A Common Life
Welcome to A Common Life where Morgan and Taylor offer month-by-month gardening advice to help your garden thrive. We also share our personal journey in seasonal living, aiming to foster a deeper connection with others, nature, and our Creator. Our hope is to encourage and equip others who are on a similar journey and to provide a space for community around these ideals.
A Common Life
Taylor's Passion, A New Job, Garden Fails, and more
Morgan shares what it's like when I have a burst of passion. We also talk about my (Taylor) new job, our current interests (wild flowers and ice cream), estate sales, our current gardening situation, and discuss our secret blueberry spot (again :)
Mentioned in the Show:
Graham Farm and Nature Center
Find us Elsewhere:
Instagram - @_ACommonLife - Morgan
Instagram - @RiverFlyFarms - Taylor
Community Newsletter - The Common
Twitter - @Taylor__Myers
LinkedIn - Taylor Myers
Need some help with help with your garden or homestead? Book a 15 minute free consult with Taylor to see if he can help.
DM us on the Socials or email us at Taylor@acommonlife.co
Music on the podcast was composed by Kevin Dailey. The artist is Garden Friend. The track is the instrumental version of “On a Cloud”
hey, everybody, welcome to a common life podcast. I am your host, morgan, and I'm here with my husband, taylor. Hey, everybody who is, quite frankly, guys fired up. I don't know if you've ever seen Taylor fired up, but I'll tell you it's an experience.
Speaker 2:What's it like?
Speaker 1:Well, you just got to be there for the ride, you know. You got to be there for the ride. You got something you want to talk about and you just sit there, like for me, I just sat and ate my yogurt and I just nodded along and listened. And just getting trying to you can't match your passion, so you just try to. You know listen. I'm just along for the ride. Yeah yeah, so you just got off the phone with a wildlife guy man it was awesome.
Speaker 1:And he got real excited. So, guys, if you're not into wildlife, you might want to fast forward a few minutes.
Speaker 2:Here we go, no, no, no, don't fast forward, because it can be relatable in the sense of if you find somebody that has an interest or a passion that's similar to yours, but they're, like, well advanced in it and also and they want you and far between, like there's not a lot of guys like this no right, and and they want to include you. You feel included and they're talking to him on the phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it gets you excited yeah, yeah he's yeah, he's ready to open a wildlife center.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%, I am so ready, which you know for sure. We need a wildlife and nature center which, ironically enough, I am working every day pretty much out of the Graham Farm and Nature Center.
Speaker 1:Yes, we haven't talked on the podcast about your new job.
Speaker 2:Or on the newsletter.
Speaker 1:I think we should do that. I think you should update everybody a little bit about, yeah, how you got to where you are right now. You started in February.
Speaker 2:Well, hold on Before we do that. I was really pumped about this call Okay, go ahead, go ahead, because this dude is like well, first of all, we have a cave on our farm and I reached out to this guy because somehow I found him online through one of his pictures and he had taken a picture of some cave in the paint rock valley and I found his email. So I emailed him and the guy just turns out to be so kind and really welcoming and so, yeah, he was just super nice and he I want to go caving with him and, uh, with anyone, but I've never been and this guy seems like the perfect one to do it because he's professional essentially, and so I was really excited and it ties into my passions, it ties into into my, my work now, and so a lot of really cool opportunities on the horizon. I have been more and more into wildlife and just nature in general. Yeah, since we're moving back to the paint rock Valley, it's just such a special place and I'm all about preservation, conservation right now, and wildflowers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love taking pictures of all the different wildflowers.
