Chickens and Goats and Sheep, Oh Homesteading!

Episode 156 features Lucy who started homesteading for one very specific reason and now, well, entrepreneur farmer could very well be her descriptor in the future.

We discuss her journey through homesteading, the trials and unexpected expansions along the way, plus gardening, chickens, goats, pigs, geese, sheep, turkeys and much much more…

Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode

hopefulhomesteaders on Instagram

AgentPalmer.com

–End Show Notes Transmission–

–Begin Transcription–

00:00:00:01 – 00:00:23:38
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent palmer.com art and investment appreciating collecting animation cells, The Royal Cousins reimagines fictional history as breaking news bulletins. And Bill, well, we’re already collaborating on what’s next. This is The Palmer Files episode 156 with Lucy, who started homesteading for one very specific reason. And now, well, entrepreneur farmer could very well be her descriptor in the future.

00:00:23:44 – 00:01:06:57
Agent Palmer
We discuss her journey through homesteading, the trials and unexpected expansions along the way, plus gardening, chickens, goats, pigs, geese, sheep, turkeys, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.

00:01:07:02 – 00:01:33:07
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 156th episode is Lucy. When you Get married, you don’t just get a whole new set of family. You also get a matching set of new friends. That’s how I met Lucy through my wife Stef. Lucy, as you’ll soon discover, is a homesteader, a farmer growing crops and raising animals for not only food to feed the family, but to sell to further support the growing farm.

00:01:33:17 – 00:01:59:13
Agent Palmer
There’s also health benefits and even some conservation to go along with everything else. But this wasn’t always the case. How it came to be and what the learning curve was and the farm’s expansion. Plus how unlikely this all seems is coming your way shortly. But first, remember that if you want to discuss the episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all related ways to contact Lucy and myself in the show notes to catch up with Lucy in the goings ons on the farm, follow hopeful homesteaders on Instagram.

00:01:59:24 – 00:02:12:41
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

00:02:12:46 – 00:02:29:39
Agent Palmer
Lucy, I know you because your, one of my wife’s best friends, but I’ve been following along through your telling to her of your adventures. I guess on the farm?

00:02:29:43 – 00:02:32:55
Lucy
Yes, on the farm.

00:02:32:59 – 00:02:40:53
Agent Palmer
Did you always. I mean, was this always in the cards? Were you always going to end up as a farmer, or can I call you a farmer?

00:02:40:58 – 00:02:47:30
Lucy
Yeah, you can call me a farmer. And. Absolutely no, I had no idea that this was coming.

00:02:47:35 – 00:02:59:51
Agent Palmer
Did you? But so. So you have to take me back. I want I want the story. Like, how does this where’s the first? Like, maybe I’m going to go live off my own land. Well, like, where does that start?

00:02:59:58 – 00:03:09:48
Lucy
Okay, well, that starts so it kind of starts with a negative, but it’s turned into a positive. So it it started when, I was diagnosed with Ms..

00:03:09:57 – 00:03:10:20
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:03:10:23 – 00:03:22:50
Lucy
And decided to instead of taking the disease modifying therapies that you they offer you, we decided to look into alternatives, you know, ways to to manage the Ms..

00:03:22:53 – 00:03:23:24
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:03:23:29 – 00:03:47:23
Lucy
And that is by knowing what I’m eating, knowing where my food’s coming from. Okay. There’s certain dietary changes that I had to make, so just being able to grow my own food, have a garden, have, let me eat chicken so we know when the meat’s coming from all of that kind of stuff. It started to become a dream based on that diagnosis.

00:03:47:28 – 00:04:14:25
Agent Palmer
Okay. And so there’s a couple things. One, we must I, I feel like on a whole, we must be getting better at diagnosing Ms. because I know more and more people, younger and younger that are being diagnosed. And I have a hard time believing that it’s just increasing in numbers, and it’s probably just that we’re getting better at diagnosing it.

00:04:14:30 – 00:04:35:50
Lucy
I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case. I think I was I was extremely lucky in my case in that I had, I mean, I had pretty severe symptoms when I was diagnosed. But the neurologist that I saw, he recognized the symptoms straight away, and he sent me and he performed a spinal tap. And he sent me for an MRI straight away.

00:04:35:50 – 00:04:44:39
Lucy
He he said it was one of two things he said I never had a stroke or I had Ms.. So he sent me off for the tests and he got me diagnosed within two weeks.

00:04:44:39 – 00:04:45:06
Agent Palmer
Oh, wow.

00:04:45:08 – 00:05:07:24
Lucy
There’s people out there that two, three years down the line, they’re still not diagnosed. They’re having all these obscure symptoms. Nothing adds up. This I think because there’s so many different things. It could be Ms.. That it’s really quite difficult to diagnose. But I was just lucky in that I had, this neurologist who just recognized it straight away.

00:05:07:29 – 00:05:15:02
Lucy
He spoke to me, I explained some of the things that have been going on with me, and he was like, okay, yeah, one of two things. And then he confirmed, no, it’s definitely the Ms..

00:05:15:02 – 00:05:28:16
Agent Palmer
So I do want to get into the farming and the more of the journey to that. But we’re going to skip to the end for a second. Has the knowing where your food comes from and the dietary has has that helped?

00:05:28:21 – 00:05:46:18
Lucy
Absolutely. I I get annual MRIs to, to check how I’m doing, and they’ve said it’s kind of it’s basically especially call it in remission. Like I’ve got no new lesions, I’ve got, no new symptoms. And I’m basically living a normal life. Okay.

00:05:46:18 – 00:06:00:52
Agent Palmer
So from the diagnosis, there’s a dream that like, we can control this without, infusions or drugs or whatever. But that’s not. You’re not living on a farm at that time, right?

00:06:00:53 – 00:06:22:50
Lucy
I’m living in an apartment on the 13th floor in Vancouver. So there was there was no way that I could grow my own food. There’s no way that we could have livestock or anything like that. But what I could do is to start learning. Okay, so that’s what I did. So I started taking courses. I did, poultry and livestock course, did beekeeping courses.

00:06:22:50 – 00:06:48:04
Lucy
We started looking into, you know, the different types of foods that I could eat. Had blood tests done to determine what foods caused the reaction in my body. Okay. That led me to go gluten free, dairy free? Soy free, no tree nuts. Like, the list of what I could eat at that point was, definitely very small.

00:06:48:09 – 00:06:52:10
Lucy
It was easier to say what I could eat rather than what I couldn’t eat, because that was a huge long list.

00:06:52:14 – 00:07:11:56
Agent Palmer
Now, how how like, was this, is it a normal reaction? Maybe. Maybe, and, we’re talking in generalizations because it’s easier that way. But, like, for you, like, why were you testing the dietary. Was it because that was another way to manage the Ms..

00:07:12:01 – 00:07:36:39
Lucy
Yes, basically there’s there’s a few, doctors out there that have either themselves or family members that had Ms. that have looked into alternative ways of treating it. Okay. And they’ve been extremely successful. Doctor Terry Wells is one of them. She has Ms.. And she was basically paralyzed. She wasn’t able to move. And she, you know, she was bedbound, basically.

00:07:36:44 – 00:08:01:40
Lucy
And so she took it upon herself to look into this and changed her diet and changed what she was doing and changed, you know, vitamins. She was taking stuff. She’d been on the disease modifying therapies. And she progressively got worse and worse and worse until she was like, basically couldn’t function after she looked into it. And, you know, did all this research herself, she managed to she can walk, she can talk.

