324. Why More Stay-at-Home Moms Are Starting Farm Stands (Is It Worth It?) | Rayla of Farmstand Club

So many people are needing or wanting good homemade food and it's just one of those things that people are tired of all of the additives and just stuff that's in our food system and people want to support local. So it's something that a lot of people can start and do. I think it's interesting because it seems like it's almost like going back in time. Like you'd think that that would have been something we did a long time ago and now we no longer do things like that. So why do you think this trend is growing at this particular time in history when we can get just about anything from the grocery store? My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. On this podcast, I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses, Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing series. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Have you ever wanted to earn some money from home by starting a farm stand? Well, that is a growing movement that is happening all over the world, really. And today's guest, Rayla, is the founder of the Farmstand Club, which is a community created to help families return to slower, more intentional ways of living through homesteading and starting farmstand or cottage baking businesses of their own. So we are going to talk about marketing and strategy and profit margins and timelines and how to start your own farm stand. If that's something that you're interested in or just curious to hear about, I think you're going to find this conversation very inspiring and fun. Rayla, welcome on. I'm really excited to talk about this topic. We've had other guests on who talked about having like a small bakery, but the farm stand concept is possibly a little bit different. And I have been seeing them pop up all over where I live within about 30 minutes. There are three that I see regularly on my drives, but I'm sure there's so many more just on roads that I don't go down all the time. So they are super popular. And I'm sure a lot of people are wondering, is it worth it? Is this a good way to earn income from home? Is it a growing trend? What are some of the laws and all of that that we need to know? So let's start it first with some introductions. Tell us a bit about yourself and your mission. You said you have four other people that create content with you when it comes to farm stands. So yeah, give us the intro. Okay. You know, my name is Rayla and we are a group of five that started a roadside farm stand as kind of something that we wanted to do for fun. so my sister and I which are both part of the farm stand group we run a business together and we were kind of at a place in our own business where we were kind of experiencing burnout and so we're like you know what we want to do something fun that's a little bit slower you know we're we've been in the hustle culture and we're like let's do this I saw a post of someone who had been selling cookies from I think it was like a construction worker group so like this person would go to this construction worker zone and like sell their cookies. And my mom told me about a farm stand and I was like, you know what? We can do that. We live on agricultural land. Let's try it. None of us were bakers. And we decided that we were going to go to like Habitat for Humanity and pick up like an old TV console and make it into this cute little farm stand with a really big sign that said bread. And so we literally stuck it out in the front yard. we baked and off to the races we went. And that's how it started. That's how it began. And then when did you transition to helping teach other people about starting farm stands? When it blew up. So we were kind of sharks because like I said, it was kind of one of those things that we were doing for fun. And it took off within like three months, like our social media following, like we just started it for like local and then it just went crazy. And so we're like, Oh my gosh. And so people kept asking, they're like, how are you doing this? And I'm like, well, every state has cottage food laws. You just have to look it up. And so it kind of transitioned into this thing of us just helping other people start because so many people are needing or wanting, I should say, good homemade food. And it's just one of those things that people are tired of all of the additives and just stuff that's in our food system. And people want to support local. So it's something that a lot of people can start and do. And I just, I don't know, I've kind of developed a passion here for it. Yeah. I think it's interesting because it seems like it's almost like going back in time. Like you'd think that that would have been something we did a long time ago. And now we no longer do things like that. So why do you think this trend is growing at this particular time in history when we can get just about anything from the grocery store? Now, we can't necessarily get something that somebody baked today, which is awesome, especially people who live in rural areas, which is where these are popping up because we don't have bakeries. But yeah, why now? I think there's a large group of stay-at-home moms, obviously, who want to help financially, but at the same time, they don't want to leave their kids. They want to be able to bake in their own kitchen. They want to support their neighbors. They want to create community. And I think a lot of people are isolated, especially after the COVID years. There's kind of like this weird breakdown mentally of like, I need community. How am I supposed to get community? And so we've really seen that with our farm stand. Like we've been in our home for 28 years and we didn't know our neighbors until we started the farm stand. And so we just have so many notes from people all over just coming and saying, thank you so much. I appreciate your food. I appreciate being able to come here with my family. So yeah, I think it's come out of need for community and people. