Episode 163 with Lisa Bass

We're Meant to Work With Our Hands

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

163 LISA BASS

Ginny Yurich Here we go. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich, and I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I'm super excited to have Lisa Bass from Farmhouse and Boone with us today. Thank you for being here.

Lisa Bass Thank you so much for having me.

Lisa Bass I was so excited.

Ginny Yurich I've been following you for a long time and you have your stuff everywhere. It's so inspiring. You got this huge YouTube channel, you've got a gorgeous blog, you're on Tik Tok, you have this huge Instagram account and you just have your on Pinterest. Pinterest is incredible, the 100,000 followers on Pinterest. And so you just obviously are inspiring people in all walks of life all over. So I'm so thankful for you being here and you have seven kids and you're just doing the coolest things. Is all of your making from scratch and sewing and gardening And it's just very inspiring, I think, to see this little bit of a slower pace of life, which is probably really actually not even all that slow, but it just it slows you down. And so could you just give us a little background about where you get started with and how you ended up in this Victorian, this beautiful farmhouse that you have renovated? Almost completely.

Lisa Bass Yeah. Okay. So I've been married now for 15 years and I always like to tell people that because whenever I get a lot of questions, I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember the stage that you're in currently where you're asking me that that question. And I had all the same doubts, fears, concerns, whatever. And so I you know, I've been on this journey for a really long time, the journey of like buying our little homestead, having tons of kids, home schooling, learning things and, you know, trying it and messing up. And I'm just 15 years into that. And so basically I've been trying to learn all of these things day by day for the last all of that time. So I've been a stay at home mom for 15 years. I had my first daughter, I was pregnant with her 15 years ago. I started my first garden and then I started learning how to, you know, make my own sort of starter and permit foods and cook from scratch. And it's just been a very slow progression. And then four years ago, we moved from our little quarter acre lot in town, which is where I learned most of these things to an actual homestead with seven acres, an old house, and that is where we currently live. And like you said, we've renovated it. The good thing about the house that we currently live in is although it really like the before and after, it's a really great it actually had really good bones and there wasn't anything like electrical or plumbing or any of those really big things. It kind of just needed the make up, which is really fun. And that was the stage of life I was in. We already did that in our first house, so that was a decade long process and I wasn't really willing to do anything like that. And so we, you know, it's been a relatively easy renovation in a lot of ways because it didn't require gutting. It just required me like putting on tons of makeup, which was fine. So, yeah, that's what we are. We have seven kids. We're expecting our eight this summer. And yeah, we try to we live slow in that. We're always home doing all of these things. But we also obviously, we're very, very busy.

Lisa Bass Mm hmm.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, because that's a lot of kids and you're doing renovations and all sorts of things. I think one of the things that's really unique about you and it's sort of a unique angle that we can take on this as you've been doing these things for ten, 15 years and you've just become an expert at sharing them. So not only an expert in your expertise, the Cerrado and you have such a cool Cerrado cookbook. I mean they are big holes in there and all these different things. But then you talk about homebirth. I mean you have a lot of things that you talk about, but you also have done such a beautiful job of sharing those things with the world. And so I think there's probably a lot of people that are listening that they are passionate and that they're in this process of learning. I would love to share with the world what they're doing and what they're learning. And and clearly, you can see by your success that people want this type of information or the type of information that people have to share. So you have a blogging masterclass and also a YouTube masterclass. Can you tell us just about that arm of what you do? Because I think it's really a cool, unique part of Farmhouse. I'm Boone.

Lisa Bass Yeah. So I started a blog about seven years ago. Yeah seven, right?

Ginny Yurich That's right. It says on the website.

Lisa Bass And then Yeah, I think that's right. It was after Yeah, my fourth child. It was right when he was a baby. And so that would be great because he's seven. And the purpose behind that was yeah, I'm learning all of these things and it's, it's funny because in those last seven years there's so much more I've learned and I've always just taken people along with it. And I get feedback like, try this certain thing and then I learn and I've grown through that. So I think partially to tell people you don't have. I have to be at like the absolute expertise level before you start sharing. It's really easy to share along the way and change things. As you know, you learn new information. But yeah, and then my husband came home from his job five years ago to we just this is what we do full time. We blog, we do YouTube. And so I started my blogging course the summer after he came home. So he came home in May five years ago, which I guess is almost five years next month. And then I made the course later that year because I was the people who were like, Well, I'm sure you make an income blogging, but you probably if it's really just a course like actually he quit his job and then I made the course, made sure that I did know what I was doing before that. But yeah, I do educate lots of students on how to start their own blogs, and that's over on my website for my son Unicom.

Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. And how to start a YouTube? What do you find? People are coming. I don't know if you know this information. If maybe you do, maybe you don't. But what do you find that people are most interested in blogging about? Do you get that sort of feedback? Like what kind of blogs are they coming out? What kind of YouTube channels are they coming out with?

Lisa Bass Yeah, since the niche that I are the kind of people I attract usually are people who like to DIY and do homestead things and make things from scratch. Typically, a lot of students that take my course like to do those kind of things, but I direct people away from starting in a lifestyle approach and more in a niche target audience type of thing. It really does help growth whenever you need to sit down and something, and I think people see mine as a very lifestyle thing, but I actually have a few niches that I've built out on my blog, and so I do try to teach people to do that.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, I noticed that you have three things and I'm going to tell I'm going to read.

Lisa Bass Them pretty.

