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Growing Our Storytellers: Strengthening Roots with Katrina Kennett and Marti Laknar · The LIFTS Podcast

• 0:09
  Gwyneth Hyndman - HMHB: Welcome to season six of our List podcast, where we talk about what it's like to give birth, to raise and nurture our babies and toddlers in Montana, and what it looks like to care for ourselves in this tumultuous season.
• 0:21
  Gwyneth Hyndman - HMHB: I'm Gwyneth Hyndman, storytelling coordinator for Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, the Montana Coalition, and I'm so excited to share this space with mothers, fathers, caregivers, and providers who will speak on the beautiful chaos of the zero to three years
• 0:39
  Katrina Kennett-1: Did you know when wor- worms make dirt- I wanna plant more flowers, Arnie.
• 0:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: They, they, they eat up food- I wanna plant more flowers and then, and then they poop it out, and then it's dirt.
• 0:50
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie, I wanna- yeah.
• 0:53
  Katrina Kennett-1: You wanna try more flowers, Bennett?
• 0:55
  Katrina Kennett-1: Yeah.
• 0:55
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie, what do you know about worms?
• 0:57
  Katrina Kennett-1: Have you held them in your hand?
• 0:59
  Katrina Kennett-1: What are they like?
• 0:59
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie.
• 1:01
  Katrina Kennett-1: Bye-bye, eagle.
• 1:04
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie.
• 1:04
  Katrina Kennett-1: They like- Arnie...They poop out dirt.
• 1:07
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie.
• 1:07
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie.
• 1:08
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie, Arnie, Arnie.
• 1:10
  Katrina Kennett-1: Arnie, you watch my- Peekaboo.
• 1:16
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: So Arnie, as I'm sure you're wondering, is the son of education professor Katrina Kennett of the University of Montana Western, and we are outside the Odyssey Preschool in Dillon, Montana.
• 1:28
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: Arnie and his brother and his classmates are giving my daughters and I a tour of their raised bed garden that is just on the other side of their fence, well within reach of lettuce, herbs, sunflowers, and the soil that we will be talking about today.
• 1:41
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: There's a lot of excitement, as you can hear, both right here at the garden and then around town.
• 1:46
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: It's the first day of the Beaverhead County Fair, and as you are walking around and listening, you can hear and feel all the energy an industry of this town of...
• 1:55
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: it's a little less than five thousand, which has historically been a cattle ranching and farming community.
• 2:01
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: It is home of the University of Montana Western, which was founded in 1893, and its elevation is fifty-one hundred, which matters because along with early literacy today, we are gonna be talking about gardening.
• 2:14
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: And as you can hear, we are reporting live on the bodily functions of worms.
• 2:19
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: It's one of several stops, we make with our collective gaggle of children.
• 2:23
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: As you can hear, there is a lot of poop talk and storytelling.
• 2:26
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: When we stop by the Normal Street Bridge just a few blocks away so the kids can drop their sticks in the creek and follow their path along the bank, Katrina talks about combining early literacy and gardening in this project that has brought both of us here this morning.
• 2:42
  Katrina Kennett: So the project is called Grow Where You Are, and what it really came from is looking at a variety of initiatives in town, of projects that people have, and ideas that have come up, um, in the last year and a half that try to figure out how to take advantage of knowing the place where we are, knowing what does grow here, what could grow here, and what you need to do in order to grow th- those things.
• 3:07
  Katrina Kennett: And sometimes that's about native plants, and sometimes that's knowledge about growing vegetables.
• 3:12
  Katrina Kennett: It is very difficult- Mm-hmm to grow tomatoes in Dillon, Montana.
• 3:16
  Katrina Kennett: But there are some tricks.
• 3:17
  Katrina Kennett: Mm-hmm.
• 3:17
  Katrina Kennett: Um, so sometimes the project is about taking that knowledge and sharing it, and it's also about how people are going about that sharing.
• 3:29
  So this is a project that's being done in collaboration with the Beaverhead Conservation District, and this morning we are also joined by the district's education outreach director, Marty Lackner, whose family has been ranching here for generations.
• 3:44
  Marti Laknar: So I'm definitely not the grower expert.
• 3:47
  Marti Laknar: I'm more of the,"Let me build you a bed and we'll get going." Mm-hmm.
• 3:50
  Marti Laknar: So, um, I was, I was tasked at the Conservation District to help provide, uh, nutritious food for the community because of our in- food insecurities are, are huge.
• 4:00
  Marti Laknar: I used to drive down the alleyways, there used to be a garden in literally in every single backyard, and now there's not that,
• 4:06
  and so everybody h- was pretty self-sufficient.
• 4:08
  Like, I would say our food insecurities are way more than they were even during the Depression.
• 4:12
  We, even though we have all that, all that food, because we have to go to the store to get it.
• 4:16
  Yeah.
• 4:16
  And so we're reliant on markets, and even just like today, I drove by,$5.70 for d- for diesel today.
• 4:22
  Mm.
• 4:22
  You know, obviously affects our ranch, everything.
• 4:24
  So my part of it is we had to do a shift from actually even in-the-ground growing, because our ground is become so infertile, and it's so hard, and the climate is cold and nasty that, um, we, we needed to come up with a different way to provide the gardening for the people in the most simple manner.
• 4:39
  So my job is to facilitate the educational part of it, finding supplies, finding experts, bringing kind of everybody, everybody together and developing the relationships, and then helping get the word out.
• 4:51
  It was really hard t- to realize that we have such food insecurities in 2026, and so many of the people, it's a basic skill that was lost in a very small window, really.
• 5:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:02
  Honestly, here in town, that skill, those skills were lost, uh, probably in the'90s, I would say, when we started getting a McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway.
• 5:09
  Um, Safeway came in, so the convenience factor of being able to go to the store took away, we don't, people hardly can, people hardly dehydrate, that, you know, lost the, not only the food growing, but the food preservation part of it.
• 5:23
  Yeah.
• 5:23
  And so that, if we could, if we could address those issues, I think it would really help our food insecurities.
• 5:31
  And as Katrina points out, what Marty's doing is really just building some awareness in the community of what's out there.
• 5:39
  Marte writes these little pieces in the Dillonite Daily.
• 5:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:43
  Um, and how, uh, there's books that are attached at the end of the piece from the library that you can go check out at the library if you're interested about dirt and composting.
• 5:52
  Um, so when I look across this community and I see the seed catalog at the library, I see people doing raised beds, I see initiatives to grow food for the food bank, here, there, and everywhere, we're trying to think about what does that look like to come together as a Grow Where You Are project, and what do people need- Mm-hmm if they don't know where to start?