00:08:01:40 – 00:08:20:12
Lucy
She’s doing really, really well. And she put all of her research and everything out there for people. And, you know, there’s certain diet books that people have put out there that you can look into. There’s the best bit diet book as well, which is a big one that I followed, to start with, and then kind of expanded upon that so that there is information out there.

00:08:20:17 – 00:08:40:55
Lucy
But I will say my biggest thing would be my partner, Adam. He looks into things. He he looked into the like medical papers and the white papers, and he he researched everything for me right down to the, the type of vitamins and how much I needed to be taken, the foods that I shouldn’t eat that could have some kind of inflammatory reaction.

00:08:40:59 – 00:08:51:44
Lucy
You know, he’s been vital in my journey to to get where I am today. So everything the fact that I’m here, I’m walking, I’m talking, I’m absolutely fine. It’s all down to him.

00:08:51:49 – 00:08:54:31
Agent Palmer
Okay. So it starts with education.

00:08:54:36 – 00:08:55:59
Lucy
Yes.

00:08:56:04 – 00:09:18:13
Agent Palmer
Had you what was your pack like? Like I have to go back first. So you you take these classes in, like, poultry and, like, you know, the general farming and stuff, but like, before then, before this moment, before the Ms. diagnosis, had you raised anything? Had you ever had a garden, like, was there any background in any of this?

00:09:18:18 – 00:09:40:18
Lucy
Not me personally. My mom is, a fantastic gardener. She loves gardening. Okay. I did not follow in her footsteps. I could not keep a house plant alive, and I could not keep a goldfish alive like nothing. Basically my partner, luckily he is, He’s got a huge background in gardening, so he’s. He knows how to grow things he’s never done, like livestock or poultry or anything like that.

00:09:40:18 – 00:09:43:40
Lucy
So it’s, it was a learning curve for both first.

00:09:43:45 – 00:10:02:36
Agent Palmer
And the the learning part didn’t like I, I know nothing about this. Right. So to me, I think some of the education might have scared me off. Like, I know like I know how some of this stuff works. I also know how it works. Right? Like it’s just like, well, if if you’re raising the chicken, you eat the chicken.

00:10:02:36 – 00:10:29:44
Agent Palmer
Like at some point that happens. And I just, I think I might, I, it’s nice to know where your food comes from, but if I name it, I might be I might still be the little kid who’s like, I named the lobster. You can’t eat the lobster. I think that might still be me. So as you’re learning these things, not even where you are now, but, like, as you’re learning, are you more engaged or are you like, oh, this is going to be rough.

00:10:29:49 – 00:10:50:38
Lucy
I was terrified, to be honest. Especially when it gets to things like, diseases, chicken diseases, brutal, like really, really terrible looking stuff. And you just think, okay, I’m never going to be able to do this. I’m never going to be able to, like, raise this healthy chicken. It’s going to get all these horrible diseases and die like, even down to bees.

00:10:50:38 – 00:11:12:40
Lucy
When you start looking into bees, you think, you know, they’re relatively easy to look after. You just, you know, get the hive, get the bees, get the honey. So we’re going to be good. No diseases, mites. You have to do all these tests and checks. And, you know, there’s so much more that I’m glad I did all that learning beforehand that there’s nothing like actually having these things here and learning on the fly.

00:11:12:40 – 00:11:20:28
Lucy
I’ll say, like, when you actually get into it, it’s a it’s a huge learning curve when you actually have that thing there in your care.

00:11:20:33 – 00:11:53:47
Agent Palmer
So without I, I mean, I don’t want to dox you. So we’re not going to go specifics, but from a 13 story apartment to being able to have your own, you know, homestead is, that’s a journey. That’s not, something that just happens overnight. So, as you’re learning, as you’re learning about, you know, growing animals and plants, like, are you also starting to, like, you know, look for farms to buy?

00:11:53:47 – 00:12:03:30
Agent Palmer
Like, I don’t even know, like, what’s the next step? Like, we’re trapped up this many stories up, like, how do you go to, like, well, we want to get some land.

00:12:03:37 – 00:12:20:04
Lucy
Well, we did we we did start looking. We actually took a few trips out into sort of the interior of BC and looked at a couple of properties out there. It was always kind of too far away and, you know, too daunting at the time. It was like not the right property. We really wanted to find the right thing.

00:12:20:10 – 00:12:39:14
Lucy
But then there’s a couple of things happened, a couple of events that sort of led us to finding where we are today. So from the apartment, we then ended up having to move out here to Abbotsford, which is more of a rural area, because, family member was ill and they needed to be closer to the cancer clinic.

00:12:39:19 – 00:12:50:29
Lucy
So we moved out here with them. And so that was the kind of first part of the move that bought us away from the apartment, out into kind of more into the country, but not really that rural.

00:12:50:35 – 00:12:50:58
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:12:51:00 – 00:13:16:32
Lucy
So we be there with them. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it, but we were already, you know, we’d made that first step to come out into this area. And then from that house we basically got rent evicted. So it was, beautiful house and had like a huge basement. And the landlords decided that they wanted to renovate the basement into, suites like, so we’d be living with construction work and, you know, we’d both work from home.

00:13:16:39 – 00:13:43:44
Lucy
He works in the film industry. I’m, director of operations. We were in meetings all the time. We can’t have construction work going on, like, literally below us. So we decided to to look around, and I happened to see this property, and I sent it to him. And then I said to him, read the description before you say anything, because the pictures let’s just say they weren’t the best to the actual house itself.

00:13:43:48 – 00:14:04:40
Lucy
So yeah, he read through the property, retrieve the description. And the thing that appealed to us the most was the fact that it was on two acres of land and we could have any livestock we wanted because it’s, good agricultural zoning. Okay. So we came, we looked at the property. We were a bit unsure about the house itself.

00:14:04:40 – 00:14:22:27
Lucy
It’s not what we were necessarily used to, but, we looked around the property, we saw that there was, chicken, chicken coop already here. There was a barn here. There’s a beautiful lean to. So before we left, we accepted. And yeah, we moved in.

00:14:22:32 – 00:14:42:19
Agent Palmer
So is it. I mean, obviously there’s some infrastructure the there, but like, were there already crops there like are you starting from. Okay. Well I mean I know I know you have to till the soil first. Like what. What are you moving into. Like when you first move in I guess.

00:14:42:24 – 00:14:54:50
Lucy
So it was a rundown chicken coop that we basically had to gut and re floor and and build the complete outside run that was all completely dilapidated and know probably.

00:14:54:50 – 00:15:04:33
Agent Palmer
Better off that you got like, but you had a, like a I guess a rundown one to build off of so you didn’t have to go like, well, how do I build one of these from scratch?

00:15:04:38 – 00:15:24:43
Lucy
At that point? We didn’t, but we’ll get into that in a bit. Okay. So yeah. So yes, we did have some infrastructure here and we started working with what we had. So we, we did up the chicken coop. We did up the barn ready for whatever livestock we’re going to get. You know, we bought some fencing.

00:15:24:43 – 00:15:51:19
Lucy
We, we really started to, to put things in place and then we started with the chickens. Okay. So we went to the feed store. We weren’t necessarily going there to look for chickens. I can’t remember what we were going for as supplies of some sort, but they had baby chicks there, and they had six left in the little tray thing that they had them displayed in, and we were like, okay, well, let’s just do it.

