My Homestead Heart

Today I'm talking with Sam at My Homestead Heart. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Sam at My Homestead Heart. Good morning, Sam, how are you? Good morning, Miss Mary. I'm doing wonderful, how about yourself? I'm good, and I love that you said Miss Mary because it's a very southern thing, I love that.

00:27 Yeah, that's what I am. I am from the deep south. Yes, and you have the most lovely sweet tea accent. I'm telling you, every time I talk to somebody with a southern accent like yours, I just smile. My face just breaks open because it's so pretty. Oh, you're so kind. Nah, I'm not kind. I'm honest. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't say anything because I'm not rude. Well, thank you so much. It's funny that I still carry it.

00:57 because I have not lived home in decades, but apparently I still bring it with me in some sort of way. However, if you were to listen to my family members, it is much more thick, thicker than mine. Wow.

01:18 Okay, well they must be terribly difficult to understand because you are clear as a bell. So if it's a lot thicker than yours, I probably would be like, Oh man, my sister's her accent. She's never, she was born and raised down there and, um, I can probably count on her hand the amount of times that she has left the area in her lifetime. And she is thick, thick, thick Southern drawl.

01:47 Well, I'm going to slip into it a couple of times because it's the one I pick up easiest. So don't be mad at me if I start sounding like a Southerner. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do, Sam. Well, I am a military veteran. So I served a career in the military and separated back in 2005.

02:16 And my husband was still active duty. He actually just retired a few years ago and we are parents to a 10 year old. He's about to turn 11 next week. So yay on that. But, um, but yeah, we got transferred up here in Pennsylvania back in 2018 through the military and, um, just fell in love with it up here. I'm we spent.

02:45 the majority of our careers down south, whether it be in mostly Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, spent some time in South Carolina, and then lo and behold, I don't know what in the world they were thinking, sending a bunch of country folk up here in Pennsylvania. But he took orders. His last set of orders were out of Philadelphia.

03:15 And we were like, Oh my goodness, what in the world? They, them city folk going to come see us hauling the tractor on a trailer coming to town. But we were lucky enough to be able to find some country space out here in the south eastern part, it's about, well, we've, we rented for a little bit in, in

03:43 outside of Westchester in a little Brandywine area, had found some country area that we rented until we found a place here. We moved here, it's about an hour outside of Philadelphia, right above the Maryland line. It's, you know, country, lots of Amish farms around us. And we got real lucky and found a 20 something acre little farmstead, so.

04:10 You know, we just love it. We love the weather. It's not so hot up here like it is down south and just the rolling hills and man, the change of colors and the seasons. It's just, we just love it.

04:28 Well good. Now you keep saying you're from the deep south. Where are you originally from? Mississippi. Okay. Way down by the in the bayou. Okay as much as I love southern accents I'm very bad at parsing which one I'm listening to so I had to ask. A lot of people say that I'm from Texas and no it's not Texas not Texas. Not many people you know we don't get a lot of tourists down where I'm from so not a little not a lot of people get

04:57 experience or particular dialect, I guess I should say. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so I messaged with you yesterday and you were saying that you're new to homesteading. So what inspired you to get into homesteading? Well, to be honest, you know, when we were living in West, when we first moved to Pennsylvania, my son at the time was four years old.

05:27 And we were living in Pennsylvania for about six months and before he was diagnosed with some autoimmune issues. And, you know, at, um, four years old, you know, I mean, he's just a baby, right. And then, um, as his condition would progress over, you know, time, he would

05:57 have more issues to have to deal with. And I just did not want to see my son on so many medications at such a young age. And so that's really where I began my whole deep dive into how can I help my baby, you know, have a good quality of life without having to take all these medicines.

06:28 And so, you know, I just kind of learned a lot of information about our food systems and our medical systems and, you know, big pharma and all the things. And, you know, it was just a big wake up call. And so when the time allowed us to be able to start looking around for, you know, to get out of the...

06:55 rent-in world into home ownership. I just wanted to have a place that I could, you know, start sourcing our own stuff for my family. And man, it's been a long journey of education and experimenting and readjusting your thought process and stuff. But really, that's really what brought me into this world is just wanting

07:24 to take care of my family and so to keep us healthier in a way from all those chemicals and poisons that we're exposed to on a daily basis. Yup, right there with you sister. I understand. Yeah, so you know, I'm not that experienced in it. I'm just, you know, I learn a little bit as I go. But you know, we've got our own cows. We've got our own chickens.

