Montana Country Homesteading

Today I'm talking with Diane at Montana Country Homesteading. 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 Green Bush Twins. That tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Green Bush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Diane at Montana Country something  homesteading  in Montana because it's Montana country homesteading. Good morning, Diane. How are you?  Good morning. I'm wonderful. How are you this morning?  I'm good. How's the weather there?

00:59 Actually yesterday for Easter was just about as perfect as it could be. And this morning it's a little overcast, but it's going to be a nice day. Unusual weather in Montana, to be honest. Yeah. It was a lovely day in Minnesota here yesterday too. Yesterday was beautiful. Sunny 50s light breeze. was, it was really good. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Montana country home study. Well, um,

01:28 Let's see a little bit about us.  I've been married to my husband who was my high school sweetheart for 47 years now. um We came to Montana exactly 30 years ago in just a couple of weeks, the first weekend of May.  And um we came with our three kids, two dogs,  a motor home,  a U-Haul carrying a pickup truck full of all my husband's construction tools and away we went.

01:57 and  came out onto a bare piece of property that quite honestly, my husband found in the back of a Field and Stream magazine  in a one inch by two inch ad and said, honey, let's go to Montana.  And  so we did, we packed up everything 30 years ago and came onto this 20 acre parcel that  we actually bought it with a couple of Polaroid, the shake pictures, you know, that you shake to develop them.

02:26 And  away we went  and it's  been a whirlwind since we actually did homestead this property.  It was set up in 20 acre tracks out here with quite honestly, no roads, no development, no nothing. They had just subdivided the land. um When we moved on the property, there was literally a two lane dirt path that came down to our 20 acres. And that I looked at.

02:52 dirt path up by the way. And it is actually considered um a stage coach line road from Billings, Montana to Park City, Montana back in the day. So that was of interesting. Yeah, we live on a stage coach road. uh It's now been a little better developed than it used to be, but it's still just a gravel road coming in here. uh But yeah, 30 years ago, we came onto this property with just a dream and an idea. uh

03:21 We were uh building contractors in the Bay Area and were just on complete overload and did not want to raise our kids in that environment.  And so we made a pact with each other to get the heck out of there before our kids got uh in middle school and away we went. And we've been here since. That is amazing. I love that.  Okay. So  did you...

03:47 Did you grow up with people who did homesteading or gardening or farming or ranching at all? My grandparents um on my dad's side had a farm, but we didn't go there very often. uh My other grandma was the most incredible gardener that you had ever seen. She lived in a  little town in Pemberville, Ohio.  And um quite honestly, that woman could grow anything. And what was really amazing to me is she would

04:15 pull all of her flowers in from her flower beds and put them in what she called her breezeway  in the winter months in Ohio. And she would hold those flowers over till next year and put them all back out in the beds. It was amazing to me.  I don't have that gift that grandma had, but  I can grow a thing or two.  So what are the  thing or twos that you grow?  We grow a lot of our own food. um I think it's really important that you grow your own food, especially today.

04:45 with what's going on with the food chain and the modified foods and all the sprays and such that they're putting on our foods. think it's wildly important that you grow your own food today.  So I actually have,  one of the first things we did on this homestead was we built some raised beds, started some gardens with my kids.  And then of course the deer came and ate everything. I didn't realize  that I was dealing with some serious

05:15 predation with animals and such around here, but we were. uh Then we decided to put a hoop house over the raised beds and got wise and kept the animals out and started growing food there. uh If you look on my social media page right now,  my husband finally finished uh our main greenhouse that we're going to be growing and I actually just started putting plants in there on Saturday afternoon.

05:39 That's exciting. It's super exciting. It's like over the top greenhouse, of course, my husband's that go bigger, go home kind of guy. um But the first greenhouse that we we grew food in  was just a little  raised bed area that we put  literally sheet panels that we hooped over it and uh buttoned them down to both sides of the  of the raised bed and then put um plastic over top of it. And that's what we grew and put a wall in the front.

