Episode 188: Natural Antibiotics: How to Build a Practical Home Remedy Cabinet with Prep Mart

Coleen (01:37)

Thanks for having us.

Kody Hanner (01:39)

Go ahead and introduce yourselves, everyone know who’s the who. Sure. For those who are watching.

Lesli (01:45)

I am Lesli.

Coleen (01:45)

And I’m Coleen Wayman.

Kody Hanner (01:51)

Do you guys wanna tell it like take a minute and tell everyone about like each one of you?

Coleen (01:56)

Sure. like my backstory, I can at least start with that, is I married a prepper. it was kind of born into him. If you have not read the book by Rawls called Patriots, that was kind of his introduction to prepping. It’s kind of a how-to manual inside of a fictional novel.

Kody Hanner (02:18)

That for us it was one second after.

Coleen (02:20)

I read that a couple summers ago and I’m like, this is fantastic.

Kody Hanner (02:25)

When we drive cross country we have listened to the entire series with the kids.

Coleen (02:29)

Yes. Yep. He my husband read that one too. He’s You gotta read this one.

Kody Hanner (02:32)

What was the name of the book again?

Coleen (02:33)

Patriots. J JW Rawls, I think is who wrote it. And it’s really

Kody Hanner (02:39)

I’ll totally link that.

Coleen (02:41)

Tedious as far as like the how-to part of it. you can skim past, you know, like radio maintenance and things that don’t necessarily interest me, but the novel itself is good. he was kind of already prepping when we got married and I was raised by city folk out of St. Louis who moved into the country but did not live a country lifestyle at all. I’m not sure to this day if my mother has ever like held a chicken or fed a chicken or we lived with them for a short time while we were building and we had chickens on her property at the time. And I think that was that was her first experience for that.

Kody Hanner (03:23)

It’s like the Velociraptors are coming.

Coleen (03:27)

Yeah. I when I married into his family, it was a it was a different way of life. Deer Camp is like a sacred family holiday. Yes. And you can miss Thanksgiving, you can miss Christmas, but you don’t miss Deer Camp.

Kody Hanner (03:40)

Take a week off from school every fall for Deer Camp.

Coleen (03:43)

Right. Yeah. And so it was just a different lifestyle. But because of the prepping like mentality that he already had, and I’m a very practical administrative person. to me it was more fun than anything else. and then we had kids and I became very aware of the Western medicine system and not that I’m opposed to that necessarily. There is certainly a time and a place, but I do think there are ways to do things differently. my oldest at the time was just under a year and she had been struggling with ear infections constantly. And so we were getting ready to start round three of antibiotics that were not working. And I was finally like, you know what? I read about colloidal silver and we’re going to try it. And so I tried it and within three days I had a different kid. that was my turning

Kody Hanner (04:31)

We always aim for like preventative medicine and first aid is all you know, natural or something we are making and then if you know it gets bad then we

Coleen (04:42)

Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Kody Hanner (04:44)

Like my husband, he ha with his liver disease and why we started our thing, he does have a CPAP, so he gets lung infections. Yeah. I keep him on like mullen tea and elderberry, and he does that all year long. If he starts to get a little congested, we’re doing other things. But about once every two or three years he gets one bad enough that we absolutely go down and do like the steroids and the antibiotics because it’s risk over benefit.

Coleen (05:07)

Right, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I’m not saying that no place for it at all. but I did see it like completely change my toddler first hand.

Kody Hanner (05:16)

But If it were to shut down overnight, you have another plan.

Coleen (05:19)

Yeah. And so yeah, so that was kind of the beginning. that was fifteen years ago. Well, we’ve been married sixteen and a half years now. like I said, he was already kind of prepping and then the natural medicine came in it like fifteen years ago. And so yeah, the rest is history.

Kody Hanner (05:33)

Nice. let’s hear a little about you, Leslie.

Lesli (05:37)

We kind of started off similar. I was the city girl and my husband is more of a prepper, but he came from it from a military background. but still very much he made sure we were prepared for all kinds of things and I just let him do his thing and didn’t really participate at first. But then I had kids, which again changed my perspective.

