Episodi

  • 8. Buy my Mum
    Jul 5 2016

    Join my conversation with Carrie Harvey from Harvey Hills Farm in Oxford, NC.

    Links Mentioned on this Episode:

    Harvey Hills Farm Website: www.harveyhillsfarm.com
    Facebook:www.facebook.com/HarveyHillsFarm

    Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com

    Support for this podcast comes from:


    www.efowl.com 
    eFowl Coupon Code: FARM365 to receive 10% OFF your Live Poultry Order.

     


    Get your Free Audiobook: 
    www.audibletrial.com/farm365


    Farm365 Online:

    Website: www.farm365nc.com
    Facebook: www.facebook.com/farm365nc
    Instagram: www.instagram.com/farm365
    Twitter: www.twitter.com/farm365nc

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    40 min
  • 7. Chicken and Pie
    Jun 15 2016

     

    Farm365 Online:
    Website: www.farm365nc.com
    Facebook: www.facebook.com/farm365nc
    Instagram: www.instagram.com/farm365
    Twitter: www.twitter.com/farm365nc

    Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com

    Support for this podcast comes from:


    www.efowl.com 
    eFowl Coupon Code: FARM365 to receive 10% OFF your entire order.

    This episode uses sounds from Freesound, Envato Marketplace and Dan-O at DanoSongs.com

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    15 min
  • 6. Getting Down to Business
    Jun 7 2016

    On this episode we hear the story of Anita Singh from Get Down Farm in Dexter, Michigan. Anita is a beginning farmer holding a full-time job while managing her start-up farm.

    Links Mentioned on this Episode:

    Get your Free Audiobook: www.audibletrial.com/farm365

    Get Down Farm Website: getdown.farm

    Farm365 Online:
    Website: www.farm365nc.com
    Facebook: www.facebook.com/farm365nc
    Instagram: www.instagram.com/farm365
    Twitter: www.twitter.com/farm365nc

    Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com

    Support for this podcast comes from:


    www.efowl.com 
    eFowl Coupon Code: FARM365 to receive 10% OFF your Live Poultry Order.


    audibletrial.com/farm365 

    This episode uses sounds from Freesound, Envato Marketplace and Dan-O at DanoSongs.com

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    27 min
  • 5. Hey Stranger
    May 24 2016

    This week, I decided to pick up the phone, punch in some random digits and talk to anyone who was willing to have a conversation about farming. This episode is all about spreading the word about sustainable agriculture! 

    Links Mentioned on this Episode:

    Get your Free Audiobook: www.audibletrial.com/farm365

    Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/Farm365podcast

    Vital Farms: www.vitalfarms.com

    Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com

    Support for this podcast comes from:


    www.efowl.com 
    eFowl Coupon Code: FARM365 to receive 10% OFF your Live Poultry Order.

     
    www.wwoofusa.org  

    audibletrial.com/farm365 

    This episode uses sounds from Freesound by user juskiddink, Envato Marketplace and Dan-O at DanoSongs.com

