Blair is a farmer, a mother, a homeschooler, a milkmaid, a renegade. On this episode, I sit down with Blair Prenoveau who you might know as @startafarm on Instagram. In this episode, she unpacks why you might start a farm including the deep purpose, nutrition, and connection it offers. She doesn’t, however, shy away from the hardships and together we deep dive into the financial hardship that is owning a very small farm. We also talk about intimacy with your food and connecting to death. She shares about her journey raising 4 homeschooled kids largely solo and what it has meant to be a single mother farming. The positive feedback loop on eating nourishing food is an important topic, and we posit why it may just be the most important step in getting people to start more farms. 

We Also Talk About: 

• Mending 
• Milking
• & so much more 

Find Blair:

Instagram: @startafarm 

Timestamps:

00:00:00: Kate on a note of hope 

00:05:23: Nervous Systems

00:08:33: What Good Shall I Do Conference 

00:10:15: Our own labor counts when raising our food 

00:13:22: Blair’s background

00:22:43: Start a farm 

00:44:15: Connecting deeply to our animals 

01:03:29: Bucking the system 

01:18:00: Farming and parenting

01:28:00: Farming finances 

01:45:40: Raw cream saves the world 

Mentioned in Intro

Irene Lyon’s SmartBody SmartMind Course

What Good Shall I Do Conference

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Blair Episode

[00:00:40] As the saying goes, as above so below, join me as we take a curious journey into agriculture, biology, history, spirituality, health, and so much more. I can't wait to unearth all of these incredible topics alongside you.

[00:01:48] I paired this with, and I talk about this towards the, I'll talk about this a little bit more at the end of the intro, the upcoming, what Good Shall I Do Conference that I'm, I'm going to be a headlining speaker at Exploring Things from a Space of Hope. This podcast today has a really beautiful balance of hope and realism and just the juiciness that happens when we connect to farming.

[00:02:40] One of the things that this podcast and these interviews have given me is a sense of hope. We're kinda in the bottleneck of winter, especially those of us that live a little bit more northern. It's that time in winter where it's kind of worn you down. You're a little tired of it, and you're ready for spring, but you've still got a leg of winter to go.

[00:03:44] And I think that this is a really interesting. Tension between these two things, between hope and reality to begin to explore and untangle a little bit. And so I hope this, this podcast is a decent dose of both. And I'll tell you the work that Blair is doing as a single mother on a farm, homeschooling for kids, connecting them back to skills, back to the land, and a sense of deep nourishment, not just of the bodies of herself and her family, but the land that she's on is just a really beautiful and hard and inspiring and hopeful tale.

[00:04:58] And so I just can't wait for you to hear this podcast. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I am always open if you want to reach out via email, via DM on Instagram and to connect and talk about this and let's begin to find some of this, this tension between, between hope and realism and really just dig in deep.

[00:05:48] And this is something that we did early in the podcast, and it's part of my desire to connect with people in the tangible real world through snail mail. And so if you wanna leave a review and send me a snapshot on Instagram or on k@groundworkcollective.com, I'll shoot you a little note in the mail. And.

[00:06:35] I want to balance that with a hearty dose of realism, which I think you'll find in this podcast is Blair and I explore some of the financial aspects of running a farm. But I want to leave us really hopeful for what building more connection in our life, and that doesn't have to be farming. It can just be the connection with the food on our plates or the connection with our loved ones at the table, what that can really begin to foster.

[00:07:38] I've had Irene on the podcast a couple of times, and we recently sat down to do an Instagram live where we teased out the connections and parallels between regenerative agriculture and beginning to do the work to restore health to our nervous systems. And I think that these are two sides of the same coin and the work that she's doing to really help.

[00:08:33] My next little bit of business is really, uh, something that is near and dear to my heart that I am incredibly excited about, and that is the force of Nature meets what Good shall I Do. Conference this April 21st and 22nd in Fredericksburg, Texas. I'm one of the, I'm honored to be one of the headlining speakers and we are gonna go down to Texas and we are going to raise a whole lot of hope.

[00:09:34] And so I invite you to come down and join me in Fredericksburg, Texas and let us all become that. Connected community that is spreading these seeds of ideas that can take root in our own ecosystems. I'll also have a link for that in the show notes. And without further ado, in taking up any more of your very precious time, I would love to introduce Blair Novo.

[00:10:15] Blair: a thing. Supplement our farming habits. Sure. It's knowing, like the fact that the money, like the amount of money it takes to produce whatever, you know, food or item that you're growing, you're raising, it costs more money to produce it than what you can make off of it, for the most part, unless you do it in bulk.

[00:11:01] Kate: Absolutely. We end up, we end up paying to raise our own food. And that doesn't even include labor. Right. And I think that this is something that gets left off of that equation oftentimes is how much we're out there at least two plus hours per day tending to everything. Yeah. At

[00:11:22] And when there's little emergencies and Yeah, you're always on. You're always on the clock. Really. I mean, it's the same with children. Animals. There's no timeframe. . It's always So, it is always, isn't it? I think it's, and

[00:11:48] Everybody needs to go. Yeah. If you're not, if you're not doing anything, you're going to the freezer. Yeah,

[00:12:07] The plucker is an important tool. Um, it is. I think it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah. The time to make the process stream.