Ginny Yurich Much the three well, three main topics, right? You have three main topics that you read into that and it funny you do not just have three things, but you have sort of these three main topics which permeate into a lot of things. So it's natural living food from scratch and handmade home. So those are the ones that you can drop down and learn about. And so yeah, it's interesting. Do you have anyone that's come to your courses that you've maintained a longer term relationship with over the years?

Lisa Bass I have a few, yes, because I have this really active Facebook community associated with it. And so it's fun to see the growth of certain people over the years that, you know, I've just seen them go from like, you know, this is just an idea to earning an income with it. And so that's been really fun. And the closest example I have of that is my own sister. So after my husband quit his job, she was like, Wait, what? And so she did the exact same thing. Just two years later, like her husband, she started her blog and two years later her husband's home from his job. So I watched that very closely.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, that's so cool. Eric, I said, Is this a really unique thing about you that you're living it out, but then you're helping other people live it out too? And I think that it gives a lot of people a lot of hope and something to try and to look forward to if they're looking for answers on how to how do I do something like that. And so you have got if people are interested, they can go to farmhouse on Boone and you have the Free Blogging Success Masterclass. And then you also have a YouTube Success Masterclass, a five day blogging business challenge, and tell us about the school of traditional skills.

Lisa Bass Okay, so that's not actually my thing, but it's a it's run by the homesteading family. And they came out a year ago, so last April and shot a class here. And then my class is part of their school and the school's really cool because it has like everything homesteaders want to learn from cheese to dairy. I mean, you know, gardening, just everything. So the first thing to pop in my head because that's what I'm thinking about right now, we have a cow that just freshened. And so I have like so much milk and I'm like, cheese, like all this stuff. But no, they have like, and they're constantly adding new classes. So that's something that I, yeah, I have that linked over on my Instagram.

Ginny Yurich Yeah. There's a lot of a lot of things there. And even on your Pinterest, which I don't, I've hardly ever talked about people's Pinterest, but yours had some fantastic ideas, a DIY Mother's Day gift baskets, and I'm like, Oh, this is a fantastic idea. So people can check you out there too. Do you find that you're constantly having to learn new things with sort of the social media YouTube blog world, or have you gotten to a point where you can kind of maintain and what you're doing just continues to work?

Lisa Bass It's yeah, it's been much easier. I remember the first couple of years, every time I turned around there were something like really difficult. I had to learn. And I know you know that just like with all the things you do, there's only something. There's tech. There's just things that you think like you don't even think about whenever you first start that come up. But I will say I'm at the point now where all of that comes very. Zoli There are like, like right now it's like, okay, I got to look into a I. That's what everybody is talking about now, you know, like how do I figure all that out? But it's not near that. It was like learning something new because the base of everything I completely understand. It's really simple. It second nature, it's in my routine. And so, yeah, all of that has become a lot easier. There are sometimes new things where like, I guess I should look into that, but I also feel like the world will go on if I don't. And so I mostly not that we're worried about.

Ginny Yurich Okay, so tell us about Summer is coming and do you have a baby coming? Baby number eight, Tell us how you maintain your home schedule and gardening and canning and cooking from scratch. What does that look like with a newborn?

Lisa Bass Well, I don't know, because I always have my babies in the fall.

Lisa Bass Okay?

Lisa Bass And this one's like I'm like, I think it's going to catch me off guard because I just feel like I have, you know, like the way this normally works, I have all summer and then I have any baby and it's like fall and rest time. So I'm honestly not sure, But I am holding it all very loosely in our garden this year. We are putting in like, I'm not growing anything weird or different. I'm just growing tomatoes, onions, peppers, herbs and flowers and that's it. I'm not going to do like kohlrabi and just anything else. Like nothing that I'm not your beets or anything that I'm not used to. That's very easy to grow. And then even still, most likely, they'll be a lot of tomatoes that rot or go to the chickens. I'll probably I mean, I don't know, I we'll see how it goes, but I'm not overly worried about it. Thankfully, we live in a day and age where if I don't can, we'll be okay. So we'll see.

Ginny Yurich I love that. I actually like a love that you said that that's how I should garden tomatoes, onions, peppers, herbs and flowers.

Lisa Bass That's it. Yeah.

Ginny Yurich I mean, I'm always trying to do the other thing. The broccoli, the cabbage. It doesn't turn out. I know what it is. That's really a cool thing. And if you were starting with gardening, that's actually a great list to start with you, because you're probably going to be at least mildly successful with some of those things and you can actually use them. So I really like that. So babies come in and you just simplify and then, okay, we can do we never talked about this because this is a thousand that died and it's a little off what we talk about. But I do think it's cool that you had a baby in a van In your van, Baby three okay.

Lisa Bass Yeah.

Ginny Yurich And then ever since you just had your babies at home.

Lisa Bass Yeah, baby number three, I had all home births after that.

Ginny Yurich Tells about having a baby in a van.

Lisa Bass Yeah.

Lisa Bass Okay, so we. Yeah, we left the house and I looking back like I was going to a birthing center. And so the midwife there also does home births. And so she was like, Why you just call me? Have you come have me come to your house? I'm like, It just wasn't the plan. And so I didn't think of that. But yeah, that would have been smart. So yeah, I do the Bradley method of birth, which basically just means you teach yourself to relax very deeply through the contractions. And it works very, very, very well. I've had contractions where I'm unable to fully relax, and then I've had contractions where, like, you know, a few later I am able to, like, slip into that deep relaxation. And the difference in pain level is very different. And so I think with him, I was doing it pretty well to the point where I wasn't aware of how far I was into the labor. Like, Oh, you must have had like a 45 minute labor. I didn't. I just didn't go like I should have just gone. And so when we left the house, I was kind of already in the pushing phase, which now I would recognize after having so many children, I would definitely be like, okay, well, we're not leaving because clearly I'm pushing. I did it quite recognize it. And so we, you know, Luke was speeding and we got pulled over and we just we did it make it not even close.

