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Shannon is the Chef & CEO of Sap Bush Hollow Farm, a three-generation family business.
After graduating with a PhD in sustainable agriculture, Shannon became a subversive cookbook author as a means to get her message out into the world.
She went on to write six additional books, started a podcast, and expanded the family business. Throughout this growth, Shannon found herself overworked, stretched thin, and searching for a better way.
This episode originally aired on June 8, 2021. The pandemic was still in full swing in many parts of the country. People recognized the fragility of our food system, and some of us were starting to reevaluate how we spent our time.
Even with the crisis behind us, those two things remain true.
In this interview with Shannon, she shares how she began to rethink how she viewed money and time. She also discusses her most recent book, Redefining Rich, which is full of lessons learned as an entrepreneur trying to balance family and career.
If you’ve recently taken a step back to examine how you are living your life, this episode is for you!
Shannon and I also chat about:
- How women get their voices heard through cookbooks
- Bringing kids into your business
- The myth of “falling behind”
- The four elements of diversifying your income
- Eating your $&!T sandwich
Rather watch this episode on YouTube? Check it out here: Episode 256: Shannon Hayes
Resources:
American Cookery by Amelia Simmons
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin
Shannon’s Books:
Connect with Shannon:
Website: Sap Bush Hollow
Instagram: @sapbushshannon
Facebook: Shannon Hayes
Podcast: Hearth of Sap Bush Hollow
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connolly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Global Food Justice Alliance members, and listeners.
If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join.
This podcast was made possible by LMNT, my favorite electrolyte company. The all-natural sugar-free powder tastes great and gives you the perfect amount of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you perfectly hydrated.
Check out my Salty Grapefruit Limeade made with their limited-time grapefruit flavor. Plus, you can get a free flavor sample pack with any purchase using my link: sustainabledish.com/LMNT
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, on to our show.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Hi, everyone. Diana here, and because I’m doing so much travel for the Global Food Justice Alliance, I’ve dipped into the archive and selected some of my favorite shows for you in order to keep my content flowing on a weekly basis. Thank you so much for your support
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. Today I have with me, Shannon Hayes. She is a chef and CEO of Sap Bush Hollow Farm and Cafe, which operates three generations of her family in upstate New York. She’s the author of several books, including The Grass Fed Gourmet, Radical Homemakers, which I did a podcast on way back, and her most recent title, which is August 10 publication date Redefining Rich: Achieving True Wealth in Small Business, Side Hustles, and Smart Living due out from BenBella, which is also the publisher that I used for Sacred Cow. Shannon is the host of The Hearth of Sap Bush Hallow podcast, chronicles and lessons from a life tied to family community and the land. You can learn more about her work at sapbush.com. Welcome, Shannon.
Shannon Hayes
Hi, Diana, it’s so nice to actually see you again.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I know. And right before we started recording, we were having a lovely conversation about our origins as cookbook authors and sort of sliding in our subversive messaging within the recipes. And you brought up the very first female cookbook author. So let’s talk about that a little bit. And, you know, being women in the food politics space.
Shannon Hayes
Sure. Sure. Well, it’s, you know, I got into food politics in grad school, and I went to grad school to study sustainable agriculture and community development, because I came from a farming background, and I was sort of, there was a, at an intuitive level, I recognized that something in my culture was in danger and needed to be rescued. And I wanted to understand that problem. And as I got through grad school, I became more and more keenly aware of the politics of food, and then came out with this nice fresh PhD all in the wrappers and found that I was not really employable at all. Nobody wanted to me.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And what was your PhD in Shannon?
Shannon Hayes
Sustainable ag and government-led development.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Okay.
Shannon Hayes
And I had a lot of sharp views about what we should be eating, why we should be eating that way. And I did not looking back at it, I think being a young woman, I was 26 years old, I was researching under my own name, I didn’t have professors over me, but somehow, I wasn’t getting my voice into academia, or into the places that mattered the way I needed to. And I decided to write a cookbook. That was the Grass Fed Gourmet cookbook. And here I was with a PhD. And I, you know, I knew my professors were, you know, making pejoratives snorts behind their hands, that Shannon and left and wrote a little itty bitty cookbook. But I felt that in writing this, I could teach, I could make choices with the ingredients that I was selecting. But I could also use the sidebars to teach these concepts that were not welcomed from me in any other way. And I put my faith in the fact that cooks, were making the decisions about the futures of their homes, and the sustainability of their communities. And it was those cooks and I felt that a lot of them would be women, and a lot of them were, they would pick up that message and I could start to get heard. I used to say I was a writer who used recipes just to get heard. And I thought I was original with this idea to do this. And as time wore on, I saw what you did, but I also ended up you know, writing my polemics as, as I got more of a voice and more of a reputation behind me. I did some more research and I discovered that actually you and I weren’t original at all in our ideas of getting our ideas across with cookbooks. Amelia Simmons, who wrote the… was it the American Cookery Book. I think you have the title there in front of you. She wrote that just after the Revolutionary War. I discovered her when I was researching Radical Homemakers. And if you read that text, and I think the full text is available online, if anyone’s interested in it, what she was doing was writing recipes to help the former colonies be economically free of the British Empire by drawing on local resources and local ingredients. So you know, there you have it, a revolutionary right at the very beginning. I gotta tell you, the heat starts in the kitchen. It always has.