Speaker 1:You know it's interesting. I think that since you have started keeping a calendar of firsts For sure, it's caused your interest to grow A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, because at first I was like oh, there's only wildflowers, ephemeral wildflowers, right, which is the ephemeral is just where it's a short season. And so the spring ephemeral wildflower season, where the sunlight hits the forest floor because the leaves, the the trees haven't leafed out, and so you get these short-lived, beautiful, delicate wildflowers in the forest. It's incredible beautiful and now I know every year to be looking for that. It's something I really look forward to and I enjoyed that so much that now, out where I work at the Grand Farm and Nature Center in the Paint Rock Valley, we have a lot of wildflowers, but they're out in the grasslands and they're just out in the fields, and I work with a guy who knows a lot about it, so I'm kind of feeding off of him as well and it's just something I really enjoy. So I want to collect all of the seeds. So I'm trying to do is just uh, track them so I know when they put out seeds, collect the seeds and plant them at our place, at our farm, propagate them, grow them.
Speaker 2:it's like pretty nerdy, super fun though yeah yeah, um, and anyways, this guy that I talked to he's he's a botanist as well and takes pictures of them, and like an underwater photographer he's super cool, super cool, yeah. So anyways, I was pretty fired up about that right before this.
Speaker 1:I'm still fired up about it, yeah well yeah what do you do every day, or what is explain a little bit about how you got to where you are well, I was born in 1980.
Speaker 2:All right, let's see. I don't know what do I say. Okay?
Speaker 1:so we started working on a common life.
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 1:And someone who you had reached out to years ago at the Graham Farm and Nature Center, reached out to you through a common life and was like hey, there's this position open out to you through a common life and was like, hey, there's this position open, yeah.
Speaker 2:So back when we were living on the farm I went to the Grand Farm and Nature Center to introduce myself and kind of pitch them on an idea centered around like market gardening, and it just the timing wasn't right. But Donna, who is still there, she remembered me and you know, I guess probably my passion stood out and so she kind of kept in touch. We kept in touch a little bit and last summer I noticed that something was transpiring, something was happening with the Paint Rock Valley High School which is another story.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's the school. Yeah, they call it the high school, but it was kindergarten through 12th grade. Really cool story. It was built by the locals with filled rock. They brought them from all over the valley. In the 30s, during the Depression era, they raised the money, they built the school over the course of a few years and, you know, they got electrical power to it, like five years later, and the first time they turned it on they lit up a christmas tree in december, you know.
Speaker 2:So you can just imagine in this small rural community it was a big deal to have their own school yeah and a lot of people there, you know, went to school I mean, the community went to school there.
Speaker 2:Now they're kids and then grandkids, and it was a big deal. Well, in 2018, they shut it down because, you know, the dollar per student that the county board of education was putting into it was just really high and there was a lot of work that needed to be done on the building and so very controversial, but they shut it down. And there was a lot of work that needed to be done on the building and so very controversial, but they shut it down. And there was only like five graduating students that year and 60 students in the whole school. So it was a very sad day in the community and a lot of the community is still really upset about it.
Speaker 2:And I was been following it and tracking it, especially while I was doing my master's program, learning about the valley and the school and its place and its history. Well, they shut it down in 2018. And last summer so the summer of 23, I noticed online that Donna, the Graham Farm and Nature Center folks, were meeting with the community to talk about the future of the school. So I kind of looked into that and so I just called Donna or text her and was like, hey, I saw this was going on on, we should connect, I'd love to learn more about it. And so, yeah, we chatted and she's like and hey, taylor, like there's, there's an opportunity. They got to hire somebody to to like they got to hire somebody to be there well they ended up.
Speaker 1:Jackson county ended up giving it to alabama a&m.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was deeded over to Alabama A&M, a local university here in Huntsville and it's going to be. It was put into the Alabama extension system, which is basically just taking um agricultural primarily um agricultural research from the university out to the farmers and extension of the university Um, if you're not familiar with that. So she, she was just like there's gonna be an opportunity. You have to hire somebody to um to help get this thing going and manage it, and so I was like, yeah, that sounds cool but not really interested, because I just started really saying I'm going to focus on a common life and put a hundred percent of my time and effort into it. I was done with recruiting. I'd been recruiting for like four years at that time, three and a half years, and, yeah, my soul was just withering up. I am a guy of passion and I want to be doing something that I care about. It's just mine. So I was done with recruiting, focused on a common life and this kind of this fell into your lap.