[00:12:33] And my hands were frozen, like little claws, uh, for days

[00:12:45] Kate: Yes. And pluck by hand. But now we can do, we can do 80 in one day because we have a pl and I find the gutting to be a very soothing process,

[00:13:01] Kate: I just love the gut stuff. It's really true. I do, I really love the gut

[00:13:22] Kate: in general. We've been talking for so long and I don't actually know your story, and one of the things I was thinking about as I prepared for this podcast was how you started a farm, because for years I only knew you by your Instagram handle.

[00:13:43] Blair: Yeah. Gosh, I, it was, I, I graduated high school in 2002 and I, oh, run of the mill youth, you know, just upstate New York, suburban upbringing and. And was expected to go to college and do the career path, whatever. My, I was into writing and I was into, uh, like communications and had thought about going into the newspaper business, so to speak, in some form, whether it was, you know, on the, like writing, I mean, writing was my focus, but then I went to school for one year for communications and, and did like English classes and I guess I was just discontent with that path for quite a while.

[00:14:51] And so I had this glimpse into the real inner workings of the newspaper and we had like a rotation around. And so I, I did see the business side of life, uh, in my senior year and. I think it turned me off to it , uh, a bit more than I would, you know, and I read like Emerson and Thoreau and was like, interested in transcendentalism.

[00:15:38] And so somehow in my, I did one year of college at SUNY Purchase and then, Somehow, well, I knew I wasn't gonna go back to college, and then somehow I came across some woofing websites. You know, it was the early days of the internet . Um, and somehow I came across like work trades on organic farms, and I, I didn't even really know.

[00:16:34] And, uh, and then I, I just decided to try to go work on a farm and I connected with this farm in Hawaii, just randomly picked it up, thought that Hawaii would be a good idea to start and yeah. Yeah. I mean, why not a farm in Hawaii? Yeah. I went to work on a farm. It was a coffee farm and they had. Well, they had little gardens and, but coffee was like their main crop that they, that they made, made money on.

[00:17:29] And so that was pretty impactful because I'd been in vegetarian for about 10 years and, but, I think that was actually also the farm where I discovered the book Nourishing Traditions. Mm. And so from working there and seeing how their farm was, which of course I won't, I don't need to get into it too, but much.

[00:18:11] I'm like, what exactly am I doing right now? Like, this isn't farm related, you know? But anyway, so from there, I pretty much instantly knew that I wanted a farm. I'd say it didn't take long, like it didn't matter what the situation was surrounding. As soon as I was there and working and even doing those silly labor tasks, you know, it was.

[00:19:00] I was there for a couple of months and it was , I'd say it was a loose, uh, situation because the owner wasn't really into doing the farming thing anymore, and we were kind of left to our own devices to like figure out what we wanted to do. Like if we wanted a interesting start a guard. Somewhere it was really open.

[00:19:48] Well, it's like right above the Yuba River is where they live, and I connected with them and they were milking the goats and growing the food and doing more like work together, homestead. It wasn't a commune by any means or you know, but it was more of a communal living situation. And I, and they said, yeah, come on over, like, come live with us.

[00:20:37] Like I need to have raw milk in my life. And so that dictated it. And then pretty much like all of my early twenties was. A, a farming journey, but also in my head, I was focused on saving money to try to buy my buy land. And it always seemed kind of out of reach because land was so expensive, like in upstate New York or in Massachusetts or Maine.

[00:21:30] And I just remembered that land was really cheap. And so after a handful of years of working and saving, I had, you know, $20,000 or so pretty much, which was enough for a, a down payment of sorts, uh, on a parcel that was 40 acres for 75,000. I mean, it was cheap, cheap bear land with No, well, we ended up putting in a, well after we bought it and it had an unpermitted, an unpermitted 16 by 24 cabin on it, which was what we lived in for about nine years there.

[00:22:38] Yeah, it's, it ain't easy. Farming, farming from scratch ain't easy.

[00:23:02] I think there's a, there's a really interesting point in there where, and I too was a lover of Throw and Emerson and we aren't shown, most of us that, you know, grow up in the blurbs or in the city, don't know that this is an option. And I spun my wheels for a long time in college. And I think that if I had seen this as an option, farming, not that it's easy, but that I would've connected with that much sooner.

[00:23:42] Blair: way. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, and that this kind of relates to the money concept because it's like, well, if everyone was farming, then . I mean, and that's, that's obviously a really broad generalizing concept.

[00:24:27] And it's, yeah, having know, knowing it's an option, knowing that you can, even if you're, you know, just growing a little garden to supplement your food or have some chickens or some meat rabbits or, you know, Yeah. It's, it's fulfilling in a way that is, and it's almost like you, you have to do it to know how good it's too mm-hmm.

[00:24:59] Kate: And I think there's purpose in this work, and I'm not saying that there isn't purpose in other work, but there is a deep purpose here.

[00:25:28] Wonder, studied by dedication to necessary tasks and doing them tethered to purpose in service of animals and land. These gifts are not given to us. We must dig for them. Milk the cow, feed the cow, drink the milk. And I think there's a lot in there about we have to dig for them, right? Like we have to dig for this purpose and.

