Today I'm talking with Lily at Girlypop Acres. You can also follow on Facebook.

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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 Lily at Gurley Pop Far- Acres in New York. How are you, Lily? I'm how are you doing today? I'm good. I almost messed up the introduction yet again. I'm telling you, I-

00:56
I know what I'm going to say and the brain does not translate to my tongue to come out of my face. So how is the weather in New York this morning? Oh, it's actually decent for once. We've been hit hard by snow lately, but it's sunny and shiny and everyone, all the critters are walking around happy. Good. It is March 30th, I think. And I'm in Minnesota and the sun is pouring through my bedroom window, which is the room I do my recording in.

01:26
And it's supposed to hit 75 degrees today. Oh, goodness. I'm jealous. think we're probably in like the 40s and I'm celebrating. Yeah, the weather's been so weird. We had 81 degrees two Sundays ago for the high. Oh my goodness. And then it was cold, colder all week. And then it was really nice yesterday. I it got up to 63. It's supposed to be 75 today and it's supposed to drop down again this week. So.

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I'm gonna be real happy when we get a stretch of seven days where it is moderate and spring-like. It would be great. Oh, same here. Same here. It was snowing just two days ago here. Yeah, it's nuts. So tell me, I wanna know about you and what you do, but tell me why your place is called Girlie Pop Acres. So I have four dogs, three great Pyrenees and one beagle. And back when it was just the great Pyrenees,

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um I had two of them puppies and you know, great Pyrenees puppies don't listen to anything at all. And it was just easier to yell girly pops at them instead of being like, over here. So I would yell girly pops and I accidentally trained all three of them to only respond to girly pop. uh And now the beagle does So I just named it after my dogs. That is so cute.

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I call my dog girly all the time. Oh, I love it. I'm sure my neighbors know that we're girly pup acres because my dogs used to break out of the fence before we had our fences as good as we do. I'd be outside yelling girly pups, girly pups. Oh, Funny. You know what would be funny? It would you made cake pops and took them to your neighbors and were like, I'm so sorry that I'm always yelling girly pop. Here's some cake pops for you.

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I should. I don't know if they can even hear me because my neighbors are pretty far away, but if they do. Yeah, I think that would be really cute. If you ever get an inkling or hear a rumor that they're upset, just throw together some cake pops and I don't know, put cute little dog faces on them and take them over to them. Oh, that's a great idea. That's what I would do because I really like turning messes into messages. That's such a cute like motto. I love that.

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Uh huh. have gained so many sayings from this podcast over two and a half years from people I've talked to.

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and they're all relevant. So I just, have a whole rolling lexicon in the back of my head of things that I can do or say. I love that. Yeah. It's been great. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Um, so I'm a homesteader as you can guess, since I'm here. Um, I raised Nigerian dwarf goats. We have eight goats right now. Uh, we got the four dogs. Uh, we got a goose named Boopers.

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walking around next to me right now. I got a bunch of ducks, a bunch of silkies, and I raised two feral farm children and a potbelly pig named Big Bertha. sounds like Homestead. Yep. Very full life over here. I consider myself a Lyme's disease advocate because I have Lyme's disease and so does my husband.

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um I'm a disabled farmer. I have two leg braces because my knees are all messed up. I'm either always in a cane or a walker, which is a challenge with farming, but we make it work. Yes, yes. And I'm glad you said that because I'm not saying that you are over 50. I have no idea how old you are. I am over 50.

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You can do homesteading at any age as long as you feel safe in what you're doing. That is an amazing thing to call out because ah I'm only 28. My husband is 25, but we've been doing it for a couple of years and it was pretty much the second we could get a piece of land. We're like, okay, let's get back to farming. ah I was raised on a cattle farm when I was a kid and he grew up at this lake.

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semi-famous bed and breakfast in Arkansas, where they had like 100 acres. But there's definitely times where your safety is like, goodness, like people don't think about how much goes into homesteading. Oh, there are so many ways to get hurt on a homestead. husband was splitting wood over the weekend with our wood splitter, you know, the actual

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motorized one. And I was sitting on the porch because I don't do wood, he does it. And I kept going out and kind of keeping an eye on him because he's out there by himself. And I'm like, please don't let him get sidetracked and leave his hand in the way. Because if you get your hand caught between the wood and the metal piece that splits the wood, you're going to have a broken hand for sure. Oh, goodness, I couldn't imagine. So he was fine. He's got it down to a science and he's very good at it. And it's kind of fun watching your husband do

06:48
manly work, you but But there are so many ways I mean The first time we came to see this place over five years ago before we bought it it's it's 3.1 acres and it is a flat it's a piece of flat land and uh There were divots or whatever. They're called trenches. I don't know but all over the yard from where the the tractors had gone through or been moved or whatever on the property

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and I caught my boot toe on one the edges and went down. In the first five minutes, I was walking this property and I was like, well, that bodes well. I'll probably break a leg before it's over. So you can do the dumbest things and get hurt or you can be the most careful ever and still get hurt. So it's something to consider. Yeah, I'm on the dumber end of it with my first goat. He was a little baby.

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And he loved jumping up onto my shoulders to get piggyback rides. And I just let him because I was like, this is cute. This is adorable. This isn't going to backfire on me someday. And now that he's a full grown goat and still tries to do it so swell. uh I also got attacked by an emu once on our farm when we tried to raise emu. So yes, they are big birds and they're not

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I mean, I'm sure someone in their experience has raised an emu chick and it's the friendliest, sweetest bird ever and would never hurt a fly. But I don't think that's the usual course of events. I have no idea. We got one as a baby. It was given to us by a friend as a housewarming gift and it was in our living room and it would sit around and wh...