O'Connor Family Acres - Surprise Piglets and a Soap Business Begins

Today I'm talking with Tracy at O'Connor Family Acres. The Soap BeeZZ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Tracy at O'Connor Family Acres in Le Sueur, Minnesota. It's a hyper local episode. Welcome Tracy, how are you? Hi Mary, thanks for having me. I am doing well today. It seems like it's going to be a little warmer today here, so very excited. And we're supposed to get freezing rain later today too. 00:28 I mean, why wouldn't we? It's Minnesota. So yeah, it's very gray, but that's why we're warmer. so yeah, Tracy's been on the show before. It was a little over a year ago. And we talked about that you had just gotten pigs, mangalitas, mangalitas. Yep. And um that was the newest thing then. And Tracy has been selling her duck eggs in the summertime, all this past summer. 00:58 at our farm stand, at our place. So it's been kind of fun. Yeah, it's been a great collaboration. I really appreciated the opportunity and it's been nice because we, springtime and summer, we are overflowing with duck eggs and then they take the winter off and know, hunker down, I guess. Yeah, about the time they stopped really laying, we had a couple of people stop in and ask if we had duck eggs and I was like, nope, they're on vacation until April. 01:27 It's very true. they yeah we and you can put heat and light in the coop But we kind of let them follow their natural cycle. That's just you know, the way we've we decided to do it. So Yeah, when they lay they lay very proficiently and when they don't they don't so You know, so what else is new on the farm in 2025 because I didn't talk to you on the podcast since December of 2024 01:57 Yeah, so we've really just been expanding the goats. We've had some baby goats this past spring and so they've been doing really well. um Getting kind of a wrangle on what the ideal number of ducks are. So we've been working on that. And then we had baby piglets unexpectedly this fall. I mean, kind of unexpectedly. We knew the boar was in there with her, but... 02:25 We didn't realize she was pregnant. that was a fun uh adventure. And thankfully, our mama pig, Fiona, her name's Fiona, has been doing really well with the piglets. So we have six gorgeous little baby piglets running around. How old are they now? Oh, they would be about two and a half months. OK. Yeah. 02:53 They were right before Halloween. just, yeah, just over about almost two and a half months. And they are so adorable. Like so adorable. I saw the pictures on Facebook that you posted, but I couldn't tell from the pictures how big they were when they were born. Were they the size of your hand or were they bigger than that? Yeah, they were probably the size of two of my hands, I would say. But they were, I mean, they were teeny teeny. 03:23 um And then of course it was October in Minnesota, so we got to pick them up and bring them in the barn and mama did great with that. She was not overly thrilled but was not aggressive, which was great. And then we were able to, after a bit of time, coax her into the barn. um And we had the heat lamp set up in there and they have a big enough paddock where they can 03:49 go to the other side or come back and be under the heat lamp if they want. And they are just, they're doing super great in there. So yeah, looking forward to figuring out what we're going to do with. So what'll be eight pigs now, two adults. We have the male boar and then the female. And then we have the six piglets and of the six, I think only one is male. So all the rest are female as well too. 04:19 Oh wow. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Well, you might be in the market to sell a couple sows in the spring. Exactly. Exactly. I don't think they're called sows until they have babies. don't know what version Yeah, I'd have look. It's... guilt? Are they guilt maybe? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I don't know. I'd have to Google it and I don't... 04:46 want to make the clicky clacky noises on the keyboard right now. So yeah, no, I feel you. Yes, exactly. And then I've been doing soap. Soap has been my new adventure this year. yeah, tell me the story on how that happened because I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I kind of fell into it, which was awesome. So my neighbor has the soapies is the name of the business. 05:12 um And the soap bees has been around for 20 years, over 20 years. So my neighbor, Anne, who is amazing, um was looking to retire and not do soap anymore. um And she asked if I would be interested in taking over the business. And so we made some soap together and I was like, oh my gosh, I love...