00:15:51:23 – 00:16:07:11
Lucy
So we purchased these chicks, we brought them home. We got them set up in a brooder. And at that point we hadn’t even finished the chicken coop. We had to rush to get it all done for when these things grew up. But that was the start of it. So yeah. Chickens first, chickens first.

00:16:07:11 – 00:16:19:57
Agent Palmer
Okay, as far as growing stuff, okay. When or are you just we’re on chickens and we’re, we’re going to get grow them in eggs. Like, when do we. What’s the I guess what’s the next step then.

00:16:20:01 – 00:16:52:50
Lucy
For the garden there was no garden. So there’s land. There was grass. That was it. There was actually like an an old kind of fire pit thing at the back of the property with grass around it, and that was it. So we had to purchase the roto tiller. We had to prep all of the soil, put up fencing for the garden, and yeah, we’ve ended up we’ve got two huge garden areas now, one for like tomatoes and peppers and that kind of thing, and then one for your like brassicas and cabbage, cauliflower, lettuces, all that kind of stuff.

00:16:52:50 – 00:17:00:39
Lucy
So yeah, we’ve managed to get the soil to a point where it could be planted and get it set up to, to garden areas.

00:17:00:46 – 00:17:08:18
Agent Palmer
So, as we’re talking, you’ve done all this, but like, you haven’t had your first real harvest yet.

00:17:08:27 – 00:17:15:31
Lucy
We did last year. So we’ve, we’ve we’ve literally only been here for, one year and three months. Okay.

00:17:15:31 – 00:17:19:05
Agent Palmer
So you’ve had that. You’ve been through a harvest cycle. Yes.

00:17:19:05 – 00:17:28:19
Lucy
So it wasn’t as successful as we were hoping because we did get everything in pretty late because of everything else. We were doing. But yeah, we managed to grow some stuff.

00:17:28:24 – 00:17:45:12
Agent Palmer
So what? Skipping ahead for a moment, like, what have you learned from, like, I know it was a truncated season, but like, you must have learned stuff, having gone through it and, like, harvested and been like, oh, like, well, we now know so much more.

00:17:45:17 – 00:18:11:05
Lucy
We know that we definitely don’t need to plant as many kale plants, that’s for sure. Kale is an abundance that we then found out that not a lot of our animals can eat, because it contains too much calcium and can lead to like kidney stones and kidney problems for them. So we were eating a lot of kale, but other things like, cabbages and stuff, all of those huge outside leaves that grow on them.

00:18:11:14 – 00:18:32:13
Lucy
Everything loves to eat those. So the garden, yes, it’s for us. And yes, we had an abundance of I mean, zucchini. If you’re going to grow a skinny plant, you’re going to be an abundance of zucchinis. You’re giving them away because there’s so many. But, yeah. So we were able to to grow a lot of the, the vegetables and stuff that we needed.

00:18:32:13 – 00:18:35:54
Lucy
But also it ended up being that we were able to give it to our livestock as well.

00:18:36:06 – 00:18:43:13
Agent Palmer
Okay. So we’ve got chickens, we’ve got the plants. What what’s next?

00:18:43:23 – 00:19:07:15
Lucy
Next was the goats. So we knew that we wanted to well, we were thinking at the time that we wanted, meat goats. That was kind of a plan to start with. So we went and we purchased this one older meat goat thinking that we we’d have, have her have babies and then we’d be able to sell them for the, for the meat, basically, or use them for ourselves.

00:19:07:24 – 00:19:22:58
Lucy
Okay. And then we, we got another goat two days later, a younger one, because, you know, she needed a friend. So we had to go and get another goat. So we had the two goats there, and then we got a male goat so that he could come in and do his job so that we could have some babies.

00:19:23:02 – 00:19:47:16
Lucy
And, yeah. So we ended up with the three goats. They ruin everything. They they get into everything. They get into all of the chicken feed that, you know, they’re an absolute nightmare. But we wouldn’t change it for the world. We absolutely love them. They’re fantastic personalities. And our big goat, Abby, she comes wandering over for cuddles. She’s just the loveliest thing.

00:19:47:21 – 00:19:53:32
Agent Palmer
All right, so I have to I want to I want to ask this. Then you bought them as meat goats, though?

00:19:53:36 – 00:20:05:07
Lucy
Yes. We would never eat them, though. Okay. It’s. Which has turned out quite a lot of the stuff that we’ve purchased. We purchased rabbits purely thinking that we’d have meat rabbits.

00:20:05:07 – 00:20:05:52
Agent Palmer
Okay, so.

00:20:05:52 – 00:20:28:28
Lucy
We bred them. And I’m thinking that with, when they got to the age we’d process them and have rabbit, we didn’t process them in time. So now we have, like 15 rabbits. What are we going to do with them? So we put them up for sale. So we haven’t actually eaten a single rabbit. We sold most of the ones that we happened to to get, which I’m sure a lot of people would be happy to hear that they they didn’t end up as meat rabbits.

00:20:28:28 – 00:20:47:31
Lucy
But, it’s something we would like to do eventually. It’s just, you know, it’s not that we’re opposed to raising things for meat. We’ve raised chickens purely for meat. We had broiler chickens, which are the breeds that, grow super quick. So by the age of like 8 to 10 weeks, you’re processing them. And we did all of that ourselves.

00:20:47:31 – 00:20:52:35
Lucy
So it’s not like we’re against doing that. It’s just timing. And sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.

00:20:52:37 – 00:21:15:57
Agent Palmer
Well, I think one of the things from afar, you know, I’m not I’m not a I’m like a, I’m an, I’m a suburban kid. I guess I’m not a rural kid. I’m not an urban kid, but I’m in the middle. But I would assume that, you know, anything with a personality is going to take some time to get over to eat.

00:21:16:02 – 00:21:34:30
Agent Palmer
Because if it’s got a personality like you’re. I guess they’re just goats now. They’re not meat goats anymore. They’re just part of the family. But, like, they have a personality, so it’ll take a while before you can get there, I assume. Or is it just a mental hurdle or.

00:21:34:35 – 00:21:53:02
Lucy
It is. I mean, if you ask me, like even a couple of years ago, if I’d be doing this and if I’d be able to process my own, you know, animals for for me, I’d say absolutely not. I’d be completely dead against it. But then when you have things like we we raised pigs, so we got pigs specifically for me.

00:21:53:04 – 00:21:53:29
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:21:53:42 – 00:22:15:53
Lucy
So they they were going to be with us for six months and we got to know them. We named them. We loved them. They were absolutely fantastic creatures. They loved, you know, but scratches. And they were just the cutest things that come running over to see us. But we did actually. We managed to process them. And we have freezers full of meat and it’s fantastic.

00:22:16:00 – 00:22:34:41
Lucy
And it was all done very humanely. And like you, as you mentioned, you wouldn’t be able to name something and then process it. Well, it’s kind of the opposite when you get into it because you want to name it, you want to love it. You want to give it the best life possible and know that it had a fantastic life and that it was loved and cared for.

00:22:34:45 – 00:22:38:41
Lucy
And then it becomes, you know, food for you, nourishment for you.

00:22:38:52 – 00:22:51:56
Agent Palmer
Okay. And so, I mean, so far, I mean, old McDonald’s got nothing on you. You know, we’ve got goats and chickens and pigs, all the vegetables. Is there more like a.

