Episode 287: Balance in Life with Michelle Riesgraf
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Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I'm Emily Kaiser and I'm here with Liz Kittrell and Nicole Williams. Today we have an interview with Michelle Riesgraf. Welcome, Michelle.

Thank you. Michelle is going to share about how she has found balance using the Charlotte Mason method with her family. We've been doing a series all season long, trying to bring you snapshots from different people's lives because we do all have challenges balancing our lives with all the other things that we're supposed to do and adding homeschooling and particularly homeschooling with Charlotte Mason into the mix. And so we're speaking with several people in our listening audience who we know have

common challenges that many of us face and we want to hear a little bit about their experience and ask them to share some of their lessons they've learned and wisdom with us. So Michelle, as we start out, would you share a little bit about your family and how you came to live at the farm you currently are at?

Thank you, Emily. So as you said, I live at a farm. It is a special type of farm. It's called Hope Farm School. It's a farm and a school for inner city boys ages 11 to 18 who are failing out of school for all reasons. The man who started the farm grew up on a farm in southwestern Minnesota and he

He saw that that way of life was really helpful to him as he became older. He had started a school, an inner city school in Minneapolis to help kids there. He really has a, he and his wife both have a heart for children. And so they started this school to help the inner city children. And they saw that even having a special school within the city wasn't enough for some families and some children. They need a little extra help. And he really felt the Lord was putting it on his heart and

to start a farm school. And so he started looking around for opportunities to do that. And there ended up being people who just came to him, bought land, donated land, donated money. So he was able to start a farm school. And how we got to be here, that's a whole nother question. So the school has been going on for seven years now. We joined the school about four years ago.

That would be my husband and my children and myself. So we have five children. They're ages 15 to 6 years old. The first three are boys. They're 15, 13, 10. And then we have twin 6-year-old girls. About four years ago, before and a half years ago now, my husband got a phone call from his father saying, I heard that Hope Farm School has an opening for a farm operations manager.

And at the time, my husband and I were at a place in their life where my husband, he had started a new business with a friend of his. And they had been working on that for a couple of years and kind of gotten to the point where it had become apparent that they had very different working styles and it just wasn't working out. And so we had just decided that we were going to stop that business. And we were looking at what we were going to do next. And we weren't sure which direction we were going to go to. And then all of a sudden we get this phone call.

about Hope Farm School from his parents. My husband's parents live very close to the school, and they had been volunteering there for a number of years. So we had heard about it, but we hadn't actually been there ourselves or volunteered there ourselves. And so we started looking into the possibility of this farm operations manager

We had been living in the city of St. Paul at the time, right in the middle of the city. And we had been thinking about getting out of the city for a long time. But prior to this business practice my husband had was part of a large construction business.

or fairly large. He had 30 employees, 30 plus employees at the time. It's big enough, right? And he was getting kind of tired of managing the business. I think part of it was when you get to be that large, he was doing a lot of the office work and the managing, of course, and then he wasn't able to be in the field with the guys doing the actual work. And so the things that he loved about construction, he wasn't doing anymore. And he was having to focus on

these other tasks. And so he wasn't as hands-on as he liked to be. And he was getting tired of it. But when you have a business that's large, you have a lot of employees depending upon you. So you can't just leave.

And even though we had looked at moving out, just the commute is always difficult when you do that. That would be difficult for family life. So we decided not to do that. And then his other partners bought him out unexpectedly, which ended up being a blessing. So he went into a secondary business with a friend of his, which, like I said, they just had different managing styles. So we decided to stop that. We heard the call to help farm school.

came down and found out more about it and also found out it didn't come with any wage at the time. So we were thinking, how in the world does a challenge? How do we, how do we, you know, leave our house and come down here and, you know, not earn anything. But the Lord ended up working it out. There is because of his construction skills, um,

the school needed to have one of their barns turned into a schoolhouse as well as a commercial kitchen so they can expand the amount of boys that they were doing. And so instead of hiring a contractor, they were able to pay him to do that and then eventually became a full-time job for him. So in 2020, right as the first lockdown of COVID sped up, that's when we decided we were going to see if the Lord had this for us and going to move down here. It didn't really have anything to do with COVID. That actually was

a pause for us of should we be moving during COVID? Should we just be sitting here? So we just thought, well, we'll put our house on the market and we'll see if it sells because obviously with no income, we need to, we can't be, you know, paying for an additional house in the city.

So, the Lord ended up having it sell right away. Wow. Right away. So, it became very clear, like, God was opening up doors for us to move down here. So, we did. So, now we live down at this farm. It's about 460 acres, I believe. Wow. Between two properties. It's in southwestern Wisconsin, right on the Mississippi River. So...

The Mississippi River at this point borders Wisconsin and Minnesota, so we're just on the Wisconsin side of the river. And so my husband manages the farm operations part of it. I'm his sidekick, helping out with what we need to do. And we have children, and they all help out as well in various ways, whether it's driving tractors or skid stairs or gardening or helping watch the other family's children when they need child care.

So we're not the only family that works down here. There's other families as well. Yeah. And did you say your husband had grown up on a farm or something like that? He did. So he grew up on an organic beef cattle farm. Okay. Right in this area in Stockholm, Wisconsin. And so he, and his dad was in construction. So he had those skills from growing up. He already knew how to manage cattle, how to do some things with crops. Now, of course,

It had been years since he had done that, since he'd been on the phone. It was back there in his experience and stuff. It was back in his experience. We had that. But we've also been really blessed to have his parents here. So he works pretty closely with his dad. You know, when he has questions, he asks his dad and they both help each other out and help each other. Do you have any experience? No.