Kody Hanner (06:07)

Everybody has their cow.

Lesli (06:07)

Yeah. And so our first thing was our children, I mean, I’m very fair-complected, and my husband is as well. And so our kids have really sensitive skin and nothing was working. And I didn’t want to put medicated cream on them all the time. And

Kody Hanner (06:27)

Especially those steroid creams.

Lesli (06:29)

It yeah, and it started getting it was just bad. we developed what is actually now Prep Mart’s baby balm and that’s what we started using was our first thing and I was like yeah this is great but then the really big catalyst for me was my youngest daughter was under two and she had gotten RSV and then the she wasn’t diagnosed with asthma because the doctor said he didn’t want to put that label on her yet. But we were to the point where she was doing breathing treatments all the time. And they were just about to put her on steroids. And I was like, we can’t do this. And so that’s when we our first step was essential oils. And so with that, we were able to get her off of the breathing treatments. Never did the steroids. And Honestly, since we started doing that, we my husband as well had like bronchial issues. And we’ve been able to prevent those flare-ups in both of them since then. And then about let’s see, 14 years ago, Colleen and I met. Our husbands worked together. They’re besties. That’s what happened was our husbands worked together, became besties, introduced us, and we were like, huh, okay. and then now we turned into really good friends. And they love it. Partners. But we would work together then to we would do tincture nights and we would make up our own tincture blends for our families and we both use them and roll the time and yeah, all the things. But we would just get together as friends and families to do that and then Then people started wanting some of our products and we can’t supply everybody with them. lobby. Yeah. then here came Prep Mart. And that

Kody Hanner (08:33)

I love that.

Lesli (08:33)

Yeah. Yeah. That happened about a year ago.

Kody Hanner (08:37)

Okay. you mentioned that you started with the essential oils, which, you know, I love essential oils. I actually like, I don’t know, you can’t see it right now. I have an entire shelf that’s all like beautifully designed and has all of my roller balls and my squirt bottles and my carrier oils and everything that I do with that. I make a lot of lard balms because we have a lot of extra lard, you know. we cook with a lot of it, we sell it, but I found a mixture For a lard balm that is like we call it magic cream, so

Lesli & Coleen (09:09)

Yeah, that’s awesome.

Kody Hanner (09:10)

Which if I double the recipe, I give it like double the essential oils that I put into it. and I take it to the guys out on fire lines when they get chafe. And like literally like they’ll have chafe chafed to the point of infection and use that and it’s gone like the next day. And so the guys on the fire this year, they were all my husband had a few of over for a barbecue one night. Like these are the wildland guys that go all over the country and stuff. And they’re like, dude, like where do we buy this? I was like, dude, you don’t. And

Lesli & Coleen (09:40)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (09:41)

They’re like, okay, you have to get it like on Etsy or something like that so that we I can have my wife start buying it. And I was like, I wanted to call it lard balm and my or old fashioned lard balm. And my husband’s like, That sounds gross. Nobody would buy that. And so they’re like, Okay, well then the stuff you make for us, because I make lip balms and stuff with the same thing. they said you should market it and call it Balls of Fire. That is perfect. I think I am actually doing that.

Lesli & Coleen (10:10)

That is marketable right there.

Kody Hanner (10:11)

Right? I’m gonna I’m gonna do a whole line of like even just a little side project because I can. Yeah. But that the line that I market to wildland guys is gonna be Balls of Fire. Right?

Lesli & Coleen (10:21)

That’s amazing. Perfect. Yep. Well, my husband is on the fire department out here. when you get it up and running, let me know. I’ll place a bulk order for like Christmas.

Kody Hanner (10:30)

Absolutely. I do it in like the little tins and I just take it to all the guys so they can have it in their pocket easy, you know? And

Lesli & Coleen (10:36)

That’s awesome. Great idea.