07:54 We got gardens and you know, I'm not an expert at it. I, you know, just it's a, it's every day's a learning experience. Yep, it is. And it's gonna be as long as you're in this lifestyle, you will learn something new every minute of every day. Sure. I learned how to can last year. So, you know, I'm having fun using things out of, out of our garden. And, and

08:24 um, our animals on the farm and learning how to can meals and put them up for storage. And, and I tell you what, the, a lot of people homestead and can like, kind of like a prepper kind of world, but that's not really the stance that I take. I just love, you know, when we have those busy days and busy weeks, you can just go down and grab you a, a jar of

08:52 you know, some canned burrito meat and just open up a can and warm it up and you got dinner for the night, you know? Easy peasy. Yeah. Yep. I've got a couple things about canning, but the first thing I want to say is I've said this a few times. Humans are the only species that will work their asses off to make something easier. Oh, I know, right? And I love that. Yeah, I love it. And then

09:18 The other thing I was going to say is we started canning like three summers ago. I have not great memories of canning with my mom in the no air conditioning house in Maine in July and August. And I swear the walls would sweat. Oh, wow. So my husband asked me three years ago now that we have air conditioning in the house we bought a little over four years ago and we have a great big huge kitchen. He said, can we finally try canning? And I said, yeah.

09:48 Yes. And so we bought a whole bunch of strawberries and we made strawberry jam. Oh, wonderful. And my son, I think, ate the last jar, the last half pint jar last week of that strawberry jam. And I'm so sad. I'm so sad that it's all gone. We have to get, we have to do more. Let me tell you what else I've learned. Yeah. I invested in.

10:16 freeze dryer. You ever heard of that? Yep. So I will take strawberries and freeze drum and store them and those I tell you what if you want to get chips out of your house freeze dry some strawberries. Yes nature's candy and I don't have a freeze dryer and I can't afford one right now.

10:42 I know, they're not cheap. I know, I know. It was definitely an investment we had to save up for, but man, it is so fun to play around with. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I really wish that the company that is the big deal in the freeze dryer world would offer me a small freeze dryer to try out and review, because I would be happy to do that, but I don't think they're going to do that. I definitely would ask about it. Yeah. Doesn't hurt to ask. Yep.

11:12 But you're talking about Nutrious Candy, because you... I also have a...

11:19 Yeah, exactly. I also learned how to cream my own milk. So, you know, I'll get like a few gallons of raw milk and I have like a creamer and I just pour it in there and I get my own pints of heavy cream. Very nice. Very, very nice. Are you a coffee drinker? Oh my gosh. Every day, all day. I love coffee.

11:47 I don't drink coffee like, you know, normal coffee. I drink mushroom coffee. Okay. Yeah. So, but yeah, that's a, that's been a, it's been a journey. We've been here four years now. So, you know, it's been a lot. It's been a lot of learning. Uh-huh. Have you tried making, um, soaps or lip balms yet? No, ma'am. I have not ventured into that yet. Um,

12:16 I don't know if I have a desire to learn all that just because it's so easy and affordable. I also love to support entree preneurship and I know that there is a whole world out there of people that make homemade soaps and stuff like that.

12:42 my time and attention would be much more valuable to just, instead of me doing all that too, to just take the opportunity to support somebody else's business. Again, right there with you, because we actually started a business two summers ago and part of it was making soaps and lip balms and things like that. And it's really expensive for the supplies and it's even more expensive now. So we've done it.

13:12 I get it. I'm kind of backed off of it some because it's just, it's not, I don't want to say it's not worth the investment, but it's not worth the investment and the time. Right now we have some for us because that was why we started doing it in the first place. So as long as I have soap and I have lip balms, I'm happy.

13:32 Yeah. Oh, I totally get it. I mean, you definitely can't do it all. Right. I mean, you know, you can't be the, as far as my view and take, you can't be that homesteader to where, you know, you're doing your own processing of animals and, and dairy and food and cannon and all those things. And then go into the, the soaps and the, uh, you know, all that stuff. You just can't do it all.

14:00 So I just kind of stick to what I enjoy myself to keep it enjoyable and fun where it's not like a chore and the other stuff I would just would rather source to a you know independent business owner. Yep. If you can't make it yourself, support someone who does make it and that way everybody wins. Yes. Yes, absolutely. So do you love what you're doing? I love, love, love what I'm doing.

