Working Bees & How They’re Relevant Today

Melissa: Hey, pioneers. Welcome to episode number 400. Today's episode is one that I am really excited about that actually ended up talking about some elements that I wasn't expecting, but I think are really needed. So we are sharing about today, and that is doing working bees. And no, I am not talking about a type of mason bee or a bee as in actual beehives, but working bees where we come together to share the workload and also share the bounty, but doing it communally. And this is something that historically is how many villages, towns, groups of people did things. When we look at an Amish barn-raising, when you look at quilting bees, lots and lots of instances, but I think in today's at least Western society, this is something that I haven't really seen witnessed very much in my personal upbringing.

Sometimes my aunt would come over and my mom and my aunt would cook dinner together, but that was really very rare and it certainly wasn't a larger group of women who were really coming together and to help one another, that type of a thing. And I think even more so in this society now, especially within our home setting community, where there's so many of us who are wanting to learn things that aren't as common taught anymore. And we have a really amazing opportunity where we can come together in small groups to truly support one another in a lot of different ways. So today's episode is a one where Andrea is coming on. And Andrea is the host of the Ancestral Podcast, but I actually know Andrea... Excuse me, the Ancestral Kitchen Podcast.

I know Andrea personally. She lives in my area, and we came together and came to know one another actually because of Clover and raw milk. So as we get into that episode, we'll be diving into that and I will share a part of that story with you. And Andrea and I were meeting just last week, and she was actually doing a canning working bee, and she drove into town to meet me really quick. I was getting some raw milk from her and she was telling me what she was doing, and I'm like, "This needs to be done more often. How awesome is this? Why don't you come on the podcast? Let's make this a podcast episode." So I'm really excited for this episode, especially as we move into, at the time of this recording and release, really the glut of the harvest and preserving season for most people, is beginning or you're really entering that full-on harvest stage where the tomatoes are really starting to come on ripe and to come on strong, and the green beans, all of the summer harvest.

And then even moving into fall, of course there's more preserving. But I feel for a lot of our Northern Hemisphere, really, it's August and September and part of October that are massive preserving months, or at least when I have the most of my amount of produce that's coming on. So very apropos that we're talking about this now when there's still time to actually do this in this season. So one of the things that we talked about is doing a canning bee, and you'll hear that along with other different ways that this can be done. I'm super excited you're here at the end. You're going to want to stay for that one where Andrea was telling more about a one-on-one swap with just two people that she is going to be doing with a friend, and I'm like, "Oh, that is when I want to jump in on too." So you'll have to listen to that.

But the canning bee is one of the instances that we're talking about and giving examples and walking you through today in different ways that you can do that. And that brings me to the sponsor of today's podcast show, is Azure Standard. And Azure Standard just released their own canning jars. So they have both quart size as well as pint-sized canning jars. I just got this from them, they're a brand new product that they have. Super excited. I canned my first batch of pickles in them actually. And so, I've done pickles in broth in them, and you will actually get to see that if you're watching this on YouTube via the podcast, the pickling video, which is my favorite crunchy, yes, canned crunchy pickles can be a thing, garlic dill pickle recipe. So check that out, we just released that. If you missed that YouTube video and recipe, you're going to definitely want to grab that. But you're also going to want to look at having an additional source for canning jars.

I know I always like to see what multiple sources I get. I don't ever like to see where we have that monopoly where there's only one source of something, because if something happens to that source, well, you know where that can lead, right? So I was very excited to see that Azure is also curing their own brand of canning jars now, and very happy with them. I've got to use them twice now, and they worked beautifully. So if you are a brand new customer to Azure, I have a coupon code for you that will get you 10% off your first order of $50 or more for brand new customers. And that coupon code is Melissa10. And they come in cases with both bands and lids, or if you just want the jars. If you've already got a whole bunch of lids and a whole bunch of bands and you don't need that. So they've got a couple different options there for you as well as quart and pint-sized jars. So check that out at azurestandard.com. And now, on to today's episode. Andrea, welcome to the Pioneering Today Podcast.

Andrea: Thank you, Melissa. It's very weird to be here.

Melissa: I've been really looking forward to this because it's not very often. In fact, I don't know, thinking back actually if I have ever had anybody on the podcast aside from Seth, which was one of my very first episodes when it was the radio show on beekeeping actually, way back when.

Andrea: Oh, yeah.

Melissa: And this is episode 400. So we're talking probably 300 and some episodes back.

Andrea: Oh, wow.

Melissa: Yeah. That is local, local to me. So this feels really fun.

Andrea: Nice.

Melissa: We met in real life. It feels so funny to say, but we met in real life and hang out in real life, but here I get to have you in my digital life.

Andrea: Yeah.

Melissa: So this is really fun.

Andrea: Yeah, it is really fun. It is.

Melissa: And it's really funny because some of Andrea and mine's best conversations happen in parking lots because-

Andrea: A lot of them.

Melissa: A lot of them actually. It's really funny. If we see each other and we're not at the tailgates swapping stuff out of coolers, it's like, what is wrong with our lives?

Andrea: What?

Melissa: So Andrea and I first met all because of a milk cow, back when I had Clover. And her cow was dry, and Clover was in milk. So we just did a swap because by the time her cow had her calf and came back in the milk, I was drying Clover up or would be drying her up at that point because she was pregnant. So we're like, well, let's just swap milk because this works perfectly with the way our cows' gestation and lactation periods are. And so that's how we first met, and then we just continued that. But we always meet in parking lots instead of-

Andrea: I know.

Melissa: Because we both live far away. And so we coordinate our time when we do have to go into town. And so it's really funny because we're a lot of times at the Costco parking lot. But instead, we have our coolers and we're swapping jars of milk in the parking lot with our ice chest.

Andrea: That's amazing.

Melissa: And that was actually how we decided to come up with this episode because we met and you had a friend over, and you guys were doing basically a working bee party. And you're like, "We really need to talk about bringing this back into the community." Because I feel like this was something that was done a lot more in times past, decades past, than it is now. And how nice it is. And so we're like, let's make this a conversation because I think a lot of people would benefit from this.

And I think it's something, for me, and maybe it was just from doing a lot of historical reading or not, but quilting bees. I feel like I'm very familiar with quilting bees even though I've never been to one. And when I was a little girl, my grandma had the quilting frame that would hang from her living room ceiling. And she would have friends over. And so when I was little, I would see it in action but I was so young that I wasn't a participant in it. So I love though that we take that beyond quilting bees, but I'm all about bringing quilting bees back too. So if anybody is up on that game. So for context, working bees, because I know a lot of people are going to be like, especially in homestead listeners. They're like-

Andrea: There's a queen, a working bee. There's a drone. What are you talking about?

Melissa: So we're not talking about actual bees and honey and pollination in this episode, but there's a lot that we're drawing from that which I think is why it's called working bees. Everybody is coming together for the ultimate good of the group. So, take away on a working bee and how they have been beneficial for you.

Andrea: Okay. Working bees. We've done canning bees. I'm pretty sure I could say I've been to some birthing bees. All sorts of bees for whatever you want to accomplish a project for. And I would say that it started... It's funny that you said that about your grandma, because there's this famous quote from... I don't remember her name, Dorothy something, where she recalled being under the quilt frame when she was young like you were in the story you just told. And she says how she would see the needles coming down and the hands pushing up and all the women working around the frame. And I thought that was a cool image. And when I was reading about quilting bees, actually somebody was saying that sometimes they could be a little hierarchical because there's better quilters and maybe you really only wanted the good quilters working on your quilt. So it can get a little cliquey.

Melissa: That's funny.

