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Simple Farmhouse Life
The Farmhouse Edit: Real Food, Real Life: Homesteading & Motherhood with Meg of Hollar Homestead
01:00:47
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- [00:00]
Lisa
Having, like you said, like a handful of meals that you can pull out on any of those certain occasions. It is from scratch, but it's not going to impress anyone. I think people take from scratch and they take it to mean it has to be way more than it even is. And then also there's definitely something to be said for getting good at something. If you make bread, you've made it hundreds of times. It's not even hard. It's not something you have to think about.
- [00:23]
Meg Holler
That's really good advice is just finding a couple things that you can really focus on and become really good at. So when it comes to the point where you're just tired or whatever, you can just throw it together.
- [00:32]
Lisa
My name is Lisa, mother of eight and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. On this podcast I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing Series. I also help people reach their goals from home through my business course, YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show.
- [01:00]
Meg Holler
Foreign
- [01:03]
Lisa
welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Today I'm having on Meg Holler of Holler Homestead. She came on about a year ago and we talked about the homestead, about getting it all done. As a mom, I believe we talked about some pregnancy and postpartum stuff. She was about to be expecting their sixth child. Well, today we're gonna have a similar conversation. A lot of you wanted to hear from Meg again. A lot of you follow her over on YouTube and wanted her perspective on cooking from Scrat, managing a large family, homesteading. So I think that if you like those topics and you want to be encouraged by those topics, you're going to really like this episode. Meg, welcome back on A lot of people put in your name as a request. They wanted to hear from you. I told some of them she's been on but we will do another episode. So that's there's a lot of audience questions, a lot of requests for you. So I don't remember when you were last on. I should have looked this up. But what is new in your world since then? I feel like you either had a brand new baby or you were pregnant. Am I correct? During the last time that we recorded together. Okay, yeah. I thought that was like something very imminent. So how long ago was that you
- [02:12]
Meg Holler
would know then so our last podcast, I believe, was the beginning of April, and I wound up having the baby beginning of May, so about a week late.
- [02:21]
Lisa
Okay. Yeah. Because I do remember that you either had a brand new baby or that you were, like, very close to actually having the baby. So I think a lot of our conversation, you know, people had a lot of questions and it was fresh in your mind about pregnancy and postpartum. So for those who didn't listen to the last episode, who maybe don't follow you on YouTube, tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and what you share about over on YouTube. Okay.
- [02:46]
Meg Holler
Yeah. So we really just share our homesteading life. It is me, my husband, and our now six children. We are. Our channel kind of started off with traveling because we originally lived in California. And so we sold our house and we all piled into an RV with. Then it was just our four kids, and we traveled around the United States and found a new homestead in North Carolina. So that's where we are now. And since then, since landing here, we've just been sharing our life of growing our own food and raising babies and doing the whole thing.
- [03:17]
Lisa
Right. Yeah. So what was it that brought you to North Carolina? I think we talked about this last time, but I forget, is there family there or it was just the weather or, like, the homesteading climate?
- [03:31]
Meg Holler
Mostly the weather, actually, no. We're actually farthest away from our family as we could possibly get. Not necessarily on purpose, but that's just how it worked out. So, yeah, we traveled all over and we just really loved North Carolina when we came through. I mean, we came through in October, so the fall colors were, like, gorgeous, and there was, like, water falling from the sky, which is not something that happens in California. And we just loved it. People were like, as soon as we crossed the border, it felt like home. Which kind of sounds, you know, obnoxiously romantic, but that's how it felt. And so we found a place. We love it.
- [04:05]
Lisa
Yeah. Yeah. Well, there are a lot of people who don't have location as a boundary, whether it's because they work from home or, you know, they have a job that can transfer. So I'm sure you get asked a lot. I get asked a lot from my, you know, audience on YouTube or Instagram. Where would you recommend homesteading? And I'm like, well, you know, I grew up in Missouri, so I never moved, I never will. And so I'm like, I mean, I'm very biased. I think it's fine. But, you know, you had the opportunity and took Almost that same approach of, like, where should we homestead? And landed on North Carolina, I'm sure. Do people ask you that question as well? Like, okay, you looked at everything. What were the considerations you made and how. How is this the place that you were like, okay, this would be a really good place, I'm assuming, you know, to raise your family and then also the actual homesteading aspect of it.
- [04:53]
Meg Holler
Right? Yeah. So water was actually a really huge consideration for us coming from California because water is so scarce and so regulated out there. So when we got here, and like, there really is water falling from the sky and, and out of the ground and like, there's streams and there's. There's watersheds that are prominent. And so that was a huge factor for us. We have a well in our place. That was a really big deal for us. And just the fact that we could, like, get a well without having to drill for, you know, a mile almost. Oh, wow. And then homeschool factors were a big deal for us. So we have our children, we have from the very beginning. So we needed to make sure that it was a homeschool friendly state. And it is. And actually the, the area we landed is actually really big on homeschooling. There's a lot of homeschooling families where we are in our county. So that was a big deal too.
- [05:45]
Lisa
That's. That's a cool consideration that I don't feel like you can necessarily, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but find out until you're somewhere, like, what's the community like, who am I going to meet? Are we going to be able to have like a homeschool group, a community? Did you vet that out before you landed there or was it just kind of like something that ended up working out?
- [06:04]
Meg Holler
It just really worked out. We didn't vet anything. We checked the laws for the state on hslda.org which is the homeschool offense.
- [06:12]
Lisa
Yeah, we're members, too.
- [06:13]
Meg Holler
Yeah, we love them. We've been members from the beginning.
- [06:17]
Lisa
So we checked fee, like, years and years ago. I'm like, let's just pay for it up front. We know this. Yeah.
- [06:23]
Meg Holler
I mean, we have, like, at the time, four kids. We got six now. Like, we are lifetime members.
- [06:28]
Lisa
Yeah, you're in it now.
- [06:29]
Meg Holler
Yeah. So we checked that out for the laws. But as far as, like, the community, we really didn't. I mean, it's like you said, until you actually move there, you don't really know. So we just kind of like, yeah, tossed the coin. We've done a lot of stuff on our own anyways, just as far as, like, we do our own field trips and we do a lot of our, you know, we do all of our curriculum ourselves. So we hadn't needed extracurricular activities to, like, round out. So it was just kind of a bonus that when we moved here, there were other homeschool families. So that was really cool. Yeah.
- [07:04]
Lisa
Okay, so what was the first. I think we talked about this last time, but we'll just briefly talk about, like, how you started your homestead, like where you invested your first money in it, or effort and time. And then also, since we haven't spoken in about a year, what are you working on now and what are the plans maybe for this summer? This spring. Summer.