Speaker 2:It did. It fell into my lap and the opportunity after kind of walking, taking the next right step, the next step, the next step, the next step it was just one of those things where I felt like, yeah, I have to give this a shot. And so that's what I'm doing now, and I started in February and I go to the Graham Farm, which is just up the road, the Graham Farm and Nature Center, because the school needs a lot of work and that's just a slow process right now. So there's not much for me to do at the school, but the future is bright there at the school and um, I get to work outside a lot, I get to work with my hands.
Speaker 2:I'm getting to put in a demonstration garden and, um, educate people, talk to people about the soil and uh, and the beautiful paint rock Valley and yeah, I'm dabbling again in the things that I really care about, so that's been really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it has been. I think that's a good reminder that you know connections that you make and seeds that you plant in one season of life matter Because you know you went and talked to the Graham Farmer Nature Center when we were still living out there, so that was at least five, six years ago, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like 2017.
Speaker 1:And then who would have thought that this comes back up?
Speaker 2:you know, six years later yeah, you never know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, okay, and the cool thing too is it's just a few miles from where we will be living and there's not a lot of jobs back there People.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true, it's true, and it's just it's a God thing.
Speaker 1:It really true, and it's just. It's a God thing, it really is. Yeah, yeah it really is.
Speaker 2:So I'm doing that now. Just came off that call. There's going to be some really cool opportunities there. Get to keep looping you all in on some of those things. Hopefully. Get to go scuba diving in the Paint Rock River. That'll be fun, scary and caving. I know we saw some gar. Have you ever seen a gar?
Speaker 1:Okay, listen. Rocco. One of our friends said he saw an alligator gar at the lake. But surely not?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Are they freaky looking? They have teeth, they're very freaky looking. Okay.
Speaker 2:But they're cool. They're cool fish. They're not going to mess with you, they're not alligators, they're just fish with a long snout. Yeah, they eat minnows, not humans. Okay, good to know, so should we tell people about blueberries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we just went this last week picking blueberries. I posted about it, you did, but I was looking back through my camera and we've been going to this one spot for seven years maybe eight.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. It doesn't feel like it's been that long, but even just a minute ago one of our friends stopped by to drop something off and I was like do you want some blueberries? And and she was like where are you guys finding these? And both virginia and wendell were like no, don't tell her, it's a secret spot like that, um, which it kind of is a secret spot but definitely is a secret spot but um, yeah, we got a few gallons and have been freezing some and just eating them.
Speaker 1:I need to make like scones, blueberry scones yeah, these bushes are what did he say 45, 46, I think, years?
Speaker 2:old. How crazy is that he planted them. We met the farmer this last go around and I say farmer, he's a forestry norm, yeah yeah and uh, it was really fun, really cool things like that you know we're gonna remember forever. And it's just a secret, because why is it a secret?
Speaker 1:well, one. I don't even know the address, like I couldn't even tell, so I had a hard time telling you how to meet me there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's you pick blueberries, he doesn't. He doesn't spray yeah or anything. I mean these are well-established bushes and I mean they're. It's not huge, but but it's big enough to get some. And yeah, it's just like now. So she didn't know where many blueberries are. Many blueberry you picks are. Is that what it is? When she asked about.
Speaker 1:No, she just was wondering. Yeah, I don't know how many are around here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't Google blueberry, you picks anymore.
Speaker 1:We was wondering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how many are around here.
Speaker 1:Yeah we don't Google blueberry, you picks anymore we got ours, yep.
Speaker 2:Well, it's blueberry season. I love it. We had strawberries. They came in, and then I noticed all of the wild brambles and blackberries.
Speaker 1:That's what she was saying. Is that her house? She's like we don't need to go anywhere to pick, we have so many blackberries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, are they growing them themselves or are they just like wild? Yeah?
Speaker 1:No, they have on their fence.
Speaker 2:I need to go check that out and take some pictures and figure out how old those bushes are, maybe even propagate some, because, like he was saying, there's this virus that is just wiping out brambles. What did it at our farm? It did it at our friend's farm and so I wonder what they got and how old theirs are, and if it's pretty old, might try to figure out how to propagate them. But uh, yeah, it's berry season, folks here in north alabama it is. I think peaches are starting to come on too.