Andrea: I know. I was like, yeah, I never thought about that. But they said if it's just functional quilts, everybody could help. But when I was young, maybe, I don't know, 12 or something, then we got together with my mom's friend who has 12 kids, and my mom has eight. So we all had a match of our age, and we were just canning together. And you can do a lot of canning in a short amount of time with that many hands. And then in high school, I started canning by myself just because I wanted to learn and put things in the garden up in jars. And I just canned out of my grandma's farm journal books. So I did it. Don't tell Melissa K. Norris, but I did whatever you're supposed to do in 1960, which is not really the way that they recommend doing it now.

Melissa: Some of it is still the same, to be fair. There's some-

Andrea: I wasn't doing meat, so it was basically the same. But I was flipping the jars upside down and stuff and not water bathing them or anything. But then when I got married, I was canning by myself in the house apartment, and my sister said, "Hey, my friend loves canning. You guys should come over and can together." So we did. And ever since then, we've just had multiple huge working bees every summer, in fall for a canning, you name it. Whatever. I was telling you this right before we started recording. We literally had a whole episode before we started recording. But I was thinking about all the people who are closest in my life and a lot of people that I've known for a really long time. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, almost all of them I met through one of these working bees. It's just weird how many of them came from that.

And it's also a great way to connect with people because when we moved from Washington state where I grew up, so I was very well rooted, and then we moved to a bunch of different little places where even if we were living in a Navy fort for two months, I found people and we got together and baked stuff or whatever. But then, when we moved to Virginia, I texted our Milk Drop group. So if you're in a Milk Drop or Azure drop or something, a lot of those people think similarly to you. So you can reach out to those groups, just reply all or whatever. And I said, "Does anybody want to get together and can with me?" And one woman messaged back, and she said, "Well, I don't know about canning, but I'll have you over for lunch." And she's one of my bosom friends to this day. And she connected me to [inaudible 00:13:36]... I mean we literally talk every single day, and that was 12 years ago.

So I don't know, really cool connections can be made through it. But a working bee is just where you get together with a couple women, I'll say, because I know this world of women. And all of you probably make some food, and all of you probably have kids to some degree, and you peel a thousand pounds of peaches or whatever, and can it all. And then everybody takes home their split. I remember my dad saying one time. So I think we were getting peaches and plums for four days straight. And for anyone who has done that, that's the equivalent of 10 ultra marathons. And my dad was saying, "Oh. What is the draw? Why are you doing this?" And I don't remember saying this, but he told me later that I said this and he's like, "I never forgot that." But I said, "Well, I'm getting together with 10 women who are all at different stages." I'm a newlywed with no kids. Some of these women had kids who were married and had kids. Some of them had kids who were six or seven. Some had kids in college.

And we're all sitting around the table rotating through your station sometimes talking about marriage and kids and your faith and how you do the dishes and how you keep up with homeschool or whatever. And I felt like it was four days of just being led and taught by wise women. And my dad said, "I never really thought about it being like that, but I guess that's true." And I think often of the Bible passage in Titus 2 where he says, "Have the older women teach the younger women," and I feel like a really natural strata of a group is to have people of all different ages. What I feel like I see happen a lot is there's two categories of people getting together or women getting together that I see that is difficult. One is, all the moms you know are the exact same age and in the exact same life stage. So everybody has a six-year-old, a five-year-old, and a two-year-old and everybody's stressed out, and everybody's a little bit overtaxed, and everybody's to the limit.

Or people only want to get together, no kids, and get away from the kids for the day, and let's go get margaritas and tacos or something. And both of those have their value, but both of them are not necessarily what I see sustainable for long-term societal gain. So I see it as a very positive if you have lots of layered ages, like there's grandma here. Well, she's showing up. She doesn't have kids on her hips. So now there's an extra set of hands. When you have to sit down to nurse babies, somebody's still chopping peaches. Especially today, if you live in Washington state, how many people are going to be able to just spend a bunch of money and go hang out for six hours? Maybe, their husband works full time and they're like, "Well, I don't see him that much. I don't want to be gone in that one chunk of time or whatever."

And a lot of my friends homeschool, so we have our kids with us all day, so it's not like we can go for lunch or something. But if I'm getting together with you, Melissa, and we're putting 12 pans of lasagna in the freezer, there's a lot of talking that can happen in the span of time it takes to put 12 lasagnas in the freezer. And are both going to walk away with six meals for our family, and we're not going to feel like we wasted a day. And you'll tell me something deep and moving and I'll tell you and we'll probably end up crying and like, it's going to happen. But I feel like it's such a natural order of things. And bringing those mixed layers of people in different stages and producing something together is such a sustainable way to spend time together.

Melissa: No. I really am actually excited that we've went this route, and there is some very logistical things that I want to dive into because I've never been to the type of worker bees in the way that you're describing them. But as you were talking, there is so much value, as you said, with people in different stages coming together. And I'm actually in a Bible study right now and it's the same thing. It's women only at the moment, but we have a gamut of, there's some mother and daughters there, adult daughter with her mom. And then some of the ladies have small children, and some of the ladies don't have any kids. All of this. And so, what's fascinating within that context, and that's just a Bible study, is you get all of these different viewpoints from people who are at different stages of life.

But when you bring that into homesteading in the home, I'm with you, it's very key. And I think the older I get, the more I see that because I'm entering into those stages with my kids. My son just graduated and I can very clearly see, even though my daughter's just going into high school in four or five years from now, I'm not going to most likely have any kids left at home. And even though I still do, I'm trying to prepare myself because I know that's going to be a big transition. For me, emotionally, not just in the physical space.

Andrea: Totally.

Melissa: And so I've really been wanting to talk to a lot of people who have went through that, not only so that I can prepare my heart as much as you can, but also making sure, oh gosh, have I actually prepared my kids well enough to step out on their own and that that transition for them will be easy? Or are there things that I see right now that maybe I haven't prepared them well enough, but I have time still to prepare them? But where are the holes for me as a parent to make sure that I am putting them out into this stage of adulthood? Because when they were little, it was a different set of needs that I was focused on with them, versus to where they're at now.

Andrea: Right.

Melissa: And so, having people who have went down that path before you, I think, is so key and so important. And then too, I'll have the moms whose kids are younger. They'll say things that will remind me to treasure the spot where I am right now. So there's benefit both of those stages.

Andrea: Totally.

Melissa: And also, when you were talking I'm like, we are so busy as homestead moms regardless if you are working outside the home, working in the home, homeschooling, not homeschooling. You are so busy as a homesteader with all the additional things that we are trying to accomplish and do ourselves that I honestly don't have a lot of outside time to invest into friendships. And it's actually an area where I have been knowing that I am thin on right now, thin on friendships where we're spending the time together. It's not just a phone call or a text which, those are all great, but it's different than that one-on-one time or even group time with people that you're in that physical presence.

And so when you were saying, I'm like, yeah. If a friend calls me like, "Hey, let's go do a day trip." I'm like, I can't. I legit cannot fit in a day trip right now. But if you call me up and be like, "Hey, we're going to can this and this and this," I'm like, oh yes. That because that I need to do that anyways, totally to can do-

Andrea: Exactly.

Melissa: .... and marry the two together. So I'm actually excited for that part because it's just the fellowship and friendship part. But I'm very curious logistically wise, because my brain can't help but go there. Say I'm growing and I have way more apples than I need, then that would be fine because I would have the produce that is not an expense to me, I guess, is what I'm saying. To do a big canning party and then, because of their help and labor, then I would be like, "Yeah, you take this portion of them," and I wouldn't charge for the apples. But if it's something where, like you said, maybe the lasagnas for example, because it could be like a cooking meal party. It doesn't have to just be preserving, though at the time of this release, I know a lot of us are thinking about preserving, or even with peaches. I have to buy my peaches because on the west side-

Andrea: Same.

