Small Scale Life

It has been an incredible two weeks. Julie and I moved all of our gear out of a storage locker and into this little house in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am glad to be back on track with a Tuesday Gardening Show, and I think I have a good show for you today. After a couple weeks of short posts and podcasts, including the introduction of a new regular show called Midweek Motivation by the Coastal Cosmopolitan Tommy Cakes, we are gearing up for Garden Season 2018! In this post and podcast episode, I am going to discuss How to Develop A 2018 Garden Plan: what I am going to grow and how I am going to grow it. I am making some adjustments to my planting strategy based on conversations with Michael Bell, Scott Hebert, Doneil Freeman, Drew Sample, Greg Burns and other market farmers. While I am not going to grow commercially, I am going to adopt some of their concepts and principles to make my garden very productive in 2018. That is the plan, anyway! In case you are new to our podcast, blog and social media platf

Midweek Motivation is a weekly episode featuring the wisdom and stories of host Tommy Cakes. This episode is focused on overcoming dread. Are you spending all your time and energy worrying about something?  Are you afraid to tackle tasks?  Perhaps you need to change your perspective and mindset, and Tommy Cakes is here to help overcome your dread. In case you are having trouble understanding the audio file, the following is a translation of the audio file from host Tommy Cakes. Who is Tommy Cakes? Live on the Small Scale Life Podcast, it is Midweek Motivation featuring Tommy Cakes. Hey, how are you?  I am Tommy Cakes.  Who am I?  I'm a guy from someplace, friends with some people and doing some things.  Don't worry about it! What I can tell you is that I am in the import and export business. I import knowledge I export that information at premium prices! I will give you a little coastal cosmopolitan insight and motivation weekly on Small Scale Life. Introduction – Overcoming Dread At one time or another, ever

Live on the Small Scale Life Podcast, it is Midweek Motivation featuring Tommy Cakes. Hey, how are you? I am Tommy Cakes. Who am I? I'm a guy from someplace, friends with some people and doing some things. Don't worry about it! What I can tell you is that I am in the import and export business. I import knowledge I export that information at premium prices! I will give you a little coastal cosmopolitan insight and motivation weekly on Small Scale Life. Story Time Let me tell you about the very short-lived government shutdown. Did you even know it happened? Since we don’t do the political thing on Small Scale Life, I will tell you a story instead. On Friday last week, a lone Federal employee got a phone call from his boss in a far off regional office. The boss told him that the shutdown was most likely going to happen. Since this guy was classified as a “non-essential employee,” the employee would be on furlough (unpaid leave). The boss provided instructions about what to do if the shutdown occurred

In this episode, Micheal Bell returns to the Small Scale Life Podcast to discuss progress at Half Acre Farm. There have been a few changes and improvements since our interview in October 2017!  Michael and I discuss urban farming in cold weather and high winds, and we will discuss the effect on his crops and his plan moving forward.  We discuss some future projects and building soil using Regenerative Agriculture techniques discussed in a recent seminar by Gabe Brown.  We also discuss the NFL games last weekend including the Minneapolis Miracle. As a programming note, this is the first episode of the BellCast: a monthly podcast on Small Scale Life focused on the ups and downs of urban farming on Michael’s Half Acre Farm.  Michael has been farming at this location since purchasing the land in 2016, and he sells produce locally to friends, colleagues and others. Topics In this podcast, Michael Bell and I discussed the following: Minneapolis Miracle and Football Games New Orleans Saints vs. Minnesota Vikings Jac

Midweek Motivation is a new weekly episode featuring the wisdom and stories of host Tommy Cakes. This episode is focused on the big lesson learned from the Viking's Minneapolis Miracle in their game against the Saints.  In case you are having trouble understanding the audio file, the following is a translation of the audio file from host Tommy Cakes. Who is Tommy Cakes? Live on the Small Scale Life Podcast, it's Midweek Motivation featuring Tommy Cakes.  Hey, how are you?  I am Tommy Cakes.  Who am I?  I'm a guy from someplace, friends with some people and doing some things.  Don't worry about it! What I can tell you is that I am in the import and export business.   I import knowledge I export that information at premium prices! I will give you a little coastal cosmopolitan insight and motivation weekly.   Story Time This story is about a man named Marcus.  He has been playing football all his life.  Marcus did all the drills, participated in all the practices, played in all the games and finally made it to t