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    23 min
  • 4. A Dose of Reality
    May 17 2016
    This week we share scenes from life on the farm.  Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com Facebook: facebook.com/groups/Farm365podcast EPISODE TRANSCRIPT by Lauren  Thanks to my lovely wife for transcribing this episode. Sean: Don’t be discouraged too long.  I mean it’s a normal thing in the human experience. You left the air conditioned office to roll around in animal poop. Support for this podcast comes from eFowl: www.efowl.com  eFowl Coupon Code: FARM365 to receive 10% OFF your Live Poultry Order. Diego (Host): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Farm365 podcast, the podcast about starting your own small family farm and growing your business one day at a time while attempting to tell your story to an audience of listeners. And no, I don’t get much sleep.I am your host Diego and this is episode number 4. On the previous episodes of the show, you heard folks share their thoughts about my decision to become a farmer. And yes, there was a lot of skepticism and eyebrow raising that I was not able to document, but I did get some positive feedback as you might have heard on the last episode Alan (eFowl): I think it’s awesome what you’re doing and I think you’re going to spread the word about your story and how a small farm gets started, and what it really takes to leave your career and launch something like that is really special. And I think it’s really exciting and I’m excited to hear more. Diego: So far you’ve heard what other people had to say about my journey, but now that I’m actually living it, what do I think about this new life? Was it worth it? But instead of answering that question, I’ll let you decide! So on today’s episode I will be sharing scenes from my week here at the farm. I will include clips from late at night as I walk amongst the owls and the foxes, to early morning thoughts communicated through a raspy and groggy voice, that I’m almost ashamed to share with you guys, but it’s not as bad as that voice that you fake when you try to call out of work in the morning. Before we go into our first scene, I wanted to give everyone an overview of what kind of animals here at the farm. I realized that we haven’t done that so far, and I will do that with details on future episodes, but I think a brief overview of what’s going on here will give you guys an idea of what kind of farming we do. And to start, we have been farming for over 7 months now, and we started with 100 freedom rangers, which are meat chickens, back in September of 2015. Thought the months we have been adding more animals to the farm as we attempt to grow our business. And I want to emphasize the word attempt. Currently on the grounds, we have 3 Tamworth pigs, which we purchased from another farmer just down the road. They are great on pasture! We also have 50 laying hens which gives us amazing pasture-raised eggs. We are on leased land in North Carolina in the good ole’ USA, and now that Spring is here, and the days are longer, I’ve stretched my work day to 14 plus hours. But then again, as I entrepreneur you never really stop working so that number is probably not even accurate. And sometimes, to get things done, late nights are a must. Diego: It is 12:36 a.m. I just finished recording one of the episodes.  There is not a soul around.  And by the way, I don’t know why I am whispering.  Perhaps I don’t want to become prey and let something know that I’m out here.  But it’s a Saturday night.  I do have church in the morning. I hope to sleep well. That was me walking over to the house right after wrapping up the previous episode of this podcast. Where was I coming from? Why was I out there in the middle of the night? I have a studio set up underground in the middle of the woods to help with noise cancellation, plus I don’t need all the padding materials and the fancy studio filters. It makes for a very quiet environment and it’s very down to earth, but this underground studio -- I can’t go on with this anymore.  It’s completely fictional.  I just made it all up. I hope you forgive me. So where was I walking from?  At this point you probably don’t even care, and wish this story was true, but the truth is I have a cabin here at the farm that we use as our homeschooling / home office / podcasting studio. So we find ourselves living out of both places sometimes, the house and the cabin. So back to the clip.  You’re still thinking about that underground story that you fell for. But let’s gather our thoughts and let me recap. I was walking over to the house, it was past midnight, it was very late, I had a long day. Now here is me after not enough hours later, waking up, no I did not have a hangover. I do not drink. I was simply under the influence of sleep deprivation. Diego: It is 6 a.m. on a Sunday.  The family is not here today.  They’re away.  I just woke up.  Usually I try to fit in some computer work in the morning before my day ...
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    18 min
  • 2. I Quit
    May 17 2016
    A Move Filled With Hopes and Dreams. How did my boss react when I told him I was quitting my job to become a farmer? You're going to hear that story today. GUEST: Dr. Michael Salvatore, Superintendent of Schools Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com Facebook: facebook.com/groups/Farm365Podcast EPISODE TRANSCRIPT by Lauren  Thanks to my lovely wife for transcribing this episode! INTRO MUSIC Dr. Salvatore (Guest): We’re in the 21st century. Nobody leaves their job to become a farmer, especially in New Jersey. It’s unheard of. So you when you said, “Yeah, I’m going to go, I’m going to raise organic chickens,” I thought you were nuts! Support for this podcast comes from eFowl: www.efowl.com  Diego (Host): Hello and welcome to the Farm365 Podcast, a podcast that will give you an insider's look at my journey to starting a small family farm. My name is Diego, and this is episode number 2! So who am I? Last fall I left the hustle and bustle of the northeast and with absolutely zero experience in farming, moved down to North Carolina, along with my wife and two kids, to become a farmer. And what is this podcast all about you ask? Well, you’ve heard the stories about how people got started in farming, you've read the books, the blogs and watched all the videos you can watch. But then what? What really happens when someone does decide to take the leap? And how exactly do they grow their business during the first year when nobody even knows who they are? Well, this is the case with us, and I can tell you first hand, it’s a little bit different than how you thought it was all going to play