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about profitability and what sells. What's your hot ticket items that maybe don't take as much time or money to make, but actually sell really well so you end up making a lot of profit? What are those? I mean, so when we started, it was sourdough bread. And like I said, none of us were bakers. But my mom had decided that during COVID, she was going to attempt bread. Now, she had done bread throughout my life growing up, and she hated bread until I don't know what happened. She started making white bread and sourdough bread and it was insane. Mind you, she also had no taste because she lost it during COVID. So she literally created this bread with no taste. And she does now, right? She does now. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, so we put the bread out there. Bread and cookies are huge sellers. Scones are a huge seller. Simple, basic recipes that are like tried and true. So I mean, obviously the cost of creating bread is a lot lower than a lot of other products. So, I mean, your return on investment is going to be higher. And then cookies, the way that we've kind of set up our cookies, I mean, you make a really good profit with most of the products that we've put out. Okay. So backing up a little bit, we briefly touched on starting a farm stand, but we kind of skimmed over that. You guys went to Habitat for Humanity. You grabbed that TV console, which a couple of the ones in our area have a small building. And then some have, like you said, just a TV console with like a coffee can and a Venmo QR code. So there's a wide range of what you can offer of how big you'll go. Talk to us a bit about that, like getting started. I mean, getting started in the sense of like, how do you do the build or the bake portion? Let's say, okay, yes, getting the type of where it should be. Okay. So like, I'm assuming on your property close to the road. So where it should be, what type of infrastructure you need, what type of laws to abide by or how to figure that out, and then your basic menu, I guess. So for most states, you always have to check with your planning and zoning for the actual physical farm stand. Most states allow cottage foods laws in the sense of like you can bake and take it to a farmer's market. You can sell directly out of your home. But if you're actually looking into the farm stand itself, a three-sided basic walk-up stand is going to be your best bet. You want something that is going to display your food well, and it's going to be waterproof. We live in a Four Seasons climate, so we want to make sure that obviously it's snowing this time of year, that our product is not going to get wet. I mean, there are so many different types of farm stands. We have local people on Marketplace who are building them, and then people can just buy them. It's so cute. But I mean, honestly, you can have a table if you want with an umbrella, and just like a can for your money, whatever honestly fits you. I think as you continue on, you'll obviously make upgrades. I mean, we're on our third farm stand ourselves. So I think that's kind of- In the same spot? Like, do you have three in a row or just, you mean your like third rendition? Third rendition. Yep. So our first one was obviously that TV console. Our second one, we upgraded to like a walk-in shed. And then we still have the shed, but we've made it more of a walk-up style versus a walk-in just to accommodate some of the laws that have happened in our local region. And again, you would know this if you call like local planning and zoning. They'll kind of tell you what you need to know for that. Interesting. So with your one that you kind of walk in, is it always open? So all of our farm stands are open from between the hours of like seven and, I'm sorry, nine o'clock and seven o'clock at night. We just choose those hours because, you know, that just works for us. There are people who leave their farm stands open overnight. Yeah. I mean, it's honestly whatever you'd like to do. Yeah. So then how often are you going into the farm stand and checking your inventory and restocking and making sure like everything's fresh? So there five of us So you know a lot of farm stands they just a single person But for us we have five different people who are putting into our farm stand from our home So we kind of have a schedule of like who opening who closing We load out in the morning we bring in at night we don leave our product outside And most of the time we don have a whole lot of product to bring in We sell out mostly day one And if anything is left over it sells the following morning you know people when you're starting your bakes you kind of want to know how long a product sits on a shelf that's fresh um we we know that with all of our products and so we'll pull them you know if there is by chance something that's left over and we won't let it sit so i mean we like to go out to our farm stand just to read the notes that we have on the walls from customers so you know we go out and you know visit it a few times a day if we want but that's just fun yeah so is yours located on one of your properties of the five of you? Okay. Yep. Yep. Nice. It is. And we're agriculture land on our property. Okay. Okay. So how far do you have to go to your farm stand? And is it sitting right by the road or like how far from the road is it? So when we first started, we had it 30 feet from the center line because that's what the laws were at the time. We had some traffic situations. They punched a hole through for our road. So we had to move it back even further. So from our property land, we had to move it back 30 feet. And then we decided that we were going to move it 85 feet