00:22:52:01 – 00:23:22:26
Lucy
Oh, yes. Two of the the biggest characters on the farm, I’d say, our geese and our sheep. So the geese, the Emden geese. And, we got them thinking again that we’d process them. It hasn’t happened. We’re now looking at them, laying eggs so we can raise the chicks and sell the chicks. Okay, but Elmo goose, he’s called Ron after Ron Swanson.

00:23:22:26 – 00:23:44:01
Lucy
Ironically, he, he is feisty, let’s put it that way. He loves to attack anyone that comes to visit us. Any guests that we have, he will run around and he will nip at your ankles. He’s super feisty. Same with the the female goose that we’ve got. Mother. She’s, Yeah, they they, but they love cuddles as well.

00:23:44:03 – 00:23:49:48
Lucy
Mother will come up to me and she’ll try and climb onto my lap and give me cuddles. You know that. The wonderful creatures.

00:23:50:01 – 00:23:51:32
Agent Palmer
Okay. And the sheep.

00:23:51:43 – 00:24:15:14
Lucy
The sheep. So we have rare breed. Jacob sheep. They are full horned, so they have gigantic massive horns and they’re a smaller breed. They were almost extinct a few years ago. And then they’ve been kind of brought back. So we went looking for sheep. We once discussed maybe having like hair sheep to, to raise fur for me again, that kind of thing.

00:24:15:18 – 00:24:35:05
Lucy
But we saw a picture of our Ram he’s called Ramsey’s on, I think it was on like one of the livestock selling groups on Facebook. He just looked like devil sheep. He looked like the most amazing thing. And we had to have him and we went and got him. Not that we wanted sheep. We didn’t even have a proper barn set up for him.

00:24:35:05 – 00:24:59:43
Lucy
We had to just pick this sheep up and he needed a friend. So we got the female and yeah, quickly get the bum set up for them, give them somewhere to live, and, Yeah. So now we’re we’re into, conservation of these animals to hopefully breed them and, you know, sell the, the babies to other flocks to diversify the flocks, those kind of things.

00:24:59:43 – 00:25:00:59
Lucy
That’s what so we’re planning on doing.

00:25:01:01 – 00:25:04:24
Agent Palmer
Do do you can you also get wool from those sheep.

00:25:04:35 – 00:25:16:35
Lucy
Yeah we did we had we had one of them sheared and got wool from it. And my partner’s daughter is actually processing that. She’s learned how to actually process all of the wool into, you know, usable material.

00:25:16:39 – 00:25:31:04
Agent Palmer
So this is I mean, this is this is pretty good so far. I’m, there’s also a part of me in the back of my head. It’s like, well, so you don’t need to mow the lawn. I mean, clearly, between all the animals, you’ve got the the lawns. Never going to get that tall.

00:25:31:15 – 00:25:49:54
Lucy
No. Exactly. Because they’re all. So we’ve managed to fence off the entire property. We’ve got electric fencing around all of it. So they will free roam all day. Okay. If you walk out into the yard right now, you’re going to, you know, encounter geese and sheep and goats and turkeys. That’s another thing. We’ve got.

00:25:49:59 – 00:25:53:26
Agent Palmer
Where where did the turkeys come in again?

00:25:53:26 – 00:26:13:44
Lucy
We purchased them thinking, they they were sold to us as they’d be ready in time for Christmas. Okay. You know, but but kind of like, raise them up and process them. We ended up with two males and free females, and we decided that we are going to now breed them. We’re going to get the eggs. We’re going to raise the chicks.

00:26:13:48 – 00:26:31:38
Lucy
So they didn’t end up in the freezer. They roam the farm. And yeah, that those, another rare breed that we’re actually helping to conserve. We didn’t mean to do it that way. We purchased them because we wanted turkeys, and then we found out that there’s something there called basically bronze turkeys.

00:26:31:46 – 00:26:32:26
Agent Palmer
Okay?

00:26:32:31 – 00:26:44:19
Lucy
And they were, like, almost extinct again a couple of years ago. And there’s many farms across the, area that are now raising these to try and bring them back into population. And we’re one of them.

00:26:44:33 – 00:27:07:24
Agent Palmer
So I have to ask then, if they off, how do they get along? Like, I mean, I, I don’t know, like, again, I, I don’t know, I’m, you know, always amazed at like people are like, well, I have a dog and a cat. And I’m like, well, how do they get along? You know? And so, I mean, you’re talking about free roaming, many different species of animals, like, do they all get along?

00:27:07:36 – 00:27:28:21
Lucy
They do. I mean, the geese, as I mentioned, they’re the most ferocious thing here. And they were attack everything. They attack, but they they attack the big goat. They attack the ram, like, you know, and these huge, great big animals run away from these geese because they don’t want to be attacked. But, mostly everything gets along.

00:27:28:26 – 00:27:58:33
Lucy
Ram Ramsay’s, he is kind of the problem child of the family. He he pushes it too far, and he’s got these gigantic horns that he can sideswipe everything with, including me. So he gets kind of tethered, so, like, basically roped up and, and kept away from everything else so that he can’t attack them. But mostly if they just gets along the we’ve got two lambs and we’ve got two baby goats, two kids, they all play together.

00:27:58:42 – 00:27:59:25
Lucy
Yeah. So we love it.

00:27:59:31 – 00:28:08:20
Agent Palmer
So I guess it’s it’s first of all, as far as the existing farm, are there any other animals we haven’t spoken of?

00:28:08:25 – 00:28:23:04
Lucy
Quail. Quail is a big thing for us. So we’ve actually we actually purchased a, camper trailer to house our quail because we have probably 2 or 300 quail here now.

00:28:23:06 – 00:28:29:25
Agent Palmer
So hold on. So, hold on a camper trailer that I. You just changed it into a quail.

00:28:29:27 – 00:28:33:05
Lucy
We call it the quail. Per.

00:28:33:10 – 00:28:34:37
Agent Palmer
Okay. All right.

00:28:34:42 – 00:28:49:54
Lucy
All right. And it has the. So it has a breeding tower in it. So we keep the some of the quail in a breeding tower. So it’s basically like a five storey tower that the quail live in, in sort of cages. And, it’s the ratio at the perfect ratio for breeding. So it’s one male to three females.

00:28:49:59 – 00:28:56:37
Lucy
So they kept in there and we get like four dozen eggs a day. If not well from them if.

00:28:56:42 – 00:29:10:36
Agent Palmer
All right. Let’s just, let’s say I’m over for a visit and we’re going to have breakfast. What what what what do you make it for breakfast? Like, first of all, what kind of eggs are you using? Like, do you get chicken eggs too?

00:29:10:49 – 00:29:21:41
Lucy
Oh, yeah. We get like a dozen chicken eggs a day at least. So, and that’s not just ones that we’re collecting to either sell or incubate. We get, ones for eating at least a dozen a day.

00:29:21:41 – 00:29:23:08
Agent Palmer
And and quail eggs.

00:29:23:08 – 00:29:36:24
Lucy
Quail eggs? Yeah. An abundance of quail eggs. There’s so many. But, we don’t eat them that often because they’re kind of difficult to eat. I’ll be honest. We have to get these, like, little fancy scissors to cut the top of them off.

00:29:36:24 – 00:29:36:58
Agent Palmer
Okay?