Speaker 1:Really, I saw a guy coming from market, but they're probably not freestone yet. We like the freestone, gotta ask.
Speaker 2:Gotta ask. Yeah, I listened to a podcast teaming. It's the teaming with microbes guy and they're in Alaska and right now it's dandelion season up there, Meaning their soil is just now getting to the warm point where they had dandelions and apparently it's like crazy how many dandelions they have wow yeah, so it just reminded me.
Speaker 2:you know, of course it's different seasons everywhere, but here in north alabama it's berry season and in the valley right now the wild blackberries are really good. They're gritty, they have a lot of seeds in them, but they're really sweet this year.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, we need to get some. Yeah, definitely. And wine berries, you found those.
Speaker 2:Wine berries. It's so cool. I love them. At first I thought they were just like wild raspberries, but they're not. They are called wine berries. They're not native. Are called wine berries. They're not native. I think they came over from japan and some people say they're invasive or they're labeled as invasive, but I haven't noticed them be super aggressive.
Speaker 2:They typically live on the fringe of forests and they do have prickles, but they're not like brambles. Yeah, and the berries are good, they're really good. Um, they're not super sweet, but they're definitely edible. They're good and they would be good to make some desserts or pies out of so wine berries.
Speaker 1:They look just like raspberries but they're almost a darker red okay, when you were saying that, like they're not super sweet, I started thinking about biting into a sour berry and then my mouth started watering and then I thought about how. You know wendell's doing swim team and he got swimmer of the week so we got a you know bottle full of candy when the candy was warhead and so he had his first warhead. He was so scared and I was like listen, me and my brother and my cousins, we used to just pop those in her mouth like it was nothing. Come on, you're weak. And this, my mouth is watering as I'm talking about it. It said extreme. Did ours used to say extreme on the rapper? He put it in his mouth and could hardly handle it. And then I tried it and I don't know if I've gotten weak or if these warheads are like a whole nother level, but it brought back.
Speaker 2:I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.
Speaker 1:It's my mouth water.
Speaker 2:It's making my head hurt oh man.
Speaker 1:Well, you know something I'm really into. You're into wildlife. You know what I'm into right now.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Making ice cream.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think my best so far was I've had a couple of pretty bad failures, but my best right now is my mint chocolate chip.
Speaker 2:It's really good.
Speaker 1:So I take, or mint. We call it Pawpaw's kind because it was my grandpa's favorite kind of ice cream, so not green mint but like white mint ice cream. So I did okay, I'll tell you all my recipe real quick A Cup and a half of whole milk, one cup of half and half One cup of heavy cream, four to six egg yolks, vanilla, and then four drops of peppermint essential oil. And then I got this giant bar of dark chocolate from Trader Joe's and, just you know, cut it really into shavings. Did you grate it? No, um, with a knife if you froze it.
Speaker 2:I bet you could grate it yeah, yeah, that might be easier.
Speaker 1:We kind of went back and forth at the lake. Maggie did all the cutting of it. I think that that might have been easy. I don't know, if you freeze it, you could probably grate it, okay, so I did that. And then a half a cup of sugar. That was my best so far this year.
Speaker 2:Don't you think, yeah, it was really good, super smooth, it's not overpowering the mint, really fresh. So you take all that. I'm not a fan of mint ice cream really, but this one was. You like it. It just flavors blended really well. The mint was not overpowering. I didn't feel like I was eating toothpaste or something. Yeah, yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:You mix it all together and then put it in your ice cream maker People can enjoy what you're into right now With me and my flowers.
Speaker 2:It's just photos, but if I collect the seeds and plant them in the garden, then maybe yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you know what's fun in the summer?
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Estate sales Seems like there's a lot more in the summer. I've gone to two in the last week just like driving by pull over at the estate sale and both of them have been real granny, real granny stuff.