- [07:26]
Meg Holler
Okay. Yeah. So I think one of our biggest things we did was really just get beds in the ground because we moved here with the intention of growing our own food. That was our. Our number one goal, and it still really is. I mean, if we're talking about what we're doing is just growing our own food. So we put a lot of time, money and effort into. Into the infrastructure of beds and soil and building places to put those things and then also getting animals. So we got meat, birds, and we got pigs. That was our first big purchase was pigs. And then, you know, the infrastructure that goes along that fencing, chicken, tractors, that kind of thing. So. And that's. That's been our main focus. We now do all of our own pork and all of our own chicken. And last year we actually did our own beef as well. We just don't have another cow right now. So we've been looking into getting more cows. We had a dairy cow previously, and then her calf became our steer that we butchered. So we're hoping to add cows back in. I'm not sure if it'll be this year, but we're looking at possibly getting another dairy animal and then possibly another beef that we raise ourselves. So that would be the big thing if we're going to do this year. We've also added more beds this year to increase our growing space. And we're adding an addition to our house because we have more people now, so we need more space. Okay. Yeah. That's the big thing this year.
- [08:46]
Lisa
Yes. Yeah. That's always an exciting thing to do.
- [08:49]
Meg Holler
Yeah.
- [08:50]
Lisa
So as far as the beds, are you doing primarily raised beds?
- [08:54]
Meg Holler
Yes, we are. And the reason for that is? Well, there's a couple reasons. Number one is our ground is really hard here and it's very clay heavy. It's almost entirely clay. And so to break ground in ground is very difficult. It takes a lot of disking, and we have to add a whole bunch of amendments and compost and things to get it, like, friable so it's not just clumps of clay. And the second reason we do raised beds is because we get a lot of water here. So we have huge rain events that will wash away half of our bed.
- [09:28]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [09:28]
Meg Holler
And all of the soil and all the amendments that we've worked to put in it. So raised beds have worked out really well for us.
- [09:34]
Lisa
Yeah, they work really well here, too, for a lot of reasons. I feel like they're. You know, you can plant directly in the ground, and a lot of people do, but that's what we've chosen to do. I'm curious about the dairy. I know you had a dairy cow for a while, and then I guess you currently don't. What have been like, the pros and cons, and are you looking forward to having another dairy animal?
- [09:56]
Meg Holler
Yeah, we do miss having a cow. We really enjoyed that. And I would say pros and cons. One of the cons was we had a hard time getting her rebred.
- [10:08]
Lisa
Yeah. That's a loaded question.
- [10:09]
Meg Holler
Yeah. Right. We couldn't get her bread back, so that was a struggle that we had not expected.
- [10:15]
Lisa
That's such a problem.
- [10:17]
Meg Holler
I didn't know it was a problem, but it was.
- [10:19]
Lisa
I don't feel like people talk about it enough. Like, it's a constant problem with having. And there's no tried and true thing, you know, like, there's. There's cons to every aspect of getting them bred back.
- [10:31]
Meg Holler
Right. So I just thought it was going to be this easy thing. Like, we could tell when she was in heat. She was. She was very obvious. And so I just called the vet and I was like, hey, our cows in heat, we know when her cycle is, like, she's very obvious. I just need you to, like, come out and air. And they're like, oh, no, no, we don't do that. They have to do the cycle with the hormones, and they put it on a schedule, and then they come out, you know, a couple days later and this whole thing. So we did that three times, and by the third time, we were like, all right, if this doesn't work, then we're gonna try to find a bowl. Just like a rentable. We had some friends who had bulls, and so we were like, okay, we could try that. But then we were like, logistically, like, do we bring him here or do we take her there? And we don't have a stock trailer at the moment. So it was like, like, well, now we need to find a stock trailer. And we had a whole bunch of lifestyles.
- [11:26]
Lisa
We always had to borrow one.
- [11:28]
Meg Holler
Yeah, it's a pain. So we just decided where we were at in life. And with this cow, we were just gonna sell her, and she was actually still in milk. She had been in milk for a year and a half. And we found some people that really cool with that, and they had other cows and they had a bull. So we just sold her off. And we were like, we're just gonna take a break for a while. We're kind of tired of being married to this cow, because that's another con is you have to milk every day. Um, and we didn't have any, like, relief workers that could come in and do it. So we struggled with not being able to go anywhere at specific times of the day because, you know, we're with this cow. So we took a break for a while. And now that it's been. It'll be almost two years coming in July that we've been without a cow. And all of our kids are like, we really just wish we had milk, you know, out in our yard. And, you know, we're having to buy milk now, and we. We have a raw milk dealer here that we can get raw milk from, but it's still the. Like, we gotta go out every week and buy the milk, and they don't always have as much as we need or we'll drink. And if we just had a cow on tap and it covers just our drinking, it doesn't cover anything if I want to make cheese or butter or anything like that.
- [12:42]
Lisa
Right, exactly.
- [12:44]
Meg Holler
So we're still weighing it. Um, I would say another con is having to make sure you either have enough grass or you're having to buy in hay. So we have figured out we have enough grass in the summer for one cow, right?
- [12:57]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [12:58]
Meg Holler
And we can't get any more than that if we do. Like, once her calf was large enough and he was eating full time, we were having to move paddocks even more frequently. We were doing once a day. We were having to move twice a day just to make sure they had enough grass. And then we couldn't get back around in. We were going around too fast. Usually you want to let the ground rest for a period of time to lower parasite load and let the grass recover. And we were just having to go around too fast. So we were Having to buy in more and more hay. So that's also a balance too. It's like, well, which is easier, which is better and which is nicer on our pocket as far as, you know, buying in hay. And we're trying to buy unsprayed hay, which is really hard to find around here.
- [13:41]
Lisa
Oh, man. I don't even know if I even thought about that because that's. I don't think it's even possible where I am. But we, we did well. I'm sure it probably is somewhere, but, yeah, that would be very hard to find. I, I agree with you on all the same issues. So we did have a vet that would come out if you knew the cow was in heat. And that actually worked for us because we could tell too. The first time it was very easy. It was like, it was like such a. One of those experiences that, like, doesn't really set you up for what this is actually like. But the first time we needed to have our cow bred back, she went into heat. We called the vet, he aied her. It was, it was. She was pregnant. I mean, it was like the easiest thing ever.
- [14:16]
Meg Holler
Oh, my gosh.
- [14:17]
Lisa
But then all the subsequent times was nothing like that. He definitely would come out. He wasn't gonna make you do like the unnatural cycle with all the hormones. And the thing about that was these cows, when you need to breed them back, they're always still in milk because, you know, you need to do it around like 9ish or, I don't know, maybe around a year. You do that. No, no, no. I'm sorry. You want them to have the calf at a year. So somewhere around like three months in the milk. Yeah. And so bringing them to a friend with a bowl, that's a problem. Unless you're going to drive to their house two times a day to milk the cow, you know. And then we actually rented a bowl from a friend and he was a dairy bull and it was actually like really scary. Not that he did anything, but I just, I read so many things about dairy bulls. I grew up with cattle. Like we had Angus bulls around. They didn't scare me at all. I went and, you know, like was around them and it did not scare me. And we're still around them because my parents have them. But having a dairy bowl was scary. I think when we do this again, when we do get a dairy animal again, I think we'll probably get. This is at least my current thought, maybe like an Angus bull. I'll borrow one from one of my parents. Or something from my parents or my sister and then maybe that would work, I don't know. But it's a bit of a challenge.