Kody Hanner (10:38)

And like I said, I just like you guys, I started it as a this works for our family and I hate would hate to think that all my like my guys, you know, like ’cause being a volunteer department, they’re all yours. especially now that my husband’s chief. I couldn’t th you know, stand the thought of my guys being uncomfortable and hurting out there and we’re so rural. That it’s not like they can just run down to the store and grab something. but yeah, I started with essential oils myself when it comes to the more natural medicines. But what I f and I still absolutely use them, but in talking to other people, I start getting a lot of questions on what’s the difference between like essential oils, infusions, and tinctures. And so I thought maybe you guys could clear that up for everybody. I’m sure I would absolutely butcher that explanation.

Coleen (11:30)

Well, we can do our best. essential oils are distilled. The oil is distilled out of the organic material. that requires a process that her husband has dabbled in a bit. We call him the chemist. when we have like

Kody Hanner (11:45)

I actually met a guy in Kentucky who makes like distilling things for making whiskey. But I met him at a prepper conference and he which I’m gonna have to get you guys the info on that one. I was the keynote a couple years ago. But and it’s just in Kentucky. But he’s like, Would you be interested in having me on the podcast to teach people how to distill herbs and stuff? And I was like, Man, I didn’t even think of it like that. Like You just gotta find some backwoods dude and now you’ve got essential oil, you know.

Coleen (12:18)

Yeah, that whole copperhead situation.

Kody Hanner (12:22)

Like except for you know, distilling my weed or whiskey out on Copperhead Road. Like

Coleen (12:27)

Yeah, I’m okay.

Kody Hanner (12:28)

I’ve got some contraband rosemary for you.

Coleen (12:32)

Yeah, right, yeah. This rose oil is crazy. yeah, so the organic matter is distilled. it’s usually steam distilled with essential oils, and then an infusion is just that. like for instance, we use oil an ear care oil that is mullein and garlic, and that’s infused in olive oil, just extra virgin olive oil. you let that steep for a while and you’ll crush up your organic matter to kind of release some of the natural oils from that.

Kody Hanner (13:03)

Like teas are considered infusions too, right?

Coleen (13:06)

Yes. Yeah, I mean yeah with the hot popularly. there

Kody Hanner (13:09)

It’s just water or oil sitting together.

Coleen (13:12)

Yeah, and there are some plant matter that you don’t want to do as a tea because you don’t want to steep it as far as like boiling it because the heat can kill off some of the special properties. it depends on the how fragile your organic matter is. And then tinctures are those are gonna be your organic matter, and then we do essentially infuse those, but it is vodka or glycerin, or you can do a vinegar or even a water. the shelf stability on that goes down considerably. we typically, because if you’re prepper minded, you want the shelf stability of the vodka. and it does extract the most out.

Kody Hanner (13:53)

Are you distilling your own potatoes?

Coleen (13:55)

We are not. But we can try it. We gotta talk to your friend. I’m sure my husband would love to do that though.

Kody Hanner (14:06)

We you know, every year we are one of our family things that we do is we learn a new skill.

Coleen (14:11)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (14:12)

Even if it’s not one we plan on doing consistently. as long as we know how to do it and we have a book on it and we’ve tried it and we know that it works, if it’s not something that feels like it fits into our world, we just kind of move on. Yeah. like last year we did apple cider vinegar. we get a really good apple harvest, we didn’t have to travel. Right after apple harvest, so we used all the scraps from all of our canning and everything. Usually I feed the scraps to the pigs. This year we made apple cider vinegar. It worked. I clean with it. I didn’t test I was gonna test it like and get the acidity and I just didn’t. Yeah. But like, you know, if the world shut down, I’d probably feel comfortable using it for some of the other things I needed to use it for. Like, you know, canning or other consumption and stuff. but we’re like, yeah, that was a lot. We don’t really have the space to, you know, have the containers fermenting and stuff. okay, we know how to do it. We’re moving on from that. But that’s been like a fun thing that we try to do one every year. And like, you know, we tried it with the lard and tallow. Well I mean we My mom used to keep bear fat, but she wouldn’t like make it into a tallow, but she’d keep bear fat in the kitchen and we use it for like, you know, greasing shoes or spoons and things like that. But she never actually like made the lard out of it. And so we started my mom was a taxidermist, so we always had But yeah, we tried the lard and tallow and it was so easy. And as soon as we started telling friends that we made it, I mean, people were all over it and we’re like, that’s an easy one. Like every about every three to six months, we pull all of like the old meat and everything out of our freezer and we make dog food. We also have a dog food freezer that we put like fresh roadkill or a piglet that got squished or whatever, and we make dog food at the end of the, you know, every few months. And I was like, that’s so easy. Just at the same time, we pull all the fat out and we distill that, or not distill it. render it. And that’s one that stayed in our routine. So

Coleen (16:20)

Right. Something maintainable. Yeah.