I didn't have any farm experience. I had a lot of gardening experience. When I was in the cities, I did a lot of canning and gardening that way. And so that was good prep for coming down here, especially with the big income change. It was really helpful to have a lot of those skills of growing your own food. There were certain things I didn't know, starting seeds and whatnot, that I learned along the way. Yeah, right, right.

So I know what our listeners are now waiting to find out is where does Charlotte Mason fit into this picture? How did you discover her and begin to implement her methods in your homeschooling effort? Okay, so bear with me on this story. It's kind of headed someplace here. I'm sure it's fascinating. Charlotte Mason. So way long time ago, when my firstborn was less than two years old,

We are living up in the woods of Wisconsin, more northern Wisconsin, and going to a church there. And a woman walks into church and she comes up to me and asks me,

so what method of homeschooling are you going to use? And at that point, I just looked at her like a deer in headlights because homeschool is not on our radar at all. We had both been to public school and, you know, that it wasn't a thought in our head that we would do anything other than that. So this friend is, uh, she's still a very, very good friend of ours, even though she now lives far away from us. But, um,

That started my husband and I looking at like, wow, homeschool. What exactly is that? Is that a choice or not? And how do we go about that? So we ended up going to this very large homeschooling conference in

in Minnesota and we walk in there and you go on the convention floor and it's just all these vendors and we're like deer in headlights. We both just grab each other's arms and we're like, promise me you're not going to buy anything. What are we doing? And through that, I believe Sonia Schaefer was actually at that particular convention

So that's probably our first thing that we heard about Charlotte Mason. Still didn't know a lot about it at the time. We love the idea of nature and the idea of books, but how does that all roll out? And so Griffin was so young that we just spent a lot of time researching and looking into these different things. And what we ended up doing was a program that a lot of different people do.

Initially, which was not Charlotte Mason, it was a good friend of ours who was doing it and still is doing it. But I just found for my children that it was not a good fit. It was heavy on the memorization. And so my oldest, who is very good at memorizing,

was becoming very prideful because he would memorize one fact about something and think that he knew everything about the particular thing. And my second son does not memorize well or quickly. And so he was just very discouraged and frankly feeling stupid. I mean, he just would come away so sad because he wasn't memorizing things and couldn't remember things when he went back there. And so for both of my children at the time, it just was...

not good for their characters. And so about that time, I became pregnant with the girls and it just became clear like this is not what we need to be doing. So then we stopped and I was like, what do we do now? And that same friend who walked into that church years ago handed me the book for the children's sake, right? The Gateway book to Charlotte Mason.

So I read that book and it's like, oh, this is it. And but how do I do this? And so I started to look online to find Charlotte Mason groups to see if there were any that were close to us. And I found a gal in the Twin Cities, the St. Paul, Minneapolis area who is doing a small immersion conference at her church called

There was maybe 20 or 30 of us who attended, but it was just so wonderful to go there and be taught like you would teach it in immersion style. And it just really, like, falls in my head of like, oh, we can do this. This is doable. We can figure this out. And it's around that same time that I started doing more online looking and found you, of course, and started listening to all the episodes. And that's, that was super helpful. And that, of course, led to reading Charlotte Mason's volumes, um,

And starting to practice it, it was, and I think pretty quickly after I found you, I had a consult with Liz and then that, that was so helpful. I mean, it just, it saved me. I think the first year I had tried to use LBRE and I just couldn't figure out the different pieces and how to put it together. And it was so helpful to be able to have Liz and you, Emily, be able to put something together for us. So I'm so grateful for that. And we still do that, of course. Yeah.

So around that time, we had stopped doing that one program, started doing it at home. We moved down to the farm. And at the farm, I was realizing that there were still some things that I was struggling with putting the pieces together or fully implementing it. And I just thought, well, I need to find some moms who are doing this better than I'm doing this and learn from them.

So at the time I had come across, um, the, the mom who I taught the immersion had a co-op in the cities when I had gone there originally and we had considered joining, but it was just, it wasn't the right timing for us. The, my twins were just babies. They were in the car carriers then, and my boys were all very little. And so we ended up, we tried going to a couple of the planning sessions and just trying to

handle the twins and all the paraphernalia that come when you're carrying the soda you know snow piles it was just clear like this is not working my kids were getting stressed out and I was stressed out it's like time is not right we're meant to be at home right now not running around so we did that but then it was different when we got down to Hope Farm School and the kids were starting to get a little bit older even though the girls at the time were

Well, when we moved down here, they were two. But at the time when I started thinking about that, we needed something more. They were four, which was a little bit earlier than I would have wanted. But we were past, you know, COVID and co-ops are starting to open up again and whatnot. And so we found the same co-op.

And the leader at the co-op at the time was like, well, why would you want to drive back to the Twin Cities? It's like a good 90 minute drive. It's good traffic from where we live right now. But at that time, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. We had to go back to the cities once a week anyway, minimum to help out. And then he died and then my mom needed and is continuing to need help. So we need to be in the cities on a regular basis to help out my family. So we

So we ended up joining this co-op and then that has been wonderful because then I'm learning from other moms who are doing things better and then able to share the strengths that I have as well. And so for our family, it's just been a very good fit at the time. I wouldn't necessarily recommend everybody driving 90 minutes to get somewhere, but there's

where things like that make sense. And so this is just a time where it makes sense for what we need to do anyway to be able to go there. And it's been wonderful for my older children especially to have other older children to talk to. There's just certain things where the discussion is better sometimes when you can have...

other teenagers that are that are discussing things like savior of the world for example in co-op is a really beautiful thing and you know what they're able to come up with and the questions that they ask is really wonderful so what we want to shift just a tad and take all that foundation which your story is so awesome and i love to hear all of it and there's a few parts that i still would like you to share about but um

