Girlypop Acres

Today I'm talking with Lily at Girlypop Acres. You can also follow on Facebook.

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00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together.  Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality,  and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.

00:29 At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful.  If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care,  you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. That tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Lily at Gurley Pop Far- Acres  in New York. How are you, Lily? I'm how are you doing today? I'm good. I almost messed up the introduction yet again. I'm telling you, I-

00:56 I know what I'm going to say and the brain does not translate to my tongue to come out of my face. So how is the weather in New York this morning? Oh, it's actually decent for once.  We've been hit hard by snow lately, but it's sunny and shiny and everyone, all the critters are walking around happy. Good. It is March 30th, I think. And I'm in Minnesota and the sun is pouring through my bedroom window, which is the room I do my recording in.

01:26 And it's supposed to hit 75 degrees today. Oh, goodness. I'm jealous. think we're probably in like the 40s and I'm celebrating. Yeah, the weather's been so weird. We had 81 degrees two Sundays ago for the high. Oh my goodness. And then it was cold, colder all week. And then it was really nice yesterday. I it got up to 63. It's supposed to be 75 today and it's supposed to drop down again this week. So.

01:51 I'm gonna be real happy when we get a stretch of seven days where it is moderate and spring-like. It would be great. Oh, same here. Same here. It was snowing just two days ago here.  Yeah, it's nuts. So tell me,  I wanna know  about you and what you do, but tell me why your place is called Girlie Pop Acres. So I have four dogs, three great Pyrenees and one beagle.  And back when it was just the great Pyrenees,

02:20 um I had two of them puppies  and you know, great Pyrenees puppies don't listen to anything at all.  And it was just easier to yell girly pops at them instead of being like, over here.  So I would yell girly pops and I accidentally trained all three of them to only respond to girly pop. uh And now the beagle does So I just named it after my dogs.  That is so cute.

02:50 I call my dog girly all the time. Oh, I love it. I'm sure my neighbors know that we're girly pup acres because my dogs used to break out of the fence before we had our fences as good as we do. I'd be outside yelling girly pups, girly pups. Oh, Funny. You know what would be funny? It would you made cake pops and took them to your neighbors and were like, I'm so sorry that I'm always yelling girly pop. Here's some cake pops for you.

03:19 I should. I don't know if they can even hear me because my neighbors are pretty far away, but if they do. Yeah, I think that would be really cute. If you ever get an inkling or hear a rumor that they're upset, just throw together some cake pops and I don't know, put cute little dog faces on them and take them over to them.  Oh, that's a great idea. That's what I would do because I really like turning messes into messages. That's such a cute like motto. I love that.

03:49 Uh huh. have gained so many sayings from this podcast over two and a half years from people I've talked to.

03:57 and they're all relevant. So I just, have a whole rolling lexicon in the back of my head of things that I can do or say. I love that. Yeah. It's been great. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do,  Um,  so  I'm a homesteader as you can guess, since I'm here.  Um, I raised Nigerian dwarf goats. We have eight goats right now.  Uh, we got the four dogs.  Uh, we got a goose named Boopers.

04:26 walking around  next to me right now. I got a bunch of ducks, a bunch of silkies,  and  I raised two feral farm children and a potbelly pig named Big Bertha.  sounds like Homestead.  Yep.  Very  full life over here.  I consider myself a Lyme's disease advocate because I have Lyme's disease and so does my husband.

04:56 um I'm a disabled farmer. I have two leg braces because my knees are all messed up.  I'm either always in a cane or a walker, which  is a challenge  with farming, but we make it work.  Yes, yes. And I'm glad you said that because  I'm not saying that you are over 50. I have no idea how old you are. I am over 50.

05:21 You can do homesteading at any age as long as you feel safe in what you're doing. That is an amazing thing to call out because ah I'm only 28.  My husband is 25,  but we've been doing it for a couple of years and it was pretty much the second we could get a piece of land. We're like, okay, let's get back to farming. ah I was raised on a cattle farm when I was a kid and he grew up  at this lake.