Diana Rodgers, RD
That’s awesome. And, you know, I, I loved Radical Homemakers because it was that next step. And, you know, I grew up with a, you know, my mom was going to be a modern woman. She went to college, she was not going to cook from scratch. She, you know, everything we had was a frozen dinner, because women who cook in the kitchen are old fashioned and uneducated, and, you know, not modern and not feminist, of course. And so we had pretty much the most processed food diet possible. And I really loved Radical Homemakers because I have such an urge to kind of get back to, you know, through my other cookbooks and everything, the idea that home can really, you know, give to the family and not suck from the family, which is, of course, the way people see it. Could you give just a brief background of Radical Homemakers for those who didn’t listen to that podcast?
Shannon Hayes
Sure. Sure. It basically is a book that sees the home as the center of the revolution for a life-serving economy. Because Home Economics, we have managed to push it over to the side and think of it historically as a way to market to women who were the financial decision-makers in the family, and it’s a way to further America’s dream of consumerism. That’s what was a post world war two idea. And Radical Homemakers said, You know what, let’s just slow down for a minute. And let’s look at the power of the home. And it goes back and looks at the Revolutionary War. And what happened, you know, this idea of a local food movement that happened even back then, and the actions that homes took to create sustainable local economies. And it sort of deconstructs this idea that to be anti-kitchen, anti-food, and gathering around the table is a pro-feminist idea. Indeed, it is not necessarily, it all depends on how you execute it. And it looks at how people managed not only to create change in their societies but also how we manage to generate economic stability. By having somebody who’s or more than one person who’s willing to take on those tasks in the household, we can bring back local farms. We can improve our overall nutrition, but we also can create a center for education. And also it becomes a very valuable source of something that I talked about extensively in the new book, Redefining Rich, which is non-monetary income, all these things that we do that have a price tag on them in the major world mean that if we’re doing them ourselves, it greatly reduces the amount of money that we need in order to do exist and have a really good life.
Diana Rodgers, RD
That’s right. I mean, I went on way before I met you and even got into all of this, I after I had my second daughter, I read Your Money or Your Life, and realize that I was making, you know, they take you through an amazing exercise where you have to, you know, calculate in the gas and dry cleaning and meals out that you wouldn’t normally maybe eat out. And so at the end of the day, I realized I was making $4 an hour to have someone else watch my children. And I was exhausted and I couldn’t cook from scratch. I don’t think it’s possible to really like have a full, as a woman, to have a full time job, be a great mom and cook things from scratch and be sane, right like something had to give and I was really stressed out. And it’s at that point that I then left the corporate world and joined the farm because it was fulfilling to me. And also even though I was paid much less I was able to be closer to home. I could see my kids more I could cook more and it really set me off on this total new way of looking at income and wealth. So that’s what I love so much about Redefining Rich. So will you tell us a little bit more about growing wealth and building a better life without money because I think this is so timely too with COVID. People are realizing, hey, it’s actually kind of nice to be home and not have a commute. And, you know, be able to like, hop into the kitchen and throw in a roast in between your zoom calls, things like that.
Shannon Hayes
Yes, it is really nice. So Redefining Rich, it’s like the next chapter for Radical Homemakers because it can seem very inconsistent. You know, when you read my bio, how is it that I am CEO of my family farm? It’s a three-generation farm. And it’s got a restaurant, we’ve got vacation lodging, and we’ve got a livestock program and how is it that we have all this going on? Oh, and I’m a writer and a podcaster. And she claims that she’s a stay-at-home mom. I mean, what is this? But Redefining Rich is taking that all apart and showing how it’s a heart-centered life. It’s a life centered around family and community. And it looks at if we’re entrepreneurial in that respect and what we want to keep things around a heart-centered life; how do we do that? What are the finances of doing that? And how do we balance and work? When? How do you do this when you could be fighting with your mother, and she’s also your business partner, and you’ve got teenage daughters who are pulling each other’s hair out? And you need to figure out how you’re going to make the sales for the week while your kids are like, you know, having a throwdown fight in front of your customers. How do you make this work so that you’re paying the bills, getting ahead financially, having something nice to eat at the end of the day, and having a really good life? And so that’s been my journey for the last couple of years, for many years now. And I started teasing for Redefining Rich how to break these things apart, and what are the things that we do to make this work, and part of that is understanding a completely different economic system. I do not live in the same economic universe that much of the world exists. And I talk about in the book, there’s two different economies, there’s an extractive economy, and there’s a life serving economy. And the extractive economy is sort of based on scarcity economics. We pretend that, you know, there’s something out there is a resource, we make it as scarce as possible. So the price goes up, and people pay money for it. And there’s an exchange of money, and it’s all based on depleting a resource. And the way I live with Sap Bush Hollow Farm, the way I’ve built a successful business is with abundance, economics, this idea that you have a resource, and you want to cultivate it, and you want to make more of it, and you invest in it, and you invest in the children that become part of it. And then the children and the elders invest again, and you create more of that resource. So one is sort of a linear model that winnows its way down to nothing to maximize the almighty dollar. And one is a way that looks at how do we generate more wealth, more of a life serving economy. And when you bring it back to that radical homemakers idea that we were talking about, I think what’s happening is, I’m going to suggest that women are leaders in this. But I’ve met a lot of men studying Radical Homemakers who were doing this too – is we’ve decided that this notion of a conventional economy pulling us out of the house, pulling us into the workplace pulling us into commute is killing us. And in for the past year and a half, it has literally killed a lot of us. And we’re recognizing that there needs to be a different way. And this Redefining Rich is understanding how that way works. How do you still pay your tax bills? How do you keep your health insurance? How do you make sure that you are building the wealth and that you still have time, to breathe deeply to enjoy cocktail hour to you know, put your toes in the water of life and celebrate this time that we get to be here. And so I think that all of us who really liked that hearth center, who really liked that home cooking, are just figuring out how do we build an economy that works that allows for that?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right, so you talk a lot about diversification of income? And can you explain a little bit about the specific types of diversification and why they matter?