00:29:37:09 – 00:29:55:43
Lucy
And you need at least like, for quail eggs for the, you know, the amount of one chicken egg. Okay, so now the quail eggs, more for so we trying to market them to the reptile feeder market. So we, we freeze them and and sell them that way. And then our dog eats a lot of quail eggs.

00:29:55:48 – 00:30:16:09
Agent Palmer
All right, so I have to I have to ask this. So you’re selling these, some of this stuff, obviously, to put money back into the farm to afford everything. If I don’t know, I don’t think I have to go very far back, like you were diagnosed with M.S., and you said it’d be great to know where my food comes from.

00:30:16:21 – 00:30:31:01
Agent Palmer
And now, not only do you have a farm, you have a farm business where you a bit like. So we talked about how novice you were going in on the farming stuff. Were you a business? Were you an entrepreneur before this?

00:30:31:06 – 00:30:48:42
Lucy
We both have a lot of business experience. Okay. So it’s not a huge issue. And things like, you know, website building, he’s really into that. So that’s not a problem as well. We’ve had our own businesses before. We had like a media company that we set up. We had a fragrance company that we set up where we’re always doing different things.

00:30:48:42 – 00:31:07:19
Lucy
Okay. So we kind of we, you know, we know how to get started. Okay. It’s just we never expected it. We were thinking that it would be like a homestead. We would be living off the land, you know, sustainable living. That was our plan. But when you get into it and you get all of these animals and you then start thinking, hey, how am I going to pay for all of this?

00:31:07:24 – 00:31:24:08
Lucy
You’ve got to make some money back. So selling like the hatching X, selling the chicks, selling the the quail to the feed, like the reptile feeder market. It’s it’s a way to kind of give back to the, the farm so that we can keep doing what we’re doing basically.

00:31:24:12 – 00:31:45:37
Agent Palmer
And I mean, I guess what’s, what’s next I mean is, is there I mean, aside from, you know, maybe a bigger farm and more land because it’s starting to sound cramped, a little bit, is there like, is there an animal that you don’t have that you’re like, we want to go there. We want that.

00:31:45:42 – 00:31:52:21
Lucy
I’ve just ordered a dozen hatching guinea fowl eggs. We’d like to get into guinea fowl, because.

00:31:52:28 – 00:32:01:21
Agent Palmer
Then you’re going to have to explain it. I don’t even I you’re I hear the words you’re saying, but I can’t picture what is is is a chicken.

00:32:01:26 – 00:32:23:54
Lucy
It’s kind of like a cross between, chicken and a turkey. It’s kind of like it’s bigger than a chicken and smaller than a turkey. And it is an alarm system. Apparently, if anything comes onto the property, like everyone in, you know, a ten mile radius is going to hear this. Something is happening there, an alarm system, and they’re a pest control system.

00:32:23:54 – 00:32:33:23
Lucy
They eat all the bugs. We fix everything bad. So but I mean, really, we just kind of want them because they call okay okay.

00:32:33:28 – 00:32:34:04
Agent Palmer
And so and.

00:32:34:04 – 00:32:40:02
Lucy
Again to sell, you know we’ll raise them up. We’ll hopefully get some eggs and chicks from them that we’ll be able to sell. All right. So there’s a market.

00:32:40:02 – 00:33:05:15
Agent Palmer
For this has come up a few times. So when you when you were looking into your initial education and watching the videos, like have you done any like actual animal husbandry stuff as far as like education or has it been like just we’ll, we’ll learn by doing, like because this is a lot of this is a lot of breeding different animals.

00:33:05:20 – 00:33:05:53
Agent Palmer

00:33:05:57 – 00:33:07:58
Lucy
It’s amazing what you can learn from YouTube.

00:33:08:05 – 00:33:09:09
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:33:09:13 – 00:33:31:15
Lucy
Yeah. I got a course in the poultry management that that was it. I got a certificate for that. But everything else we we learn as we go, and it it’s not always successful. We’ve made some big mistakes. You know, we’ve we’ve had some loss on the farm that’s been really terrible. But you do learn as you go and you do learn from any mistakes that you make.

00:33:31:15 – 00:33:47:30
Lucy
You have to because you’re you’ve suddenly got all of these lives that depend on you being able to care for them. So you have to look into, you know, what’s wrong with this chicken? This chicken’s got kind of a swollen face or something. You then have to figure out what’s wrong with it. You have to get the medication that’s needed.

00:33:47:35 – 00:34:05:38
Lucy
We end up with a lot of stuff inside our house that shouldn’t be inside our house because of them being, you know, either injured in some way or another. We had a rooster that got attacked by the other roosters. He basically had kind of his backside taken off. So we had him living in a cage in our kitchen for a little while, just so he could heal up and get better.

00:34:05:43 – 00:34:27:20
Lucy
We’ve got a house lamb at the moment because she was born, and then she was rejected by the mother, so she spends all day outside, but she lives inside during the evening. You know, she sleeps inside with us. It’s we do what we can. We learn as we go and we, you know, we care for these animals. I think that’s the biggest thing we can give them.

00:34:27:25 – 00:35:11:53
Agent Palmer
So, I, I have to ask, and a little back story. When I was, I was an intern at a hospital, in a marketing department, and one I was tasked with writing about this thing called the Eden alternative, which was, mainly for seniors. And there was a senior home nearby that I went to, and it was basically, we we we, we take care of the seniors as any senior care would, but specifically in this program, they garden and there’s pets and animals for them to take care of.

00:35:11:53 – 00:35:42:25
Agent Palmer
And kids come and visit. And the idea is that ignoring any familial problems like that, people don’t visit when you are taking care of something, it’s better for you. Like on a whole, humans are caring creatures. And so if a senior in a senior living facility can tend to a garden and take a dog for a walk, they will be better off.

00:35:42:29 – 00:36:18:38
Agent Palmer
Even if you even if they have to like wheelchair out there and they’re not getting the health benefits of the walk, they are still better off both mentally and physically, for taking care of this garden and taking care of this dog. So, that’s the background to say, like, aside from the health benefits of the food and knowing where it comes from, like, do you find, I guess, mental and physical strength from, I don’t know, the act of being out there and being in the garden and taking care of the animals and the crops, like, is that helpful?

00:36:18:38 – 00:36:26:17
Agent Palmer
And, I mean, I knew about this from writing, writing about it 20 years ago, but was that something that you expected as well?

00:36:26:22 – 00:36:44:44
Lucy
I didn’t necessarily expect that. I mean, just being kind of out in the the rural countryside, it helps, you know, not being kind of trapped in a city, but there’s there’s days when it’s it’s difficult. You’re working long hours, like I work full time and then I’m working on the farm and it’s tiring and it’s, you know.

00:36:44:51 – 00:37:05:21
Lucy
Oh, okay. We’ve got to go and feed everything now. We’re going to look after everything. But then there’s days you walk out there and you stand out in the yard and you’re surrounded by, you know, all these animals that have fun and they’re running around the sun shining, and you’ve got your plants growing next to you. And it’s just, wow, we live this, you know, we’ve we’ve done this.

00:37:05:32 – 00:37:27:43
Lucy
Yeah. It’s not something that we expected to happen. It’s certainly not something we expected to happen so quickly. But it is absolutely amazing. And especially when we look at it through other people’s eyes, when people maybe come to visit and then they talk about how amazing it all is and how wonderful it is that we’ve got all these animals around and we’re like, yeah, you’re right actually.