• 6:11
  Um, and that's what I get pretty excited about- Mm-hmm is the, um, lowering that barrier to entry if people do wanna grow, but they say,"Oh, I don't have a raised bed," or they say,"I have a raised bed, but I, I just forget to water.
• 6:25
  Like, I get so busy and I don't have..." Or, or it's this time of year.
• 6:28
  "What?
• 6:29
  I don't even know what to start." There's a lot of these entry barriers that are very real, but that prevent people from, um, taking those steps forward into understanding what you can grow at different times and in what ways.
• 6:43
  And so I'd say overall the Grow Where You Are project is thinking about how to make those connections, and how people already connect, and how they can connect further, um, not only with that knowledge, but with people who are older than them, people who are younger than them- Mm-hmm and how all of that connective work makes our community healthier.
• 7:02
  It's pretty exciting.
• 7:04
  and then a week later, back in our offices, we get a chance to reconnect again katrina, how did Grow Where You Are begin?
• 7:13
  Katrina Kennett-1: At the university, we have the, uh, this program called Rural Fridays, where local one and two-room schoolhouse children and local homeschool children come to campus, and there are pre-service teachers who are in their methods class learning how to teach science, for example, or how to teach literacy and social studies.
• 7:32
  Katrina Kennett-1: And basically, the kids come to campus, and the pre-service teachers plan lessons for them.
• 7:37
  Katrina Kennett-1: And for the science education class was this opportunity to come over and do some, some exploring and learning about an area park that's one block away from campus.
• 7:47
  Katrina Kennett-1: It's called the Normal Street Park.
• 7:49
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so I said,"Hey, Marty, let's, let's talk to the, um, let's talk to the professor of the class and see if any of his students would be interested in it." And then I guess the second grade group was very interested in this as a place-based le- series of lessons.
• 8:05
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so she worked with them to put together the, some soil samples and looking at pollinator checklist.
• 8:12
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so these second graders who live here and around the community are now telling stories about,"Hey, do you know what kind of bees are gonna overwinter here?" And they made little overwintering hotels.
• 8:24
  Katrina Kennett-1: And as a spark for thinking about, how do we better understand our own neighborhoods and the things that grow here and the things that we can grow here, right?
• 8:33
  Katrina Kennett-1: Uh, we were doing, they were doing a, a plant, um...
• 8:37
  Katrina Kennett-1: What's it called?
• 8:38
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like a plant, uh, what's it called when you, like, when you figure out all the things that are there?
• 8:43
  Healthy Mothers: Like a, like a map of a garden?
• 8:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: an assessment.
• 8:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like, oh, yeah.
• 8:47
  Katrina Kennett-1: Oh, yeah, I'll do a map.
• 8:48
  Katrina Kennett-1: Hold on.
• 8:49
  Katrina Kennett-1: So we were doing this whole plant map of, like, what plants are in the area, and we kept saying,"Oh, what if we did this?
• 8:54
  Katrina Kennett-1: Oh, what if we did this?" So there was such energy behind, um, what could we do, and what is here, and what would it look like?
• 9:03
  Katrina Kennett-1: And for me, that's the, those moments that I key into, right?
• 9:06
  Katrina Kennett-1: When people get excited about being curious, right?
• 9:09
  Katrina Kennett-1: So it started with this little park and these students and, it s- then rolled into, well, if Rural Fridays, uh, is coming back, and maybe they were gonna be reading books about plants and overwintering habitats and, you know, bugs getting ready for winter the literacy class, the literacy methods class, could read with the kids at the daycare that's right next to campus, right?
• 9:37
  Katrina Kennett-1: So again, it became this situation of, oh, what if they were reading about bugs getting ready for winter, and what if we had a garden bed right there.
• 9:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so talking with them about setting up this garden bed became an opportunity of like, oh, okay, and if we have this bed, what would we plant in it?
• 9:54
  Katrina Kennett-1: And then the little kids are talking about different flowers that they could plant.
• 9:57
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so when it, when the energy of the project, when you zoom out, the project is really about teaching each other how to grow, um, and what is here and what grows here in Dillon.
• 10:10
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, but also the, not only what grows, but how to grow it, and how to tend it, and how to put it to bed for the winter, and these rhythms and the seasonality of things that can grow here, both the native plants and, uh, food that we can grow for each other, for ourselves.
• 10:29
  Marty, can you talk about sparking curiosity in this project and why, uh, starting at a younger age was, uh, beneficial?
• 10:40
  Marti Laknar: Well, like, like she mentioned, so much of the one little project sparked into another, into another.
• 10:47
  Marti Laknar: But so much of, we decided that as we were looking at this realistically, starting with the preschool age kids was actually the way we were going to reteach the skill in the community.
• 11:01
  Marti Laknar: 'Cause like before, gardens were everywhere.
• 11:03
  Marti Laknar: They were in every backyard, and it's definitely been a skill that has been lost.
• 11:06
  Marti Laknar: And we, we had previously put focus on kind of the college age kids just with the conservation district and then adults, but with that we realized that, you know, this learning needs to occur at such a, at a younger age in order to reteach this skill.
• 11:20
  Marti Laknar: And so by us providing this opportunity for the preschool age children, we were able to then a little article in the newspaper, and then Katrina would link an adult book and then a children's book that would, that would correlate with that, um, getting back to the skill of also reading,'cause we've kind of forgotten how to do that as well.
• 11:41
  Marti Laknar: I'm guilty of it as well.
• 11:43
  Marti Laknar: Um, ac- you know, accessing the information beyond just word of mouth, but also being, the kids being able to, to hear it coming from someone else, to be able to have the book, read the book, open the book, correlate it with, with what they're seeing in the garden.
• 12:00
  Marti Laknar: So now we're seeing it, hearing it, repeating it, teaching it,
• 12:04
  Katrina Kennett-1: Mm-hmm.
• 12:04
  Marti Laknar: Yeah growing it, harvesting it, you know, the whole, the cycle.
• 12:07
  Marti Laknar: We've forgotten the cycle, the cycle of it.
• 12:09
  Marti Laknar: You know, like we haven't learned skills historically that we've done for thousands of years, and now we need to get back into that.
• 12:17
  Healthy Mothers: Katrina, what is happening in kids' brains when they're, when they're thinking of story and when they're also starting to garden?
• 12:25
  Healthy Mothers: Like, what's going on in their minds
• 12:27
  Katrina Kennett-1: Well, it's so we understand the world through stories, right?
• 12:30
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so when we're sitting there with the worms, right?
