Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm.

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00:00
You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer? Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business? Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you. You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15, you'll get 15% off your registration costs.

00:29
And that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm in Montana, right? Yes, Billings, Montana. Yeah. I've talked to a couple of people in Alberta in the last few days and I keep thinking Alberta. I'm like, no, she's not in Canada. She's in the States. Okay. How are you ma'am?

01:00
I am doing wonderful this morning and yourself? I'm good. How's the weather where you are? It's it's a little chilly, but not as bad as it could be. Okay. It is definitely chilly here. We got sleet for the first time this season this morning and it has all melted away already and the sun is peeking out. So it's, uh, it's looking like it's going to be a pretty day, but it sure didn't look that way at three o'clock this morning when I got up, when I got up for no apparent reason. It was.

01:28
pouring rain here at 3 a.m. Oh no, we haven't had a lot of moisture. I've been pretty lucky on that. I do have my wool out, but it's like mainly for mornings and evenings and then you just don't want to get caught out before the temps go back down. yeah, it's been a beautiful extended fall here. It sounds like it has been there too, so that's good.

01:55
Okay, so Chelsea was a guest on the show back in May and she was telling me all about her regenerative urban farm or urban regenerative farm. said it in the wrong order. So give me a quick update on who you are and what you do, Oh, well, I am someone that just took their health into their own hand and it led me here and now I like to grow lots of things and

02:24
have chickens and I just added rabbits. eh And the attempts of creating a decentralized intentional community that's focused around edible landscaping and self-sufficiency and personal growth. Okay, I have a question about decentralized. Is that the same thing as hyper local community?

02:54
I have absolutely no idea. just said decentralized because we won't live together. Okay. Cause with everything that's been going on in the States right now, I've talked to a couple of people on different aspects of the whole snap fiasco and what we don't, we don't use snap, but I definitely was on wick when I had my first baby. And, I think maybe way back.

03:22
My first husband and I might have had to use food stamps and it wasn't a card then it was actual like paper vouchers. But, but SNAP is really, really important, but more important than SNAP, think is number one, not finding yourself in a position where if SNAP goes away, you're, there's a bad word, you're in trouble. And that learning to cook helps with that planning ahead.

03:51
and trying to get things stored away in your pantry or your cabinet for an emergency is really important. And your local growers is really important because farmers in my experience really want to help. I can tell you right now, someone had pulled into my driveway and said, do you have eggs? I'm on the SNAP program. I don't have any food. Can I just have some eggs? I would have given them eggs. Yeah. I mean, it's hard because for me, you know,

04:19
grew up, was a welfare kid, you know, like I didn't have a great childhood. And, know, even when I raised my children, I had to utilize that even though I still worked full time, you know, I went to college full time, uh, online and when I was working full time and raising two kids by myself, and I definitely used food stamps, but I still had to go sit outside of food banks, you know, on the weekends and in some way forage.

04:48
or additional resources while raising two boys. So I get it. I get using resources, but I also understand that being dependent on them makes you a slave. Exactly. And you don't want to be a slave. And let me just clarify, there is absolutely no shame in utilizing the resources that are available to you that taxpayer money pays for, especially if you're one of the taxpayers paying for it.

05:19
But I also, you know, as, someone who has lived lots of lives, one of them is, you know, I have been part of the Mormon church and watching how they take care of their own and just everything that I've ever seen. I've lived in low income housing where there was 31 units and we didn't even have an apartment manager for a long time. And we took care of each other. We had a little community garden. You just have to be more intentional and connected.

05:49
You know, people are very disconnected with where their food comes from. They're disconnected that they can forage food or grow food. And they're disconnected from each other too. Yeah. I mean, everything. We just need to be more empowered and think about what we can do instead of all the things we can't. Right. Exactly. Okay. So you and I talked back in May and what's new? Is anything new? I know you had a...

06:16
uh, community gathering kind of event last night. Yeah, I went to, um, Morgan with Ruby Grazer had a homesteader meet up yesterday during the day. Um, I have my first intentional community meet up this Thursday coming up. Yeah. Uh, I've been on a few more podcasts about various things and

06:43
given a couple more interviews. I've added rabbits, meat rabbits to the farm recently. ah Yeah, I mean, but everything's kind of calming down right now for the season and focusing more on community and building that at this point since it gets cold here and there's not a lot of growing until I get my greenhouse up and going. Yes, and you had mentioned on the last episode, last episode we did.

