Today I'm talking with Ryan at The Tiny Life. Ryan's newest book - Living Off Grid: 50 Steps to Unplug, Become Self-Sufficient, and Build the Homestead of Your Dreams A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together. Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality, and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose. 00:29 At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful. If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care, you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. A tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Ryan Mitchell at the Tiny Life in the Carolinas. Good afternoon, Ryan. How are you? Good. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're welcome. I'm so thrilled to get a chance to talk to you because I had 00:58 Sent an email to you, I think a year and a half ago, and I didn't hear anything back. And then your person, because you have people, I don't have people. Yeah, there's a few of us. Your person emailed me and reached out and I was like, yes, finally I get to talk to you. Yeah. All right. So how is the weather where you are? It's good. Yeah. So I'm located in the, I say the Carolinas. So we are, my tiny house is in 01:27 North Carolina and we moved on to a homestead about a little less than a year ago. ah And then I live with my girlfriend in South Carolina. And so we're kind of gearing up the homestead to make the transition over to that. So that's why I kind of say, you know, I have one foot in both places right now as we make that transition. How far is it from where your girlfriend is to the tiny home? About 30 minutes. 01:55 Oh, so close. You're real. Yeah. Yeah. And I was living, you know, obviously full time in the tiny house when I met her. And then, you know, when we decided that uh we were going to, you know, continue the relationship and it kind of went to the next level and everything that I was probably moving in with her because she had her two dogs, a Liz, two lizards, a spider and a 02:22 a snake, that was not going to fit into the tiny house at all. has a full house of critters. It sure does. Well, I'm in Minnesota and I'm going to tell you right now, it's hotter than I would like it to be for April 22nd. Yes, yes. It is, I think it's 77 outside right now. And thank God there's a breeze because if there wasn't, it would be disgusting already because Minnesota is really weird. You would think that 77 would just feel good. 02:52 It doesn't, it feels hot in April. 02:57 So, but at least it's not snowing. Yeah. Cause it could be doing that too. And I'd rather have this than snow cause I'm over it. It was a very, it was a very moderate winter, but it seemed like a very long winter. I'm good on snow for the season. Um, so I have a quick question about where your, um, your tiny house is located. Is, is stuff has, has stuff been greened up for you? 03:26 for weeks now because you're so far south. 03:30 Sorry, ask that question one more time. Has stuff been green up? how are the trees leaving out? Yeah, like in the last two weeks, things have really kind of taken off. You know, we've had some warmer days, some really nice days, like low humidity, which is not typical for us. So yeah, things are starting to green up. We just had our last frost date a couple days ago. So, you know, we're busy in the garden and things like that. m Get ready for spring and summer. 04:00 We have another month before our last frost date. But that doesn't stop the greenhouse from getting planted. That's true. Yeah, we have that benefit of long growing seasons. if you're really on the spot, can sometimes cram two rounds of crops. And if you're choosing shorter varieties that 04:28 you know, take a little bit less time to come to maturity. then, you know, during the winter, you have quite a few options if you have a greenhouse or you're going to do, you know, low tunnels or something like that. Mm hmm. Yep. We're starting a brand new to us variety of watermelon this year. We've never done it before. It's called a mini me and personal size watermelon. It's got a 60 day maturity. 04:58 Wow. Time frame. And my husband planted them, I want to say two weekends ago. And we have sprouts already and I'm so excited to see how these do because growing the big watermelons in Minnesota does not work very well because our growing season is so short. Yeah. Yeah. So hoping to have watermelons in end of June, first part of July. 05:26 Excited so excited because I love love love watermelon and if they do well I want to grow a bunch of them again next year so we can sell them at the first farmers market in June. We'll plan. I've never had much luck with any melons because the squirrels always get at them before they're ready and it always seems like I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pick it one more day and we one more day on the vine and then I'll pick it and then that night something gets every time. 05:53 Huh, we, it's weird, we don't have a lot of squirrels on our property. I don't know why, I think I've seen two in five years. Oh wow. So they just, don't think they have a food source that is a natural food source for them, so they just don't live here. And we're surrounded by corn fields and soybean fields and alfalfa fields, and I don't think that squirrels are very happy with that, so. 06:22 All right, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Ryan. Sure. So my name is Ryan Mitchell. I run the tiny life dot com and we focus on a simple living in kind of three different lenses. The first one is tiny houses. So, you know, small homes. uh Typically for one person, you're looking at two to three hundred square feet. 06:47 You know for a family, a small family, you might be looking at thousand, fifteen hundred, just depending on your needs, things like that. Then minimalism, which is basically, you know, thinking intentionally about the way that you live and your interaction with consumerism, what you buy, and just, you know, making sure that the things you own don't start to own you and just being, you know, kind of crafting that intentional life around what's important to you. 07:16 And the last one is home setting home setting, obviously, you know, very familiar to you. Uh, and that's a, a newer kind of park tour or website we've been doing for about two years now. Uh, but it's not new to me. I've been, you know, growing food, chickens, quails, bees, you, you name it, um, for at least a decade, um, if not more. Uh, so. 07:42 Yeah, we kind of focus on those three topics at the website. um, you know, why I'm speaking to you today is because we have a new book coming out. It's called living off the grid, 50 steps to unplug, become self-sufficient and build the home set of your dreams. And that basically was the book that I wish I had when I was kind of, uh, you know, going through my own journey, uh, with a lot of like practical steps, uh, of how to think about how to develop a plan. 08:12 how to make a homestead that's right for you, and not just kind of adopting someone else's pre-packaged plan of or definition of what it means to be a homesteader. So yeah, that's kind of a little bit about me and our background. Awesome. So I have to ask you, how do you define homesteading? And I will tell you how I define it first, and then you can tell me if you think it's accurate. I think that homesteading is a lifestyle choice 08:41 It is not owning 100 cows and 100 acres of land. How do you define homesteading? Yeah, I think for me, I do this also with a tiny house. I don't get too dogmatic about the number of square feet. You some people get very firm about like, it has to be under a certain square footage. And I think with homesteading, um what's important is coming up with your own definition. 09:08 definition and you know kind of defining that path for yourself. So for me, what my kind of personal definition is, is just thinking about ways that you rely on external systems that could be the grid, that could be food systems, that could be the store, you know, different things like that, entertainment, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, thinking about those kind of points of weakness or 09:37 Kind critical areas that you maybe rely a little too heavily on and then trying to shore those up trying to replace some of those or bring those a little bit closer to you and that could be as much as like bringing, you know, getting off the grid, bring solar to your home set and doing all that kind of stuff. It could be growing your own food. It could be, you know, having a cow or two. It could be a whole, you know, herd of cattle or it could just be working with uh 10:05 the rancher down the street to buy, you know, half a cow and put that away in your freezer. So, um, yeah, in the book, I kind of walked through some thought exercises about like how people can think about this. And, and the thing that I've just seen over the years, time and time again, is that people tend to say like, okay, in