00:37:27:45 – 00:37:40:55
Lucy
Like sometimes you forget that you do forget that and you do kind of focus on the negatives of it. But definitely when you, you just take a step back and look at everything that we’ve got here, it it is wonderful.

00:37:40:59 – 00:37:55:56
Agent Palmer
So do you like, do you want to expand. Do you want to go bigger? I guess I mean, not saying that. I mean, you know, I’m not holding you to this, but like, is that something like we want more space so we can have even more animals.

00:37:56:00 – 00:38:15:58
Lucy
So I’ll start that by saying when we got chickens. Yeah, we, we got, what we call a mystery box of chicken eggs to hatch. So it was we didn’t know what breeds we were going to get. We hatched them. We got a few different call breeds. And then we started thinking, well, maybe we can get more of these specific breeds.

00:38:16:12 – 00:38:37:29
Lucy
We can get like a male and three females and start breeding them and start selling eggs ourselves. So what turned out from, you know, we had the one chicken coop. Yeah. We now have six different sets of breeding chickens. We have two, huge coops that we’ve built already for the which have the pure breeds living in them.

00:38:37:29 – 00:39:01:17
Lucy
And then we’ve got two more that we need to build. So that’s the expansion there. We’d love to, you know, set up more eventually. There’s places out there that have many, many different coops, many, many different breeds that they sell. And yes, so we would like to expand on that. Everything we do here though, because we’re we’re renting this property, releasing it, everything we do is temporary.

00:39:01:31 – 00:39:36:11
Lucy
Everything that we build here, everything that we put in place is, you know, we have to think about it as being temporary. Eventually, we would love to purchase are in place. We would love to purchase our own land with and be able to set everything up as a permanent structure, as a permanent business. You know, we live in B.C. though, so it’s everything is ridiculously expensive, so we’re constantly looking, we’d probably end up having to move if we stayed in BC, we’d end up having to move north or, you know, further out where the weather is definitely not going to be as good.

00:39:36:12 – 00:40:00:16
Lucy
We’re going to be like six months of winter pretty much, or something like that. So there’s definitely things that we need to look at, to, to where we want to be going to. We might even have to move kind of, you know, across Canada somewhere, depending on what’s available. But that’s the the end goal now is to purchase our own land, our own property, and to build permanent structures for this future of this, you know, this homestead, this farm.

00:40:00:30 – 00:40:27:22
Agent Palmer
So I have to go back, ten year old Lucy, eight year old Lucy. Is there every like like wood. Wood, 8 or 10 year old. You believe like. Yeah, I’m a farmer. Like, like, is that something that, like, even what, growing up was fascinating to you or interesting to you? Or would, you know, ten year old you be like, what are you doing?

00:40:27:27 – 00:40:50:44
Lucy
Ten year old me lived in the UK and loved, you know, doing my hair and stuff. I’d probably I actually wanted to be a hairdresser. I wanted to live in the city. I wanted to, you know, go up to London and, and, work up in London. There was a whole bunch of, you know, dreams like that. But none of that included being a farmer or working with animals or anything like that.

00:40:50:46 – 00:41:12:37
Lucy
It honestly, ten year old me would not believe this. They wouldn’t even believe that I lived in Canada. Okay. I came from a tiny small town in, you know, in the UK. No one ever left it. Everyone just stayed in the town. There was, you know, there was no getting out of that town. I was always going to live there until I didn’t.

00:41:12:42 – 00:41:29:40
Agent Palmer
So, the, you know, back to the beginning, which was at the end, kind of the prognosis is much better. But again, no cure. So it’s just better like, that’s kind of what you’re going for.

00:41:29:45 – 00:41:54:52
Lucy
Yes. I mean, it’s better and I’m reintroducing some foods. So anything you know, I was on a really quite strict restricted diet for a while. But now the I’m growing stuff myself. I’m knowing where my food’s coming from. I’m able to reintroduce more foods. I love cooking, which is, really helpful. I’m able to utilize whatever we grow and just being able to.

00:41:54:52 – 00:42:19:06
Lucy
There’s nothing like going outside picking vegetables from the garden, going to, you know, having meat that you’ve raised and grown yourself and preparing a dinner that is everything on that plate is something that you’ve put into it. You know, it’s it’s an amazing thing. And I’d love to be able to do more of that. I’d love to be more, self-sufficient, not have to rely on, you know, having to go to the store for stuff.

00:42:19:10 – 00:42:38:37
Lucy
That’s the dream, to be able to do that and to keep moving forward, to keep managing the mess. There’s you know, we had a few blips along the road that there was kind of, was it one of the stupid things that I introduced was, I was eating turkey jerky as a snack. Okay. Just, you know, it was stupid.

00:42:38:39 – 00:42:56:42
Lucy
Is processed food. I shouldn’t eat it. I ended up going completely numb. My entire left side of my body. And that was kind of a big, terrible flare up. I realized I can’t eat turkey jerky anymore. I can’t eat processed foods. I’ve got to be careful. Like, you know, that was that was kind of the blip that made me realize I can’t.

00:42:56:47 – 00:43:08:16
Agent Palmer
Other than that blip. And it’s physical manifestations, like. But when you’re sitting there, are you mentally going like, well, I guess we have to raise turkeys so I can make my own jerky. Like, is that.

00:43:08:21 – 00:43:26:02
Lucy
Yeah. Okay. That’s completely not that is I mean, we’re looking at these things and we’re looking at raising it so that I can make the stuff. You know, I’m growing tomatoes so I can make my own tomato sauce. I wasn’t even able to eat tomatoes when I was first diagnosed, because it was one of the foods that might cause the reaction, but because it’s.

00:43:26:02 – 00:43:28:31
Agent Palmer
The preservatives and I. Yeah, okay.

00:43:28:40 – 00:43:30:49
Lucy
No canned goods, no preservatives.

00:43:30:53 – 00:43:37:24
Agent Palmer
And everything beyond that is now like, oh, I could probably do that, or I could learn to do that.

00:43:37:29 – 00:44:01:23
Lucy
That’s absolutely Sabado preserving, making like sauerkraut and kimchi and all of those kind of things, you know, canning. I’ve learned how to do canning. I got a pressure canner and a water bath canner and a billion mason jars to to actually store all of this stuff. Well, even down to the the processing of your own meat.

00:44:01:24 – 00:44:25:07
Lucy
We had to learn how to process our own chickens. Not something I thought I’d ever be doing, but I actually kind of enjoy it. This is a process. I don’t do the dispatching side of things. My partner does that, but I actually do like the getting in there. Getting will be in, it’s out. All of that kind of stuff, getting it ready in, processed and cut up and froze.

00:44:25:12 – 00:44:46:55
Agent Palmer
So I, I have to then ask this, which is, you like cooking and you’re getting in there, like, are you doing your best at or as best you can to like, use everything? Like, are you using the innards for cooking as well? Like, are you doing your best to, you know, zero waste it I guess.

00:44:46:55 – 00:45:08:22
Lucy
Absolutely. So with the the pig that we we had slaughtered recently, we got the bones, we got the trim, we got the lard, we got, you know, the liver, the heart, all of those kind of things that we’ve got in the freezer ready to use. We’ve made bone broth already. They’re going to process the the fat down into lard to use for cooking.

00:45:08:27 – 00:45:24:58
Lucy
Even done to the hide. We kept the, the hide and, that’s being processed into liver at the moment. So anything else that you know isn’t used by us tends to be used by the chickens. Like, you can throw the pig feet in with the chickens and they love it.