[00:25:57] Blair: in it. Yeah. Yeah. Every day. I mean, every day when I sit under the cow, it's, it never gets less important feeling, you know, only more. Right. Only more important, like when in, in whatever type of inner emotional. It's time to milk the cow.

[00:26:35] And, you know, there's, it's a little esoteric, but, um, this was some, and I, I've mentioned this before, I think on, on Instagram because I love it, and I think about it all the time, is that years back, my friend Tabor heard from this old timer, I don't even know who that the, the action, the milking of the cow is like this, this jogging of the memory, this, this motion, this, this.

[00:27:19] You know? And so to me that's something I think of frequently when I'm milking, you know, it's, it's like this jogging of this memory, this, that we don't have, I mean, I don't, I didn't milk a cow as a child. I have no memory of that as a kid. But there is some memory, whether it's, you know, collective or, or cellular or muscle memory or, um, yeah, just.

[00:28:07] Kate: that, I like to think that too.

[00:28:28] And one of the things that I think you're writing elicits in me is that I think that this connection that we have with earth, with animals, there's this aspect that it's almost one of our birthrights that to be rooted in this thing. I have a. I have another quote from you. I have a lot of these. Uh, you say, I believe this bond , I believe this bond with beasts is one of the most vital elements of existence that was stolen from us.

[00:29:17] Yeah, I

[00:29:36] Kate: a concept, concept, concept. But, but I understand, and I think

[00:29:40] Yeah, so, so like, and it's still happening. You know, they, there's cultures still that are like, I think the last thing I was reading about was in Malaysia, maybe, I mean, anywhere, they're just, they take the people off the land, they take the animals from the people. They, you know, force nomadic, animal husbandry for century or for forever.

[00:30:29] It's, it's, uh, you know, I think maybe now more, at least in certain niche, niche markets, certain areas, people know about small farming and they know to that there's these options out there they can seek out. But I think for the majority of people going to the supermarket and buying food is, is just what you do.

[00:31:15] Yeah. We're removed from it, and so it's not part of our reality. And the farms are obviously far away from the cities. You know, the , you don't even see it. It's like a outta sight, outta mind.

[00:31:34] It's still present. It's still, I think it's, you know, tens of thousands of years of humans connecting to land and hunting and tending to animals that you cannot, that you cannot sever us from that in a couple of centuries.

[00:32:11] Yeah. I mean, if, if you're, if you're looking at the, I don't wanna be a downer, but , I mean, Humanity is not, is not at a super connected place. You know, where we're not, we're desperate for something else. I think, you know,

[00:32:48] And if that thing is to be connected Yeah. In, in the way that it is to raise all of your own food. Yeah.

[00:33:17] Can you imagine, , can you imagine if all, all the, all the schools were just working farms and, you know, you could have your, you could have your curriculum of, uh, math and social and, and English and all of it surrounding, but, you know, have, have that connection. Have the animals there, have the kids being raised.

[00:34:04] Like what if all the food that, that they're trying to heal you with was. Was actually this healing food instead of what we know . Yeah, what they're serving at hospital. Yeah, it's

[00:34:38] I think that that tugs at something else. Like everything in our culture and in our food has been sterilized. We've taken the life out of it, and I think with it, we've taken a lot of the vitality out of what it is to be human.

[00:35:08] at this point, then they're truly taking life, all life off the menu, you know? Yes. Um, but I mean, imagine, like, I was thinking, this is what I was envisioning was like a 50 gallon batch of bone broth or something, you know, like brewing bubbling away in a, in a hospital kitchen or like, like, have you ever seen those huge fur old fermentation vessels?

[00:35:35] Kate: I haven't seen that.

[00:35:47] Kate: of sauerkraut. Can you imagine

[00:35:54] Yes. I mean, we're, if you're born, I was born, I was born at a hospital. Um, I was so no shade, you know, like I wasn't raised this way at all. I was actually born by a C-section. So like, I, I didn't even get the , the, uh, first bacterial, you know, and I was not breastfed and all, all these things that are kind of like, Have built, built in.

[00:37:01] Yeah. I mean, I didn't come from it, so, but you've broken the definitely cycle, everything . Yeah.

[00:37:30] That you didn't have and sort of giving that back to

[00:37:56] And so to teach them to do better than I have done and Oh, I hear them whistling, actually. and two. Yeah, I, it's, it's interesting, like, I think I, I started my farming endeavors with a more selfish goal, you know, of like growing my own food and now it truly just feels like I'm growing food for the kids. I mean myself too.

[00:38:31] Kate: affirming for them too. I have another, I have another quote from you because I think that this is really to, to raise to raise kids on a farm. It's not just to feed them. I think there are these intangible benefits to being raised on a farm and a sense of autonomy and a sense of capable ness and work ethic that gets instilled.

[00:39:26] Blair: I love that. I hope I do. I mean, clearly you're, yeah. Yeah. I mean, but they're gonna grow up, you know, they're gonna grow up and they're going to still be people in this world. I mean, they're, it's, I also have, I think, a measure of, well, you can't have too much expectation, I guess, you know, I can teach them now with the hope that it'll stay with them, and yeah, it's, it's amazing.

