pan . You know, it's, it was loaded feeling. Yeah. And emotional. And, you know, 12 years of my time with this animal in a mouthful of food , you know, and.
[00:54:34] It's, you know, even, even though I've been doing this for so long, it's still an emotional thing. It's still just as, just as important feeling and the sun's coming out, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it never seems to get less valuable feeling only expand in value only, feel more vital, more important.
[00:55:01] And I think that's why the work is so rewarding, because, you know, there's some of it that's monotonous, you know, like washing milk jars. Certainly. I don't have a dishwasher, so I, I wash a lot of milk jars, so, you know, there's, there's parts of it that are less, well, you know, the, the details surrounding it are kind of manton.
[00:55:24] In a way, but the, the meat of it, the, the, the activity of, of milking the, and then drinking the milk and having your hands cutting up your own meat. I mean, it's, um, yeah, it's, it just, it might not. Be, uh, financially , like , but it, it is so valuable. I mean, in, in increasing ways. I mean, and then even in that, like, even in the fact that it doesn't make money, there's a part of me that likes that about it, you know, that, that kind of almost makes it more important feeling because you can't place the proper.
[00:56:07] Value on these items. And it's, it's almost beyond, it's beyond commerce, you know, , it's,
[00:56:15] Kate: it's, yeah. Uh, Tara wrote something the other day. She was talking about some 10 years ago, paying $22 a pound for, for grass-fed raw butter. And now that she's doing it herself, she's like, I could, I wouldn't sell it for $40 per pound.
[00:56:32] No, it's, it's beyond exactly, it's beyond val. It's, it's priceless. Like that level of nourish. Yeah, priceless and labor and connection. There is, there is no price point that Yeah. Could buy it.
[00:56:47] Blair: Yeah, truly. I mean, if you, people ask me about milk and we, I, I use half gallon jars and so the glass jars and so the jars themselves are like, what?
[00:57:00] Two? They used to be two, I think. I haven't bought a, a package jars in a while, but I think it's like three or something per jar. Cuz I think the packages are 18 or something dollars now. Yeah, sounds about right. So to to that it's like people, ok, so a half gallon of milk, the going rate locally nowadays is about $10 a jar.
[00:57:20] But people will scoff even at that price. But to me at that price, I would literally rather give it to the chickens or pour it on the ground in my garden. Yes. Or around a fruit. I mean, it, it is that valuable to me. Like just all of the little elements of, you know, well, the obvious of buying the hay and, uh, having, buying the fencing and buying the cow and, you know, the daily chore of milking and washing the, after all of that, it's like I, the milk does truly feel priceless.
[00:57:55] And it's one of those things where you have to have a bulk amount of it to really like, make a profit off of it. Yes. And I don't have the milk amount of milk, you know, you need, you need like several cows in milk at a time in order to have a mass amount of milk to make a profit. But it just, yeah, the numbers don't, the numbers don't make sense.
[00:58:17] Especially since I'm like bail, I'm bail feeding mostly at this point because, Well, California is dry and, uh, I don't have, I don't have irrigation capacity right now, and so, yeah, I, I bail feed the cows and I, that's how I, how it, how it works. I mean, they get, they get some grazing time in the spring and then we have like little patches of forest that they can go graze and munch in.
[00:58:44] But for the most part, the way that I have the cows is by importing hay. , and that's
[00:58:51] Kate: a, that's a pricey, that's a pricey thing to, to bring that in. And the price of that has gone up and all of a sudden, very much so. Yeah. When you add all of this up, it just, it doesn't make sense. But it would have if we were, if many of us were doing it this way.
[00:59:08] And you can see, you can see how centralization holds financial appeal and you can see how decentralization holds Oh, holds appeal on a spiritual level, I
[00:59:21] Blair: suppose. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that they, I don't think they keep it from us with, without a reason. I mean, this the machine likes it this way in a, in a sense.
[00:59:35] I think, you know, they, they, they do, they make money off of our, our reliance on, on the way things are li you know, it's, Yes, on
[00:59:43] Kate: our ho homogenized and pasteurized lives, I think to, to have that raw connection, uh, just to use a lot of milk words to have that raw connection. is to awaken a deeper level of, of being human that is our birthright, and that has been very much lost to have that level of autonomy and sovereignty for how we birth and raise our school, our children, and how we carry ourselves in this world to feel that deep connection with these animals and to know those depths of grief.
[01:00:27] And at the same time, the, the heights of joy that come with it. I think it makes us, it cleaves you from the system in a way that you will no longer serve it. And that's not what the machine wants. No,
[01:00:42] Blair: it is not. And, and, and also just even the eating of the food in itself is going to bring your mind to a place where you relish it more and Yeah.
[01:00:56] Well, you know, you're just smarter. , you're smarter, you, you see, you see more, you know, you see the, the big picture that, I think that connection, like the connection to it and coupled with the nourishment from it, it's like, uh, earth shattering, you know, and not to sound. So, I don't know, like, it, it sounds sort of like woowoo, I guess, in a way, but.
[01:01:22] It's that we're like living in, in, I think humans are living in a way where we're so disconnected, but we're kind of insulated from it. And, and everybody around us is living that way. And so it's, it's accepted. It's, it's the, this prescription for what you do and and breaking out of that and doing something different is, it's beneficial to to like everyone around you and everything around you, you know, it, it kinda like spreads.
[01:01:53] You're gonna, we're gonna be seren by the geese.
