An interview with Amy Parmer of Hope Hill Farm in Haubstadt, Indiana.

Amy is first and foremost a daughter of God and a devout Catholic. She is married to her college sweetheart, Matt. They met on the very first day and first class of their freshman year at Purdue. They have been married 23 years and have been blessed with eight children ages 20, and a sophomore at Western Kentucky University, down to 8-year-old twins. 

Amy has a background in veterinary medicine, which she formally “retired” from after the birth of their third child. She then stayed home to raise and homeschool her children. 

Eight years ago they purchased their dream property that would allow them to build a small homestead and fulfill their dream of being able to raise and produce a lot of their food. Their journey included building a performance herd of Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats that provide the most delicious milk.

As the size of the herd grew, so did the volume of milk, which provided the path to Amy’s current adventure and small business. Amy’s best friend, Jessica, and she have been formally making and selling goat milk soap and other body and household products for approximately four years.  They have learned much together about starting and running a business and making it successful all while *attempting* to balance their very busy family schedules.

Episode highlights:
📉 Amy’s accidental venture into business in 2020
👩🏻‍💻 Challenges of taking an in-person business online
👨‍👩‍👧 Balancing family life, business, and homesteading
👯‍♀️ How Amy and Jessica manage being business partners and best friends
👧🏻 Getting your children involved in business

WANNA BE A GUEST ON THE SHOW?

• Click here to fill out the application if you want to be a guest on the podcast or have a guest suggestion.

WORK WITH STEPHANIE:

• VIP Design Day
• Brand Identity Design
• Showit Website Design
• Schedule a free 30-min consult call OR fill out my contact form

CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:
stephanieduke.co | Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest | Buy Me a Coffee

CONNECT WITH AMY:
hopehillfamilyfarm.com | Instagram | Facebook

Thanks for tuning in to the Homemakers in Business Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please:

• Share a screenshot with your fav parts to your IG story and tag me @stephanieduke.co
• Sign up for additional resources and insider updates! I only send this email once a week so it is PACKED full of value for improving your brand, website, and marketing! Get on the list here.
• Follow the podcast and leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Stephanie

All right, now tell us who you are, what you do, and who you help.

Amy

Yes, my name is Amy Parmer and I live in a small farm in southwest Indiana in a very rural community. I have now been making goat milk soap and other household cleaning products with my best friend for approximately four years now. And we have started very humbly and very small and we’re growing slowly, but.

balancing that with our family life and we are trying to help people get rid of a lot of the dangerous chemicals in their home and to be able to provide them with products that are both safe and good for their skin and help a lot of times with different kinds of skin problems, whether it be acne or eczema or psoriasis and to

be able to help clean their homes without adding a lot of extra chemicals, doing things that are, you know, helping us to be good stewards of the earth that God’s given us and taking care of our bodies and our homes and the land as well.

Stephanie 

I love that so much. We really strive to live that way here, doing all the non -toxic stuff where we can, eating organically where we can, just trying to do better, like you said, by the beautiful world that God’s given us. But what made you start this? Everyone has a point where they’re like, okay, we’ve had enough of the conventional garbage. What made you go into a…

doing all the starting with the goat milk soap and cleaning products, all this, what made you dive into that?

Amy 

Well, I guess I think my story goes back just a step before that. You know, I grew up spending a lot of time on my grandparents’ small farm and I loved the way of life that they lived. It was extremely simple and they raised a lot of their own food. My grandma could grow anything and cook anything. It deeply impacted me as a child and I knew that when I grew up, I wanted to be that way.

And I wanted to do all of those things. And so fast forward, you know, several decades, honestly, later, when my husband and I were able to purchase the property we currently live on, we kind of started striving to incorporate some of those things. He also grew up around farming and worked on his grandparents farm, you know, all of his teenage years through college. And so we kind of.

were on this path and ended up, I honestly wanted a dairy animal. I wanted to provide milk, fresh milk for our family. And the dairy cow was my first thing that I really wanted to have. And we just really weren’t set up with the space for that. So we ended up with the dairy goats, which honestly was never on my radar.