[00:40:20] I mean, it's a big deal. It's important. It's a big deal, but to her it's no big thing. It's like, yeah, I can do that. Just, you know, she actually, we have a pellet gun and they, the kids have all shot it a few times, and now Willa has shot a couple of quail cuz there's. Uh, these little gangs of quail, like it'll be 2020 quail or so to a group, and occasionally there'll be some batches on our, on our property.

[00:41:10] Kate: it's all they've ever known and it, right. I'm sure it flows from them naturally. That, that that is their state of being, that that ancient power that you speak of has been turned on and they are seamlessly within this space. And, well, I know that you can. Raising our kids this way doesn't ensure anything.

[00:41:49] Blair: Yeah. I think they all seem really into it, and I hope that as they grow it, it grows too.

[00:42:19] So yeah, they, I guess in my, in my dream, they would all wanna stay on the farm and we could all keep farming together. But I also have to know, well, this is farming is my path, and for now it's theirs. And they are, they're definitely filling, filling the roles that they find, you know, Willa is especially, oh, that's what I was saying.

[00:43:09] I've always had someone else shoot them, and I, I want to be able to, to do that part and fill that role. So yeah, the fact that my, my daughter can do that is phenomenal to me. Like, uh, you know, it's, to be connected to something that you're willing to eat is a concept that I, it wasn't a part of my life until I was like 20 maybe.

[00:43:43] Kate: It is. It changes your life. This being connected to something that you're going to eat is, I think it's truly life changing and I don't know if it's life changing, if you grow up that way.

[00:44:15] And I think that one of the things that, one of the many things that you have been incredible at is giving all of us a peak of the level of intimacy that is possible between you and your food. And I, I think about, and I have, I have the entire. Post here about Genie, but about what it means to become close to and to love and care for an animal and to develop a deep relationship with them and to have them give of themselves for nourishment, whether that's meat or milk.

[00:45:15] Yeah,

[00:45:37] Said they were just, it was the, the Rouse Infa herd of milking Shorthorns. And she was just one of the masks of cow, you know, she was just kind of a random cow there that they had so many cows, you know? And he just said, this one's pregnant and expecting, so how about this one? I said, sure. You know, no. You know, it was just, it, it was interesting because the, uh, the farmer there, Stuart Rao, he had been a dairy man his whole life, and he was just one of those saltier, 80 year old thin milking cows his whole life kind of guys and.

[00:46:46] I mean, and he is like, I didn't do it with your cow . I'm like, yeah, but he is like you, you're always learn. It was just this like really stark memory for me of you're always learning, you know, like even at 80 something years old tending cows, it's like, that was this man's lesson. And anyway, so we got, we got Jeanie Cow in 2010 and yeah, she was, The cow that I learned how to have cows on.

[00:47:44] And yeah, she was just, she was the matriarch of the herd. And even though she didn't, she didn't have her horns, they had, uh, she had come dehorn, you know, they, they, uh, burned their horns at the day. Yeah. So no horns, but all of her offspring had horns. So even though she didn't have horns, she was. Up even up until the end.

[00:48:10] Kate: you guys. I mean all of that meat and milk and I mean, through pregnancies, your children, you

[00:48:41] And yeah, it's, it, I think the most intense part of farming is knowing like all, all in that timeframe, I knew that there would be the day that we would have to say goodbye to Jeanie Cow. And she's not gone. You know, like her, her skull is, is I see every day when I walk by, it's under the almond tree kind of next to one of the cow pens and her hides actually in the garage salted still.

[00:49:41] I mean, frankly, she might have lived longer. I, I don't know. She was just, I, I actually made the decision to have her put down and that was so. My decision was based on like if a cow, if, if an animal can get up and it eats and it poops and it drinks and it does what an animal should, then an animal has the will to live.

[00:50:35] and then that morning that I made the decision, it was, she, she couldn't get up. She was, I, I went out to the pen in the morning and she was on her side kinda scraping her hers into the dirt. And so I kinda pushed her head up so she could write herself and she got her legs under her and then got up right away.

[00:51:23] I didn't want to, you know, like she wasn't sick. She was unwell. She, she actually got up and walked around and drank some water. And then I had called the butcher and we, I ended up like leading her out of the pen and she was eating some grass that I had harvested for her. And then, yeah, the butcher came and shot her

[00:51:52] Kate: you right towards the end of the story that we are not trained to connect so deep and then be forced to let go so fast. So we must learn by doing and soak it up. Years of earnest effort and care and then it was. And then it is most kind to bring a friend's life to an end.

[00:52:32] To go out there and milk her and to touch her, to be with her, to have her be with you, you know, it's not one-sided. There's so much reciprocity in these relationships and then to, it's fleeting. And I think that something that we're not taught as kids that grow up in the suburbs and the cities is, is witnessing and being close to that fleetingness.

[00:53:19] It's, it's, you're holding on so tight and, and simultaneously almost letting go. And, you know, you can, you can steal your heart to it a bit. You, you can harden your, you know, and sometimes you, maybe you have, like, for certain people, maybe they have to, you know, like different people are gonna take, are gonna take this.