Melissa: ... of the North Cascade-

Andrea: It's not.

Melissa: ... they don't grow very we. Is it just always an even split if there's any costs or do some people just be like, "Well, hey. I'll bring all the sugar and the canning jars. You provide the peaches?" Walk me through how you have found that to work the best.

Andrea: Okay. I love the logistics side of it, and to what you said about feeling thin on the relationships. I think one of the reasons why some of my closest friends have come from these is because there's a depth of friendship you get to that you only hit at the eighth hour of slaving away, shall we just say? Side by side with a friend. You hit a depth of conversation that you're not going to get in lunch dressed in your nice clothes. When you're dirty and you're tired and you've passed your second wind many hours ago and you're being tested and refined, then there's a conversation that comes up.

In fact, one of my favorite memories is when a friend who I had literally only met one time but she's the second oldest of 12. She was also homeschooled. She's a couple years younger than me, and I knew that she knew how to can. And I was in Virginia and I was desperate, and I called her aunt. It was the same person I met at the Milk Drop.

And I said, "I just got, out of the blue, a bunch of crates of pickling cucumbers." And you know pickling cucumbers, they have to go in like... You can't wait.

Melissa: As fast as possible. Less like soggy pickles, yeah.

Andrea: Which we don't.

Melissa: No. Never.

Andrea: And I had a newborn. So I was like, is she willing to come over and can all night with me? And she was like, "Heck, yeah. I'm on my way." And I remember distinctively this moment where we were making a homeschool jokes at each other because we were both, you know how it is. And I remember I said something, and we had our backs to each other working at separate counters. And then I heard silence and I heard a thump. And I turned around, and she had fallen on the floor laughing, but silently. And then I slid down the counter, and I was like, I couldn't breathe. And we're sobbing, peeing our pants, we were laughing so hard. Those memories really stick with you. I think it was three in the morning and we were beyond the point of no return. But when would we have had that kind of a connection sitting at a table really politely slicing up our tacos or something? It just wouldn't have happened.

So logistics can vary depending on who's in the group. So like you said, sometimes you have an abundance of something and just having somebody's help is worth it to you to get everything up and you can send them home with it. A lot of the times since, as you know, we're on the soggy side of the state, so stone fruits and stuff, they don't do super great over here. Then we're buying in produce from a farm on the east side of the mountains. So in that case, what we'll do is we'll typically say, okay, how many pounds do you want? And you can either put together a big order. One person can front the cash, and then everybody can show up and pay per pound. We've also done where somebody's collecting the cash and then they hand the cash to the farmer, and one person drives it over. Everybody throws in a little extra for gas.

So I would say, get out an Excel spreadsheet and keep track of it that way after if there's multiple of you. My mom often comes and cans with us. I only have one sibling left at home, and so they don't need the same volume. But my mom will come and stay the whole time and can with us anyways, even though she's only taking home a couple jars' worth. So I think when you start doing this, everybody needs to go into it knowing that it is hard physical labor and preferably be willing to stay in it for the long haul, because if you're like, "Well, I'm only doing 10 quarts, and then I'm out." No. You're staying for the whole thing. It's better to just stick together for as much as you possibly can.

Obviously, at some point, some people are going to have to leave and go home or whatever. But usually what we do is one person's the, we'll say the host which, right now, that has been me for a while. It wasn't before because I was always in tiny apartments. So we'd go to somebody else's house. But it is amazing how much you can still do in a tiny house and when you remember that most apartments today are bigger than the houses anybody had before. It's like, get over it. But we have a big porch, and so we put up folding tables outside and busing tubs. You can never have too many busing tubs. And propane stoves outside. It's really nice if you could just keep everything, all the work outside because it's juicy and it's gross, and you can get out hoses and make it all go away.

So we like to do it outside if we can. No pun intended. And for food, got to have food because it's no fun if you have no food. I usually do casseroles because it's easy. We have this one breakfast casserole that I've just always unofficially called the canning day casserole because I always make it when we're canning, and it's because I can make it the day before. And then I put it in a cold oven and turn the oven on. And then an hour into it, it's done. I put that recipe and a couple of the other ones we use the most in a PDF, and I'll email that to you so you can put it in the, whatever. Blog post.

Melissa: So we'll have it in the blog post. Yes. So for those of you who are listening or watching this on YouTube, the blog post that accompanies every episode for this episode, because this is episode 400, it'll be melissaknorris.com/400. Just the number 400. 4-0-0. And so we'll have a link to that because Andrea had pulled together, which is super nice of you. I'm excited for this. The recipes that will feed a crowd, like she said, are easy to prep the day ahead of time, because on a canning working party, you don't want to be having to take time away to prep for all the meals or the food because you want to feed people, because that takes a big chunk out of actually getting the work done. So it's stuff-

Andrea: Totally.

Melissa: ... that you can prepare. And obviously, in this context, we're saying do it for a working party. But really, if you have a busy day at home, it's maybe just you-

Andrea: Butchering.

Melissa: ... I'll often do that too.

Andrea: Always.

Melissa: I'll prep the day ahead of time so that we've got the food, so I'm not having to do it on that busy day. So it'll serve you in multiple ways, but we'll have the links so that you can download that, get those recipes. It's just a free PDF and the blog post that goes along with this episode. So I think my other question is, obviously, if you're purchasing the supplies, everybody can go in on that. But for the canning jars, do people bring their own jars-

Andrea: Usually, yeah.

Melissa: ... that they are then taking home? Okay. Because I'm like, if you're supplying all the canning jars, that's going to be an expense. You're going to have to add it.

Andrea: Totally. Usually, everybody just brings their own jars. So a lot of my jars are older. So I try not to mix them with other people's new ones because I don't want you to buy a new jar and then you end up taking one of my old ones home and it's already partially through its life. So Tiffany and I, we were doing the peaches whenever I met you that one day.

Melissa: Yeah.

Andrea: And she cans everything. She's amazing. And what we do since it was just the two of us and I can't talk, then first we did her crates of peaches and her jars. Then had lunch, and then we started my crates of peaches and my jars. So they were completely separated. But knowing how much goes into a jar is helpful because if you say... You can Google how many pounds of peaches go into a jar, but I would still weigh your own jars in the moment when you're doing it, not before you've put in any liquid or anything because the loss can be different depending on what kind of peaches you had.

But knowing about how much each one is getting so that there's... If you and I bought 100 pounds of peaches together and we both paid for it equal, then we got together and we would know we'd each take 50% home. But if my mom said, "I want 20 pounds," and I said, "I want 75 pounds." And you were like, "I need 300 pounds because I'm a baller." No pun intended again. Then we would need to know what is that ratio.

Melissa: Equaling out into quartz or pints, whichever one you're doing. Okay, got you.

Andrea: So you can check with that, have a scale handy and weigh your first jar going in. Or maybe what we've done before is we weigh one box and we say, oh, one box made five jars. So now we know how many of that is. And it would be different from different suppliers because they all package things differently.

Melissa: Okay. That's good. I hadn't actually thought on the pound. I was just thinking in total jars and doing that way. But then, you'd know for the pounds. So when you guys are doing it, you are just going all the way through until it's all done, because you even mentioned 3:00 AM. You literally are just staying up and doing it? Or sometimes you're like, hey, we're going to stop at 10 o'clock tonight. And then everybody meet back here at 9:00 in the morning. And we're just going to do... If you're doing that large of amount, obviously you could choose to do just a one-day thing based upon the amount of produce and stuff. So you've done it both ways. If everybody just wants to stay and just totally knock it out in this huge all-nighter type marathon, or over days.