00:45:25:03 – 00:45:54:36
Agent Palmer
So, I’ll, I look, I, I recently, got into baking. And I’ll admit that, you know, I, I live in a fairly urban setting, but, like, having worked in front of a computer all day when I first bought my house and would come home and mow the lawn like that was kind of refreshing because it’s something you did with your hands, and it’s not the same.

00:45:54:36 – 00:46:26:21
Agent Palmer
But I understand a little bit of what you’re coming from because like, especially those of us that have those jobs that have turned in, they they’ve moved from desk job to computer job and computer job is just staring at screen for eight hours. And so to go outside or to go into my kitchen and bake a loaf of bread with my hands is so, it’s it’s not necessarily freeing, but it’s definitely therapeutic in a way.

00:46:26:26 – 00:46:40:46
Agent Palmer
So I can I can imagine how this all. Yes. It’s exhausting. I, I hear it like it doesn’t. And you still have a full time job this. Well, everything we’ve spoken about today is not your full time job.

00:46:40:50 – 00:46:41:18
Lucy
No.

00:46:41:23 – 00:47:05:42
Agent Palmer
Exactly. I know you wanted to be, And it sounds like whether I’m putting this out because I’m reading into it or not, like there will be a farm to table restaurant at whatever permanent structure you have. Because it’s just another avenue for things. But, like, you know, put me down for a reservation. This. That sounds amazing.

00:47:05:47 – 00:47:18:07
Agent Palmer
All right, are there any, like, exotic animals that you’re like, I think we want to go there. Like, I know alpacas are all the rage, but, like, which would you go that way? Or.

00:47:18:20 – 00:47:36:08
Lucy
I mean, if we see one that looks cool enough on Facebook Marketplace, you never know. Like, I’m not going to say no, we’re not going to have any of these things. Because as I said, we didn’t want sheep and we have sheep. So it just happens that way sometimes. And then we just, you know, work with what we’ve got.

00:47:36:08 – 00:47:45:33
Lucy
When once, once we get these things, we figure out how we can market them, how we can care for them, how we can actually try and make some money back to them, look after them.

00:47:45:38 – 00:48:14:21
Agent Palmer
This is this sounds amazing. I’m, I’m I’m very happy for you. Not just that the farm is kind of blossoming and and exploding in good ways, but that you’re doing better, because it’s it’s. I, Stef hates when I say this, but, like, I, I have anxiety, and I deal with it as best I can. But I don’t I don’t want to take drugs for it.

00:48:14:26 – 00:48:32:19
Agent Palmer
No. And it’s not I’m not anti medicine. Like, I’ll, you know, I’ll get the vaccines when I need to, but like, if I can do without, I’d like to And it seems like you’re thriving without. And, I applaud that.

00:48:32:23 – 00:48:54:44
Lucy
And it when you, when I first got diagnosed, it seemed like the drugs were the only option. That’s that’s what we were told by the medical professionals that these, you know, I just had to get on one of these drugs to prevent it from getting any worse. And everyone is told that, and I, I like to kind of advocate for the fact that that’s not necessarily the only choice.

00:48:54:48 – 00:49:22:35
Lucy
And if I was going to put one message out there to the, you know, anyone else that’s listening that may have just been diagnosed or, you know, is is on these, drugs and they’re maybe not doing so well on them. There are alternatives. I don’t necessarily, you know, it might not work for everyone, but it’s definitely worth a try if, you know, if I’m living proof of that, the fact that, you know, I’ve managed to stop any kind of progression, and I’m and I’m doing well, I’m healthy.

00:49:22:35 – 00:49:44:14
Lucy
I’m probably healthier than I’ve ever been because of these changes that I’ve made. But, there are alternatives looking to it. Do the research. You don’t have to just go straight onto these drugs. They’re not your only choice.

00:49:44:19 – 00:50:18:16
Agent Palmer
A decade ago, the only person I knew with M.S. was fictional President Josiah Bartlet from the West Wing. Now today’s guest, Lucy. Previous guest Kristen, and another friend of ours, Stefanie. Not to be confused with my wife. All have been diagnosed and are living with Ms. and that’s just the people I count as friends. I know of other online personalities and previous guests who also have Ms., but similar to my dealing with anxiety, it is not an external impairment and some people choose not to publicly share the diagnosis, which makes it even more like anxiety, which oftentimes comes with the diagnosis.

00:50:18:16 – 00:50:45:28
Agent Palmer
But I digress. I applaud Lucy for sharing her story because it is a story worth sharing. Obviously results in situations may vary, but people need to know that alternatives exist and can be successful. Ms.. Multiple sclerosis is a disease that causes a breakdown of the protective covering of nerves, depending on the person and location of damage, as well as the extent of the damage, the symptoms are as unique as the individual.

00:50:45:33 – 00:51:11:23
Agent Palmer
This is particularly challenging for diagnosis and treatment, as there is no actual cure for Ms.. For more information or to donate to the cause in Canada, you can visit Ms. canada.com. Or in the States you can visit National Ms. Society York. Both of these organizations offer support, education, advocacy, information and work towards new treatments and hopefully eventually a cure.

00:51:11:28 – 00:51:29:46
Agent Palmer
Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 156. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact us in the show notes. To catch up with Lucy in the goings ons on the farm, you can follow Hopeful Homesteaders on Instagram.

00:51:29:51 – 00:51:54:47
Agent Palmer
Stefanie Stershic was an executive producer for this episode. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email and comments can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember your home for all things agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.

00:51:54:52 – 00:52:02:44
Unknown
You.

00:52:02:49 – 00:52:11:11
Unknown
See?

00:52:11:16 – 00:52:28:23
Unknown
Me?

00:52:28:28 – 00:52:30:32
Agent Palmer
All right. Lucy, do you have one final question for me?

00:52:30:41 – 00:52:36:54
Lucy
I do, I would like to know what is your favorite thing to cook? You mentioned you like cooking.

00:52:36:58 – 00:53:09:55
Agent Palmer
See? Okay, so there are two ways to answer this. Specifically one, I really love making bread. I, and I like that’s new. Okay, that was, I think, maybe last year. I think it was last year I bought myself, a KitchenAid mixer. Like a stand mixer. So I’m still doing the rolling, but the kneading is being taken care of for me.

00:53:10:00 – 00:53:35:15
Agent Palmer
I don’t know that I will ever have the four arms of my great grandmothers. Okay? It’s probably just not going to happen for me. And so I’ve, you know, I’ve got a a maple wheat that comes from a honey wheat recipe that I’ve adapted. Okay. And so that’s kind of my favorite thing. And I’ve, I’ve got it down to a science and that’s basically my breakfast.

00:53:35:20 – 00:54:10:37
Agent Palmer
Every day is a slice of that. And then when it, when I run out of the loaf, it’s time to make more. And so that’s been wonderful. But when it comes to cooking, cooking, I don’t have one specific favorite thing other than to say I love hosting. So, like, you know, you know, we had my parents and a couple, and another couple over and the six of us I made, I made chicken parm for everyone.

00:54:10:41 – 00:54:45:13
Agent Palmer
Or like, you know, so it’s really just about. Or like, I may maybe, maybe the answer is Friendsgiving. You know, like, we we don’t do Thanksgiving because the people we want to invite and have over for the one big feast are all doing their own Thanksgiving things. But then, like either on Black Friday or the Saturday after Black Friday, we host, and I’ll, I’ll cook everything, you know, I’ve been I’ve, I’m not you.