• 12:34
  Katrina Kennett-1: When Marty and I brought in the worm and the...
• 12:36
  Katrina Kennett-1: We're trying this vermicompost project, and we have, uh, this tray of worms, and the students are picking them up, and they're holding one up and seeing how it wriggles, and they're holding a bunch of them and giggling about, um, how that feels and what that looks like and what these worms do.
• 12:53
  Katrina Kennett-1: Then they're having the experience, right?
• 12:56
  Katrina Kennett-1: But when we think about making sense of experience, that's the storytelling.
• 13:01
  Katrina Kennett-1: So when that's happening, and then the teacher or a parent is...
• 13:04
  Katrina Kennett-1: Now they, they pick up a book about, about worms, right?
• 13:09
  Katrina Kennett-1: And, uh, you know, about composting, and the pictures are showing the worms going through the soil under and around the roots, right?
• 13:16
  Katrina Kennett-1: The, that kid is thinking about that experience with the wriggly worm and then they're connecting it, and it's making sense of the dirt in a different way.
• 13:26
  Katrina Kennett-1: They've played in the dirt their entire life, right?
• 13:28
  Katrina Kennett-1: Now they've played with worms.
• 13:30
  Katrina Kennett-1: They've also eaten carrots, and as we're reading these stories, for example, that have the, you know, that have the worm all wriggling around the base of the carrots and the beets and the tomato plants.
• 13:41
  Katrina Kennett-1: They're understanding that connection and what worms do in a different way.
• 13:47
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, and I think that is so important as we think about that storytelling about worms, for example, but then about plants, right?
• 13:54
  Katrina Kennett-1: But then about going and pulling that carrot out or harvesting those tomatoes off the vine.
• 14:00
  Katrina Kennett-1: And that connection that they, that those young people now have with their food but also with these fiction, these non-fiction books and the connection of the person who's reading it to them, all of that works together for vocabulary development.
• 14:16
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so when Marty writes a column about composting, and I find a couple of books, some for adults and some for young people, about composting, then they're able to...
• 14:27
  Katrina Kennett-1: Now they go into the library, and they talk to the librarian, and they have this different connection in our community in terms of checking out these books and accessing that knowledge.
• 14:37
  Katrina Kennett-1: It's how you make sense of the experiences you've had, not just that you've had experiences.
• 14:42
  Healthy Mothers: I loved how when we were there the other day, it, it was like kids reaching through the fence to pick up the mint and the, touch the sunflower.
• 14:55
  Healthy Mothers: But having it right there, what is the, the importance of, of having it there and having it be accessible to them, and having them smell it and, and feel it and maybe taste it even?
• 15:07
  Katrina Kennett-1: Everything we've grown that is reachable through the fence is, uh, is, is tasteable and smellable, and, uh, I think that's been a, a different sort of connection to food.
• 15:17
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like, when you think of little kids and easy access to food, we want them to have the easiest access to nutritious, healthy, uh, healthy food, right?
• 15:26
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, and with the schedules that they sometimes need to have, right, they don't have a lot of control over their own food, right?
• 15:34
  Katrina Kennett-1: It's snack time, so now they're having a snack.
• 15:35
  Katrina Kennett-1: It's dinner time, you're having dinner.
• 15:37
  Katrina Kennett-1: Also, don't eat that because you won't be hungry for dinner.
• 15:40
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so to give them the freedom around smelling some mint, right?
• 15:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: To give them the freedom around taking a piece of Bibb lett- lettuce off the plant and then wandering around and eating it, is an experience that many of the young people in our community might not have access to, depending on their, the gardening that they have or ha- don't have at home.
• 16:00
  Katrina Kennett-1: And it's, uh, you know, in a little kid's world they can reach through and then go nibble on this piece of Bibb lettuce.
• 16:07
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, and that that is absolutely a part of, um, uh, how they make their way through the afternoon.
• 16:15
  Healthy Mothers: What, have there been any standout sentences from any of the kiddos as they've watched this?
• 16:22
  Katrina Kennett-1: I think for me it's been so powerful to see the pride actually, like the pride in having planted that plant.
• 16:27
  Katrina Kennett-1: And they know which ones they planted.
• 16:29
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so to see their pride over this summer, of having planted it, and that was just a, again, that was an experience in their day.
• 16:36
  Katrina Kennett-1: Oh, we planted a plant with mom.
• 16:39
  Katrina Kennett-1: For them to come back to that plant and to come back to that plant, they do remember.
• 16:44
  Katrina Kennett-1: They, they go to those plants and they, they say,"Look at the flower," or,"Mama, look at the bee.
• 16:48
  Katrina Kennett-1: Look at the bee." Um, and then that, you know, of course, then they have other stories that they connect to, which is how their brains are working and how their brains are wiring it- themselves, right?
• 16:58
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so, you know, Arnie will some, will tell, he told a story about, uh, he asked if there was a ni- if it was a naughty wasp,'cause there had been a ground wasp that once stung him
• 17:14
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: also get stung.
• 17:14
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: I've got stung by a wasp before Oh my gosh.
• 17:17
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: Well- That's true.
• 17:19
  HMHB Gwyneth Hyndman: Were you kind of- And I go like,"Mommy."
• 17:24
  Katrina Kennett-1: He was trying to differentiate, is this bee safe for me, right?
• 17:28
  Katrina Kennett-1: Because here's this other experience that I had that hurt and it was clearly traumatic.
• 17:35
  Katrina Kennett-1: But he's, the, he's doing his own c- we, right, as adults we would call that compare and contrast, right?
• 17:41
  Katrina Kennett-1: We would talk about that as categorization, right?
• 17:43
  Katrina Kennett-1: He's trying to decide, is this, is this bee, uh, just a part of my world, uh, doing its job making honey?
• 17:52
  Katrina Kennett-1: That one is technically not making honey, and that's okay too because some bees don't make honey.
• 17:57
  Katrina Kennett-1: And that, but that is different than the wasp that stung me months ago.
• 18:00
  Katrina Kennett-1: So too, this storytelling and this sense making, um, over the summer has been a sense of, um, predominantly a sense of pride, and then also, um, it raises these questions about what is that and how does that work and why does that smell like that and why does that smell like that, um, and can I pick this tomato?
• 18:22
  Katrina Kennett-1: That, uh, that have been so much fun to come back to over and over again
• 18:28
  Healthy Mothers: Um, Katrina, what is your background in gardening?
• 18:32
  Katrina Kennett-1: I have very little background in gardening, uh, which has been very fun to also be a novice and learn alongside.
• 18:39
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so yeah, no, when I was little, I had some carrots that I would grow every year in our little...