But then with the dairy goats and the number that we had came a lot of extra milk and I really wanted to try making the soap and I had read so many things about how wonderful it was. So it was honestly during COVID when everybody was, we were all at home and you know, life was a little bit slower for all of us. And my husband knew this is something I would want, I had been wanting to try.

So he ordered me a whole box of supplies from a random recipe he found online to try it out. So with that, it came, I was super excited and I called my best friend. We honestly weren’t the best quarantiners. We still had a few select people that we spent a lot of time with during.

during COVID because we lived in a really rural area and we missed our friends. So we spent a lot of time together. I called her, I said, hey, Jessica, Matt just bought me all this stuff to make soap. What do you think? She’s like, let’s do it, sounds fun. So that’s honestly how we started. And it’s just kind of grown since then. It took us a very long time to make that first batch. And we started.

meeting about once a week and we ordered some more things and we did a lot more reading and next thing we know we had a lot of soap. And one of us said, you know, what are we going to do with all this? Do you think anybody would actually buy this? And we’re like, well, let’s make some labels and put it on Facebook and see what happens. And we had sold everything we had within 24 hours. And we thought, yeah. And we thought, man, we really.

We might be onto something here, you know, this may be really something worth looking into. And, um, so we just kept trying new things and new scents and new recipes. And, um, here we are four years later, it just has kind of grown and snowballed. And, you know, we live in a community that’s very supportive of each other. So a lot of people here were very anxious to try us out in the beginning, just because we were friends or they knew us and that we were local.

Amy

But since then, we’ve been able to branch out to a lot of other avenues.

Stephanie

So do you still primarily sell locally or do you ship online now?

Amy 

We do sell a lot locally and we have a few shops that we are in. So we have some retail spaces that we sell wholesale to and we really just this winter have we finally hired someone to do a nice website for us and so we have a website up and running now and we do ship across the country.

It’s not a huge part of our business yet, but a part that we’re definitely looking into growing.

Stephanie

That’s so exciting though. Congratulations.

Amy

Yes, thank you. It was a lot of work. It was definitely a labor of love. I was not ready for the amount of work that that was going to be, but it was definitely worth it.

Stephanie

Oh yeah. Yeah. It’s, um, I work with a lot of clients that are either in person or they start in person and then transitioning their businesses online. There’s always like that learning curve of not just the technology, but like learning how online business is different from in -person business because you want it to feel the same. You want it to still have that like personal touch and everything, but it’s kind of weird when you’re just dealing with people through.

Amy (06:53.316)

Yes.

Stephanie (07:02.158)

emails instead of actually speaking to them.

Amy (07:05.284)

Oh, absolutely. That has definitely been a challenge and something we’re still learning to navigate.

Stephanie (07:11.734)

Love it. So on top of your business though, you’ve got a large family, you’ve got a husband, you’re doing business with your best friend. How do you manage to balance all of those things and still, you know, have room to breathe at the end of the day?

Amy

This is one of my greatest life challenges, to be honest with you. And it’s something that I still am at times struggling with and still navigating through that area. It has been hard. And, you know, my, I have eight children. My oldest is 20 and she is a sophomore in college right now. And then we have three in high school, one in middle school and three in elementary school.

Our youngest are eight -year -old twins and they’re in second grade. So we are very, very busy. Our kids are very active in several different sports and clubs and my daughter’s at school two hours away. So, you know, there’s always places to be and people that need things. But for me, it’s just been a season. You know, I could not have done what I am doing right now with toddlers.

or babies, you know, when my twins were born, I had four children who were three and under. Um, this could not be happening then. And that’s one thing I’ve always tried to keep my eyes on and my reminding myself, there are seasons for everything. You know, this is something that’s, you know, I’ve been married 23 years and this is the first time in my marriage that this was really something that I could pursue. And also.

Stephanie

Mm -hmm.