[01:01:56] Kate: I, I love a good goose serenade. We recently processed superfluous geese and it's crazy how much quieter the farm is. Like the decibel level of the farm. I think we processed nine or 10 geese and it just dropped.
[01:02:11] Blair: How is that? I've never, I've yet, this is, this is having geese, um, from babies and I've, I've yet, I haven't harvested one so, That's, I, I
[01:02:21] Kate: love the meat.
[01:02:22] I think the meat is incredible. I think it's rich and anxious and delicious. It almost looks like beef. It's so dark and red and purple, but they are salty when it comes to feathering. And so what my husband and I have decided with plucking is that we'll just eat some goose feathers with our goose. Oh yeah.
[01:02:43] And we leave them a little, A little feathery. .
[01:02:47] Blair: Yeah. I kinda, there's a certain point where I give up too. Um, I don't, I don't mind if you feather there. Yeah. No,
[01:02:54] Kate: we're not fussy. We're not fussy people. I think it's just extra protein you were talking about, and I loved this about being, we're insulated from our own disconnection.
[01:03:03] Like it's hard for us to even see it. Yeah. Because we're insulated and our neighbors are insulated, and so you don't even know. Yeah. How disconnected you
[01:03:10] Blair: are. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I do, I do feel very lucky and grateful to have kind of seen through it somehow. But I think, you know, for a lot of people it's really hard to see through it because like, again, like with front, it's like there's no, there's no alternative.
[01:03:29] It almost seems like if you're not exposed to it somehow, if you're not aware of it, then how, you know, like this saying, you don't know what you don't know. Mm-hmm. , it's, you can't , you can't grab onto something that you don't know is there, and so it's, it's inertia, right? It's like this, you see other people living like that and it's the accepted way and.
[01:03:55] The path before you and you do it. You know, you, I just, I guess part of my journey has always been sort of like stubbornly a opposed to, to it. Um, and that'd be like, might be part of my tourist, my tourist nature or just my own , kinda anti disestablish. . Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, punk rock, you know, but , yeah, I
[01:04:20] Kate: think about that a lot.
[01:04:21] How much that Yeah. Like coming from that space. Right. I was given the book Civil Disobedience for my eighth grade graduation by a teacher. They were like, this book reminds me of you and I, I mean, immediately left that for living in punk houses. And then I think a lot of that, in many ways has shaped some of my views of things and always being a little bit of a, a little bit want to buck the system.
[01:04:47] Yeah. And for you to be a, you know, to be a Taurus, to be a bull raising bulls and it's Yeah. .
[01:04:55] Blair: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's like a, you, you kind of, Have to go against the grain, as it were. And you have to be willing to, willing to make mistakes if you wanna call 'em that and be willing to get weird looks from people, you know, if, if you're, you know, just for people who are starting out doing this, like, you're, like, I was, I mean, your family might not be in support of it.
[01:05:21] You might get weird looks from people. You might, you know, feel like an outcast, but it, I don't know. I feel like the, I feel like our, the movement is, is kind of getting bigger though. And, and it might just be, because that's my, what do they call it? Like your, your echo chamber? Yeah,
[01:05:40] Kate: your echo chamber.
[01:05:42] Blair: A little bubble, but yeah.
[01:05:44] Yeah. And I like it that way. But no, I think it's, think it's growing, I think. Yeah. And I think it's growing too. I mean, maybe, maybe Walmart still exists, but, but heck uh, the local farmer's market seem to be growing, you know, like, I don't know. I think, you know, you're, it's never gonna be as big as a Walmart or as all the, you know, box stores or it's not going, the movement isn't, can't, I don't know, there's, well, do you, you're, you know, Chris Newman, the Silver Aqua Farms guy,
[01:06:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the way that he, I, I lo I, I love him and I, and I really respect him. And, um, I appreciate his writing and what he does. And, you know, he, it's like, there's like this, I want this movement to be, to take over. I mean, how, like, wouldn't that be, you know, like the ? But I just, I don't know that it ever can, can be what, you know, the, like, I don't think it can be the dominant force, but I think it's gaining, gaining momentum and I think that there's more of a demand and as demand grows, More farmers are gonna come forward, I think, and and farmers who, who are shifting their practices.
[01:07:02] Kate: Yeah. You said something earlier that kind of made me curious. You talked about when we're eating these foods, when we're eating raw milk and eggs and this great meat, that it changes our brains. And I wondered as you were talking, if there's a sort of feedback loop as people maybe don't seek out more farming, but they seek out deeper nourishment for their bodies.
[01:07:28] As that becomes the impetus and as they eat these foods, it changes their outlook on life and their brain chemistry, and then they want more of that and. Leads into more farmers and there's just sort of all these, these sort of positive feedback loops that build on just how good this makes
[01:07:51] Blair: you feel.
[01:07:52] Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it. I think that, yeah, like eating that food sparks something within us, right? And, and the eating, I mean, I'm not, I don't wanna get scientific, but eating the animal fats, , eating the animal fats is, well, we're animals and eating these powerfully nourishing foods enlivens us.
[01:08:14] And it, it, it will, whether, you know, whether people seek it out or then decide that they wanna seek it out insofar as to grow their own or have their own, I mean, Ultimately, I think what what led me into it was like trying, trying these foods for the first time, drinking raw milk for the first time. I think eating these, eating these, eating in a more traditional, uh, ancestral sort of way.