- [15:32]
Meg Holler
Yeah, yeah.
- [15:34]
Lisa
And then as far as like the economics of it and I get asked this all the time and I can't say I'm the best at like calculating everything to really see, but did you ever figure out, you know, if once you sell the calf and once you have all the milk and then what's, you know, the feed that you're buying and the hay, how it shakes out versus buying milk locally, raw milk. Now of course it's going to depend on the prices where you are, but I'm curious if you ever worked that math out.
- [16:05]
Meg Holler
I did run some numbers. So we didn't sell our calf. We. We ate him. Yeah, right. That price alone saved us. Yeah, we, we saved a bunch on the price of beef with that. He actually came out to about a buck 89 a pound, which for grass fed beef was fantastic. And we had figured out at the time when we were buying milk, it was before we bought her, it was about $7 a gallon. And I had figured, oh, you know, with what she was giving, she was giving about 2 gallons a day. So it wound up being like she paid for herself in like a month and a half. So we didn't buy in a whole lot for her. We bought some alfalfa. She would get alfalfa after we were done milking and then we didn't have to buy a whole lot of hay. I think we wound up. She only went through one winter with us. So it wound up being. It was like four months worth of hay that we had to buy before our grass came ready again. So we wound up not spending a whole lot on her out of pocket. So she really didn't cost us that much. She really did pay for herself as far as like, I guess it kind of evened out as far as what we would buy on milk and what she paid for herself by providing us milk. And then between the hay. So it came, came out to a wash.
- [17:23]
Lisa
Yes. And the like you talked about earlier. The thing that I miss about having a dairy cow, and I do think we'll have a dairy cow again, is just the abundance. You get more than you can, you know, you can make your yogurt, you can make your kefir, your cheese, your sour cream, just everything and you don't have to worry about having enough. You truly have the abundance that can really feed your family. It's such a staple part of the diet So I think that for me was what we miss most because we do get milk from a local farm and she has a pretty good amount. But you're not going to be getting 14 gallons a week, you know.
- [17:56]
Meg Holler
Right, right. We buy eight a lot of weeks and even that. Yeah, sometimes it's kind of pushing it. Like the place we buy it, it's like, well, I mean, if you really have.
- [18:05]
Lisa
Yeah, sure. Right.
- [18:07]
Meg Holler
And then I feel guilty. Then I'm like, well, shoot, I just need a cow.
- [18:11]
Lisa
Yeah, exactly. Like you can get it. You probably could have, especially if you went to maybe a couple different farms. But I'm with you. We've had definitely instances where it's like, oh, what about the other customers? You know, I'm like, so it's, it's. Yeah, it's the abundance thing that I think I appreciated most.
- [18:28]
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- [20:51]
Lisa
lot of questions about in the kitchen. You know, as a mom of six, you are cooking non stop.
- [20:58]
Meg Holler
Yes.
- [20:59]
Lisa
And everyone has to cook every day. And so I think we sometimes get in this rut and we are sick of what we're making or it's more complicated than it needs to be. So they want to hear about it. What are some of your favorite things to cook for everyday meals and do you have any tips or strategies for staying on top of it without losing your sanity? Like do you meal plan or how do you always cook without it being this huge thing like every single meal? What are we going to make?
- [21:26]
Meg Holler
Oh yeah. Oh gosh, that is a struggle. And I am, I am in a rut right now. I'm in a season of being in a rut. So I'm having a hard time. But I do meal plan. I am also and I've gone back and forth some years or months or seasons of my life. I'm like, yeah, I don't need a meal plan. I just kind of eat what's in our freezers in our fridge and needs eating. Especially like in summer when we have a lot of produce. It's just like, well, we need to eat a lot of tomatoes right now.
- [21:51]
Lisa
Yes. Right.
- [21:52]
Meg Holler
But I am in a season of meal planning right now. So I sit down usually about Sunday and I'll go through the fridge and see what's in there that needs using up and I'll base meals off of that. And then like we just came through our, our pig harvesting season. So we've got a lot of pork right now. So it's kind of like, well, we need to Eat a lot more pork and less chicken because our chickens are not going to become ready until, you know, April. So it's just the ebb and flow of what we have. And then something I have done to kind of relieve some of the pressure for myself is the boys are all old enough to be cooking dinner now. So every Sunday they switch off. We rotate through each of the boys and they make meals. On Sunday, they get to pick what they want. If I have to go shopping, I will, but we usually don't have to. We. We carry a lot that we don't have to shop for. What they do, they usually go through the Joy of Cooking cookbook and they'll pick something and they make dinner with some guidance and some help from me for those who need it and I get a break and. And it's nice because they pick things that I wouldn't think about eating.
- [22:54]
Lisa
Right.
- [22:54]
Meg Holler
So a lot of times we've actually added new meals into our rotation because they made something that we all loved and now we can keep making that in the future. Yeah. So as far as, like, go tos, I do a lot of, like, meat and rice. So, you know, we'll do a roast and rice or chicken and rice or with a pasta. I also do a lot of, like, pastas. Chicken and pasta, beef and pasta. That's kind of my go to when I am just like fried and I can't think of anything else.
- [23:24]
Lisa
Yeah. Do you have a favorite pasta source or are you making it from scratch or what are you using for that?
- [23:31]
Meg Holler
Most of the time I'm just buying Azure Standards brand. They're not the Azure Roni one, but they're Azure Market Organics. I think. Is their one the semolina one?
- [23:41]
Lisa
Yep.
- [23:41]
Meg Holler
Yeah, we do make it sometimes. Um, we just came out of our egg drought, so we'll probably be making more pasta as our eggs coming on again.
- [23:50]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [23:50]
Meg Holler
But it's also, I mean, you know how much it is to make pasta for a lot of people. So if I want to be standing at the counter for like two hours making pasta, I will. But most days I'm just like, dump the box in. It's way easier.
- [24:03]
Lisa
Yeah. I mean, it's the thing about it. Have I heard people say it's easy to make pasta? It is easy. It's very simple. There's not that much to it. But it's also very time consuming and it's a huge mess. So easy. Yes. But it turns like, pasta is like such an easy meal, but it turns that easy meal into A very much more difficult meal. Like, you know, you have this high quality box of pasta. You get it out, you boil it, you cook some meat. If you have some kind of fermented vegetable or if it's summer, you have a whole bunch of fresh vegetables or whatever, you have an easy meal ready to go. But then when you're making the pasta, that's a whole different story. Yeah.
- [24:38]
Meg Holler
Oh, yeah. It turns a simple meal into a three hour ordeal. And then all the dishes and everything. It's not so fun.
- [24:45]
Lisa
Yeah. I have a daughter who likes making it, and so when we make pasta, it'll be because she spent three hours in the kitchen making it. And that's, you know, that's fine. But yeah, not usually me.
- [24:57]
Meg Holler
Yeah. One of our older sons is really into it, so he'll make pasta for me sometimes, which is great. But he also knows it takes like three hours.