Andrea: It depends. When we were doing it, the times I've mostly done it all night was, like that time, it was just me and Hannah. We didn't have anywhere to go afterwards. She was staying the night at my house, so it wasn't like she had to go home and make dinner for her kids or something. She didn't have kids yet. So I would say it would depend. There's a really good calculator for figuring out how long it's going to take you to do a project in the kitchen. And I have done it many times and it is accurate as I'll get out.

And it doesn't sound like it's accurate, but it is. So you know the process for what you're going to do. I'll just keep using peaches as an idea here. So you can figure about how long it's going to take you to wash them, and then you figure about how long it's going to take you to peel them or whatever you're going to do, put them in the jars, line all the jars up. So estimate that as best as you can. Write that number down, and then triple it. That's how long it's going to take you. Don't ask me why, but it's always true.

Melissa: Okay. The reason I am dying laughing is because I am so bad at saying I'm going to get these 10 things done in an hour.

Andrea: Yeah. We all are.

Melissa: And if I get two done, I'm doing good. But I always am very much missing that calculation on what I can accomplish for real in a period of time. So when you said, "Then triplet it," I'm like, oh yes. You're speaking to me. That'd be me.

Andrea: I see why.

Melissa: Yes.

Andrea: Well, we're all really good at overestimating what we can get done. And especially if you throw, oh no, the cows got out, or the baby is not napping like the baby usually does. Or there's no propane in the stove. Who missed that one? Something can happen. And that is accounted for. We don't say, "Oh no, something happened and now we don't." No. You account for that. Build that in. I used to level project management, so this is what I did.

Melissa: That's good. We need to have more conversations. So what-

Andrea: So you assume things are going to go wrong, and then they're not wrong. They're just, that's life. And life always happens whether it we like or not.

Melissa: I love that, though I rarely account for it and I would probably be a lot happier in life if I just made the space to account for things going wrong.

Andrea: That's true.

Melissa: Amen. One of the things though that you said earlier that I want to circle back onto is especially, I think, when you would have people come in when you're doing a multiple group. Because some people, maybe they're wanting to learn, but they don't know everything yet.

Andrea: Yeah.

Melissa: And then you would have experienced people. And you said stations.

Andrea: Yup.

Melissa: So I want to come back to that because I'm assuming, instead of having... Because you really can't have everybody chop all of the peaches if you're doing a multiple run thing because then they're going to brown. It's just not going to work. So how do you do the stations? For one run, one canner full. I say that as a run, but if you're not used to canning, you might be like, "What are you talking about, one run?"

Andrea: What do you mean? I told you [inaudible 00:35:46]

Melissa: A canner full, a full load and pulling it out, I call that a run from start to finish. You've prepped it-

Andrea: I like that.

Melissa: ... in the canner. It's processed and it's pulled out. I call that a run. So, do you have people switch at a run or just a certain amount of time? Someone is chopping peaches, and then the next person is getting the jars prepped and filled, the other person's making the syrup? And depending on obviously how many people you've got, of course.

Andrea: Of course.

Melissa: But walk me through the actual logistics of that. How you do that throughout the whole time?

Andrea: For sure. So remember, if you have youths in your household, this is home ec. So it could also be science, depending on how nerdy you want to get. And if you have Melissa K. Norris's book, Everything Worth Preserving, then it is very sciencey in a non-scary way. And this is science at its best, its most practical application, which is survival. So the way we do the stations, it does vary. So Tiffany or Hannah, two people I've alluded to so far, they can can in their sleep. They don't care if they learn how to fingertip tighten a jar. They know what they're doing.

So in that case, any one of us can go anywhere and nobody needs to explain anything. We're just like, "Oh, 15 minutes for the quarts and 10 minutes for the pints," says the table in Melissa K. Norris's book. So then we all know what we're doing, and that's all the information you need at a certain point. Sometimes you have people who have never canned and they want to learn every step of the way. And then sometimes you also have people who, they have never canned or they're not really canners or they canned a long time ago, and they don't really want to learn everything and they're perfectly happy to peel garlic for five hours.

Melissa: Okay.

Andrea: I don't care. If you just want to peel the garlic, go for it. You don't have to move stations. But if you're like, "I really want to learn how to slice the dill spears, and I really want to learn how you put the spices in the jars and I want to do the whole putting them in," then it makes sense to move. So thinking Henry Ford and thinking lean manufacturing, the longer you're on one station, the better and faster you get at it. So in some instances, you may just want to be like, "We're just going to go as fast as we can. Everybody, just stay at what you're good at."

Other times, you want to move inside to the chopping table and somebody else wants to move outside to the canning table and switch around. So when I set up for a canning day, even if it's just for myself, I think through my process flow, and then try to eliminate any waste. So shortest distance, leased material, everything that you need right in your space and a space for everything to go. And front load everything you can. So fill the propane tank ahead. Have an extra propane tank on hand.

I can't imagine why I'm telling you this, but it's possible I've lived through it. And make the food the day before. Have paper plates. Do it. Get paper plates. If you have a wood stove like we do, they're going to be your kindling lighter. So front load whatever you can. And then, ideally the day of you're just doing the work. I just described the perfect world scenario and we all know that that doesn't usually happen. So sometimes, what happens is you're all texting each other like, "I'm running late. This happened." Or like I texted you today, "The propane guy just showed up. Today." Like, okay. So sometimes things happen and you do have to flow with it. But as much as you can do ahead, do ahead.

So sticking to the peaches, I learned this from my friend, Carmen. I don't know how to say this except she's a professional household manager, and I learned so much canning in her house, and so many things I learned from her that I do to this day because I just love the way she systematizes things in her flows. But this is how we wash big bins of produce. You have a folding table. You have a hose. And the first bucket is Thieves Veggie Soaks, but a cap full of Thieves Veggie Soak. You can do a couple of drops of Thieves Dish Soap if you want, but you really just need the veggie soak. That's a big frothy tub. That's the first wash all the peaches go into.

Then you have three bussing tubs. And for anyone who doesn't know what a bussing tub is, it's those plastic tubs that waiters carry out to the table in a restaurant. They put all the dishes in when they buss the table. They're eight or nine bucks and you can get them at any restaurant supply store, or chef store or whatever. So you have three rinses. So they go from the soapy into the rinse number one. And then that water gets soapy and dirty, then they go to rinse number two. Then they go to rinse number three, and by the time they get there, the water's clear, and then they go into a bussing tub.

From there, your probably 10-year-old kid is the one that's going to shuffle that bucket over to the processing table where somebody's having the peaches, taking out the pits and putting them in a bucket for making almond extract or whatever. And then, if you peel them, then you're going to have the peeling. Somebody's blanching them in the water and dropping them in ice water. And then, somebody else could be skinning them, and then somebody else is stuffing them into quart jars.

And then, usually one table where somebody's got syrup, ladle it into the jar. Wipe the rim. Put the lid on. Read Melissa's book. Put on the screw cap, and then put it in the canner. And then I have another table or boxes or the floor, honestly, a lot of the time where you just take out the jars and line them up. I think the biggest load we ever processed was 2,500 pounds of apples. That was a lot.

Melissa: How many days did that one take? That is a lot.

Andrea: Well, we-

Melissa: But apples will stay for a while. They're not like cucumbers and peaches where you've got that short processing window, and then they start to go to ick.