Amy

The other half of this, I think I would say would be keeping it at a place that’s manageable, which a lot of times is hard because, you know, from the business standpoint, a lot of times we do want to focus on, you know, how do we grow our business? How do we increase our, um, our presence online? How do we get into more retail spaces? And then I always have to remind myself and really prayerfully consider, you know, what,

is too much right now or what is it that I can handle right now? What is God’s will for me right now? And maybe that’s something that’s going to be more down the road, but right now I have to be able to put my family first and my kids first and my husband first and keep business at a size that I can still handle and still keep it fun. That’s the thing that…

You know, I don’t ever want this to become something in my life that’s a huge stress or something that’s taking away time that I should be somewhere else. I want it to stay fun and I want it to be something I enjoy doing instead of being something that seems, you know, at a bird as a burden at times or too much work or too many hours where I’m not sleeping or, you know, all of those things.

Stephanie

Oh yeah. And it’s so easy to do that too. Cause like you said, you want to grow your business and it’s really hard sometimes to see that line of when it’s too much.

Amy

Yes, it definitely is. And I think that really just keeping my faith at the forefront of my life and really doing my best to discern God’s will constantly for not only my family, but for the business too. And just, you know, feeling those gentle nudges from him to either, you know, you need to pull back a little bit or you’re neglecting this a little bit, you know, or…

A lot of things for us too are seasonal, like times of the year. Like what times of the year can I give a little bit more? And other times where maybe I can’t, you know, we’re, we’re just coming into kidding season right now. So we have a lot of goats being born and that takes a lot of extra time.

So after Christmas, we’ve spent time like really building up our inventory and trying to get a lot of those things done because I’m going to have to back off just a little bit now to take care of all these goats that are being born and the things that are happening on the farm.

Stephanie 

Do you have other business ventures with your farm? Like, do you sell off some of your kids or do you sell any plants or anything like that too?

Amy

Uh, we do a little bit and I, I say it’s more just kind of a, a break even thing for us right now at this point. Um, we do, we, we raise our goats, not only just for the milk that they give us, but we do do a lot of, um, showing as well. Our kids show in four H at the county and the state level. And we do do some, um, uh, American dairy goat association like shows as well. So we really try to.

We are breeding animals that are not just for the milk, but also to be great additions to the Nigerian dwarf breed and being sold as performance animals as well. My goal every year at this point is just to try to sell my kids for enough to help pay for the hay and the grain for the next year. We sell eggs, we have chickens and ducks, and we just sell locally to eggs that are to people here.

Stephanie

Yeah. Yeah, that’s a bill that’s gone up quite a bit in the last couple of years. At least I know it has around here for us. We’re paying double for feed that we were probably five or six years ago. So that’s a…

Amy

and basically just trying to again support that feed bill for the the chickens.

Yes. Yes, I know we free range our chickens, so we try to get them as much, you know, grass and bugs and things that they’re scratching around in the yard as much as we can, but we do supplement some feed. So this time of year, spring’s coming, so hopefully the feed’s going to go down a little bit.

Stephanie

That that’s smart to at least sell enough to break even on it because at least then you’re you know Not paying extra for it Yeah That’s my hope too

So with everything that you’ve got going on, do you ever set aside time for yourself to do, I don’t know, to just have quiet time in the word, to get a massage, to do something that’s just like helping you to still feel human day to day? Cause I know that’s something that can feel really difficult when we’ve got so much on our plate that things for ourselves just kind of get pushed to the wayside. But do you do anything in particular to help?

Amy 

Yes, I do. And again, I think that this has been something that’s been changed a lot, depending on which season I’m in. You know, when I had little babies who are nursing 24 hours a day and who are waking up, you know, multiple times at night, my answer to this question may have been very different than it is now.

I feel like my kids are old enough that I can put them to bed and they’re sleeping until morning. So getting in bed at night and having a book that I’m reading, that’s something I really enjoy. It’s just that quiet time before bed. When I am milking the goats and I go out in the morning as soon as it’s light to milk, and honestly, it’s my favorite part of the day.

Of course there are days I do not really want to get out of bed and go outside and do that. But I’m coming out and the sun sets coming up and it’s absolutely beautiful outside. The birds are chirping and I’m completely alone and I really enjoy being with the animals. That’s really when I spend my time at prayer every day and I pray. I spend that time just praying and it’s a very methodical thing to do. It’s just you kind of…

There’s not a lot of thought that goes into it necessarily. You just are doing the same thing and it’s kind of soothing. Um, and that’s an hour every day during the milking season. Really, it’s all mine. Nobody else is awake and nobody else is needing anything at that moment. And I really can just, you know, bask in God’s beautiful creation and spend time with him and praying during that time. I do like that, but you know, I do have a lot of.