Lisa Bass It's one of those stories.

Ginny Yurich That you always think about, like when you see someone that's really speeding and you think, Oh, are they speeding? And then like, maybe they're having a.

Lisa Bass Baby and maybe that was really what happened, right? Yeah, I mean.

Lisa Bass It was three in the morning, so, you know, it wasn't like there was a ton of other cars out, but people like Little Diddy pull over and he asked me if he wanted me to pull or if he if I wanted him to pull over. But I'm like, well, here we are. We don't know if the baby's not breathing. Like, I don't have any training in this, so don't pull over. Let's just get as close as possible. So we were driving like 70 miles an hour when we had him and when he came out and he was crying. I'm just like, just slow down. We're good now, but get there. But just slow down.

Ginny Yurich Wow. While he was driving, you had the baby. That's incredible. So then you transitioned to having your babies at home. I think if I could go back in time, I would. And if I could give advice, I'm going to do it. I'm giving you advice. Since this is my podcast.

Lisa Bass My I would say you just have to wait. You have to.

Ginny Yurich Wait longer at home. Like I wish I would have known to wait longer. I think, you know, it's like you're excited. You don't really know what's going on. And those. Extraction star. And you go. We went to the. And I ended up for my kids. I ended up having two C-sections because it in progress. And you're in the hospital. You can't move around. Right? You're stuck to machines. So for our fifth baby, I went to the apple orchard all day. We were there all day and I was having contractions at the apple orchard. And like, you just you kind of, like, live in your life. And then I came home, and the baby's born in 90 minutes. So I'm like, Oh, if I could only go back in time, I probably would have done a little more. Livia I'd heard other people, like in time that they were like, Oh, I bake a cake while I'm having contractions. I never heard of that. You know, it's like you think, Oh, as soon as those contractions start.

Lisa Bass Yeah, right. Yeah, it really does. It. It distracts you. It makes you not so focused on it. I think if you are, like, hyper focused on what's happening, it makes you, in your mind, be a little bit too worked up. And so I really definitely do the thing where I almost like pretend I'm not in labor until I absolutely can't ignore it. And it's served me well for babies. Three, four, seven. So it's worked out really well, just like going about my day, like with my last baby. He's almost eight months. I think I was still doing dishes at like 8 p.m. and it looks like we'll lay down and, you know, they'll do dishes. I'm like, No, I'm just going to go as if nothing's happening. And he was born at 1030, so it was very much like the last couple of hours. I was totally just going about doing whatever.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, You don't think about that. You think, Oh, I got a rush, I got to get there. But I think the opposite. It works well to wait it out and then at the last possible minute and then it feels it's kind of quick. So congratulations to you, baby number eight. And it's so exciting. Large families are so much fun. What do your kids like on the homestead? Like, I know. I mean, kids I think some kids love it. Some kids don't. All kids are different. Some of my kids like to go outside more than others do. But do you have any ones that really have fallen in love with different aspects of it?

Lisa Bass I wouldn't say any of them have shown like a super strong interest as far as like I know some families, you know, a certain child will be 12 and it's like obsessed with dairy and they'll read the books and I don't have anybody who's that. But, you know, they all participate. They all come out well, at least three or four of them come out during the morning tours, and then a few of them have some certain things they need to do in the house. I have one daughter. She's more interested. Like she's really excited with me about learning to make cheese. She's very like looking forward to when our cheese press comes and all of the stuff that we want to do. And then my three year old, he's obsessed with collecting the eggs. And so it kind of just goes through certain phases with who's excited about what, but we definitely get them involved. It's not forced. I'm not super like, I don't know, we we compare ourselves and I do have friends who certain kids have been become very interested in like rabbit breeding and they'll explore everything there is to know on that. And my kids have interests like that where, you know, they want a course on it, they want to stay up late learning about it. But it doesn't necessarily have to do with homestead stuff, which is totally fine, but.

Ginny Yurich That's super cool.

Lisa Bass I think at some point they'll be interested and if not, whatever, that's fine too.

Ginny Yurich And interesting, like you said, I do think that the chores themselves, they sort of go in this cyclical like three year olds to go collect eggs. How fun for them and how good for them to learn how to take, how much pressure that you touch. And you got to be careful and you see the different colors. That's so cool for a three year old. Now, you grew up on a farm, on an elk farm.

Lisa Bass Yeah.

Lisa Bass Yeah, an elk farm. Yeah. Which is very interesting.

Ginny Yurich Do that translate?

Lisa Bass Well, yeah.

Ginny Yurich Tell us about that. I don't know if I've ever really even heard of an elk farm.

Lisa Bass Yeah, So, I mean, yeah, it's not super common. My dad didn't know when or how he became interested in the elk, but I was really young, so I guess I wouldn't remember that. But it was cool. Like we had 40 acres all fenced in with eight foot game fence and we had, you know, we had bulls with massive antlers like you'd see out in Colorado. And we had, you know, whenever it was breeding time they put together and then we had like a little pain where we would win the calves. And just being around all of that was interesting. I think, you know, the the homestead interest, because my parents didn't have like a homestead. They didn't have like pigs and cows and like, you know, they just had kind of like cows and elk and that kind of thing. But I just always been drawn to the rural lifestyle. Like it's just I've always liked wide open spaces and having animals around. I guess it's probably because that's how I grew up. But yeah, like having plenty of space to run around. It's just that is how I grew up, so I'm so used to it. Also, I have an experience with large animals, like we are always in porridge. And so I learned, you know, we'd get a calf at 12 months and then train them till till the fair time where we can leave them around. And so whenever we went to get a dairy cow, that part was less intimidating for me because I'm used to being around large animals and like, trying to. Control them so that you can get them to where you need them to go. That can be intimidating for people. But I did have experience.