Shannon Hayes
Sure, you know, I come at this from farming. And I remember in grad school, taking an ag business course, and the economics professor said okay, diversification means you don’t just grow corn, you grow corn and soybeans and wheat and you have your fields in a rotation. And that all seemed a little strange to me. And then I was in the grass-fed meat movement, and we talked about diversification there. And we talked about diversification meaning, well, you have your pastured broilers and you have your sheep and you have your pigs and then you have your cattle and you put them in a different rotation to minimize different parasites and to keep your soils fertile and healthy. And that’s diversification. And I followed that. And then I thought, okay, and I need more diversification. So I’m going to go pick all the berries and make jams and jellies and value-added food product, fruit products, and I’m going to have honey from the bees that we have. And I’m going to take all the fat and I’m going to render it, and I’m gonna make soaps. And that was diversification until I realized one thing, all this quote, unquote, diversification was built on my aching back. And I was really sick and tired. And then I added on diversification, like, I know what I’m going to do, I’m going to open up a restaurant. How dumb was that? So not only could I be making all this stuff, and having all this labor out in the field, but I could be scrubbing toilets at the end of the day too for the customers. So I think one of the Genesis, part of the genesis of the book was, there was one day I was in the kitchen, Bob was down at the farmers market. He was schlepping meat down there all the time. And we were short-handed and dad was in the kitchen. And my dad is hard of hearing. And my dad is the venerable old farmer. He’s been doing this since he was three years old, and he’s in his 70s now. And he’s always counted on me to be the idea person at the farm. And I’m standing there in the kitchen, and we’re just sweating up a storm, the orders are flying, and we’re trying to crank it out. And he’s sweating like crazy. And I finally looked at him, and I have to scream because he can’t hear me because he doesn’t have his hearing aids. It’s like Dad! Dad! We have to find a way to make money without working. And he stops. And the whole kitchen falls silent. And he turns and he looks at me and he says, I think that’s the best idea you’ve ever had. And that’s when I realized I had to rediscover diversification. Diversification, to economically work, it must cover us in body, mind and spirit. So we need diversification that relies on our mental faculties or creative abilities, we need diversification that employs our bodies, because when we’re using our bodies or nourishing our minds, and we’re getting more ideas, and then we need the kind of financial decision diversification that says, if I get sick and need to lie on the couch for two weeks, or I have to go out of commission to have a surgery because I’m getting old, I need to be covered in that way too. So that means I’ve looked, looked it over and decided Alright, diversification needs to be there are four main types of income, and you need to have at least three of these. One of them is meaningful employment. Now, employment, I get into the the specifics in the book, employment is really the most expensive form of income you could have, by the time your taxes and your commuting and your dry cleaning or whatever is taken out, as you pointed out earlier, it ends up with very little return. Then there’s business income, so your employment steady paycheck from a job that doesn’t suck your soul. So that’s one option. If it’s sucking your soul, it is not an option. It’s killing you. So let’s just get that right off the table. So employment could be a possibility. If it’s a worthy vocation, then there’s self-employment business income. And then there is passive income and passive income that sounds like it’s it’s a rich man’s game. But it is not. There are lots of options for passive income these days. This is income that doesn’t require that you are going, going, going all the time. Now you got to remember I have a farmers view of passive income. So passive income means I’m not on my feet for 13 hours a day. It could be royalties. It could be an app that you create, it could be vacation rentals, it could be apartment rentals – anything that doesn’t require your full time attention. And that lets you have some income coming in while you recuperate. And then very important to my family’s livelihood is the non-monetary income which really ties back to Radical Homemakers. But this time that you take two, whether it’s cooking, gardening, fixing your own stuff, all the things that you can do that lower your cost of living. And what I recommend in the book is you need three of these to really have a sound economic life that is going to allow you good balance. One job, it really doesn’t cut it to working people is crazy. But in the household. Three out of these four forms of income diversification can really help build a sound economic portfolio that lets you rest, that lets you engage in the kind of work that changes the world builds the kind of economy that you want, and lets you enjoy your family.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and this is also echoed in many of the other ag focused organizations that I admire. Savory Institute talks about holistic management, not just moving cattle, but you know, talking about your whole business. And, you know, do you want to send your kids to college? What do you need for that? How, you know, how are we going to help you with that, too, and Ranching for Profit. Also, a lot of farmers might look at, you know, these large farms that have so many different income streams, and they might just try to mimic that, but on a smaller scale. And these guys at ranching, for profit actually make you look at each enterprise as its own business, and oh, are the chickens actually making money, because if they’re not mean, you shouldn’t do them. And it’s like eye opening, you know, because they say, oh, you know, you probably work for a maniac, because you’re working for yourself, right. And just kind of looking outside of it. And really assessing like what every piece is bringing to the table.