[01:08:40] I think it just promotes itself. It encourages itself within your body. Your, your, I think for me anyway, this is just, and for others that I've talked to about it, it's like for many people, yes, so many people who are like, Give me meals. Um, you know, it, it just, it's somehow sparks wanting to eat more like that and, and eat better.
[01:09:03] It's, it's not as though your body is gonna, I don't know. It, it's your, your body knows. Your body knows exactly how good this stuff is. And I mean, I think, you know, like little kids eating a stick of butter, you know, babies pulling a stick of butter off the counter and macing into it. Like, that's just pretty clear, you know?
[01:09:24] I mean, yeah. It's
[01:09:25] Kate: value, it's it's craving. Yeah. Like our human bodies crave these different foods from animals living a good life. I have a, I have a quote from you. On this, an animal living the life their body was designed for results in a quality of meat that nourishes in a vastly different way than meat from animals grown like stationary mono crops and battery cages, or feed lots, and it makes the best tasting meat I have ever eaten.
[01:09:51] It creates an invaluable product, which cannot easily be interpreted by a price In terms of current market cost of. I think the effort and result is worth more than money can even quantify. And I am curious what a generation of humans sustained on meat like that would be. Like what if humanity as a whole could experience meat from animals who were raised expressing the depth of their animalness?
[01:10:14] Perhaps this would bring us closer to living, more aligned with our own humanness. And I think that really it brings us closer to our state of humanness. And you see it in that baby macing on that stick of blood butter and craving it, wanting it, their bodies needing it to build what it is to be human.
[01:10:35] Blair: Yeah. In, in a way that produces healthy bodies and minds and spirits. And I think I, I've seen it so many times, like in, um, I mean, I, I, I go to grocery stores still, obviously, I, I don't produce all my own food or anything, so I've seen it many times when I go into grocery stores and see what people are eating and then see humanity at large.
[01:11:02] And it's, it's, um, it's sad. , I mean, I, I, I think it's, it's really we're, we're at a place where we need to start looking at ourselves in the mirror, uh, collectively and. Making some changes would be ideal. , to say the least, yes. I mean, it's reflecting, it's reflecting on our children in really poor ways. I mean, you know, I don't, you know, spouting out data seems kind of silly, but I just know that, you know, like the childhood obesity rates and childhood diabetes and all these avoidable problems, yes.
[01:11:38] Lifestyle diseases, you know, little, little kids shouldn't be dealing with. And it's not their fault. I mean, they're not the, they're not the ones deciding to eat these things. And frankly, then you could go so far as to say in, in a lot of cases, it's not the parents' fault either. I mean that they're, the parents are not founded with the information.
[01:12:00] Needed to make good decisions. I mean, I'm, I'm not trying to be judgmental or anything. It's just this is our society. This is what we're facing. We're facing a, a, a, an epidemic or, um, just a, a societal downfall right now where we're children. I think it just, especially with kids, it's like. It's heartbreaking, you know?
[01:12:25] It is. In my own family. In my own family, I've witnessed these kinds of scenarios where, where like kids are little, little kids with diabetes and yeah, obesity problems at young ages and it's. It doesn't need to be this way, you know, like it it could, it could be, we could change it. It's just it needs to be foundational.
[01:12:45] It needs to be, I mean, so far as like, stop what we're doing and, and start doing something completely different. Yeah.
[01:12:53] Kate: Stop everything right now. If it, you know, if Yeah, possible. And I, you touched on something and I think we're, we're in a system that sews disconnection, eating food that's completely disconnected from reality.
[01:13:07] It's processed in a, in a lab and it's creating more disconnected people. And then we're saying that you have this other system that's very connected where people are eating food that's very connected to the earth and, and to its biology and it's creating very connected people and. I think when you kind of look at those two really simple tracks that you just laid out, I mean, it, it makes for a good argument to start a farm.
[01:13:38] Blair: Yeah, definitely . Yeah. The whole country. A farm. I mean, and that's, you know, that like, it, it sounds kind of outlandish, you know, when you put it like, yeah, let's stop everything and, and just change, you know? And, and I mean, I, but it ha but that's it, right? I mean, so something has to, to change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:13:57] I mean, it has to be like overriding. I mean, like, and yeah, I just, I don't know how that would happen. , I dunno how, you know, stop, stop the wheels. Okay. And just like take a day off, just like, sit around and let's think about this here, you know, but doesn't, it just doesn't, doesn't work that way. And yeah, how do you stop this system and, and, and kinda restart the new one?
[01:14:23] And um, yeah. Gosh, that would be nice. I
[01:14:27] Kate: think. You can't help. But I think that so many of these conversations on this podcast go there because we can't help but wonder what it means to mend. And I think that's something that you talk a lot about that I truly love is what it means to mend. And I have this teeny tiny quote from you that mending focuses on things we can fix in a broken place.
[01:14:50] And I think that as human creatures, we want to mend both the macro and the micro.
[01:14:58] Blair: Yeah. Yeah. I, that's a huge part of my like effort in my, you know, internally I, I'd like, I'd love to to heal, heal it all, you know, but of. You can really only focus on your own little microcosm. Yeah. And the, the mending. I, I definitely, I've, uh, followed along with the far Woods gals who are some of my heroes, and they're super amazing ladies.
[01:15:26] And, and for years I just sort of googled the, the mending photos. And then I finally just picked up, picked up the old, you know, ripped pants and got into it and. I love it. I mean, it's, it's amazing. It's like this art, it's an art com. Not that I have a ton of time for it, really, but it's an art and it's functional, you know, like fixing old pants that have been, well usually a lot of my pants, it's from, from crouching, squatting to milk.