Ginny Yurich That as interesting because farming can look different in so many different ways. So you grew up on a farm, but like you said, it wasn't really a homestead. It's a difference. A difference. And it's kind of interesting to see where you can take it. There's so many different avenues. So. Okay, so food from scratch. This is one of your big things. And sour dough is really a huge thing that you do. So what is your day to day cooking routine like?

Lisa Bass Okay, yeah, that probably changes somewhat with the seasons. Right now is a particularly intense time because we're getting four gallons of milk a day. And so I have just been trying to stay up on top of that, which without making like wheels of hard cheese, which I should have learned all of the skills I needed for that and had all the materials I needed before the cow came in milk because it wasn't a surprise. We knew she was due in April, but I have to be forced to do things. So that's just how I operate. Like I jump in and then whenever it becomes super important, that's when I have to learn things. So I'm in the process of that. But right now, yeah, I'm spending, I'm making mozzarella. I'm like making yogurt. So I'm spending a lot of time in the kitchen. But I would say like on a regular basis, especially during school time, which we're still in school time, the morning will involve me like feeding the starter, maybe getting some dough going, or if the starter was fed the night before getting something in the oven for lunch, maybe getting yogurt started, just like little tasks that I can get going and then have them going throughout the day, maybe some bone broth going. And then we all have something like prepare for lunch and then usually dinner. I work, I have like my work hours from 1 to 4 in the afternoon, Monday through Thursday, so four days a week. And then so after four is when I will get something going for dinner. We usually have a more simple dinner and a more not elaborate, but like I have more time with lunch because I'll be in the kitchen helping kids with school and so I can like get more stuff going and that's where I can get bread going. Whereas in the evening time I only have about an hour and it's usually busier because we're done with school and kids are just kind of everywhere.

Ginny Yurich That's interesting. It's a good idea to flip flop depending on when you have time in the kitchen and maybe some people would have more time in the morning. That's a really interesting. Okay. So okay, so I'm doing the math here. You have 440,000 subscribers on YouTube and 100,000 on Pinterest and 300,000 or something on Instagram and this huge Facebook community and you work 12 hours a week.

Lisa Bass Yeah, that's a lot of he'sa.

Lisa Bass Have lots of help too.

Lisa Bass Okay, but. But what a cool.

Ginny Yurich That's so inspiring that you've been able to figure that out for yourself. Good for you.

Lisa Bass Yeah, it's been a process over the years.

Ginny Yurich Yeah. Yeah. Well, because I know it's like you don't want to spend all your time working. You've got a bunch of kids and you've got stuff to do, so that's really cool. I like how you do that. That's really neat. Yeah. Okay, so food from scratch and people can get I think if they sign up for your email they get a sour dough book, right? Estado e-book.

Lisa Bass Correct? Yes. Yeah, I'm working on revamping that a little bit, but yeah.

Ginny Yurich Yeah. 50 page bagels, bread desserts and more. And you have so many awesome videos online that people can kind of watch from start to finish. So food from scratch. And then you you talk about a handmade home. One of the things I was most interested in are the beeswax wraps because I've always seen them and I just wonder how they work.

Lisa Bass Yeah, I can't say I use them very regularly. I have in the past, but like currently I just have gotten out of the habit of making them. But the idea, especially with dough. So what? Right now I'm relying more heavily on damp tea towels, which you have to constantly re wet so that way your dough doesn't get dried out. And so I will if I'm home, you know, which most days I am, I will just like, get my dough going and get a tea towel wet, lay it on top and then I'll throughout the day get it wet again as it dries out, is like a beeswax wrap. It's like a tea towel that's sealed with beeswax. So you don't have to do that. And if you don't, then you're in. You're doing a long into doula Estuardo. It has to rise so long that the air will get in and then it'll get dried out on top. And so that is a really good solution. If you're trying to do no waste and you don't want to use foil or you don't want to have to babysit a wet tea towel, that's a really good option.

Ginny Yurich That's super interesting. So you can make it on your own. And I've seen people use it for that. You went on a picnic, you can pack stuff up in it. I just it's one of those things that I can't quite wrap my head around. I think those are the types of things you just have to try. So you get it. Like it just kind of sticks together and then. Do you wash it?

Lisa Bass Yeah, you can only wash it with cool water because if it gets hot, it'll chip off the fabric and then obviously it'll lose its air tightness. Interesting. So you kind of just wash it with cool water, just it's like a more durable piece of plastic wrap so you can use it for a really long time, but not. Forever if you care for it properly. Like you can imagine how you could almost like clean off a piece of plastic crap for quite a while. That would be interesting. Like a lot stronger.

Ginny Yurich Okay, so that's on your website. People can learn how to make them and then how to care for them. Beeswax wraps and then you also sell. So that's one of the things that you do different sewing projects. Have you always been interested in sewing?

