Ep. 478 - Homestead Weekend Recap and Weekly Look Ahead

The market season may be slowing down, but it's ON here at the homestead.

We cover a few different topics in today’s episode:

• Market / Business Update
• Homestead Happenings
• Family Updates

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#homestead #homesteading #farmlife #farm #homesteadlife #homesteadinglife #countryliving #countrylife #goals #balance #business #entrepreneur #family #internet #infrastructure #wholesale #retail #community #marketing #branding #rebranding #fermented #natural #hipcamp #airbnb

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How To Leave a Rating & Review in Apple Podcast App:  https://youtu.be/M_xz5XbWQTg

This really does affect the algorithm...
...as of recording in December 2022 - I would invite you to do this!

The podcast game is changing - but old-school reviews certainly help!

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Have a Question or any feedback for Rob?

Send me an email at allaroundgrowth@gmail.com

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Discussion Links:

Richardson Farms: Richardson-Farms.com – Medina

Richardson's is a fully-working farm that raises crop including: corn (both sweet and Indian), pumpkins, soybeans and gourds. Our greenhouse is stocked with ...

richardson-farms.com

Keller Meats: Home 

At Keller Meats, we stand for sustainability. We started as farmers, stewards of the land, with a commitment to caring for God's earth and the livestock He ..

kellermeats.com

@holaislandprovisions Instagram profile • 370 photos and videos
www.instagram.com/holaislandprovisions

1,295 Followers, 544 Following, 370 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from @holaislandprovisions

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York Meadow Farm: Lacto-Fermented Foods
Rich in probiotics, our fermented foods are also paleo and keto friendly. Eat a proper human diet.

