SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Emily Fluit from Hills, MN 6-25-24
Unstoppable, unshakable, but it rolls off the tunnel unfakeable, it's unavoidable, you show relatable, in between the lines, start to loosen up your matter. And welcome again to Shark Farmer Radio! Hey, I'm your host Rob Sharky, we're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois, studio powered by Bex Hybrid, and I'm fitting, we're actually coming home right from Utah. Yeah, coming home from Utah, hopefully, be a fantastic trip. I'm so excited because Utah has been on my bucket list, and when we got you a speech in Utah, we're going to be up in Vernal, which is like the northeast corner of Utah. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you know, we're only four hours from Moeb. I've wanted to go to Arches Park forever, so we're going to spend some time in Moeb for anniversary. Worked out great." I gotta admit, I'd never really heard of either. Really, Moeb? I know we've been to Utah, but it's been a minute, hadn't it? It has, and we've never spent any time there, and it's so gorgeous, so can't wait to explore and hike and do all the things. Yeah, hiking, that's great. Alright, let's go out to Minnesota, Hills, Minnesota, we're going to be talking with Emily Fluid. How you doing, Emily? Hi, I'm good. How about you? I'm doing pretty good. Now, we're in a great state of Minnesota, is Hills. So, it's like the very bottom corner, so it's right by Iowa and South Dakota, like the very corner over there. So, I actually lived just a couple miles from both borders, so some days I'm in all three states. Now, is that where you're from originally? I am originally from Michigan. Okay, how did you find your way to Minnesota? Yeah, so back probably three, four years ago, me and my husband met, and then I moved out here, and yeah, the rest of history. It's always the guy's fault. Yeah, so did you grow up on a farm in Michigan, or was this all new to you moving out to the rural Minnesota? Yeah, it was all new. I pretty much was a city girl. I didn't really consider myself one, but looking back, I probably was. And yeah, it was a big learning curve, just farmer hours, and just, yeah, everything, but it's been good. It's been a good journey. So, you married a farmer? Is that what happened? I did, yep. Oh, man. Tell us how you met. Yeah, what happened? It's a story there. I mean, it's not too exciting. We kind of met through church, through friends, different friends that kind of set us up a little bit, and then, yeah, did the whole long distance dating thing and, yeah. Oh, the long distance dating is hard, isn't it? It is. It's rough. It was, yeah. So, there's a lot of times when somebody doesn't grow up on a farm, and then you marry a farmer, and then it is a bit of an adjustment. You know, the hours that the farmer puts in, stuff like that. Did you experience any of that? Yeah, for sure. Like, just the hours, it did help that we got married in the winter time. So, I came in kind of at a slow season, and then we did spend a lot more time together when we first got married. So, that definitely helped. But, yeah, especially my husband does custom spraying, like, wide-dropping and fungicides and all that kind of stuff in the summer. So, he kind of has an additional busy season, so he has planting, and then his busy season to the summer, and then fall. So, it's, yeah, our only slow season is kind of winter. So, that doesn't really help matters either, but... Yeah, custom spraying. That's a job that allows a lot of free time in summer. Yeah, yep. You know, it's funny when you move out to a farm, if you've grown up in the city, you know, people always talk about how, you know, they're used to the hustle and bustle of the noises, right? And they talk about how quiet it is when you move out to the farm, and of course, all of us who live on a farm, we love that about it. But, I bet that was hard, too, because, you know, you grow up in the city, it's a lot noisier. Yeah, and one thing that I kind of missed was just like, I mean, I didn't miss the traffic part, but just being able to just drive a couple minutes to like, you know, like a big grocery store, or like a Walmart or that kind of thing. And then having to plan out your trips a lot more, and you can't just, I mean, you can, but you have to drive a lot farther just to quick run to get something. So, you've got to plan ahead with your, you know, stocking up for groceries and all that good stuff. So, that was also something new that I had to get used to as well. Yeah, and they had that grub hub in the towns, that would be nice to have. Right. Yeah. Door dash. Maybe, maybe it's a good thing we don't have it. Is that what kind of got you interested in your garden, too? Yeah, yeah. So, I, my mom, my mom did garden when I, when I was growing up, but she didn't quite do it quite, you know, she can somewhat, but I would just kind of fall in love with, you know, canning and preserving lots of stuff. And learning to cook from scratch and all that good stuff. So, yeah, I'm far from an expert, but I've been trying to learn as much as I can over the years. Yeah, that canning. That's kind of a lost art anymore, isn't it? It is. Yeah. So, I'm kind of trying to kind of bring it back and try to teach people how to do it again, because I know a lot of people, they, you know, it sounds like they'd like to get into it, but they're scared of like, you know, getting sick from the food that they can, or they just don't know where to start and, yeah, so I just