Raising Cows and Kids with Helen Griffiths

In this episode of Barnyard Language, Caite and Arlene chat with Amy Whitewick, also known as TD Centaur, an artist from Somerset, England, who transforms used engine oil into one-of-a-kind works of art. Amy shares how an unexpected inspiration in her partner’s workshop led to years of experimentation, developing a unique technique to preserve engine oil on paper. She also talks about her passion for aviation, flying, GPS artwork, and the stories behind her commissioned pieces. From painting Spitfires and classic cars to preserving meaningful family memories through art, Amy offers a fascinating look at the creativity, craftsmanship, and history behind every piece.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 [email protected].

This week, Caite and Arlene share farm updates from Iowa and Ontario, including unusual October heat, harvest progress, and Canadian Thanksgiving, then interview Helen Griffiths from Gloucestershire, England. Helen describes her 100+ acre floodplain grass farm raising Dexter beef, mixed-breed sheep with terminal sires, Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, and Christmas turkeys, selling meat direct at the farm gate with local abattoir and butcher support.She explains how social media drives most sales and how COVID accelerated demand, deliveries, and stocking rates. Helen discusses UK farming pressures including drought, forage costs, bluetongue risk, and major concern over proposed inheritance tax changes that could force farm sales, plus a broader disconnect between government, public, and farmers. The conversation also covers apprenticeships, teaching livestock production, raising three teens on the farm, machinery culture, and parenting challenges like guilt and teenage pushback.00:00 Welcome and Farm Weather00:35 Turnip Harvest Fun01:26 Kids Promote the Podcast02:27 Ontario Harvest Update04:38 Meet Helen Griffiths05:37 Farm Breeds and Direct Sales06:36 Land Base and Winter Feeding08:27 Raising Teens and Apprenticeships11:46 Teaching Livestock Students12:33 Reviving the Family Farm16:09 Butcher and Processing Access16:59 Social Media Marketing Wins18:39 Pandemic Processing Crunch21:04 UK Farming Pressures Today24:30 Inheritance Tax Explained29:04 Inheritance Tax Reality31:09 Tractor Brand Loyalties34:32 Learning Tractor Controls38:11 Tractor Tests And Ages40:43 First Time Parenting45:26 Childcare Farm Juggling48:38 Farm Kid Freedom50:09 Teen Challenges And Guilt52:56 Teaching Open Mindedness54:52 Kids Future In Ag57:43 County Fair Bragging58:24 Cuss And Discuss WrapWe'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 [email protected].

This week, Caite and Arlene interview Brittany Huston (“The Farm Witch”) from South Carolina about personal growth after a decade parenting medically complex children, and about building a multi-generational homestead. After moving from New Mexico’s high desert, Brittany’s family is learning South Carolina’s climate while expanding a food forest with berries, fruit trees, pollinator and medicinal plants, and managing poultry, sheep, goats, rabbits, and guardian dogs amid parasite challenges.Brittany describes how her children’s severe food allergies and FPIES drove her into raising and butchering animals for safe food, including struggles with extreme elimination diets, elemental formula, and even water sensitivities. She recounts a New Mexico flash flood that destroyed their house, a rabid skunk incident that required rabies treatment and culling an unvaccinated goat herd, and Hurricane Helene damage to structures and trees. They discuss homeschooling, chronic health limits, monetizing crafts, and scarcity of large-animal vets.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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].