Lisa Bass Pretty much. Yeah, I've been interested in sewing for as long as I can remember. I started in for H when I was a kid and then I really dove in whenever I had my first two because my first two kids are girls and they were so much fun to sew for. And so I enjoyed it. And then now those girls are 14 and 12 and well, the second one loves to bake. She does not love to sew, but the first one just love sewing. She's just like me in that way. So yeah, I've loved it forever and I still love it. Like, I don't get a whole lot of time to do it. Right now. I'm working on some lined curtains for the boys room, and I have like two panels made of eight, and I'm just kind of chipping away at it whenever I get the time. But that's something that would be fun for me. Like, that'd be a good an idea of like a good Saturday night for me would be so.

Ginny Yurich Oh, I'd say I love that. It's like an old fashioned thing that at night you sit down and you. So I was just talking to Jill Winger and she was talking about how when you when you do things with your hands, it helps with releasing serotonin. You just feel better. And so it was an interesting thing that sewing it's something we've really moved away from. And and I don't we have a sewing machine that I don't use much, but we like cross-stitch and my grandma was really good at embroidery. So those are like the ones that you can kind of take with you. So I love that resurgence of sewing. So tell us a couple of the projects. You've got projects right on your website.

Lisa Bass Mm hmm. Yeah. So I have and I am I sewing tutorials have become less and less as I've had more kids and more and more recipes. But that's just because that's like what I'm sharing, because I can make I make food every single day. Whereas like, sewing is something that I have to carve time out. I am working on tutorials for the curtains right now, but on my website some of the most popular are I have How to Slip cover wingback chair, which is so tedious. It's not something I recommend as a first project, but it's also really rewarding. I've had the two slip covered wingback chairs in my house for seven years now and so they've held up just a really great way to transform something that's really cheap. I have like how to make a duvet cover, how to make beds, skirts, curtains, how to make pleated curtains with Peter Hooks. I have like, wow, tons tea towels for the beginners.

Lisa Bass Yeah, that's really cool.

Lisa Bass Muslin, swaddle blankets and linen totes. Yeah.

Ginny Yurich I think when I think of sewing, I tend to think of sewing. With a sewing machine, I tend to think of clothing. And so it's really cool to see that you have these tutorials for the things around your home. And then you've got a fantastic pictures about when you've redone all the things on your farmhouse. So you can see a lot of the things that you've sewn and you remodeled and things like that. So that's really cool. So and what are some of the more popular food from scratch sites that people go to? What does what some of the recipes that seem to be the.

Lisa Bass The most popular recipes are all sour. No. At this point. And that's there's been a huge spike in interest in that since 2020. And I really thought it was just a fad. But it's it's continued to be something that people are really interested in, which is funny because I started sharing Sardo on my website like five years ago, and it's just became interesting in the last three years. But the most popular is my no knead Sardo bread recipe, the bagels, the pancakes. Just. Yeah. Most of the sardo ones.

Ginny Yurich Yeah. That you can do almost every day. People are probably every single day making their sour dough. Yeah. What do you think it is. What do you think it is that is so sort of enchanting about that, man.

Lisa Bass It's just so satisfying to see something beautiful come from raw ingredients. It's the same thing with sewing, and it's. It's. Yeah, you can buy curtains, you can buy bread. So it's not like, you know, you need to do it and you can buy milk at the store. But it's just so satisfying to have an idea, even with bread, like executing like a beautiful scoring pattern and have this beautiful rise, it's fun every single time it doesn't get old. I had I've made like four loaves of bread in the last two days. I just truly enjoy it. Most everyone even take a picture of my bread. Like it's just I don't I don't know why, but I mean, it practically came about because during COVID people couldn't get bread and yeast for a while, and so they wanted to figure out how they could make their own yeast at home. But then why it kept going. I know why I'm in love with it. And it's just it's so fun to like braid bread and then watch it rise and then do an egg wash and watch it be browned in the oven. Spring. I don't know, I, I love making and I'll always love this.

Lisa Bass That is.

Ginny Yurich Really interesting. But I do remember not being able to get yeast. Absolutely. I remember you couldn't find it. Yeah. That's so interesting. I love what you said. It is fun every single time. And what else is like that? That is so interesting. It's fun every single time I feel that way about when you grow a flower. It's fun every single time.

Lisa Bass Right? Exac.

Ginny Yurich Every single time you go out and.

Lisa Bass You don't need to grow flowers. You can't eat em or do anything except look at them. But I'm definitely putting flowers in my garden.

Ginny Yurich Yeah. Or we grow and we're new to it. But like, even, like the fun fall pumpkin type things, there's so many varieties. They're all knobby or there's like, the Swan Neck one and there's the bird house one. And it just is fun every single time. And they're cute when they're little, you know, when they first start to grow. I love that I'm going to be thinking about that forever. That really what your that's what you're offering is you're offering these simple things of life that are fun every single time you do them. That's what it.

Lisa Bass Is. Yeah. They're just the basic the basic things of of life. You know, it's almost like we're just meant to work with our hands to make ourselves the things we need, you know?

Ginny Yurich Yeah. And it brings so much joy. Gosh, I really like that. Oh, how cool. So this is a totally different topic, but I've read that you love to be barefoot. Is that still true?

Lisa Bass It is true. I do. I'm always almost always too lazy to put shoes on. We have like 40 chickens running around now, so I probably put on shoes more often than I did when I first wrote that. But I still run the garden barefoot. I just take my chances, you know?

Ginny Yurich That's so good for you. I've got one friend that too. And walking across the gravel. Walking across. It's like your feet. Get used to it.

Lisa Bass Yeah.

Ginny Yurich They toughen up.