try to help people with the overwhelm of getting started and making it a little bit less overwhelming and intimidating because I know I, for sure felt that way when I first started so. Uh huh. I am so far out of it. I remember mom would have this. It looked like an iron lung. You remember how like people get sick and they put them in an iron lung. That's what you used to put on the stove and it had this little thing that looked like a missile on top. Is that what you're still using? Oh, like a pressure canner. Yeah, the pressure cooker. That's my husband's description of a pressure canner on the soul. Yeah, I do use that. I, you can actually use a water bath canner too, which is a lot less intimidating. It doesn't do anything with pressure. It's just boiling boiling it in hot water. And that's like, you can still do a fair amount of canning with that as well. So, I love to tell people about that too. Like, you don't, you know, if you're scared of pressure canning, there's another option. You don't have to just do pressure canning. Okay. All right. Today, we're talking with Emily Flutt from Hills of Minnesota. Go follow her on her Instagram. Simple farm house joys. That's simple farm house joys. We're going to talk more about the cannon right after the break. A segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way, go to commonground.io. That's commonground.io. All right. Make sure you see the encore presentation of shark farmer TV on RFD tonight at 830 central. That's 930 Eastern for those of you. And new season coming in July. Yeah, Minnesota is central, right? Pretty sure it is. Well, I guess we'll find out today. We're talking with Emily Flutt from Hills, Minnesota. Go follow her on her Instagram. We're talking about farm house joys. Simple farm house joys. Now Emily did not grow up in a farm, but married into a farm. And now is more interested in where her food comes from, all that stuff. And that's what she is trying to teach people. All right. So I had to interrupt a canning chat over the commercial break between you two. So just continue. What were you asking her, Emily? Well, I was just saying that, you know, it is intimidating using a pressure cooker. And I do think people worry about food safety. Do you get a lot of questions on your Instagram from beginning canner saying, okay, what if I mess this up? Will I make my family sick? Yeah, I do. That's a really common question that I get. And usually what I tell people is if you have a trusted recipe and, you know, you're not just kind of making up your own rules, you will most likely be fine. There's very, a very small chance of people that actually get sick from bottleism and that kind of thing. I mean, if you look at like the statistics, it's like 80 people get sick with that, like a year. And I think of that percentage, a lot of them are like infant cases, which there's a good chance that it's from like honey or that kind of thing, you know, like bottle, bottleism from honey. So like the statistics are just so low and, you know, you can still get sick from food at a grocery store too. I mean, you look at how many, how many things get recalled out of a grocery store every year. So, yeah, I would say as long as you're following a recipe and you're, you know, following all the safety procedures, you know, making sure you're washing your hands and just that kind of thing. The chances of that happening are so, so low. There's a trick when you interview someone when you don't know what they're talking about, you say, for the people that don't know, can you please explain. So for the people that don't know what bottle is, can you please explain it for him? Yes, I'm sorry. So, bottleism is just kind of like a back. I'm not sure if it's a bacteria or what exactly, but it's just, you know, it just when you don't kill, kill off bacteria in your, in your food when you're canning. You've got to keep your jars up to the right temperature. Otherwise, it won't kill off the bacteria inside the jar. And when you don't kill off the bacteria, it will turn into like bottleism. It just kind of, you know, bad bacteria inside the jar. And it can just make you pretty sick. So you don't want that. So tell me about this garden. What all are you growing? Um, so this year I have potatoes, onions, green beans, carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers, cantaloupe, zucchini. Is this like a three acre garden? No, it's actually not. No, I mean, I've gotten good at like, I mean, if I have any more things, I'm going to have to like make my fence bigger. So I've gotten good at like piecing it all together to see how like how much I can fit in there. So it's not actually as big as you might think. She's like, I need to have a bigger garden. Her husband's like, I roll. Is it all around up ready? Because that makes it nice. Round up ready. I don't use round up on it. I actually do like a no-till garden. So if you're familiar with like silage, like silage piles, like the tarp that you put over silage piles. Uh huh. I actually use that as like my weed, like weed control. So I put that over it and then I cut holes for the plants. Yeah, we've tried that before because that's, you know, you're like, oh, okay, well, then no weeds can grow, but somehow it still looked horrible. I don't know. They're still weeding involved, didn't there? There is. Yep. You know, right, right around the plant. But yeah, it's not like super like visually appealing. Like, I mean, if you want like a super like aesthetically pleasing like raised garden boxes