07:11
that you were going to turn your swimming pool into a greenhouse and that has not happened yet? We have utilized the last season of it and it's completely empty and so we'll begin the conversion once it's kind of safe weather wise to do so. We don't want to be caught in the middle of that and then have a whole bunch of water pool up on us because we're in winter. Yeah, no, that would be really bad. Let's not have that happen. um

07:39
Do you have any idea how long it will take to convert it?

07:44
Um, that's the thing. Like it, for me, honestly, depends on how fast the parts I have to rely on other people go. Okay. If it's me, my neurodivergence just hyper fixates and gets it done. Like my front food forest or food meadow I did in a day once I had a blank canvas.

08:12
Yeah. And it's so funny because many hands make light work, but many hands also make many distractions. Well, yeah. I just, you know, if there's like welding, I don't have that as something I'm proficient in at this point in time in my life. You know, so there's, if I have to rely on someone else's schedule, there is a little different latency than I deal with than if I were doing it myself. Definitely. Yeah. I understand. um

08:42
When my husband and my son built our greenhouse, they spent, oh, every weekend for, I think, five weekends building it. it's, think it's 25 by 15 or something like that. I thought it was 40 by 20, but I was informed that it's smaller than that. And I was like, oh, I was wrong. But they got it done over the course of a month. And had we had more people, I still think it would have taken a month because there would have been a lot of chatting and

09:09
probably would have been beer and pizza involved and it just probably would have taken the same amount of time. think the thing that's going to take me the longest is because the swimming pool, I'm on like a shotgun property, so it's long and narrow and the pool is at the back of my property and there's no alley. It's going to be actually will bearing all the soil back there myself. Oh, you're gonna, you're gonna be even more fit than you already are by the time you're done with it.

09:40
I mean, that's part of the cool thing about like farming or homesteading is you don't need a gym membership no more. So how was the homestead meeting with Morgan yesterday? I'm so curious because I saw that on Facebook and I just interviewed Morgan the other day. So how did that go? It was good. It was small. There was like her and I and our husbands and then one other person that showed up.

10:09
Everything kind of trickles in. So it was nice to just kind of talk about things. It'll grow. I bet you it will grow. I bet not the next meeting, but I bet a month from now you'll probably have like five extra people. Well, home studying is kind of a trend right now. So like every type of convention or fair I go to, it's either back to traditional skills or it's like plastic 3D printed stuff, know, like

10:39
There's no, it's either or. And so I think it will definitely catch on as people wake up to needing to have their own sustenance. Yes. Somebody else I talked to last week called it personal sovereignty. Yes. And I loved that because I love the word sovereignty. I have always been entertained by that word.

11:07
Mostly because people think of um you know, medieval England and the sovereign king and blah, blah. But it's not that sovereignty is having your own choices and your own skills and being able to rely on yourself first. I just, I love that word so much. Man, that's what makes me hecka thankful for all my trauma because

11:32
You know, I've had to be that way since childhood. um But the problem with that also is that it requires that people use their agency.

11:44
And people prefer for someone else to be the villain or responsible. I don't. I don't love that. I am. uh I'm a minor control freak, so I really do like relying on myself because if I want to get it done, it's got to be me. Well, yes. And there is the reason why you're also a homesteader. What? There's a reason why? What? That you're also a homesteader. Yes, exactly.

12:13
Exactly. So tell me about the rabbits. Rabbits are a new adventure for you? They very much are. We just added them last week. had said to my husband, because ultimately the goal for me is to close everything on my property and show people that that can be done in the city. um So we have animals that do require meat, even if I don't eat them myself. Yeah. But we could use the textile, the fur.

12:42
Um, so we did, we added a boy and three girls. And last week, and that is what I told my husband we should do for each other for Christmas. It was to add our meat. Sweet. That's perfect. Yeah. So are the, any of the dough is pregnant or are you going to be breeding them? No, we're going to Jamaica next month. Um, this has been planned since last Christmas with his family.

13:09
So we're going to breed them right before we leave. That way there's no chances of anyone house-sitting the farm and having to deal with that. Yep. I think it's two months. Two months from breeding date to birth, I think. I think it's 31 days actually. Oh, is it? Yeah. That's why there's such a great livestock, especially for small properties, because it's quick.

13:37
Oh my God, you're right. I'm sorry. I was thinking cats, not rabbits. Um, we've, had meat rabbits for a little while and you're right. It's like 30 days, 31 days. Yeah. Cats are two months. Cause we've had, we've had a barn cat that's had kittens three times and it took two months. Yeah. At our other house, my husband liked to leave the basement door open and we had two stray litters in there that we ended up taking in and then giving out. Yup.