- [25:05]
Lisa
It really. It really does. It does. But at least you can select your ingredients and all that kind of stuff. But when you have high quality pasta that you can source, you know. So what are some of your. You said right now you're going through your pork. What are some of your favorite things to make with pork? Because I actually have a lot of pork right now before I restock, like beef and everything. So what are your favorite?
- [25:27]
Meg Holler
So we do a lot of ground pork. So a lot of times that'll be. I either make like chorizo with breakfast or I'll make, you know, breakfast sausage. Or for dinners we'll do like stir fry. Like, I'll just do a loose ground pork and fry it up and then throw in whatever veggies I have, usually cabbage, carrots, ginger, green onions, that kind of thing.
- [25:48]
Lisa
Okay.
- [25:48]
Meg Holler
And throw that together in a stir fry. So a lot of times we'll do flat chicken sandwiches. So it's just. We take chicken breasts and we pound them out and bread them and fry them. Well, we're at a chicken breast now. And so Ben, my husband, he was like, well, I bet I could do this with pork. So he took a pork loin, which would be pork chops, and cut it and banged them all out. And we just a scallopini with that. So that was really good too. Oh, yeah. We will also do either like a slow cook braised pork loin, or I'll do a stuffed pork loin. So I'll take the pork loin and butterfly it out and then stuff it with like cream cheese and peppers and onions and garlic, roll it back up, wrap in bacon and roast It. It's really. It's very rich, but it's really good.
- [26:31]
Lisa
That sounds good.
- [26:32]
Meg Holler
Yeah. Huh.
- [26:33]
Lisa
And so when your sons are making their Sunday meal, are you, like, having them give you a list of things that they're going to need? Because if they're making something that maybe you don't usually make, you might not have it in stock, or how are you running that?
- [26:46]
Meg Holler
Most of the meals so far, they've picked. We have just about everything. Because I try to keep a pretty large working pantry for things, but every now and then, like, I've told them, if you need something and I have to go to the grocery store, then you need to make sure I know by, like, Wednesday so that we have time to go.
- [27:03]
Lisa
Right.
- [27:04]
Meg Holler
And get what you need. But so far, we haven't really had to do that.
- [27:07]
Lisa
Yeah. So do you have any lists anywhere, like, on your YouTube channel or anything where you share? Maybe a tour of your pantry or, like, a list of things? Because I think when people are brand new to this and it sounds very easy, you know, you're a mom of six, you're cooking all the time. You've been homesteading for a few years, so you're like, well, I have all that stuff, but I think sometimes people are like, well, what do you have? Like, what are you even putting in there? So that's the case, and it looks like a meal and not just random, like, random stuff.
- [27:34]
Meg Holler
Right. I don't actually, but I probably should either do a pantry tour or do a list. That would be really helpful.
- [27:40]
Lisa
Yeah. People would probably love that from you.
- [27:42]
Meg Holler
Yeah. I've thought about writing, like, a cookbook, but I'm in a season where I'm like, I do not have the time to write a cookbook right now. But maybe one of the things I will. Yes.
- [27:54]
Lisa
Yes. I'm putting my other earbud in because usually I'm listening to the house and then I'm listening to the podcast at the same time, but it's starting to rain extremely hard, so I'm like, I can barely hear. So if you hear Anya, it's some, like, weird noise. It's because we are having a very rainy day today. But that's okay.
- [28:11]
Meg Holler
Yeah. We're supposed to get the tail end of that tomorrow, I think. Or early morning.
- [28:15]
Lisa
Yeah, I guess it's moving. It's moving east. I don't know. Actually, I know it is because I saw, like, I was following somebody on Instagram, and she lives a little east of me, and they were getting the severe weather last night. Or no, I'm sorry. She lives west of me. And they were getting the severe weather last night, so. Yeah, it must be heading that way, so.
- [28:32]
Meg Holler
Yeah, yeah, it's coming. We actually did all of our prepping today as far because it's supposed to bring a lot of wind, too. So we're like, all right, fill the gas cans, get all the propane. We're gonna make sure our water jugs are full. Because when we get high winds around here is when things kind of.
- [28:51]
Lisa
Well, that was actually one of the questions. And I'm going to come back to kitchen just because I think that people have a lot of questions there, but people are wondering how everything is since Hurricane Helene, how it affected you, and then if it's, like, how it affected those around you and the aftermath of all that.
- [29:08]
Meg Holler
Oh, gosh. Yeah. So our immediate area in our county, we're a little bit southeast of Asheville, which was the area. Asheville and the eastern part of Tennessee got slammed really, really hard. So some of our friends that are up in that area are still dealing with the aftermath. They still have a lot of rebuilding to do. There's a lot of people that don't have housing or their housing is damaged, and still, honestly, some roads that are affected. So there is. I mean, it's been four, five months now that we're still all just kind of dealing with the aftermath of that. Yeah, our immediate area has been. Okay. Most of the tree damage has been cleared up down here. A lot of the people in our community didn't get hit very hard. And what I mean by that is, like, there wasn't massive structural damage to their homes or anything like that. It's just been a lot of tree damage. For those of us who homestead, we have some friends that, like, their pasture just got destroyed because all of the trees fell on their pasture and just wrecked everything. And now if they pull everything out, all the pasture's gone. So, like, we have friends that are selling off cows because they don't have
- [30:21]
Lisa
the pasture now till they get that, like, re established.
- [30:24]
Meg Holler
Yeah, right. And we've had a lot of friends that are now clearing trees away, like, way, way away from their houses because they don't want to have a tree fall in their house again. And there was more trees around. Right. That could potentially do damage. So a lot of us are really, I guess you could say, gun shy and doing a lot of Putting a lot of steps in place to make sure that none of us get hit like we did before. We personally did not have a Lot of damage. We had one tree that fell down on the pig pen, and it was easily fixable. So we wound up being kind of the. I guess, the relief crew. We had water, we had food. We didn't have power, but we were set up to where we had generators and stuff like that, so friends that needed water could come to our house and get water. And we had a tractor and chainsaws and strapping young lads that could go cut down trees.
- [31:15]
Lisa
You're ready to go?
- [31:16]
Meg Holler
Yeah, we were, and I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that we didn't have damage so that we were in a place that we could go help everybody else who was dealing with that. So, yeah, just I. I would say maybe still kind of reeling a little bit, especially those who are farther up in the mountains, but for the most part, I think now it's kind of. We're all just coming into a state where we just want to be really prepared. Yeah. To deal with that again. So, like. Like I said, this storm is coming through, and it's supposed to be pretty windy. Not hurricane windy, but pretty windy. So we are. We're all like. We're talking to our friends. We're all getting our gasoline and our generators and all that kind of stuff set up again.
- [31:50]
Lisa
Yeah. Yeah. I guess it sometimes takes something like that happening before people take it real seriously. Like, we always know those kind of things can happen. I mean, we live in a very. You know, we get storms through here. We don't get hurricanes, obviously, but we get, like, tornadoes and things like that. And it's kind of like, oh, yeah, we should get a generator. And then it takes us being out of power for like, a day or two that we're like, why don't we ever get a generator, you know?