How does it look then to do all of this? Like, what are the challenges that you find from balancing school and co-op and the farm? And how do you navigate that both on the day to day? I would say like, you know, when.

things need to be harvested maybe, or maybe that's more seasonal, but maybe the day-to-day when something, an animal gets out or something like that, but also seasonally when things need to be harvested and done on the farm. Can you talk about the challenges and how you deal with those things? Yes, for sure. There's definitely a lot of challenges that come with balancing all of them. And I love your introduction, Emily, because

really is defining what is balance, right? So what is balance for me is not going to be balance for somebody else. And even just recognizing that where I live, I have very different seasons from where you live versus where somebody lives out in the Southwest or down in Florida. Their farming and their homesteading is going to look very different from mine. And so because we live in a northern state, the seasons are very different and defined. And so

One of the things that I have found that we need for balance is working seasonally and taking advantage of those seasons. So I can't give you a good day-by-day basis on what we do because that changes so often, varied on the seasons. But what I have found is...

and I guess this goes along with the challenges, is that I have to let go of other people's expectations or what their homeschool looks like. So when I'm talking with people and they're either starting their homeschool now or they are going to be starting it in a week or two or soon, that's not our life because we're in the height of harvest season right now. So things need to be harvested. They need to be processed. There's another round of hay that's going to come up here soon. And actually, I don't even think we finished the second round of hay. This has been a...

a crazy season because it's been raining so much in this area this year. So things are even different this year from what they have been in the prior years that we've been here because the prior years were drought and this year has been oh so much rain. And so that's changed what farming looks like this year. For us in managing others' expectations and in working with the season, it means that homeschool looks very different at different times of year. So for instance,

This time of year, whether, you know, May through September or so, because we're in a more northern climate, we have much longer hours of the day, which means that it's getting light out, even though it's getting a little later, where it's like 5. I think the sunrise officially today was 6.04. But when I talked to you last time, it was getting light outside at 4.30. And so...

You can get a lot of outdoor things done. Things grow really well. But that means that you're not going to have as much time for homeschooling. So there are times of the year where we do homeschool light. We tend to homeschool year-round, basically. In May and September and October, it's homeschool light where we will do co-op and we'll do some of the other basic things like math or whatnot. But then we let some of the other things go.

by the wayside and don't do them all because we have to be out in the fields more, harvesting things more, canning things more. But on the other hand, when it comes to December, January, February, that's when we're at our least amount of animals. It's usually covered in snow up here and frozen. You can't grow anything outside. So we do a lot more homeschooling during those hours. There'll be times where maybe we might even be getting two math lessons in a day instead because we're

It's frigid. You don't want to go outside for very long. You still need to go outside because you're still animals to take care of, right? Because you're on a farm. But there's not the same pressure to do things and it's more relaxing and it's enjoyable. And if you've created an atmosphere where education is your life, it doesn't feel bad to be working on things longer because they're fun, right? Math is fun and enjoyable. It's a puzzle to do.

reading books and discussing them together is just part of what you do for life. And so when you have that extra time to do them in the winter, it's an enjoyable thing to do. You know, at the same time, one of like the mistakes that we made when we first moved down here was not doing that. And

you know, when Charlotte Mason says, let the mother go out to play, you have to let the children go out to play also. So we got to the point when we first moved down here where we were all working so much that nobody was playing, not even the kids. And that just takes a lot out of everybody and takes the joy out of everybody. So there's,

Even during the long hours, there still needs to be balance and schedule, which, Nicole, I'm so glad that you brought that up because you've talked a lot of times about how you need a schedule and how you are not a schedule person. And I'm not either. I tend to fly by the seat of my pants. However, I have found that it is really necessary to farmland, to homesteading, to have a schedule, not just for school. That's crucial. Yeah.

And that might change. Ours changes based on the season, what we're doing. But also you have to have it for your chores. You have to have it for you have to schedule in time to make sure that you're spending time with your husband, time with your friends, time with God in the morning, that you're getting the time that you need to be with people and to flourish as part of the balancing act.

So it sounds like you, while some listeners might be like, oh, we just have to hold things loosely and be more flexible. You're saying I'm intentionally flexible.

being flexible, but I am planning for that. I know the times of year or when things happen and you have different schedules for each of those times. It's not like you're waking up every day and kind of flying by the seat of your pants, depending on what needs to be done. You actually are considering all of those things and how do we get the balance during each season. Yes. And that changes. That's exactly it. The schedule looks different on each season, but it still needs to be scheduled. So

If we're in the season where there's weeding that needs to be done, I will be putting that on the schedule and making sure that we know that we are all going outside to weed. And I think that would be the other challenge. I think when you are farming or homesteading, especially as your children get older, but even when they're younger, it can be the tendency...

to send your children off to do something once you've trained it. But I have found that doing things together makes it much more fun and makes sure that it gets done. So that pertains to all of us, right? So it's way more fun after dinner, instead of having the kid who's assigned to do dishes, do dishes or mom do dishes while everybody else runs off to do something. If we all pitch in and all clean up the meal together and put everything back right. And then we can all go out and weed together or I'll go out and throw the football around together.

Sometimes you have to split up and do different things, but oftentimes doing all those things together really helps each other, and then it's on the schedule. So nobody is stuck weeding the garden in the heat themselves, just like nobody is stuck doing dishes by themselves. Sticking together as much as we can or having teammates is really helpful, and making sure that you're planning on that. And then, too, it changes based on school. So for instance, my oldest...

He is playing football with the local high school. And these next two weeks, they have football camp going on. So that would be our normal time where now we're starting to do some math and get some homeschooling, even with the harvest season going. But we're planning around what he needs to do

in order to get there. And because he's 15, he doesn't drive yet, which means we need to get him there. And when you're in the country, everything is far away. So it's a matter of sometimes it changes by week what's happening. It definitely changes by weather. Like I said, this season is very different from our last season. So I can't just pull out the schedule from last year and look at what exactly it is that needs to be done.