What a GREAT weekend!  We are really excited and are celebrating here in Minnesota.  Of course, most of the people are celebrating the Minneapolis Miracle where the Vikings vanquished the New Orleans Saints and are heading to the NFC Championships. As a life-long Packer fan, I could grumble, but I won't.  It isn't the real reason we are celebrating.  The real reason we are celebrating is that we have achieved another great milestone here at Small Scale Life.  As announced in the Small Scale Life Facebook Group this weekend, we are celebrating because we hit another 10,000 downloads of the Small Scale Life Podcast!  That is pretty exciting news, and we wanted to say thank you for hitting 20,000 downloads since starting this podcast a couple years ago. I know some of you are new to our podcast, blog and social media platforms.  In case you are new, Small Scale Life is all about living simply by focusing on: Growing, Exploring and Living healthy. That is pretty general, and we typically focus on: Gardening, Heal

Welcome to 2018, everyone!  Back in 2016, one of my first interviews was with a guy who was kicking off his small market farming operation in Chilliwak, British Columbia. That guy is Scott Hebert, and his farm is called Flavourful Farms.  Since that interview, Scott has been working hard on his farm, landing new clients, and starting a new podcast and Vlog!   He is a busy guy.  I am thrilled to Scott back on Small Scale Life to kick off the new year.  In this podcast, we discuss a number of topics including farming, stoicism, his podcast Stoic Mettle, launching his Vlog, developing a tribe and growing and maintaining his beard.  I had a lot of fun on this episode, even with a minor technical glitch and some background noise (on my end) that will be addressed in future shows. One cool thing that happened during this interview was that Scott announced starting a weekly Vlog on his YouTube Channel.  Scott Hebert and I discussed the following topics in this interview: Who is Scott Hebert? - Flavourful Farms and

Happy birthday, Small Scale Life! Happy birthday to me! We made it one more time around the sun, and January 2nd was our collective birthday. Small Scale Life is two years old, and I am just a little older than that (really). The purpose of this post is to thank you all for all the love and kind word's yesterday on my and Small Scale Life's birthdays. Please note: I originally posted a much longer post about where this platform is going in 2018, but I am re-writing this post to thank you all for all the well-wishes I received yesterday. The longer article will be published in a separate post. Just in case you are new to Small Scale Life, we are living simply by growing, exploring and living healthy. To put it simply, we are focused on: • Gardening, • Healthy living, and • Having adventures along the way Happy Birthday On my and Small Scale Life’s birthday, I wanted to thank everyone for being a part of our story and being a part of our Small Scale Life. I had so many good conversations and well wishes

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you are spending lots of quality time with your family and friends this season. We certainly will be doing just that over the next week! In this post and podcast, I wanted to establish a tradition here on Small Scale Life by rebroadcasting my reading of the poem “Twas the Night before Christmas.” My dad used to read it to my family when we were young, so in that fine tradition, I am posting it for you and your family to enjoy. Reading this poem brought so many memories back from when I was young. This time of year was always a lot of fun for us: we would go sledding, make snow forts, have snowball fights, cross country ski and spend all day out in the snow. We would come home wet and cold, and warm up in the living room near the wood burning stove while drinking hot chocolate. Our wet boots, hats, gloves, and snow suits hanging in the basement laundry room (or wadded up in a ball near the laundry room - our boys come by it naturally). Nothing says the holidays more than

This time of year, we gather and celebrate the holidays with family and friends. For members of our family, this is a particularly meaningful Christmas: this is the first Christmas without Barb Taylor and without Mary Cicero. Two great ladies that made our world a brighter and better place. While these wonderful women left us too soon, we continue to practice Holiday and Christmas Traditions that bring family and friends together. We will build on these Christmas Traditions in the future as we celebrate each other, our lives, our history and our heritage. In this post, I will discuss Five Christmas Traditions that we practice, and if you don't have your own Christmas Traditions, maybe that will inspire you to give some of them a try! Just to be completely honest with you, I am late with this post. I originally wanted to post it earlier this week. Given the mix of emotions this year, I found that this was a particularly difficult post for me to write. I struggled with how to frame and write it as I have

