Today I'm talking with Adam and Katie at M57 Farms

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00:00
listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.

00:28
Today I'm talking with Adam and Katie at M57 Farms in Michigan. Good morning, how are you? Good morning, we are great. How are you? I'm well. Thank you for coming to chat with me. No problem. We look forward to it and we've been excited. Good. What is the weather like in Michigan? Is it sunny and bright like it is in Minnesota this morning?

00:52
It's a beautiful day. It's sunny. It's got to be probably 72 out right now and beautiful blue skies. Did you guys have the heat last week that we had? Absolutely sure did. Yeah, it was not fun this week here. It's supposed to only be. I think the highest high I saw was 79 or 80 and I thought OK Mother Nature. Maybe you've gotten your act together for at least a week. That would be really nice.

01:19
We are hoping and of course we decided to do all of our crazy landscaping projects around the farm in the heat, which I don't know why we do that to ourselves. They could have been done anytime. Because you like a challenge, I would guess. You know, as much as I say no, that's probably it. That's my wife nods her head. Yeah, it's a thing. It really is. OK, so I got to know why is it called M57 Farms?

01:47
So we have state roads in Michigan and all the state roads begin with M and we live right off of M57. So it's a pretty busy main road. um And we just kind of sat here one night and everyone always says like, oh, it's the farm right off of M57. So we just decided to kind of go with M57. OK, that makes a lot of sense and how lovely that it was easy because it sounds like it

02:16
But M57 is a very long road. now everyone says, where on M57? Oh, OK. All right. So tell me about yourselves and what you guys do at M57 farms. I will have my wife lead. Oh, geez. OK, well, I'm a speech language pathologist by trade. So the farm is just kind of the hobby side for me. It's more Adam that does a lot of the running around. I like to do the dreaming and.

02:44
He likes to do the executing, so.

02:49
So I am a franchisee for Firehouse Subs and I do enjoy that, but I've always enjoyed farming, being outside. We have a 40 acre farm here and we have currently 22 pairs. So it'd mama cows and some calves. And I kinda, we do lease it out.

03:17
but we kind of manage the cows the day to day, do all the chores and we rotate them and our property, we have water located in the central of it. So we kind of have little pie sections, if you will. So we kind of put our eyes on the cows every day, do the chores and we also make crafts. So we have a little gift shop located at the end of our driveway.

03:43
And since we're kind of right off the main road, we get quite a bit of traffic from that. we make homemade soap, we freeze dry things, we have a freeze dryer, and we also have a laser engraver that can kind of cut wood, laser engraved wood. And the biggest thing that we do now is we have a lavender patch in front of our barn and we renovated our barn into an Airbnb. So.

04:12
We rent out the Airbnb and we have a lot going on at the farm. So we have cows. um And of course we have our outdoor cat, Rubble Crew Kitty. And we have an indoor cat as well and we have two dogs. um But as far as the kind of outside farm goes, we have our outdoor Rubble Crew Kitty. And um the guests love him. He's pretty popular. And the gift shop, the gift shop's

04:41
Decent size is probably 12 by 14 foot kind of gift shop shed and it's fully stocked with soaps, keychains we make, tumblers that we engrave. My wife makes a lot of beaded things like beaded pens and garden stakes, all kinds of, I don't know. I'd like to say we're just all over the place. We are. Well, that's okay because variety is the spice of life. You said you lease out.

05:10
the beginning of this whole string of things you guys do, what does that mean? So we lease out our 40 acres to a local farmer to put his cows here. So they're not our cows, but we just tend to them and, you know, rotate them through the pasture, put our eyes on them, do the chores with them and all that stuff. OK, thank you, because I was like, I think I know what he means, but I'm not sure. And if I'm not sure, that means whoever's listening isn't sure as well.

05:40
OK, so you sound very happy. Both of you. Are you very happy? Yes, very happy. We moved. So I'm from the country and my wife is from, I guess, the city of all of what? thousand people. Yeah. Small town, but yeah, but a townie. And uh when I got my firehouse sub started, we ended up moving to Lansing, which is like the capital of Michigan. It's a lot.

06:09
bigger and we made it two months there before we said we got to get back to the country. So, so your country, your country mice not city mice now. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

06:23
I understand completely if I if I have a choice, I don't want to live in a town or a city again. We live about four and a half, five miles outside of our small town. And right now we're surrounded by soybean fields and I don't know what they planted across the street from us. And I'm OK with that, because as long as it's green, I'm good. Yep, we love it. We feel too.

06:47
We are right off the main road, but we live on a dirt road and you know, we can go for walks with the family. There's some road tracks down the road so we can go walk down there. Um, our two sons, have two sons, Cooper and Cannon. nice. Yep. They are, they love it out here. He's got like four or five different power wheels and you know, whatever job I'm doing, he's got to have his little tractor or Jeep or lawnmower, whatever out.

07:16
How old are the boys? Three years for Cooper and then Cannon is four months tomorrow. Oh my God, you are in the thick of it. Yeah, but it's a blessing. Cooper keeps us busy and Cannon is just great too. So we're glad to have them both. Yeah, I when I say it like that, it's because I raised four. My youngest is 24. My oldest is 36. Four would seem like a lot to me.

07:46
I think it was a good number. was a lot, but it was a lot of fun too. Yeah. So you mentioned the outdoor cats. I haven't said anything yet on the podcast about this. One of our female barn cats is very, pregnant right now. She's probably going to pop about the end of June, 1st of July. And we haven't had barn kittens on the property in a year and a half, two years.

08:12
So we're very excited to see what she throws for colors, because she is a very interesting looking cat. Do you guys know about the cats that look like werewolves? The Loki cats? No. No. She looks kind of like that, and not because she's that breed, but that's what she reminds me of. And her coloring is mostly dilute grays and blacks with a little bit of white. But her brother and her sister, her brother is orange. He's orange.

08:41
So we have no idea what color kittens we're going to get. And we're like, oh my God, let them all be healthy. And I can't wait to see these babies in two weeks, probably. We are pulling up pictures of what they look like right now. That is crazy. Yeah. And the thing is, the reason I say she looks like a Loki cat is because she is, she's about 10 months old. I think she's just shy of a year. She was very, very long haired. And when spring hit, she shed out.

09:11
up right to the base of her shoulders and the rest of her long hair and she's tiny. She's a small cat. So I was like, oh my God, she looks like one of those werewo...