Andrea: It's so stressful. What I love about apples. Yay, Washington state because you can be like, "I'll do them this... Or maybe next month." It's fine. But we made a lot into cider, so it sounds like a lot of work but then, we sped it up by more than half of them went into cider. And then we did tons of sauce. I don't think it took over four days, honestly. We did a lot of sauce. Definitely on that one, I remember canning all night because we were at the end and I was like, I'm just going to finish. I'm not going to leave this. But usually, our canner loads are not that big. Oh, you asked about jars, supplies and things like that. So I think I said everybody brings their jars. If people can bring canning stoves and canners, that really helps.

Melissa: I was going to say, how many do you have going at a time? You've got to do more than one or it's going to take-

Andrea: For sure.

Melissa: You're going to get out prepped before you can even finish in the canner. You're going to get a backup, I would think, of jars.

Andrea: Exactly. Which does happen, and you got to watch out for that because you don't want them to sit there hot with a lid on for a long time before you go in.

Melissa: Right.

Andrea: So you've got to-

Melissa: Time that.

Andrea: ... get your times down. That's why I don't like stopping to prepare a lunch because canning is rhythmical. And if you stop the rhythm, it's like this big ocean liner that you have to fire the engines back up, get the gears grinding and start getting your momentum again. It takes a really long time. And so, if you stop canning and then start again, it's going to add one to two hours to your process. This is where I also unhealthily work myself into a hole and don't eat because I'm like, I don't want to stop because it's going to add two hours. So this is where having the food made ahead... And this is what Tiffany and I did last time. I made the breakfast casserole so late. I texted her, I was like, "I'm about to put it in the oven."

And then, right as soon as I texted her that because I had everything on the counter, then some catastrophe happened. And she showed up. She's like, "Is this the casserole you're about to put in the oven?" And I was like, "It's happening. I promise you. It's happening." So we had breakfast late that day. But as soon as I took the breakfast out, I turned off the oven and I stuck the lunch casserole in the oven and I closed the door. And then, when I left to go meet you, I told her, "30 minutes before you want to eat, just have one of the kids turn the oven on to 250."

Melissa: Start preheating it.

Andrea: Yeah. And it'll be warm. So that's hands off as you can get, basically. It's faster than ordering takeout.

Melissa: Well, this is why I love this because it's so funny, when you get into canning... And even not doing it as like you're doing it, as a work party. But even myself, I cannot tell you how many times I am canning well into the evening hours. By the time it's actually done.

Andrea: Oh, yeah.

Melissa: It just tends to roll that way because I'll be like, oh, I'll pick it during the day, and then prep it in the afternoon. And then after dinner is when I actually get it started. So it's 11 o'clock at night and I'm finally pulling out the jars out of the canner. And then, by the next couple of days of that in a row, and you're like-

Andrea: You're done.

Melissa: ... Okay, I just canned 50 pints of-

Andrea: And you're still looking at five.

Melissa: Yeah. I'm like, I just got done doing 50 pints of green beans so that we have this good homegrown, perfect food, healthy food. It is takeout Domino's for dinner tonight, baby. It's such an oxymoron. But you've taken that element out by simply planning ahead. It could even be putting something in the Instant Pot or the slow cooker, but it's putting that into your plan of action so that it's not pushed by the wayside. It's already done in the prep part, which I really like because if I don't plan and prep ahead, then yes, it's usually Papa Murphy's because I can buy those and freeze them ahead of time and pull them out.

Andrea: I never thought about this.

Melissa: It works really well.

Andrea: But then you're also talking about a very expensive day when you start adding it up.

Melissa: Yes.

Andrea: It becomes very costly. And sometimes that's worth it. Sometimes that is worth it. You're like, "This is going to be fun. My husband's in town anyways. I'm going to have him bring home pizza. The kids are going to be so excited. I'm not going to say don't do that. But if you do that every weekend, it's going to be wearing on your digestive system and on your bank account.

Melissa: Yeah.

Andrea: And for us, I know you're similar, but we're far enough out that it's quite inconvenient to go and get food.

Melissa: Yes. I'm 45 minutes one way to the Papa Murphy's.

Andrea: Exactly.

Melissa: So if I'm already in town and plan it, and like I said, that's how I know you can freeze them because I'm like, I know I'm going to want a pizza later and I'm not going to make it. And they do. They freeze and they bake up quite nicely, which I don't do often, but I will do that.

Andrea: But now everybody knows. It's a Hail Mary. You can have that in your back pocket, and I am not going to judge nobody for doing anything like that. Somebody asked me once, "How do you not just get takeout on those busy days?" And I was like, "Well, for one, we're too far away." So that's a great plan of, move so far away that you can't. The other is, I hate to say it, but it's just the foresight portion of the day.

So I've never tried freezing the breakfast casserole. But the other recipes that I put in the book, you could make them and freeze them if you wanted to, and that would be good. In fact, that is actually one of the things Tiffany and I did. So you said the cost of lasagnas, for instance.

So Tiffany has a farm, a very abundant, productive farm. I have a farm. And whenever we got together to make some casserole, we just were like, what do you have a lot of? What do I have a lot of? What can we make out of that? So I think we made one of Kate's casseroles, the Venison for Dinner Kate.

Melissa: Oh, gotcha. Yes.

Andrea: We made the one with the shredded potatoes.

Melissa: Okay.

Andrea: And I think we did... What did we do? I think we did do a lasagna, because I had a case of noodles from Azure. She had some noodles. She had a bunch of meat, I had a bunch of cheese. You know what I mean? We're like, this looks like that's what we're making.

Melissa: So you just each brought what you had and then supplemented what maybe one or the other didn't and just split that cost then.

Andrea: And so, if you are doing that with somebody that you feel... If two people are both trying to bless the other person more, both of you are going to walk away 10 times more abundant. If everybody's trying to see like, did they get their teaspoon and was the 10th of a penny covered, it's not fun anymore. But when everybody's like, let's just super abundantly bless each other, when everybody has that mentality, it works out. When half the people do, then resentment starts to pull up.

Melissa: Then it goes wonky, which I can see after you've done it a time or two, you're going to know who is working in the group and who is not.

Andrea: For sure. And this is another thing that is not addressed much where I see a lot of really inspirational Instagram posts of people dancing in the woods and they're like, "I'm just going to start a community with my best friends and we're going to live off the grid." I was like, okay. But have you ever had to get along with someone when you don't feel like getting along with them? Or do you have a lot of ex-boyfriends?

Is there an element of spending time with people where sometimes there's somebody that you don't get along with? Or we have this idea of, I just want my village around me. Okay, that includes that lady that really bugs you. She's part of your village. And that includes the person that sanctifies you the most, which is probably yourself. It includes people that our culture today just says, oh, they don't make me happy. Bye. Out of my life. Block, delete.

But there's also, what about learning how to resolve conflict or shut your mouth and just don't say the very sarcastic, snarky thing that so wittily popped into your mind that nobody really needs to hear? There's that too. You don't got to say everything you think. Imagine how happy people would be. But learning how to have conversations with people. And maybe a young person doesn't know about pulling their weight and you can help them. And this isn't talking down to somebody. This is a older woman teaching the younger woman how to honor God and serve her family and not be a dead weight. So there's that.

A lot of people want to do the community living and have the village serve them, but then they don't realize that that means they have to turn up for the village when it's very inconvenient. One of the most amazing times in my life was when... It's not amazing because he was deployed, but my husband was deployed, and he and one of his squadron mates basically connected me and the other guy's wife so that we could buddy up.

We each had one child, and then my neighbor across the street had one child. And we basically were three wives for a couple months and we were just always in and out of each other's houses. And if anybody needed to do anything, somebody was there and would watch all three kids. One of them was going to classes. I was working on a farm and I was teaching classes on the farm. And then the other one, she had a job cleaning houses. So we never really planned it, but we were just like, "Hey, could you watch the kids tomorrow at one?" And I was like, "Yeah, of course. I'll be here."