• 18:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: There was a slightly bigger garden that my stepdad had, um, and I, and I was in charge of the carrots.
• 18:51
  Healthy Mothers: Katrina, what state did you grow up in?
• 18:54
  Katrina Kennett-1: I grew up in New Hampshire
• 18:55
  Healthy Mothers: Okay.
• 18:56
  Katrina Kennett-1: and
• 18:56
  Healthy Mothers: growing seasons...
• 18:57
  Healthy Mothers: Do people around you garden growing up, or what was your exposure
• 19:00
  Katrina Kennett-1: No, not really.
• 19:01
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like, I grew up, so I grew up in a trailer park.
• 19:03
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, it was a really poor community, but a really s- like, kind one.
• 19:08
  Katrina Kennett-1: And nobody else gardened.
• 19:10
  Katrina Kennett-1: I think we were the only ones that had a little garden.
• 19:12
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, and I would, I would be in charge of my carrots.
• 19:15
  Katrina Kennett-1: And I don't know that...
• 19:17
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like I, there w- there was a sense of like, of being so amazed at the end of the season when they actually did grow, and then I would eat them.
• 19:25
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, but very tiny experience.
• 19:27
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, and then, but no, nobody in my family gardens.
• 19:32
  Katrina Kennett-1: I moved to Central Illinois for my grad school, and then I think that was formative just because everything grows in Central Illinois.
• 19:40
  Katrina Kennett-1: You just throw some seeds on the ground, and you are a successful gardener.
• 19:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: I think that brought me a lot of the joy and connection and settling down and slowing down that I needed in grad school, was to just, to not be with a screen, right?
• 19:56
  Katrina Kennett-1: To figure out what is the sun doing this time of year, from what hour to what hour, and bringing that connection and that, like, joy of trying to figure it out, to Montana, where the growing season is much shorter.
• 20:10
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, and here in Dillon, much harsher, between our elevation and the window of time we have to grow things.
• 20:17
  Katrina Kennett-1: There's no variation.
• 20:20
  Katrina Kennett-1: It's like, well, you can grow things in these weeks.
• 20:22
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so trying to pull together some guidance from outside, but also there's just so much knowledge here in town about how to do, how to grow things here, whether or not it's in lick tubs or raised beds or in the alley, um, you know, just in the back alley along in different pots.
• 20:39
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like, the knowledge is here, but like what Marty has said, there's so much that has been lost over time.
• 20:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so as people move here, trying to figure out how do we learn from the people who have been here and for, from the different recipes and agriculture and historical records of who, what seeds w- and what plants won at the fair in different agricultural years.
• 21:00
  Katrina Kennett-1: There's knowledge here.
• 21:01
  Katrina Kennett-1: We just have to figure out how to look for it, and then how to pass it on to our, especially to our young people.
• 21:08
  And Marty, you're fourth generation ranching family?
• 21:14
  Marti Laknar: My family historically has gardened and ranched forever.
• 21:17
  Marti Laknar: Like I said, we used to put up, they used to put up acres.
• 21:20
  Marti Laknar: Acres.
• 21:20
  Marti Laknar: Their gardens were acres big.
• 21:22
  Marti Laknar: So growing up, uh, we had gardens 24/7.
• 21:25
  Marti Laknar: Um, and it wasn't until, um, actually I got to high school, and that's when we kind of stopped gardening, and that's also when I will say that my health issues, let's say, started then when we stopped eating from home.
• 21:38
  Marti Laknar: But as far as a growing experience for me, um, other than on the ranch, um, I do not have a green thumb, but I'm very good at finding the space and building the space for people, and then find the people to help us, um, with the gardening, like the master gardeners in the area.
• 21:54
  Marti Laknar: And then a lot of trial and error.
• 21:55
  Marti Laknar: With spaces and water and plants and things like that.
• 21:58
  Healthy Mothers: Hmm.
• 21:59
  Healthy Mothers: I was just thinking, Marty, of when, um, I met you at the Normal Street Bridge, but then we went over to the Beaverhead Museum there in Dillon, and we went into what had been your family cabins.
• 22:13
  Healthy Mothers: Those are on display there.
• 22:14
  Healthy Mothers: Can
• 22:14
  Marti Laknar: Mm-hmm
• 22:14
  Healthy Mothers: you tell me about those cabins?
• 22:16
  Healthy Mothers: That was so interesting.
• 22:17
  Marti Laknar: Right.
• 22:17
  Marti Laknar: So my family's been here since the, the late 1800s, and so there, the cabins at the museum were, uh, one-room log cabin, so the bed, living room, kitchen, everything was in that room, and the whole entire family, resided in there.
• 22:32
  Marti Laknar: And also then next door was the first flushable, uh, toilet in the outhouse.
• 22:37
  Marti Laknar: So we had a little, little fun family history.
• 22:39
  Marti Laknar: But that same sort of cabin is actually what my house is right now, um, and we just built around it over the years.
• 22:45
  Marti Laknar: And so my kitchen, it was that one-room cabin here.
• 22:49
  Marti Laknar: So it's, it's kinda the contrast to think that my family didn't even have running water until, oh my gosh, like the'50s or'60s...
• 22:56
  Marti Laknar: Actually probably closer to the'60s at our ranch now.
• 22:59
  Marti Laknar: So my grandma hauled water in every meal, every wash, every everything, so very, very crazy that little short window of time, how little that they had, till even now.
• 23:10
  Marti Laknar: Technology, just even power, so
• 23:15
  Healthy Mothers: Wow.
• 23:15
  Marti Laknar: kinda fun.
• 23:17
  Gwyneth Hyndman - HMHB: Marty, can you explain the meaning of those gardens behind the museum?
• 23:22
  Marti Laknar: Yeah, so part of, um, part of those were part of the sh- what's called the Shared Bloom, and it was a late season pollinator overwintering habitat project, a grant that I got through the DNRC.
• 23:36
  Marti Laknar: To encourage people to plant native plants in their gardens, obviously help with just it helps with soil building, it helps with pollinators, and it also, helps those plants generally reduce or don't need as much water.
• 23:48
  Marti Laknar: And then the indigenous garden behind the museum, replicates the, items that are within the indigenous people's display that of, they have record of, like, 15,000 years of artifacts that are in the museum.
• 24:04
  Marti Laknar: And so I really tried to first highlight what were used for food, fiber, and medicine by the indigenous peoples that utilized this area as hunting grounds.
• 24:11
  Marti Laknar: There were no tribes that lived here year round, but all tribes within Montana used this area for hunting.