Shannon Hayes
You know, you’re touching on a really interesting phenomenon in the agricultural world. And I do get into this in the book to this idea of what we think we should be doing, how often we’re making business decisions based on what we think we should be doing what someone else has prescribed for us to do. And when I did my graduate research, actually on the downfall of agriculture in the northeast, that was one of the problems with listening to what the experts told us to do. There was a lot of innovation and creative thinking when we weren’t worried about what we should be doing. And when we did what was going to work for our family for our quality of life. And I’m hoping as the agricultural Renaissance continues, that we start to recognize that pastured chickens might be a really great enterprise for one family. But it may not be the best thing for another family that still wants to have a livestock focused system.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right. And not everybody listening, of course, the majority of people listening because podcasts are not in the ag world necessarily, but are interested in it. And this does definitely apply to, you know, the regular folks out there too, that aren’t in the ag world. I mean, trying to figure out how you can have a higher quality of life and have more family time really assess what’s important to you, and your one chance that you get to be here and making the most of it.
Shannon Hayes
I think one of the problems that farmers have that reflects back to the rest of the world is this idea that we all think we’re supposed to be working very hard, that the success in life is a result of working very hard. And farmers are the epitome of that. But it is rampant in our culture, that somehow our identities and yeah, our overall success is based on are you running 13 hours a day? Are you not finding time to talk to your partner? Are you not finding time to talk to your kids? Because you’re so busy and so important? And the book is really tries to unravel that. I say why are we thinking this way? We really don’t have to do this. The success is, is your partnership working? Are you having good relationships with your kids? Are you able to laugh with your friends? These are the things that really gauge and that’s when we get back to this idea of redefining what rich is. If rich is just defined as money, that the money is the sign that we have achieved something then we’re all impoverished. If you ask me. I’m asking people in the book to redefine what the idea of wealth is. Do you have good clean water? Do you have a place where you can go skinny dipping? Or take your kids swimming? Can you on a hot summer afternoon check out and go take a picnic someplace with your family and relax with a glass of wine? Do you have the ability to drink your coffee slowly in the morning? Do you have the ability to give time to the generations in your family? Can you go and help a family member if they need your help? Do you have people who can come and help you? When you look at what money can do it cannot do any of those things. And that’s why it is such a tiny tiny measure of overall success, joy and happiness. It doesn’t tell us this we have to redefine in this culture what rich is.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And I mean, this makes so much sense to me, makes so much sense to you. And it’s really sad that this is such counter, wild blasphemy to regular people, you know like out there kind of that aren’t in this world view. It’s sad.
Shannon Hayes
Do you think it’s changing as a result of COVID?
Diana Rodgers, RD
I think so I at least I hope so. I mean, I know, people have really, you know, I help folks reassess their careers if they’re interested in becoming nutritionists. And I’ve had so many more calls of people wanting to maybe shift their career and do something a little more meaningful in their life. So yeah, I do. I do think that and I’d like to think that, you know, I saw these jokes, too, in the beginning of COVID. I think I shared one on social media like, well, I guess now we’re finding out which meetings could have just been emails, you know. And I think people are realizing like, No, you don’t actually. You can get a lot done. And also people feel more empowered when you leave them alone, and let them set their own schedules and do the work. I mean, I have this amazing assistant that’s doing all my podcast editing, and a lot of other work for me, and I barely talked to her, she just figures it out. And we have a great relationship, because I think largely, I just leave her alone. And let her do it. You know, anyway, I’m getting on a tangent.
Shannon Hayes
But I think that’s part of this is I’m horrified by the number of lives we’ve had to lose, to start to learn these lessons. But I do have optimism that we are starting to understand this. This is what rebuilding a life serving economy is where we saying, wait a minute, maybe these things weren’t working. And maybe we can honor and trust and let people do what they need to do. So they can have a balanced life. If we could revere that more than just, again, the acquisition of dollars, we’re going to be farther along. I think that COVID has been a great reset button to allow that to start to happen.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Let’s hope. So let’s see what happens in the next several years after this and see if there’s some major shifts.
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Diana Rodgers, RD
So getting back to your book, let’s talk about you know how you can make this work as a true family business and how you can get your kids involved and make them feel part of all of this and work with you so successfully.