[00:54:01] I mean, , I get it. It's an enormously heavy truth to hold and eat and. When I, I remember first eating genie's meat was really emotional feeling. It wasn't just, oh, here's some meat stirred up in a pan . You know, it's, it was loaded feeling. Yeah. And emotional. And, you know, 12 years of my time with this animal in a mouthful of food , you know, and.

[00:55:01] And I think that's why the work is so rewarding, because, you know, there's some of it that's monotonous, you know, like washing milk jars. Certainly. I don't have a dishwasher, so I, I wash a lot of milk jars, so, you know, there's, there's parts of it that are less, well, you know, the, the details surrounding it are kind of manton.

[00:56:07] Value on these items. And it's, it's almost beyond, it's beyond commerce, you know, , it's,

[00:56:32] No, it's, it's beyond exactly, it's beyond val. It's, it's priceless. Like that level of nourish. Yeah, priceless and labor and connection. There is, there is no price point that Yeah. Could buy it.

[00:57:00] Two? They used to be two, I think. I haven't bought a, a package jars in a while, but I think it's like three or something per jar. Cuz I think the packages are 18 or something dollars now. Yeah, sounds about right. So to to that it's like people, ok, so a half gallon of milk, the going rate locally nowadays is about $10 a jar.

[00:57:55] And it's one of those things where you have to have a bulk amount of it to really like, make a profit off of it. Yes. And I don't have the milk amount of milk, you know, you need, you need like several cows in milk at a time in order to have a mass amount of milk to make a profit. But it just, yeah, the numbers don't, the numbers don't make sense.

[00:58:44] But for the most part, the way that I have the cows is by importing hay. , and that's

[00:59:08] And you can see, you can see how centralization holds financial appeal and you can see how decentralization holds Oh, holds appeal on a spiritual level, I

[00:59:35] I think, you know, they, they, they do, they make money off of our, our reliance on, on the way things are li you know, it's, Yes, on

[01:00:27] And at the same time, the, the heights of joy that come with it. I think it makes us, it cleaves you from the system in a way that you will no longer serve it. And that's not what the machine wants. No,

[01:00:56] Well, you know, you're just smarter. , you're smarter, you, you see, you see more, you know, you see the, the big picture that, I think that connection, like the connection to it and coupled with the nourishment from it, it's like, uh, earth shattering, you know, and not to sound. So, I don't know, like, it, it sounds sort of like woowoo, I guess, in a way, but.

[01:01:53] You're gonna, we're gonna be seren by the geese.

[01:02:11] Blair: How is that? I've never, I've yet, this is, this is having geese, um, from babies and I've, I've yet, I haven't harvested one so, That's, I, I

[01:02:22] I think the meat is incredible. I think it's rich and anxious and delicious. It almost looks like beef. It's so dark and red and purple, but they are salty when it comes to feathering. And so what my husband and I have decided with plucking is that we'll just eat some goose feathers with our goose. Oh yeah.

[01:02:47] Blair: Yeah. I kinda, there's a certain point where I give up too. Um, I don't, I don't mind if you feather there. Yeah. No,

[01:03:03] Like it's hard for us to even see it. Yeah. Because we're insulated and our neighbors are insulated, and so you don't even know. Yeah. How disconnected you

[01:03:29] It almost seems like if you're not exposed to it somehow, if you're not aware of it, then how, you know, like this saying, you don't know what you don't know. Mm-hmm. , it's, you can't , you can't grab onto something that you don't know is there, and so it's, it's inertia, right? It's like this, you see other people living like that and it's the accepted way and.

[01:04:20] Kate: think about that a lot.

[01:04:47] Yeah. And for you to be a, you know, to be a Taurus, to be a bull raising bulls and it's Yeah. .

[01:05:21] You might get weird looks from people. You might, you know, feel like an outcast, but it, I don't know. I feel like the, I feel like our, the movement is, is kind of getting bigger though. And, and it might just be, because that's my, what do they call it? Like your, your echo chamber? Yeah,

[01:05:42] Blair: A little bubble, but yeah.

[01:06:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the way that he, I, I lo I, I love him and I, and I really respect him. And, um, I appreciate his writing and what he does. And, you know, he, it's like, there's like this, I want this movement to be, to take over. I mean, how, like, wouldn't that be, you know, like the ? But I just, I don't know that it ever can, can be what, you know, the, like, I don't think it can be the dominant force, but I think it's gaining, gaining momentum and I think that there's more of a demand and as demand grows, More farmers are gonna come forward, I think, and and farmers who, who are shifting their practices.

[01:07:28] As that becomes the impetus and as they eat these foods, it changes their outlook on life and their brain chemistry, and then they want more of that and. Leads into more farmers and there's just sort of all these, these sort of positive feedback loops that build on just how good this makes

[01:07:52] Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it. I think that, yeah, like eating that food sparks something within us, right? And, and the eating, I mean, I'm not, I don't wanna get scientific, but eating the animal fats, , eating the animal fats is, well, we're animals and eating these powerfully nourishing foods enlivens us.

[01:08:40] I think it just promotes itself. It encourages itself within your body. Your, your, I think for me anyway, this is just, and for others that I've talked to about it, it's like for many people, yes, so many people who are like, Give me meals. Um, you know, it, it just, it's somehow sparks wanting to eat more like that and, and eat better.