06:07 some mesh in the back and away we went.  And I grew in that for  20 some years. So  it doesn't need to be elaborate, but you need to grow your own food.  And now we've just stepped up the game to grow into this uh major greenhouse.  And  years ago, I took a horse barn that we had when we were actually raising paints back in the day.  I took that horse barn and I rented it to somebody who cultivated. uh

06:34 inside of that and they have since moved out. So now I have an area where I can actually grow indoor produce all year long. So we're working on that next. That's our next big project. We've had one project after another here on this piece of land. Again, we drove up, there was nothing here, like literally nothing.  No water, no power, no phones, no driveways, uh just a piece of land with some pin markers so that you knew what was yours and what wasn't and

07:04 We laid it out from there and it's been  quite interesting. Okay. After everything you just told me, I have a couple of thoughts.  I'm going do my public service announcement now because it plays into what you just said.  I do this on every episode lately.  If you live in America right now and you don't know how to cook from scratch,  learn because you will save yourself a lot of money if you're buying ingredients instead of finished foods.  Number two, if you

07:30 can't grow a garden, get to know your local producers and growers because they can grow a garden  and you're feeding yourself really good food and you're supporting your neighbors.  Love all of that. That's incredible. Yep. And then number two, I have been trying to figure out a way to explain the feeling  that we homesteaders get when we have a project and we get it finished. And the only thing I can liken it to

07:57 is if you were in Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts or you took art class in elementary school and you learned a new skill, whether it was building a homemade birdhouse or Girl Scouts, they used to have you make an apron  or in art class, did, I don't know what it was called, but we took a chisel and we chiseled out  a design on a piece of vinyl board and then we would make stamps with that vinyl board.

08:26 When,  if you've ever done those kinds of things as a kid, if you have the, I don't know, luck to end up having property and having some of your own choices be your choices, not the city planner's choices, and you can put in a greenhouse or you can put in a garden or you put in a raised bed and you see success with that.  It's the same feeling as when you took on a project when you were a kid.

08:57 Boy, and to add to that, Mary,  if you do have the property and you do have the means to do it, do some kids classes.  One of the other things that we did on this property, we actually started it in 2023,  is we built out an area on the west side of our property, which is called Montana Country Pines. um

09:18 Montana Country Pines is eight short-term rentals that we built over there that consists of teepees and a really cool 100-year-old sheep wagon and some  vintage RVs. But one of the other things that I do with Montana Country Pines is I put a sign out at the road  and the kids know that it's Craft Day at Montana Country Pines. And we have all the stuff here ready for them.

09:42 So all they gotta do is show up at noon on a Saturday when the signs out and they can come make something and take it back to their properties. So that's been really, really awesome to do those sort of things and teach kids that, you know, you can do things other than be in front of screens all the time. We can find things in nature and turn them into art. And I just love doing stuff like that with kids because when I was a kid, we used to ride our bicycles to a place called the

10:11 Miami Valley Rec Center, and there were volunteer moms that showed up with  stuff in boxes that you could make something and take it home.  And that was one of the most  biggest highlights of my childhood is going and making stuff at the Rec Center.  So that's why I do that. put a street sign out there, a little sandwich sign, and the kids know that tomorrow it's Craft Day at Montana Country Pines. So they show up, make something, and take it home.

10:40 That is so amazing, Diane. love it. uh Summer rec saved my mother's sanity. That's not bad. Mine too, I'm sure.

10:53 Yeah. And the same thing we would go and I mean, they were minor crafts. was like, I don't know. It's been so long. I'm 56. It's been forever since I went to summer rec. I remember having fun. I remember being outside for part of the day because it was at a school building. So we would play on the playground or play soccer or whatever. And then the other part of the day was indoor crafts. And I seem to remember having like little one foot by one foot boards and nails and we put nails in the wood.

11:23 And then we took colored strings and made really pretty designs on it. But I don't remember what  the art form was called. String art, some kind of string art. was really fun and it was really Zen. I loved that because you couldn't focus on anything except getting strings right.  And I think that's what's missing with kids today because with social media, it isn't Zen. It's just feeding your brain constantly in all different directions.

11:54 Yeah, that's why I grab my grandsons up and I say, let's go paint some rocks and leave them around.  We're that family too, that paints a rock and leaves it and picks up a rock and leaves a rock.  We're those people.  But yeah, my grandkids, they paint rocks and they leave them out here in our park. And uh it's fun. You you walk by and you see a rock that looks like a Volkswagen itself. It's pretty cool. yeah, have all sorts of stuff like that.  you do little rocks with them?

12:22 encouraging words like joy and kindness. yeah. Hippie rocks. That's what I call it. Hippie rocks. Hey, again, I'm 65. I grew up in the seventies. I am that old hippie at heart, but you we use it. We use that hippie spirit to do good things for kids and people today. I love it. I told you when we talked on the phone that I was so excited to talk to you for the interview, cause I knew it was going to be fun. And so far you have not disappointed me. And in the least.