But if I don't do that, if I don't plan in all these things, it sounds like it takes all the fun out of things by planning it. But if I don't plan in the fun and if I don't plan in the chores and plan in the school and then be intentional about why I'm putting each of those things in, then I have found what happens is we just run around putting out fires. It's like, okay, what thing needs to get picked right now or what, you know,

What child's having a problem? Instead of thinking holistically about where are we taking our family? Where are we taking our farm? How is this working with what the farm school needs from us right now? Or what the co-op needs from us right now? And where are we going? And how do I plan so that we're ready when we get there? My husband and I have found that having...

a time together every week where we can sit and talk through these things. He actually has a form that he got. He took this traction class a long time ago when he was, when he owned his own business. And, um, we use that form when we get together for our planning time to help us think through what we're doing, how our children are doing, where we're going, making sure that we are

Taking care of what's important first and filling in the rest of the details, that's been invaluable to us. And it also helps us to stay on the same page and understand what workload the other person has so that we're not feeling like, you know, what was me? I've got the hardest chore.

So you mentioned what the farm school needs from you. And can you paint a little bit of a picture of how does living on this working farm, but that is also a school for these other people, like how does that interact with your family life? That is a great question. So

As I said, my husband's responsible for all the farming activities on the school. And then the rest of us help out pretty much wherever is needed. So you just keep your eye on what needs to happen right now. One of the things that we do is when a new boy starts on the farm, they generally will come up and stay at our house first before they go down and stay at the bunkhouse with the rest of the boys. It gives...

It gives those who are new a chance to acclimate to being on the farm because a lot of the boys are coming from a city environment and this is out in the middle of the country and so rural and so different from the life. They have an hour of free time where they can use their phones during the day, but for

Most kids, if they've been used to having their phones all the time and playing video games all the time or having all their time being free, or even just not knowing how to sit down and have a family meal, that's a big challenge for kids when that's not their normal home life of how do you sit down, how do you pass food, how do you engage in conversation, things that we might take for granted as homeschooling families. A lot of

Children don't have that growing up. And so what we have found is having children stay at our house, and by children I'm talking about the teenage boys, stay at our house for, depending on the child, it can be a couple weeks to a month or sometimes even a little bit more, gives them a chance to have dinner with the family, get used to going to bed on a regular time, get used to not having their phone, and yet they don't have the pressure of having to

try to fit in with the other schoolboys right away. So that's a big way that we help. Also is helping out in the garden, helping out when it's hay season. My boys drive the tractors and the skid steers and help with the hay work, help with the crops, the harvesting and the crops management, the moving of the cattle around to different pastures or moving the cattle up between the two different properties.

There's a lot of work with the farm animals. So we're involved in all of that most of the time. There are certain other times where we've helped out more. So the school teacher on the farm a couple years ago had...

took a maternity leave she had her second child and so I was helping with teaching a little bit during that time they've been and that was a year where she started trying to implement Charlotte Mason fully in the school so they've been moving more towards using the Charlotte Mason method which which has been really wonderful and it's a big change it's a big change for staff because not all staff are trained in Charlotte Mason and um

When you haven't been exposed to it at all, it's a very big change for people when you have just the public school system in your head and what that looks like. So that's been a big change. A lot of it, honestly, is for me personally as a mom, is being present for the schoolboys in whatever way they need that. Sometimes they just need a hug or...

Yesterday, we were in the cities and there was a boy who needed to ride back to the farm because he had stayed up in the cities this weekend. He had a dental appointment. So it's, you know, going to his house and picking him up and bringing him back down to the school. A lot of it's just jumping where you need to. So we did try for a little while during that time when the teacher was on leave, schooling my boys along with the Hope Farm School boys. And that didn't work great at the time. It just was...

My boys are really struggling with, I think, with the farm boys learning how to pay attention to things was part of it. And so you'd be reading a book, for instance, and, you know, if kids don't know how to pay attention and they're not used to sitting down and being at school, it's very hard for them to do that. And that takes time. It takes time and growth.

And when you have other kids who are used to doing that, they get really frustrated when they can't hear the story. So that was a bit of a challenge. We just learned like, okay, you're operating at a different level and we need to do this a little bit differently. But that doesn't mean that we can't pull people into what we're doing sometimes. So sometimes if people are having a challenge, it's great for them to be able to, the kids to come up to our part of the farm. The other thing is that there's other families that work at the farm as well.

So the teacher has a family and has children. There's another family that has children. And so we help each other out as families. So I might be watching some of their younger children or having them over when they're doing certain jobs that need to get done. So you are balancing a lot. You're balancing...

homeschooling and your regular family life and a farm and ministry and community and a co-op 90 minutes away and all of that. So you have a lot. I know our listeners are going to find some point of contact in what you're sharing. And it seems a bit staggering to try to imagine what your year as a whole looks like.

And I can imagine the amazing benefits that your kids are reaping from this, to use a farm analogy. So could you just share some of those things? What has been good in your children's life and education from this experience? And even your whole family. You know, and within your family as well.