Lisa Bass Yeah, I know. All my kids can run across gravel.

Ginny Yurich Yeah. Okay. And your sister said you should write a book called Barefoot and Boon. You think you're going to do it?

Lisa Bass Yeah.

Lisa Bass I need to update my about page. You said that so many years ago. I probably won't, because I'll. I just will probably only ever make books on, like, projects. And I don't know. I don't, I don't feel like I'm like the best that articulating my words. I'm more like, okay, here's how you do this. I would be myself.

Lisa Bass Oh, I kind of feel the same, I guess. But it is kind of.

Ginny Yurich Interesting, I think, sometimes. Do you look at your own life and you're in the middle of it so it feels normal and just kind of routine. But from the outside in a memoir is actually a really cool thing. And like you said, 15 years. I think the thought of like this stuff doesn't happen overnight and 15 years feels like a really long time. Like a really long time In 50 years, I'm going to be almost, you know, I'm going to be like pushing 60. So, I mean, that feels like a long time away. But at some point that time does come. And so if you start now, then what you're doing is you're slowly building up these different skill sets and then you have this life that you really want because you're able to adjust along the way. But if you never try. So I think that's kind of I mean, I think that's kind of a cool thought of a memoir. If it's not even written down, it's like you can almost look at your life as this memoir and see like how far you've come and you've tried different things. Have there been like any major things that stand out that were really hard to get through in the last since you've started this?

Lisa Bass Yeah, I think like as far as like the business side of it, there's been just challenging aspects all along the way as far as like gardening and all of that kind of stuff. I don't feel like I've advanced to the level I should have with gardening, but then there's other areas, like I feel like I'm still just at the basics, like I don't know any of these advanced techniques that all these people talk about. I'm still just able to get like the basics out, which is fine. But I've seen a lot of progress with my baking skills for sure, but I'm sure like, Oh man, I'm already worried about, you know, I'm going to I'm going to mess it up. I'm going to waste like five gallons of milk at one time. And I'm and that's something I'm just I'm going to get past because I so many times. Yeah. Like I've tried something 100 times that didn't work. But then, like the last time, it's finally it's improving a little bit each time. And so, yeah, I'm sure along the way there's been lots of challenges, but I don't feel like I've anything I've done has been that significant. I feel like I've just over the last 15 years, I've just kind of worked on this lifestyle a little bit each day. And even without the blog or the business, you know, this is all the stuff that I would be doing, like learning how to improve my sewing skills, improve my sourdough skills, and just keep plugging away at all that.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, I think it's really cool that you share it because how it really is set to help. Obviously you know that because you have thousands of people that are taking their classes in your courses. And I think that the waste part is an interesting topic because I do feel that fear of waste of both money and time, both things. And so the other day, I mean, I made a recipe the other day for lunch and it was a total flop, like no one ate it, you know, the total. But we actually were joking around trying to get our oldest son was outside, so he came back in for lunch and everyone was like, This is the best lunch ever.

Lisa Bass Do this the way he would like it to be. It was.

Ginny Yurich So. Awful. And I'm starting to calculate in my mind, well, that might cost me $22 or something. And there is.

Lisa Bass It's it's a hard.

Ginny Yurich Hurts. You spend a lot of time in your garden and it is. But I guess if you look at your life in this course of, you know, a decade and a half, I mean, you know, I don't know, it's kind of cheesy, but it's like, well, that's kind of the cost of growth and learning is that there's going to be some waste along the way.

Lisa Bass It is. It is. And so many people that is the thing that keeps them from starting, like, for example, salad, because that's the thing I get the most questions about. Just because it's the highest traffic everywhere is Cerrado. And so people are so fearful of taking ingredients and wasting them. And I understand, but it is the costs and I think was that somebody said I call that tuition like when you do something stupid and you waste or you lose money or anything, that's just like life tuition, you know, like you go to school and you spend money to learn things. Well, this is how that works, too. And so, you know, and the thing with Salgado is you can always turn it into something else. I don't normally waste food. Now, if I screw up a whole batch of cheese, it will like it just it just will. And I don't know why. Like wasting food bothers me more than wasting money, I swear. I don't know why it's weird, but yeah, it's. You have to get past it. Just try. Stop.

Lisa Bass Well, guess you have a lot of people to feed. Maybe. Oh, I guess.

Lisa Bass So. It's like. I think it's because your time is tied up with it, too. Like when you waste food, it's. Yeah. It's not just the money tied up in it. It's also. Yeah, it's.

Ginny Yurich Time and heart. So, you know, it's like I made this lunch. I thought it was going to be a meeting, and you're like, you're waiting for everyone.

Lisa Bass To because it great mom. And everyone's like, So there's a little bit of you.

Ginny Yurich Yeah. And you did that Failure is kind of right in your face. You're like, Oh man, it just didn't work out. But I really love that concept of tuition. Yeah, we're that we're learning and we're growing. And I do think that as adults, it's an interesting thing that we don't put money toward that growth, really. We don't tend to you know, you do that all the way through your childhood. And then if you're in certain careers, you have to you have to go to professional development or different things like that. But as a parent or as a homesteader or as anyone who's growing, there's, you know, it's like, I don't I don't take piano lessons anymore. I don't there's no money that's going to our personal growth, maybe aside from a couple self-help books or something. So that's a good reframe that this is a Jewish.

Lisa Bass Yeah.

Lisa Bass That I'm trying to like.

Lisa Bass Yeah, it really helps me because it. Yeah. Why wouldn't we think we're going to have to mess things up? Like, I know for a fact I'm going to mess up a wheel or two of cheese and the temptation is to want to like get every last bit of information before you try something to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I get questions where I'm like, You're past the question stage, you now just need to go.