And then, one of us always made dinner. And we didn't really plan that either, but somebody always turned up dinner for everyone. And I remember thinking, well, this is so amazing because all three of us would've been in our separate houses making dinner, and it wouldn't really have taken any more time than one of us making dinner for the three of us. Now, we weren't three families of 10. We were very small families, so it was feasible. But I remember thinking like, all around America, women are standing in their houses alone saying, "I'm so anxious. I'm so depressed. I'm so alone. I'm so isolated." They're making dinner alone and then they're like, "I'm so tired, and now I have to wash the dishes, and then I have to do it all again the next day." And everybody's doing that.

Melissa: Right.

Andrea: If we could just overlap some of the work. But then, I think the catch is, I also did that when I didn't feel like it and when it wasn't convenient. And you have to be. And sometimes somebody shows up on your porch and you're like, "Oh, I just want a nap, or I'm so tired, or my house is a disaster, or I wasn't ready for this," but you have to be ready for it and accept it.

One of them is Luhya tribe, from Kenya, and the other one is Maasai, from Tanzania and Kenyan border. And they're both like, "Oh, you always got to have a pot of tea on the stove." Chai, as they call it. "You always got to have chai on the stove." My mom would [inaudible 00:53:26] me if I didn't have the chai on the stove. They would always say, "You got to have it ready for guests because you don't know when somebody's going to show up, and you want to show hospitality." And this whole village romanticized ideal, if you read the diaries of those Pioneer women, there was a lot of bickering. Everybody didn't get along.

Melissa: True.

Andrea: But they lived in the same town, so they had to work together. Rachel Lynde, hello. They had to cope. And you have to be able to not just float with everything's happy and we're all getting along. Sometimes you need to learn how to get along when you don't feel like it. And that is probably the best lesson that comes out of work parties.

Melissa: It's really funny because it very much actually mirrors a home setting, because there are so many times when I do not feel like planting the garden, I don't feel like feeding the chickens, I don't feel like milking the cow. I don't want to feed the cows. I'm tired. I'm sick. It's raining, and 32 degrees and raining when it should be snowing.

Andrea: And it's Christmas.

Melissa: So there's so many instances with homesteading where I don't want to do any of it at times, but you don't give yourself a choice to not do it. I can decide to sell the milk out-

Andrea: You don't get a pop out. For sure.

Melissa: Right. But in that moment, I have to deal with her unless I've decided to sell her down the road. And sometimes, that happens. We've decided, okay, we're not going to do pigs this year. But if I have the pigs, I have to do it, that type of thing. So I think that that really does coincide with homesteading, and I've actually gotten asked this question a lot. I've done a podcast episode on it before, and that is like, how do you stay motivated? And you're not. It's not motivation, it's commitment.

Andrea: No.

Melissa: Because there's a lot of times you are not going to feel motivated, but you have to do it anyways. And so that also is, like you're saying, it's with relationships. It's with being that, which brings me actually to the next part that I want to make sure that we cover here as we're getting ready to wrap it up. But that is, if you don't have people, or like you said, you've moved a lot, whereas I've always lived... Not kind of, I've always lived on the same road. So I've had neighbors rotate in and out, but I've always had people that I know in area.

But how do you go about finding people who are wanting to do this, who are wanting to be part of this homestead community, that are wanting to be part of these working bees, who are wanting to have this type of relationship and support one another? Where do you even find those to become a part of them or to invite people into one you might be deciding to host? Where do you find them?

Andrea: Well, first of all, they are everywhere. You just have to develop them. So a good leader doesn't just wait for a country to follow him. He develops his team. And there's no need to say, "I don't know anybody who... There's nobody in my life." Okay. Well, then it sounds like you need to start making some new friends, and you need to get out of your bubble, and you need to start asking for things.

I think, only one time have I been on the receiving end of the invitation. I'm usually the one extending the invitation. So I initiate, and I'll say like, I emailed the Milk Drop. And I said, does anybody want to get together? And I met people through our Azure Drop. You could ask your Azure host, "Hey, can I message or can you ask the group if it's okay if I message? Or if they want to, could they reach out to me?"

Of course, church, you can start asking people. If you say, "Oh, I don't have an older woman in my life." Maybe your mom's not around or she's passed on or something and you say, "Well, I don't have that." Well, ask. Ask a woman you respect, "Could you please be my mentor and speak some wisdom into my life? I'll come over, and help you clean your house. And you can teach me while we clean." I don't know. I see the world as so abundant, and these people are all around you just waiting to be invited into community. You just have to ask. I don't know how else to say it.

I met a lot of people at your conference who... Because it's regional, right? I told you I met someone from Minnesota there. People were there from far away. And Canadians too, I met a lot of Canadians. But there was a lot of people from Washington. One of them goes to church with my aunt over here. We're like, wait. And we're meeting here? This is so weird. She's like, "Wait. I know your aunt." I was like, "Yeah. That's just crazy." But now she's going to come out and see the chickens and whatnot, and that only happens by building the relationship, which does take time and does take effort and is worth doing. And we're not in the same life stage bracket. Her kids are probably married and out of the house and everything, and my kids are still relatively young, 11 and down.

So also, invite and embrace all the different stages, because you need that. If you only ever hang out with your peer group, you're going to stay at that level. And I want to be exposed to many layers of thought, like you said, like, hey, is there a mom that can tell me, "One thing that I didn't do with oldest but I did learn to do with the other five was this?" I'm like, yes please, tell me that. Tell me that now.

One thing I learned from another wife was, "Sometimes, you just need to zip your lip and you don't need to say all the things that you think about." I was like, oh. I didn't see that. These are things that you learn by spending time with somebody and having them teach you and also being humble. So reach out to people, find people. Post it if you have social media, on your social media. If you live by me, come can with me. I'm over here in Washington state canning away. I'm open to it. So I would say, be the initiator. Don't wait to be invited. But start the thing.

Melissa: Yeah, I have to agree with that. I think when I look at all of the things, very rarely has it been where I have been invited. It's been creating it and inviting those people. And then those people have went out and done stuff where then they have invited me to it.

Andrea: Sure.

Melissa: But it took that first part.

Andrea: Yeah.

Melissa: And I think that's really important because I know a lot of us, myself included in that was like, man, I wish this was in my area. Exactly with conference, actually. I had kept waiting. Katie and I both kept waiting-

Andrea: Oh yeah, and you said that.

Melissa: ... for someone to do one out here. And it just never happened, and we're like, okay. Well, we're going to do it then. And I'm really excited because at conference this coming year in 2024, we are going to have a special time where you can opt in. Don't worry, we're not going to send your information anywhere.

But you can decide. I feel like I just want to say that. But you can decide like, "Hey, I want to meet..." If you're from Washington state, if you're from Idaho, wherever it may be, because people are coming from all over. And as you said, even Canada. A way for you at conference to meet the people in your geographical location and for you to form your own connections.

Andrea: Yes!

Melissa: And so that was one of-

Andrea: I love it.

Melissa: ... The biggest forms of feedback we had, is conference was so amazing. I found my people for two days. I don't want to wait until next year. How do I find the people that I know have to be here that are in my area? I can't be the only one. And how do I connect with them?

And like I said, we can't actually take people's addresses and connect them that way, but we can open up at conference a time for that, and so people can go to there and find them. So super excited for that. That will be Saturday of conference-

Andrea: I think that will be amazing.

