Today I'm talking with Lydia at An Enchanted Homestead.

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You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together. Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality, and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.

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At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful. If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care, you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. That tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Lydia at an enchanted homestead. I love that name in Idaho. Good afternoon, Lydia. How are you? Hi, I'm well. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in your neck of the woods today? oh

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windy and rainy. Us too. In Minnesota, same thing. It is gross outside. Yes. It's like we can't make up our minds here. One day it's like a warm spring. Now it's like kind of reverting to winter. It's so funny. Every time, every time I talk with somebody about the weather and it just keeps flipping, they all have the same sigh and I do the same thing. I did it two days ago.

01:27
We just need spring to get here and stay here. That would be great. Yes. And it's unusually warm. Um, cause I feel like winter skipped us here in Southern Idaho. We got snow like only three times and it melted the same day. And so it got pretty warm. Like we were having a pretty warm spring, um, which I was kind of excited about. And then this week it was like, psych. So it's like cold and wet. Yup.

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I... There's that noise again. I hate this. Alrighty. So why is it called an enchanted homestead? Do you have magic on your homestead? Oh, gosh. I'm just always... love all things like magical and just like finding gratitude even in the mundane boring stuff and like turning it into something... Well, magical.

02:21
Enchanting and so I don't know it just it's stuck with me and we decided to name it that Well, you'll be happy to know that one of my good friends gave me a fairy weather vane when we moved here five years ago, that's awesome And it only took a year and a half to put up, but it's really pretty so

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Yep, I can see it out my living room windows and every time I look at it, I think of her and I'm like, I hope you're looking down from heaven smiling at the weather rain. Oh, that's awesome. That is awesome. I love adding all kinds of stuff. Like I have like my courts around the garden, like sun catchers, wind chimes. just I love putting stuff everywhere. I'm like, I don't know, like adding that little magical umph to like otherwise boring places around the property.

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And so I just, love that. Yes, because when things aren't blooming, you need something to look like it's blooming. Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes, indeed. Make it somewhat pretty. Yeah, I get it. I really do. I was talking to somebody about the fact that peonies are my favorite flower the other day and I realized I still have at least two months before my peonies bloom. Oh yeah? Well, I want to add more flowers around the property, but I

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suck. I don't know. cannot get flowers to bloom hardly at all. just, I don't know. Is it shady? Some parts, but our house faces west and so the sun does like, whoo. Um, but I don't know. just, I have wildflowers though that have taken off and they come back every year, thankfully. So I'm trying to get more going. Um,

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So we'll see this year. We'll see. Okay. I have a question. Did you grow up in Idaho? No, actually in Puerto Rico. Oh, okay. I was listening to you talk and I'm like, there's some accent there, but I can't place it. Yeah, no. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, moved to Hawaii and then came to Idaho. Okay. It's really subtle. I don't think anybody else would have noticed it, but I am like a fanatic about it because I listened to everything really closely. um Okay. So.

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Tell me about your homestead. Well, we have a little bit over 50 chickens, I would say, give or take. We have four goats. We have nine cats, five dogs. Five dogs, yeah. And we are just on, I think about three and a half acres here. um Yeah, we do gardening.

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We do obviously the farm fresh eggs, all the stuff. Nice. Because I'm a dog fanatic, I never was until we got our dog five years ago. My husband is the same. What breed, what breed, what breeds are your dogs or is it one breed? Oh, so we had, we started with one Shih Tzu and then she got pregnant. And she had five puppies that were mixed.

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one passed away early on and so I could not part with the other puppies. And so we were in town at first and so that is what led us to then have to find somewhere out of town limits because I think it was a three dog maximum rule and we had a little bit more than that. And of course they're little dogs so they yap. They are quite the little yappers. um And so then when we moved out here we had a dog

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that randomly showed up. His name was Jax. He passed um two or three years ago. But then we had another dog show up, Bruno. He's still with us. He's a lab mix, a black lab mix. And then our son brought another dog home and she is a border collie lab mix. And so we currently, yeah, one, two.

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three, four, five, because we've had a few that have passed away. yeah. Yep. My husband and I are of the mind that one dog is more than enough for us. We adore our dog. her mama has a litter every year. And friends of ours own the mama. And I'm like, man, those puppies are so cute. My husband's like, our dog is so cute. We don't need to give her a sister or a brother. What breed is she?

07:10
She's a she's an Australian shepherd. Oh, okay. And they need they need to be played with. Yeah, they have energy. Yeah. So having more than one would probably kill both of us. Yeah, that's how it is with ours. That's a border Collie mix. Nova. Oh my goodness. She has energy for days and we have her kind of like on a routine. So like they get breakfast every morning and then she gets like after breakfast playtime. Then at around three o'clock she gets another playtime.

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Then after dinner, they get playtime and it's like, she will, and she knows, like she will sit by the area where her toys are at and just look like the saddest abused dog. Like, please play. Oh my goodness. I calm down. But she loves, thought she wants to be outside playing all day long. cannot for the life of me figure out if border collies and um Australian shepherds just know how to communicate better than other dogs do.

08:08
Mm-hmm. would say so. Maggie's the same way. She has all kinds of expressions for what she wants. They're super smart. Yeah, it's crazy. And my mom and dad have a purebred border collie and her name is Duchess and she was aptly named and she has all kinds of faces for what she wants to according to my dad. So I think that those two breeds are very expressive and very clear.

08:36
when they want your attention for whatever it is that they want you to do. oh absolutely. And I could talk about dogs all day. Like I am an absolute convert. I go to the church of dog. I swear to you. uh I've always been a dog person, but my husband, for his whole life was scared of dogs. Like it is the funniest thing. Like even the littlest dog, he'd be like, Nope. And I'm like, come on. Like it's not going to eat you. Like really?

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and he will just walk the other way. And so then when we got our first dog together, Harley, he started coming around and his family to this day, they're like, we would have never thought you would end up with five dogs....