[01:15:54] The cows, is that the, you know, there's crotch holes, , mm-hmm. , which, you know, crotch splits part of the deal. Yeah. Even, even with like the gued crotch, it still happens. It doesn't matter. Uh, but no, it doesn't matter if you do, if you, if you squat enough that one spot. But yeah, I mean, fixing, fixing little holes in things is so therapeutic, you know, it's, it's something real that you're holding and that you see the visible effect of, uh, pretty, you know, once you're done with it, when you're, when you complete something.
[01:16:27] It's that finished product of function again. And I love that about it. And I just, you know, like it, it feels, obviously it's productive to put something that's, you know, needs mending back into working order. And for me, that's, um, I think that's, that's all of like, what my, I think my favorite thing about farming honestly, is that there's always something to be fixed.
[01:16:50] There's always something to be mended, always something to be tended. And I think just as my, my own personal way, I like to be busy. I mean, maybe it's distraction from , but I do like to have productive, purposeful activity and I'm never lacking for it. I mean, , you know, there's always like a few hundred things that could be done.
[01:17:13] And it's an overwhelming feeling as I know. I know that you're well aware. Oh yeah. But it's, it's also, it's also beautiful, you know, it's like there's always something to do. Like you can look at it in both ways of like being overwhelmed or. What a joy. I have so many things I could do. .
[01:17:30] Kate: Um, yes, and it's both.
[01:17:32] And we, I think we, I think we wanna do as humans, right? We want to mend and fix and problem solve and interact and, and be, I don't wanna use the word busy because I don't think that's the but to be in action, to be in connection. And, and it is at times overwhelming, like drinking from a firehouse . And it feels insurmountable at times.
[01:18:00] And gosh, I have so much awe, I know you often do it, it's just you and the kids and I have so much offer you doing it in that space because Yeah. Yeah. It's, it feels tough, just
[01:18:13] Blair: the two of us. Oh yeah. It's, and, and I even, I think with, even without kids, farming is hard, you know? And then with kids, it's. Hard and more, and yeah, it is, it's in it.
[01:18:26] Sometimes it feels really insane. , you know, like, you know, like how long it took for us to even, to be able to sit down to chat and , you know, the months of like, I mean, I'm literal, literally always busy in a way that, you know, like you said, it's not like busy, like busy work, but just there's always, life is so full.
[01:18:48] Life is so full. Mm-hmm. just every day. And yeah, so farming of course comes second. I mean, you know, I don't, I don't go out to milk the cows until the kids are situated for the morning time, you know, like where. I think for me, I would wake up and go milk, but as you know, if I didn't have kids, I would wake up and get milking taken care of.
[01:19:12] Whereas with kids, the kids come before the cows and that's just how I've always treated it. Because you know, there are some people who are pretty strict about when they milk their cows, Like, whereas I, I don't, I don't do that. We strict
[01:19:28] Kate: about anything on the farm. There is no hard and fast schedule. And there are other, you know, and I think with kids it's a beautiful thing to tend to them
[01:19:39] Blair: first.
[01:19:40] Yeah. Yeah. Their needs come, their needs are more pressing and, um, to, I, I guess that I want them to feel as though they're more important than the farm, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes course I'm like, okay, I have to go melt the cow now. Like, you have to, or you know, I have to go feed now or this needs to be tended.
[01:20:02] I mean, there are certain moments of course where, okay, you. But I think for the most part, for me in the, you know, I homeschool the kids, so we're all always home for the most part. And yeah, they're, they're first I'm farm. Farm is second. And that's sometimes challenging for me because there's just so much to do.
[01:20:24] And, you know, the, the, it's just the truth of it is that the, the farm things sometimes get neglected. Like, you know, I haven't cleaned, I haven't cleaned the chicken coop in a long time, or I haven't Yeah, I haven't, it's like one of those
[01:20:41] Kate: chores that's just at the bottom, it just keeps going to the, it's, that's not that present.
[01:20:46] Yeah.
[01:20:46] Blair: Yeah. It's not, and, and like you, that's part of doing it alone, you know, like we used to live in communities and we would work in communities and. Feed each other together. Whereas now it's just my little unit doing it all and your little, you know, your unit doing it all and everybody like doing their own little thing and, and it's great and we're doing it, but it's challenging to do it all in the timeframe and in the, you know, like you said, these, these things that go to the bottom of the list.
[01:21:18] Well, the bottom of my list is long in itself, you know, like Yes, yes. There's a lot in there. I look around, yeah, I look around every day as I'm walking to do other things or, or standing there washing dishes, thinking of the next, you know, thing I'm doing. You know, there's just so many things undone and.
[01:21:39] And, um, you know, that's just part of what you have to accept. I mean, as far as like farming goes at all, it's, it's like you have to accept that there are things that go undone and kinda like work around that reality. . Yeah.
[01:21:53] Kate: And yeah, it does, it forces you to accept a level of undoneness that I think is Yeah.
[01:22:00] Wholly uncomfortable to most people. Yeah.
[01:22:03] Blair: Yeah. I mean maybe, maybe it's those living with those uncomfortable things kinda gds you, you know, it gds you for all of the hard parts. Mm-hmm. , I mean
[01:22:13] Kate: mm-hmm. know. I wonder if you'd talk about farming solo and homeschooling and parenting. And it's okay if you don't want to, and we can, we can take this piece out of the podcast, but Yeah.