12:52 So do you guys have chickens or goats or anything? We do, okay. So we used to raise horses, um got a little older and decided that maybe we'd let the younger people raise horses. um And um we do have a couple of goats. They are cashmere goats that we just use them for the fiber, um which is something else that we've got coming up here pretty soon. We're going to have a couple of gals come out here with a couple of spinning wheels and

13:19 bring a group of homeschool kids out here and show them how to actually take fiber and turn it into uh spinnable wool  and then show them some finished products that these ladies have done.  just to kind of plant that idea in some young kids' heads that, you  you look at that animal and it's not just the animal, it's the fiber and the garments and such that can come from it.  So we do have a couple of cashmere goats. Yeah, I have a flock of chickens. I've always had chickens. um

13:48 And a couple of Dobermans right now. Other than that,  we normally get em a little bum steer that comes in every year that we'll raise up. We don't have one right at the moment.  We do have a pig pen out there waiting for a couple of little pigs again, which I'm not overly excited about, but we'll deal with.  Their food. Their food. Yeah.  So when you say a bum calf,  would you define that for me?

14:17 We usually find somebody that's got a calf that the  mom didn't make it or ignored it or it got left when people rounded up the cows and what have you and they find a bum calf somewhere.  We got a couple of  local ranchers that we always tell them when you got something that needs a home and needs fed up and we'll just put it in this pen over here, but we usually get one every year.

14:42 And then one of my dearest friends in the world has a bison ranch just about an hour and a half from here that  we always have fresh bison meat here. And we go and help on the ranch and that sort of thing and barter for m boxes of wonderful meat from the ranch.  there a big difference between how cattle beef and bison beef tastes or is it pretty much the same?

15:09 It depends on how you cook it, but yeah, it's pretty close to the same, but bison meat is much better for you cholesterol wise. It's the good cholesterol that you want.  It's just a better protein source.  At one point on this homestead,  we actually had a USDA certified organic meat facility that my husband built out of a,  he put up a hundred by 80 foot pole barn and we actually built inside of it.

15:38 a certified organic meat plant. actually produced a bison jerky product for several years. We took it then from that particular plant that we built here on our place and took it to a co-packer because we kind of outgrew our space here.  And then COVID pretty much took care of that. COVID pretty much took care of a lot of things.  COVID took care of a really good business there.

16:04 But it was awesome that we were able to create it right here from our own homestead. uh We got uh certified trim that came in from Bison facilities and actually produced the product right here on our property.  I'll tell you that that was one of the learning curves that uh took me a minute.  Learning uh nutritional labeling, um recipes that.

16:29 actually produce the nutrition that you were looking for that didn't have too much sodium or too much fat or too much whatever. um I actually formulated the recipes. My husband did the cook  and um smoked everything and then we put it into the marketplace for years. It was pretty incredible right here from our homestead.  Very cool. I didn't even know you could do that.  Yep.  We had to have certified inspectors come out here every week. We had inspections and

16:59 um Yeah, it was quite the process, but we built it from the ground up, bought every piece of machinery,  put it all together,  did the packaging, the labeling, the production, and then actually put it into the marketplace. uh I want to touch on the labeling because uh we  have a farm stand here at our property and we sell cold processed lye soap.

17:26 and we sell candles and we sell roller balls with with essential oils in them and things like that.  And as soon as I renew my cottage food registration, which I haven't done yet, we can sell breads and cookies and things too. Nice. And  what I didn't realize when we decided that we wanted to do this is that it was going to cost money for the labels and for the ink to print the labels.

17:51 God forbid we actually get the labels printed for us by ordering them because even it's even more expensive then. So so what I would like the listener to know is that when you're paying I don't know ten dollars for a loaf of sourdough bread not only are you paying for the bread you are paying for the work that it took to make the bread you are paying for the bag that the bread is in you're paying for the paper

18:20 that the label is printed on because without the label, we can't sell you that bread because the state of Minnesota won't allow us to. Correct. Correct. So it's not that we want to gouge anybody as producers, but we have to make it worth the time to do the thing. Yeah. And the consumer needs to understand the fact that they are paying for all of those things,  but they're also paying for a better quality product.

