Today I'm talking with Sidney at Greenbush Twins & Company. You can also follow on Facebook.

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00:00
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. Today I'm talking with Sydney Greenbush at Greenbush Twins and Company in California. And is it 11 o'clock there? Yes. We just had daylight savings times, you know, so that it would normally be 10, but now it's 11.

00:25
Yeah, so I would say, well, I'm in Minnesota, so I'm two hours ahead of you. So good morning to you and good afternoon to me. Good morning. I am so happy to have you as a guest. I saw you on Facebook, your page, and I was like, hmm, there's a story there. I've got to talk to her. But before we get into it, I always say, how is the weather wherever my guest is? So how's the weather in California today? Oh, it's really windy today, but the winds are supposed to...

00:54
die down. So we have the Santa Ana winds, which are the winds that come from the inland and blow out to the ocean. And they get very strong. You get gassed up to, you know, 60 to 100 miles an hour. So we're all like really ready for them to die down today. I feel like 50 to 60 miles our mile hour and a winds. I can't say it. I feel like 50 to 60 mile per hour winds.

01:23
are a weekly occurrence where we live in Minnesota. So I'm used to it. Yeah. We, and for us, the winds aren't the bad part of it. The bad part of it is when we have obviously the wildfires on top of it. So everybody kind of gets a little anxious because you never know when one's going to pop up or where. Um, and so you're always kind of like got that little bit of guard going. Yeah. Especially after last year, I'm sure you guys are on a swivel.

01:52
Yeah, and so for us that live in this area, we've had a few really bad fires. The last one was obviously the Palisades and the Altadena fire. But years before that, we had the Woolsey and we've had um really bad fires in the 80s and stuff. One year, actually burnt down part of Johnny Carson's home. So it almost becomes a way of life here on the coastline around by Los Angeles because

02:20
It's not if you're going to have a fire, it's when are you going to have another fire? Because it's just the way that eh the vegetation and the habitat kind of the ecosystem is. Well, I'm always astounded at people who want to live in California. My daughter lived there for a few years and she loved it. She loved everything about it. And then she fell in love and moved to New York and now she's in Florida with her husband. So. uh

02:49
Yeah, it's amazing where you'll move for the person you love. So let's just address the elephant in the room. If Sydney's name sounds familiar, it's because she played along with her sister, Carrie on Little House on the Prairie. Right. And Sydney is way more than just that. She has started a new project and I think it's fairly recent, like in the last year. Yeah.

03:18
Well, the, really started in December was the official launch of the website and the ramp up for the book, the seven sisters, lantern of humanity. And so it's all just very fresh for, for me. And it's been an amazing trip so far and I can only imagine what the future holds, you know. Yeah. Are you still riding the new energy high of a new project?

03:46
I am because I keep thinking at some point, you you try and build your audience and I keep thinking at some point, okay, it's going to taper down because it's not quite so new anymore. And it's been about six months that we've been, we've been talking about it. But every day I'm so surprised because I, I log in and then the number has increased and sometimes it's not like a major increase, but it's still that momentum going forward and it hasn't tapered off yet.

04:16
And then I start to get excited and I start thinking, oh, I could do this and I could do that and I could do that. And I'm like, OK, slow down. You got to focus like one one thing at a time. Let's get through the first one first. You know, so. Oh, yes, I woke up this morning and I know I was going to be talking with you. I knew I had to get two podcasts ready to go out for tomorrow. I also have a course that I'm supposed to be taking that someone gifted me about raising quail that I need to sit down and look at.

04:44
And I was like, I can't do all three of these things at the same time this morning. So one thing and then the next thing and then the next thing. And if I don't get them all done, it's OK. Right. Yeah. And see, I'm, you know, I'm easily excited about things that I want to do. And so that's where I really have to manage my focus, because it's easy for me to start something. Right. But the hard part is.

05:11
Seeing it through to completion, right? So I have to remind myself before I get off on another tangent like I really need to do this especially when it comes to like housework because I Really don't like it. So I have to go. Okay. Yeah, you need to really do like your laundry or clean the kitchen You know that kind of stuff that we all have a tendency to put off a little bit but em But it's all good once you know those things about yourself and your personality

05:39
and you acknowledge it, it's much easier to manage it, you know? Absolutely. And housework never ends. So you just do it as it comes up. um So tell me, tell me about, tell me about um Greenbush Twins and Company. Well, Greenbush Twins and Company, the and company really refers to other artists, other collaborators and our our followers, right?

06:08
an idea that none of us can do something completely on our own, that we do need each other and together our differences and our experiences, they make us stronger. Because I might have experience in one area, but when I decided to do like the children's book, that's an area that I didn't have any experience in. But I was willing to, you know, try and take that adventure.

06:37
but you need somebody really that has the experience to help to guide you, to show you the ins and the outs and the dos and the don'ts. And so that's really what Greenbush Twins is meant for. And it's also meant to help support the small batch makers, the smaller artists, people that may not get the...

07:02
notoriety because the marketing may not be in their budget or uh they just haven't got to a platform where they can really, really shine and uh sustainable living and all that stuff. So it's really a platform made to be a hub where, say, if you're looking for a hair product or you're looking for a piece of artwork or something that's uh special, that's handcrafted,

07:31
You can look through the directory that we have, the products that we represent, and you can see if you can uh find what you're looking for. And if you can't, there's a few of the collaborators and artisians that do custom work. So you can reach out to them or we can facilitate reaching out. And uh that's really what it's meant to be. uh Corporate America really doesn't...

07:57
care about people. They don't care really what they're putting in their products. And this has really uh been shown by like, for example, everybody thought it was so great when we got non-stick pans that were coated in Teflon, right? But then they found that Teflon caused cancer and they knew about it, but they didn't take it off of the market. So it's really an aim at bringing products that don't have those

08:26
conservatives, those toxins, those things that you may not see them affect you today, but down the road, it will have an impact on your health um and try and come back to the more natural holistic living like you saw, you know, even in little house, you know, a lot of things were handmade. And I think that as a community, we will be stronger because we'll be able to

08:54
do things that are more sustainable in the long run. ...