[01:22:26] I, I pulled a clip from you and I think that this is important. Okay. Yeah. Uh, I just have this quote and you say, stay excited about the future, despite what may be absent. I have a sense that many of us are forging the same solitary path while I'm mourn the lack of solid, unwavering, long-term companionship in my personal life.
[01:22:46] I draw power from knowing I am not alone in the aloneness. And I think as we talk about the, the aloneness of farming in modern times, there's also this other aspect
[01:22:58] Blair: of it. Yeah, I, I, it's a daily, a daily struggle for certain to have begun this journey with, well, with my ex, uh, with my kids' dad. And you know, now to be forging it.
[01:23:14] Well, actually I will say that my, Dan, Dan is back. Uh, Dan came back like about a month ago or so, and so I'm not alone. Alone now. Um, good, but I have, I have. Been alone for the majority of my time farming and, uh, and yeah, and just to not have, to not have it all go the way that I was expecting it to go.
[01:23:38] That is a big part of my farming reality, my path in general, because I guess, you know, you, you'd think I thought about it in terms of like going into farming with a partnership was the, the wise move to, it seemed obvious, you know, to have someone who was doing it with me. And that was always kind of part of the dream, was to be doing it with, with my, my partner and to have faced like a timeframe where I was alone, like for five years.
[01:24:10] It was ju it felt impossible. Uh, , it felt impossible a lot of the time. And I would just plow through that. I mean, there's, I would just, people would say something and people still say this to me, but. Like, I don't know how you do what you do. Well, I, I don't feel as though I have a choice. , you know, there, there really is no option.
[01:24:35] I mean, I don't, I don't see another option and so that's part of it. I, a big part of it probably for me is that I just, I, I go through the harder moments knowing that there's no option and probably my own stubbornness. Aided me in that because I, you know, I don't give up. I'm not, I don't see any way to like, to live any differently.
[01:25:01] I don't, I can't see any other path other than raising my kids like this. Like, I, you know, in moments where I've felt hopeless, I, I may be like invi, like, thought about the concept of something else, but, but you know, the reality is I don't want that and I don't think my kids would want that anymore. And I wanna drink milk every day,
[01:25:29] So that is what keeps me going. I mean, I honestly like, for all the moments that were hard and impossible feeling and just, I felt like at the bottom, you know, the bottom of it all, and, and you know, you have to dig. Like, I, I think that that saying like, to dig, it really feels like you're digging at something in those moments.
[01:25:52] Like you're digging at something within yourself. And that's how it felt. A lot of, like a lot of the darker times . And then, you know, I would drink, drink a cup of milk and eat a steak , and that is it, you know, that, that would bring me back to my why, my reason, it reconnected me to like, okay, we're, we're, this is why we're doing this.
[01:26:19] You just, you keep going, you know? And. Yeah, I, I guess, I guess the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any other alternative is the, the main sticking point for me at all. This. And, you know, like you were saying about hay cost, hay cost right now, are, they're astronomical here. , I mean, I don't, I don't know what it's like over on the east coast, but here our, the, the cost of hay has gone to, like, in, in feed stores, it's up to like 25, 28 bucks a bale for big bales.
[01:26:54] And I'm, I never, I don't go to feed stores, so I usually like get it direct from, from various farmers. And so I've thankfully found, like I have some connections where I can get it for 20 bucks, a bale for 1517. So I have a few different connections, but still, like, if they're eating two bales a day, I mean, that adds up so fast.
[01:27:17] Yeah, it's a lot. And you know, I pretty much hemorrhage cash on my animals just to have meat and milk and fertility. But, but again, I just, I don't see a better way. I don't see an alternative and I don't want to anymore , so Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm looking at what I'm doing and I think I have to reduce my herd this year simply because of hay, the hay prices.
[01:27:42] But thankfully I also recently started having my animals. Um, my bowls and one heifer are now down the road at my friend's property, actually. Chelsea of, yeah. Yeah, the house. Chelsea Cowgirl. Yeah, Chelsea and Fabian's plate. Oh, that's amazing. And so, you know, I'm, I'm also like glad to try to forge more relationships like that where the animals can go and graze elsewhere.
[01:28:11] But that's a diamond in a rough situation right there, you know, like, Having the bovine, trusting them, being over there and, and knowing that, you know, they're with my friends is like, that's invaluable. You know? That's, it's incredible. I mean, it's working out really well. I go and bring them some hay and, you know, then of course their land gets to be grazed and fertilized and they get some, some bovine love in their life and, uh, I think they really, they're really liking it.
[01:28:40] And they have horses so, you know, the horses get some, uh, some entertainment to watch the bulls graze and yeah, it's, it's a reciprocal, symbiotic relationship that is excellent. And that's also reducing hay consumption. And, but still, it's, it's expensive and Yeah, but worthwhile. I don't, it's the expensive, we hemorrhage money too.
[01:29:04] Kate: We hemorrhage money too. I mean, we don't make any, we lose money. Farming, we lose. Yeah, we lose money. Farming and, and, and we lose money eating this way. And yet, I was really struck as you were talking that, that feeling, that mindset, I don't know what it is or the reality that there is no other option, right.
[01:29:24] Creates, yeah. A specific amount of drive, both to carry on when it feels impossible, but also to find solutions. Sometimes they're selling off part of the herd. We've done a lot of that this winter, and sometimes they're forming a new relationship where some reciprocity and symbiosis can occur.