out. So I decided to share my journey with you! Every week you will hear scenes of real life events, stories, and the conversations I have along the way with other farmers and people in the industry as I attempt to build my farm business. And I will admit, it’s a little scary for me to broadcast my whole story to whomever wants to listen, but the best part is that you get to listen, be entertained, and most importantly, learn from my mistakes. If you have listened to episode number 1, you have heard some of my relatives’ reaction to my decision of becoming a farmer. For this episode, I had to make it a little bit more interesting, and dig a little deeper, and go a little bit out of my comfort zone, so I e-mailed my old boss and arranged for a skype interview with him. We are going to start off by talking about his thoughts during my final weeks working for him. This is my old boss, Dr. Salvatore. He is the Superintendent of a large public school district in the northeast. Dr. Salvatore: You know, I’m not a guy who counts my chickens before they hatch. Pardon the joke there, but I like to make sure I know exactly what I have in front of me, so I didn’t know if you were actually going to leave at that point. I mean, your house -- I think it closed a month or two later than it was supposed to, you hadn’t purchased a home or identified exactly where you were going to live, so I figured to myself, “You know what? This is a great dream he has, but I have a feeling Diego’s going to be here for a pretty long time." Diego: So I based my last day of work on the closing day of my house. As soon as the house sold, that was my last day at work, and we were going to be moving to North Carolina to begin our journey. However, the house took forever to close, so when the last day came, I was still working, and I pretty much worked on a day to day basis until we finally had a closing date on the house. And thinking back, from the time I gave my notice to the last day at the office, things seemed to have moved really fast. We started interviewing for candidates shortly after I told him I was leaving. We really didn’t have time to let it all sink in. All I know is that one day, I woke up, didn’t have to drive to work, didn’t have to put on a tie, or answer phones or emails, or keep schedules and schedule meetings. My job was no longer mine. All of the responsibility of my position was left in the hands of my little brother. Why am I telling you this? Because the joke around the office was, if this whole farming thing didn’t work out, I was going to kick my brother out of the job and get my job back. This conversation is going to get a lot more interesting, but right now, let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsor. Support for this podcast comes from WWOOF-USA:   www.wwoofusa.org   Diego: My next question for my old boss was did he see any indication of this big change coming? Did he see it coming? Dr. Salvatore: You know what? I saw that your thinking about life in general started to change, you know? That it wasn’t about a paycheck, necessarily, that it was more about your future. And that just comes as me mature, and we have children, and we start thinking about our future more. And that was a telltale sign that you know what? This lifestyle in the northeast of hustle and bustle, ...
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    14 min
  • 3. Selling Air
    May 17 2016
    Exploring creative ways to make additional farming income by using your skill set and a look behind the scenes as I speak with potential sponsors. GUEST: Alan Stone (eFowl) Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com Facebook: facebook.com/groups/Farm365podcast EPISODE TRANSCRIPT by Lauren  Thanks to my lovely wife for transcribing this episode. Alan (eFowl): I think it’s awesome what you’re doing and I think you’re going to spread the word about your story and how a small farm gets started, and what it really takes to leave your career and launch something like that is really special. And I think it’s really exciting and I’m excited to hear more. Support for this podcast comes from WWOOF-USA:   www.wwoofusa.org   INTRO MUSIC Diego (Host): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Farm365 podcast, a podcast that documents the journey of a beginning farmer, and gives listeners (that’s you!) an insider’s look into the chaotic life of someone who is trying to start a brand new business, and not just any business, a farming business. Which, if you’re a farmer, you know it’s even harder. How is this all going to end up? I have no idea, but if you join me for this journey, I think it will be a whole lot better! So make sure your headphones are tight and snug and enjoy today’s episode. I am your host, Diego, and this is episode number 3. For this episode I wanted to bring you guys behind the scenes of the making of this podcast. You see, since this podcast is all about documenting the start of a farm business, and sharing real life events from my life as a farmer and a young entrepreneur, I think that an episode about why I started this podcast would be appropriate. And also, how can having a podcast help a farm? After all, I can be out there right now doing numerous amounts of chores or networking with the local community, trying to make new products and market them. Any farmer will tell you, there is always something to be done around the farm. So first the why? Why did I start this podcast? I’m a huge fan of other farming podcasts. In fact, for an entire year prior to becoming a farmer, I listened to as many farming podcasts as my phone battery would allow! I listened to it while painting my house, while cleaning the rugs to make sure the house was ready to be sold, while mowing the lawn. So I started the podcast marathon by listening to the Ethan Book podcast. Actually it’s called the Beginning Farmer Podcast. And then I was all caught up with that, and then I moved on to the Growing Farms podcast with John Suscovich; both awesome shows to listen to. So a big shout out to those guys! Thank you for helping me and inspiring me to start a career in farming. Your advice has been invaluable. The things I listened to, and now I get to live, are amazing. So with so many great farming podcasts out there, one thing I did not want to is create something that already existed. Those guys can do it much better than I can, but farmers aren’t always that accessible, so we can mix 21st century technology and bring their voices through your speakers or your headphones, and you can harvest the wealth of knowledge they have to offer. We need to revive century old techniques of farming, bringing animals outdoors and out of the four walls of a