Hey there, Dawn Gorham here, and if you've ever felt the sting of a social media squall or found joy in a mason jar of home-canned strawberries, this episode of the Gorham Homestead podcast is your kind of story. From standing my ground on raw milk debates to sharing laughs over beekeeping acquisitions gone awry, I'm peeling back the curtain on homestead life - the sweet, the spicy, and the unavoidably sticky.
This time around, we're swapping tales from the vibrant trenches of gardening, where tomato plants run wild and bell peppers make for a freeze-drying frenzy. I'm tipping my hat to the local corn supplier while dreaming big about squash and okra expansions. But it's not just about the veggies; it's the heart-pumping thrill of adding more life to the mix - like welcoming my granddaughter Savannah, and those moments of sheer chaos, like trying to outsmart a crafty groundhog with nothing but fishing line and stubborn determination.
Strap in for a candid exploration of homesteading and its dance with daily life. From the practical magic of automated milking to the detailed planning that lets us sneak away for a quick trip (chickens and cows notwithstanding), these stories are a testament to family, resilience, and the power of a well-tended garden. So, whether you're a seasoned homesteader or just bee-curious about the buzz, join us as we keep it real and cultivate a life rooted in tradition and togetherness.
Hey there, Dawn Gorham here, and if you've ever felt the sting of a social media squall or found joy in a mason jar of home-canned strawberries, this episode of the Gorham Homestead podcast is your kind of story. From standing my ground on raw milk debates to sharing laughs over beekeeping acquisitions gone awry, I'm peeling back the curtain on homestead life - the sweet, the spicy, and the unavoidably sticky.
This time around, we're swapping tales from the vibrant trenches of gardening, where tomato plants run wild and bell peppers make for a freeze-drying frenzy. I'm tipping my hat to the local corn supplier while dreaming big about squash and okra expansions. But it's not just about the veggies; it's the heart-pumping thrill of adding more life to the mix - like welcoming my granddaughter Savannah, and those moments of sheer chaos, like trying to outsmart a crafty groundhog with nothing but fishing line and stubborn determination.
Strap in for a candid exploration of homesteading and its dance with daily life. From the practical magic of automated milking to the detailed planning that lets us sneak away for a quick trip (chickens and cows notwithstanding), these stories are a testament to family, resilience, and the power of a well-tended garden. So, whether you're a seasoned homesteader or just bee-curious about the buzz, join us as we keep it real and cultivate a life rooted in tradition and togetherness.
Hey y'all and welcome to keeping it real, the Gorham Homestead podcast, where we talk about real food, real natural living, the real art of natural healing and real life. Out here on Tennessee Homestead, I'm your host, dawn Gorham, and today is Tuesday, may the 21st Sorry, I had to think about that just a second and you're listening to episode number 12. And today is just going to be a. What's going on in the homestead? T is not with me today. He is having to work, so I am solo on this one. So what's going on?
Speaker 1:
Well, first and foremost, looks like I created quite the stink on social media this week dealing with Mr Harrison Butker's comments and his speech that he made at the Catholic College, and I'm just really surprised at the backlash that he has received for advocating for traditional families. And I don't understand. Like I had women tell me to go get back in the kitchen, like that is an insult, and I'm like, got it, I am going back to the kitchen. That's where I'm happiest. I'm cooking, I'm canning, I'm making strawberry jam, I'm baking bread. I mean, I'm happy. Why is that such an insult? And that's something that I just don't understand and part of me wanted to go. You know, get back to your desk. You know how did you get off of your chain from your desk, but I didn't. I kind of kept the uglies to myself.
Speaker 1:
And also, the raw milk trolls have been out Really getting hit hard by people just coming out of the woodwork. I don't even know. Like they're not from here, obviously a couple of them are from New York and you know areas where raw milk is just apparently unheard of. Because dude said he was an attorney and that he had reported me to Facebook for advocating for raw milk. That's dangerous and I'm going to kill people and I'm trying to catch the bird flu and just stupid stuff. Yeah, and it would really surprise me that dude said he was a retired attorney and had plenty of time to advocate for public health. And so my husband, you know, came back and said well, I'm a practicing attorney, not retired, and I have plenty of time to advocate for food freedom. He doesn't really have plenty of time to do that. I do it and then call on him as needed. But yeah, it was just really really surprising.