Stephanie

I love that.

Amy

great friends too and we do spend time together. We do have nights where we go to dinner or you know our family hikes a lot when we can and my husband is very good at being the intentional one to let’s get away. Let’s we need to go for the afternoon or we need to do this so we do spend some time doing those kind of things too.

Stephanie

Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. You definitely need that. So how do you and your best friend manage being best friends and co -owners of a business together? How does that relationship dynamic work?

Amy

This is a continually growing and changing thing, I think. Neither one of us have a background in business. My background’s in veterinary medicine and she is a travel agent as well.

Honestly, owning and running a business is not something that either of us ever really expected to be in. So I think one thing that makes it good for both of us is we’re learning together. And, you know, both of us have done something like, oh, shoot, I shouldn’t have done that. Or, well, that wasn’t, we forgot to do that. And we just are, you know, we try to have fun. A lot of it is to, is really spending time together. And.

while we’re working, we are laughing and we’ve messed up so many times. We’ve thrown away so many batches of soap and we’ve gotten distracted while we’re talking and put in the wrong amount of whatever. And so for us, it’s just been a lot of trial and error learning it, but we are both, we have such a strong relationship outside of the work part that it’s made it pretty easy up to this point. And

We try really hard, you know, when we are together, just socially with our families and having fun, you know, we’re not trying, we’re trying not to talk about soap or what our next product is going to be or what we think, but just to still enjoy each other outside of, of work. But there are challenges deciding, you know, who’s going to do this or who’s responsible for that. Or, you know, sometimes you assume, Oh, I think, you know, Jessica has this done or she may assume the same of me and it didn’t get done. And, um, but nothing.

that’s a big problem or a big issue just trying to navigate all of those things and balancing for her with her other job that she has and she still has, she has kids too. So trying to keep those things all lined up, it has been wonderful too, because we’re both kind of flexible. If…

You know, normally Fridays is always our day we spend making soap all day. And we look forward to Fridays and she’ll text me and say, Hey, tomorrow’s soak day. I’m like, I know I can’t wait because it just gives us that time, you know, away from our regular household duties that we have. And, you know, nine times out of 10, our multiple kids are in here, they’ll come down and hang out with us while we’re working and we have a ping pong table.

you know, here and they’ll play playing ping pong or shooting basketball and we’re making soap or they may help us label the soap. And, um, we look forward to those times on Friday when we’re all together and, um, just to be together and having fun and keeping the atmosphere light and not getting frustrated and, you know, it’s all okay. It works out in the end.

Stephanie

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s so great. You do have to have a strong relationship for that to be the case though, because I know of many people that have gone into business with close friends or family and it’s not always the case. That’s not always how it ends. So I love that y ‘all have got such a good bond that you can

do this in a way that feels fun. And you mentioned your kids coming in with you, do they ever help with like business stuff or any of them interested in like what you’re doing? Like your older kids, especially knowing you before you had the business and now knowing you as a business owner, how has that like changed their mindsets around business or has it, have you even thought about that?

Amy

Yeah, no, I think my kids have found it very interesting to see this grow and to see me maybe in a different role than just mom. And because, you know, I’ve been a stay at home mom since my, you know, oldest was born. I worked full time until she was born and I worked part time for a while after she was born, but she doesn’t remember that. So they’ve always known me as his mom being home and being around and.

So I think that they’ve enjoyed watching this grow and seeing a different side of me and what I’m capable of. But as far as, you know, I can do more than make a grilled cheese. You know, like, oh, you know, moms, people really buy this and mom can really, you know, she’s, she’s doing okay. And, but this is…

also given them an opportunity to help out. And there’s a few of them particularly that have really kind of gotten involved in the business. My sixth grader, we homeschool our kids up through eighth grade. So she’s around on Fridays and she pops in and she’s extremely creative child. And so she’s always wanting to know kind of what we’re doing and how can she help? And she started making her own little… particular bar of soap that she’s been selling it for herself and and then my daughter who’s a senior has kind of come on board with us this year as kind of an intern and she’s been learning a lot like navigating, you making things on Canva as far as flyers and she’s learned all you know how to navigate the labeling system and how to find the labels and get them printed and labeling soap and organizing an inventory and we’ve really appreciated all of her extra help this year. So she does really seem to have an interest and she’s getting ready to go to college to pursue nursing, but it’d be great to have her back and have a little help from her as she’s going to school.