- [32:15]
Meg Holler
Right. Right.
- [32:16]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [32:17]
Meg Holler
Yeah. We were out with eight days. Eight days is a long time to go without power. But we did have a generator.
- [32:23]
Lisa
It is such a long time. We went without power for three days, and it sounds like that wouldn't be that big of a deal. Like, you might kind of even in your head be like, oh, that'd be kind of fun.
- [32:32]
Meg Holler
Right?
- [32:32]
Lisa
It is not because we stock large quantities of meat. We buy half a cow. We buy a whole hog. We had full freezers. We have, you know, no water, which is. We had a dairy cow that needed water. We had animals. We had ourselves. Like, you can't clean anything. You can't cook because you can't clean. You can't do laundry. I mean, it. It becomes a problem so, so incredibly fast. Like, you. It just seems like it wouldn't be. And I know there's probably a lot of people who are like, yeah, it does. It's gonna be a huge problem. But to me, like, these aren't the things I instantly think of. But it. I mean, by day three, we were like, we're gonna have to, like, leave if this power doesn't come back on without a generator.
- [33:11]
Meg Holler
Yeah. And we had a lot of friends that were dealing with that, too. So, like, for us, the way our well is set up, we can just unplug it from the wall and plug it into a generator. A lot of our friends don't have that. It's hard lined in. So they were like, how do you have water? We're like, we just unplugged our well and plugged it in, the generator. But they're like, we don't have that option.
- [33:29]
Lisa
Right.
- [33:29]
Meg Holler
So unless you have a whole house generator, you have no water. I grew up in a family, so my grandmother was always prepared for, like, either the big one, the earthquake in California, or Y2K, because that was a big thing when I was growing up. Y2K is coming. We have to be prepared. And so I grew up with a grandmother that's always like, we need to have water. We need to have food. We need to have, you know, ways of, like, lighting and heating and all that kind of stuff. So naturally, we just kind of live that way anyways. For our house, I never thought about the animals. And so when it hit Ben's like, I have to run the generator so I can pump water down to the animals. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I didn't even think about that. And, I mean, we have a lot of pigs and chickens, so it's a lot of water. I'm thankful we didn't have the cow.
- [34:15]
Lisa
It's a lot of water.
- [34:16]
Meg Holler
And at the time, it was at the very end of September, so we hadn't gone into butchering season yet, which I'm so thankful for. So we had freezers that were on their way to being empty that we could just condense everything into, like, one or two freezers and worry about the one or two freezers. But had it hit even a month later, we would have freezers full of pork, which would have been even more stressful. It's a whole thing you don't think about until you're, like, in it.
- [34:40]
Lisa
Yeah. It's okay if, like, one of your family members, like, say you have a family member who lives, like, an hour away, and you can bring all the meat to them. That is sort of an option, as long as it's not a widespread thing. You know, that's like. That's kind of the direction we were leaning into whenever this happened. You know, three days, like, we ended up making it. But we did have to bring meat to family members who didn't lose power, because otherwise we would have lost all the meat. It was the middle of summer, you know, so. Yeah.
- [35:06]
Meg Holler
Oh, yeah.
- [35:07]
Lisa
Be prepared. That would have been a big expense, right?
- [35:10]
Meg Holler
For sure. Yeah, it would have been a big expense. And I mean, for the life we live, like, that's literally months of our lives, sometimes a year of our life where we're raising that you put into and. Right. And there are a lot of people around here that raise good, organic, clean meat. But, like, we can't just go restock from, like, the grocery store with what we're.
- [35:33]
Lisa
No.
- [35:33]
Meg Holler
What we're raising. Yeah, we lost it.
- [35:36]
Lisa
You can, like, you'll make it, but the expense of what went into all of that, like, this quality meat. Yeah, it's. It would just break your heart. Like, you could do it, but. Oh, you don't want to have to do that. So when considering the cost of a generator, consider that.
- [35:53]
Meg Holler
Oh, totally.
- [35:53]
Lisa
What if you just purchase half a cow or you raised your own steer?
- [35:57]
Meg Holler
Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot cheaper to buy a generator than have to buy all that meat again.
- [36:03]
Lisa
Yes. Yes. Okay. So lots of questions about balancing it all. Anytime I have a mom on who homeschools, has multiple children, who maybe has a YouTube channel or a homestead, we get a lot of questions about balancing all of that. So one person asks, what does your typical day look like? Where do you fit everything in along with all of your cooking? Like, your homeschooling, your cleaning? And is that ever overwhelming for you, or is it something that you're usually able to kind of flow with?
- [36:34]
Meg Holler
I definitely do have overwhelming days. I would say my struggle point is actually the YouTube channel. So I have to back up, actually, for a minute and say, I'm not alone in this. My husband carries. Filming the YouTube channel, and he carries all of the homestead stuff. He does all the animal chores. He does a lot of the garden handling. So it's not just me. So I'm not fitting it all in by myself. So I want to be totally upfront with that right there. Right. My job here is homeschooling the children, keeping everybody fed, and editing the. The vlogs for the YouTube channels. So. And then of Course like I also help with gardening and stuff like that. And then he comes in and helps me with cooking and stuff. So it's definitely teamwork. That's a huge help. As like how I get it all done is I have my spouse and I have my children and we all work together as a team. But my day to day is a typical morning for us is we get up, I'm usually out between 7:30 and 8, and the little girls get up with me then. And we actually let the big boys sleep in a little bit longer than that. Mostly because it gives Ben and I a chance to just be by ourselves. You know, the little girls be by ourselves for 30 minutes, 45 minutes in the morning to just kind of like figure out the plan for the day and sit and have a minute. We'll drink coffee together. So by 9am Everybody's up and I'm starting breakfast and we're starting our day. We're kicking that off. I make breakfast and then we jump into our communal school. So that'll be Bible, Latin, you know, whatever we have on the docket that involves most of the children, we just do it all together and get that right away. And then depending on the day and what we have planned, we will either break to where they go to all their individual work, or everybody heads outside with Ben to do whatever project is needed for the day. And then I will edit while they're either doing their individual school or they're outside. And then if it's a day where they're going outside to do work, then they just come in and do their individual school later. So we just kind of flip flop whatever needs to be done. It kind of depends on the weather these days. And then while I'm editing, everybody's doing school or working. And then once I'm done editing, which is usually, it usually takes me about four hours to edit a video. And that's not every day. It's like two to three days a week. Then it's usually about lunchtime, about one or two o', clock, we'll eat lunch and then we do whatever our, whatever my project is for today. Like if I need to do some preserving or if I have like a fancier dinner, I want to do that day or laundry, chores, like all that kind of stuff. That's when I jump in and do that kind of stuff. And then we, then we do dinner and then we all go to bed. So that's like, that's like a typical layout for our day.