YMF: Artisanal Bath & Body Products 🛁
Our bath and body products are made with natural oils & plant butters and natural herbs & spices.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, hi there, and welcome back to another episode of the show. My name is Rob Kaiser, and I am your host. Today is Monday, December 5th, 2022. And this is episode number 478 of the All Around Growth Podcast. In today's show, we are doing a homestead weekend recap and a weekly look ahead where we're going to take a look at the episodes coming up for the rest of the week. But before we get started, I'd like to welcome all the new listeners and the subscribers. I sure do appreciate you guys spreading the word and subscribing to the show. And for those of you who are new and even the OG audience members, one thing to remember with this show is that the only constant in life is change. And as this show grows and evolves, this is turning into a show where we find and fulfill our purpose in life. A show where you join me with my family on our small farm and homestead, where we talk about a variety of topics, generally focused on what I call all around growth. And a show where we talk about our zone zero if we're looking at life through the permaculture lens. A show where we dream, plan, and act on the goals that we set to live a balanced life. A show whose structure and dialogue largely revolves around seven different topics to find that balance. Financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. We rotate through these seven different topics routinely now as part of the show. And the inspiration from that comes from the methodology laid out in the simple and free goal setting workbook, which is linked to in the description and will also be linked to in the podcast show notes. And since this is a Monday, we're going to do a homestead, like I said, we're going to do a homestead weekend recap and look ahead for the week. And uh we're gonna like before we take a look ahead for the week, we're gonna do a little bit of a market and business update over the weekend. Talk about some homestead happenings, some family updates. But before we do that, let's take a moment to mention why this show is possible in the first place. We've got Food Forest Farms, the home of air-roasted specialty coffee and a fun hip camp and cozy Airbnb. Longtime listener of the show, Brian decided to reach out and support the show with the invite to live stream and bring the show to new platforms, including but not limited to YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter, which and Float and Float as well, which are the four platforms where we are streaming today. Live streams are generally not uh a regular part of the show. This one was completely unannounced, but as things continue to grow and change with the show, we will see what happens with regard to the live streaming and the frequency of it taking place. So far, we've been consistent with Friday live streams. We will definitely have a Friday live stream um in which we will talk about in just a moment when we talk or later in the show when we talk about the uh upcoming you know show topics for the week. But uh yeah, new things are happening, and many thanks to Food Forest Farms for making it happen. So check out everything that's going on over there, foodforestfarms.com, and York Meadow Farm is also the sponsor of today's show, where we produce handcrafted batches of probiotic rich fermented foods and natural bath and body products scented with pure essential oils. Listeners of the show, that's you. Get 25% off at checkout with the discount code all around growth. So, you know, to support the show, to support what is going on here on the homestead, I would really encourage you to purchase products that you likely already use or consume from York Meadow Farm. And you can find out more again in the description and the show notes for both Food Forest Forms and York Meadow Farm. So check that out. And also, real quick, you know, if you want to start a podcast, you're a content creator, or you just have some thoughts and ideas that you want to get out there. Um, one thing that you can do is get started and at least give it a shot for free at today from Buzz Sprout. It's the easiest podcasting software in the world, as far as my humble opinion is concerned for hosting, promoting, and putting metrics to if you're a dork like me, the message that you have to share with the world. So if you are interested in any of this stuff, Food Forest Farm, York Meadow Farm, and Buzz Sprout, then links to everything will be in the show notes. So check it out. Now, with regard to the market and business update, we had our first winter market this past weekend at Richardson Farms. Um, you know, it's always tough to get back into the swing of things after the holidays. Everyone is in large part decompressing. I mean, Thanksgiving was just last weekend, so uh, you know, we're we're slow to get back into the market season, and uh quite frankly, I was okay with that. It made for a real casual Saturday. It was cool to hang out with the Richardsons, with some of the uh other vendors that came through, and of course the customers that came through. Um, it wasn't a huge day in terms of sales, but it's always worth it. And the Richardsons uh definitely make it worth it to come out there. So, you know, we sure do appreciate them and their help. And um yeah, that was that was it. It's uh the these these excuse me. These winter markets at Richardson's um are brief. They're from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. And they're nice. The setup is super easy. Uh it's inside the greenhouse and it's nice and warm, and it's just a cozy environment. And because they're every other weekend, it's a lot less stressful than a normal seasonal market, and it just makes for a good time and a great breakup of the