05:50 semi-famous bed and breakfast in Arkansas, where they had like 100 acres. But there's definitely times where your safety is like, goodness, like people don't think about how much goes into homesteading. Oh, there are so many ways to get hurt on a homestead. husband was splitting wood over the weekend with our wood splitter, you know, the actual

06:19 motorized one. And I was sitting on the porch because I don't do  wood, he does it. And I kept going out and  kind of keeping an eye on him because he's out there by himself. And I'm like, please don't let him get sidetracked and leave his hand in the way. Because if you get your hand caught between the wood and the metal piece that splits the wood, you're going to have a broken hand for sure.  Oh, goodness, I couldn't imagine.  So he was fine. He's got it down to a science and he's very good at it. And it's kind of fun watching your husband do

06:48 manly work, you  but  But there are so many ways I mean The first time we came to see this place over five years ago before we bought it  it's it's 3.1 acres and it is a flat it's a piece of flat land and uh There were divots or whatever. They're called trenches. I don't know  but all over the yard from where the the tractors had gone through or been moved or whatever on the property

07:18 and I caught my boot toe on one the edges and went down. In the first five minutes, I was walking this property and I was like, well, that bodes well. I'll probably break a leg before it's over. So you can do the dumbest things and get hurt or you can be the most careful ever and still get hurt. So  it's something to consider. Yeah, I'm on the dumber end of it  with my first goat. He was a little baby.

07:44 And he loved jumping up onto my shoulders to get  piggyback rides.  And I just let him because I was like, this is cute. This is adorable. This isn't going to backfire on me someday.  And now that he's a full grown goat and still tries to do it  so swell. uh I also got attacked by an emu once on our farm when we tried to raise emu. So  yes,  they are big birds and they're not

08:13 I mean, I'm sure someone in their experience has raised an emu chick and it's the friendliest, sweetest bird ever and would never hurt a fly. But I don't think that's the usual course of events. I have no idea. We got one as a baby. It was given to us by a friend as a housewarming gift and it was in our living room and it would sit around and whistle at us all day long. I loved it.

08:41 And then one day he just  snapped  and like went at me  against a tree. And I'm like, nope, you are not staying on the farm anymore. Wow. Okay. Well,  he was a he and I don't... Well, he wasn't a DNA sex. I'm not a thousand percent sure. We just called him a he because his name was Betty Sneemu the emu. So, eh I was going to say roosters of any fowl breed tend to be more aggressive than the  females. So...

09:12 Apparently in emus, it's the girls usually who are the aggressors.  Oh really? Well, maybe it was a girl maybe  You did something that made her mad  apparently Okay Yeah, go ahead.  I just thought I'd say when you were mentioned in like your property and like how the like divots  you wouldn't imagine we bought seven acres  and  the previous owners,  don't know any of this like

09:41 it's like rumors, but they were rumored to be like dog fighters that were breeding pit bulls in the forest portion of our property. And there's just like barbed wire everywhere and all sorts of hazards. We bought the property and there was a five foot tall trash pile just filled with junk. So we've had to be like,

10:07 revamping the property since day one. We're two years in and we're still removing stuff. Yep. You inherit whatever the former people  left for you. welcome to this place was a dead skunk in the back of the barn. freshly dead, so freshly smelly.

10:30 That was exciting. ah dogs,  when they used to go  into the forest area before we  fenced it off so they couldn't get back there,  they came out once with a fully intact deer skull.  Yeah, the joys of living in the country,  Yeah.  So you said you have Nigerian, is it Nigerian dwarf goats or is it Nigerian goats? Nigerian dwarf goats.

10:59 Okay, anyone who's listened to the podcast over the last two and a half years knows that goats are my nemesis. I love them so much. I don't have any because we don't have any place for them to graze. And I say nemesis as in my weakness. I love baby goats. Grown goats? Not as much of a fan. Like I see a grown goat and I'm like, oh, that's a nice animal. But I see baby goats and I melt inside.

11:28 We're planning on getting a baby buck sometime next week because I want to breed all my girls. have like six girls and I have two weathers. And I kind of want to raise them from a baby just so could get the baby. huh. And they are very cuddly. I don't know. Do you have experience with baby goats? Just with the one. Cause everyone else I've got as an adult.

11:53 I have one goat that was bred on our farm. delivered her. Her name's Adalia. She's standing right in front of me trying to climb up a slide and failing. But she's about a year old now. Okay. Yeah, I talked a lot about baby goats at the beginning of when I started the podcast back two and a half years ago, because my friend, her parents raised goats and they had the long eared

12:21 goats? they newbies or lemonges maybe or both?  And those little babies with those long ears were the sweetest things ever. I will have to send you  some photos of my goats after because I love all my babies.  I have this one tri-color goat that I just had over heels for. She looks like she's a baby but she's not. She's like two years old.  Her name's Feather.

12:48 and she has this cute little collar with bumblebees on it.  I just adore her.  Nice.  Okay, so  you sound so  happy. Like your happiness, what you're doing is just rolling through my  headphones. Cannot talk today, geez. um So  are you just doing the homesteading for yourself or are you doing like a small business with it?  So  goal is both.