Shannon Hayes
You know, I think that I’ve noticed a lot of people think family and business often means that they keep the family separate from the business, but they managed to have a family while they have a business. And that’s not how we think at Sap Bush Hollow Farm. I remember somebody coming to my dad when my daughters Saoirse and Ula were just wee tykes. They were… Ula was like barely walk and she was splashing in a mud puddle. And Saoirse was trying to ride a bike and not very well at that point. And this guy pulls into the driveway and goes to my father and wants him to sign a gas lease for hydrofracking on the farm. And he made a nice presentation. And he was talking all to my father. And the whole time my father was like nodding, but he kept watching the kids. And he’s like, Well, that’s nice, but the farm is not mine. And the guy’s like, I know, it’s yours. I looked it up on the deed, you’re Jim Hayes. And Dad says no not it’s not mine, it’s theirs. And the guy turns around, and you know, Ula’s got her diaper off, she’s naked, and she’s covered in mud. And she waves at him and Saoirse dumps her bike. And you know, it just really instilled a lot of faith, like those are the decision makers. And that’s where a family business starts where it’s like, you know, we exclude them from our thinking conventionally. But truly, they’re at the center. And they have always been at the center of what we do. We have this cafe The cafe is is happening every single Saturday. But it’s Saturdays only because we’re homeschooling our kids, because we’re farming and because we really don’t want to be on our hands and knees into the wee hours of the morning. So we run it in one week, one day a week. But then the other thing that we do to fold kids into the family business, is we make room for them, we create opportunities for them to be successful. I found when I started doing this, I made the horrible mistake of pushing my kids aside and say no, I need to do this myself. And I would say the worst thing is like, because this needs to be done right? When the kids were asking if they could help. And I started to recognize that’s the worst thing I could do for my business. Those are my future CEOs. And that means it doesn’t have to be done right. It has to be done with love. And so I started to learn to bring them into the kitchen every single time. I slowed down to teach my kids a new skill whether we taught them on the farm or whether we tuck them in the cafe kitchen. Yes, it slows you down for a couple days. Sometimes it slows you down for a month while they get it and then the payback is tenfold when they know how to do it. It comes back in the form of a helpful assistant, it comes back in the form of this young kid who can walk into a business walk right in front of a customer, and have a command on what’s happening and why and can relay that confidence to your customer. But it also comes back in a strong kid who has ownership, a kid who can say, maybe I’ll go to college, maybe I won’t go to college, because basically, I know I can handle things, I can make decisions with my life, and I don’t have to follow a prescription. So it pays back in all of those ways. And now right now, I have a 17 year old daughter who’s down, she is now the lead herd manager on the farm. I have a 14 year old daughter who’s working with her grandmother this afternoon, and then coming into the kitchen with me. I mean, she’s working with the grandmother this morning, rather than into the kitchen with me for the afternoon. And I have another young man who came to live with us, he’s handling our weekend chores. And he’s now starting with another guy in a startup business that supports the farm. These kids are just engaged, they’re confident. And we have really competent, dedicated help. And that’s really uplifting. To get down there, I realized I did have to slow down and take the time to teach. But the other thing I started to learn to do was protocols. I had to take the time to write down step by step what I was doing, how I was doing it, and put it into simple checklists and orders. And I just kept all these checklists as I developed them. And then when they’re out, they can hand those checklists to whoever they’re training in. But I needed to make things as transferable as possible. And that investment always pays off. Because then the kid knows they’ve done a good job, have I done this, have I done a, b, c, d, they’ve done a good job. And they have that confidence in what they do. So yeah, for me, a family business means the family members all work together. And it’s just the most rewarding thing I can imagine. And I’m even on payroll, legally, it’s pretty cool.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Same with my kids, exactly the same. Our 17 year old son is the herd manager too. And these kids can walk up to any adult and have a full on conversation. So many kids can’t even do that, you know. So it’s such a gift to be able to give to them. So let’s talk about parenting and falling behind in school and getting ahead and all of that a little bit more. We touched on it before but you know, this idea that you know, all kids are falling behind because school wasn’t, you know, the same factory setting than it was before?
Shannon Hayes
Yeah, yeah, I find that to be so strange, that parents are worried about whether their kids are behind or ahead in school. And then because we don’t worry about that. We worry about whether the kids are happy, are they developing into the kind of adults that they dream of being? Are they being set up to approach the dreams that they have? That’s what real success is about. But when you’re functioning in scarcity, economic scarcity, economics teaches us that it’s, it’s a race – is a race to the bottom, but it’s a race to get there first to have the highest score to achieve the most, to learn the most first. And we have that same problem with how we treat ourselves, which gets back to this overwork epidemic that we talked about at the beginning of our hour here. This is a problem, it doesn’t work, we have to stop worrying, especially with family businesses, if our kids are ahead or behind. It’s not getting us anywhere, except it’s causing us to fall apart as families. We need to think about helping the kids develop who they are, and how to be happy, and how to be confident. And that’s what I believe when you’re running these family businesses, and you have this economic balance in your life and you’re modeling your own sense of peace, happiness, that the kids can learn that and I think those are the deeper lessons, this COVID paranoia about your kids are behind. I don’t know what the kids are behind. It’d be I know why and what, and who’s getting ahead and who’s gonna get the prize? I don’t know. All I know is if they get a prize, it’s one more thing to dust on the shelf.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So yeah, and I have to add to that too, because so, you know, you don’t have to only homeschool your kids in order to have this mindset. So, you know, we have two very different children. My daughter is highly motivated, takes care of all her own things. COVID was great home learning from her bedroom, she’s got her act together. And our son is not a zoom learner. He just… he really needs to be in-person. He needs to be kind of moving as he learns. And so we actually pulled them out of school and just set up some work experiences for him this fall. And then in the spring, we entered him into a cool program that our local school has where it’s 100% outside, so they have like an art teacher and a history teacher everything is… they might go birdwatching, or canoeing or something, but they’re learning everything in that way. So next year, you know, the guidance counselor asked us, you know, well, I think we could still get them to graduate with his class, and he wouldn’t have to be behind. And, you know, he could still graduate with his friends, if we just, you know, pushed a little harder, and I’m like, Who does that benefit? Nobody. This kid is happy, he didn’t have to sit on zoom the whole time. He got to be outside. And it doesn’t matter if he graduates high school a year later, it’s okay, we’re fine with that. We just want him to like, not have a crazy schedule and not feel stressed out and, you know, feel successful in the world, and that, in the community that I live in, we’re the only parents that look at things that way. We live in a really academically aggressive environment, where if you’re not Ivy League bound, you are a failure. And I think the guidance counselor had just no idea what to say, when our response was, give them an extra year, like give them a lighter schedule, maybe he’ll you know, pull in some extra art classes or something, and it’s all good. You know, so. So just to everybody out there who isn’t homeschooling, you know, in the traditional sense, I still think there’s like life lessons, you can pull in and you can slow things down if your kid is a different type of learner than other kids.