Stephanie 

Yeah. Yeah. That’s so great that at least some of them seem to have an interest in it, because I think that’ll end up molding them more than probably they realize at the time because I know not, I didn’t have any entrepreneurial family members that were close to me. My grandparents did craft shows for a while back in the eighties, but that was before I was born. So I don’t really remember that. I just hear their stories about it. So I know that my friends who do have, um, do have parents or grandparents that were business owners growing up, that really shaped the way that their work ethic.

is as adults now and either encourage them to go into entrepreneurship and make their own business or they take these characteristics into their jobs and they’re like, I don’t know, they seem to be just better at what they do because they had that kind of influence from their close family members, if that makes sense.

Amy

Yeah, I hope that that is the case for my kids as well. You know, just, I also did not have, you know, anyone in my immediate family who was a business owner. So when this all kind of started, I really felt like I was jumping into a hole that I had no idea how to navigate. And so it’s been fun to kind of learn a lot of these things and how the business world works and.

you know, paying sales tax online, like all the things that I, you know, like starting an LLC and, um, you know, meeting with the accountant and helping, having him help me navigate through all of the taxes. Um, there’s been a lot to learn and I’ve tried to share that with the kids kind of as we’ve gone and they, they see the hard work that it, it takes to, to make a profit and to, Get your name out there and to, you know, build a clientele.

Stephanie

So you had said that working, Jessica is your business partner’s name, right? Okay. So you said that Jessica has another job. You both have kids and that you sometimes struggle to know like what each other’s going to be doing, like whose responsibility something is, but do you have like, generally speaking, specific roles that you both play in the business? Like so and so is going to do, you know, all the product packaging and all this and then I’m going to deliver things and like is there any of that?

Amy

We definitely have some categories that we’ve kind of naturally fallen into. Honestly, of the two of us, Jessica is more creative. She is more of a crafter. Like that part of it is more natural for her. So a lot of times she’s the one that’s kind of like, okay, I think we should do this color combination or this essential oil combination.

or, you know, I think we could, what about if we tweak this recipe to add this particular oil more? She just, she sees those things and she’s very, very good at that. And thank goodness, she also loves spreadsheets. So she does a lot of our, you know, entering all of our numbers and keeping track of.

you know, where things go as far as our expenses and our income. And she, she finds a, she loves figuring out all of those, um, formulas for the spreadsheets. And to me, I just, I start having like a small panic attack every time I try to figure out like exactly which column things need to go in. So I am so glad that she, she enjoys that and she’s very good at it. Um,

Because of the actual space that we work in is at my home, it’s on my property. You know, I’m naturally more the, you know, I take care of the space. I am the one who manages most all of the, you know, pickups from the farm and where those are and putting those orders together. And, you know, we trying to check in with people and, you know, who needs what sent to them and keeping track of all of those things. Um,

tends to be more where I kind of fall into that. And then there’s a lot of things that we both do together. And it’s also been nice because if we get an order and one of us is too busy that day and we say, hey, can you grab this online order and get this put together? Yeah, sure, I’ll get it. I’ll get over there and put it together this afternoon and get it in the mail. So there’s a lot of that as well. And we just.

are constantly navigating, like who’s doing what, and depending on what their kids are doing and who’s available at the time.

Stephanie

Do y’all live close together?

Amy

We do. I can almost see her house from mine. We live on 13 acres on a highway and across the highway and to the west there is a subdivision and that’s actually where she lives. So if there were a few less trees and houses, I could probably see her house.

Stephanie

That’s great.

Stephanie

Okay. Love it. That’s got to make things a lot easier though to be that close.