warehouse. And that’s a whole another rant for another episode. I don’t want to get there now, but let’s get back to the focus here. Now the How. How did I start this podcast and how will it not be a distraction to my very long workday? Again, I can be out there right now doing chores, repairing fences, making connections with potential customers, and this may sound like an obvious statement, but a farm is a business and businesses have to make money. No matter how ethical or noble, or charitable your cause may be, a person has to put all their skills to work to get their business off the ground and continue to grow it. I consider this podcast a digital enterprise of my farm, and since audio editing is something that I enjoy doing, I combined that with something that I’m interested in, and there it is! A farming podcast! Now to the second part of that question: How can having a podcast help my farm business? It can help in many ways, but if you’re a chicken farmer like me, raising chickens on pasture and feeding them the best non-GMO or certified organic feed that you can find, you focus on how can it help you pay for chicken feed. And the answer is, a podcast can help me pay for chicken feed by by finding sponsors for it! Now I’m not sharing this with you all to convince you to start a podcast so you can pay for your expenses at your farm. I’m sharing this with you as an example of you can take something that you are interested in or a skill set that you have and use it to help grow your business. And you don’t even have to build a website, or a prototype or even have a name for your product or idea. It all starts with the idea ...
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    16 min
  • 1. Farming is Craziness
    May 15 2016
    A Candid Conversation About Farming. In this interview with my brother-in-law Sean and his wife Elisa, we talk about my decision to become a farmer.  GUESTS: Sean and  Elisa Podcast Page: www.farm365podcast.libsyn.com Facebook: facebook.com/groups/Farm365podcast EPISODE TRANSCRIPT by Lauren  Thanks to my lovely wife for transcribing this episode. INTRO MUSIC Diego (Host): Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the Farm365 podcast! A podcast about what it’s really like to start your own small family farm and grow your business one day at a time, like we’re doing, and it’s crazy! But we are very excited to bring you the podcast and even more excited that you’re here listening. I hope to be able share our journey with those considering a career in farming and also be a reliable source of encouragement and support for beginning and established farmers. With that said - I’m your host Diego and this is episode 1 of The Farm365 Podcast. Diego: As of today, I have been farming for a little over 7 months, and before that I had zero experience in farming. I did not come from a farming background whatsoever. I was sitting behind a desk, nowhere near any dirt or mud. I was receiving a steady salary with full health benefits, a pension plan for when I retired, I didn’t have to watch for the weather, I didn’t have to wake up at 5AM, or carry a flashlight at night, and I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this or not, but do know how uncomfortable it is to tell your family you’re going to leave your job, sell your house and move out of state to pursue a crazy dream? Well, just imagine if that dream is to become a farmer. In the beginning, it's all about convincing people that you're serious because they will not believe you at first, but then once they believe you, did you ever wonder what was really going through their head? Well, I did so I asked: Sean: We were happy, like, great, family is moving -- you weren’t happy? Elisa: No. But you go ahead. Sean: I was happy. I mean, because you were moving close. It was all selfish happiness. So like, “Yes! They’re moving close! Even if it fails, who cares! They’ll be down here, you know? Diego: You just heard a clip from a conversation I had with my brother in-law Sean and his wife Elisa when I asked them to share their thoughts about my decision to become a farmer. Sean was excited that the family was finally moving down south out of the northeast, and Elisa not so much Here is why.   Elisa: Well, my strategy was to remain as ignorant as I possibly could, and not ask any questions because I was fairly certain that any answer you could give would just make me more upset. Sean: You wanted your blood pressure low? Elisa: Yeah, I wanted to keep my blood pressure low, and continue to, you know, respect you as a human being. So I just -- I didn’t know any of the details. I just thought, “This is craziness.” You know, I liked the idea in the sense that you guys are young. If you want to do this, do it. What are you going to have to lose, you know? If you want to do it, give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out, and you’ll have learned from it and you’ll certainly have stories to tell and there’s no harm done. Diego: So if completely changing my life to become a farmer wasn’t such a bad idea, in what aspect was it craziness? We’ll get feedback from Sean and Elisa on that, but first, let’s take a quick break to hear from our awesome sponsors. Support for this podcast comes from eFowl: www.efowl.com  Support for this podcast comes from WWOOF-USA:   www.wwoofusa.org  Diego: Now let’s get back to the conversation, and hear Sean and Elisa’s concerns about farming. Elisa: It’s too hard for a small farmer to make any kind of living because of the large farm industry. That’s what I thought. Sean: Yeah. Elisa: And still do think. You’re in a position where you have to be able to produce a certain amount of income to pay for your needs that your family has, and if you can do that, that would be ideal. Sean: Statistically speaking, it’s slim. It’s slim chance of success, just based on what we know, but at the same time I was excited. I was like, “You know, they’re living the dream.” It seems foolish, but God loves to do foolish things with sold out, faithful people, you know? And put “foolish” in quotations, of course. Diego: And can I just add that I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to make this huge change… It was something that my wife Lauren and I have talked about for years, and all their concerns were questions that we asked ourselves. We even made a pros and cons char, which I’ll share on a later episode. Farming is pretty challenging, especially when you’re brand new at it, but the aspect of being a business owner, that is an entire different giant to face. And Lauren and I have been working very hard on the marketing side of our business and we’re ...
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    9 min