routines. So, you know, I'm I'm very grateful for that. Um, we uh in in discussion about the farmers market and you know what we were doing this weekend, and just general discussion with the farm last weekend, or last week rather, I communicated to mom and dad that I wanted to pull the plug on the grocery store sales at Meyer that we would potentially begin in early next year sometime. We have gone through you know probably ninety percent of the onboarding process, but due to a number of reasons, I'm not entirely well, yeah, due to a number of reasons, I'm quite certain that that is not the best move for the long-term growth and success of the business that I'm working for. And what's what's important to understand here is that you know, like I'm I'm not really an employee of the family business. I I like the relationship that I have with my folks is that of a contractor for the most part. I get paid by my parents, and uh I you know the reality is I'm not entirely sure on how uh they operate as a business, but I get paid and I'm learning how to structure and run my own business, and um effectively working as a consultant of sorts for another business, I I didn't really feel comfortable moving forward with a contractual agreement when you know, first of all, we're gonna be at two markets next year consistently all season, and our experience with that was limited to three weeks last year. So we'll see how we keep up with demand at those two markets all season, as well as how things work with regard to our price increases, you know, and the price increases come on account of the fact that it's something that we've been talking about for well, as long as I've been working with dad, um, he's been talking about the the fact that you know we've never really increased prices since we began selling at market, uh on uh and selling craut on this, not selling at market, but selling kraut on this scale at market, which I guess was four or five years ago, and we've we've maintained the same prices all during that time. And nevertheless, uh you know, all of our product costs have risen, and inflation and so on and so forth. So, what we are working on, you know, basically that is the first of a long list of priorities that we need to well first of all identify and talk about and then work through. And as far as I can tell, even even even part of this, this this show and and assembling show notes and and talking about the market business update provides a bit of um structure for talking points when I meet with dad and and mom later in the week. And I think that you know, before we and this is kind of what was going through my mind when I said, hey, we we should nix the the grocery store um for a number of reasons, which we'll get into later. And you know, this is kind of a precursor to that later, which we'll be talking about later this week. Um, and and none of this is like confidential family business. This is just kind of an update as far as where we're at and uh what we're doing, and I think it's relevant for anyone out there that's uh engaging in a business themselves or a side hustle or working with family or trying to grow something that's existing. Um, you know, this is kind of the approach that I've taken working as a consultant for my largest client at this time. So, first of all, we ceased moving forward with a new retail location to focus on priorities that include product costing and getting current product descriptions and those updated costs to our current retail vendors, of which there are several, and then once we've done that, we can move forward with the application process for the farmers markets, which is brief, but again, is something that we need to do. And once we've gotten the product descriptions and costs and everything identified, um, I believe right now we're at a pretty good point with regard to upcoming markets, product inventory, saleable product inventory, and product and production. I'm gonna identify that a little bit later today and think about what we need to do this week in terms of sales and product, along with you know, outdoor project work on the homestead. But we'll get into that in a second. But um, you know, we will be looking at not only what we need to make this week, but projecting out what we need to make over the next three months. You know, it's a good benchmark. Looking at a three-month schedule in terms of what we've made, what we need to make, and and trying to identify what our most popular products are and looking back at some past uh data that we've collected from sales, and also looking ahead and projecting out to the opening day of market and figuring you know what we're going to begin selling at that point. And the reality is the opening day of farmers market season in 2023 is five months and one week from today, you know. So even though it seems like things are slowing down here on the homestead, you know, it's really on in terms of planning and forward thinking and uh the way in which I'm handling my biggest customer, which happens to be the family business. So uh in addition to all of that, you know, one of the things that we've been talking about is marketing and rebranding, and you know, both mom and dad have uh agreed, you know, and I guess this has been a joint discussion along with myself that who whoever, you know, no one's really responsible for for the idea generation, but over continued dialogue on the idea of branding over the past few months, we've decided to take the two different product lines and have them operating under two different brands the fermented foods and the bath bath and body products. And you know, for example, we would have acme fermented foods and acme artisan soap company, something to that effect, and we will during the year 2023 focus on identifying all of that rebranding, but by January 1st of 2023, what we can do with our