18:48 rather than buying something that's  jam-packed full of preservatives that you're going to feed your family.  So there's a cost to all of that.  What was really surprising to me when we went organic with our product, uh well, there's two sets of inspectors that would come out. There was the USDA would come out and inspect us just based on the fact we were meat, we were a meat product,  but then we'd have the organic  inspectors come out.

19:16 And the first time that she came out, she said, I need to see all of your ingredients that you've bought over the past six months. And I need to see your production runs for six months because we need to see that they match. And it just kind of struck me funny. I said, what do you mean see that they match? Of course they'd have to match. Well, she kind of filled me in on the fact that there's a lot of fraud in certified organic labeling that they have found massive fraud that, you know, it,

19:45 The label says it's certified organic, but you haven't bought enough organic materials to create  that amount of product. it just struck me. oh I didn't realize that people would defraud that system as well, but apparently they do.  So for me, buying local, buying from a farm stand, if I don't have that particular vegetable in my garden.

20:09 is important. Buying meat from my local ranchers and so forth is important because I don't want to buy meat from the counters that are full of formaldehyde and  funky stuff to make them stay pink for a while so that they look good for you to pick up. I'd rather have it wrapped in paper in my freezer knowing that my neighbor took it to the butcher that I know. They processed it the right way and  it's  what I think it is rather than what's all in everything else you're buying today.

20:39 So it is important. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Yeah. And the other thing is that if you spend your money locally, it tends to stay local. True. Very true. Very true.  I was reading something on Facebook because everybody reads something on Facebook every day at this point. But it was a story about how a guy went to the local dude who sold

21:06 And he bought a box of steaks from the farmer. And the farmer then took that money and he ended up going to the local barber for a haircut. He donated some of that money to the tithing thing at church. He put some of that money in his local bank and he spent some of it at the local grocery store.  And by the time he had done all that, he had spent money  locally, not outside of a 15-mile radius.

21:36 And I was like, you know, that's how it used to be. Yeah, that is true. And it's important, you know, if we don't, if we don't keep our, our own towns funded, they die. True. Community is everything.  And that's one of the things that I have specialized in for years and years and years is creating communities of people.  I've been in the network marketing space  in the background of everything that my husband and I have done for 35 years.

22:06 Our first child was born autistic. We could not do the daycare thing, nor did I want to for that matter. So uh when our first boy was born,  I quit my job as a pediatric dental assistant  and became that stay at home mom and did the books for my husband's construction company for years.  And I was the one that was kind of filling in in the background.  Cause if you've ever done construction, it's feast or famine. It's either really good or it's really bad. uh

22:34 So I was kind of that buffer for all those years um until, uh oh, about 10 years ago, I was able to step up my game in that space  and uh create a really, really good network of people  and create that leveraged and residual income that my husband  tells everybody now that I'm his sugar mama and  have taken over to the point where he does not have to build.

23:02 homes any longer. He doesn't have to do projects he doesn't want to do. can pick and choose what he'd like to do. He's been doing a lot of volunteer stuff is what he's done. ah He can't sit still.  We figured that one out. So uh there's always a project around here on the homestead he can deal with, but he does not have to travel and go build someone's homes any longer, which I'm pretty excited about.  take it that you really love each other because you've been together for quite a long time.

23:31 Oh yeah, 47 years. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, my parents were married in 1965. They've never been married to anyone else. My mom was 19. My dad was 22, I think, when they got married. Yeah. And they are still just smitten with each other this many years later. And I'm just like, how in the heck does that work? Well, you either grow together or you grow apart. And we grew together.

24:00 and raised three incredible boys into nice young Ben. And it's been a whirlwind, I can tell you that. um I followed him from Ohio to Florida to California and now to Montana. So yeah, I think I'd follow the boy over a cliff, but um needless to say, Montana is where we really fell in love with the people, the surroundings, the opportunity um and a way to

24:30 to create a really nice lifestyle for our family. And that's why we've been here for 30 years. This is home for us now. Congratulations on knowing what you wanted, going after it and making it a success. That is fabulous.  We are pretty driven people, I must say.  We're that go bigger, go home.  That's kind of been our attitude forever. So we kind of overdo it when we do it.

24:56 just like  the meat plant, you know, we started out, that started out with us taking our buffalo jerky that we normally made to hunting camp. And everybody kept saying, you guys should sell this stuff. You guys should sell this stuff. Well, he heard it one too many times and took the building that he had just built that he didn't know he was gonna do with and said, let's just put a meat plant in there.  And we did it.  And it was crazy.

