Olde Skye Farms

Today I'm talking with Katy at Olde Skye Farms. You can follow them on Facebook as well.

00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Katie at Old Sky Farms. Good morning, Katy. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. Tell me about yourself and Old Sky Farms because I know you have a lot going on right now. We do have a lot going on, but I feel like we're just getting started and don't know where to start, but we're starting.

00:29 Yup. So we have, we moved from Florida almost two years ago to North Carolina. So we went from like 0.26 acres to 23. Nice. And it's been a lot of cleanup and fixing structures and getting things ready for livestock and animals and all of those sorts of things. But we're just now getting into agritourism. Yeah.

00:58 and figuring out how to make that work for us on the farm. We just had our first big event, which was an Easter egg hunt, and that turned out pretty good. We have currently nine Nigerian dwarf goats. Three of them are, well, they're kind of babies. They're almost like teenagers now. And about 30 something.

01:25 adult chickens and then of course it's chick season so we have probably like 20 chicks right now. And the next thing we're adding are Highland cows in May which we're really excited about. How many? Two babies so they're half siblings. Fun. Yeah we're really looking forward to that and the experiences that we could you know open up to people with them.

01:53 Sure. Agrotourism is basically using what you have at your farm to have people come in and see how the farm works or having events at the farm. Yes? Yes. Yeah, exactly. We're still new to it too, but I did join. North Carolina has something called the Agrotourism Networking Association.

02:21 So it's basically farms from all over the state that do all sorts of things like hay rides you pick or just come visit the farm for camp or field trips, things like that. The fun stuff. Yeah, the fun stuff. Okay. Yeah, and that's been a really good resource, especially just starting out. And they had their annual conference in February. And one of the main things learning was just like,

02:51 There can be so many farms, but a family can visit each farm a different weekend and see something like experience something different completely. And just that there's room enough for everybody to succeed. Yeah. Okay, so I know what you were doing this morning because you told me in messages and I saw on Facebook, but can you tell the listeners what you and your husband were up to this morning? Yeah. So we were working on.

03:19 converting what was cropland into pasture. So my husband spent all week using a chain drag in our UTV because we don't have a tractor yet to prep the soil. And this morning we were seeding it also with our UTV and then a hand spreader. So it's going to be a long day. Yeah, so what time were you guys up and at them to do this this morning? Well, I have a

03:46 almost two-year-old daughter. So once my mom came to watch her, we went out. So probably, I mean, we were up around six, but probably got out there around eight. Okay. The reason I ask is because farming and homesteading and ranching, whatever term you want to use, is real work. It's not just, oh, yay, we're having baby cows or we're getting baby cows or, oh, the chicks are cute.

04:12 It's a lot of work when you're doing it. It is a lot of work and yeah, I'm just very thankful for my husband too because it would just be a lot harder. So those that are doing it by themselves, I give them a lot of props. Yeah, I'm not doing it by myself. My husband and my 22-year-old son right this second are outside putting in the, I don't know what they're called. They're like pavers, but they're actually tall and they have an X in the top so that

04:42 put things in that X to make a foundation. Oh, okay, yeah. The wood goes into the Xs and they're beginning the build on our heated greenhouse. I'm so excited. That is exciting. I had listened to one of your previous ones and I heard that you got a grant, which we're also working to try and get a grant for a hoop house to do producing stuff.

05:05 Yep. And hoop houses are great, but I really, really, really wanted a solid greenhouse, if that makes sense. Because we've lost one hoop house to the wind and I was just like, I can't watch another one blow over. I will just cry. And so when I saw that there was a grant available and I told my husband about it, he was like, you should apply for that. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I said, okay, I'm going to apply for it. I didn't have a hope in hell.

05:33 of getting it. I didn't think that we were ready. And apparently they