13:17 I've only been doing the homestead for about two years. um So I feel like I haven't really got to the businessy portion of it yet, except for like Facebook monetization from sharing  photos of the animals online. ah But I hope to eventually get into more businessy selling and stuff.  And beyond the animals, do you grow any produce? ah Yeah, we grow some, but it's very minimal.

13:46 Mostly because last year we had 28 ducks  and they were very destructive. So this year when we got ducks, we built them a run. We stopped free-ranging them. Okay, if you have 20 or you had,  I mean, I assume you still have a few ducks, you must have eggs in the summertime. So are you using them? Are you giving them away? Are you starting to sell them?  son would eat eggs for every meal.

14:16 every day if he could. And  when we had like 80 chickens, we've downsized since then, ah we had like 80 chickens, he was going through the eggs like, wow.  Yeah. So yeah, mostly you're going to my side. I also have my dog Penelope who we found out was stealing eggs out of the nesting boxes. Uh huh.

14:43 Yeah, I have seen dogs do that. My dog doesn't because she doesn't go anywhere near the coop.  We're really lucky.  So did you tease your son that he was going to turn into a chicken if he kept eating all the chicken eggs? uh I haven't. No, I'm just glad he's eating. He's a skinny butt, so I like to get some weight on him.  Uh huh. Yeah. The whole thing with your dog  eating the chicken eggs or taking the chicken eggs.

15:08 um I don't know if you know who Millennial Farmer is. He's a guy that lives in Minnesota. has a YouTube channel. Oh, I have not heard of him. Okay. Well, he has a German shepherd named Anna and he has a chicken coop that she can go into.  he just out of the blue finds chicken eggs on his property. it's because Anna goes in and steals a chicken egg and walks around in her mouth  and then puts it down somewhere.

15:36 Penelope, uh she was inside the house the other day and my daughter had found one of the concrete eggs that we had for the nesting boxes  and she had brought it inside and I looked over and I'm like what you got in your mouth and she was trying to eat the concrete  eggs.  Yeah that's a good way to have broken teeth doggo.  Yeah I took that away so quick. Yeah our dog when she was a puppy we had the uh

16:03 It's like river rock, but it's not river rock.  It's the ugly rock that you put around your house.  And she would go out and  she would come in the house with a piece of river rock in her mouth. And I'm like,  you cannot chew on rocks. I cannot afford to get your teeth fixed. She finally outgrew it. think it was two years ago that she finally stopped doing it. But I was like, why are you doing that?  Oh, these dogs will keep you on your toes.

16:31 Yeah, it's such a bad plan. Do not chew on rocks. Your teeth are not stronger than rocks. I promise you. And I loved her so much that I was like, I don't want her to her teeth. Oh my goodness. I was such a sucker. Okay. So you have a son. Is that your only child? No, I have a daughter too. She is obsessed with our ducklings that we got. So she will just sit down in the duck pond and quack.

17:03 She's only three. She just turned three. Okay, so how old is your son again? He's seven. So have they ever known any other kind of life other than this homestead life? My daughter not really. My son, yes, but he doesn't remember it. So we were living in our friend's attic.

17:29 before we got to this place and Isla was just crawling. She like just started and Isaiah, I don't have much to say about him. was, you know, it was he five. And then we were saving, we got this place and it's all they really know now. So I of course am a convert. I love the fact that we live on a homestead.

17:57 I'm really excited for your kids because your kids are going to have such... My son's finally starting to see  the possibilities of what he could do now that he has land.  And he's starting to build his own little playhouse um out of cob. He's using pallets and cob. And yesterday,  my daughter and him came in.

18:20 all just completely covered in mud. They showed me that they were mixing in like the hay and stomping it, trying to build their little playhouse.  love that.  And before you, before you jumped in, I was going to say they're going to have so many opportunities that most kids just don't have these days.  Your kids are not going to be  noses in tablets and cell phones. Your kids are going to be outside.

18:50 with the goats and the ducks and chickens and I don't know whatever else you add in over the next 20 years. We're saving now to get a horse. That is the big goal. Next week someone is coming in to finally finish the seven acre property fence and we'll have that ready so that we can get our horse soon. Awesome. Do you have a preference on what kind of horse you're going to get?

19:17 Oh, I still am in the research stages. I need to learn more about horses, but I've wanted one since I was a kid.  Like I said, I grew up on this cattle farm and my grandpa, he was like, if you can get your mama to stop smoking cigarettes, I'll buy you a horse.  And little five-year-old me took that as my life mission. And every single day I'd be like, Hey, what you doing in there?  You're going outside? What are you doing out there?  And eventually  she got.