back because we wanted to kind of change how we set it up and whatnot. So ours actually sits 85 feet off the road. Now, do you need parking or are people able to turn around once they get there to get... Yes. Our site, we do have it to where they can turn around. We do live on a semi-busy road. So it's kind of one of those things where traffic control wants that. There's a lot of people who do not in our town have that. So yeah, it's kind of per farm stand. Yeah, it is. Cause there's, we have one that's right off the highway and she actually stocks meat, eggs, even some little things that like crafts that people make and like beeswax and honey type of items. And then also freshly baked goods. And she's actually like you have to get off the highway and then like an interstate. And then there's another one that is off of a road. That's like a state divided highway. And with that one, you back, back out onto the road, but it's not busy enough that that's really a problem. And it's very close to the road. So what do you do about visibility? Like what kind of signage is out by the road to capture as many people as possible? Big signs. So this is something we talk about to all of like the people that were training online. Think big and just bold, not artsy cutesy when it comes to signs. Like we literally have, I think it's like a six foot by four foot piece of plank that literally has the word bread on it written in black. And that is like center. When you're driving by, you can see it. It's 20 feet maybe from the road. So like they'd have to actually turn into our driveway to get to the farm stand, but they can see our signs clearly when driving by. Yeah. I guess that's important if you're going to be back from the road, especially. Yes. Whereas if they can see the farm stand, there might be more, you know, they might stop. But what about like if they have to slow down, where do you put the sign as far as like how far back from where they have to get off the highway or whatever it is? It's not a highway, but like ours is like a state highway type of thing? I think, are you looking from like a legal standpoint or from just like visibility standpoint? Let's do both. Okay. Yeah. I mean, for me personally, when we first started, I put those signs literally on our fence. So I actually screwed it into our fence post. So like people who were coming, you know, East and West, they could see it just sitting on a fence as we've kind of, you know, gone through the time. We literally have a sign that's like sits upright and it has like, I'm trying to like describe this. It's like a standard sign, but you can see it from both coming and going. Legal wise, depending on where you're at, if you're agricultural or rural, you're definitely going to want to ask for signage situations because sometimes they can be finicky about that and then sometimes they don't care. So just kind of be prepared if somebody approaches you and says, hey, your sign needs to be this far back, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Okay. So do you do other like any farm items like eggs or produce in the fall or summer and fall? Yeah. Or just bakes? We have a garden on the property. And when we harvest in like the fall, we will do produce, obviously. Tomatoes, we normally have a ton of tomatoes. So we'll do that and squash, sometimes pumpkins. It's not something that we do outside of like harvest season. For the most part, we are scones, bread, cookies, and brownies. That is the main four. Okay. Yeah. Okay. A lot of people are asking about the time investment. So how long does this take you when it comes to your baking, your prep, the timeline leading up to, which this isn't like a market day. This is a constant ongoing thing, which in some ways sounds a little bit easier to plan for because it's not like you're getting all of your customers at one time. But what does it look like for you? So we chose really simple recipes for that reason. Like I said, we weren't bakers when we started. So we wanted recipes that were tried and true and were simple and efficient to make. So like my sister does the chocolate chip cookie, the sourdough chocolate chip cookie, and her entire bake takes two hours. That is baking, packaging, and loading into the farm stand. She likes to- Like per day? Yep. Or- Okay, gotcha. And she likes to bake twice, sometimes three times a week. That's like her preference. Whereas like me, I do scones. It takes me like an hour, 20, hour 30 for my full bake. And I like to bake like four times a week. My mom does sourdough. Obviously, sourdough is a little bit more of a process. Um, she has kind of, um, done some really interesting things with how she actually bakes her bread. Um, and she has some really cool ways that are kind of like more geared towards residential ovens and hers can take overnight, obviously, cause she has to do the proofing portion of it. I actually don't know much about sourdough, um, but yeah. Uh-huh. So overnight for her, um, and then however long it takes for the actual bake. Okay. Okay. So for other people who are interested in possibly doing this with someone else, like you're doing it with five people total, how do you work out? Like, are you keeping track of what each person sells or are you trying to create like about equal investments that you can just split it five ways and not have to worry about like who sold what or how are you working all that out? So we have an inventory sheet. We have it. We custom made it for us. And so everybody just keeps track of which products go out in the morning. So like if I'm opening, I'm going to write down all the products that go out, whose products are which. At the end of the day, we bring those products in. We just do an inventory count and then we allot out according to whom sold what. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, some people are asking about fresh milled flour products. I've been wondering this too, because when I had some people from the Flour Barn Bakery on the podcast twice, and they were saying that that hasn't really taken off when it comes to sales at a farmers market type. Well, they have a little bakery, not really a farm stand, but have you seen any demand for fresh milled flour products or are people still just happy to get something that's been homemade? I mean, at the basics, they're happy to have homemade. I can definitely see though the fresh milled being a big niche, especially wherever like you're at, like California, I can see that being a huge hit. I've had a lot of people who want gluten-free products and like We don't do gluten-free, but I know a lot of farm stands that we've been teaching, they're like, hey, can I do gluten-free? And I'm like, you will have so many people coming. Oh, yeah. They go out of their way for it. Oh, absolutely. Since it's hard to find that. Yeah. So yes, I think there's definitely a niche for that. Okay. Now, do you have a lot of people that come because they're coming just to come to your farm stand or is it mostly a lot of traffic that was already going down the road? What would you say is the split on that? You know, for our stand, there's a little bit of a novelty. So when we set up our farm stand, we wanted to create like a hallmark moment. So when like people came, they had an experience. So we had music playing. They could leave us a note, put it on a corkboard. Our products were really packaged for like cute factor, I guess would be the best way to put it. And so people, I mean, we've had so many people pull over and take photos in front of our farm stand. Like they felt as though they were having a unique experience. And then once they got there, then they're like, yeah, I love this product. So a little bit of both, I would have to say. I honestly think that's so important because you can get almost anything these days. Like you can order sourdough bread fresh to bake online and it can be delivered to your door. You can get any organic product shipped right to your door. You can order. There's just a lot of ways to acquire goods these days. And so I'm wondering how important that experience piece is. Like when I interviewed the other bakers that have their stand, that was a huge thing for them is creating like a Saturday thing that you go and do. And so do you find with other people that you teach that that's actually really important? I think it is a piece. Absolutely. I mean, I've seen it firsthand from our farm stand itself. And then the ones that I've seen that have really gone viral, definitely there's a feel to them. People just want to experience that homegrown feel. And if you can create that, they're going to come. I really think so. And I don't know that it's that much harder because you have to package anyway. So if upfront you devote some hours to designing and thinking through all of that, then you have that process down and your printing labels anyway, they're just a little cuter. You might have like a little special tie It doesn seem like the investment maybe is too much really time No it not Yeah Yeah Not at all What all how have you presented your stand Like what kind of work did you do to it How did you get it Cause I know you you not just doing the TV uh like entertainment center type of thing anymore You have this shed So what is it like, what all did you put in it and how did you do a lot of work to it or how did you get it to where it is? You know, um, it has had so many different transformations. I think part of like something that I personally enjoy is seeing how the customers interact with the facility itself. And so like, I like to change things, I guess would be the best way to put it. I like to, you know, put up a different shelf, um, add something there. Like your house, you know, like kind of, you know, exactly. Decorate it for the holidays. Yeah. I think that's part of it. I think that's like, I actually think that's a key part to be completely honest. So our shed has changed dramatically throughout the last two years. Yeah. Shelves, no shelves, new table, no table, window, no window, completely different builds. So yeah. Yeah. And you decorate it for the season. That's pretty cool. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Are there local events also that you could be a part of? Has that been part of your marketing strategy at all? Like where there's like, I don't know, like you can shop around or go to different shops I've seen those locally in several places I've been where there's like a event where you just go around to each shop. Is there anything like that? Or have you seen any success with that? Kind of like a farmer's market? Well, no, like where you go, like there's like sort of, uh, several shops that are participating and there might be some kind of game. Like you find a secret ticket like that's that's something that i've seen done but maybe that's cool yeah no i don't have that here to be honest yeah okay no i mean we've definitely thought of like creating some type of what we've actually been talking about this for a while we know that there needs to be like some sort of um not map but like interaction for people to be able to find each other or find each other yes so uh-huh we're kind of in the process of that right now um looking into that but yeah. I can see how that would be fun to add that element. Is there like a farm stand app yet where you find like all the different farm stands? Because you can imagine like going on vacation and be like, I want bread. And then you can just go grab it. Exactly. Yes. That would be nice. That'd be cool. Yeah. Too bad I don't know how to make an app, but that'd be cool. Yeah. It's definitely on our back burner right now. We're thinking about Yeah. As they pop up, it seems like