Shannon Hayes
Yeah, I really, this pressure that we have on them, and I think COVID just really, really put a magnifying glass on that, that there’s a certain timeframe and certain things have to be accomplished. It’s so arbitrary, it really is, has nothing to do with whether that person is going to be happy, well adjusted adult, the best indicator of whether that person will be happy and well adjusted is if the parents are. So if you really want to do a favor to help your kids get ahead, shake up a martini, you know, have dinner together, smile more, spend time with them. These things are going to account for a whole lot more. I remember, starting off on my trajectory, thinking that as a homeschool parent, I was going to have to, you know, make them prodigies in every subject at the outset. I mean, I had to get a lot of smackdowns for me to wrap my head around this. And then I folded the kids into the business more. And we worked with what worked for us. And I realized just recently, like one of the areas that I thought I had to hammer them with and I was getting a lot of smackdowns, for example was music, the kids. They weren’t responsive to my music lessons. And that might say something about me. But my husband and I had a deep love of music always have. And so the best way I felt I could honor music is to stop teaching recalcitrant learners. And I just realized this week, you know, we moved on with our family and our business. Bob and I still play music together for recreation. And I realized that both of my daughters are now studying music, non stop. They have music going all the time. One is singing, one is playing the violin. And they took it on themselves. They work it in with their work schedules with the farm. And they absolutely love it. And I hate to say it, but we are just so behind. Whatever the parameter is, we are behind definitely. But they are going strong and their music is doing for them what music should which is lifting their hearts, and they’re still learning it. So yeah, I really think we need to deconstruct that. And again, get back to let’s rebuild a society that now that we’ve destroyed so much lately. Let’s rebuild a society that’s going to work for us and work for these kids.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I mean, I have to share real quick. My undergrad is in Art Education. And I had all these visions of doing crafts and teaching my kids at a paint and they hated it. They but now my daughter they what they did learn though was to think creatively and come up with different solutions than regular solutions. Right? So I’ve got a daughter that doesn’t do visual art, but she’s very musical and creative and other ways and my son can come up with the coolest inventions and you know so I think at all it’s it’s it all comes together and it doesn’t have to be exactly the way we envision it. Yeah. Okay, so my next question is, so chapter three of your book is titled, quality of life and *beep* sandwiches. Can you explain how *beep* sandwiches play a role in quality of life?
Shannon Hayes
Yeah, we were talking about maybe putting that as a cafe menu item too.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh!
Shannon Hayes
You know, I would say that you and I are in tough vocations. We’ve been in farming, which is one of the hardest trades there is. And it is very poorly remunerated. And then we’re also trying to conquer like the industrial food system and you know, topple it and create a viable local nutritious food system. These are big problems. I would dare say, It’s no secret that neither you nor I are making our millions, you know, we don’t have the corporate retention bonuses of million dollars and shares and you know, all the vested interests and all those other things that come when you have a nice cushy job. It is very easy. It is very easy. Especially when you’re working for yourself to feel like a victim. There was a moment in my life after I’d opened the cafe. You know, we were scrambling financially, always trying to figure out, you know, who can I pay this week? Who can I pay the next week? And I went into the cafe one morning really angry because I was trying to pay bills before I went in at three in the morning. And just wondering, how much could I sell on that day? So how much… how many bills could I pay that day, and I was racing to get ready. And as I was racing to get ready, but you should never ever do in a conventional institutional kitchen. Just don’t do that. Dangerous. Because as I was racing to get ready, I took this flaming hot quiche out of the oven, slipped and dropped the whole thing on the floor and burned myself that the oven racks – burned across my wrist and blistered up immediately. And we were like five minutes to opening. And I am suddenly on my knees on the cafe floor just sobbing. just sobbing and my two daughters are back there. Talk about family business – trying to figure out how do we put mom back together again. And you know trying to – do we scoop up the quiche? Can we sell those or it’s all going in the garbage? I don’t know what I’m gonna serve. And I’m sobbing, sobbing, sobbing and yet you have to present this happy welcoming face when your customers go in. No, no, no, I was never break down in the back. No. And then I get so angry. I get so angry because the insurance guy was getting paid. The feed bill was getting paid. The repair guy was getting paid. The vet was getting paid. Everybody was getting paid yet I was working the hardest. And I was getting nothing. And that turn, that sobbing turned into maniacal laughter which helped because then it really did make it seem like things were joyful. When people came in, they just didn’t know as maniacal laughter they just thought I was in on a really good joke. And we got through that day. And we shut the cafe down. And I was like I’m breaking because I felt I had made the worst mistake of my life. I had taken all of our resources and put it on the line with this business. We invested everything in this farm. And it was always in the red. And we had this stupid cafe in the middle of nowhere. And it was killing me. And literally I had burns across my wrist that looked like shackles. So not knowing what to do, we shut the cafe, I put an auto responder on my email, sent text messages out to everyone’s had gone fishing, I’m going to be gone for the next 48 hours. And we took the kids and we went one mile into the woods. We didn’t tell anyone where we were, we just went out of cell phone range. And we committed ourselves for those 48 hours to explore every swimming hole within five miles. And I spent a lot of time thinking and one of the things I realized is that by choosing work, that, you know, some of us choose jobs to make money. And some of us choose jobs to make a change. And I had chosen a job just like you have to make a change in this world. And I asked myself, well, what were the changes I was trying to make? Well, there’s a stone wall outside my office right here. It’s to protect those stone walls. It’s to protect the water and to keep the soil fertile and to keep the ground lush and keep this place beautiful and to provide food and nutrition. And then I realized that I had become a tragic heroine of my own story that I had chosen all these things. But I was not enjoying