Kody Hanner (16:23)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (16:27)

With like what is like the potency difference or what would be the advantage of doing like a tincture over some of the other options or other types of like home or herbal medicines?

Coleen (16:39)

I’m not gonna say that there’s like a blanket statement to that, because I feel like it depends on what your goal is. the potency of the tincture is one, especially using it as a vodka, and we always recommend to administer administer it under your tongue. it’s your bloodstream the fastest. you’re getting the benefits of those herbs. For instance, like our acidies or our bronchial tincture, if it’s like an acute problem, like, no, I actually have acid reflux happening right now or I just had a coughing fit and now I’m all spasmy or whatever, you know, like it it happens a lot faster. but like our then we also have a tummy trouble that’s our roller and I always r use that on my kids and it still happens fast. I think it just depends on like what your what your goal is. that’s why I say I don’t I wouldn’t necessarily make a blanket statement on one being better than the other.

Kody Hanner (17:33)

Okay, like I kind of envision it like if I have tummy troubles I drink peppermint tea every night. But if I’m in the middle of like a stomach issue, that’s when I would take like something like

Coleen (17:44)

We use our Stomach Steady tincture a lot, especially Lesli and me.

Lesli (17:44)

My oldest and I both get carsick very easily.

Kody Hanner (17:54)

Okay.

Coleen (17:56)

That like travels in the car with them. like if you need a nausea and it there’s peppermint in that, and so it helps to like curb that nausea on the spot when you can kind of feel it working its way back up. But I also take it preventively when I know I’m gonna be in that car.

Kody Hanner (18:11)

Okay. Yeah, like we always have an essential oil roller ball of our itch roll like itch

Coleen (18:17)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (18:17)

Stop because especially me, I have MCAS, so like I flare up to everything. And so you know, you’re on the road and you get stung by a mosquito in a different town and suddenly like I have a knot the size of a baseball. Right. Right. Like it’s perfect. Plus with the little boys, they just can go grab it and I don’t worry about them because sometimes they like to cover their entire bodies with it, you know.

Coleen (18:38)

Yeah, like a paintbrush, yeah.

Kody Hanner (18:40)

Like when I felt really bad for my he’s nine now, but when he was about three, we were just really learning about essential oils. And whenever he’d get a mosquito bite, he’d put lavender on it. And I kind of didn’t stress too much. Like I told him he should always mix it with something, but sometimes he’d be like, it really hurts. And he’d just put straight lavender on it. And I’m like, meh, whatever, you know. He hurt his eye and proudly came out to tell me my eye hurt. And I put Lavender in it and it’s not helping.

Coleen (19:12)

No, baby.

Kody Hanner (19:17)

We still tease him about that one. Because now he’s like our little I don’t know, he’s like, there’s something wrong. Let me go mix you up something, you know.

Coleen (19:28)

He’s your little chemist. Yes. awesome.

Kody Hanner (19:33)

He probably was like, I will never let another child put lavender in their eye.

Coleen (19:37)

Yeah, right.

Kody Hanner (19:44)

Sorry. No

Coleen (19:45)

You’re good.

Kody Hanner (19:46)

We’re getting like between the smoke and hay season right now, I am struggling

Coleen (19:51)

Yeah. Have the wildfires calmed down at all in your

Kody Hanner (19:54)

Have but having it was the main one near us was like not even three miles away as the crowflies and it was just open valley between us and them so

Coleen (20:07)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (20:07)

On the valley like the air would settle.

Coleen (20:10)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (20:12)

And so I it was like all summer long like being in a smoker.