25:24 Okay, well, you've been doing this for a long time. So  I'm gonna ask you the question that's always really weird for people to answer. What would you tell a young couple who wanna get into homesteading? How would you tell them to get started?  Plan well first,  okay? Do the planning,  figure out what it is that you really want from your homestead. Do you want it to produce food?

25:51 And is that in the source of animals and vegetables or one or the other? um Figure out what your own gifts and talents are that you have. Because here's the thing, if you  can live on a homestead and you can take your own gifts and talents and monetize them,  and today there's  hundreds of ways to monetize your talents via the internet. um So if you can take your gifts and talents and figure out a way to monetize those from your homestead.

26:20 For example, if you have goats and you like making cheese, that should be something that you figure out how to monetize. Or if you're that person that wants to make soaps and candles and that sort of thing, then you need to hone in on that craft and that talent and figure out where on your homestead will you be doing that. uh Create the space so that the space is for that. We have so many buildings on this homestead, it's insane.  It looks like a village around here, it really does. uh

26:51 But at the same token, each one of those spaces has its own purpose on the homestead.  And I think that would be one of the first things I would tell somebody. Figure out what you want from it. Make a good plan to go after it  and know that you're gonna work your little butt off for a while.  Yes. Living doesn't come easy. If you want...

27:12 If you want to live well and you want to be in a place where you're not breathing smog and everybody's exhaust from their cars or hearing all the sirens and  all the stuff in big cities, um it takes a  little extra work to live in an area like we live in. um So plan on that. That would be my first advice.

27:37 That is really good advice because that's what I would have said too.  You have to...

27:44 You have to have a plan. It's just the way it is. And  when we bought our place five and a half years ago, our plan was to start with a clean slate. And boy, did we, we started with a clean slate and we had to put in a garden and the field where the garden is had not been grown on or in for 50, think 40 or 50 years.  last thing that anyone grew on it was a big old field of  pumpkins.

28:14 So it was all grass and weeds and my husband played hell getting that garden plot dug out to plant produce in.  I bet.  And uh this year  we now have our hard side of greenhouse that we put in three maize ago  and every single seed that's planted so far is planted in trays in the greenhouse for the first time ever.  Doesn't that feel wonderful?

28:41 Oh, I'm so happy to not have my kitchen table and my desk in my living room covered with seat dress.  But uh the garden went from like, I think it was 50 by  20 feet. And now it's, I think it's a hundred feet by 150 feet. Awesome. Nice garden. So we have been here for five, well, six years this August. And it took until last year to really feel like we maybe had

29:10 some kind of a handle sort of kinda on our plans. And that's the other thing is that if you're on a homestead, plans constantly change and grow and morph. Yes, absolutely. That's what happened with the west side of our property. There was an area over on the west side that I said, honey, one of these days we should build a little cabin over here because when our grandson Mason gets old enough, he may want to be out here.

29:38 And if we had a little cabin over there for him, that would be great. Which by the way, my husband was a log home builder for a year. So when I put him to task with stuff, he usually can just get her done. So I may mention that we should probably put a cabin there for him. Well, the space that we were going to put the cabin actually is what houses a 14 by 20 wall tent. That's part of Montana country pines, which is.

30:06 Our business, operate from the west side of our property, the short-term rentals.  We set up what is  an Airbnb style camping trip for people where you just bring your clothes and your food and we've got everything else handled for you.  But again, those plans changed  because I was just going put a little cabin over there for my grandson. And as it is now,  there's a whole village there in that area. Actually on that top side where I wanted to put that cabin.

30:35 there's the two hand painted teepees, the tent, and then the sheep wagon, which is kind of like a frontier area up top.  And then we put a road that goes in down below where we've got the vintage RVs at. ah yeah, those plans changed dramatically and they changed because we got into vintage RVs.  We started refurbishing some vintage RVs and flipping them and then.

30:59 We kept one and went to a show, went to a vintage RV show and got ribbons and was like, okay, we love this. uh And then  again, that go bigger, go home attitude. My husband said, well, we just create a little RV, you know, like a little Airbnb thing. Well, here we are now, uh three years later. And uh it's pretty exciting to be able to host people from all over. We had people here last year from Sweden, which was really awesome.