them. I was just like this, this dramatic diva saying Oh, poor me. I’ve done all this to save it for everybody else. And I wasn’t taking my own pay. I wasn’t enjoying those fields. I wasn’t enjoying that field, the food. But also what I realized was I was in it for the problems. I was waking up every morning. Yeah, the farm wasn’t profitable at that moment. But what I wanted the question, the burning question of my life at that time was, how do you make a business like this profitable so that the world can grow stronger and more vibrant, and people can get healthier because of what you’re doing. And that’s what I realized. That’s the problem that pulls me out of bed every morning. And I had this attitude shift, where I realized, if the problem was solved, it wouldn’t be as interesting. It was a sandwich. But it was a *beep* sandwich. That was intriguing to me. And I kept seeing the problem as this dark cloud over my head, when in truth, the problem was fascinating. And that’s why I was there, I wasn’t there to have the problem solved, I was there to devote my life to solving it. And the true reward of the work was the journey of discovery in trying to work this out. And then the other reward of the work was to celebrate and take pleasure in those things that I was protecting, to walk barefoot over a stone wall to dive naked into a waterfall. These are the things that really matter. And those are the things that bring me joy. And then I’m also working to save. So quality of life and sandwiches is realizing we’re choosing these problems. And those problems are actually our pay. If we recognize that they are the problems that fascinate us. They’re fascinating puzzles, just as you might sit down to a jigsaw puzzle night after night after night, and keep working on it because it’s pleasurable, or you pick up and decide to knit this amazing sweater. And it’s not easy, but you keep coming back to it. It’s the same way with farming. It’s the same way with trying to make this food system make sense. It’s the same way with trying to build a life serving economy. It is deeply fascinating work. And if we spend all of our time whining how hard it is, all it’s going to do is alienate us from this work, we have to recognize this is an exciting time to be alive. And these are exciting issues to be engaging with. And that’s the *beep* sandwich that I think is part of quality of life.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I couldn’t agree more. And you know, and I realized too, in my work, you know, so one of the things I was going to ask you is, you know, for those of us who are living alone, you know, and so now I’m off the farm. And I’ve got this multifaceted, very busy career, and I’m the one doing my own dishes. I’m the one you know, cooking everything for myself. And so I’m curious about your take on this. But I’ve just realized if I don’t build in the flexibility in my own schedule to be able to go swimming in the afternoon. And you know, maybe I’ll just work a little bit more on a Sunday afternoon then to to make up that project. But I’ve just realized what works best for me is to be able to put things down if I’m not feeling great one day, and just need a little bit of a break. And I’m getting closer and closer to that goal. But what are your other tips for people that that are solo and doing this without a lot of other family support?
Shannon Hayes
Well, one of the things that you touched on, I think is really important is you said it building in the quality of life, it’s non-negotiable. Enjoying our time here, it’s non-negotiable. You need to figure out how to do that. And I’ve learned to schedule that first, you know, every morning, from 730 until 930 in the morning, I’m going in the woods, my husband and I are together. And it’s non-negotiable. I just don’t take that off the schedule. It’s just as important as a doctor’s appointment or meeting with the accountant. That’s my life. And I will have that. And I think all of us whether we’re alone or not can do that. The next thing I would say about going it alone is none of us really goes it alone. I talk extensively about my family, this brother, that brother, this sister, that sister, and I have actually very little biological family. I have two daughters, but I have three kids in my house. I have one brother, but I think I count about four or five when I refer to them my brothers and I have no sisters, but I actually have a sister. And these are all people who came into my life and made commitments to each other. Part of going it alone is recognizing it doesn’t have to look conventional. It doesn’t have to look like alright, so yeah, maybe you’re not married, and maybe you’re not working with your parents, but the relationships and the commitment to others, to a community of people that you will call family, it really does matter. And nobody is an island. Everybody must have… I mean, maybe there are a few aberrant lone wolves among us, but for the most part, nobody is an island. And those connections really matter. And I have gotten to see firsthand what can happen when those people bond with other people. You know, my sister came into my family when I was 16 years old. She had her mother had abandoned her at the age of the of 12. Her father confessed to her at the age of 18, that he wasn’t actually her father. And she had like, her life was falling apart. But she was a friend of the family. And we said, okay, come on, in. And to this day, she still gets her mail at the farm. And the support of family around her, became what she needed to grow, she was able to, in her case, she really wanted to finish college, she became, she works for the Union, she is very successful. And she comes back every weekend. And, you know, when my mother was in the hospital with heart surgery, she was right there beside me and my brother taking care of her. And, and that is the person I call just like a sister, and we are her support network when she needs anything. And so you build those connections, we have young farmers, our herd manager for the last five years, you know, we really work to support her and get her going, she now has her farm in the next county over, but she still comes back and she’s still part of that family network. We’re starting another young couple of you, you invest in these things. And we think about investing in terms of money. But when we’re trying to build that network, it’s people that we are investing in these relationships, some of them fall by the wayside, they don’t all work, believe me, they don’t all work. But a lot of them do. And the more we invest in them, the more they come back to build our, our central wealth of well-being.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So great. So, I wanted to ask you, you know, with all this talk of building in extra time, and you know, creating your own, you know, job and all these things, some people could, I mean, I think we do need to address this idea of this unfair advantage, right. So your parents owned a farm, this was handed to you. You know, some people might argue that, you know, this is just completely unattainable and BS. So what’s your advice to anyone thinking that they can’t have the life that you’re talking about, and then it’s impossible to trade financial stability for true wealth.
