Barnyard Language

Hosted by Caite Palmer and Arlene Hunter

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Episodes

225

Latest episode

Jul 2026

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About the show

Real talk about running farms and raising families. Whether your farm is a raised bed in your backyard or 10,000 acres and whether your family is in the planning stages or you've got 12 kids, we're glad you found us! No sales, no religious conversion, no drama. Just honest talk from two mamas who know what it's like when everyone is telling you to just get all your meals delivered and do all your shopping online, but your internet is too slow and you've got cows to feed.

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60 recent

September 24, 202653 min

The Power of Connection and Community in Agriculture with Amanda Donlon

This week, Caite and Arlene interview Amanda Donlon from Froelich, Iowa, a tiny town tied to tractor inventor John Froelich and its Fall-der-all celebration. Amanda and her husband Lance raise three kids while farming corn and soybeans and running a diesel mechanic/dirt work/tire business, collaborating with nearby in-laws who farm separately but share labor and specialized skills. Amanda describes shifting from a two-hour daily nursing commute to a work-from-home patient safety job with some travel, and how close family networks support childcare during planting and harvest. She reflects on her farm upbringing, on-farm hog butchering and homemade meats, parenting transitions, kids’ distinct personalities, benefits and challenges of raising children on a farm, and practical farm first-aid preparedness. In “cuss and discuss,” they share humorous family stories, discuss mental health resources and the importance of asking “Are you okay?”, and touch on a host’s adjustment to an 18-year-old leaving home. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

September 10, 202654 min

Season Six Kick Off! Homesteading with Andrea: Life Off-the-Grid in British Columbia

This week, Caite and Arlene are back with Season Six and kick it off with a conversation with Andrea from Three Birch Homestead in British Columbia about what she’s “growing” on her off-grid homestead: garlic, two milk cows, goats (now planning to sell them), pigs, a few chickens, and turkeys. She describes using milk for cheese, yogurt, and butter, feeding skim milk to pigs, and plans to expand pork production due to demand. Andrea explains her path into homesteading, their off-grid systems (solar plus propane and wood heat), and challenges of farming with limited power and infrastructure. She shares family dynamics with two small children, a 14-year-old, and adult daughters, homeschooling logistics, and work income from her online job, her husband’s glass jewelry, and farm sales. She discusses failures like sheep, goals for more gardens, fencing, and kitchen space, and her chicken paper dolls (Henrietta and Roostopher). The episode ends with discussion of high grocery prices, appreciation for farmers, and barriers to starting farms. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

July 30, 20261 hr 49 min

The importance of succession with Anessa Good-Hassard

This week, Caite and Arlene discuss the one thing that most farms and families overlook, which are the critical details that can make or break their succession plans. Anessa Good-Hassard, a trusted expert in farm succession and intergenerational transfer, reveals proven strategies to avoid family conflicts, financial pitfalls, and legal surprises that often derail the next chapter.In this episode, you’ll learn how proactive conversations and clear documentation can protect both family relationships and farm viability. Anessa shares practical frameworks like the three-circle model, plus real-world advice on off-farm income, perks, heritage equity, and legal safeguards that support a smooth transition.This conversation is ideal for farm owners, future successors, and family advisors who want to reduce risk and build a resilient, transparent plan for the future. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

July 16, 20261 hr 20 min

Supporting Rural Births with Brittany Higgins

This week, Caite and Arlene interview Illinois doula Brittany Higgins, a former labor nurse who left hospital work about 18 months ago to run her doula business while raising two daughters and living on a corn, soybean, and Black Angus cattle farm. Higgins explains that doulas provide non-medical education and support prenatally, during labor, and postpartum, including helping process prior birth trauma, offering continuous presence through long labors, supporting partners, and sometimes assisting with C-sections depending on hospital rules. The conversation highlights rural maternal-care challenges such as long travel distances, limited services like VBAC availability, and closing delivery facilities. Higgins discusses pain-management options beyond epidurals, boundaries and advocacy in birth, postpartum mental health support and resources, practical ways to help new parents, and using Reiki and therapy for trauma. The episode ends with parenting reflections, county fair fun, and where to find Higgins online and locally. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

July 2, 20261 hr 2 min

Life After Bankruptcy on the Farm with Cassandra Row

Cassandra Row, joining Arlene and Caite from Nebraska, describes “growing” three children (ages nine, six, and four), an accidental homestead (garden; chickens, guineas, turkeys, ducks; a milk cow and calf; summer pigs and butchering), and two businesses: her husband’s ag-service trenching/welding/fencing work and her rural-focused marketing business. With a lifelong ag background (K-State animal science; master’s in ruminant nutrition), she explains how multigenerational financial issues, poor transition planning, drought, storms, irrigation expenses, and losing land leases led her family to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy in 2024 after beginning liquidation in 2023, a process not finalized until 2025. She discusses identity shifts, explaining liquidation to kids, the importance of supportive friends and family, using coaching/counseling, getting blunt financial and tax advice, and continuing involvement in agriculture by helping her parents farm while maintaining the homestead. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