Let's see. I think the first thing that comes to mind is being outside. When you're farming, you just get to be outside a lot. And the different things that you get to notice when you're outside are pretty incredible. So I grew up in the cities. We lived in the cities, you know, until we moved down here. There was a period where we lived in northern Wisconsin for a little bit.

when my kids were very young. But there's certain things that you can't see when you're surrounded by buildings when you live in the city. So for instance, where exactly does the sun come up in June and where does it set in June versus where it comes up in December and sets in December? We're on top of the bluff by the Mississippi and now we can see all of that because it's wide open. We can see when the birds come back and noticing, I didn't notice this before, but prey and predator cycles

So there are times where we have high coyote populations and then that goes down and, you know, the rabbit population comes up and there's certain years where there's fishers or you have the aerial predation from hawks and eagles. There's things like that that we get to see that you wouldn't get to see and be a part of. I think chores, you know, families struggle with teaching kids things.

how to work in chores and that is something that's so easy when you're on a farm it's not impossible when you're other places I think I have a lot of times people ask like oh I want my kids to come down and work and I'm like well you can still have that in the cities you just have to think about it more and be more intentional about it but there is more that you can do on a farm obviously so

We are able to do things like the, you know, from hatching eggs to growing the chick or the duckling or the gosling all the way until the adult to harvest, to preparing that, to eating that. And so...

And doing the same thing with seedlings, like from planting the seed all the way to harvest to processing to preparing and eating that, being able to sit down at the dinner table at night and look around and see all the different things that you grew yourself and provided. When most of the table of things that you did, there's something that's so satisfying about that. We really enjoy that part of it. I think all that time of being able to be together and work together. So it's not, you know, obviously we're in school together and,

But being able to accomplish things together, whether it's doing a big harvest of chickens or bringing a big load of hay or creating a big garden and harvesting it and processing it and having those jars on your shelf, really gives you a sense of accomplishment. You can see what you did together as a family. And it increases your confidence, both for my children and for us, I think,

For my teenage boys, having manly work that they can do, being able to drive tractors and skid steers and lift hay bales and, you know, work with, you know, thousand pound beef cattle. I mean, it's a big, it's a big deal for boys, whether it's my boys or actually the whole farm school boys to be able to do those things.

Teenage boys really need that responsibility. They need that hard work and they need to know that they can do that hard work and be a man. And it really gives them an outlet for their growing manhood has been a huge benefit to us. And the work is meaningful. Like they're seeing it's not just some meaningless thing. It's actually feeding people or we're reaping hay that we're going to feed to the animals that we're taking care of.

Right, right. That's exactly it. It's very Charlotte Mason, right? You don't want to give...

than busy work. It's meaningful work that they're doing, which I think would be important. It was important when we were living in the cities too. We were able to still have our own garden there and you're still teaching your children how to do dishes and serve their family and clean their house. So much benefit to doing that. But I bet you never have trouble with bedtime. Kids probably go to bed pretty tired out. I think that I think the problem is that I'm an older mom of young kids. I did not...

We didn't get to talk about that this time, but I did not get blessed with children until I was 35. And so I get tired sooner than my kids do. Like way sooner. I'm in my 50s now. I'm 51. So when my brain turns off and I want to go to bed, my kids are still up talking all the time. I'm always amazed at their amount of energy.

But it's a beautiful thing. I'm grateful that I have an older mom and I have teenage boys because I really rely on their muscles. I need their help. Before, I used to be able to, you know,

live off of four hours a day of sleep and that I just can't do that anymore. I need to have. So have you managed to avoid some of the troubles that a lot of moms are having with teenagers these days with phones and video gaming and all that kind of thing? I would think their time is pretty occupied and that makes that simpler or, you know, how they did to the 21st century.

That's a great question. That's a really great question. I'd say yes and no. So when our children were younger, we made the decision about cutting out screens. And so we have for the most part. We don't watch TV in our house. It's not an attraction for us. We don't play video games. We usually have a movie night somewhere in there during the week, which is kind of our relaxation time.

But as the kids have gotten older, and even as we've moved to the country, I guess that's been the other challenge. We moved to the country, and once they got to the age where we could leave and the older ones could watch the younger ones, it became apparent that they needed a phone in the house. And so that has been an issue for us. So that is, my kids don't naturally grab the phone, but what happens, or what has happened in my family, and what I want to warn other parents about is that

Even though we have been very intentional in avoiding the screens, and I don't feel like we've been very, I don't know, strict or militant about it. I think different families can do different things. It just for our family felt like that's not how we wanted to spend our time.

That screen in the house still became a challenge. And one of my children saw things on the screen when they were looking up a song to listen to for their music lesson that they ought not have seen because it pops up. And that led to them wanting to see more of that sort of thing. And it's heartbreaking. And so I just really want to warn families that you can be incredibly intentional. We had...

amazing fruit from avoiding screens to the point where one of my children, my oldest actually, when he was on his 14th birthday, we always go around, well not actually it was my birthday, we always go around on birthdays and we tell each other what we appreciate and love about each other and what we saw each other grow in this past year. And at my birthday this past year, my oldest told me that he really appreciated that I don't allow them

to play video games and to have screens because he has seen that detriment of what happens with his friends and other people that he loves when they prefer to be on a screen versus playing or being outside together. But on the other hand, even with our little bit of screens, it came to that point where a child saw something that they ought not to have seen. And it breaks my heart because that's going to affect that child. Mm-hmm.

And so as parents, you just can't be cautious enough about that. And I was just thinking the other day, I'm like, why in the world do we not just get a landline? Like we should have had that instead for kids to call out on versus having. And what we had was like we had an old cell phone.

And we didn't even think about it, you know, like we're there. It's not like they're looking at it, but they can, right? It's still there. There's still the possibility of them looking at it when we're not there. Or at that point, when my son saw something and something popped up, I probably was there because I'm around when they're doing their music things. It's just that I didn't realize that something popped up on the screen. And we know how those things are so addictive to how our brains are wired. So as parents, you can't be cautious enough about those things because you

They happen. They really, they, they happen even when you were very intentional about it. Thank you so much for sharing that, Michelle. I know that is a issue that every single parent faces these days and a good reminder for those of us who are vigilant that it really can't, like we can't be vigilant enough. And we're all going to face that. So thank

Another struggle I would love for you to share about is financial. You mentioned when you moved to the farm, your husband didn't even make a wage and he got hired as a contractor. And maybe that's turned into a full-time job, but I can imagine that with financial

your situation on this ministry farm. And probably a lot of our listeners who are homesteading finances are something that we have to take into account. Do you have anything to share about that? How you've made it work? How it's been good for your kids and your family and how you've been able to accommodate homeschooling? That is another wonderful question. So as I mentioned before, me initially started, there wasn't a wage that came along with the job.