Amy

Yes, it definitely helps being very close to each other. So her to pop in over here, to fill an order or to drop off a shipment or whatever isn’t that time consuming.

Stephanie

Yeah. Yeah. So looking ahead, what are your business goals? Like what, how are y ‘all planning to grow without, you know, overburdening yourselves and, you know, get your brand out there, expand the business? What, what are your goals around all that?

Amy

Yes, we, I’d say our main goal right now just with having just built this new website is really to increase our presence online and to do some more shipping. That is kind of our primary goal right now. We are also trying to decide exactly what kind of new products we want to venture into and.

You know, we’ve started with just primarily soap and now we’ve, we are making laundry soap and I’m testing some dishwasher detergent at the house. And yeah, we just made our first like a tallow, a whipped tallow facial balm. So some of those things we’re trying to decide exactly, you know, what kind of new products we want to carry and how far we want to go with that. But.

Stephanie

Oh, that’s exciting.

Amy

I think those are the two main things is just new product development and just really increasing our presence online with the new website that we’ve put all the time into creating.

Stephanie 

Yeah. Do you foresee yourselves ever growing like into having employees or anything like that?

Amy

It’s definitely something that’s kind of continually on and off the table, I suppose. I feel like in order to have an employee at this point, we would really have to beef up our production and our sales. And again, you know, like I was talking about, I was really discerning where…

God wants me in my life and I just don’t know if that’s really the pace now. So someday, absolutely. Today, I don’t think that that’s going to fit in really well with our life. And even just having my daughter Alex helping us out a couple mornings a week, or afternoons actually, it’s been a huge help and has helped cover some of the extra things that were having to do with a little increased traffic on the website and orders.

Stephanie

Yeah, that’s amazing. So talk about some of the new products you’re creating. What are some of your favorite things that you’ve got?

Amy 

Well, obviously the soap is the star. It is, you know, it’s a body soap, hand soap, shampoo. I mean, you can use it for anything as far as cleaning and washing kids and even little babies. And we have a dog soap too that’s kind of formulated special for dogs and goats. I’ve used it on my goats as well.

So, you know, we all have our favorite scents. I love the lavender peppermint is one of my favorites. But I would say outside of the soap, my favorite is our dish soap. So we experiment with a solid dish soap, which at first we were a little skeptical because you don’t really see anyone using a solid dish soap. But we tried it and it’s the best.

lathers so well and it washes so many dishes, cuts the grease. So we’ve really, I’ve loved that and my kids will even wash the dishes with it. And we’ve sold quite a bit of it and people always come back and say, I cannot believe how well that lathers and how well that cuts the grease. And we also have a laundry stain stick that’s really similar and it gets out about any stain on any fabric that we’ve found. So.

Those two things I think maybe were the most surprising to me after doing a lot of experimenting and trying different things that they are two of my favorite things to be using daily.

Stephanie 

I would imagine that the dish soap that probably keeps your hands from drying out too much too with having the goat’s milk in it. Yeah.

Amy

Yes, it does. It cuts grease really well, but at the same time, it’s surprisingly gentle on my hands. Since we’ve started making soap, and I’ve been using that primarily, I no longer am having cracked hands. My hands used to crack and bleed, and I don’t have that anymore. Just that the extra fat in the soap from the goat’s milk really is very moisturizing. It really makes a big difference.

Stephanie 

Yeah, that’s amazing. So as we’re getting closer to our rapid fire question section here, can you offer some advice to any other homemakers that are listening that are looking to start or grow a business, especially if they’re wanting to do it with a close friend or family member like you’ve done?

Amy

Well, I guess this is kind of in the theme of a lot of what I’ve said is just, you know, finding that season when it’s the time to go. Really knowing if it’s something in your life you’re ready to give the space and the time and the heart to. And if it’s not, the right time or you’re not sure, you know, it’s okay to go really slow. Do all the research, do the reading, talk to people, find a good mentor, find people who have…

have done this and learn from them and ask a lot of questions. And it’s okay to take it slow. For me personally, my husband is our main source of income. We don’t rely on income from my business. So I was able to do that. And if you’re in a situation where that is also you, it’s okay to just take your time and take little steps and…

Just learn as you go. It’s, it’s hard when you have a passion for something and you see a need for it and you really want to be able to help people with that, not to just go a million miles an hour. And maybe some people can do that and that’s where they are at and they’re able to. But if you’re like me and you’re, you’re also raising children and you have other, you know, things in your life that are.

that are needing you, it’s okay to go slow and to take your time. And it doesn’t, you know, you’re going to have good months and you’re going to have bad months or even a bad year. But if it’s really what you’re being called to and it’s a passion that you know in your heart, that’s where God wants you to be. In the end, it’s all going to come to fruition and be successful.