Speaker 1:
I know that every once in a while that kind of stuff against raw milk rears its ugly head, just based on something that gets out there and people get a hold of it and it gets all blown out of proportion, like right now. The big concern is the bird flu with raw milk in cows, and I think that is again a scare tactic, much like everything else that we've had over the years. The, you know, at the federal level they hate raw milk. Um, the usda hates raw milk and they have done everything, excuse me, that they can possibly do. I'm short of just making it illegal across the board, but it's just strange. It's just really strange how that cycles around like it does.
Speaker 1:
So some things going on around here. We had our meeting last month it was the Dixon County Homesteaders Alliance meeting that I talk about that we meet once a month here on our homestead. We are not having a meeting this month just because the monthly meeting falls on Memorial Day weekend and I knew that a lot of people would be out of town. Plus, it's chicken processing weekend this weekend. So we have some people signed up for our chicken processing workshop and I'm going to go over some of the other things with those folks that I have learned over the years, like my training with for trail feeds that I did at MPS MPS Farms out in Centerville. I'm going to talk about how to you know how to get the best growth that you can for your birds and what the laws are regarding harvesting and selling those birds, and then we will actually process the birds and they'll get to go home with with a bird for Memorial Day weekend Hopefully maybe somebody will go cook it or smoke it.
Speaker 1:
So I don't know, bees went in. Wow, that was an experience. We went to pick up the bees and so I was thinking, you know, I've gone and I've helped people process their not process open up their hives and inspect and I've got my little bee suit and got my little bee gloves and a little smoker. And you know that's what I thought I was doing when I went to go buy my first bee package, which was a full colony, it was 10 frames and it was, you know, queen for sure and already making honey, and so I brought the whole big old thing home. But we got there and again I was expecting five hives, 10 hives, didn't know. Got there and it was a commercial beekeeper which I was told that. I was totally told that it was a commercial beekeeper, just did not process in my head what that meant, just did not process in my head what that meant.
Speaker 1:
So T and Chase and I had left our granddaughter's birthday party oh yeah, had to leave the granddaughter's birthday party, unfortunately to go pick up the bees. And got there and it was beehives as far as the eye could see, beehives, everywhere Beehives, which was fun. But there was also this black cloud of bees surrounding the truck and I thought I was going to get there and put on my little bee suit and get my little bees and put them in the back of the truck and pay the guy. And I was going to be on my merry way. There's no way I was getting out of that truck and being able to put on my bee suit. There's nowhere to put on my bee suit. And so I rolled down the window just a crack I mean just a hair and realized bees are, you know they're trying to come in, so I'm rolling that window back up.
Speaker 1:
And so the beekeeper was Hispanic, which is fine. His English was good, but you know it was very like short, uh, choppy English. He was like I put the bees in the back for you. I put the bees in the back for you. I was like okay, so do that. So he put the bees in the back and he um closes the tailgate and walks around to T's side of the vehicle to get the cash because T's handed him, you know, the money and cash out the window.
Speaker 1:
Well, the dude is in his bee suit and I guess either he doesn't realize or we don't realize that bees are like swarming his head, like swarming his head, like Linus, with the dirt just all around his head. And so T reaches out to hand him the cash and about that time these bunch of bees, like bees, come into the cab of the truck and T gets stung like nine times on the side of his head, in his temple, and he's trying to roll up the window but he can't. Of course he's getting stung, so he's panicking. Well, he can't find the window to hit the roll-up thing and he's actually rolling down the window in the back seat, where our son was, and Chase is having a meltdown saying, you know, bad words that teenagers can say as close as he can get to actually swearing. And I got stung a couple of times on the leg. T got stung about nine times on the face, several times on the legs. Luckily Chase never got stung in the back seat, I feel like because he was not happy all the way home.
Speaker 1:
Why are we getting bees? I can't believe. Why did we do this, why did we do this? And we got the window rolled up, got the dude paid. We're driving home and bees are still like swarming around the windows trying to get in, even though we're moving down the road. So we get home and we just leave the truck Like we hop out and everybody goes running, t and Chase go running into the house. I went running into the cannery because that's where I had my bee suit, so I grabbed it and brought it with me and we just sit and everybody, they're looking out the window and I can see them up there and they're looking down at me at the window down here and it's like it's like there's an army out there and we're watching them.
Speaker 1:
So 30, 45 minutes goes by and I decided I'll get on my bee suit and I'm going to move the truck over to where the beehive is going to go, which is over, closer to the garden and the orchard and my little natural herb garden, my prairie recreation, which is about, you know, 20 feet over behind a big dirt pile. And so, um, I backed the truck over there, fully covered, fully covered in my bee suit, and I get out and these bees are just mad. They are so mad and I know it's because they bounced and bounced coming up my driveway and whatever else. So I get them out and I set them out on the platform that they're going to be on. They're swarming me, they're mad at me, they're letting me know they're mad at me and T is up feeding the chickens, like two football fields away from me, from where I'm at, maybe a football field, at least 100 yards though, maybe 150 yards and before I know it I hear him screaming up there.