something that would be really helpful to have to be able to. Because like I said, I can think of three just close by farm stands right now. And those are just the ones I drive by. So who knows who else has a farm stand just down the road I never go on that you could go and get other things from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So have you done a lot of social media? I know you teach other people how to start farm stands too, but what about for your actual farm stand? Are you doing some marketing on social media to get traffic? So like I said, the, we started the Instagram channel for local and then it went, I mean, worldwide, honestly. Um, and so we kind of like backed off a little bit for the farm stand itself. Cause we were like, Oh my gosh, everybody, I mean, like these people are going to come from, well, no, like they were like wanting to, and we're like, okay. um and so it's kind of a little scary for a while and we're like okay so maybe we don't have our address that's that is true yeah yep yep so we kind of transitioned into like if you're a local dms and we'll send you the address and then so we did that for a while um and now so our biggest advertisement local is actually our text list so in our farm stand we have a little sign that says text bread to this phone number if you want to get daily updates of what's in our farm stand and so we've just built that to the point where we send that out every day and or anytime we open the farm stand we're not open every day and it I mean it's a customer base that they come so that's honestly our best that's smart and I know people they love to get their their bread text well yeah because you don't want to drive if it is a drive you don't want to drive over there and then there not be something that you, you know, what if you had to close that day or you are out of stock of something? I think that's, that's brilliant. So what platform do you use for that? We use good old texting. Oh, okay. Okay. So it's just like a group message or what? Yes, it is. We have like 40 or 50 group messages and it takes about 10 minutes to send it out every day. But when I first started looking into it, the SMS systems, they were like hard and expensive. And I'm like, I can just send out a text. It takes 10 minutes. It's not that big a deal. So honestly, that's what we're using. It's like in your recents, right? So do you just text the same group or do you have to like, I guess you have to add people to it? We do. Yeah. So we have like bread one, bread two, bread three, bread four. And those are group chats. So there's several. Okay. And then we just create new ones as they come in. Now do you tell people like, don't text back? Because could you imagine like people text back? Yes, we do. Yes. We said we do not respond to this if you need a question you can text us privately or dms on instagram okay yeah otherwise people are like seriously yes yeah yeah now what about like partnering with local farms like say there's a raw milk farmer in your area yeah and they want a way to distribute their milk that doesn't require people to come to their house are you doing anything like that or have you seen success with that? So that one's kind of sticky depending on your state. I mean, we actually buy raw milk for ourselves personally to drink. We, I mean, obviously we don't use it in our products, but I'm a big believer of raw milk. However, in our state, you have to have a license. There's some things that you can and can't do with that. So I would definitely check into your laws before doing anything with raw milk. Yeah. You know, now that you mention it, even our state, it's pretty lenient, but I'm pretty sure you have to, I think the stipulation is you have to like pre-order. It's something like that. Like you can't just show up and grab. There's something like that. I shouldn't speak because I really don't know, but I know that there's some kind of something. It's probably harder than it sounds to just do that. So yeah, Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, the gal that we get our raw milk from, she drops off at a local store. And so like her firm is all certified and has all the stuff that it needs for our state. But I know certain states are kind of picky about that and others are not. So yeah. Now, one person asked, how do you build traction or stand out in an oversaturated market? I'm wondering, are you seeing oversaturation anywhere? Because I am in my local area not seeing that. I feel like there could be a whole lot more. depending on how many people know about it. I think people have to think about the amount of like their population. Like, you know, we live in a population of 60,000 people. Our farm stand can't even supply, I mean, 1% of that realistically. So I think people need to have a little bit more of like a reality in the sense of look at how many people you can serve, even if you have 100 farm stands and they're serving 100 people. Like, think about that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's not, But honestly, I feel like it would be so cool if more communities could have more farm stands because more people are going to have access to better food. So I don't think, yeah. And this is a situation where the more farm stands there are, the more people are aware of them, thus the more demand. Like I feel like some things it's, you know, there's like competition, but in something like this, I kind of think it's the opposite. I think it creates more of a demand for people just even knowing that they exist. and two like that was another thing so like we decided one day we were going to go visit all of our farm stands and make a video about it because like we wanted to support other farm stands locally and we bought sourdough from all these farm stands and we tried them all and to be honest i had favorites other people in the car had different favorites and so like yeah you're even though it's a sourdough loaf of bread they don't taste the same no so like you're customers based on your product versus someone else's yeah and that's what's so cool about this whole concept is it's hyper local, hyper niche. You're not trying to serve the masses. Like you don't need 10,000 customers. You cannot have 10,000 customers. Like you said, you can at most have what, like 50? I don't even know how you could serve a hundred people. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. Like, and I think when you take a step back and you realize that it becomes a lot less intimidating and a lot less competition. Yeah. So, okay. Oversaturation, we're going to go ahead and just say that is 100% not a problem yet. I think there can be a lot more. And I think this is one of those rising tide lift all boats type of situations. What about somebody asked about packaging and what works best for self-serve farm stands? Sealed packaging is key. So for products like your pastries and your cookies, you want something that has a really big window in it so people can see their product, your product, and you want it to be sealed. So like sticker over the, like the clasp part of it. So that, you know, when people roll up to your stand, they can look at something. They're like, oh, this hasn't been open. This looks great. Bread's a little different just because we like to load out our bread hot and our bread sells really, really quickly. So our bread is an open top, but again, it's not in the farm stand for very long. Packaging in general, you want it to be cute and you want it to be clear and you want it to be clean. Okay. Into that. You're good to go. So where are you buying it? The packaging? So we buy all of our packaging right now from Amazon Okay That what I figured honestly Yeah Yeah I think that they have everything on Amazon They do Now is that something you teach Do you have a, what are the, what type of resources do you offer for teaching people? Or is it just like through your Instagram? So we have a PDF bundle that includes a, like a training guide of how to start. and that also includes 14 of our best-selling recipes and our bulk sourdough recipe and then we have live trainings every Saturday so where people can buy a ticket they can come hang out with my sister and I and we talk about pretty much starting and running the farm stand and all the things to like get going and then we opened up a sourdough course that my mom will be teaching on Saturdays as well where it's like come ask your questions about sourdough because so many people like they kill their mothers and they're just like I need I need help so it's kind like a Q&A session. So yeah, just things all about starting a cottage baking business. Yeah. Because I think there'd be so many more questions that you could specifically ask that makes a lot of sense. Now, what kind of population, city, town are you seeing the most success or is it just there's success in all areas? Yeah. What are you seeing there? you know when i when we started this we started this in 2024 um it was it was starting to rise um farm farms are everywhere at this point like i'm seeing them across the country across the world to be honest i i think as long as you have really good products and you have an experience to come to that's really all you need um to draw in the customer base i mean yeah i think it's just it's a fun it's a fun movement it really is and one thing i've seen which not everybody has the opportunity to do this but i've seen someone who they have a farm stand on a piece of property they bought i'm pretty sure specifically for the farm stand so they are advertising it on social media because it isn't their physical address have you seen a lot of people try that or buy sort of like an investment property close to maybe a place where people drive a lot, have success with that. No, that's smart. That's super smart. Yeah. I mean, here in our area, we have coffee huts. I don't know if you have that where you're a friend, but literally- Yeah, we have similar things. Okay. They're literally on every corner here. So I would see it's kind of like the same structure a little bit. So I can see how that would be super beneficial to be honest. Yeah. This, the one I'm thinking of, it's more of an rural area. It's not like where, it's not like by Walmart, you know, like the coffee shop thing is by Walmart. This isn't like that, but it's also not their property. So like that could be something smart so that you could not feel as weird about putting it on social. Now, obviously the downside to that is you have to drive to go restock, get the money. Yes. Yeah. Checking on things. I think too, in general, I don't think if our social media would have blown up to the size it blew up as fast as it did, I don't think it would have been an issue. If we just had social media with like our local people, I have no problems with the address being on there. It was just kind of one of those things where it just, you know, we were taking it step by step. But yeah, if you have just like social media for your local area, I think that's actually great. Yeah. Like in your, everybody has a local Facebook page for their city. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Putting it on there. We've been on that several times, not by us. Yeah. People post it. And so that's great. Again, since you're not trying to really get the masses and of course there's different levels of this, there is like I'm baking bread, putting it at the end of my road in a TV entertainment center. Then there's like one where you're maybe partnering with local farmers and you're stocking it with meat and tallow and honey and eggs. And you do possibly need more customers when you're doing that second one. And so your strategy will depend on what your goal is with all of that. Absolutely. Very much so. Yes. So as far as side income, how profitable is the venture? And I mean, obviously it's worth your time. So it's, it's helping. It's, it's like, it's selling out every single day. But for someone who wants to start something like this, hours invested versus profit, how is that shaping up? I think it's like any other small business. So in our farmstain group, I've had people who make $1,500 a week. I've had someone who made $15,000 a month doing this. Wow. Yes. And that's, I mean, it's very doable if you're consistent. Like I said, it's like any other business. The more you build it, the more they'll come. If you build a dedicated customer base, it's honestly open-ended, whatever you want to do. But I will say it is very profitable if you want it to be. Now, are you guys doing Venmo so that way people don't have to put money in a can? We've done both. We like testing in that realm. We've done cash only for a while, and then we did cash in Venmo. The only thing with Venmo sometimes is people will forget to pay on Venmo. I could see that. Yeah. So sometimes the cash is a better route to go. there's people who've done you know different types of like square I don't know if you know what square is um or like clover different types of point of sales but yeah absolutely yeah I could see that being really great because how often do you come across something like that and like this is great but I don't have any cash on me right now yes and or even the right change or whatever and so you could very easily do it with Venmo probably another reason why this is taking off because you have social media to market it locally. You have Venmo. It's just, it's really easy to get started, I would assume with all of this. Yes, very much so. Yeah. Now, are there any, some people ask like some of the logistics and risk management type of thing, like pets, livestock, wildlife, like are there any things that you feel are a risk when it comes to having people come onto your property? Mm-hmm. So as far as like pets go, certain states have certain cottage food laws where you can't have pets in the house. Others don't. So that's something you want to check into right off the bat if you do have pets. On the property itself, a lot of people have asked, well, what do you do with like squirrels? We have five outdoor cats. So it's not an issue for us. And we've never had a problem. Yep. Having prevention cats. And then obviously, depending on where you live, like we live in the four season climate, we don't deal with really a whole lot of bugs, whereas someone in Texas might. Just taking those precautions, being aware that you could deal with it. There's a lot of people in our Facebook group who have dealt with ants. And so the ladies who have farm stands with that problem, they'll go on and they'll help those. So yeah, it's problem solving to be honest with you. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you can't predict what kind of problem you're going to have. And once you have it, you'll find that somebody else had it too and they can help you figure out how they solved it. But I think the farm stand movement is just so cool because you don't have to go pack up and go to a market. You can just harness the power of people driving by, local social media. And it's just a neat opportunity that while you're home, if you're home with children or whatever, you can be still having a business that's hands-on, that's serving your community. So I think it's really neat. Yeah. Honestly, it fits all those things. And it honestly, it's been a great blessing for us. Yeah. Okay. Well, tell everybody where they can go to find more. And of course, we'll be linking all of this below as well, but like your group and your live chats and your PDFs and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Everything is Farmstand Club. So if you go to Instagram, it's going to be Farmstand Club. If you go to our website, it's farmstandclub.com. We have a TikTok. It's also Farmstand Club. We've tried to keep it simple so that, you know, people can remember it. And pretty much everything's linked there. If you want to join one of our live trainings, you can just go to farmstandclub.com and click that. If you want to try one of our bundles, same things are on there. Yeah. And we also have a private group on Facebook. If you want to look into that, it's also Farmstand Club. That seems like such like probably the best resource to, you know, bounce ideas off each other. Ask, you know, who tried this recipe? What did people love it? You know, what's your top seller? What's like the highest profit margin? Or, you know, what are you doing? You have ants. I think that seems like such a... Yes, very much so. A great place. All right. Well, Rayla, thank you so much. Again, we'll link all of that below. I think this is inspiring. I think so many people are wanting to go to these types of farm stands. And then a lot of you out there also want to earn a little bit of income at home as well, depending on how far you take it, a little or a lot. and I think it's just an interesting topic. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. It was great. I enjoyed it so much and yeah. Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. My husband Luke and I and our kids work together side by side on our farm in Missouri and use our blog, podcast and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and homesteaders with practical recipes in daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog, farmhouseonboon.com and to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course, all one word. We also teach people how to ferment vegetables and mill their own grains through our courses, Fresh Ferments and Freshly Milled Grains. We will leave links for all of that down in the show notes below. Thank you.