Today’s episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast is actually the second part of my interview with Doneil Freeman.  Who is Doneil Freeman?  He is a husband, father (a Regenerative Dad), permaculturist, regenerative farmer, beekeeper, teacher and a fellow podcaster.  He operates the Freeman Family Farm in Calhan, Colorado.  Doneil has experience beekeeping, rebuilding soil in arid places and regenerating overgrazed pastures.  He also has extensive experience with Wicking Bed Gardens to grow all kinds of vegetables! This is the second part of my interview with Doneil.  If you want to catch the first, listen to Episode 30 of the Small Scale Life Podcast.  In this episode, we discuss Doneil’s wicking beds and the Regenerative Dad’s podcast.  I am pretty excited about this podcast because it is launching a new series at Small Scale Life about wicking beds and how awesome they are!  Topics - Wicking Beds and Regenerative Dads Doneil and I discussed the following topics in Part 2 of our two part interview: Wicking Bed

Thanksgiving seems to be a distant memory now, but I did want to circle around and talk about cooking a turkey using the tips discussed in Episode 29 and also talk about making turkey noodle soup with the leftover carcass and meat. This goes beyond Thanksgiving, and I hope you use this episode and the recipes/tips discussed when you cook a turkey in the future. In case you are new to Small Scale Life, we are living simply by growing, exploring and living healthy. To put it simply, we are focused on: list text hereGardening, list text hereHealthy living, and list text hereHaving adventures along the way. Before we begin, let’s hear from some friends of Small Scale Life. For this episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, I wanted to give a big shout out to my friend Drew Sample at TheSampleHour.com. He recently released Episode 171, which is all about Hogtoberfest 2017. I listened to this podcast, and this podcast put me there in the middle of it all. The stories and experiences told around the microphone re

We have a great podcast for you today.  Today’s show is an interview with Doneil Freeman, who is a husband, father (a Regenerative Dad), permaculturist, farmer based on regenerative agriculture principles, beekeeper, teacher and a fellow podcaster.  Doneil Freeman operates Freeman Family Farms located in Calhan, Colorado.  Doneil has experience beekeeping, rebuilding soil in arid places and regenerating overgrazed pastures using principles from regenerative agriculture and permaculture.  He has run a successful CSA program, and he has a lot of advice for those of us who are starting small businesses which includes market gardens, urban farms CSA programs and even a blogs and podcasts. This will be a two part interview.  In this podcast, we cover a lot of topics including attending Hogtoberfest, beekeeping, starting and running a CSA program, and regenerative agriculture including rebuilding soils in arid environments.  Part 2 will include a discussion about Doneil’s wicking beds and the Regenerative Dad’s pod

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  I hope you are well on your way to enjoying the holiday with family and friends.  In this post and podcast, we are going to talk about cooking for Thanksgiving.  I’ll talk about turkey, trimmings, funny failures and other ways to prepare your turkey, stuffing and appetizers. While you are probably already hustling preparing for your Thanksgiving feast and have a plan in motion, this post might spur a few ideas for future meals and give you a few chuckles about some of our past failures.  After all, people will sleep off their turkey coma at some point, football is only so interesting, and those dishes aren’t going to do themselves! I wanted to start this podcast by wishing you all a great Thanksgiving and safe travels in your way.  AAA is reporting that over 51 million Americans will be traveling over 50 miles for this holiday, and that is a 3.3 percent increase over last year.  That translates to more than 1.6 million more people traveling this year than last year, so be caref

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to celebrate the joining of two souls in holy matrimony: Jay and Andrea.  Congratulations, my friends!  Your friends from the frozen tundra in Minnesota celebrate this glorious event with you! As I woke up this morning, I was thinking about this event and your wedding.  I woke up thinking about what I would say to you both as you begin this phase of your lives together.  I have been married for almost 24 years, and I have learned some things along the way that I would be happy to pass along to you both.  This is the same advice from the same philosophers I gave to my brother when I was his Best Man at his wedding some years ago.  It is the same advice I will give my two boys when they wed some day in the distant future. Go with the Flow The first piece of advice comes from a great philosopher of the modern age.  This man hails from the far north as well.  In his case, he comes from Canada and is one of their most cherished treasures.  In the timeless words of John Candy: [