current website is do a slight redesign so that visually people begin to understand and conceptualize the idea that there are two different brands here at York Meadow Farm. And although the actual you know structure and function of the website will remain the same, it will begin to present the visual appearance that there are two separate entities operating here, along with all of the market gardens, which are managed by Cody. So we want to really rebrand and kind of have that in place by January 1st. And maybe with that said, either at that time or shortly thereafter, set up a landing page and begin collecting email addresses for the new brands that are being launched. And I need to look into that a little bit further, but the idea, and I'll certainly, you know, we will certainly cover this more in future episodes, but the idea for that comes from my buddy Lewis. Shout out to Lewis over at Hola Island Provisions, uh, who was set up next to us many times at the Medina Farmers Market this past season. And this is a relatively new venture for him, and he's had several over the past years. His big one is Campus Island Grill, I believe, operating up at Cleveland State. And this is just one of many things that he's actively involved in. And I will link to his Instagram page in the show notes, and you can see what he's up to. And I I feel like he's got a pretty good handle on marketing and some good strategies, and you know, it makes me think of what I should do is you know, set up a call with him and talk about some of these things, figure out some good questions and bring them on for an interview and make that part of the show, you know. So uh, anyways, more on that later. But for like I said, for 2023, we're gonna identify and clarify and hone in on our brands while at the same time building out the WordPress site for York Meadow Farm and these subsequent hubs or spokes, because York Meadow Farm is going to be set up as the hub for these different operations, and the spokes will be each of these separate entities supporting and providing structural integrity to the hub, which is the farm. Now, speaking of structural integrity of the farm, that leads us to and provides a pretty good segue into some of the homestead improvements that are taking place. And homestead improvements have really kind of taken a back seat over the past year because our primary focus has been the completion of the commercial kitchen and getting that operational and ready for inspections to be passed. And that has certainly taken place. And since then, we've been in the kitchen working, and you know, over the past 12 months, effectively quadrupling our production, and then some you know, who knows what. We're at at this point, so you know, we've been busy making use of the work that we've done, and but or but at the same time, we've neglected some of and or a lot of these other improvements that we have talked about, and I won't necessarily get into all of that um at this time because there's no sense in talking about our lengthy to-do lists, but one of the things that happened last week is the internet that that that the the temporary solution for internet here in the office, which is built inside a pole barn that is uh 40 by 64 feet in dimension, uh, and then right next to the commercial kitchen. So basically, we've got half of this 40 by 60 pole barn constructed in a commercial kitchen space and an office space, and then the rest will be finished out, hopefully over time, into a big effectively 30 by 40 workshop, which is gonna be quite nice, but you know, in time, workshop perhaps farm store, you know, who knows? Um we've got to uh figure that out, and that's actually a an interesting idea to make that a farm store workshop. We could do that more on that later. At any rate, um yeah, the the internet that ran out here, our temporary solution failed. And we uh my when my brother learned of this, he went into the mode that he usually goes into, which is go time. There's a problem, let's fix it, and we put in a nice permanent uh solution, which in the case that if this line fails or we want to upgrade at some point, it will be relatively easy to do so due to the equipment and conduit that was run into the cabin and into the barn. So um, you know, I am working on finishing the burial of the line that actually runs to the cabin from the barn, and we can get away with that because it's the actual linear footage of the cat six cable that we ran from the router in the basement of the cabin to the router here in the barn that is uh in a shelf above the the water heater uh where it sits with my start nine little self-hosted cloud, which I am excited to actually get into using. And my brother is very excited about that too. But you know, we built this shelf, ran the cable, did all this, and you know, tested it out. Those of you guys in the telegram group, t.me slash all around growth, saw a bunch of pictures of the long afternoon and late night that we had on Saturday getting all of this up and running. But big shout out to my brother for taking the initiative to make this all happen. And uh, I am extremely grateful for that. And you know, I don't want to, you know, fail to mention my sister, who is a big part of all of this as well, while my brother and I are out, you know, fooling around in the barn and building things and messing around. She and my mom are in there taking care of three kids that are ages uh maybe 15 months, a little over two years and four, and some change, and that can be a handful because, well, those of you with kids certainly understand. Uh, so nevertheless, uh, Kate is you know, juggling much of this with mom. Um, while dad has been under the weather lately, and luckily he is back and uh feeling much better. I would say uh at least 80, 90 back to normal. So well done, dad, for resting and recuperating and hydrating. And