00:54:45:13 – 00:55:06:32
Agent Palmer
I’ve become very lazy when it comes to the, the the the meat and the protein. So like, I am now air frying a turkey breast, which I’ve now I’ve done it like 2 or 3 years in a row, air frying it in my oven. So it’s not a true air fryer. It’s like an air fry functions of my own.

00:55:06:37 – 00:55:29:15
Agent Palmer
But I get the best, like, crust out of it, and I know how to season it, and I know how to do it. And just the thrill of that in the oven. Well, potatoes on the stove and making the stuffing and trying to time everything. So it all comes out hot and onto the table for everybody to eat.

00:55:29:20 – 00:55:44:15
Agent Palmer
That’s like my favorite thing. And and you know, I only do it once a year. I don’t maybe it wouldn’t be my favorite thing if I did it four times or five times a year. But at least for the one time of year that I’m doing that, like it’s my favorite thing.

00:55:44:17 – 00:55:57:03
Lucy
Well, I get that, I fully get that. And I call myself a feeder because I love cooking and I love serving people my food, and I love watching their reaction. I love seeing them enjoy eating the fish. No, I completely get it.

00:55:57:07 – 00:56:19:37
Agent Palmer
Now, the question I have for you, is I’m a horrible eater though. Okay, so I’ll I’ll describe the scene. I’ve just spent ten hours in the kitchen between all the prep and the cooking and getting it all plated and, you know, cutting the the turkey and then get everything is there, set the table. You know, it’s because it’s Friendsgiving.

00:56:19:37 – 00:56:51:08
Agent Palmer
We do a toast and then in less than ten minutes I will be done eating. Everybody else takes their time. That is not the kind of eater I am, I. I have never been there. I try, I’m really trying to slow down, but I am a fast eater and what it does is maybe not Friendsgiving so much, but the turkey parm, which is a lot more prep than it is on the other side.

00:56:51:13 – 00:57:04:01
Agent Palmer
It’s like I spent two hours prepping cooking this and it’s gone in three minutes. Like, this is ridiculous. Like, are you are you better than me when it comes to that side?

00:57:04:06 – 00:57:16:12
Lucy
Definitely not. I’m a fast data as well. But it’s funny you should say that because in the you’re in, you like making bread. But have you got into making sourdough bread? No, because that is a process.

00:57:16:12 – 00:57:37:38
Agent Palmer
No no no, I process. So I got in the my favorite part about me getting into bread is I got into it well after the pandemic when everybody else was done, everybody’s like, well, you’re breaking bread now. I was like, well, I didn’t do it because I was bored. I did it because I was interested. Like, it’s a different, but I, I love the bread I’ve made now and I’ve made other breads.

00:57:37:38 – 00:58:13:27
Agent Palmer
I’ve tried other breads, I’ve tried some savory breads, like there was a garlic dill bread. I did and, I tried, like a cinnamon bread and some, some sweet breads. But or dessert ish type breads more along the lines of like hala and stuff like eggy bread. But to be fair, I’m not the biggest fan of sour dough to begin with, so, like, I, I the I understand the challenge of it, but I, I, I don’t love it enough to go through all that.

00:58:13:32 – 00:58:35:47
Lucy
Well there’s health benefits as well. Like sourdough bread is really good for you. Some people say it’s like probiotics and stuff in it, but it’s it becomes almost its own entity. You make your sour dough starter and then you have to feed your sour dough starter. It becomes like its own thing that you have to then feed twice a day to keep it alive, to keep it fried to, you know, to keep it healthy.

00:58:35:52 – 00:59:00:41
Lucy
Yeah. And then the actual process of making sourdough bread can be a like two day process to actually end up with. Then a loaf of bread at the end of it. But it’s completely worth it. It’s, you know, it’s to to go for all of that effort and to have basically raised this culture that you then, you know, baking to this wonderful loaf of bread is, you know, it’s an achievement.

00:59:00:55 – 00:59:32:20
Agent Palmer
All right. Well, I’ll consider it. I’ve already like on my list of things because I think I’ve got my favorite bread down. That’s fine. And I’m going to make other bits great. But I, I do want to start buns. Buns is my next. I think that’s my next, challenge because, you know, I, I enjoy, you know, sausage or, you know, burgers or whatever, but I, I, you know, when it comes to, like, a sandwich, the bread makes it really.

00:59:32:25 – 00:59:55:14
Agent Palmer
And I think the same is true if you’re having a sausage or a burger. And I want to, that’s my next goal. Although I think right now, I’m lacking in the, the accouterment like, I wouldn’t like. I don’t know if I’m supposed to get, like, a mold or if I’m just supposed to mold it myself and put it there and hope for the best.

00:59:55:21 – 01:00:19:27
Agent Palmer
I’m. That’s kind of the next, like, real trial. But I have a friend who’s a baker for desserts, and, like, that’s his thing. That’s fine. We’ll invite him if we need dessert. You know, taking care of bread. It’s a it’s all good. But I’m. I don’t know, I’ll. I’ll consider the sourdough, but it is a lot of work, and I’ve.

01:00:19:32 – 01:00:33:23
Agent Palmer
I’ve got my own little child now that I have to feed and keep alive. So the idea of another one that lives in the fridge that I have to feed twice a day is,

01:00:33:28 – 01:00:39:15
Lucy
Fair enough. But if you need tips on how to make it, then, you go. Okay, I can definitely give you some advice.

01:00:39:15 – 01:00:49:41
Agent Palmer
On it, and I will, I will, I will happily because I feel like it would it would you would, enjoy it I will I will give you my, my bread recipe because I feel like.

01:00:49:41 – 01:00:50:29
Lucy
Okay, you.

01:00:50:31 – 01:01:21:43
Agent Palmer
You will probably end up with better bread than I do, because I feel like your ingredients will probably be a higher quality. I it’s a it’s a different it’s a different podcast altogether. But yeah, I, I think that it might be that you and I are similar in that it is about feeding. I think it there’s a social aspect of it, of the cooking at the end that kind of, you know, I don’t mind being in the kitchen by myself, put on some music, enjoy.

01:01:21:49 – 01:01:27:15
Agent Palmer
You know, doing the stuff. But at the end I don’t want to eat it alone.

01:01:27:19 – 01:01:28:07
Lucy
No. Yeah.

01:01:28:12 – 01:01:50:55
Agent Palmer
You know, give me a group of 4 or 5, six, seven, eight, whatever I can fit around comfortably around the or uncomfortably around the dining room table. Well, if you’re being invited over, you’re, you know, basically family, so it’s fine. And then. Yeah, like, let’s have some fun, I guess. I don’t know. And this is all new, like I used to just cook is a function.

01:01:51:07 – 01:01:59:01
Agent Palmer
And maybe it’s that kind of grind when you have a career, that’s that’s that’s what you do.

01:01:59:06 – 01:02:02:41
Lucy
When cooking is just a necessity. Like you have to eat. So you have to cook.

01:02:02:41 – 01:02:26:17
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. But now I even though I do still have to eat, cook to eat, you know, I, I try have a little bit more fun. Let’s get a little bit you know it’s it’s the little things. It’s not a lot. And you have to do it all the time. So if you can find some joy in it, you know, you get some joy every day.

01:02:26:22 – 01:02:27:52
Lucy
Absolutely, I completely agree.

–End Transcription–

This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).