Speaker 1:
They had gone from all the way down where we were up there and started attacking him up trying to feed and water the chickens. So they got him again. I don't know. I don't know if they smelled, if he still had bee stings, if he still had pheromones on him. I don't know what the deal was, but that poor guy, oh my gosh, they just wore him out that day.
Speaker 1:
So the next day is when the installation was and the bees were still mad. I mean, they're still mad now. They're just an angry little hive, I think. But so one of the guys that knows how to install bees came and we, you know we got everything done, got it installed. I only have one hive as of right now and I have. I did have somebody come and check to make sure I had that I'm queen right, because my friend John was not able to find the queen just because they were so and we had people here as well watching, and a couple of those people got stung. I mean, it was you know honeybee stings are not as bad as some other stings, but it's still not fun. It's not something that you want to invite and encourage. So did not find the queen during the install, but another gentleman was kind enough to come and check and tell he's positive that we do have a queen. I do need to pinch off some queen cells though, because we did see several of those in there and I don't want them to swarm. So I am going to ask one of the guys or gals from my local bee club or my friend Joe that owns a bees closet, somebody. I'm going to get somebody to come and help me inspect the hive now that it's been here a couple of weeks. I fed them, they should be settled in and doing well and they need an inspection. So, and I have registered my bees, because here in Tennessee it is a $500 fine if you do not register your bees and so I did go ahead and do that, even though I only have one hive, and so hopefully that will be another resource for me if I need help, as my local extension office and my bee club and other mentors, people who have had bees forever Everybody's great in the bee community about helping people like that.
Speaker 1:
So, um, as far as the the garden, um, I have planted, so I overdid. Maybe you know how you overcompensate sometimes, like last last summer, I was tomato poor, I was begging for tomatoes. Um, despite the fact that I had planted several you know a lot of tomato plants, I didn't care for them like I should have and I didn't get a good harvest off of them. Plus, I got busy and a lot of that stuff just didn't get done. So in the summer, about October, I'm realizing I only put up like 10 jars of tomatoes and we go through about 100 jars of tomatoes. So I visited my Aunt Penny at a log house nursery in Camden and I bought about 100 tomato plants. Maybe not that many. There's a lot, though there are a lot of tomato plants and about 30 or 40 different varieties of peppers. I bought those Um and I got implanted. A lot of those I did are bell peppers, um, cause I want to freeze, dry as much or as many bell peppers this year as I possibly can and freeze some and you know I like freeze dried much better than dehydrated though. So that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 1:
And Strawberry Month. So I did take out looking for strawberries the place that I normally get them is in Milan and I knew better. I don't know what I was thinking, but I took out driving on a Friday to go get strawberries from my line. Got there, there was nobody there, like they had opened and sold out within an hour, and I knew that. I knew that that happened. I don't know why I didn't just try to get there, you know, as they opened. But I can't. You know, honestly, I can't. Unless I get up at three o'clock and milk at four o'clock, I'm not going to get anywhere by seven or eight o'clock. It's just not going to happen. So I didn't get there till like 830, nine o'clock, and so after that I headed out. I started calling around asking if anybody knew anybody else that had strawberries and I found this place in Clarksville. So I headed up to Clarksville and I bought several flats. I think I got like 15 gallons excuse me, 15 gallons or so and got back and, you know, put a lot of those in the freeze dryer.
Speaker 1:
My friend Cindy came over and we got, you know, we processed them and cut them up and it was fun. It was a lot of fun doing that. I would much rather do stuff like that with someone, especially women. I love canning with other women and even doing any sort of food process and food preservation. It's just more fun with a bunch of women in the kitchen. It just really, really is. So I was really thankful that she came over and helped me with that.
Speaker 1:
I got my green beans planted, so I got a whole row of green beans. I really don't need them. I've still got about 100 jars of green beans that I've done over the last two years and then didn't go through them all. But I feel like I'm not gardening if I don't do green beans that I've done over the last two years and then didn't go through them all. But I feel like I'm not gardening if I don't do green beans, so I put in the green beans, put in a row, and my garden is probably 40 by 100, maybe 100 feet long, so I got that. I've still got to put in my squash, my cucumbers, my zucchini, my okra If I'm going to do butter beans this year, or purple whole peas which I really don't need peas either Still got a bunch of those. I'm going to have to find someone who sells sweet corn. I love peaches and cream corn, so I'm going to see if I can find somebody, because I just don't want to. I'm not doing all that stuff that is required to grow corn. I've heard my mother talk about it and complained about it and all the healing and then having to go back and add this and you know hoe that up around it and then have to go back and no, I'm not doing all that.