[01:09:24] I mean, yeah. It's

[01:09:51] It creates an invaluable product, which cannot easily be interpreted by a price In terms of current market cost of. I think the effort and result is worth more than money can even quantify. And I am curious what a generation of humans sustained on meat like that would be. Like what if humanity as a whole could experience meat from animals who were raised expressing the depth of their animalness?

[01:10:35] Blair: Yeah. In, in a way that produces healthy bodies and minds and spirits. And I think I, I've seen it so many times, like in, um, I mean, I, I, I go to grocery stores still, obviously, I, I don't produce all my own food or anything, so I've seen it many times when I go into grocery stores and see what people are eating and then see humanity at large.

[01:11:38] Lifestyle diseases, you know, little, little kids shouldn't be dealing with. And it's not their fault. I mean, they're not the, they're not the ones deciding to eat these things. And frankly, then you could go so far as to say in, in a lot of cases, it's not the parents' fault either. I mean that they're, the parents are not founded with the information.

[01:12:25] It is. In my own family. In my own family, I've witnessed these kinds of scenarios where, where like kids are little, little kids with diabetes and yeah, obesity problems at young ages and it's. It doesn't need to be this way, you know, like it it could, it could be, we could change it. It's just it needs to be foundational.

[01:12:53] Kate: Stop everything right now. If it, you know, if Yeah, possible. And I, you touched on something and I think we're, we're in a system that sews disconnection, eating food that's completely disconnected from reality.

[01:13:38] Blair: Yeah, definitely . Yeah. The whole country. A farm. I mean, and that's, you know, that like, it, it sounds kind of outlandish, you know, when you put it like, yeah, let's stop everything and, and just change, you know? And, and I mean, I, but it ha but that's it, right? I mean, so something has to, to change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:14:23] And um, yeah. Gosh, that would be nice. I

[01:14:50] And I think that as human creatures, we want to mend both the macro and the micro.

[01:15:26] And, and for years I just sort of googled the, the mending photos. And then I finally just picked up, picked up the old, you know, ripped pants and got into it and. I love it. I mean, it's, it's amazing. It's like this art, it's an art com. Not that I have a ton of time for it, really, but it's an art and it's functional, you know, like fixing old pants that have been, well usually a lot of my pants, it's from, from crouching, squatting to milk.

[01:16:27] It's that finished product of function again. And I love that about it. And I just, you know, like it, it feels, obviously it's productive to put something that's, you know, needs mending back into working order. And for me, that's, um, I think that's, that's all of like, what my, I think my favorite thing about farming honestly, is that there's always something to be fixed.

[01:17:13] And it's an overwhelming feeling as I know. I know that you're well aware. Oh yeah. But it's, it's also, it's also beautiful, you know, it's like there's always something to do. Like you can look at it in both ways of like being overwhelmed or. What a joy. I have so many things I could do. .

[01:17:32] And we, I think we, I think we wanna do as humans, right? We want to mend and fix and problem solve and interact and, and be, I don't wanna use the word busy because I don't think that's the but to be in action, to be in connection. And, and it is at times overwhelming, like drinking from a firehouse . And it feels insurmountable at times.

[01:18:13] Blair: the two of us. Oh yeah. It's, and, and I even, I think with, even without kids, farming is hard, you know? And then with kids, it's. Hard and more, and yeah, it is, it's in it.

[01:18:48] Life is so full. Mm-hmm. just every day. And yeah, so farming of course comes second. I mean, you know, I don't, I don't go out to milk the cows until the kids are situated for the morning time, you know, like where. I think for me, I would wake up and go milk, but as you know, if I didn't have kids, I would wake up and get milking taken care of.

[01:19:28] Kate: about anything on the farm. There is no hard and fast schedule. And there are other, you know, and I think with kids it's a beautiful thing to tend to them

[01:19:40] Yeah. Yeah. Their needs come, their needs are more pressing and, um, to, I, I guess that I want them to feel as though they're more important than the farm, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes course I'm like, okay, I have to go melt the cow now. Like, you have to, or you know, I have to go feed now or this needs to be tended.

[01:20:24] And, you know, the, the, it's just the truth of it is that the, the farm things sometimes get neglected. Like, you know, I haven't cleaned, I haven't cleaned the chicken coop in a long time, or I haven't Yeah, I haven't, it's like one of those

[01:20:46] Yeah.

[01:21:18] Well, the bottom of my list is long in itself, you know, like Yes, yes. There's a lot in there. I look around, yeah, I look around every day as I'm walking to do other things or, or standing there washing dishes, thinking of the next, you know, thing I'm doing. You know, there's just so many things undone and.

[01:21:53] Kate: And yeah, it does, it forces you to accept a level of undoneness that I think is Yeah.

[01:22:03] Blair: Yeah. I mean maybe, maybe it's those living with those uncomfortable things kinda gds you, you know, it gds you for all of the hard parts. Mm-hmm. , I mean

[01:22:26] I, I pulled a clip from you and I think that this is important. Okay. Yeah. Uh, I just have this quote and you say, stay excited about the future, despite what may be absent. I have a sense that many of us are forging the same solitary path while I'm mourn the lack of solid, unwavering, long-term companionship in my personal life.