31:29 but to host people from all over the world now uh here at our place and share a little piece of paradise with them has been pretty awesome.  I bet it has. I love what you're doing, Diane. Where can people find you online?  The park itself is under MontanaCountryPines.com.  We have Facebook page, but we also have a website page for Montana Country Pines for the booking engine and such. uh You can see pictures of

31:58 The inside of the a hundred year old sheep wagon is just, it's all original. It's epic. uh It came off of the largest sheep ranch, which was in Martinsdale, Montana, just up the road about  an hour or so. uh It came off of the largest sheep ranch in Northwestern America.  And  that particular sheep wagon, someone lived in it and actually

32:25 tended to the sheep of that ranch for years. It's pretty incredible.  So yeah, we've got  some interesting things going on out here. I'm a firm believer  in taking your property and  utilizing it for  what it can produce for you uh income wise.  And uh my biggest thing I must say for the last several years uh has been on a little mission to empower women, just women in general.

32:53 Not that I don't like working with men, but I really enjoy working with women more so. I was raised back in the 60s by a single mom, which back then was not the norm. You were frowned upon if you didn't have a father in the household back in the 60s and 70s, which was my era. And I realized that if my mom would have had the skill sets that I have today and the knowledge that I have today, my life would have been really different as a kid, like real different.

33:23 And here's the cold raw statistic.  One  in four women survive either being divorced or widowed without having to change all the circumstances around them, like leave their homestead or drive a different vehicle or a lot of circumstances change for women. So I have been on this mission for the last 10, 15 years to empower as many women as I can to be that  one.

33:53 Right? To be the one that can survive whatever comes at you, that you know how to create income, you know how to handle the income, you know how to invest the income,  you know how to take care of yourself.  And I realized that  real wholeheartedly  when my father-in-law passed away and I realized the situation that my mother-in-law was in, she had always had dad taking care of  everything financially for her.

34:23 quite honestly, she was 72 and did not know how to balance a checkbook.  Didn't know how to get the bills paid because dad did it all the time. So that's when I really realized she became a project person for me there for a while. But uh that's when I really realized that, my mom was one of those  three women, she wasn't the one in four that survived a divorce, right? She worked really, really hard to take care of four kids and keep a  roof over our heads.

34:52 Um, but that one in four really just struck me. And I thought, you know, I need to help other women. I am that one in four. I've, I've created businesses for myself. I've created businesses for our family. Um, and I've made sure that, um,  everything's in order that if by any chance I'm the one that's left behind, which I keep  joking with my husband that I'm going first and there's going to be a casserole line down our driveway.

35:22 which is about 300 feet or so,  300 yards or so.  Anyways, I keep joking with him that I need to go first and he needs a casserole line because I don't want to be a widow. But uh again, you gotta be that one in four. So you gotta know how to take care of yourself, how to create income for yourself, how to monetize your gifts, your skills, your talents, because everybody has something, right? Everybody's got something that they have a passion for, um something they enjoy that they can monetize.

35:52 And so I've been helping women do that for a long, time.  I'm so glad that you took that upon yourself because it's really important. Thank you for  doing that, Diane. Yeah, it's a big deal. Really, it is. It is.

36:07 All right, as always, people can find me at tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Diane, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. You are certainly welcome. And  here's one other thing I wanna make sure everybody does. So Montana Country Pines is  our park over here, the Airbnb.  But at Montana Country Homesteading on the Facebook page of Montana Country Homesteading, we're doing a drawing for a  trip here to Montana Country Pines. You get a consultation with us on

36:36 on your home setting plans.  We're going to make a really great meal for you out of our chuck wagon that we've got.  So there's a drawing there. There's no purchase required. We just want to get uh people aware of the fact that this is here.  And we want to give away a weekend to somebody so that they could come here,  maybe learn a little bit off of our homestead that they can go take back to theirs. But we're offering that to our home setting community.  So go register for that. It's free. uh

37:05 And you just might end up here for a couple of days hanging out with my crazy husband and I. That sounds like fun. What's the deadline for that? What's the last day? The drawing is actually going to be live on a Facebook live on May 2nd. any by May 1st, by May 1st, get in the drawing. So go to Montana country homesteadings Facebook page. The drawing is on there. The link to that's there.

37:30 Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. All right, Diane, I hope you have a great day. Thanks. You as well. And this was really fun, Mary. It's really good to get to know you and I'm sure we'll do more things in the future. I hope so.  All right. That's just going on it. Thanks, Mike. All right. All right. Bye. Bye.