Melissa: ... We will be doing that. You don't have your-

Andrea: I did feel like that when I was there. I texted Gary and I said, "Gary, this is so crazy, but I'm not the odd one out. This is so weird. Half the people here have 12 kids in their family, and they have a chicken under one arm. They have to go home and milk the cow. These people don't think we're crazy." I was like, "This is insane. I can literally talk to anybody here about anything, and they're just fine with it." It was awesome.

Melissa: Until you've experienced this, I don't know how to put it into words, to be honest. And I'm not just saying this because it's my conference, but legit, I feel so filled when I'm at those events. I come home-

Andrea: Yes. 100%.

Melissa: ... And I'm like, my cup runneth run it over, and we need that filling.

Andrea: Me too.

Melissa: A lot of the times, I don't realize how low that portion of me is until I'm at the event and then I realize, oh, I needed this even more than I thought I did. But until you experience it for the first time, I don't know a way to articulate it correctly. It feels like coming home.

Andrea: I think I described that to Gary. It just felt like that, like I was at home with everybody. It was also weird because I saw Robin, and I've never met her in person before. I'm actually talking to her at our podcast next week.

Melissa: Cheesemaking from scratches. And Robin, we'll be back at 2024. Yeah, Robin's coming back.

Andrea: I'm excited about that. So I saw people and I was like, wait a minute. I know you. I wouldn't know a movie star if they walked by me on the street. I literally wouldn't. But Josh and Carolyn go by and I'm like, did I see Carolyn's ponytail? Because I recognize that ponytail.

Melissa: I know that blonde hair.

Andrea: These are the people that have something that I want to hear what they say. So it was really wonderful. So I'm stoked that you're going to have a connection aspect to that because everybody's like, "Oh, make a Facebook group." There's so many Facebook groups and things like that, and there's a couple of problems with that. One is we're a herd animal and cows don't get fulfilled by seeing pictures of cows.

Cows have to be with cows and lick the other cow, and stand in the field and chew cud with the cow. You know what I mean? They have to be there. And I'm not saying we're going to lick each other's hair, but we need to see people in person. There's something about that. And the other aspect is that Facebook groups can be too reducible. So it's a group of people who are only interested in water bathing, freestone organic Alberta peeled peaches. It's a little bit too specific. And if you have all the homesteaders who live close in Washington get together, you're going to naturally have different layers of people and different personalities and different interests.

Maybe the only common thing is that they all want to butcher chickens together. That might be the only thing. One of them lives in a high rise and is a lawyer, and one of them has 12 kids and lives on a farm off grid. I don't know. But it is cool because then you get people together with those weird different personality quirks, and you get to learn how to get along with people, which is a good thing. We need that. If you look at the people online, they literally can't have a conversation about anything. And if they disagree about something, that is literally the end of it. There's no disagreeing instead of being like, "Oh, how fun. We have different thoughts. Wow. Never imagined that happening."

Melissa: And can still be amicable and still coincide.

Andrea: What? No. How dare you?

Melissa: That is one of the downsides, I feel like, of the digital online aspect to our current society.

Andrea: Sure.

Melissa: It is very much... That has grown, I feel like, because like you said, I can ban you, I can delete you, I can block you.

Andrea: We just get more and more inbred. Our ideas and our ways of thinking become-

Melissa: It's the echo chamber. If you only surround yourself with those who think... And there is iron sharpens iron. I'm not saying-

Andrea: Of course.

Melissa: There's a balance there.

Andrea: Yeah. There should be.

Melissa: Well, this has been super fun. I'm actually very excited to look at doing some working bee stuff.

Andrea: Yes. Let's do it. Well, we can do one together too for, I don't know what. Something. You can do them in the winter too. If you're like, "I don't know. I'm just going to can a couple jars of things at night, not do any big runs," get together in October and can beans. It's in Melissa's book. But get together and can something that is off season. I always say-

Melissa: I do do off season, but it's really funny. I love the idea of doing the meals, because no matter what time of year, we all need to eat dinner.

Andrea: Yeah.

Melissa: And that is one thing I have to [inaudible 01:07:26] I actually enjoy cooking when I have the space for it.

Andrea: Of course.

Melissa: But when I'm pressed and it's every day, we have to eat every day. Man, what an inconvenience.

Andrea: Again and again. So weird.

Melissa: So I love that idea of actually doing a casserole or the main dish portion and just batching that all out. And then, you've got all of these meals.

Andrea: Pick two casseroles that both your families like. This also helps if you both are similar in your policies on food. If one of you says, "Oh yeah, I'll just get powdered potatoes at Walmart," that's fine if that's what you want. But my family wouldn't eat it. So I would have to, well, this is the kind of food we're doing. So pick two casseroles. Get metal pans, whatever. Either get pans at the restaurant supply store or collect the 9 by 13s at the thrift store.

Melissa: There you go.

Andrea: Whichever one works for you, because you can reuse those ones. But also, a good idea is to get together and do that for a mom who's going to have a baby. If I was going to have a baby, I'd far rather, instead of you trying to turn up on a meal with a specific day and coordinate it, I would way rather get together with you for a full day in advance and just have your help making 10 casseroles to go in the freezer. That would be way better for me.

And then, you're not having to drive out on some random snowy day when I happen to have the baby, and I'm not having to put clothes on and go to the door. You know what I mean? Let's just get together and do that. Another thing a friend and I are going to start doing is, I've always wanted to do a cleaning bee where I go to your house for three hours and we clean together. And then two weeks later, you come to my house and we clean for three hours. We don't have to make stuff. We could just scrub the toilets. We all need that.

Melissa: I find that super intriguing because the two things in life I'm always doing over and over again is cleaning and cooking.

Andrea: Yes. And they don't have to be isolating. We're all going to scrub the toilets, I mean, hopefully. We're all going to scrub the toilets. So what if we just got together and did it together? And that would be way more fun. Also, it gives you a time-bound block where you've got to get it done, and then you're spending no more time, really. And then you get some friend time together. And you get to understand that other people's houses get dirty too even though for some reason, we all think nobody else's house gets dirty.

Melissa: What I like too about this thought, is I know where my strengths are and where they're not. And so, finding someone who knows how to organize like no other. And I can be ruthless in helping people get rid of stuff, like helping them make those decisions to get rid of, but I lack creating a system in order to keep it clean and organized. That's where I know I fall short. So to find someone that has the strength where you're weak and vice versa, I just got all kinds of-

Andrea: And trade. Maybe they're so good at it, maybe they don't need your help cleaning, but you're like, "Why don't you come help me organize for four hours and then I'm going to come to your house and help you can shred a chicken for four hours?" Boom. Everybody's happy. It doesn't have to be the same thing. But my friend and I are both like, we need to clean.

Melissa: Amen. Yes. Okay. Well, we could probably just go on for a long time. We've actually went over an hour. But there was so many good things-

Andrea: That's what the Costco parking lot's for.

Melissa: It is. Yeah. So if you see the tailgate with a cooler party at a Costco parking lot, y'all, we're starting a new trend. We're going to do half-

Andrea: Bring half gallons.

Melissa: We're going to bring the farm trade. It happens in the parking lot. And what you can't farm trade, then you go in and buy. Or not. Sometimes we just meet in the parking lot, get gas and then leave. Thanks Costco.

Andrea: I know. They provide so many things.

Melissa: They do. Well, this has been awesome, Andrea. I know I will see you again in person shortly. But for those who are listening, and maybe this is their first introduction to you, you also have a podcast. So share where people can follow along with what you guys are doing. Best spot for listeners to connect.