Stephanie

so good. I’m not even going to elaborate on that. That was just that was perfect. So now let’s get into some rapid fire questions. This is one of my favorite parts of interviews just to get to know you a little bit more. So our first question is, what is your favorite thing about homesteading?

Amy

Oh, I was thinking about this when you sent me the questions. And I think hands down, it’s just, I love being outdoors and working together as a family. I have no greater satisfaction than one of those beautiful summer days when all of us are outside and it’s beautiful and we’re working. You know, I’m unfortunately not a person who likes to do an organized exercise program.

but you give me a hundred bales of hay and that’s my work. That’s my workout. Those are the things that I like to do. And I love doing those things with my husband and my kids. And the kids, they do work hard and they learn a lot of hard work from that. And when doing it together, it always ends up in some sort of shenanigans and somebody’s being silly. And I really…

Stephanie

Yeah, yeah. You don’t need anything beyond that.

Amy 

enjoy those times together. And then secondly to that, you know, I have, I’ve just feel a really deep satisfaction in growing food and raising our animals and just, you know, it’s, it’s not always easy and it’s not always fun. But to be able to do that and to watch things grow and to provide food for my family that was grown here by us from our hard work is.

is also just one of my absolute favorite things and to see my kids enjoy that as well has been truly a blessing to me.

Stephanie 

that, yeah, I’m with you on loving being outside and growing all the food. We’ve got, um, our bathroom doubles as our greenhouse right now because we don’t have a greenhouse. And it’s just easier because I mean, I’m in there, you know, several times a day, so I can go and check on the seedlings and everything. And right now we’ve got the shelf just full of little trays and I’m so excited to be planting things out here soon. Um, I don’t know how long y ‘all’s growing season is.

Amy 

Yeah.

Stephanie 

in Indiana, like do you have a significant period where you can grow for long periods?

Amy

Yeah, we do. I have peas and lettuce and spinach and all that in the ground in my garden currently. The farmers will start planting corn and beans here probably in the next month to six weeks, depending on the rain actually and how this weather pattern goes. But our peach trees are blooming right now and apple trees are getting ready too.

Stephanie

That’s so exciting. So this is kind of along the same lines of the question I just asked, but what is your favorite non -work related thing to do? So maybe non -homesteading related since your homesteading practices kind of fall into what your business practices are too.

Amy 

Right. I think that again, it kind of falls back to just being with my husband and the kids and maybe, you know, we spend time hiking. Like a lot of times, you know, Sunday afternoons, we’ll just get in the car and drive an hour or so away and do a hike. Or we like to just stumble upon fun adventures and some kayaking maybe, or.

You know, or just some movie night, like Friday movie nights are my favorite when all we’re all home and don’t have to be anywhere and we can just find some movie and snuggle up on the couch and we eat a lot of popcorn. And, uh, those are kind of my favorite things. And also I love to read. And I’ve kind of someone, I just love to learn about new things and how to do new things. And, um, I really.

spend a lot of time just finding non -fiction books on how to, right now I picked up, I got a couple of herbal books for Christmas and you know making some medicinal tinctures and those things. So that’s kind of my new thing. I’m like it’s and I just have enjoyed doing that kind of on my own.

Stephanie 

I love that. That’s so exciting. Yeah, I’ve got, I have a bookcase that’s full of fiction books and then a much larger bookcase that’s full of nonfiction books. And I have a tendency to like constantly be learning like that. And then sometimes I’m like, I just need a break to where I’m reading something that’s, you I’m not learning anything. I’m just reading for the practice of reading. So that’s why I keep my fiction books too.