• 24:18
  Marti Laknar: so though I highlighted the plants first that were used for food, fiber, and medicine, but then also have, put a lot of focus on other medicinal plants that were utilized as well as other native plants that, are still in the area it, it's called Indigenous Garden, but it's Landscape of Many Peoples, is what the sign will say, just to be able to hopefully reflect people that used this area with the plants that were utilized there.
• 24:43
  Marti Laknar: And then I do have also part of the bed up there at Odyssey is not only part of a Grow Where You Are bed, but it's also a, seed garden, which is sensory education enriches development.
• 24:55
  Marti Laknar: And so those type of gardens are going into the preschools and the schools in the, rural schools in the area to also help promote not only just learning about pollinators, giving them an overwintering, place, but then also the sensory education behind it that we talked about earlier, being able to see, smell, taste, touch, and sound of those not only for learning, but we also have one of those beds at one of our occupational therapy offices.
• 25:21
  Marti Laknar: so she utilizes it as part of her therapy sessions as well.
• 25:25
  Marti Laknar: So those types of gardens are w- Within my, grant that for the, what's called the Shared Bloom.
• 25:32
  Marti Laknar: And then we also have some native plants that will go in along behind the YMCA,'cause we did put a seed garden in there also.
• 25:40
  Marti Laknar: that'll be more food for us, so there'll be native plants that bear some sort of fruit so people can go along and pick and, and eat them too
• 25:50
  Healthy Mothers: What has been the reception from the community on, uh, these programs?
• 25:56
  Marti Laknar: absolutely amazing.
• 25:57
  Marti Laknar: Like, in fact, I had to extend my grant activity another year because the reception was so large, especially with the, when we started the seed gardens.
• 26:08
  Marti Laknar: People have been volunteering hundreds of hours of volunteer hours helping me prepare, especially the area behind the museum.
• 26:15
  Marti Laknar: That was a, that was a lot of work.
• 26:17
  Marti Laknar: But, when we had- we're building the sensory gardens last summer, we had, what, 35, 40 volunteers come to help us build the raised beds, and it just, the excitement was there and the connectivity.
• 26:30
  Marti Laknar: They're like,"Oh, you have this here.
• 26:32
  Marti Laknar: Oh, well that connects to this." So the connections that it has formed has been phenomenal of all ages.
• 26:39
  Marti Laknar: And so we really, wanted this intergenerational connectivity, and it was, kinda happened just naturally, which which was wonderful.
• 26:47
  Katrina Kennett-1: Well, and it's so nice, too, to see the library connections.
• 26:50
  Katrina Kennett-1: Kim and Bernadette at the library, when, when I'm looking up, I say,"Okay, we have an upcoming article about about composting." Right?
• 26:58
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, and so, and, and the articles are just this little informative piece that Marty puts together, and I say,"Hey, Bernadette, what books could we work on here?" And she said,"Oh, we have this one, and we have this one, and I can get this one through inter-library loan.
• 27:09
  Katrina Kennett-1: How about I just pull it in, and we make a little display about it?"
• 27:12
  Marti Laknar: Mm-hmm.
• 27:13
  Marti Laknar: Mm-hmm.
• 27:13
  Katrina Kennett-1: have their seed catalog, right?
• 27:15
  Katrina Kennett-1: Which is actually, um, you can go in and check seeds out of the seed catalog there.
• 27:20
  Katrina Kennett-1: And, and then they ask you to save seeds so that you can return them to the seed catalog.
• 27:25
  Katrina Kennett-1: But they have a...
• 27:25
  Katrina Kennett-1: Yeah.
• 27:27
  Katrina Kennett-1: Yeah, they already have it.
• 27:28
  Katrina Kennett-1: It's already the master gardeners, and Edna has this whole thing set up.
• 27:31
  Katrina Kennett-1: It's beautiful, and they have little books around about tomatoes and radishes, and they have their own display and they have both heirloom seeds and also ones that they know people will be interested in.
• 27:41
  Katrina Kennett-1: So yeah, it's in an old card catalog, and you go in, and you can pull your seeds, and you write down the ones you, little seed packets you've taken.
• 27:49
  Katrina Kennett-1: It is wonderful.
• 27:51
  Marti Laknar: Mm-hmm.
• 27:51
  Katrina Kennett-1: so, um, so when I'm asking them,"Oh, what books should I put in?" And they're like,"Oh, w- we've been actually thinking about ordering this one.
• 27:57
  Katrina Kennett-1: How about we also get that in?" This collaboration not only is in- helping inform the newsletter, oh, these books are at the library, but also they're setting up a display so that when, when families come in, right, when moms and grandmas and their littles are coming in for story time and books and babies, they're passing these displays, and they're pulling them off the shelves.
• 28:18
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so it's bigger than it's bigger than what we're doing, and it becomes part of the literacy practices of our community, too.
• 28:27
  Marti Laknar: Mm-hmm.
• 28:28
  Marti Laknar: Yeah, they've had us come in to, um, I come
• 28:30
  Katrina Kennett-1: Oh, yeah.
• 28:31
  Marti Laknar: Babies
• 28:32
  Katrina Kennett-1: in for Books and Babies.
• 28:33
  Katrina Kennett-1: That's right
• 28:34
  Marti Laknar: for Books and Babies.
• 28:35
  Marti Laknar: We have come in for both Books and Babies and then also, the YMCA has their summer camp and their reading program.
• 28:42
  Marti Laknar: And so we come in, gosh, there was like, I don't know, 250 kids for that last...
• 28:46
  Marti Laknar: I don't even know what the numbers were this year.
• 28:48
  Marti Laknar: So they also pull us in for programming that they're, they're also having.
• 28:52
  Marti Laknar: Like we came in for the garden fair.
• 28:53
  Marti Laknar: And so they've really worked on making it incorporate all the time with us.
• 29:00
  Marti Laknar: The library is amazing.
• 29:02
  Marti Laknar: Like they're beyond just books on the wall for sure.
• 29:04
  Marti Laknar: Their programming has just exploded and they support all, all
• 29:09
  Katrina Kennett-1: Mm-hmm.
• 29:09
  Marti Laknar: initiatives kind of like that too.
• 29:10
  Marti Laknar: They're very, they're ver- very, very well supportive, so.
• 29:14
  Healthy Mothers: What makes Dillon unique where these programs have all intersected and taken off?
• 29:22
  Katrina Kennett-1: I think there's a deep-rooted sense of caring about the community and caring about each other.
• 29:29
  Katrina Kennett-1: A sense of pride and independence, but also co- that's interlaced with competence and community.
• 29:35
  Katrina Kennett-1: So we often think about independence as something when self-sufficiency or independence is isolating, and I think that's like a kind of a cultural thing right now, right?