and all that, my garden is probably not for you, but it does cut down on the weeding a lot. Well, and it's like we're not trying to be on the cover of better homes and gardens, right? We're just trying to have a garden. Right. Yep. Do you enjoy it getting out and gardening? I do. Yep. Yeah. Okay. You and I are different. Not the garden fan. Well, I mean, we always try when you put the garden in, it's always like you're optimistic and everything looks great and your roads are all straight. I hope so. And then you go away for like a week or something and you come back and it's a solid green mass of grass and cocklebirds. Yeah, I will say if you if you start going behind, it does definitely get really overwhelming and it does kind of take the fun out of it. Yeah, I will agree with you on that one. But I try to keep up on it. Otherwise, yeah, it's easy to let it go. Which is why my zucchini always made it. You know, it's the one that you can let go, right? You can't kill that stuff. So when you're putting this stuff online and that, I mean, are the people that are following you? I mean, do they actually garden themselves? Are they just to say wannabes? Are they wannabes gardeners? I would say I have I have a big variety. There's definitely people that do already. And then there's plenty of people that, you know, they want to get started or, you know, maybe they live in town and they don't have a lot of room. So, you know, even just giving them ideas on how to do it in town, you know, with like container gardens and putting it in pots or herb gardens or that kind of thing. So I would say it's a pretty good variety. You know, I love how the gardening aspect of is kind of coming back. I mean, we were even in downtown Nashville at the Virgin Hotel and they had like a, like a little herb garden there. So they were pulling out mint for the drinks and they had zucchini and all kinds of things. I love the way, you know, you can be, you don't have to be rural to have a garden and learn how to, you know, use a pressure cooker, right? Right. Yeah, you don't have to do it all. You don't have to even, you don't have to can if you don't want to. If you just want to start out fresh, you know, just eating your produce fresh, like any start is great, I'd say. So you don't have to go like all out, even if you just start small. It's so fun. And yeah, it's great to do it yourself. And then you can save yourself from with on some groceries that way too. Does the ball company still own the monopoly on jars? I am not sure. I've actually gotten the majority of my, my jars are like hand me downs from family members. So I honestly am not super familiar with buying jars actually. That's all you ever saw was the ball. Yeah. That was, I don't know. And then you've got the ring you can take on and off. And that's how you can tell if it's it's a canned right or not. Right. If it's sealed tight. Yeah. Yeah. Usually the, the, the lid part is just have to, the, there's like a little indent in the middle. And then once it's sealed, the, the vacuum seal inside will pull that little dimple down. So as long as there's not like a little dimple raised in the middle of the lid, then you know it's sealed. So the dimple has to be down. I like on your Instagram how you say that you have to make time for the abandoned hobby. We might have to talk about that after the break. I do got to run the break. I'll have abandoned hobbies. I think I've got several Emily from Hills, Minnesota. Go follow her on her Instagram. Simple farm house joy, simple farmhouse joys. We're going to talk more about it and we got to get into bread. Man, I like me some bread. We'll be back. All right. After the break. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io. That's commonground.io. It's time for America's favorite radio segment. Where in the world is Will? Well, what do you have for us today? Today I'm in Hills, Minnesota, a city in Rock County, Minnesota. Located approximately four miles from the South Dakota border and two miles from the Iowa border. It is the southwestern most city in Minnesota. Oh, something to hang your hat on. Right. The landscape is flat with some gently rolling hills. However, the town's name does not derive from a particular topographical feature. Hills was platted in 1889 named for Frederick C. Hills, a railroad official. That's deceiving. I don't like that. I think they should change it. A post office has been in operation at Hills since 1890 and Hills was incorporated in 1904. The town includes two parks, Jacobson Park and the Rez. The Rez is a man made a reservoir that is used for swimming, fishing and outdoor recreation. A gravel path circles the Rez and there are two small playgrounds, multiple campsites and a cabin on the property as well as a disc golf course. I wonder if they got that mulch made out of tires. When the kid falls, they won't cry so much. I like that a little more than the wood chips. Yeah, they get a little termite-y. Yeah. But when I was a kid, if you found a really good wood chip, that was going to be in your desk for the remainder of the school year. Okay. Learning a lot about well today, aren't we? The local economy of hills is largely dependent upon agricultural corn, soybeans, are the region's primary cash crops. That's because it's America. Yeah. The Hills school system consolidated with the Beaver Creek school system in 1965 when it became Hills Beaver Creek, H-BC. That was probably named after some railroad guy too, named Beaver Creek or whatever. Right. So deceiving. The high