14:06
We're actually getting three kittens this weekend from friends because we have two barn cats now that's it and We have no female barn cats and all of her kittens seem to be female But we need barn kittens because we need them to keep the mice down in the pole barn So if you see a photo of kittens on my Facebook page Monday, you'll know why Okay, so the only thing that I would say about the bunnies because we've done it before

14:36
is you have a place for them to be warm because the cold is really hard on them and hot is really hard on them. So right now they're in the main house. have a bedroom in there that has like tile floor and that we've done up for them because they and the chickens will eventually live in the greenhouse. Yeah.

14:59
Okay. greenhouse is going to be really, really cool because I'm not just like doing greenhouse. It's going to be just like an underground food forest that you can walk through and hang out in. And I want to do like a rocket stove type of situation to help heat and do some like radiant heating in the soil.

15:21
So there's a lot of different plans in there. Nice. I can't wait. I can't wait to read about this when you post about it, because I'm assuming you'll post about it. Oh, absolutely. There's going be hangouts. mean, in the winter time, we just enclosed our covered area too, so we can hang out there. But like, if I'm going to be hosting a lot of community events here to have all these outdoor spaces when it's cold six months of the year, it's going to be fantastic.

15:50
And it's really great to have a hands-on experience too for the next generation to be in touch with their food. So to have like the chickens and the rabbits running around and then the kids just being able to hang out with them is going to be awesome. Yes. And please, please, please do that. I just had a conversation with someone not on the podcast the other day about the fact that the people.

16:16
The younger generations, it seems so weird to say that. I just turned 56 on November 4th and I can't say we anymore because I'm older than most people I talk to now. The younger generations are not teaching their kids these skills. They're not teaching them animal husbandry. They're not teaching them how to grow plants. They're not teaching them how to cook. And it can die out in a generation and that is not a good thing.

16:44
and coming from the concrete jungle, not having, I didn't even know that vegetables didn't come from a can until I was almost an adult. That's the kind of childhood I had. didn't, yeah. So I'm very, very determined that those skills don't go away. I've had to learn them, but I burned down those gates as soon as I go through them. Good, keep doing that.

17:13
because we need you, we need people like you. And we need people like my mom who very much wanted to teach me to cook when I was a teenager. And I really didn't want to learn to cook. I wanted to go babysit and make money. I wanted to go hang with my friends. I wanted to go to my job because I had a job too. And uh I ended up learning almost by osmosis by watching my mom cook because

17:38
she would have loved for me to be right there in the kitchen with her working side by side. And I was like, nah, I got stuff to do. And that's not good. And I actually love to cook now. And I think it's partially from my mom. So yeah, if you're a mom listening and you have kids, get them in the kitchen with you. Learn to cook with them if you don't really cook. Even if it seems like it's inconvenience, because you're going to have to do more work.

18:05
Yeah, but make it a game, make it fun. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. I learned because I had to experiment and, you know, I grew up mainly on, you know, everything that was leading to the anaphylaxis that I was living in because

18:28
know, poor people foods mainly have tomatoes and ground beef in them and whatever version, whether it's spaghetti or tacos or hamburger helper or sloppy joes or whatever it is. And those are the things that I, I actually need to avoid because the histamine intolerance that I have. So.

18:51
Definitely getting that connection to our food is so, important. It's because I get just seeing all these people be like, why can't you just go to the store and get it? It is just so sad. Well, you can always tell them the truth or you can just be a snot and say, because I don't want to. Yeah. Unfortunately, my brand of petty is always being the better person. Uh-huh. I understand. I do.

19:21
But you can only explain it so many times and then they ask you for like the 12th time and you're like, because I don't want to. And I've done that before and people look at me like I'm crazy. But that's why for me, relationships that I have at this point have one pre-correquisite and that's that the other person has a growth mindset because I can't disturb my peace with people who refuse to grow. I'm growing too fast.

19:48
Yeah, that's why I don't have a whole lot of people around me ever because the ones that stay are the ones that are good. Yeah, I don't believe any good or bad. I just think there's lots of different perspectives. We're all on different journeys and some of us prefer comfort over growth. growth requires discomfort and we're sold comfort and convenience as the American dream. You know, like...

20:17
Yeah, and I meant good, like good for my peace of mind and not having to... Oh, got you. Okay, sorry. Not having to make myself crazy to make other people There's some autism literalism coming in right there. I do it too, honey. I do all the time. And my husband has ADD, so trying to have him, you know, have a conversation with me is really interesting sometimes because he's all over the place and I just need a straight line sentence. And I'm like, back up.