Shannon Hayes
You could say it was handed to me, or you could say it was cursed upon me. The first thing I would say, from Radical Homemakers on, I have encountered that question over and over and over again. And one of the things that I have to point out is, if you want to stay in a victim mentality, you can stay there, and you’re not gonna get any further. But if you’re into the problems, like I discussed your *beep* sandwich, if this is the *beep* sandwich you want to eat, you start eating it, and the pleasure is overcoming it, and growing and learning. And maybe you’re not going to get to the point where I am, you know, my parents had to start from nothing and get that first piece of farmland. Yes. And I didn’t have to get that first piece of farmland. I built differently and built and added on. But so you might be just the first generation you might not be the third generation. But the fact is, the journey is still there. The journey to build this life serving economy is open to you. And do you want that journey? Or do you not? The next thing I would say is a little bit of perspective, that I grew up in the farm crisis. And what that meant, in the Northeast was… I was in school from 1979 until 1992. And farms were going out of business left and right. Suicide rates were high. Alcoholism was high, domestic violence was out of control. I ended up going back and studying this in the school system from my graduate work. The marginalization of farm kids was palpable. We would be told we smelled. We would be told we were stupid. We were taken out of the normal classroom, we were moved to separate classrooms and not integrated with the rest of the students based on what our fathers did. So if you want to talk about what was handed to me, I was not handed very much. I was not handed very much at all. What I had to do was figure out what I did have and how to make it work. And so back then it was considered impossible. The state had labeled our farm is non-viable. And we had to figure out how to make a go of it at a time when it’s it was said that it could not be done. And if I was able to do that, now, it looks like it’s handed to me now, because I’m 47 years old, and we started back in 1979. So yeah, that many years of sticking around in the same place working on the same problem, it does look like things are handed to you. But don’t be fooled about what went behind it. And don’t miss a fabulous journey. Because someone happens to be 20 or 30 years farther along than you are, that’s crazy, that’s robbing yourself of the opportunity to try. Maybe it starts with a backyard garden, and you start teaching your kids about composting. And maybe it starts with taking a trip out to a farm to get a couple bushels of tomatoes to can your first batch of tomato sauce. So you’re not spending money on tomato sauce this year. Maybe it starts in the tiniest of ways, with a little back of the napkin business plan that you might have as a dream, but start someplace because the real pleasure is in working on it. It’s not actually the trappings of success that come later. It’s what happens every single day as you work on this fascinating problem.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and there’s always going to be people ahead of you ,more successful and less successful. I mean, that’s just like, they’re always… that’s always going to happen.
Shannon Hayes
Are you getting ahead or are you falling behind?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah.
Shannon Hayes
And there are people who are ahead of me, and I’m starting to realize, oh, I can learn from them.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. And I keep thinking to of all the people that I was in awe of 5, 10, 15 years ago that now our colleagues or the roles have been reversed. So like, it doesn’t do any good, really to be like worrying about where you are. So yeah, just such great advice. And I hope everyone decides to pick up your book. It’s out August 10th – Redefining Rich. We’ll have a link by it wherever books are sold. And so we’ll provide a link there. And as you were talking about all the swimming holes within one mile of your place, you’ve now completely…
Shannon Hayes
Five miles
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, five miles, five miles. Well, I’m up for the challenge. And I am like a swimming hole junkie. So I… Yes, so I’m going to come out later this summer, this fall, and I am booking one of your little rentals and I am going to try to find as many swimming holes as possible.
Shannon Hayes
You tell me the dates that you want to come and we’ll just block it for you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Awesome.
Shannon Hayes
You don’t need to pay for that.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh,
Shannon Hayes
Just have some chill time and relax.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And so your farmer is in upstate New York. Folks can find you at… let them know where they can find you on social media, your website where you are. Everything.
Shannon Hayes
So if you want to learn more about the farm, it’s sapbush.com. If you’re interested in following the podcast, which is Chronicles and Lessons from a life tied to family, community, and the land. It’s the Hearth of Sap Bush Hollow podcast. You can find me on Instagram @sapbushhannon. You can find me online at Facebook – Shannon Hayes. If you want to join the Redefining Rich launch team to get some savings at the online farm store, you can go to the blog at sapbush.com. And sign up preorder the book for the launch team. And enjoy some great savings and have fun helping me promote it.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thank you everybody. Take a take a snapshot of this. Share it when you get the book. Tell your friends about it – couldn’t be more excited to help you get this out there. And thank you so much for your time today. It’s really huge pleasure to be able to chat and to be able to see you while I chat. So that’s good.
Shannon Hayes
It’s just great Diana to see all that you have become with all the great work you’ve been doing. Thank you for the voice that you are lending to the world of sanity. I really appreciate it.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, thank you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thanks so much for listening today and for following my work. If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and become a sustaining member today. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join. And thank you.