• 29:43
  Katrina Kennett-1: Independence, I'm alone.
• 29:44
  Katrina Kennett-1: I can do things all by myself.
• 29:46
  Katrina Kennett-1: But I think there Here it is more about capability and agency.
• 29:51
  Katrina Kennett-1: I can do that, and,"Hey, Marty, will you come help me?" Right?
• 29:55
  Katrina Kennett-1: I can build a raised bed, but,"Hey, Marty, do you have, do you have a drill?
• 29:59
  Katrina Kennett-1: Do you have this bit?" Right?
• 30:00
  Katrina Kennett-1: "'Cause I, I haven't done this part before." And so for here, there's a sense of, um, capability that is tied to each other, which I think is, um, very I think that's part of rural communities in general, that we can do We are capable of doing things, but also that by doing it together we get much more done.
• 30:22
  Katrina Kennett-1: And I think that, uh, sense of That relates to what we're talking about in terms of the knowledge.
• 30:28
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like, I can learn this, and also,"Hey, Jean, Neighbor Jean, you grow tomatoes every year, so can you give me a little Like, are you using Sun Golds?
• 30:36
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like, or d- where are you get- where are you getting your tomatoes?" Right?
• 30:39
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like, I can look that up by myself, but I also want to connect with others about how to do it here.
• 30:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: Marty, how would you answer that question?
• 30:47
  Marti Laknar: Yeah, I agree.
• 30:48
  Marti Laknar: I feel like connectivity kind of been that way and lending a hand was a big form of survival because with- without that, um, you know, so many peoples would not have been able to.
• 31:02
  Marti Laknar: But I just think just the nature also of a rural community of a bunch of hardworking people, see something and they're like,"Here, I'll lend a hand." Like, I think it's just kind of the nature of the beast here, and I think most small towns are like that.
• 31:14
  Marti Laknar: Um, you know, not afraid to lend a helping hand.
• 31:17
  Marti Laknar: And so, people their, kind of their love language, I would say.
• 31:23
  Marti Laknar: It's kind of the acts of service is very much the love language of, of Dillon, for sure.
• 31:29
  Healthy Mothers: Marty talked about, you know, the, of the lost arts and stories around preserving and canning and growing.
• 31:38
  Healthy Mothers: And you talked about that, know, ending at a certain time, and that would be a common story in a lot of rural towns of 5,000 around not just Montana, everywhere.
• 31:52
  Healthy Mothers: But can you talk a little bit more about that?
• 31:54
  Marti Laknar: So predominantly I would notice families around here used to go down every backyard and everybody had a garden.
• 32:00
  Marti Laknar: And, but there was also a lot of trade within our area.
• 32:04
  Marti Laknar: We were kind of our own market.
• 32:05
  Marti Laknar: We had our own butcher or our own, um, kill plant.
• 32:08
  Marti Laknar: We had our own dairy.
• 32:09
  Marti Laknar: We had, um, you know, just a tiny little grocery store.
• 32:13
  Marti Laknar: But everything was grown, within the homes, and then you might have traded with people.
• 32:18
  Marti Laknar: So there was a lot of things that were...
• 32:20
  Marti Laknar: Like, we produced a lot of potatoes and carrots and beets, a lot of root vegetables, those sorts of things, or pickles that could be canned and preserved, and we had shelves lined with, these canned products to sustain through the winter.
• 32:33
  Marti Laknar: We never bought any of that at the grocery store.
• 32:35
  Marti Laknar: Like, didn't buy bread there.
• 32:36
  Marti Laknar: The only thing we ever bought there was maybe if you wanted, like, tuna fish or something that we couldn't get here.
• 32:41
  Marti Laknar: So for me, I noticed it was, like, in the early'90s when fast food places came into town.
• 32:49
  Marti Laknar: So the McDonald's, the Taco Bell, the Pizza Hut, Subway, all came in the'90s, and that's when I really noticed the shift, especially in our family, where we stopped growing, we stopped gardening.
• 33:00
  Marti Laknar: The convenience, came in and we started eating fast food.
• 33:05
  Marti Laknar: But then also Safeway, the big giant Safeway came into town.
• 33:09
  Marti Laknar: So now we had shelves and shelves and shelves and shelves of all those things that we were previously growing and canning on the shelf.
• 33:16
  Marti Laknar: And so the, the eye of convenience, I should say, r- really changed our patterns within our family, and it also changed it within the community.
• 33:27
  Marti Laknar: Like, you definitely noticed that these things had stopped happening,'cause I can, Like, even when I c- came back here in the early 2000s, after I graduated from college and stuff, I still, I felt like it was very prominent that you didn't see the growing.
• 33:42
  Marti Laknar: Even I go to our farmer's markets, there's hardly anybody that has to provide there.
• 33:48
  Marti Laknar: So, so definitely the influx of, of convenience foods, um, had an impact on our family habits.
• 33:57
  Marti Laknar: But then, like I said earlier, that it also was, that's the time when I noticed that my symptoms that I know now were autoimmune related started'cause I was eating from the box or eating fast food instead of growing from what we had from the earth.
• 34:10
  Marti Laknar: And it also affected, I'd say our soil health.
• 34:12
  Marti Laknar: That was also the time when we stopped utilizing the manure in the corrals to fertilize our fields and we stopped flood irrigating, and these things are giving back to the cycle of the soil health, changed at that time, too
• 34:29
  Katrina Kennett-1: And I've been paying a lot of attention to the food ways of our family, especially in the last five years.
• 34:35
  Katrina Kennett-1: So, um, I have type one diabetes, and I have since I was 13, so I've always been paying attention to the things that go in my body.
• 34:42
  Katrina Kennett-1: That doesn't mean I always eat the most healthy thing ever, but it does mean that I pay very close attention to the types of food that I eat and the impact it has on how I feel.
• 34:53
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like I said, I have two little boys, three and five, as we've thought about our family food, as we've thought about, you know, them going off to, to daycare and now to school, I think about their snacks.
• 35:03
  Katrina Kennett-1: I think about what they, we, what they have for lunch.
• 35:05
  Katrina Kennett-1: I think about the convenience and the ease of trying to feed ourselves in a healthy way in the time that it takes.
• 35:13
  Katrina Kennett-1: So I'm thinking about, how do I find Crockpot meals where I can put a bunch of things in the morning and let it simmer all day so that we have whole and healthy food at the end of the day, right?