20:46
five sentences. I, you lost me. And he's like, I don't remember five sentences ago. And I'm like, okay, start from here. What are you trying to tell me? And we get it figured out, but it's really, I would hate to record a hour long conversation between us and play it. Cause you would be like, what in the world were you guys trying to get at? Well, being that I have like body HD, I might actually get it. Cause the conversations that happen in my head oftentimes, I don't think most people would want to be privy to.

21:16
Yeah, it's so hard sometimes and you know how it is with people you love you want to listen you want to understand and there are days where I'm just like I don't I don't get it I honestly do not understand what you're trying to tell me and he says okay hang on let me let me get my thoughts together let me get them in order and then I will say it again I'm like okay and like ten minutes later he'll come back and be like

21:43
This was what I was trying to say and he will tell me in a straight line and I'm like, oh, I get it now. Thank you. So there's a lot of patience and love involved in our relationship. Well, that's good because I mean, that's the relationship is to have that yin yang where you balance each other out, you know? Yeah, exactly. And we sure do. It may take a few bumps and stumbles, but we do. We eventually get to the same place. And you both have grown at that point in time.

22:13
because now you have another view of or perspective because you had to kind of like muddle through it a little bit to see it all the way. Yeah. Yeah. It's that never leaves. Yes. And the other thing that's funny is sometimes when, when this, this miscommunication happens, new ideas pop in to getting his thoughts together and he'll tell me the thing. He'll tell me the thing you want to tell me. And he'll be like,

22:41
As I was thinking this through, I had this other thing pop in and I'm like, uh-huh. And he tells me that and that's clear because he's gotten his thoughts in order. And co-regulation and verbally processing, those things are beautiful love languages. Uh-huh. And it's so funny because the first time he said it this way to me, probably 15 years ago, the whole, got another thing popped in and he told me.

23:10
what he wanted to say and then the new idea and it was all in a straight line, made sense, all words in the right order, blah, blah. I put my hand over my mouth and I couldn't look at him and he was like, are you upset? And I was like, I put my finger up, like, just give me a second. And I took a big deep breath and I looked at him. I said, I was trying not to laugh because I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing in amusement and appreciation of the person that you are.

23:37
And he said, go ahead and laugh. said, I get what you're doing. And I was like, okay, I just giggled, just giggled for five minutes straight. And he was laughing with me at the same time because it was very funny how that all went. And now I expect it, but either way getting way, way far afield again, because psychology makes me just, I love psychology and how people's thoughts and brains work. I mean, really it's all connected. It is. Let's be honest. Everything's connected.

24:07
And the other thing I wanted to say is that one of the ways you can really get kids interested in all the things we want them to be interested in, food, growing your own food, animal husbandry, all of that, is remembering that we are nature. Humans are part of nature. And taking them out for hikes and stuff in the woods and showing them edible plants and where the animal tracks are and the deer trails are.

24:35
that will spark them into asking questions. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know how to go out in the woods personally. oh You know, that's not anything that I was ever really taught. I know how to go camping and I know how to like throw a hammer, but like hunting and tracking and all of that, I've never had the opportunity or anyone to show me how to do any of those things. So this is why I literally have to grow a forest around me.

25:03
so that I can know my plant allies from seed to fruit and through their death and rebirth cycles. And that's how I have to learn is through experience and teaching myself and just relying on my brothers and sisters that aren't human. Well, if you ever come to Minnesota, darling, we will go on a nature walk. We will go on a nature hike and I will show you some things that you know.

25:31
That would be wonderful because I have lots and lots of books. But I mean, there's still a little bit of like, what if, you know, when it's when it's a book and so that's why I like I have to plant things that look like so that I can know the differences. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we used to take our kids when they were little, we used to take them hiking. We were really blessed to live in an area where there's hiking trails and.

26:00
The kids loved it and we came across a patch of wild asparagus. And there is technically no such thing as wild asparagus. mean, I'm sure that there originally was, but now it's more like asparagus seeds have gotten dropped by birds in the ditches. And we came across a patch and I was like, oh my God, asparagus. Cause I love it. I love asparagus. And my youngest was like, can be asparagus.

26:25
Why is asparagus growing in the woods? And I said, because some bird probably ate the seeds and then pooped them out and they grew. He's like gross. And I said, yes, yes, it's a gross process, but it's very important because that's how things grow. And we had a whole talk about this and he's looking at the asparagus and he's like, well, it tastes like the asparagus from the store. And I said, no, it'll be better. And he said, can I break off a piece and try it? And I was like, of course you can. Cause I knew it had just rained. I knew that it was probably fine.