Speaker 1:
So I did get my garden beds, my raised beds, finally figured out where I wanted to put them. I've had these things for a year and a half put together and I've moved them around the yard about 20 times. I've never put dirt in them because I didn't know where I wanted them and so I finally decided I'm putting them up close to the deck. I have two more to put together, but I'm putting them up close to the deck. I have two more to put together, but I'm putting them up close to the deck so that it's part of my zone one. So when I walk out the door, if you know if it needs tending, it'll be right there in my eye view and I'm going to use one of them for a garlic bed, one of them for an asparagus bed and then the other two, for now will probably be like sweet potatoes or something that just needs a really loamy soil and I may I may put some strawberries in one.
Speaker 1:
I'm not real sure I've got to grow. It is the dumbest thing that I do not grow strawberries. I've tried planting them in the greenhouse before the greenhouse got destroyed and not realizing that free-ranging chickens and strawberries whoops, there goes my notes. Free-ranging strawberries and or free-ranging chickens and strawberries was not a good combination. They ate every strawberry that popped on a plant, so I never got any of them, and so I'm going to find me a place to just make nothing but strawberries and I'm going to fence it in, and so hopefully I can keep critters out and keeping deer goodness gracious, keeping deer out of my garden.
Speaker 1:
That is a feat in and of itself. We last year used fishing line line and it worked pretty well. This year I have a bunch of T posts and some old electric netting that doesn't work anymore and I know that's probably not going to keep the deer out completely. But what I'm thinking is that I'm going to run that around the bottom and then completely enclose the garden and then up around the top of the T-post I'll add the fishing line and some pans or whatever it is that I need to try to deter them from going up and over that fence. We'll see how it works. I don't know. My bigger problem was a groundhog last year that decided to just get fat and happy in my garden and I never shot at him because, so you know, I told you that my tomatoes didn't do real well where they were laying over and he was finding his way to just hide, like I'd see him sitting up eating a tomato and then he'd be gone, and then I'd run out there and by the time I got out there he was really gone, gone, and he would just pop back over into the woods. So I'm hoping he's gone. I don't really know, but we'll see If Mr Groundhog is a problem again this year.
Speaker 1:
There's going to have to get creative. I'm not sure what I want to do. The Predator P works okay. I put it on a foam, like a piece of foam that you would put down on a floor to do workouts, and it held the smell pretty well. But then, you know, storms come through and knock that off and it was gone and that, that was that. But so I'm excited about gardening this year. I'm I want to do better than I did last year, although I didn't do bad. I just didn't do as good as I have in years past and I can't remember what I was doing last summer. I have no idea what took up my time that I didn't get things done on the homestead that I wanted to get done. So I don't know, and I'm doing a better job about journaling this year too, so that I know, so I can look back and know what was taking up my days.
Speaker 1:
I have a new granddaughter, very excited to welcome her. Her name is Savannah and she was born on April the 30th, and we're so excited. She, my daughter, lives not too far from me. She's about 20 minutes from me, and so you know my other grandchildren live like well over an hour away and it's just hard to to get up there and visit them and get them down here. And you know they're both of them are under or right at two years old and under, so it's kind of, you know, it's kind of hard to to chase them around at the age that they are. I'm looking forward to them getting up a little more, like three or four years old, so that they'll listen and know when I'm saying something, so that they don't get hurt. But I'm really looking forward to that, looking forward to Miss Savannah being my little sidekick. Who knows, she might not even like me. That's kind of how that goes you get all excited and then the kid doesn't like you. So that might happen too. I don't know.
Speaker 1:
Went to the Amish community last Friday with my friend Dee Dee and we went and I bought some more strawberries there and I came home and made jam. So I've got some of my strawberry jam done. I only got eight pints out of that and that's one of the things that I give at Christmas. I give all the kids. You know we do food boxes, so I've got to get more of that made up. You know enough to last for us, more of that made up, you know, enough to last for us, enough to give to our six children, or five, because one is still here at home 16, he's 16. So to give to the five kids you know to have, you know, some treats from the homestead and we give them chicken and beef and pork and canned items and jellies and jams and homemade butter and homemade bread and all that kind of stuff is what goes into their Christmas and one of these years, if I ever actually get to where I'm really really doing well, I would love to give each child a side of beef for Christmas, or a quarter, whatever I can afford. But my goal, my goal would be to would love to be able to give my children enough beef to last for a year, every year for Christmas. So looking forward to building up and hopefully being able to do that eventually.