Sam was only supposed to be working actually halftime here. So he was planning on picking up like other construction jobs. And he did that a little bit. Plus he was able to do the construction management for the farm. So instead of hiring somebody else to redo their barn, he was able to do that for them. And that eventually turned into a full-time job as a farm operations manager. But because...

This program on Hope Farm School is missionary. It's missionary wages. So it doesn't cover all of our expenses, especially as the cost of living has gone to the roof, right? We're all feeling it in our grocery budgets and food.

Sometimes I'm just amazed because I don't have to buy as many groceries. So when I go to the store, I'm always sticker shocked by what I do need to buy. However, the price of seeds, the price of chicks, all of that has gone up. What has been really wonderful for us, though, is learning how to make do with what we have and learning how to live with less and relying on the Lord. So...

What we have seen through our income being just a fraction of what it used to be is we've been able to see God's provision through that in ways that we wouldn't have been able to see if either we still had the same income or if we are still striving to have the same income and trying to get back up to where we were before.

So that first friend that I told you about who introduced me to homeschooling and then gave me the book for the children's sake, I always used to be amazed because she was in a similar situation with where her husband worked in homeschooling. And I saw the Lord provide for her again and again. And what I get to see now is the Lord provide for us again and again. So there's things like a couple of years ago, I really wanted a microscope for our children.

There was no way that was going to be in the budget. And lo and behold, a friend of mine sends some money and she's like, oh, I know that you've been wanting some things and I just wanted to help you out. And here is this cash and I hope this helps you out. And so with that, I was able to purchase a microscope for us, which is such a blessing. And it's been a wonderful thing because I'm able to bring it to our homeschool co-op and share it with them and with other families as well.

That's just one tiny little thing, but it's more than that. So for instance,

I had shared with you earlier before we started this interview that we've had some crop failures this year. We had deer and rabbits come and eat hundreds of feet of plants the day after we had them, which is heartbreaking, but also wonderful in the sense like, well, at least I hadn't been weeding them forever. So it freed me up to do some other things this summer that I wouldn't normally have been able to do.

But there's been things like the school had an excess of green beans that they didn't need. So I was able to candle his green beans. And God will do that. He'll just bring in things where it's like, oh, you know, I don't have this. And then all of a sudden something will appear on the doorstep. But on the other hand, he doesn't always provide things that I think I need or that I think I want. And so then you learn to make do with what you have and be okay saying no or even letting children know, like, no, we don't stop in the cities to get

for takeout food because that's just not part of the budget ever. We have the added, some people might call it a challenge, but I call it a benefit in this sense in that we have a lot of food allergies in my family. So I have a child who's celiac and other ones who are gluten sensitive and allergic to some other things. And so going out to eat just really isn't an option for us anyway.

because it's hard to find a safe place to do that. So that prepared us to have less money. And it's wonderful to see how God worked those things together so that my family isn't used to doing those sorts of things. I think also with homeschooling is you learn, especially with the Charlotte Mason method, that you really don't need a lot, right? You really can...

use what you have and figure out what do you have around your house? What do you really need? Can you do an experiment in a different way? Or is there a different way of approaching this so that my children can learn the same things? Or even reaching out to other people. Our co-op is wonderful. Maybe there'll be an experiment coming up where you need

food coloring, for instance, or, you know, whatever it is. And you just put it out there, like, does anybody have this? Does anybody have that? And people will just come together and find it and share with one another versus like somebody having to go out and call families, pitch in and pay for it. Because really, even though we're at, you know, missionary levels as homeschoolers, we all have less income for the most part, right? You know, unless he has a really well-paying job already, you've generally taken one person out of the

Out of the income pool. So that has been a really wonderful life-giving thing for us to see how God has provided for us over and over again. And it's been good for my children to see that too. They see in areas where we'd like to do something and we can't, and then God changes something or some money comes in somehow, and it's increased all of our faith. And I think also just our...

I don't want to say comfort, it's decreased our anxiety about it. I think sometimes what happens when people start homesteading or they get the idea of homesteading is it can be a reaction to being worried about what's going on in the world right now. You know, we can get afraid. We want to move out to the country or, you know, make our families safe or stockpile all this food.

Self-reliance, too. Yeah. Self-reliance. That's exactly it. And I think it's not about self-reliance. It's about reliance on God. Because I just planted hundreds of feet of tomatoes and potatoes in June or May. And the day after, animals came and ate it all. And you can store up all the food you want, and you could have some disaster come and destroy it all. So a lot of it is just about self.

Learning to live with what God has given you and trusting him for what he will give you will be enough for what your family needs. Instead of having that anxiety of always trying to prepare and have enough or have more. And I think the same thing can be with homeschooling, right? Not just the self-reliance in farming, but trying to make sure that you have all the books or all the right things or everything is in order. Yeah.

