Today I'm talking with Connie at Rusted Gates Farm.

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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. Today I'm talking with Connie at Rusted Gates, uh, farm? Farm? think it's farm. Yeah. Pennsylvania. Good afternoon, Connie. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. Good. How's the weather there? Rainy, but we need it. I think almost everybody in the United States needs some rain right now.

00:30
Yep, they sure do. Other than us, we've had we had half an inch two days ago and it's been cloudy for the last three days. And I'm like, you know, sunshine, you could come back out any time now. There's baby plants in the garden that need you. Yes, there are. It's so cute. look out my living room window and there's a big old garden right out the window across the driveway and it's all good, rich, black dirt.

01:00
And then there's these little green baby plants in there and I'm like, oh man, this is my favorite part. Watching everything just in finally after a long winter. Yep. When you finally, everything starts finally waking up. Trees have their leaves and all the plants are flowering. It's a pretty time of year. I freaking love spring. I love fall more than I love spring because fall is the, uh

01:28
the reaping of what we planted in the spring. So I like fall because we're eating squashes and the last of the tomatoes and um pumpkin pie and all those good things that we associate with fall. Okay. So your last name is Gates. So is that why it's rusted Gates farm? Yes, it is. And why rusted Gates? Well, ah

01:56
We had a daughter and her nickname was Rusty. Cute. I love that. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's why we name it Rusty. Sweet. Very sweet. Okay. So your main thing that you do at Rusty Gates Farm is fainting goats. And I want to hear all about that. Yeah, about 15 years ago, I got started in it.

02:20
Yeah, but what else is there anything else that you do on the farm as well as the goats? We have an assortment of animals. To run down the list, we started with silky chickens. We got a couple of ceramas, chickens, couple of Polish chickens, a couple of golden phoenixes. We got ducks. We got bunnies. We got a we got a sepastra bull goose and a hubby.

02:50
Sterling, we named him Sterling and uh and Hope is the other one and Hope's a little famous. She is used in this uh photographers as a prop and a lot of the kids put up pictures. So she's been a prop in a couple of uh the photo shoots. Hope is a goose? Yep, Hope is a goose. Okay.

03:18
And she's almost 13 years old. So I'm not sure how long she's going to be around, but she's 13 now. So she's getting up there in age. That sounds like a very long life for poultry. Yeah, it is. We have a couple of turkeys. We have a zebu cow that originated over in Africa. How did you get that?

03:41
Um, there was a breeder in Bedford County that we did. I wanted Highlands and I couldn't afford a Highland. I really wanted a miniature Highland, but like I said, that, was a no go for the price tag. So we settled on the Zeeboot because it was a much more reasonable price range for someone that's on social security. Yeah. The Zeeboos are the ones with the hump.

04:06
in their backs. Yes. They look like almost like the Brahmans, except they don't have the long ears and their hump's not quite as big and their miniature size. Nice. All right. And his name is Seb. We have two ponies, Louie and Chunky Charlie. And Louie I use for pony rides for his birthday parties. And we have a little donkey and he's kind of famous in our community too, because

04:34
He goes to church with us quite a bit. His name is Festus. um Festus has been in a couple Christmas plays at Celebration Community Church. And then at Easter time, went and he was in, they had a special program for the kids about, and they took each day of Jesus' life in the last week of him being on earth. And they had a different station for that.

05:02
Festus was of course the first one because Jesus rode on in on the back of a donkey into Jerusalem and kids lay pumped down and pumps down in front of him and he walked over him. Have fun. Yeah, and an interesting fact about donkeys while we're on donkeys is Festus has a cross on his back. He has a dark stripe down his back and a dark stripe over his shoulders. So it makes a

05:32
cross. So that was kind of a blessing from Jesus for carrying him on Palm Sunday. And pretty much all Mediterranean donkeys have that cross. I was gonna say not all donkey breeds have that, but that specific breed does. the Mediterranean donkey stew. Funny. So yes, so that's his claim to fame. And then we have all kinds of pigeons, all different breeds. um

06:00
And I think that's about it. So why do you have pigeons? That's my husband's hobby. OK. That's something that he's always been fascinated with. And so that's what we have. We have homers and we have some that are called Birmingham rollers. They're really cool because when they catch an airdrift that goes up, they roll in the sky.

06:26
and then they catch another drift and they go way high and then they roll. It's really fun to watch them. Yeah, birds are so interesting. Like, I don't want one in my house. I never want a pet bird. And we have chickens and I really don't enjoy touching the chickens, but I absolutely enjoy having the eggs from the chickens. Of course, they're good and fresh that way.

06:53
Yeah, I think that birds belong outside. I really enjoy watching them. I don't want to be up close. are kind of messy and dirty. Yeah, I don't want to be up close But not as dirty as ducks. Ducks are the worst. So I hear. I don't have ducks. My friend does. And she's actually selling her duck eggs in our farm stand again this year for the second year. Oh, well, they're very good for you. Yeah. And I just, I'm like, I don't want ducks. I'm good. Chickens is more than enough.

07:23
Well, you get more chickens for eggs. Chickens lay eggs for a longer period of time than ducks do. Ducks have a very short laying cycle. They do. And it was funny because her ducks stopped back last fall and we had a few people asking where the duck eggs were. And I was like, you clearly don't know anything about ducks. And I didn't say that because that would be rude. And I was like, they don't lay past.

07:50
Yeah, end of September 1st of October when the daylight gets short, they don't hmm. So and now they're back and everybody's like, yay, duck eggs are back. I'm like, yeah, because the sunlight is now back. Yeah, because all of agriculture is influenced by weather and daylight. That's right. We need to get people back into this. I swear, it's part of the reason I do this podcast and my other one, because people need to know.

08:19
how the cycles work and how nature works and that eggs don't come from the store, they come from chicken butt. Yes, yes, it's interesting. We're so far removed and it's so sad and it took such a short amount of time. One generation, it's all it took. Yeah, it's nuts. I refuse to be removed. I will not be removed from where my food comes from.

08:48
because I was raised by, well, I wasn't raised by grandparents, but I had grandparents who had gardens and my parents had a big garden and my parents hunted. They heated their house with wood, with a wood stove. So I know a lot about gardening and I know a lot about hauling wood. And I refuse to let people remain in their little bubbles of the grocery store is where food originates and that's where we get it.

09:15
Or you turn on the switch and you have heat. That too. Yeah. Yeah. So what's still is a little bit more work. Yes. If you do it right, your wood should warm you four times. The saying is three, but it's actually four because you got to cut the tree when you sweat, when you cut a tree, you have to cut up the fallen tree. You have to. You have to split the wood and then you have to move the wood to wherever it's going to be stored. So that's four times.

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