- [39:27]
Lisa
Yeah, I feel like it's Very similar to ours, except for it's a little bit mixed up. Like we, we have the same blocks. They're just a little bit flip flop from yours. And then I think your kids probably go to bed a little bit later. Like it seems like your whole schedule, like your lunch and your school, like, it seems like it might all be pushed a little, like maybe an hour difference than ours, but it's otherwise a very similar flow. And like you said, it really depends on the season and what projects are going on as to like, what that'll look like. So it's a flow, not necessarily like this rigid schedule.
- [40:00]
Meg Holler
Yeah. And we can't do rigid schedule. We've tried a couple times to do like super, super rigid, like time block things and a pig gets out or, you know, it's raining today and we planned on doing the garden or like things happen or you know, our friends call and like, hey, can you come up here and help us with this? Like, life just happens. And so we've learned to hold it very loosely. And part of the reason that like Ben came home and we're living this life we live is so we have more fluidity and we can do things right. Yeah. Off of a normal, like, workday schedule. So we just kind of go with the flow. But we do keep that like general rhythm going so we don't get lost.
- [40:43]
Lisa
Now, do you keep it up during the summer? Because we always have this like, oh, we're going to keep doing the same schedule all through the summer. Like, why get completely out of our school schedule? Like, we could at least do like a modified lighter version of it. And then sometime around, like we always have that plan and then we're starting to do maybe some stuff in the garden or some things here and there. And before you know it, we're like not doing school at all.
- [41:04]
Meg Holler
Yeah. No. I don't even bother trying to do school in the summer because I know, smart. It's so crazy in the summer. Like we are doing so much. You're always either planting something or harvesting something or weeding something or, you know, taking care of meat chickens. And it just gets really, really busy. And a lot of people, like other people are off during the summer. So, you know, that's the time other people are doing activities and we want to.
- [41:28]
Lisa
That probably factors in.
- [41:30]
Meg Holler
Yeah. So I just, I don't bother. We're just going to do our summer thing and then get back into it in fall.
- [41:38]
Lisa
Yep. That's what we end up doing. Like we say that we won't and Then for many factors that you can't even really predict, when you know, we're recording here in March, it always ends for one reason or the other. And you're like, why did that happen? Like, like you said, other people are off. Things just seem to fill the calendar. But it is a nice break. And then we always have that craving around, you know, late summer, early fall. Like, okay, we're ready to get back into some kind of more structured routine with our day. So.
- [42:07]
Meg Holler
Yes.
- [42:08]
Lisa
Yeah. Okay.
- [42:10]
Meg Holler
So, yeah.
- [42:12]
Lisa
Another question, like, in regards to balancing at all, someone says, how do you juggle making all that completely from scratch food? While homeschooling and having little ones, you always seem relaxed and calm. In the midst of it all, do you ever get flustered? How do you deal with overwhelm? You look like a superwoman. Tell us your secrets. Which I have to really quick point out that I do always find it funny when people say these things about an edited video. Right. Like, we're gonna share being flustered. Totally. But.
- [42:38]
Meg Holler
Right, right. Yeah. And that is hard because we do try to be realistic. Because we don't want to appear perfect because we're not perfect. But it is edited. Like, I'm not going to put my kids having a meltdown into the video because nobody wants to actually hear that. That's very stressful.
- [42:55]
Lisa
Yeah, I do.
- [42:57]
Meg Holler
I do definitely get flustered. There's been times where we've actually just given up on a video because it's like everything is chaos and the baby's melting down and the toddler is, like, dying of starvation and there's like, chaos going on.
- [43:11]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [43:12]
Meg Holler
But I would say one of the things that keeps me going is my desire for this. I want clean food for my family, and I want from scratch food for my family. Because there's just a lot in the food system that we don't agree with and we don't want to put into our kids. And I know this is going to affect them for the long run. So it makes me happy to sit down and do from scratch meals for our family. I also, like I said earlier, I kind of have, like, these go to things that make my life easier. That when I have a day where I'm just like, I can't even anymore. I've lost. Or we've spent all day outside and we've been gardening all day. Yeah. Taking care of stuff outside. It's just like, I'm just gonna throw some chicken in the instant pot and put some rice on, and we're gonna eat that with Whatever. Vegetables in the fridge. And we're gonna be okay.
- [44:03]
Lisa
Yes. And that chicken could be frozen. Totally. You could have had no thought whatsoever.
- [44:07]
Meg Holler
Exactly. Like, there's been many, many days where I'm like, I have some extra beef in the fridge. Fridge, let's do tacos. You know, like, super easy. So it doesn't have to be. I think from scratch becomes, like, a very scary term in. In this idea of, like, you have to make, like, restaurant meals. And that's not how it is. Like, it's okay to just have, like, a meat, a starch, and a veggie if that's all you have. And that's all you have the brain power for.
- [44:35]
Lisa
Yes.
- [44:35]
Meg Holler
And I'm not gonna lie. Some days I make. I mean, I make Mac and cheese from scratch, but sometimes we have Mac and cheese for dinner. Like, it happens. It's okay.
- [44:43]
Lisa
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And having, like, you said, like, a handful of meals that you can pull out on any of those certain occasions, it is from scratch, but it's not going to impress anyone, you know? And so I think that, like you said, I think people take from scratch, and they take it to mean it has to be, like, way more than it even is. And then also, there's definitely something to be said for getting good at something. Like, you've, you know, if you make bread, you've made it hundreds of times. It's not even hard. It's not something you have to think about. It's as easy as taking, like. I don't even know. Like, people get these, like, meal kits and they're, like, pouring all these things and putting them, reading the directions. And, like, literally making bread is easier in this instance because I know exactly what I'm doing with it.
- [45:27]
Meg Holler
Right? Yeah. And I would say that's really good advice, is just finding a couple things that you can really focus on and become really good at. So when it comes to the point where you're just tired or whatever, you can just throw it together. It's a lot easier. And I will say one thing, too. As far as making stuff from scratch, there are times, there's a lot of times, actually, where I'll just make a huge batch, like, really huge batch of the same thing. I'm not putting any more effort in. I'm just doubling or tripling all the ingredients, and then I just stick in the freezer. And so when we do have times where. Where we haven't been home all day, or we've been out in the garden, or I'm just fried I will. Just like tomorrow's dinner actually is shepherd's pie that I have in the freezer. I'm just gonna pull it out of the freezer and defrost it and throw it in the oven.
- [46:10]
Lisa
Right.
- [46:11]
Meg Holler
And now I have still a from scratch meal, but I don't have to make it tomorrow.
- [46:16]
Lisa
Yeah, I always think, oh, I should do that. And then I just never ever do. But I think that is such a great thing to do so that when you do have those moments, it's something that you can easily pull from.
- [46:28]
Meg Holler
It makes life a lot easier.
- [46:29]
Lisa
Smart. So what are some examples? Like you mentioned lots of rice and pasta and meats. Do you have any like, recipes or like, what are your. What is something that you're making every single week?
- [46:43]
Meg Holler
Oh, gosh, usually some kind of spaghetti type meal every single week? Mostly because my kids ask.
- [46:49]
Lisa
Yeah, it's.
- [46:50]
Meg Holler
Hey, guys, when you got so much this week? And they'll be like spaghetti or pasta with red sauce. Yeah.