14:31 But that's my personal, everything that I've talked about so far is just my whole personal time that I spend doing things that I enjoy. But my employment, my source of income is I actually have a business where I represent a natural path at company. We have not a whole bunch of stuff. We've got probably about a little over a dozen products.

15:01 But man, man, man, do they pack a punch. And the greatest thing that I love about it is that the ingredients that are used for the formulations, I don't have to grow them myself. Right? They have perfected already, you know, the perfect soil that you need and the perfect environment and the perfect way to harvest and source it, you know, so I don't have to worry about.

15:30 you know, if I'm doing it all right or if I'm, you know, getting the best of the best because we have these naturopathic scientists that know how to do all that and then So yeah, it's basically our go-to Products that we use here in the house. It's helped my son immensely when it comes to helping with his blood sugars and his

15:57 digestive issues and without having to be on medicine and stuff like that. And it's not that you can't grow a lot of this stuff yourself because you can. Not everything because some things just are not inclusive to the environment that we live in. You know, certain, you need so much sunlight and you know, more, a warmer climate and stuff like that in order to have the potency and the...

16:26 the strength and the quality of some of the ingredients, but they take care of all that. So, that's one thing that these products bring into our household is that, even though they're naturopathic herbs, roots and shoots and botanical ingredients and stuff, I don't have to grow them myself.

16:56 it to be to get the quality and the potency that comes in these products. But that's my professional life. That's my business. Okay. And do you do it from home? I do. I do it from home. I do it on the road. The greatest thing about being an entrepreneur is that it's your office, your rules, right? So, you work when you want and if you want to go on vacation, you can work then too.

17:25 You know, you're not having to be nailed down to a weekend schedule or, you know, one or two weeks out of the year schedule or you don't have to. We homeschool, so we don't have to go by the school schedule. You know, it can go with you wherever you go. Yep. That's why I started a podcast because I want to make it grow and make it the thing I do until I retire. If I ever retire. Yeah. Excellent.

17:53 Excellent, excellent. But yeah, so we are a military family, living on our retirement, but we all know that none of us in the military join for the money. Right. Because it's not a lot, as well as the retirement. It sounds good to say retirement, but that pension isn't that much. And you definitely can't raise a family on it. So you have to have

18:22 some type of supplementation to go with that. And this business that I have is our main source of income actually. Nice, very nice. So can you tell me what the name of the company is? It is Bravely Global. It is rather new. I say that have heartedly because we're just entering our fifth year in business. And so we're...

18:52 Past the startup phase, I joined and started building my business when we were in the startup stage. I've been with them for almost a year. We were in our fourth year, but at that time when I joined, the company, company-wide was only doing, I think, 19 million in year four or year three.

19:17 They went from their first year in 2020. Let me tell you about the story of this company. In our house, we love the Lord. We are just Christians and we do our best to try to live our life that way. The company that I'm with is a faith-based company, so they love the Lord too. It was born right in the midst of COVID.

19:47 back in 2020. So while everybody was, you know, running around in fear without, you know, a lot of information and on lockdown and not, you know, too scared to go out and go anywhere and, and all that kind of stuff, we have a founder that had a vision and knew that the world was going to need these products or, you know, need some help.

20:14 And so this company was born in December of 2020. So if I don't know if you remember what you were doing in December of 2020. Crying, crying. Yeah. Businesses were closing, people were staying home and you know, the economy was going in the garbage and our company was born, opened its doors, you know? So she is a woman, the whole family, they're, they're, you know,

20:42 have a lot of faith in the Lord and they just knew that they had a calling and a vision and they were brave enough, which you know, our name is Bravely, they were brave enough to step out in faith and put this out there to the world. And in their first year, which ended December of 21, they did a million and a half, that's it, a million and a half in sales.

21:09 And, you know, they just kept plugging on in the year two. They ended with, um, I believe 6 million in sales. And then last year when right after, um, they ended their third year, right after that, I, is when I joined, they ended at 19 million and we just closed, uh, this past year in December, which would end our fourth year, we jumped

21:38 50 million. So we went from one and a half million to 50 million in four years, which is unbelievable. And the reason why is because we are just very different than anything else on the market. Yes, you can get mushroom coffees, you know, from a lot of places, but our mushroom coffee is a lot different than what else, you know, everywhere else you get. We've got a product that

22:07 attacks, inflammation and pain like nobody's business and keeps you having to take those daily inflammatory for people that struggle with aches and pains through whatever reason, getting old, arthritis. We've got a handful of things that do a lot of stuff. That's the story behind the company and how it was born and where it's been.