[01:29:46] Blair: Yep. Yeah.
[01:29:47] Yeah. It's, it is that no other option feeling, I mean, thinking about, I mean, getting a regular job or , you know, like live, just living back where I'm grocery shopping every day. I just, I can't, I literally can't. I. I can't imagine doing that. I mean, and yeah, it's, it's been like, I know, I know how precious it is now.
[01:30:11] I mean, I guess it, I think farming really like, gives you the true value of what, you know, what we're eating. These, these products that we're sort of, you know, like I drink milk as a kid and didn't think about how precious it was. Right? Like, now it's me every time I drink milk, it's. It's glory, you know?
[01:30:31] It's, um, it's so important feeling and yeah, that value is definitely factored in, in a different way. I mean, you, like, like you said, you're losing money, right? We're losing money, yeah. Producing this food, which it's, I mean, that is, it's insane. Yeah, it's insane. It's crazy, you know, like, yeah, I have to do more
[01:30:53] Kate: work to continue to farm more other.
[01:30:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:30:59] Blair: Do you, and, and you guys like, do you have locally there? Do you guys have work or is it in It's just in Denver,
[01:31:07] Kate: the butcher shop. Actually. I mean, I'll, I'll be frank on this podcast cuz I think it's important we had to pull our salary out of the butcher shop this year because the butcher shop isn't doing well, because farmers aren't doing well.
[01:31:18] And so that whole thing. Uh, and so we leaned back on some savings and then my husband is opening up this, this cafe space in conjunction with Colorado State University that will pay us a small consulting fee. And so that will get us by, and then it's about imagining the next steps. And that's actually been where we are right now.
[01:31:41] Like where else can we pull a little bit here and a little bit there. We bend our herds. You know, we took, took a lot out of, of production on the farm and are kind of doing, I mean, we'll have enough to feed ourselves, but just going a little leaner. That's kind of exactly where I am right now is how do I, how do I build other streams, multiple streams of income.
[01:32:06] I thought about getting a job. It's still on the.
[01:32:10] Blair: Yeah, I thought about it. Scares the shit outta me. It scares the
[01:32:13] Kate: shit outta me. I don't think I'm employable.
[01:32:19] Blair: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I don't know. Well, I I, I sometimes hesitate to be completely honest out on the internet world, but I mean, I don't, I don't mind doing it and the reality real feel that you need to,
[01:32:32] Kate: but,
[01:32:33] Blair: well, the reality for me is that like I've been growing weed to supplement my farming habit for all these years, and now with the onset of, uh, the collapse of the weed market, I am also at the point of exploring new avenues of how do I make this, how do I keep making this work?
[01:32:53] Like of course, uh, I have. Thought about writing a book or something, but I don't have time, you know? Yeah. Like, I don't, I don't have time to write a book. I wake up and I'm a mom all day and doing, you know, as much on the farm as I can, but, you know, yeah. I, I'm at a point where my wheels have been turning about, uh, wanting to get more into like beef, beef production, but then thinking about that, it's, it's like you need a facility.
[01:33:23] You need, you know, um, you need money to make money. You need. You need money. Yeah. You need a significant amount of money Yes. To make any amount of money. And, you know, it's, it's the point of, I have a lot of knowledge and experience and, and ideas about how I could potentially create a, a grass-fed beef scenario where there's money to be made in theory, , you know, but like, how far down the line, you know, like, do you make money?
[01:33:54] Well, you know, when you, when you harvest animals in, in a few years, I mean, you know, it's, it's, uh,
[01:34:01] Kate: farming is a long game. I mean, anything, anything is a long game, right? It's two, three years out. And even then the margins are, the margins are slim. It's, it's the one to 2%. Margins are what a lot of the farmers and ranchers we operate, we work with, operate on.
[01:34:18] It's what the butcher shop operates on, if that, for many years it was negative and that amount of slim margins is something that it has to change. And I, I wish that I, I had some hopeful place to bring this around to, and I'm not sure I do right now. . Um, because it's just, it's just damn
[01:34:40] Blair: hard. Yeah, it is.
[01:34:42] It is. And I think that's, that it's something that not a lot of people talk enough about , you know, like we don't, we're not talking enough about how challenging it is. For the, the one thing that humans really need. One thing like food is, I mean, sh food, shelter, water, air, I mean food. It's pretty, pretty much, you know, everything for, for being.
[01:35:08] And if someone who is farming in a way that is, we'll just, you know, you say ecologically friendly, uh, . Yeah. Even, even not, I mean, even, not, even not, no, it doesn't matter. I mean, like, I, I actually, I, so I just, I just bought hay from a new farmer and he's a, he's my same age. He's 38 and he is, been doing this since he was a little boy.
[01:35:33] I mean, he, he's born and raised in the hay industry or you know, the hay business. And, um, they barely make ends meat. I mean, he's farming 160 acres. And spending inordinate amounts of money on, on, uh, fertilizer and the, the power bill to pump the water, to water the, the, the hay and then fuel for the equipment.
[01:36:01] You know, I think he said he spent something like $20,000 just in, in fuel one year to run the, wouldn't surprise me to run the diesel
[01:36:08] Kate: to, to run the diesel, to cut the hay and the amount of weight you're pulling in a big tractor. It's got a guzzle diesel. It's expensive.
[01:36:16] Blair: Yeah. And so, yeah, every, every el, every element of it adds up to where, you know, he's busting it as hard as he possibly can.