We stress out about that instead of realizing that God takes care of things. Like you had mentioned animals getting out, for instance. You know, that happens on the farm. Cattle are really interesting animals, and they can break down fences. And maybe it's not even them. I mean, sometimes there's a storm that knocks out the power or something, and then animals get loose. But that disrupts your day. And what I have learned, and I think pretty much what every homeschooling mom who has older kids or graduated kids have learned, is that whatever...

time God gives you, as long as you're diligent about using it the best that you can at the moment, it's enough. Because really, I think that reminds me of that saying, you know how everybody goes around saying, you're enough, we're not enough, right? We all know that we are not enough. I think that is so ridiculous. You know, well, it's true, right? I mean, maybe I'm the only person who feels that way. Yeah.

I can't possibly meet every need. I just can't. I'm definitely not enough. And anytime I get close to thinking I'm enough, God gives me something else. Oh, I have one child. Well, here's another one. Oh, by the way, you're 44 and here's twins. Oh, you know, and now you thought you wanted to adopt kids. Here's 18 extra boys to love. And I'll stick down a farm, like 450 acres with a bunch of animals. Nothing about. So yeah,

Definitely not enough. But what I've learned is that God will step in and he'll fill in those gaps. And he does that with your education too, not just farming, not just self-reliance. He does it with the children's education. So one day we might be out chasing the cows around.

Because that always happens when dad's not around and all the other guys from Hope Park are all out there. It'll be me and the youngest boy and the girls in the middle of the night. True story. Cattle running on the road. Dad's up in northern Minnesota at a conference and so are the older boys. You can't get a hold of other staff. So we're out there.

at nine o'clock at night in the dark chasing cattle. Things happen. You're not enough. But God fills in the gaps and then you find out it's okay. My children are learning. They're progressing. They're becoming great human beings. And I'm sure they're going to have, you know, we all have our faults, right? And kids do too. We all have things that we go through, but God will bring us what's enough. He'll

He'll give us the challenges that we need to mold our family into what we need to be. And not only does he give us the things that he needs, he takes things away that we need but don't really need. And that helps our children to become who they need to be. And us. Yeah.

That's so beautiful. I'm so encouraged. Michelle, obviously every family has different circumstances and dynamics, and you've shared so many great tips and just really heartfelt things for people to think about and consider in these endeavors. But are there any other last pieces of advice that you would have for moms who teach and also oversee farm work before we close today?

I think my first piece of advice would be as a mother, you need to take care of yourself. That's a big mistake that I made. And it's absolutely crucial. It is crucial that you get your time with the Lord in whatever way you need to do that. For me right now, I have older kids and that means I'm

They'll generally sleep in until I wake them up. So even with chores, and they're used to getting up early, but that means I need to get up earlier. And I can right now. I couldn't do that when they were babies because babies and small children know when their mothers are awake. And so it's very hard to get time in with the Lord when you have a baby. So that might have meant having my husband watch them for a little while or...

Doing that trick where you put a Bible in the bathroom and you have, you know, when you're in the bathroom, that's your time with the Lord. And making sure, like, even when the kids were smaller, I'm not the one teaching Sunday school because I actually need to be the one sitting in church listening because it might be the only hour in the week where I got to sit down and focus on the Lord without having distractions. But it's not just spiritually, although...

They all tie in together. I need my time of exercise. I need to get outside and not just be working on things inside or cutting around. I need my time to be able to sit down and read books. So for us, that means like in the summer, well, really pretty much all year long. We take a time in the afternoon where we all sit down and read.

And if you're not a reader yet, you can listen to an audio book or you can pray or you can think or you can take a nap. But there is quiet time where everybody has a chance to read what they want to read and to be quiet and to let other people take a break mentally. And socially, too, as a mom, you need time with your husband and you need time with some friends. And that doesn't have to be a ton of time, but it does need to get scheduled in there.

I think the other thing that I would bring up is that sometimes people think when they move out to a farm or get out of the city or start homesteading that life is going to be perfect and your problems are going to go away. They don't. So whatever challenges you have in your family right now or in your marriage right now, they're going to come with you when you move. And so you need to work on them where you are. Yeah.

Those habits, the habit training would be another thing I would bring up is crucial. I feel like that was something my husband and I did really well with our oldest three sons, and we're seeing the fruit of that. I mean, they each cook a meal every night. They're super responsible kids. They're fun to be around. They...

They help out in oh so many ways. However, my youngest two were younger when it was during COVID. Life was crazy. We moved down to the farm. They were my feral children who were running around on the farm for better or for worse. People use that term a lot, right? And there are beautiful things about being feral, and there are some really ugly things about being feral. So...

They are, you know, they've got that wild and free nature, which is really wonderful. However, that means like they haven't been taught to sit and pay attention. They don't help as well as my older kids did. So I'm having to go back and redo that. So I'm bearing the fruit of that as well as bearing the fruit from the first three. There's things like that, that as a mom, you will reap the rewards from those first years of

Putting in that time and effort for all of your children, even when you have a lot of them, like you got to keep it up for the younger ones, even though the older ones will help you out with that. But you need to put that time in. And if it's marriage problems or, you know, other people, you can't run away from that. You have to put the time and effort in to that as well.

because it just gets multiplied when you're on a farm and when you have so many other things going on that you absolutely need to have that time there to take care of that ahead of time. The other thing that I found is being out here, it takes a lot longer to get to know people when you live in the country. So when we lived in the cities, my first child, we moved from the country to the cities and then ended up moving back to the country eventually. But

My oldest is an extrovert. And so when we moved to the cities within a week, we knew everybody on our alley because it would be running around. He's like, oh, Mrs. Seuss is in this home. Can I go say hi? And pretty soon, like we knew everybody, like the people on our neighborhood didn't even know where you were. They called us the Griffins because my oldest son was on our alley.