19:46 tired of me being up her rear 24-7 and she quit. And my grandpa forgot that he had said that because he didn't think it would actually happen. So I didn't get my dang horse. Well, you gave your mother many, many years of her life. I did. The more important thing. Good job. I hear really good things about quarter horses because quarter horses are like the horse that can do everything.

20:17 I'll definitely have to do my research on those.  Yeah, but the best horse is the horse that  is a good horse that listens to you, that is calm with your children and isn't huge. A huge horse,  it's really hard to mount up a huge horse. It's really hard to get on them. Just me with me being as broken as I am, I would imagine it. Uh-huh. So.

20:40 But no, just, literally just had a conversation with somebody about quarter horses a couple of weeks ago on one of the podcast episodes. And I was like, so what is special about quarter horses? And she was like many, many things. And then she told me, and I was like, wow,  I, if we had room, we'd have a quarter horse.  Oh, I'm excited someday. It's going to be true, but you know, got to start with like the preparing.  Yeah. I learned that the hard way. Don't get an animal before you.

21:09 have all the fences and all the things ready because, you know, it doesn't go well. Yeah, it comes back to that safety thing. You want to be safe on your homestead and you want your animals that you care for to be safe too. Okay, so you are living on a homestead. Are you getting into the whole preserving, canning, I don't know, doing sourdough, any of that stuff? Yes. So my grandma was canned my whole life and she still does.

21:39 um Every year she makes this big trip up from Illinois to bring me her canned goods because she cans way too much for just herself  and completely fills my ah now canning room.  I just got into it myself about last year and  definitely got quickly obsessed.  We just planted some blackberry  plants, some strawberries, some blueberries.  So I'm hoping to be able to can up some jam soon.

22:09 Very nice. I'm so excited for you.  We put in apple trees the first fall we were here. So we moved in in August of 2020  and we had six apple trees in the ground in October of 2020. And we just got our first decent harvest of honey gold apples this past fall. So it took four years.  Well, gives me a timeline  because we did the same thing. So  hopefully two more years to go.

22:38 You might luck out. It's anywhere from three to five, depending on the variety and how old the trees are once you put them in. When you put them in. I don't know. My husband works at tractor supplies. So every now and then I'm just like, hey, while you're at work, get a fruit tree. Hey, while you're at work, get this. Yep. We bought alder or alden plum trees last year and we have no idea how long it'll take for them to produce fruit. have to look it up. My husband asked me the other day and I was like, I don't know.

23:08 I will put it on the list of things to Google.  But I'm kind of hoping that at least we get blooms on them this year because they always smell good.  I'm kind of a uh chaos homesteader and I just  throw things in the ground, throw  water and hope for the best.  We are too. And the apple trees that we got were actually a housewarming present from a guy that owns an orchard up near where we used to live.

23:39 That's very cool. Yeah, so six apple trees because he liked us. I was just like that is the sweetest thing ever. Thank you. And my husband is always like, you he's always going to Tractor Supply or Fleet Farm or Menards or Home Depot for something. And if he sees a fruit tree that he thinks will work, he'll call me or text me and be like, I can get a couple more fruit trees for $7 apiece. Do you want them? And I'm like, if you're going to plant them, sure.

24:07 So it seems  like every year we're putting in a new tree. We just have no idea when we will see fruit on it. That's so cool.  The plants I'm most excited about right now is last time my grandpa came up from Illinois, they're getting up there in age um and they're like, I think this might be our last trip. I don't know. um But they gave me a bunch of blackberry plants.

24:36 that they brought from their farm.  So I'm very excited for those so that I can have a little piece of their farm here.  Yes, and that I'm so glad you brought that up because that is so important. History is not just in books,  it is in plants and animals. And it sounds really funny saying it about animals. But when you think about racing horses, people are so

25:04 I don't know, bent on getting particular foals from grandparents or great grandparents or great great grandparents that won races. Like Secretariat the horse, he, if you have a horse from his line, you're golden. Yeah, for sure. And it's history. And when you end up bringing plants from your family's gardens from 50 to 100 years ago,

25:32 That's their spirit in those plants. That's how we remember them.