Speaker 2:But people are into granny lately, yeah, like there's like coastal granny and millennial granny or something. It's a thing.
Speaker 1:I saw something the other day that said, like our you know millennials are completely skipping the midlife crisis and going straight to granny hobbies. Yeah Well, look, I did get my camera bag from an estate sale.
Speaker 2:That camera bag is awesome it is.
Speaker 1:It does look a little granny, but Coastal granny. It's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could totally see like some granny with her white flowy pants on and a blue flowy shirt and sunglasses and white hair with that bag, definitely.
Speaker 1:Well, I haven't found any big pieces, but it's been fun. The kids like going Pull over Treasure hunt. That is fun.
Speaker 2:I feel like we need to give an update on the garden.
Speaker 1:It's just sad, sad news. No good updates here.
Speaker 2:We basically have basil. No, we did harvest the onions and garlic.
Speaker 1:We did harvest the onions and garlic. Yeah, we cleaned those yesterday. I'm going to braid them today.
Speaker 2:We do have celery and we need to harvest potatoes.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, yes, we do.
Speaker 2:And then we've got wait potatoes we need to harvest potatoes, and then we have got wait potatoes.
Speaker 2:We need to harvest potatoes, and then we have tomatoes, basil and still kale, but I need to cut that kale out. I need to cut the kale out and then that's it. We missed the window, like the early summer window, to plant, like squash, cucumbers, corn, okra. So now it's like July will be fine. We need to plant all that stuff and we'll have it going Um, but I need to remulch the garden. And here's the thing I'm so sad about the rats and the mice. It's they. I can see their claw marks where they're climbing up the tomatoes. It's just bad. I don't understand it. I feel like we're in the last days sharks are going crazy yeah rats are going crazy yeah, like we.
Speaker 2:what's the deal? What's the deal? Why are they doing this? I mean, there's so much food out there, but yet they're going to come to our garden, climb up and break, literally. Babe, we had our tomato plants, were loaded down, and now they're methodically going, each plant by plant, breaking stems off, eating the flowers, eating the whole green tomatoes. Get out of here, and it's just like what. I am so sad.
Speaker 1:We've never yeah.
Speaker 2:We've had, I think, squirrels that have nibbled in our tomatoes, but this isn't squirrels I've not ever had like mice or rats climb up our tomatoes Like you can see their claw marks breaking off limbs.
Speaker 1:We need a cat. I really think we probably need a cat.
Speaker 2:I think so. Not until we move to the farm. Yeah, so the next thing I need to do? So? Not until we move to the farm. Yeah, so the next thing I need to do I need to remulch the garden. I need to make sure there's a good thick layer of mulch. It's gotten pretty thin and I want to mulch it to protect the top of the soil so it doesn't dry out and keeps the weeds down. The weeds are doing okay. We don't have a lot of weeds, but if I don't mulch it I've been hoeing more with our oscillating hoe I'm pretty sad about our garden. So if you're out there and you're disappointed with your garden, you're not alone.
Speaker 1:Not alone.
Speaker 2:And if you're out there with a really amazing garden, good for you. Good for you.
Speaker 1:Well, this was fun this was fun.
Speaker 2:It feels weird now just be like happy garden hope you have better luck than we do yeah hey fall that's the thing yeah, but we need to, we need something. No, it's time, Otherwise our garden's just going to be empty.
Speaker 1:I know it. I think I want to try soil blocking this fall. Really, most things would probably be just direct seed.
Speaker 2:In the fall. No, we need to start In July. We need to start seeding things for the fall, so they're ready by late august, early september. It's always weird to me that you plant cold crops or like fall cool season crops and like some of the hottest part of the year. But you got to do that to make sure they have time to grow and get to where they need to get before weather gets really cold. Because once it gets really cold they kind of go dormant and stop growing. Well, not only is it cold, it's actually the sunlight.
Speaker 2:They don't get enough sunlight during the day to really grow and that happens around the middle of october, november range all right people, we're gonna let you go. Until next time, happy gardening Thank you.