So, and eventually became great friends. We're still friends with all of them. But when you're in the country, you're way far away from people and you don't get to see your neighbors. You don't know when they come home or they're flying down the dirt road. Right. You know, it just takes longer. So you have to figure out other ways of being part of the community here at Hope Farm School. We have a bit of a built-in community with all the other families that are here, but, um,

It has to be more than that. In the country, you have to get to know your neighbors as well. Because even as part of the farm, we need their help. They need our help. There's things like that night that I was telling you about when it was my nine-year-old at the time and my girls when they were five and all the cattle got out at night and when it was dark. It was the neighbor that helped us in my neighborhood.

Moraine helped us first too. It is crucial when you're out in the country that you know the people around you because things break down. People need to share parts. Everybody's living with less.

You know, somebody who's on the next hill over, their crop might get destroyed by hail, and you can help them out by giving them your excess food and whatnot. If you want to, and I feel like I'm really dedicated to traveling with my family, we don't have the income to fly places generally, unless we've saved up enough points. But...

But I try to get my family off the farm twice a year to go on a long road trip. And usually it's connected to homeschool. So we talked about, you know, finances, but you can travel for very little. You can get into the national parks for free. You can camp. We take our food with us and cook. So really it just comes down to gas mileage and, you know, camping fees and whatnot. But if you are going to leave your farm, you're going to need somebody to watch it. Right. Yeah. And so

We have help from Home Farm School, but it's also our neighbors help us. My in-laws help us. And we help them out in return. So you can't be an isolationist. I think that's another thing that comes with homesteading. People want to go move away and protect their kids from these things. But you really can't, which, you know, goes along with my...

my family being with inner city kids, right? They bring all of their inner city kids stuff. My kids are getting exposed to language and to things that they normally wouldn't be exposed to. Like my six-year-olds are asking me about dating and what it means to break up with somebody. Like I normally wouldn't have my six-year-olds exposed to any of that. Right. But you're hearing this because they're hearing it from the farm school boys, but it gives us an opportunity to talk to those things at an early age. Um,

It allows my children to love other people. And so even if you're not in a situation like we are, where we get exposed to lots of different people from lots of different areas, you still need to do that if you're moving out to a farm. I feel really emphatic about this. The Lord has really placed on my heart that we are all missionaries. We are all to be about the Great Commission.

And so whether you are in the cities or in the country, you need to be with people because you can't do what the Lord has asked us to do around other people. And you're around people who are not like you. Yeah, that is so, so important, I think.

homeschoolers in general have a tendency to try and circle the wagons and protect our kids. And some of that is very good. We don't want our children to be wrapped up in it, but at the same time, they need to be aware and how impossible it is to empathize and relate to people and extend the hope of the gospel and show them Jesus if you aren't encountering these things. And it's not, you know, I think of

Kids who've never had any exposure to language of any kind or you're guarding all of the books that are coming into your home and all of the content considerations you make to try and keep them

innocent is what we think. We're conflating innocence and purity. And they do need to have some exposure to that so that when they encounter a real person that they're trying to love who uses language or some other shocking thing, they aren't just shut down and like, I have to get rid of you and away from you and really reach out instead and build those relationships. And what you were saying about community reminds me so much of

Wendell Berry's The Membership that he talks about in Fort William. And it's beautiful that you have an example of that today. Thank you so much, Michelle, for sharing all of this. I think you have given every single one of us so much to think about, to consider, to pray over, and really to reflect upon. So just thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for inviting me on and allowing me to share about our life. And I really hope that

it's understood it always seems like a lot when I'm talking to somebody but really I'm just as messed up and normal as everybody else you know that's what balance is all about right you have to find your own way of working with what God has given you and Charlotte Mason has given us these principles that work not just in education but in all of life and it's a beautiful thing it's

This education, it's not just an education, it's a lifestyle, right? It's a life. And what it does is as we're walking with God, we keep getting drawn closer to God. And that gives us so much more confidence and freedom as we go. And then we're able to weather the storms that come because they do rain for all of us. But it's important that we see the realness in each other and that we all have...

challenges. And we all work through that the best we can by the grace of God. Thank you for giving us so much of your time today. And I know you're in the middle of a very busy season, so we will let you go reluctantly. We could talk to you for another hour or more. So thank you so much for taking time today. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Emily.

We just love that interview with Michelle and are so excited to share it with you all. But one thing I did want to mention is the Hope Farm Schools teacher, full-time teacher, main teacher, is retiring after this year. And the school is in need of a teacher, hopefully a Charlotte Mason teacher, who would be interested in serving in their ministry.

They also always have need of RAs for young men, preferably right out of college where they just are a little bit older than the boys themselves, to live in the bunkhouse with the boys.

So if you know somebody who maybe has experience with Charlotte Mason or not, but has a heart for ministering to young men and maybe particularly inner city boys, that might be something to look into. The school operates year round. So the boys live there year round, except for January. The month of January is off and the boys are there at the school from school.

Sunday evening through Friday afternoon and they transport them back to the city, which is amazing that they're trying to keep them in contact and relationship with their families, but that they have this other environment to really meet their academic needs and give them this wonderful opportunity. So we are just so thrilled to share more about that. If you are interested in helping out Hope Farm School, volunteer positions are available or if you know somebody who would be a good RA or if you...

want to be a teacher or the main teacher there, I would encourage you to check out HopeFarmSchool.org. And you know, it is a dream of mine that I would have a Charlotte Mason school someday to minister to underprivileged children. So this is truly a dream come true. And I wish I could just uproot my family and go to Wisconsin. I should also mention that if you do this, there are other

there is housing available for families who work at the school. So it is just an amazing thing, but maybe more and more people, if you have an interest in farming, you have a heart for kids, this might be something that could happen in other places beyond Southwestern Wisconsin. So go check out HopeFarmSchool.org. Thank you for joining us today on the podcast. We hope our discussion serves to equip and encourage you as we seek to explain the Charlotte Mason Method.

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