25:38 You made me smile so much at that.  like my grandparents  mean everything to me.  And I'm definitely super happy that they did that for me. I cried when they brought those up. Oh yeah. Absolutely. I would have too. My grandma on my mom's side loved peony plants. P-E-O-N-Y.  Those are my mama's favorite.  Uh huh. And she grew them in her garden behind her little house in Oakwood, Illinois, of all places.  And I

26:08 I didn't really know much about peony plants because we were never visiting them when they were blooming. So I didn't ever see them bloom. I just saw the leaves.  And when I moved to Minnesota from Maine, everybody in Minnesota has peony plants everywhere and they're gorgeous. And so I have become a peony addict. have over a hundred plants outside right I love that. I love that. That's why I have a bunch of hostas because they were at my grandma's house.

26:35 And they're not her hostas. But the second I got property, was like, honey, you are going to scavenge the internet. And if you see hostas, you are grabbing them for me.  So I'd send him links on Marketplace, like free hostas, free hostas. Yeah, absolutely. And I wish that I had known that my grandma, her favorite flower was peonies. I didn't understand because I was too young to understand.  I wish that I had known enough to ask her if I could take some home.

27:06 Because I could nobody thinks I would have asked from for the original farm. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I'd known because I would love to have peonies for my grandma in my my peony garden. And I do not. But I have like 10 different colors growing and they will be blooming in  two months, two months. And every time I cut peonies, I'm like, oh, my grandma in heaven is probably just grinning. She's like, yes, Mary Edlin. Good job.  Oh, so sweet.

27:37 Yep, my favorite is the baby pink ones. They are so pretty and they smell so heavenly.

27:44 gonna make me need to get some peonies here.  We do plan on doing beekeeping. We have the bee boxes, we're getting set up. uh So I'm starting to plant a bunch of plants around the bee boxes  so I could probably get some peonies around them. Well the good good and bad news on that is the best time to plant peonies is now.

28:08 And I don't mean now, but I mean when you want to do it, do it. This fall is probably the best time because you plant them in the fall. But it takes three years for them to bloom. ah So if you want to have flowers for your bees ahead of time, ahead of three years from now, um Bee Balm is really good. They love that. Hence the name Bee Balm.  And they also really like um basil when it's flowering.

28:38 Ooh, we have that planted in the duck area already.  Yeah, they love basil. They love thyme. T-H-Y-M-E thyme.  And uh I can't think of what else. Oh, they love them. ah Zucchini squash blossoms. They love those. And they love winter squash blossoms. So if you wanted to, you could put up a trellis and grow like butternut squash. be so much fun. Yeah.

29:07 And it would give them  nectar to play with and make honey. So you can do a whole bunch of stuff because bees are great.  I am not going to lie. I'm being very honest. I'm not a fan of bees. I don't want to keep bees. I love what they do. I think that the wild bees can do just as good as the ones that we might keep. And I would just assume the wild ones do the job.  Yeah. My husband, the homestead is very much more my thing.

29:37 uh Like, he likes it. He likes being able to see all the cool stuff that I've done.  He comes out and helps me with fences.  But that's the one thing that he really wants to do is bees. So I really want to get that for him so that he has his little passion project. Well, he needs one because you guys have to be aligned. That's important in a marriage. Yes.  Plus you'll get honey and you can be like, honey, I love the honey that your bees produced.

30:06 Well, if you met my husband, he can go through honey like no one's business. His favorite thing to do is go to like little farm stands nearby and get those little like honey sticks that are just straight honey. I don't see the appeal in those, but he'll just drink them all the time. My kids loved those.

30:27 When they were little, they loved them and I hated them because they always ended up dripping it on their clothes. They're messy. I don't know. Just too sweet for me, but he loves them. So well, anything that is easy to keep the spouse happy is always a good thing. All right. easy now. Just now that we have this little piece of quietness, you know, if I didn't want to get stressed, it's like, OK, go sit by the duck pond.

30:58 Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's why we did it. That's why we moved too, because I just couldn't handle living in town anymore.  We had the opportunity to jump and we jumped to a 3.1 acre from a one tenth of an acre lot. That's amazing. We were ready. We were so ready. We were high from the minute the house, the offer was accepted  until we moved in a month later. And I was just like, oh my God, I'm actually home. It feels like home.

31:28 We told the guy who was selling this place, we'll pay whatever you want. It doesn't matter.  We'll pay whatever it is. just went in.  Yep.  Absolutely.  All right, Lily, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're there.  Where can people find you?  I'm  at girlypupacres on Facebook and Instagram.  Awesome. Fantastic. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Lily?

31:53 You told me at the beginning that you woke up feeling like you might be getting the flu. Thank you for  sucking it up and taking the time to talk to me. This was really fun.  I'm glad. It was fun for me too. Thank you for having me. All Have a great day. You too. Bye.