[01:36:25] He's working, you know, like he couldn't work any harder. He's, he's growing hay and he is selling it, and he isn't, you know, they're, they're not making money on it. I mean, they're, they're barely making, making their costs. And, and I think this is cross across the board. This is. This is like, it's, I don't think any farmer is like, not that, not that anyone, I don't think people get into farming to get rich, of course, but to make it buy would be nice.
[01:36:52] Yes. To ,
[01:36:53] Kate: yes. To sustain to I have enough Yes. Sustain to have security.
[01:36:59] Blair: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And if we keep even do that, then, you know, what, what is, what are we doing? Right? It's like, you know, if the feed and the cost of keeping the animal isn't even worth the, the weight of, you know, the product, then what, what is going on?
[01:37:17] You know, like, yeah. What is. And I don't
[01:37:20] Kate: know, like when I really get into this conversation, like what has devalued the pri you know, at once we're saying that, that this food is priceless and it is, but what has so deeply devalued the price of food that it's not something that we care to spend money on.
[01:37:39] And I mean, I see this in in action at the butcher shop when we raise prices and we charge certain things that there's a real ceiling on food that there isn't necessarily with in other consumer good sectors. Right. And maybe it's
[01:37:54] Blair: cause food goes away. Like it does eat it and it's gone. Yeah.
[01:37:59] Kate: Yeah. It's gone.
[01:38:00] It's completely, IM permanent and then it passes through you. Yeah. .
[01:38:06] Blair: Yeah. I mean that like, uh, where, whereas some people can spend like a thousand dollars on a new phone or something, you know, a 20 gallon, I mean, I'm sorry, a a $20 gallon of milk. Someone would, you know, balk at completely. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.
[01:38:21] Kate: Completely bulk at, yes. And it's impermanent, right? But sometimes, one of the things that, that I think a lot about is food is an an investment, right? Like food isn't something you spend money on, it's something you invest money in because you're investing in your health and the health of a farmer and the health of an ecosystem and the health of an animal.
[01:38:43] Like it's an investment that extends well beyond you, but, Its returns are very much in the long term. Its returns are in the, the tens of hundreds and thousands of years that an ecosystem is able to, to stay healthy and it's in feeling great when you're 70 instead of, you know, I mean just a little bit better right now.
[01:39:10] And it's in creating healthier offspring like these are long-term investments for a species that struggles to think past next
[01:39:19] Blair: week tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a huge part of it. It it is an investment. It is, yes. Yeah. There is some disconnect where the value of it hasn't, hasn't grown, you know, and, and isn't, yeah.
[01:39:35] There is, there is something in like strange almost about the fact that, I mean, obviously costs have gone up in the supermarkets, you see it reflected Yes. You know, things have gone up a little, a little bit. I mean, yes. But in the way of, of feed costs, it hasn't gone up that much. I mean, feed costs have doubled.
[01:39:56] Right. But the price of eggs has doubled. I mean, um, you know, like expensive, organic, good eggs here can be eight, $10 a dozen, but no one's going to be paying much more than that. Yeah. Um, whereas 50 pound bag of feed has now more than doubled. I mean, for like organic, the, the brand that I usually get is Modesto milling, and they're great.
[01:40:21] And I, I really appreciate their products. They have like corn and soy free poultry feed and, but yes, it's like 40, 40 bucks for a, for a bag, you know, 40 bucks I think for a 50 pound bag. Yeah. Or Yeah. But even to charge a dollar and an egg. Right. Even to
[01:40:39] Kate: charge 12 for a dozen. Right. A dollar an. Feels wild.
[01:40:43] Yeah. To people when, oh yeah, it costs more than that. And when you hold that, that precious egg, it's, it's
[01:40:50] Blair: worth it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Especially when your chickens take, you know, month, several month long breaks. I mean, you're still feeding those birds this expensive food when there's no eggs. Yeah.
[01:41:02] Kate: We just went through like a group molt, I think.
[01:41:05] I think we were getting four eggs a week. Yeah, yeah. You're still feeding them. Yep.
[01:41:11] Blair: You're still feeding them, you're still feeding the cows when they're not making milk. You know, you're, you're feeding them every day when there might not be, you know, a, they're not, might not be meat from them, you know, a ball, for example.
[01:41:23] There might not be neat for them from them for a couple of years, but they get fed every day. And yeah, it's, it's that, that's the value that isn't seen. You know, the, that's the value that people can't, that who aren't part of it, aren't grasping. And I mean, I, I wouldn't, I would never have truly understood unless I was living it.
[01:41:44] I mean, there's no way to know and until you're experiencing it and feeling the pull of money going away rapidly, Yeah.
[01:41:56] Kate: And. I wanna make sure that, I mean, and there's a connection and I believe that the more that we have this conversation and the more that people gain that understanding, maybe the paradigm begins to shift and, and maybe I'm just still naive and hopeful and starry-eyed, and that could 100% be the case.
[01:42:18] Blair: Yeah, I, yeah, I feel, I feel that way. I feel both sides. You know, I. I feel kind of the, the weight of the doom side. And I also feel excited still and starry-eyed still about the direction that it could go in. Yeah. And the more, the more that we have a conversation like this, and the more that, you know, there's farmers who are truly dedicated to not only their own farming, but also the group collective mission at large, which is, you know, the macrocosm of like, we're, we're all in this together.