26:54
So he broke off a little piece and bit into it and chewed it and the look on his face was priceless. He's like it is sweet like candy and I said, of course it is because it's been grown in nature. ah He ate the rest of it. He said, can we come back in a week or so and pick some more? I was like, of course we can and we did and he ate it and most kids don't like asparagus.

27:18
So that's my favorite memory from a hike where I actually got to teach my kid about plants and about nature.

27:27
That is very, very cool. My very first step into any of this was like essential oils through someone that was still on doTERRA, you know? ah To learn anything about holistic wellness at all. My children like to call them my witch's oils, because I literally like Lavender Balm any of their sleepovers. um But now they will. They'll call me like, Mom, I'm dealing with this.

27:56
What would you do for this? Like, it is cool. It is very cool. And we can show them some things specifically for me that I wasn't, I did not have an example of growing up, you know? Yeah, I do know. And it's, I was really lucky, Chelsea. My parents are big nature nerds. mean, they hunt, they fish, they grow, they grew a garden every year. They still do. And my mom's 80 and my dad's 83.

28:27
They had us involved in everything, whether we wanted to be or not. least favorite. tried with mine. I really did to like, I had the requirements of a language and an instrument at least in school. Yeah, my least favorite memory is my mom and dad had permission to go out and pick the blueberry field out behind the neighbor's house.

28:53
It would have been six acres of blueberries. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And, um, number one, it wasn't my favorite thing to do because anyone who's picked blueberries knows that it is a, an utter pain in the butt because they're little tiny berries. And I'm not looking forward to picking my honey berries. I understand. Yeah. And the plants that they grow on, they're pokey. They're like a woody stem. So you're reaching into these plants to pick blueberries and you're scraping your hands on the stems.

29:22
And that wasn't even the worst of it. I didn't like picking blueberries to begin with. But my sister reached into a yellow jacket nest when we were picking blueberries. I think she was probably 10 or 11 and I'm a year and a half older than her. And I didn't know what happened. All I know is I had never heard my sister howl in pain. And she jumped up and was running away and the yellow jackets were

29:51
chasing her. They're flying after her and she kept getting stung. She must have gotten stung at least 60 times. And luckily she wasn't allergic, but she was definitely swollen up and she was very much in pain. And I loved my sister and hearing that sound come out of her, I still hear it in my nightmares sometimes. So again, my parents tried to have us with them.

30:17
doing whatever they were doing, but that one really sticks out to me because that was really hard. Not that there's always yellow jacket nests and blueberry fields, but sometimes there are and you need to pay attention. So we had a wasp nest on the water slide this last season. So one of the last bigger events we had a kid actually got stung twice because we didn't see that it was on there as they were going down the water slide.

30:44
Very quickly ran out into the yard and got some yarrow and made a poultice and put it on there and it just removed everything so Yeah, isn't it amazing how nature has a solution for everything? It is and then the little boy was following me around asking me about the plants which was that was cool See there's a there's a silver lining in everything. I swear. Yeah Unreal I love it. That's amazing

31:14
You are, again, I told Morgan this the other day that I'm proud of her. And I'm going to tell you I'm proud of you and that I'm so impressed with what you're doing. Thank you very much. Thank you for connecting people together. I'm trying everything I can to do that. And it's really super fun. So there's a payoff for me too. All right, Chelsea, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're there. Where can people find you?

31:41
Uh, right now I'm still on Facebook, but I have probably intentions of removing myself from Facebook and everything again once I get this up and going. like, if people do want to get connected, they should do that. Otherwise it's going to just be like snail mail or telephone. Okay. How is that going to work? I don't have any desires to be

32:10
famous or anything. just have desires to create and cultivate a peaceful place for people to come and be a part of and have rest and recovery if they'd like. I don't care about any way of this world and how it operates. I'm just creating my own. Okay. So basically right now people can find you on Facebook, but if they want to keep track of what's going on at your place, they need to get hold of you.

32:40
through your phone or they need to get an email. I haven't a rosewood urban regenerative farms at gmail.com is an email if people want to get in touch. Okay, cool. Because I'm like, you're doing really cool stuff, people are going to want to know and want to be involved, but they're not going to be able to find out about it. At some point, I'm going to need someone who wants to deal with the outside world. It's just, you know,

33:06
want to be surrounded by the problems. I had to crawl out of the problems as a child, you know, and I finally have peace and safety and I just, I can cultivate that for others. I just don't want to deal with a lot of the other problems anymore. I don't blame you at all. And you know what? You have to do what's right for you. So you do that. You stay true to yourself because it's the best way to live.

33:33
All right, as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And if you'd like to support the podcast, you can go to atinyhomestead.com slash support. um Chelsea, thank you for coming back. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Have a great day.