It is time for another exciting episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast!  This is a long overdue Healthy Lifestyle Update, and I am checking back in to with you as my accountability partners.  So for this episode, treat is like a warm-up for Thanksgiving: prepare yourself to hear all about my ailments and knee pain and problems, just like you are listening to your dad around the dinner table.  No, not really…well, maybe a little.  Seriously though, I am going to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly in regards to my journey towards improving my health and fitness. In case you are new to Small Scale Life, we are living simply by growing, exploring and living healthy.  To put it simply, we are focused on: list text hereGardening, list text hereHealthy living, and list text hereHaving adventures along the way. Before we begin, let’s hear from some friends of Small Scale Life. Friends of Small Scale Life Lumbersquatches Greg Burns and Drew Sample - Good Men and Good Friends! For this episode of the Small Scal

A chill is in the air.  The winds have blown the leaves off the trees, and the nights are getting short.  Here in Minnesota, we are getting our first snowfall today!  The garden season is over, and it is time to prepare for winter.  In this episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, I am going to discuss how I will winterize the garden, tools and other gardening gear for winter. Fall in Minnesota We have been having a gorgeous fall here in Minnesota.  The temperatures have been perfect, and the leaves on the trees have been fantastic.  One comment on the leaves before we jump into the main topic: the progression of fall colors seems to have been sporadic this year.  If there was a stand of trees, we would get one tree changing, and then another.  It wasn’t like other years where they all changed at once.  I would say that the peak colors in the Twin Cities happened around October 15th, and I took a lot of pictures of trees this fall.  Julie and I will be traveling down the Mississippi River this weekend, so hop

Welcome to Small Scale Life!  This is Season 2 Episode 25, and in this episode, I am completing my interview with Michael Bell from Dallas, Texas.  Michael is a husband, dad, teacher, small business owner, body builder, trainer, and urban farmer.  In Season 2 Episode 24, Michael and I discussed his urban farm called Half Acre Farm, but that is only one of Michael's businesses.  Michael is also a body builder and fitness trainer, and I had to get his Healthy Lifestyle Advice for those of us just starting out on our journey.  What is interesting is that Michael's advice is similar to what he heard from Kevin Michael Geary in HELP Episode 7.  That tells me that these two guys are ON to something.... For all of my homesteader, market gardener and urban farmer friends, you will want to hang through this podcast.  In fine Tomres' fashion (that isn't a spelling error, by the way...I guess I have a nickname), I swerve the discussion back to his urban farming operation and talk about lessons learned and the future of

This is Season 2, Episode 24 of the Small Scale Life Podcast, and I have a great interview lined up for you today.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you will have a break from my monologues with this podcast.  I am SURE there is much rejoicing with that news.  In this episode, I am interviewing a husband, dad, teacher, small business owner, body builder, trainer, and urban farmer!  This gentleman’s name is Michael Bell.  He is a fellow kindred spirit from down in Texas, and in Part 1 of our two part interview, we are talking urban farming! He is not only a mountain of muscle, but he also owns and operates Half Acre Farm.  Inspired by some of my heroes including Gary Vee, Curtis Stone and JM Fortier, Michael is carving out his organic footprint in a quiet spot six miles from down Downtown Dallas.  It is pretty cool talking with Michael, and I learned a lot from him.  Whether it is starting your own small business (not necessarily urban farming) or getting fit, I think there is something for everyone in these next tw

This is Season 2, Episode 23 of the Small Scale Life Podcast, and today we are going to talk about the Fall Garden. How are things going? What is happening with the new seedlings? If you follow Small Scale Life on Instagram or Facebook, you already have a clue on what has been going on in the garden. As a gardener, I have to tell you: it isn’t always smooth sailing. In this episode, I will be talk about the new seedlings and some serious garden pests who have made a mess of the Fall Garden. In case you are new to Small Scale Life, we are dedicated to intentional living through learning, doing and growing. We are focused on: • Gardening, • Healthy living, and • Having adventures along the way. Welcome to October! We have gotten over two inches of rain here. The rain barrel is completely full, and the garden has absorbed the water. Beyond this rain, I have also been fighting pests in the garden as well (as a spoiler alert: I just picked off two dozen slugs off plants and from the garden beds). Even wi