[01:42:52] You know, we're not these disconnected little individual patches. We are all here. You know, like we're, we're a couple thousand miles away and. It doesn't matter, you know, like we're, and that was, honestly, that was something that I, it's pretty amazing in, in terms of how, you know, we've, we met through Instagram.
[01:43:14] Yeah. And I've met a lot of incredible farmers through Instagram and as much of a, you know, shit show as that platform has become, I used to really love was like, wow, there's so many more people. Especially like seeing women farmers, uh, 10, whatever it was, nine, nine or so years ago, I think, or maybe eight, was when I, I got Instagram going and.
[01:43:41] Suddenly, like there was like women, other women farmers that I saw, like I knew a few in real life obviously, but then just to see how many other women were getting under a cow or, or getting under their goats and milking every day. It was like this sense of like camaraderie and like seeing that, you know, that we're not alone.
[01:44:00] We're, we're all doing this together. We're all making our way. Through this, you know, quagmire of learning to like, do do this thing together. You know, we're doing this thing and we're, we're se of course we're separate and individual, but we're doing it together and learning. And I think that's kept a lot of hope alive in me.
[01:44:21] You know, that, that, as hard as it is and as much of like, banging my head against a wall as it might seem, sometimes it's important and we're all doing it for a reason. And like, even though the value is not reflected in our financial system terms, the value is. Beyond that. And, and yeah, there's something, something hopeful about that I think, you know, and having these kind of conversations is hopeful.
[01:44:52] and, you know, like spreading, spreading it and yeah, it seems to be like little fox fires, you know, ,
[01:45:00] Kate: I don't think I could have brought it around better than you just did. And that it's really about connection and it's about how we're all connected and that that is such a hopeful thread in a space where we walk this line of jum and hope.
[01:45:17] Yeah. . I, I think that's beautiful and I think that's, that's a good place to begin to wrap it up. But I wanna ask you before then, have I missed anything important that's bubbling up in your heart? Any other cream that's rising to the top? Cream . I was just gonna make, I'm make puns
[01:45:38] Blair: this whole podcast. Yeah.
[01:45:40] Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, the, uh, the cream was, it's funny because the cream was one of those things when I, I had, well, I had never had raw milk and of course never had raw cream. And my friend's Tabor bought, my friend Tabor bought a cream separator pretty much right away when we had the cow had bought the cow at their place.
[01:46:03] And when I tasted the cream, that was like, this could save the world. Like if everybody could try what raw cream tastes like, then there'd be no more. Problems. You know, and , I guess I hold onto that, you know, like, um, there's the way that, you know, there's like that hope that rises and well, you know, you've had raw cream, you know what I mean?
[01:46:26] Kate: Yeah. . Oh yeah. . And maybe, maybe hope is like raw cream in that somehow despite everything, it always rises to the top.
[01:46:34] Blair: Yeah, yeah. No matter, no matter how much is in there, it always rises. It always
[01:46:39] Kate: rises. It's true. And I think that's true of humanity in a lot of ways.
[01:46:43] Blair: Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
[01:46:46] Kate: I think I'm gonna call this podcast Ken Raw Cream Save the World.
[01:46:49] Blair: Yeah. all know the answer to that.
[01:46:55] Kate: I'm so grateful it to have been connected for as long as we have through Instagram and to finally put a voice, to put Gesticulations and a face and a feeling behind, behind you. It's just, it's the biggest gift and I. I just, your writing has been a balm for my soul, but it's also been a guide over the years.
[01:47:19] Like you're, you're teaching a lot of us how to start a farm and inspiring a lot of us to start
[01:47:24] Blair: a farm. Thank you. Thank you. I feel the same with your writing and what you're doing and your voice and getting to know you and what you bring in the world. It's, it's moving. Thank you. Moving to have gotten to connect
[01:47:39] Kate: Yeah. It's just, you're just spectacular. Tell people where they can find you and how they can support you. Oh
[01:47:46] Blair: yeah. I don't have much ways of that these days. I don't have many products for sale or anything, but I'm just, I just use my Instagram occasionally at start of at Starter Farm and some occasionally have SAV for sale, but I'm, I'm not the best at marketing and
[01:48:04] I understand that. Yeah. , I mean, when you're juggling like kids on a farm, it's kind of like, you know, everything else feels extra, but, but selves do
[01:48:13] Kate: come up for sale and for purchase.
[01:48:15] Blair: Yeah, yeah, sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Or just like reach out and I usually have sab cuz I always make a bunch of it. And, um, I sell that and okay, maybe someday I'll have the grass fed business, grass fed beef business going.
[01:48:31] But that's kinda down the, down the line if it happens. Yeah, we don't, you know, I just try to keep dreaming forward. I mean, that's what, that's what it's all about, me dreaming forward, . Yeah. I
[01:48:43] Kate: love that. Yeah. That's, yeah. Dreaming forward. Me too. Just gotta keep dreaming forward. Thank you.
[01:48:53] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Mind, body and Soil Podcast. If what you found resonated with you, may I ask that you share it with your friends, or leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcast. This act of reciprocity helps others find mind, body, and soil. If you're looking for more, you can find us@groundworkcollective.com and at Kate underscore Kavanaugh.
[01:49:21] That's k a t e underscore K A V A N A U G H On Instagram. I would like to give a very special thank you to China and Seth Kent of the band, allright Allright for the clips from their beautiful song over the Edge from their album, the Crucible. You can find them at Allright allright on Instagram and wherever you listen to music.