Andrea: Okay. So you have been on my podcast actually. So if you guys want to hear more of your favorite host, Melissa K. Norris, she has a great episode on my podcast. It's a couple back, I don't remember what number it is. But our podcast is Ancestral Kitchen, and Allison is my co-host. She lives in Italy and she's British. So that was always interesting and I'm like, "Wait. Do people do this over there?" And she's like, "No." It's so fun having those different perspectives. So we talk about preparing foods preferably directly from a farm.

And so we talk about getting the whole chicken and how to work with those sorts of foods, how to ferment and actually incorporate it into your lifestyle. So it's very practical ancestral food in your modern kitchen with sometimes modern conveniences, sometimes not. And it's a ton of fun. And Allison, I think she's a genius, honestly. So she goes deep on the historical side of things and the scientific side of things and just blows me away every time with what she turns up in old documents and stuff like that. So it's tons of fun doing that podcast, and it was tons of fun having you on there because I love your podcast. So-

Melissa: Thanks.

Andrea: ... Having you on there was so crazy.

Melissa: It was fun. I am a podcast junkie. I have to say, of all the digital online world, my favorite thing that has come from them has been podcasts, because I might not have someone over to help me clean, but rarely do I ever clean without some type of podcast going.

Andrea: That's true.

Melissa: So, yes.

Andrea: It is true.

Melissa: So the Ancestral Kitchen Podcast, definitely go and check that out. We'll have it in the blog post and the show notes links so that you guys can go and check that out. Some really fun things and episodes.

Andrea: I'm not super good about posting online, but I do sometimes post on my Instagram, which is Farm and Hearth.

Melissa: You post a lot on your stories. You're pretty consistent.

Andrea: I do on stories. I like stories because I can just do it in the moment. I don't plan content, none of that. I just post as it happens. If it's interesting, also if it's boring, sometimes it goes up there actually. Look how long I've been standing here doing the dishes.

Melissa: No, you post some fun things. In fact, there's been a couple of things when you and Gary were doing... Gary is Andrea's husband, so if you've heard her mention that or me just for context there. And you guys butcher chickens and do turkeys and all that. And so there's been a couple of your stories that you have posted where you guys were doing your setup, and I would show it to Clay. I'm like, oh. I like the way that you're doing this. Let's incorporate this. I glean things too, because we all glean things from each other.

Andrea: Totally.

Melissa: Which is the whole-

Andrea: We must.

Melissa: Part of doing the working be and all of that. And so-

Andrea: Well, he's really good at systems and process flow. That's something we both like. But he's actually butchering right now. He's doing 70 birds today, and he has this flow that he's set up. And every time he does it, he gets it even tighter. And I love how he has it set up. So I should do pictures again sometime.

Melissa: Yeah, could you go ahead and do some more stories? Because I'm going to be butchering again the end of September. I could use a refresh.

Andrea: Oh yeah. I know. It's like, I'm not doing it every day.

Melissa: And it's amazing how, I have to say, even like you were saying, when you are in the same station as a worker bee, but even anything. The more time you spend doing it, naturally you're going to find ways to become more efficient. And so if I can find them from someone else and then put those on my own, and then build even on top of that.

Andrea: Oh yeah.

Melissa: That's golden.

Andrea: You and Carolyn always said something that I'm like, oh, light bulb. And I remember saying to Gary, I said, if Carolyn taught a water bath canning class, I'd still be there. You know what I mean? Sure I've water bathed a bazillion jars, but she's going to say something that I'm going to go, oh, duh. What a great idea. You just don't think about it sometimes, and somebody else was in a different space and thought about it differently. And so you get to use that.

Melissa: When I think, like you said earlier, of the humble aspect, not only in relationships, but also in the learning. Because I'm with you, I still constantly learn even on subjects that I consider myself really darn proficient in. But there's always opportunity to get better. And I think as long as you keep that perspective, it's going to take you so much further. I think there's a big danger in thinking we know it all. And sometimes it's not even conscious. You're just like, oh, I know what I'm doing.

Andrea: I've done this before.

Melissa: Not being mean. Like, oh, I know what I'm doing. And so that's something I personally try to cultivate. And I sometimes have to remind myself like, oh, I know what I'm doing in that. And then I'm like, oh, no you don't know it all. Sit yourself down. Have a pep talk with myself.

Andrea: Yeah. Then Joel's like, "It takes 45 seconds to butcher and clean a chicken." And you're like, nevermind. I guess I don't know how to do it.

Melissa: So I think there's that humble aspect in dealing with others, and then also making sure you keep yourself humble as well on a learning aspect. So anyways, we could just go on for a very long period of time. So see how valuable these working bees go, because you and I need apparently 12 hours to just keep the conversation flowing. So anyhow, Andrea, thank you so much for coming on. So enjoyed it.

Andrea: Thank you, Melissa.

Melissa: And I'll meet you in a parking lot very soon.

Andrea: You bet. Bye.

Melissa: Well, I know that episode was a little bit long, but I thought there was so much good stuff in there for us to talk about and to ponder and also be a way that we can all make this work in our own lives and homes and friendships that I'm so glad that we spent a little bit extra time going into some of the things longer than most of our episodes. But there's some things that are just so good you want to keep on going with them.

Which brings me to the verse of the week. And you may have already guessed what verse we were going to pick, but it is from Titus chapter two and verse three and four. This is the amplified translation of the Bible. Older women similarly are to be reverent in their behavior. Not malicious gossips, nor addicted to much wine. Teaching what is right and good so that they may encourage the young women to tenderly love their husbands and their children. To be sensible, pure makers of a home where God is honored, good-natured. Being subject to their own husband so that the word of God will not be dishonored. So if you are someone who's grown up perhaps in the church or with a biblical background, you may have heard reference before where people will say, where are the Titus Two women?

And I know even young moms have said, "I feel like there is a lack of Titus Two women in my life and in the church." Now, you might not have experienced that. You may be someone who's been very fortunate to have Titus Two women to mentor you and to teach you and to come alongside you. But I know many of us might not have that experience or may not feel that way. I feel very fortunate. My mom is someone in my life who has been a Titus Two mentor to me in many different ways. But I think this is something that we may be seeing in Western society a loss of, or maybe not as many options or as many women who are in this role as there used to be in decades past. And so I think this is something that is very much needed because, one, God wouldn't address it in the Bible to us if this wasn't something that was needed and that would be beneficial not only to the older women, but also to the young women.

And I think it goes vice versa. So for older women who are mentoring young women, it is also beneficial to them. I know when I have had the opportunity to mentor someone, even though I may be doing the teaching, I still learn so much from the questions and the things that the person I am mentoring asks me that I feel like I gain just as much, if not more from the relationship as they may. And so I think, as I said, this goes both ways. So wherever you may be, and I know old can be perspective, what you consider old by the age that you're at. But I think this is a really beautiful thing that I hope that we see cultivated more, not only in the Christian aspect, our Christian community, but in the homestead community as well. And for me, those two things coincide. I can't have one without the other.

And so this verse, I think is... Or verses. And you can read all of Titus Two. It covers for older men in reference to young and in bond service, which would be more... You can go into what bond service means with their masters, but I tend to look at some of those more as an employer, employee relationship. All those kinds of things. So anyhow, Titus Two is definitely a chapter worth checking out in whole, but especially the verses three through four there. So I want to thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. And if you do end up doing some of these working bees, or perhaps you already do them, I would love to know in the comments beneath this video if you're watching the podcast on YouTube. Or if you're listening to it the old-fashioned way, you can leave it in a review or shoot me a message.

I would love to see how this has worked for you in your life and just the things, maybe some tips that you might have or just how you have seen it be of benefit, because I think it's something definitely worth exploring even further than we have today. So for now, I leave you with blessings and Mason jars.