um, you know, that is that's where we're at with the you know, homestead improvements with the internet and a lack thereof over the past few days really made me realize that uh there's there's a lot of work to be done here, and being being self-employed, and really just over the past six months working to be of service to my family over the past few weeks and month or so, I've really come to embrace the fact that indeed I am self-employed. Uh, the end of the year is coming up. I'm you know have getting involved in discussions with my insurance agent about health insurance and making changes and adjustments to my plan and realizing that I'm soon going to have to address all of these uh taxes and getting information together for my accountant. And uh, you know, I don't want to get in a position where all of a sudden I have to put days into this and stress out about that. So, you know, I'm gonna spend some time on that later today. And I'm realizing that yeah, it might be a slow time on the farm, but this is the time to spend to take advantage of whatever good time is still left outside to do these things, like you know, internet cable and direct burial of that, but also ensure that things going into 2023 are taken care of, that 2022 year-end things are wrapped up, and uh that we go into the new year on a uh with a good foot forward, you know, with with any foot forward. So speaking of feet forward, my brother and I over you know, the weekend after we got everything set up and operational, uh, somehow the idea of oh, I'll tell you how the somehow happened. Uh, he had a race Sunday morning, and uh I think I believe it was a 5k. And um, you know, well done, Matt ran a pretty good time considering the fact that Saturday night after we got the work done, um I decided to dive into the beers and start feeding him beers. And uh yeah, he made the decision, I understand, to drink said beers, but he certainly wouldn't had not have uh been so encouraged to do so if it wasn't for uh my uh you know, my intense consumption and encouragement. And when I learned that he was running a 5k the next morning, I thought, oh my god, boy, this is not gonna be fun. Because I I was expecting that we were all going to eat French toast Sunday morning because that's what mom had mentioned. But he said, No, I'm not gonna be here for the French toast, I've got to run this 5k. And I thought, oh crepes. Here he is, you know, I've been feeding him all these beers, but uh he went ahead and did it. But I got all excited and we started talking about running a longer race, and he suggested a half marathon um next year, and I thought, oh, okay, which which which marathon? And I guess he's already been eyeballing the Cleveland half marathon, and perhaps he has run that in the past, or if not, he definitely ran a half marathon in 2014, if I'm not mistaken, yeah, or 2013. I'm not entirely sure, but um he ran that, and I decided that maybe that wasn't good enough, and we are going to be doing a marathon, and he was very adamant. No, we're no, we're not gonna do this marathon. But me on the other hand, I'm saying, yes, we we're gonna we're gonna do this marathon, you know. And of course, I'm trying to guilt him into this. You just think about what your kids are gonna think about you when you run this marathon, and and and you know, he's like, Oh god, because at this point it's it's 11 o'clock, and he's got to wake up at who knows when to get back up in Cleveland to run this 5k tomorrow morning. The long story short, we will be running either a half marathon or marathon together on Sunday, May 21st, 2023. So I would encourage anyone out there and anyone listening in this case to join us for this marathon in Cleveland or half marathon, whatever the case may be, because uh who knows? I went out and decided yesterday, you know, oh, if we're gonna do this marathon, or if I'm gonna if I'm gonna do this marathon in May, I've got to get after it. So I went ahead and pulled up my old training plan from a marathon, you know, nine years ago, and you know, did some quick math and modified that and decided that a five-mile run yesterday would be in my best interest to get started. And I'll tell you something. So I don't know. My brother and I are going to continue dialogue about this, and I may make the decision to run a half marathon instead, but that remains to be seen. Uh, nevertheless, what I'm encouraging people to do is, and I think I'm going to you know create some sort of uh podcast-related thing where we whatever we decide on here over the next week or so, my brother and I, uh we're gonna get to we're gonna try to get people to join us and form a little group, a training group, encouragement group, and see if and maybe the the reality is since I haven't done a considerable mile, a considerable amount of distance running in eight years, uh maybe the logical place to start is with a half marathon, and then based on how that goes, continue the training and accelerate that or progress into a full marathon. So the more I think about this, the more sense that seems to make. So maybe I should communicate that to my brother. Anyways, that's kind of it with the family updates. You know, dad's feeling better with the cold that he got that was on and very quick, and ultimately, you know, now he's better. Um, my brother and I are running a half marathon, most likely, unless I take some more crazy pills and decide to go full-on marathon, which probably isn't in my best interest at this time. And as far as the rest of the week is concerned, um we're going to get back to the rotation of seven rotating topics, like I'd previously mentioned the physical or the financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career tomorrow with a financial topic of which has yet to be determined. I think what we're going to talk about is financial coaching, just in general, and