[01:22:58] Blair: of it. Yeah, I, I, it's a daily, a daily struggle for certain to have begun this journey with, well, with my ex, uh, with my kids' dad. And you know, now to be forging it.

[01:23:38] That is a big part of my farming reality, my path in general, because I guess, you know, you, you'd think I thought about it in terms of like going into farming with a partnership was the, the wise move to, it seemed obvious, you know, to have someone who was doing it with me. And that was always kind of part of the dream, was to be doing it with, with my, my partner and to have faced like a timeframe where I was alone, like for five years.

[01:24:35] I mean, I don't, I don't see another option and so that's part of it. I, a big part of it probably for me is that I just, I, I go through the harder moments knowing that there's no option and probably my own stubbornness. Aided me in that because I, you know, I don't give up. I'm not, I don't see any way to like, to live any differently.

[01:25:29] So that is what keeps me going. I mean, I honestly like, for all the moments that were hard and impossible feeling and just, I felt like at the bottom, you know, the bottom of it all, and, and you know, you have to dig. Like, I, I think that that saying like, to dig, it really feels like you're digging at something in those moments.

[01:26:19] You just, you keep going, you know? And. Yeah, I, I guess, I guess the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any other alternative is the, the main sticking point for me at all. This. And, you know, like you were saying about hay cost, hay cost right now, are, they're astronomical here. , I mean, I don't, I don't know what it's like over on the east coast, but here our, the, the cost of hay has gone to, like, in, in feed stores, it's up to like 25, 28 bucks a bale for big bales.

[01:27:17] Yeah, it's a lot. And you know, I pretty much hemorrhage cash on my animals just to have meat and milk and fertility. But, but again, I just, I don't see a better way. I don't see an alternative and I don't want to anymore , so Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm looking at what I'm doing and I think I have to reduce my herd this year simply because of hay, the hay prices.

[01:28:11] But that's a diamond in a rough situation right there, you know, like, Having the bovine, trusting them, being over there and, and knowing that, you know, they're with my friends is like, that's invaluable. You know? That's, it's incredible. I mean, it's working out really well. I go and bring them some hay and, you know, then of course their land gets to be grazed and fertilized and they get some, some bovine love in their life and, uh, I think they really, they're really liking it.

[01:29:04] Kate: We hemorrhage money too. I mean, we don't make any, we lose money. Farming, we lose. Yeah, we lose money. Farming and, and, and we lose money eating this way. And yet, I was really struck as you were talking that, that feeling, that mindset, I don't know what it is or the reality that there is no other option, right.

[01:29:46] Blair: Yep. Yeah.

[01:30:11] I mean, I guess it, I think farming really like, gives you the true value of what, you know, what we're eating. These, these products that we're sort of, you know, like I drink milk as a kid and didn't think about how precious it was. Right? Like, now it's me every time I drink milk, it's. It's glory, you know?

[01:30:53] Kate: work to continue to farm more other.

[01:30:59] Blair: Do you, and, and you guys like, do you have locally there? Do you guys have work or is it in It's just in Denver,

[01:31:18] And so that whole thing. Uh, and so we leaned back on some savings and then my husband is opening up this, this cafe space in conjunction with Colorado State University that will pay us a small consulting fee. And so that will get us by, and then it's about imagining the next steps. And that's actually been where we are right now.

[01:32:06] I thought about getting a job. It's still on the.

[01:32:13] Kate: shit outta me. I don't think I'm employable.

[01:32:32] Kate: but,

[01:32:53] Like of course, uh, I have. Thought about writing a book or something, but I don't have time, you know? Yeah. Like, I don't, I don't have time to write a book. I wake up and I'm a mom all day and doing, you know, as much on the farm as I can, but, you know, yeah. I, I'm at a point where my wheels have been turning about, uh, wanting to get more into like beef, beef production, but then thinking about that, it's, it's like you need a facility.

[01:33:54] Well, you know, when you, when you harvest animals in, in a few years, I mean, you know, it's, it's, uh,

[01:34:18] It's what the butcher shop operates on, if that, for many years it was negative and that amount of slim margins is something that it has to change. And I, I wish that I, I had some hopeful place to bring this around to, and I'm not sure I do right now. . Um, because it's just, it's just damn

[01:34:42] It is. And I think that's, that it's something that not a lot of people talk enough about , you know, like we don't, we're not talking enough about how challenging it is. For the, the one thing that humans really need. One thing like food is, I mean, sh food, shelter, water, air, I mean food. It's pretty, pretty much, you know, everything for, for being.

[01:35:33] I mean, he, he's born and raised in the hay industry or you know, the hay business. And, um, they barely make ends meat. I mean, he's farming 160 acres. And spending inordinate amounts of money on, on, uh, fertilizer and the, the power bill to pump the water, to water the, the, the hay and then fuel for the equipment.

[01:36:08] Kate: to, to run the diesel, to cut the hay and the amount of weight you're pulling in a big tractor. It's got a guzzle diesel. It's expensive.

[01:36:25] He's working, you know, like he couldn't work any harder. He's, he's growing hay and he is selling it, and he isn't, you know, they're, they're not making money on it. I mean, they're, they're barely making, making their costs. And, and I think this is cross across the board. This is. This is like, it's, I don't think any farmer is like, not that, not that anyone, I don't think people get into farming to get rich, of course, but to make it buy would be nice.