22:37 my journey and when I found it and we've got products that help with all kinds of common issues and one of the main reasons why I decided this was for me, besides of all the things you've already heard, is that it really does give my son a good quality of life because we've halved his insulin doses since we've been using the products.

23:05 can eat food without having stomach pain and his digestion is on point, his gut health is on point, his mood and focus. We don't have to deal with those ADHD medications.

23:33 these products have done for not just for him, but my husband and me myself, it was just a no brainer. It was definitely something that I feel like the Lord put on our path. So, yeah, that's really our journey as far as all that goes. Okay, so a couple of things. I'm really glad that you found something that supports your son because I have four kids. They're all grown, they're all adults.

24:02 And mostly when they were growing up, the worst things I ever had to deal with was stomach flu and, you know, upper respiratory infections now and then, and nothing that was quote unquote scary. And autoimmune things are scary. It's really hard, especially if you don't know what to do to help them. So I'm really glad that you found something that helps him and helps you guys.

24:32 go hand in hand which is always really wonderful and helpful. Correct, yes, absolutely. So I love it when your core beliefs are able to be expressed in what you do in your home life and your work life because it's really hard when you have to have a job that kind of butts heads with your home life. Well, you know, I just this morning put a little post on my social media that says,

25:01 You know, that talks about, um, you know, find something that you love and you'll never work a day in your life, you know? Yep. So absolutely. I totally agree. Yeah. And since you said that, um, I put out my podcast episodes every, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, and I do not get them ready until that morning because I enjoy getting up, getting my coffee, waking up and sitting down.

25:31 two hours before my episodes are gonna be released at seven. And working on it, which is crazy. I could get them all ready to go on the weekends, but I just really like having that thing to get up to, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. Isn't that crazy? Oh, I totally understand, totally understand. And luckily it doesn't require a lot of editing. Clearly I listen to the episodes, you know, couple days before I'm gonna do anything with them just to make sure they all recorded right and what I need to edit if anything. Right.

25:59 But because it's just conversations, it's super quick. And it literally gives me something that I look forward to getting out of bed for, if that makes any sense at all. Absolutely, absolutely. I know, I totally agree. I totally agree. You have to have ambition. Ambition is what keeps, I mean, it's just great for the soul. Yeah, exactly. And

26:29 I started this as a hobby. Like my youngest was going to be moving out. I thought I was going to be going through empty nest syndrome and I didn't want to. And I needed something to focus on while he was making that transition. And come to find out he was only gone for a couple of months. And so when he got back, I was like, so I've been doing this thing and I can't stop because they don't want to stop. So here's what my schedule is like now. Please be respectful. And he was like,

26:58 I'm really proud of you mom. This is very cool. And I was like, God, I love you. I love you. You are aware enough as a human being to understand that the world doesn't revolve around you. The world revolves around everybody. Oh yeah. We're, we're still getting there over here. Yeah. Well he is 10. Yours is 10. That's a different stage. Yeah. So we'll make it though. We'll get there. You will. Absolutely. You will.

27:24 All right, so Sam, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're at almost 28 minutes. So is there anything else you would like to share in the last two minutes? No, I think we pretty much covered my whole day to day. If anybody wants to learn more about these products that I represent, they can always find me on Facebook. That's really where I work. My office, my social office is on Facebook. So I don't know if that's something

27:54 you put out to people. I will put it in the show notes. Yes. All right. Well, thank you so much, Miss Mary. I so appreciate you. I appreciate you too. And I have a couple more things. Thank you for your service and your husband's service. My son, my stepson, but my son, he's mine. He might as well be mine, was a Marine for eight years. I think he was in for eight years. And worried every moment.

28:19 every moment of those eight years, but he's good, he's out, he's thriving, he's married, he has a daughter, he's doing great. So I know, I sort of know the sacrifice that it is to have a family member in the service. It's hard. And I'm sure that being in the service is even harder. So thank you. Thank you. And thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today because I think this is super duper fun. And

28:50 Your Facebook page also has photos of the stuff you're doing on your sweet homestead. So if people want to see your cows or your chickens or your garden stuff, that's all there too. So I highly recommend that people go look at the photos because they're gorgeous. Well, thank you so much. You're so kind. I'm just chatty. That's just me. All right, Sam. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

29:17 You too, Miss Mary. We'll talk again soon. Alright, bye. Bye bye.