Lisa Bass Yeah, and I.

Lisa Bass Know that, like, that's where I am with this. And I see it in people with the questions they ask. Like at some point, I'm sorry, you're just going to have to try it. I can't give you any more info. You have to go forth Bill that dough.

Ginny Yurich Yeah I'm, I'm to with the garden. I bought so many gardening books and then I didn't actually learn how to do it until I did it. And then I.

Lisa Bass Got it just things.

Ginny Yurich Out and it quit. It doesn't click until you're actually doing it. And that involves messing some things up and learning, which is why I think it's important to start as soon as you can, because we don't have unlimited time and you know, things are seasonal. So if you're trying something in the garden, you don't get to try again till next year.

Lisa Bass Yeah. How many how.

Ginny Yurich Many opportunities are there really to try these things? And so you just have so much information out there that people can grab and they can start now. Start now, Try the things now and learn and grow and follow in your example. So if people are wanting to find your everything because you have everything, even I liked this, even a fall capsule wardrobe, that was one of the things under your Instagram. How do you plan with clothes for you're about to have ten people in your family. Do you sort of simplify or is it a little chaotic?

Lisa Bass So, yes, thanks for reminding me that I need to update my Instagram. Well, I.

Lisa Bass Think it's I don't know. There wasn't a point. No, I know it was it.

Lisa Bass But I'm like, oh, wait, it's now spring. I should probably fix that. But yes, I like I just swapped out the boys clothes because I have two girls and then five boys and the two girls are older and they can like deal with their own stuff. But like the boys, I do a full blown swap out two times a year. So in October in May, which we did a little bit early because it's been so hot already, which is crazy, I just keep things so minimal. They each have like four or five outfits to wear. If everything was in the laundry, it still would be okay. It would fit in the basket before it had to make its way to all of their rooms. Yeah, that's the only way I can manage. Literally, everything in my house is not only because. Cluttering all of the the wardrobes and just making we don't have closets so I can't keep out just a lot of clothing. I just can't. So it makes it easy. But then I also do it with with possessions. I mean, I just cannot take care of that many people's things and I don't. There are different personalities of kids, and some kids are very, like, meticulous with all of their possessions and they take care of them. Mine aren't that way. It's an uphill battle, and I realize they have to learn to take care of things, but I have to make it to where it's manageable for all. And so we just really minimize constantly.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, a capsule wardrobe is such a cool thing. And so whether it's fall or spring, I think you your summer, you can look and get.

Lisa Bass The the general.

Ginny Yurich Premise from it. I had known this woman and I don't think she's still in business, but she was selling little capsule wardrobes for kids and it was just great. It was like, you know, a little summer dress wall. So it you know, they don't get stinky and it breathes, you know, with a little pair of leggings. And then there was a t shirt you could swap out with. And I just thought, you know, this is a great idea to have a couple mix and match things so that you're spending your time more on all of these things that you're learning and growing and doing with your hands and less on managing stuff and clothing and that type of thing.

Lisa Bass Oh yeah, Yeah. Because you can, you can spend your whole life. I've been there like before. I really took a good look at what we had. And this is, this was several kids ago. I felt like all I was doing was cleaning out my house. Like, I cannot spend all of my time cleaning up my house. Like, you can't do this. And I have more help now because a lot of the kids are older, so that helps. But it's still, you know, you have to stay on top of people and have routines and schedules to do all of that. And that's all great, but also just make the job a little easier, you know?

Ginny Yurich Yes, because it is hard to stay on top of everyone that all I think we have tried all the things a checklist and you can't I mean, you stick with it for two or three weeks. My kids know, too. They'll tell me they were like, This isn't going to last forever, Mom.

Lisa Bass Yeah, exactly. I know, because I am not that kind of person. I've just come to terms with them and just not how we operate.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, So I think that would be a big question. Looking at someone's life that is seven kids and pregnant with an eight and is running a business and also doing the things that you're teaching is how do you keep up with it all? And I know you have a lot of good information. Let's just talk real quick about your podcast. And that's one of the ways that we connected. As I was on your podcast a while ago, you have a phenomenal podcast about all sorts of these topics that we're talking about minimalism getting started in your garden. So I think that's a great resource for people. Do you have an episode or two that sticks out? If people wanted to start listening to your podcast where they would, It's this called The Simple Farmhouse Life, where they would begin. There's like almost 200 episodes on there.

Lisa Bass I think that's a good question. I can't even think of like what had been the best episodes. I do have a little like a website for the I mean, obviously it's on Apple, Spotify, all that stuff. But I also have a website and I do have like the top episodes kind of highlighted on it. So I have that it Simple Farmhouse Life podcast dot com, but otherwise you can just search simple farmhouse life on any of the podcast apps and I don't know, I guess just the most recent ones I can't I don't know I've had you said you had Jill Winger on I've had her on a couple of times. I've had you on those are obviously good at the so what.

Ginny Yurich I think that was the answer I was hoping for.

Lisa Bass Lisa Yeah.