[01:36:53] Kate: yes. To sustain to I have enough Yes. Sustain to have security.

[01:37:17] You know, like, yeah. What is. And I don't

[01:37:39] And I mean, I see this in in action at the butcher shop when we raise prices and we charge certain things that there's a real ceiling on food that there isn't necessarily with in other consumer good sectors. Right. And maybe it's

[01:37:59] Kate: Yeah. It's gone.

[01:38:06] Blair: Yeah. I mean that like, uh, where, whereas some people can spend like a thousand dollars on a new phone or something, you know, a 20 gallon, I mean, I'm sorry, a a $20 gallon of milk. Someone would, you know, balk at completely. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

[01:38:43] Like it's an investment that extends well beyond you, but, Its returns are very much in the long term. Its returns are in the, the tens of hundreds and thousands of years that an ecosystem is able to, to stay healthy and it's in feeling great when you're 70 instead of, you know, I mean just a little bit better right now.

[01:39:19] Blair: week tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a huge part of it. It it is an investment. It is, yes. Yeah. There is some disconnect where the value of it hasn't, hasn't grown, you know, and, and isn't, yeah.

[01:39:56] Right. But the price of eggs has doubled. I mean, um, you know, like expensive, organic, good eggs here can be eight, $10 a dozen, but no one's going to be paying much more than that. Yeah. Um, whereas 50 pound bag of feed has now more than doubled. I mean, for like organic, the, the brand that I usually get is Modesto milling, and they're great.

[01:40:39] Kate: charge 12 for a dozen. Right. A dollar an. Feels wild.

[01:40:50] Blair: worth it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Especially when your chickens take, you know, month, several month long breaks. I mean, you're still feeding those birds this expensive food when there's no eggs. Yeah.

[01:41:05] I think we were getting four eggs a week. Yeah, yeah. You're still feeding them. Yep.

[01:41:23] There might not be neat for them from them for a couple of years, but they get fed every day. And yeah, it's, it's that, that's the value that isn't seen. You know, the, that's the value that people can't, that who aren't part of it, aren't grasping. And I mean, I, I wouldn't, I would never have truly understood unless I was living it.

[01:41:56] Kate: And. I wanna make sure that, I mean, and there's a connection and I believe that the more that we have this conversation and the more that people gain that understanding, maybe the paradigm begins to shift and, and maybe I'm just still naive and hopeful and starry-eyed, and that could 100% be the case.

[01:42:52] You know, we're not these disconnected little individual patches. We are all here. You know, like we're, we're a couple thousand miles away and. It doesn't matter, you know, like we're, and that was, honestly, that was something that I, it's pretty amazing in, in terms of how, you know, we've, we met through Instagram.

[01:43:41] Suddenly, like there was like women, other women farmers that I saw, like I knew a few in real life obviously, but then just to see how many other women were getting under a cow or, or getting under their goats and milking every day. It was like this sense of like camaraderie and like seeing that, you know, that we're not alone.

[01:44:21] You know, that, that, as hard as it is and as much of like, banging my head against a wall as it might seem, sometimes it's important and we're all doing it for a reason. And like, even though the value is not reflected in our financial system terms, the value is. Beyond that. And, and yeah, there's something, something hopeful about that I think, you know, and having these kind of conversations is hopeful.

[01:45:00] Kate: I don't think I could have brought it around better than you just did. And that it's really about connection and it's about how we're all connected and that that is such a hopeful thread in a space where we walk this line of jum and hope.

[01:45:38] Blair: this whole podcast. Yeah.

[01:46:03] And when I tasted the cream, that was like, this could save the world. Like if everybody could try what raw cream tastes like, then there'd be no more. Problems. You know, and , I guess I hold onto that, you know, like, um, there's the way that, you know, there's like that hope that rises and well, you know, you've had raw cream, you know what I mean?

[01:46:34] Blair: Yeah, yeah. No matter, no matter how much is in there, it always rises. It always

[01:46:43] Blair: Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

[01:46:49] Blair: Yeah. all know the answer to that.

[01:47:19] Like you're, you're teaching a lot of us how to start a farm and inspiring a lot of us to start

[01:47:39] Kate: Yeah. It's just, you're just spectacular. Tell people where they can find you and how they can support you. Oh

[01:48:04] I understand that. Yeah. , I mean, when you're juggling like kids on a farm, it's kind of like, you know, everything else feels extra, but, but selves do

[01:48:15] Blair: Yeah, yeah, sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Or just like reach out and I usually have sab cuz I always make a bunch of it. And, um, I sell that and okay, maybe someday I'll have the grass fed business, grass fed beef business going.

[01:48:43] Kate: love that. Yeah. That's, yeah. Dreaming forward. Me too. Just gotta keep dreaming forward. Thank you.

[01:49:21] That's k a t e underscore K A V A N A U G H On Instagram. I would like to give a very special thank you to China and Seth Kent of the band, allright Allright for the clips from their beautiful song over the Edge from their album, the Crucible. You can find them at Allright allright on Instagram and wherever you listen to music.