Speaker 1:
What else is going on since my notes fell off? So tonight I am going to do a talk at the Hickman County Homesteaders Alliance group. Their meeting is at 530 tonight and I'm going to be talking about food laws in Tennessee and I'm going to cover cottage food laws, the Food Freedom Act that was passed last year and how to sell raw milk or operate a herd share. You can sell raw milk as pet milk in Tennessee and you can also do it through a herd share agreement. And then you know there's things that you you know you can also do it through a herd share agreement. And then you know there's things that you know you can sell your canned goods and things like that now and you can butcher up to 20,000 chickens, and so I'm just going to kind of touch on all of that ways that you can make money from food off of your homestead and barter and sell with each other. So I'm really excited about that and I'm excited that they're going to have me. As far as what's coming up, we are, like I said, we're going to be processing our chickens this weekend and then after that I have a couple of beginners canning workshops. They are listed on the website.
Speaker 1:
If anybody wants to learn how to can and is local and you want to, you know, come and be with a class and have a hands-on, full day experience. We do feed you from the homestead, which is an awesome, you know. It's an awesome addition and it's just, it's a camaraderie. There is so much more about learning in a group experience because you pick up in person. You pick up energy, like energy off of other people. You are more able to retain information. You know if you're learning and doing it at the same time. It's that whole. You know. Learn, demonstrate and teach. That's what I was trying to say. Learn one or watch one, demonstrate one, teach one. It's kind of that whole process. And if you do that in person, you're much more likely to go and actually can or butcher chickens or do home dairy or whatever it is that you're learning. And also, when you spend the money to invest in learning a skill, you're much more likely to go and do something with it.
Speaker 1:
Same thing with me with the artificial insemination. I got certified a couple of weeks ago through Select Sires. I took their artificial insemination class and that cost me $750. And you can bet your sweet butt I'm going to use it because I'm not going to spend that kind of money investing in skills and knowledge and then not ever do anything with it. So, and you know it might not ever do me anything as far as making money, but it gives me some independence. Like I love my AI guy. He's wonderful and I'm still going to call him and I'm still going to have him come help me, and I'm still going to pay him for a while because I need someone to come and give me the confidence and, you know, stand with me and talk with me, despite the fact that I got certified that was a weekend. Now I've got to go put it into practice and it'll make me feel good to have him come and just be here with me. You know, make sure I'm putting the gun in the right place, make sure that you know I'm depositing the semen in the right place, and all that kind of stuff. So so that's what we going on, or what we've got going on Um, looking forward to the summer, that's.
Speaker 1:
That's really about it. Our son's going off for a month to um wrestling camp at Perler and when we pick him up from there we are going to go to Colorado for a week. Our niece is getting married in Steamboat Springs, colorado. So we've got Honey Bear, our sweet girl. Honey Bear will be coming and farm sitting for us and I'm going to try to find somebody as a backup for her, just in case something happens.
Speaker 1:
You know, and it costs me money, it costs me money to go away. So just kind of keep that in mind when you're thinking about adding things to your homestead. Automate what you can and just realize that if you do have things like milk cows, and just realize that if you do have things like milk cows, um, unless you're calf sharing and the calf is able to take all of the milk, then, um, you know that's something that you have to consider when you make those decisions about what you're going to add and if you're going to travel. So, but anyway, that's pretty much all we got going on. Right now I'm super excited about everything going on. We're going to be really, really busy world. You know, life takes off, especially in the summer, and it feels like a whirlwind. So thank you so much for tuning in and, you know, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and if you like the podcast, it would be really great if you could subscribe and leave a review. It helps other people to find our podcast and you can find us at the gorham homesteadcom and on the socials at the gorham homestead. Whatever you've got on the docket today, keep it real, y'all.
Speaker 1:
My daddy was a guitar picker playing all the local clubs and my mama was a waitress where they'd park M18 with the trucks. We didn't have much money. Times were kind of hard. Living in a trailer trailer on the edge of grandpa's farm yeah, I may not come from much, but I've got just enough. As long as my baby's in my arms and the good lord knows what's in my heart, I'll refuse to be ashamed. The baby's in my arms and the good Lord knows what's in my heart, I refuse to be ashamed. It's just a southern thing.