Lisa Bass Those are great episodes. Yeah. And then just a lot of like I love bringing on people who maybe are only on Instagram or something. It's always like fun for people to see those people in other contexts, you know? I'm like, Oh, I'm bringing them over to the podcast world.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, it is interesting, I think when you podcast to be on either end of the microphone, if you're the one that's on the interview side or the interviewee side, I think that's fun too. It's fantastic. And you have a lot of things that are seasonal, so it's all applicable. So I think some of the most recent ones I saw were getting started with food preservation. So if you're talking about, look, if you want to preserve food, you have to have a little idea of what you're going to be doing now, because if it gets coming so right. And you have to have a small idea at least about, well, if I'm going to do tomatoes, then I need to have a little bit of an idea before August what I'm going to be doing with them. So that one looks super interesting getting started. And I think that a lot of us are getting started, like how do we get started with food preservation? Growing a bountiful garden on a budget looked really interesting to me because like we talked about, it can actually be really expensive if you're putting in raised beds and all these different things. So just real seasonal, like that's what we should be listening to now. So the podcast has so much to offer. So I just think this whole package of Lisa is so interesting because, you know, you reach out into all these different areas, but then you're still living it. It's like you. Haven't lost that. And so I really think that that balance, which is hard to find, I think we're always having to chase it down, that you exemplify that. And I'm sure that you don't feel that it's perfect, but you really that shines through you that I'm going to live how I want to live. I'm going to share it and find ways to make that work for our family. So do you find that people are still constantly coming to say, no, Our world is evolving? Obviously, blogs were maybe a little bit bigger back seven, ten years ago. Do you find that people are still, though, starting blogs today, starting their websites basically based around their interests?

Lisa Bass Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing that I think people are really surprised to hear is my biggest income still comes from ads on my blog. So that is where I get the most traffic, like the most eyeballs I know. Like like, oh, you have a big Instagram, too. Big YouTube. And like, I still get more eyes on my website every month than I do any of those places. So it's definitely still like it's my favorite way to share, mostly because I can remove myself from it, which I love doing YouTube, I love doing podcasting, I love doing Instagram. I don't think I'll love doing that forever. And so just having my blog, which feels it's personal because it's all stuff that I make, but it's also really not like I, you know, when people are searching for a salad or bread recipe, they don't really care where it came from as long as it's good. And they, you know, they can follow the directions. And so, yeah, blogs are a little bit under the radar.

Ginny Yurich And they've sustained my opinion. It's interesting, I read something one time about sort of long form. I can't remember what it was, but it was like about long form technology that something sustained and some things don't. So there was that thing a while ago, it was like called TiVo where it was like the first thing where you could record a show online and watch it later and that didn't sustain. And some things come and go like MySpace that didn't sustain. But email has sustained and.

Lisa Bass Write.

Ginny Yurich And blogs have sustain. And sometimes I think that's a scary part of it because you think, okay, if should I invest in X, Y, or Z, like our podcast going to sustain or it's so and sometimes you don't know. It's like a little bit of you got to just try it and hope for the best. But that is super interesting that blogs have been one of those things that have continued to I mean, they've been around for a long time and continue to bring an income, so people should definitely come here. Blogging Success Masterclass is Free.

Lisa Bass Yeah, yeah. So I do have a paid course and I offer that in the masterclass. But yeah, blogging I think people, they visit blogs without really realizing that they're doing it. So like we all Google, you know, certain things, we Google recipes and we go, you know, we end up on that and we don't I think we still think of blogs as like a web log of your life. And it looks way different than that. It's not that anymore. That world is over. That's where people share that kind of content on Instagram, on YouTube, whereas like blogs are are reserved for a very certain kind of content. And so we still all use blogs, but I think we don't realize it because we're thinking of them as something else. But like you said, as like an online business person, you worry about certain things dying. That's why I try to just dip my toe into all of it. Like I'm like, okay, I'll be on podcast, I'll be on Facebook, I'll be on all these places. That way, you know, one arm of it totally just fades into nonexistence, which could totally happen with any of it. We still have the podcast of some of the emails. We still have, you know, Pinterest, whatever.

Ginny Yurich Yeah, that's really wise. Lisa This has been awesome. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to talk to you, to be on the other side of this. People want to find you. Your blog website is farmhouse and boom dot com boon is bony and I'll put it in the show notes and you're at farmhouse I'm doing in the podcast is simple farmhouse life anywhere you find your podcast and then you're on Tik tok you've got your Facebook community. Pinterest with a Pinterest is a great place to go to, is really organize all the pins that you've created. My article ideas. Like I said, this DIY Mother's Day gift basket, I saw DIY window boxes and they're all just easy things. Your YouTube channel has over 700 videos and you can get leases Sour dough e-book if you sign up for the emails. So lots there for people to go and to check out. So thank you. And we always end our podcast with the same question. The question is what's a favorite memory from your childhood That was outside.

Lisa Bass Oh boy, I have so many. I'll just say that probably float trip. So in in Missouri we have we do something called float trips, which we just get a canoe and we go down the river and we have these beautiful bluffs and just these really, really beautiful rivers. And we're still doing it today with our kids. But I'd say float trip. That's not really a specific memory, but it's. Just.

Ginny Yurich That's mine too. But we don't call them float trips. So I'm changing my vocabulary immediately. We just call it to you tubing. Or you go canoeing down the river. Yeah. Flow trips is way better. And so there we go. That's going to change my life because we've got some pretty rivers here in Michigan to see this. I just love that as a kid. It's so beautiful and peaceful and you float down the river and you stop for a picnic lunch. But we do not have that good terminology, so I'm changing. That's awesome. Well, Lisa, thank you. Thank you for taking your time. I know you're busy and you're pregnant and you have so much going on. So I know that all our listeners are so thankful that you came on to share with us. And I'm looking into your courses. You got such a cool thing. So thanks for being here.

Lisa Bass Thank you so much for having me.