• 35:23
  Katrina Kennett-1: I just found a really good-looking recipe for ratatouille, and I was like,"Oh, yeah, there's a lot of chopping, but that looks delicious, and the house will smell amazing." And I wanna make sure that it works with both my husband and I schedules as we are working parents, right?
• 35:41
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so I think that trying to figure out how to grow things here.
• 35:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: So yeah, maybe I ha- go and get the eggplant from the grocery store, but I'll go pull the carrots from our garden, that contributes to the things that we can eat, means a lot to me.
• 35:57
  Healthy Mothers: How many are of the Grover Europe Gardens, where- how many are there, and where are they located around town right now?
• 36:06
  Katrina Kennett-1: There's Odyssey, Little Minds, on campus.
• 36:09
  Katrina Kennett-1: I would put the indigenous garden as part of it because it's a part of the ethos and the native pollinator plants too in the food forest beginning.
• 36:17
  Katrina Kennett-1: Um, we're starting at Normal Street Bridge.
• 36:20
  Katrina Kennett-1: We have the tiny planter there.
• 36:22
  Katrina Kennett-1: So I'd say there's five beds right now, and then we have a spreadsheet where as we move into the stage of creating and constructing raised beds, we have a list of 20 that we are going to be building this fall.
• 36:36
  Katrina Kennett-1: Our collaboration with the Montana Youth Challenge is gonna be pretty amazing because they're gonna be getting some donated wood, and then they're gonna be in wood shop constructing beds.
• 36:47
  Katrina Kennett-1: And then we're, they're gonna keep at least three for themselves, which is gonna be amazing, so that the cadets are deciding what to grow and what to, what to plant for the next class, because there's two classes a year.
• 36:57
  Katrina Kennett-1: So the fall group is gonna build the beds, and then they're going to start some, some things.
• 37:03
  Katrina Kennett-1: And then in the spring those cadets will be able to harvest and plant for the upcoming fall.
• 37:07
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so we're really excited to have them have a sense of like a deep-rooted sense of connection to this place as well.
• 37:15
  Healthy Mothers: What is your vision now going forward for this?
• 37:17
  Healthy Mothers: Like, what's the, uh, I wanna say, like, master, like, what do we do, what's, what's next?
• 37:25
  Marti Laknar: Yeah, Cr- Trina, do talk about the boulevards.
• 37:28
  Katrina Kennett-1: I would love that.
• 37:29
  Katrina Kennett-1: So I'd say my vision is many places, many families around town, and even many businesses around town, having raised beds on their boulevard so that it kind of brings back that front porch mentality, right?
• 37:45
  Katrina Kennett-1: That way that we're out doing something and connecting with each other in our streetscapes and in our community, so that they, that gardening is not something that people shy away from, but that's something that they opt into, and that little bit that they choose to do, whatever it is that they choose to grow that year, be it chard or Brussels sprouts or carrots or some new type of tomato, that they are feeling more capable and connected.
• 38:16
  Katrina Kennett-1: When I think about the different families that I know in town, I like to joke that there's a lot of excellent home cooks in Dillon, and that is potentially a reflection of our small but delicious set of restaurants we have here.
• 38:32
  Katrina Kennett-1: But there's a lot of folks who look for variety, right, who are, who are interested in cooking, right?
• 38:37
  Katrina Kennett-1: And they go out and they, we have people who love making Indian food and Nepali food and Thai food, right?
• 38:42
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so when I think about the exploration and curiosity and capability of cooking already, of the, all the stay-at-home moms I know who cook delicious meals for their family, right?
• 38:54
  Katrina Kennett-1: I'm thinking about how do we take that as just something we do, and connecting it to also something we grow.
• 39:02
  Katrina Kennett-1: I just love it.
• 39:02
  Katrina Kennett-1: I just love
• 39:03
  Healthy Mothers: I
• 39:03
  Katrina Kennett-1: it
• 39:04
  Healthy Mothers: that.
• 39:05
  Healthy Mothers: Any parting thoughts at all, or any topics we didn't cover within this?
• 39:10
  Katrina Kennett-1: That's great.
• 39:11
  Katrina Kennett-1: As I said to you, uh, Gwyneth, I love being in it right now.
• 39:15
  Katrina Kennett-1: There's just so many little bits and pieces, and we're learning, and this is, you know, this is growing.
• 39:19
  Katrina Kennett-1: and this is this, and this is happening.
• 39:21
  Katrina Kennett-1: And so I love how that's happening right now.
• 39:24
  Katrina Kennett-1: So it makes it hard in some ways to zoom out, all the way out, and say, what is, uh...
• 39:30
  Katrina Kennett-1: I, I think it's an important question.
• 39:31
  Katrina Kennett-1: I'm glad you just asked what that is,'cause I was like, yeah, you're right.
• 39:33
  Katrina Kennett-1: Just people out and about in an evening pulling things from their garden and then going inside and eating or saying,"Hey, come over and have some, like, have a salad with me." I'm like, oh my God, that is my vision, I guess.
• 39:44
  Katrina Kennett-1: But it's about, because that's about the kids also growing.
• 39:46
  Katrina Kennett-1: Like if I say,"Hey, Frank, can you go get five carrots so we can chop them up for dinner in the salad tonight?" I'm just like, oh yeah, that, that feels right
• 39:57
  Marti Laknar: Mm-hmm.
• 39:58
  Marti Laknar: Yeah, I really feel like getting the connection to the whole cycle.
• 40:02
  Marti Laknar: The one thing we did too, I don't remember if we told you before, that we, had grown, um, starts within the seed snail.
• 40:10
  Marti Laknar: So I grew 37 tomato plants within just one little seed snail, and then we transplanted them, and then we gave most of those away to moms at the- Okay um, moms night out.
• 40:20
  Healthy Mothers: Oh.
• 40:21
  Marti Laknar: they were, um, indeterminate, um, tomatoes, so each plant could make l- 3 to 500 pounds of tomatoes for each plant.
• 40:31
  Marti Laknar: And so we just felt that was such a powerful tool that we were able to give those moms to take home.
• 40:37
  Marti Laknar: I sense at almost 5,000 pounds of tomatoes, that just those, that little tiny seed snail had the opportunity to produce.
• 40:46
  Marti Laknar: And that was something that we were just like,"Wow, the, the opportunity to make an impact really, really was there."'Cause with that we gave them recipes, and we gave them a card on how to transplant.
• 40:57
  Marti Laknar: So we gave them the educational materials behind it, but made it as simple as we could and as successful for them as it could be.
• 41:04
  Marti Laknar: Even if that's the very first thing they've ever grown to.
• 41:08
  Marti Laknar: 'Cause I even have one of those plants upstairs that it was, just wasn't healthy, so I kept it, and now it's like a foot tall and has the tiniest, just tiniest little tomato.