Amy

Yes, I do love a good novel as well where you can just kind of lose yourself in the story and not think about anything else.

Stephanie

Yeah. Yeah. And I love that too, especially since I’m, I mean, I’m a brand of website designer, so my eyes are on screens the majority of the work day. So most of my like extracurricular stuff, I like to be non -screen related. So when my husband’s wanting to be watching TV in the evenings, when he gets home from work, I’m like, I’ll just read my book while you watch TV. Cause my eyes are done by the time the end of the day rolls around.

So what is a book or a podcast or other resource that has helped you either in motherhood, your faith, business, whatever category you want to go with.

Amy

Yeah, I really spent some time thinking about this and I honestly had trouble coming up with a particular one. I do listen to a lot of faith related podcasts. I do have a Rosary podcast that I listen to every single day and it grounds me and centers me and keeps me focused on Christ. I think the biggest resource for me and just kind of the way my brain works and how I learn is from other people.

Um, finding good mentors, people who know more than me and asking the questions. And I love hearing people’s stories and why they do what they do. And, um, for example, I had a man who owns an orchard nearby who is a retired veterinarian, which is right up my alley, you know, having been in veterinary medicine myself and he, um, he came over and showed me.

how to properly trim my apple trees. And I just enjoyed, I loved talking with him and watching him and learning from him. And I’ve had a lot of mentors just with our raising our goats and when you have a problem and one is sick or there’s a problem during delivery to call and just learn from people. So I always try to surround myself with people who are doing amazing things in their lives. And…

things that are interesting to me and getting to know them and just soaking in all the knowledge that they have and are willing to share.

Stephanie 

I love that. That’s one of the reasons I’ve really enjoyed doing interviews on this podcast because I learned so much from the people that I’m interviewing. Like I’ve learned so much from you today. And that’s just, to me, that’s just a testament to the good way that we can use the internet. Like the internet can be used for a lot of bad things, obviously. And it’s, you know, social media, things like that really suck a lot of our time away. But for instance, it’s like this, like we would have never accidentally crossed paths with each other.

We’re like, you know, hundreds of miles away. So this is such a cool thing to be able to learn from people that are all over the world, just by chatting over the internet. So I think that’s so awesome. Now, one of my favorite questions to ask at the end of interviews is what does being a homemaker in business mean to you?

Amy

Oh, I feel like for me and with what I do and, you know, I guess all of us choose a business that really can highlight our gifts, you know, and those things that God has given us to help people and to bring people together and to…

offer those gifts that he’s given us to others. That’s kind of what it means to me and, you know, using the things that not just my gifts as far as what I’m good at doing, but also my gifts in my land and with my animals and with, you know, with that as well.

you know, being able to have children here that want to come see the baby goats and just making those connections with kids and giving them opportunities to, you know, see those things or having a 4 -H group come and do a demonstration on how we make soap and why we make soap. And without my soap business, I wouldn’t have those opportunities to connect with people and to be able to have people who…

aren’t really aware of necessarily where their food comes from or how plants are grown or how animals are born, you know, is really a huge gift to me. I feel so passionate about people being connected to the farm, into the land, into where their products come from and how they’re made. And I love being able to show that to people and to welcome them into our home and into our family to see those things happen.

Stephanie

That’s so beautiful. I love that. All right, Amy. Well, lastly, can you tell everyone where they can connect with you online? Buy from you, get to know you, all that good stuff.

Amy

Yes, well I would love to share our new website. I’m so proud of it and I’m so excited to see it come to completion. It is Hopehillfamilyfarm .com. So the name of our farm is Hopehill Farm. So just Hopehillfamilyfarm .com and we can also be found on Instagram with Hopehillfamilyfarm.

and Facebook is Hope Hill Family Farm, Indiana.

Stephanie

All right, well, all of that will be in the show notes. So everyone will be able to easily just click over to wherever they want to find you. I’ll encourage everyone to check you out and follow you on Instagram, follow you on Facebook, check out the new website. Naomi, just thank you so much for being on today. This has been a true blast. Like I’ve had so much fun.

Amy

Thanks so much for having me. I’ve enjoyed it very much as well.