school, which houses grades six through 12, is located in Hills, the elementary school, which is pre-K through five, is located in Beaver Creek. There were 294 students and were old in K through 12 in 2005. Okay. The smaller school. Yeah. The mascot is the Patriots. What? Beaver Creek? Beaver Creek and they're not a, isn't that a beaver? It's not a beaver. These are whatever that giant gas station is. Bucky's. Bucky's. Yeah. In 1990, the Hills Beaver Creek football team won the 9-man Minnesota State High School League Championship. Okay. The game was played at the Metro Dome. That's cool. Oh, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I have a law here, a law or two. Okay. Every man in Brainerd, Minnesota is required by law to grow a beard. Hey, that's a law I can get behind. In Minnesota, it is illegal to tease skunks. It's illegal and I would say probably a good idea. All men driving motorcycles must wear shirts. The heck with the helmet? Yeah. And in Blue Earth, Minnesota, law declares that no child under the age of 12 may talk over the telephone unless monitored by a parent. They don't even know what a telephone is anymore. Nobody talks. Yeah, that law you can do away with. No law about iPads at dinner though. That's, that's what we need. All right. Now we're talking well. All right. Well, thank you very much. Emily Floyd from Hills, Minnesota. Emily, did you learn much? I did. Yeah. I didn't know all that stuff. That's kind of funny to. Yeah. Yeah. Now you can impress your friends when you go out to the Hills. I don't know. Yeah. Some good conversation starters now. Emily did not grow up on a farm, but she married a farmer. And so what the type of farm that you're living on now, what are you all raising? So it's a family farm. My husband farms with his brothers and his dad. So there's three, four, four farms, three feed lots and then one farm with hog farms. So total, there's probably like 3,500 head of cattle and 35, 100 head of pigs. And then they farm like 4,000 acres of corn and soybeans mostly. Gotcha. They all kind of worked together for on all of them. So they ever get you out there helping? Before my son was born, I did help my husband in the fall. I mowed and raped for bailing. So yeah, what was a learning experience? What all did you break? So I actually started the mower on fire because there was too much corn stuck like built up on top of it. That's the best way to get it off there though, honestly. I mean, you get a broom or an air hose. No, just burn it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it was kind of stressful in the moment because you're trying to like frantically get the tractor unhooked, but it all ended up fine. So that's good. And then, yeah, I've hit just fence posts in the side of the field and I've shared plenty of bolts. I think one of the tires fell off one of the things that happens with the mower. So yeah, it's just, and I dumped the tractor in the ditch one time. I mean, I know nothing. I wasn't hurt or anything. But just when you do it like all day every day for a couple of months straight, I mean, there's got to be bound to a couple of things to go wrong when you're new. So learning curve, all of a sudden they're like, you want to day off. Well, I wasn't about to part with free labor. So he was like, well, you'll be fine. Just keep on going. Just don't do that again. Yeah. No, that's the fire on the mower is not unusual, like the bat wings when you're doing that. And the big thing is if anybody's listening, if that ever happens to you, don't run the hydraulics because it becomes a flame thrower. So yeah, that's that can be. I can see where that would have been pretty scary, Emily. Switching back. I mean, here you are now you're you're teaching people how to can you're teaching people like more of where their food comes from more where where their food comes from. Is that important to you? We're having people understand more of yeah, exactly where their food is made. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit discouraging when you come across a lot of people online that they're very like clueless. You can just, I mean, the amount of people online that will argue that eggs is considered dairy and just things like that is just like. You guys got to go out to a farm and get your hands dirty and go see where your food's from because it's just, yeah, it's kind of sad to see that a lot of people are very disconnected with the food system. Yeah, it's hard to milk and I've ever tried. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about the bread. Um, so yeah, I like, I like to do, I very rarely buy bread. I like to make it all myself. I just like to encourage people to try yeast breads as well. I don't know if you're familiar with sourdough versus yeast, but sourdough is like kind of has been a big craze lately. It's, you know, you have to have a good activity. You'll make your own yeast by mixing water and flour and then you get like a sourdough starter. So it's supposed to be like good for your gut health and, you know, only has four ingredients flour, water, salt and water. Yeah, been through everything. Emily, real quick, if people want to find you online, where do they go? Um, you can find me on Instagram and on TikTok @simplefarmhousejoys. Simple farmhouse joys. Emily, thank you very much. Really, really appreciate it, but I don't want you to go anywhere. Sean Haney is coming up next. He doesn't like sourdough bread. Told me that once. It's the strangest thing. We'll catch everybody next time. [Music]