• 41:17
  Marti Laknar: And I literally forget to water it all the time, and it fries in the window, and I just give it some water, and then it comes back.
• 41:25
  Marti Laknar: And so just even for my own trial and tribulations with these plants, you know, I'm like,"Well, if I could not kill it off completely, I think somebody had a chance." But we wanted to just give the, the parents strength and encouragement, and take down any barriers that we could, and then also the possibility for, more for them, and to pass it on.
• 41:47
  Marti Laknar: Pass it on.
• 41:48
  Healthy Mothers: Yeah.
• 41:50
  Healthy Mothers: That's wonderful.
• 41:50
  Healthy Mothers: And I think too, like, there's something about that even as you're saying that, even just your words, like, oh, it, it cooked in the window and then I just gave it some water.
• 41:57
  Healthy Mothers: And y- I was like, oh, gosh, okay, maybe I could do that
• 42:02
  Marti Laknar: Mm-hmm.
• 42:02
  Healthy Mothers: too.
• 42:02
  Healthy Mothers: I was thinking about, you know, in those days or those times where you feel like nothing is happening or you just wanna have some small success of your day,
• 42:10
  Katrina Kennett-1: Mm-hmm.
• 42:11
  Healthy Mothers: And that sometimes can snowball into other things.
• 42:13
  Healthy Mothers: It's like, oh, I did what, this, this is what I accomplished today.
• 42:16
  Healthy Mothers: I kept this tomato plant alive.
• 42:19
  Healthy Mothers: And like, yep, still, I'm still in those years right now where you're just like, I wanna see one thing through, one thing surviving and thriving right now.
• 42:28
  Healthy Mothers: I could see that just being a really lovely mind thing to have at your house.
• 42:34
  Healthy Mothers: Like, this is Yeah.
• 42:35
  Healthy Mothers: I love that.
• 42:36
  Marti Laknar: It's been fun with Katrina and I, like these different places that we planted where we're like,"Oh, we're not sure it's gonna work." And the tomato I just talked about, I was like,"Oh, no, I learned, if you take the tomato and you lay it flat all the way down to the very last plant,'cause each one of those hairs can be a root." And we're like,"We're gonna try it." And sure enough, that tomato plant that you saw at Odyssey was, is how we planted that.
• 42:57
  Marti Laknar: And then the look on our faces as we get over there and we both see it is just"Oh.""Oh my gosh." Like the success...
• 43:04
  Marti Laknar: Like, we've had some of these are like, ants.
• 43:06
  Marti Laknar: But overall it's been so fun to share that and to have that with Katrina to share because it's been like so fun in our own, for our own personal gains that way too.
• 43:18
  Marti Laknar: Just like, oh, the feel goods.
• 43:19
  Marti Laknar: Like we've had so many feel goods it and it's like, oh, our idea actually is working.
• 43:27
  Marti Laknar: Like this is successful.
• 43:28
  Marti Laknar: We're like little kids, is really what it's like.
• 43:31
  Marti Laknar: The excitement and the disappointment and the excitement and...
• 43:35
  Marti Laknar: But it, I just think of our face when we saw the tomatoes and we're like,"Oh, it worked.
• 43:39
  Katrina Kennett-1: We did it
• 43:40
  Marti Laknar: we did it." So it's been very rewarding, and that has just so good for, for I think both of our hearts and knowing that we can share that with people.
• 43:50
  Katrina Kennett-1: We were planting at the Odyssey bed, and Frank and Ernie were running around.
• 43:54
  Katrina Kennett-1: And, there was all of a sudden one, like, two of the professors who were in the education department, they had stopped, and I called them over.
• 44:01
  Katrina Kennett-1: I was like,"Hey, do you guys wanna help us plant?" And the Odyssey bed is right there on the, on Poindexter Street, and one of the students who I'd been talking with about this project for the the couple months before, she drove by and waved, and we waved back to her.
• 44:14
  Katrina Kennett-1: And we were putting our hands in the soil, and all of a sudden Ellie came back.
• 44:18
  Katrina Kennett-1: She's like,"I saw you guys and I need to get out of town, but I feel like I've been rush, rush, rush." She's like,"You know, I'm gonna just stop and go see what they're doing." And she had turned around and came back and parked, and came up and helped us plant.
• 44:32
  Katrina Kennett-1: And that sense of slowing down and being all together.
• 44:36
  Katrina Kennett-1: And then Marty, you gave Nyasha the, like, big tomato plant in the pot, too, and she's bringing that home.
• 44:42
  Katrina Kennett-1: Uh, I think they have four or no, I think they have five kids at home.
• 44:46
  Katrina Kennett-1: And just thinking about how this moment all together, um, how deep do you want, how deep are we supposed to put this one in?
• 44:54
  Katrina Kennett-1: Or, like,"Ernie, come over here and see.
• 44:56
  Katrina Kennett-1: Can, can you dig down a little bit more?" All of that scene together of us slowing down together and, yeah, just being together as we, on this beautiful day, was, was pretty special.
• 45:12
  Katrina Kennett-1: And it is kind of that, that for me it was that, like, that joy of, like, oh, this is what it's about, it's about slowing down.
• 45:24
  I promised my girls that after our walk around the gardens, we can go to the Beaverhead County Fairgrounds.
• 45:29
  This is our first time ever going to a county fair for them.
• 45:33
  We watch calf roping, visit the 4-H sheep and goats in the barns, and sip lemonade out of these massive containers of crushed lemon and ice.
• 45:41
  And as Katrinik suggested, we do end up going to, the Dillon Public Library annual book sale.
• 45:49
  You want that one?
• 45:51
  This one.
• 45:52
  That's the one you want?
• 45:54
  Okay.
• 45:56
  Okay.
• 45:57
  Should we bring this over and get out our books?
• 45:59
  Um, can we keep these books forever?
• 46:02
  Yeah, they're for us to keep forever.
• 46:04
  Yay.
• 46:06
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: The Lifts podcast is hosted by Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, the Montana Coalition, a nonprofit organization out of Helena, Montana dedicated to the health and wellbeing of families expecting and raising little ones.
• 46:20
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: Opinions and views expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent the views expressed by HMHB as an organization.
• 46:29
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: If you have a topic or a story you would love to see covered on our podcast, or if you have any feedback on a podcast that has aired, you can contact me at gwyneth@hmhb-mt.org.
• 46:41
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: You can also go right to our website at hmhb-mt.org.
• 46:47
  Gwyneth Hyndman, HMHB-MT: We look forward to hearing from you