- [46:55]
Lisa
Yep. You got ground beef, you got pork, and it's cheap and easy to find. Like, I'm sure you make some of yours too and can it. But like, it's also cheap and easy to find. Organic, high quality in glass jars. Pasta sauce.
- [47:07]
Meg Holler
Yes, totally. I actually make mine out of tomato paste a lot of times. So I'll just throw tomato paste in water and the meat and seasonings and you know, it simmers for 30 minutes and it's thick and it's good to go.
- [47:20]
Lisa
Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, I'd say that's probably our top. Like, we don't have a clue what we're making at all. But we have ground beef or ground pork in the fridge. We're doing spaghetti of some sort, right?
- [47:33]
Meg Holler
Yeah. Or I'll do pasta carbonara, which is like bacon and eggs and cheese on spaghetti noodles. So super easy. Oh, okay. That's a go to for us too.
- [47:43]
Lisa
So wait, what does that explain that again? You said eggs and cheese pasta carbonara.
- [47:48]
Meg Holler
So you take egg yolks, so you boil pasta and you fry bacon. Like I cut it up into little pieces and I fry bacon. And then usually I'll deglaze the pan with a little bit of white wine after the bacon's cooked. Okay. And then you combine egg yolks and parmesan cheese, like a good amount of parmesan cheese. And you temper the eggs with the pasta water. And then you drain the pasta, throw the bacon and the white wine in and the egg yolks in. And it the Heat from the noodles keeps cooking. And I usually reserve some pasta water, too, to add some to kind of sauce it up. It's super easy and filling and delicious, and we love it.
- [48:25]
Lisa
Oh, I need to think about that because I like the protein aspect of it. And we go through times where we have. Which is so funny at this moment, but we have, like, so many eggs, you know, where you don't know what to do with them all.
- [48:37]
Meg Holler
Yes.
- [48:37]
Lisa
So that sounds like yes.
- [48:39]
Meg Holler
Yeah, there's like, a million recipes online.
- [48:41]
Lisa
I mean, I've heard of it, but I don't really think I ever really knew what it was. But, yeah, like, when we're not sure what to make, that's another thing we do all the time. Mostly because my daughter, who cooks, really likes to do it. But it goes with so many things. It goes with chicken. It goes with, like, a pork meatball or sausage. Yeah. Like, just some either milk or cream. You can thicken it with a little bit of flour, add in some onions, garlic, salt, blend it up, and you have a cream sauce. Or we'll even do. If we have cream cheese, we'll throw that in there. But there's like. Yeah, Parmesan. You can throw in mozzarella. Just any, like, creamy, cheesy thing you have, and then toss it with pasta and meat and. Yeah, that's. That's like a definite, definite staple for us.
- [49:20]
Meg Holler
Oh, yeah, yeah, we usually do. We'll do like, a gravy and meat over rice or. Okay. Over noodles or something like that. Kind of like a. Like, stroganoff. Stroganoff's real easy. So that's a meat gravy with beef and mushrooms in it. Sour cream, and you throw it over noodles. Super easy.
- [49:39]
Lisa
That's a good idea.
- [49:40]
Meg Holler
Really good. And if you have, like, canned meat. I've done it with canned beef before. So I have to do is pop open on a can and throw it in there.
- [49:46]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [49:47]
Meg Holler
I don't even have to brown anything. It's already done.
- [49:49]
Lisa
That's really fast. Yeah, we'll do something like that. But over mashed potatoes, like, some kind of, like, meat and like, a gravy from the drippings and then over mashed potatoes as the carb. You and I both are just talking about, like, carb meat, vegetable in whatever variety that you currently have in store, whatever season it might be. But that's such an easy formula, isn't it? Like, that really simplifies it.
- [50:11]
Meg Holler
It is, yeah. And if you kind of stick with that formula, it's always different. Because every season it's changing. So like tonight we're going to have chicken with rice and I have lettuce in the fridge. So we're going to have salad. So very easy.
- [50:26]
Lisa
A little salad with it, right? Yeah, yeah. And then like, you know, the carb can be bread, it can be rice, it can be pasta, it can be potatoes.
- [50:34]
Meg Holler
Right.
- [50:35]
Lisa
So it can be any variety of that. And then your meat can be whatever you're, you know, you raise or you can easily stock based on what part of the world you're in. It could be chicken, it could be pork, it could be beef. Like today for lunch we had, I made some sourdough rolls and then we had cheeseburgers on those, some fries and I had some lettuce too. So salad. But it's like that same formula over and over again, right?
- [51:00]
Meg Holler
Yeah, I mean you just base it off what you have on hand and it doesn't have to be crazy. And because we cook that way, I don't have to go to the grocery store as often because I'm not making menus based on necessarily what we want to eat and I have to go shop for. I'm making menus off of what we have. So that makes life a lot easier.
- [51:17]
Lisa
That is a good distinction.
- [51:18]
Meg Holler
Cheaper because I'm not going to the grocery store all the time and I hate grocery shopping, so it saves me the trouble.
- [51:26]
Lisa
Yeah, so what, what grocery store do you have? And do you do like a stock up for certain items or, you know, I'm sure there's certain things that you can't raise that you go get. Do you do like a Costco or what do you have where you are?
- [51:38]
Meg Holler
So we actually do most of our stuff from Azure Standard. We just do ordering from that once a month. I get all of our bulk stuff, our flour, pasta, nuts, any canned goods that I like.
- [51:52]
Lisa
Frozen fruit.
- [51:53]
Meg Holler
Yeah, totally. I buy frozen fruit too. If I don't have any here that we grow ourselves, all of our potatoes, some of our vet, our other vegetables I will. If I can't get them here locally, then I will do that. So that's most of it. And then we have Ingles down here. We also have Walmart, but I shop at Ingles. And so that's the kind of stuff I buy from them is like cheeses that I can't get from Azure. So like Brie and like the, the more like I say, fancy cheeses, I'll get cheeses from them. And then we do like Asian condiments because we like to eat A lot of like Asian food or Asian flavored food, some organic vegetables. If I can't get it from our local farms and I'm not growing it ourselves. Particularly like this past weekend was our youngest boy's birthday and he wanted broccoli. Our farm near us didn't have broccoli. And I'm not growing broccoli right now. So I went to the grocery store and got broccoli.
- [52:48]
Lisa
Right.
- [52:49]
Meg Holler
That's most of it really just like condiments. I get all of our butter and dairy and all that from Azure too. So most of our stuff comes from Azure. If I'm not growing it myself and I can't get it locally. Yeah.
- [53:00]
Lisa
And you get a gauge for your family and what you go through because like I know what I'll do is I won't order. I'll either order too much or I'll order not enough from Azure. But then I've gotten it kind of dialed in like, okay, this is how many potatoes we need. So that once a month I don't need to go get potatoes somewhere else. Like I can get these high quality, good priced potatoes as long as I buy X number of pounds. Right. Like that's something that you eventually get the gauge.
- [53:22]
Meg Holler
Right.