I have reached out to my old financial coach to see if he would be interested in doing an interview for the show. And I've talked about this in the past. Uh, and it's actually one of the top five episodes, one that I need to get up on YouTube, as a matter of fact. Why I or I think the episode was titled, I fired my financial coach and my health coach. So uh that was a provocative show title, but with some interesting content as to why I did what I did. But I have nothing but love in my heart for my old financial coach and would love to bring him onto the show to talk about what he does, how he does it, and the changes that he's made over the years, because I think he would be a great example of someone who's engaging in this process of all-around growth in their own right with regard to their own ventures. And um, you know, so we'll probably talk about financial coaching in the general sense and possible and then hopefully later on down the road, I'll have an episode dedicated to financial coaching through the lens of Joe Maines from um Joe Maines financial coaching. I I don't want to uh misrepresent the uh the name of his business, which I have uh you know subsequently forgotten because I don't have it up. And I sent him the email this morning. Uh fresh new focus, I believe. Uh, forgive me, Joe, if I've gotten that uh wrong. But um you can find Joe Maine's financial coaching and you will see who this gentleman is. And if you're interested in financial coaching in any capacity, whether it's on a personal level, business level, family, whatever the case may be, I would recommend checking him out. And I'm hoping that I can bring him on for an interview. Wednesday, we're gonna do something with regard to physical, hopefully, circling back and talking about the half marathon versus the marathon. And at the very least, uh, I will talk about and share the training plan with you and discuss the details on what we're doing with regard to the development of this little community that will try to build a little support group about our training. And at some point, I'm gonna try to interview my brother as well to talk about why, you know, what's the like why what's the point? Like, why why are we running? What are we doing? Um I'm I'm I'm interested. I'm interested to learn about why like what his his motives are, and at the same point, I'll share what some of mine were at the time when I ran the marathon in 2013. And um maybe what what what my motives are now, but I'm really more interested in what his his motives are, and uh because he he does a lot of the he does a lot of events, 5K's, 10ks, half marathons. Um, and I I think it's pretty cool, but I've never really talked to him about why. So hopefully he'll be receptive to coming on and talking about that because I think that would be a cool discussion and um you know uh something that you know you guys might be interested in as well. Thursday, we are going to talk again about goals. I know that we're talking a lot about this, but for those of you who are kind of following this time frame with regard to the goal setting workbook, a lot of us had this work done by November 14th, which was 48 days before the end of the year, and then we were gonna put it all aside for at least 14 days and then revisit that and again kind of complete our goals so that over the next month we've got them finalized and can make any last tweaks, and we're getting to the point where we're into the first week of December. Personally, I'm a little behind on revisiting my goals. So, doing another episode on goals is going to give me some encouragement and motivation to take a look at this, re not necessarily report back on what my goals are, but to share with you the experience, to review the workbook a little bit, to talk about and promote that. Because, again, it's something that I believe so strongly in and promote a lot because it's been such an integral part of the change that I've made in my life over the past going on two years at this point. And actually, the the utilization of this workbook has really been uh about you know 18 months learning of it, and uh so yeah, just over, you know, not even just over a year. But uh, anyways, we're gonna talk about that on Thursday and then on Friday to mix it up and provide some variety to the show, we're gonna look at and just talk about what's trending on Twitter. All right, so check that out. Uh, those of you who are out there, uh you know, on Twitter. I definitely have a Twitter account at AllAround Growth. As a matter of fact, I'm streaming to Twitter right now, in addition, like I said, in addition to Twitch and YouTube. And without any promotion, we've got a little bit of an audience out there streaming. So shout out to those of you watching. Feel free to drop a comment wherever you are watching from and say hello and where you're watching from. If not, I get it. You might be in the middle of something or you've got this in the background. Nevertheless, I appreciate you tuning in and watching, and hopefully, uh this will be a more frequent occurrence. Um, but, anyways, yeah, to mix it up a little bit on Friday, we're gonna do a live stream on what's trending on Twitter and just talk about general events that are taking place in the world through the lens of the social media platform that we either love or hate. That's Twitter. And with that, guys, that about wraps up the show for today. Like I said, I appreciate you tuning in. I look forward to catching up with you tomorrow, where we're going to talk about financial coaching in general terms, and hopefully have an update with regard to my dialogue with Joe Maines and where we're going with that. And uh, you know, we'll take it from there. So, guys, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day. I'll see you tomorrow. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.