June 18, 20261 hr 7 min

Family Roots and Hemp Shoots with Morgan Tweet, CEO of IND Hemp

Arlene and Caite sit down this week with Morgan Tweet, CEO of IND Hemp in Fort Benton, Montana, discuss “growing” her young family, the industrial hemp industry, and a Black Angus cow-calf herd on about 1,200 acres along the Missouri River. IND Hemp, founded in 2019 with her father, employs about 55 people across two Montana locations and has worked with roughly 40 growers, managing over 30,000 hemp acres, with facilities for fiber decortication and seed processing. She explains hemp’s three production categories (grain, fiber/biomass, and floral/cannabinoids), contrasting planting densities, compliance risk, and equipment needs, and addresses hemp’s prohibition history. The company sells B2B hemp hearts, oil, protein, hurd (mainly animal bedding), and fiber for insulation, automotive panels, wipes, erosion control, and emerging textiles. She describes advocacy in DC, feed approval work for hemp seed meal in laying hens via the Hemp Feed Coalition, and her education efforts as “The Industry Mama,” alongside reflections on parenting, childcare, and ranch life. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

June 4, 20261 hr 31 min

Rural Resilience: Will Westmoreland on Farming, Politics, and Community

Will Westmoreland, a Missouri agroforestry grower, discusses focusing on expanding Chinese chestnuts and developing gluten-free chestnut flour, after past work with elderberries and a family cow-calf operation. He explains chestnut production timelines (fruit in 3–5 years, heavy yields in 8–10) and uses in silvopasture, and describes building retail products through his large Back 40 following. Westmoreland founded The Back 40 as rural advocacy to counter stereotypes about rural voters and address rural decline driven by out-migration, weak local economies, and policy neglect. He outlines Back 40’s priorities: rural-framed local policy, health access awareness, voter empowerment, and economic resilience, emphasizing major rural healthcare shortfalls, education engagement, broadband/infrastructure investment, and constructive persuasion over culture-war issues. He argues immigration can revive small towns and shares where to find him and Back 40 online. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

May 21, 202650 min

Balancing Act: Parenting, Farming, and Advocacy with Anna Pesek

This week, Caite and Arlene interview Iowa farmer, Anna Pesek of Over the Moon in rural Delaware County, about what she’s “growing”: farrow-to-finish purebred Berkshire hogs, pasture-raised chickens and turkeys, a meat business, alternative supply chains, and a two-year-old. Anna describes scaling from two to 21 sows, finishing about 100 pigs a year with hopes of 200+, raising a couple thousand birds, aggregating meat with other young farmers, and balancing an off-farm remote job. She shares her Massachusetts-to-Iowa path through ag education, policy work, and advocacy organizations, and highlights Practical Farmers of Iowa’s Savings Incentives Program and Chop Local’s role in building direct-to-consumer meat sales before moving to overthemoonmeat.com. They discuss how parenting changed farm priorities, childcare supported by nearby family, mom guilt and travel for advocacy, and concerns about USDA cuts to land-access training programs, plus a host’s uncertainty over a potential high-speed rail route. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

May 7, 20261 hr 6 min

Grace, Grit and Lipstick with Shelby Watson Hampton

In this conversation with Shelby Watson Hampton, the first Maryland and first vineyard guest, describes her family’s five-acre estate vineyard and on-farm winery (six grape varieties; planted 2014; winery opened 2017) where they grow, harvest, process, bottle, and sell wine, plus a wedding barn converted from horse stables. Her husband manages the vineyard and works for the county soil conservation district; they have a four-year-old son and she is pregnant with their second child. Shelby explains vineyard labor, harvest timing, and staffing without H-2A, compares agritourism realities, and shares her family’s farm evolution from tobacco and hogs (since 1955) to a tree nursery and early agritourism, then to the current business after her grandfather’s death. She advises on succession planning, zoning/permitting for agritourism, recommends NAFDMA, discusses winery sales/shipping, wedding mishaps, her 2023 book “Grace, Grit, and Lipstick,” parenting challenges, and a recent loss of six pet chickens to a dog. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.

April 23, 202630 min

We Don't Talk Politics but We’re Making an Exception: A Conversation With Rob Sand, Candidate for Iowa Governor

In this episode of Barnyard Language, Caite and Arlene sit down with Rob Sand to talk about family, leadership, and what it really means to “grow” something meaningful. Rob shares about raising his two sons, building a strong marriage, and his work in public service. He also gives insight into his run for governor, including his goal of hosting town halls in every county to bring people together across political lines. The conversation touches on political reform, why he believes independent voters deserve a stronger voice, and what motivated him to run after changes limited the auditor’s ability to investigate taxpayer spending. We're glad you're joining us for another episode of Barnyard Language. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend (or two) and be sure to rate and review us wherever you're listening! If you want to help us keep buying coffee and paying our editor, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon to help us stay on the air. You can find us on Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok as BarnyardLanguage, and if you'd like to connect with other farming families, you can join our private Barnyard Language Facebook group . We're always in search of future guests for the podcast. If you or someone you know would like to chat with us, get in touch. If you have a something you'd like to Cuss & Discuss, you can submit it here: speakpipe.com/barnyardlanguage or email us at barnyardlanguage@gmail.com.