- [53:22]
Lisa
When it's going to be a moving target with families like ours because the kids grow and you add another one and then yeah, you know, gotta keep.
- [53:31]
Meg Holler
Right. Or we have seasons where like we are, we're in a potato eating season right now. So I ordered a 50 pound box last month and we've eaten through it entirely and we still have another, I think week and a half until our next drop. I'm like, so Ben was like order two boxes.
- [53:47]
Lisa
We're apparently going through a lot of
- [53:48]
Meg Holler
potatoes right now so that we can eat. Yeah, we just love the potatoes. So I mean that happens. But it's all good.
- [53:54]
Lisa
We always love potatoes. Like it's just, it's just such an easy filling staple that you can do. You know, you can mash em, you can fry em, you can oven bake them. There's just so many. Oh yeah, it's versatile.
- [54:06]
Meg Holler
They're good. All one of our, I should say since we've talked about like go to meals like easy. One of my favorites is actually making french fries in the oven. So I just cut, you know, we cut potatoes in the french fries and then I put tallow on it and then I throw them in the 400 degree oven for like it's usually winds up being about an hour and I toss them every now and then. But then I'll. I'll make those. But then I'll top it with ground beef, cheese, onions, cilantro. I might make a cheese sauce. Like, we just do, like, loaded French fries.
- [54:35]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [54:36]
Meg Holler
And that is one of my favorites because it's very filling. Everybody loves it. And it's like junkie food, you know, instead of going, they would love that to a fast food restaurant. So. Yeah, it's so good.
- [54:46]
Lisa
I've never thought about that. It's kind of like nachos, but with French fries. And I feel like my kids would love that. And then I don't have to buy, you know, find, like, chips that don't have seed oils and all that kind of stuff, which is actually really difficult.
- [54:59]
Meg Holler
It's very.
- [54:59]
Lisa
Yeah, that's a really good idea.
- [55:01]
Meg Holler
Yeah, it's super easy.
- [55:02]
Lisa
Yeah. And then it's like, especially for tortilla chips.
- [55:06]
Meg Holler
Oh, yeah. I know. It's. It's so hard. It's kind of like where we're at with that right now is we still buy them. We buy the late July, and they do have seed oils in them. But I'm like, I just. You kind of have to let some things go, so it's all right.
- [55:22]
Lisa
You absolutely do. And. But it's just nice. Like, I like the idea when it's an easy swap. Like, oh, we could just do that with fries. Yeah, easy enough. But, like, I'm like, you. If. If something's not perfect, but there's no other option. I'm like, I just don't care. I know we're gonna live through this. Like, I know it. It's gonna definitely eventually die also. Yeah.
- [55:40]
Meg Holler
Our Diet is, like, 99% great. And so if we have some junk food in there, like, it's okay. And nobody's gonna. Like, you said, we're gonna die eventually anyways.
- [55:51]
Lisa
Yeah. And I always just think about, like, you know, when we were growing up, like, they. Our parents didn't have a lot of the information. A lot of. They didn't have any of the information that we have now. And so, like, think about what we grew up on. And I'm like, I. I mean, not to say, like, oh, just throw it all out, you know? Like.
- [56:06]
Meg Holler
No, totally.
- [56:07]
Lisa
Because I think, like, we enjoy great health and all this stuff, but, like. Yeah, I mean, just the things that I grew up on eating. I'm like, it's. I think it's gonna be okay. I think that's another thing. Like, moms need to be encouraged, like,
- [56:19]
Meg Holler
top ramen and Pizza rolls and yeah. You know, fish sticks.
- [56:22]
Lisa
Pizza rolls.
- [56:24]
Meg Holler
That's what I lived on. I'm like, you know, I have a conversation with my. Yeah, totally. I love bagel bites. Yeah. Like we survives. We're gonna be okay. I mean, you know.
- [56:36]
Lisa
Yes.
- [56:36]
Meg Holler
Not the best health in my 20s, but that's why we do what we do now for our kids.
- [56:41]
Lisa
Yeah, absolutely. But just know there's like. Because also I, I talk to a lot of moms, like, who are like, well, my grocery budget, like, how could I possibly healthy. I'm like, listen, you just do the best you can. Like if you buy produce but it's not organic and you, you know that the bulk of your food is like a carb or like a whole grain. You just do the best you can and trust me, you're gonna be fine.
- [57:02]
Meg Holler
Fine.
- [57:02]
Lisa
Like it's.
- [57:03]
Meg Holler
Oh, totally.
- [57:04]
Lisa
You don't have to be perfect.
- [57:06]
Meg Holler
Yeah. I always try to tell people if it comes down to a question like that of like, well, how do I. Even the non organic vegetable is 100 times better than the ramen noodles. Right. So exactly. You, you always just do whatever like one step up that you can afford or the best choice or whatever you have. Yeah, totally.
- [57:31]
Lisa
Well, that's, that's such an encouraging things. Tell the listeners where they can follow along with you. We, we know YouTube, Holler Homestead. And then like what you have coming up, maybe the spring, summer, they can look forward to following along with.
- [57:44]
Meg Holler
Yeah. So like I said, we've got a Home Edition going that's kind of sporadic because it kind of deals with like weather if it's raining and if we can get out there and do it.
- [57:52]
Lisa
Yes.
- [57:53]
Meg Holler
And also like, you know, county and stuff like that, apartments and whatnot. We have the Home Edition going. And then we didn't really do much gardening last year because I was having a baby and I was not even gonna try. Right. She was born in May, so I was like not gonna go into that. So I didn't do any. I. We hardly grew anything and I didn't do any preserving last year. But we are hoping to hit it hard again this year. It's like really, really. We put in. We actually almost doubled our garden space with Ben putting in new beds. So we're gonna go hopefully kind of crazy and do a lot of that.
- [58:24]
Lisa
Yeah. And share all of that. So people who, you know, maybe just want to grow a little bit in your backyard or maybe you're wanting to have a full blown homestead and you're like, how the heck do I do all this. A really good something to follow along with as you work it out this summer. You know, obviously you've been at this a few years so you have a lot of knowledge to share and then plenty of things that you learn along the way. So over on Holler, homeslide said on YouTube, I know you're on Instagram, but is YouTube like the best place to follow along?
- [58:53]
Meg Holler
YouTube is the best place. Yeah, I'm very sporadic with Instagram. I've actually been taking a really extended break just cuz it's better for my brain and yep, that's how I get more things done is by not being on Instagram.
- [59:08]
Lisa
Exactly. Exactly. Yep, same. Same. All right, well thank you you so much, Meg. I really appreciate you taking the time to share.
- [59:15]
Meg Holler
Yeah, thanks for having me again. It's been fun.
- [59:19]
Lisa
Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. My husband Luke and I and our eight kids work together side by side on our little homestead and use our blog, podcast and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and home setters with practical recipes and daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog, farm farmboone.com and to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at Bit Ly Farmhouses. That's all one word. Bit Ly Farmhouses. If you're looking to learn how we earn an income online, check out my YouTube course at bit ly farmhouseyoutubecourse. All one word.