Coleen (20:15)

Yeah. that’s rough.

Kody Hanner (20:17)

Yeah, it was hard. I just so I’m not all.

Coleen (20:22)

Yeah, no.

Kody Hanner (20:25)

One thing about like which you guys do more than tinctures, right? Yes. Or is that just okay. a lot of people, when they get started with herbal medicines, and I kind of did it myself, you feel like you have to have everything on the shelf for every possible scenario. And

Coleen (20:44)

Right.

Kody Hanner (20:46)

You’re out there, you’re buying herbs and you’re, you know, foraging herbs and you’re buying all this stuff. Like it is overwhelming.

Coleen (20:54)

Great.

Kody Hanner (20:55)

If somebody was gonna either start doing it home or start you know, buying from somebody who does it, like kind of where would you say they start?

Lesli & Coleen (21:04)

We actually just had this conversation because a friend of ours, we call it is she’s our number one customer. she’s one of my good friends and she has little people. She’s got a toddler and a baby, and she is our number one customer because she uses all of the things because that’s how we started this was as young moms and figuring out what works for kids. she’s like, if I just, you know, what are the top essential oils that I would need at home to start doing this myself? And then We try to come up with three and I think we landed on a minimum of six. Well, yeah, and like more like ten. Right. But yeah. But so it’s

Kody Hanner (21:42)

Yeah, that’s what I tell people when they’re s wanting to start like either buying from local food people or you know, half growing it, half buying it from local. Like, look at your grocery list and see what you buy, like the top five to ten things you buy the most and figure out how to grow or source those.

Lesli & Coleen (22:00)

Right. And so I do think that that question also as opposed to blanket statement would be more individualized for the person. for her, she does have little people. lavender is always gonna be there’s the bumps and the scrapes and the boo-boos and the bug bites. we are we use the tummy trouble and I’ve used that since my babies were toddlers. Any kind of GI issue or stomach ache or diarrhea or vomiting, it all gets tummy trouble rolled on it. whereas like my parents are it’s just the two of them and they’re you know, they’re older where if they do the elderberry syrup, like my family of six can cruise through a batch of elderberry syrup in no time where theirs might get moldy in the fridge. I would recommend to them like to do a tincture of elderberry syrup, you So

Kody Hanner (22:47)

Makes sense ’cause yeah, we actually when I would cook mine down to a syrup, it would go so fast. Especially as my little boys actually like the flavor of it ’cause I do it with like local honey and stuff.

Lesli & Coleen (23:00)

Right.

Kody Hanner (23:01)

And so I just started making elderberry juice and it’s free game. Enjoy yourselves. They’re

Lesli & Coleen (23:06)

Right, yeah. And

Kody Hanner (23:07)

Gonna drink it every day because they like the flavor of it, then I’m not having to force them. So

Lesli (23:12)

Right. Exactly. Yeah. My oldest, it’s a whole process. She does her cup of tea ’cause we do the Indian spice chai and this is I don’t know if I can say this on a live podcast, but the Indian spice chai tea and the elderberry syrup makes like a homemade tamaflu. The benefits are that of a homemade tamaflu. okay. Yeah. that’s if we have it, that’s what we have and we have it with our local honey to sweeten it as needed and whatnot. And so

Kody Hanner (23:36)

I the joy of homesteaders is we’re always a little on the edge, so yeah.

Coleen (23:40)

That’s right. Rebel can rebel homesteading, whatever. yeah, that’s her whole production is so yeah, we use the snot out of some elderberry syrup. I think it would depend on someone who I think elderberry should be in everybody’s medicine cabinet at home. my goodness, prolifically.

Kody Hanner (23:55)

Right. Do elderberries grow in Missouri. Okay, good. I have I mean, just f for your guys’ benefit.

Coleen (24:02)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (24:03)

I mean ’cause I know for me it’s like I wa when we were dealing with the chickens all over the yard and so I told you guys about this. I haven’t really told anyone on the podcast yet. We woke up to like a hundred chickens all over the yard and when I went out to try to chase them, they all ran under my printing shed, which is like a thirty two foot shed on a skid.

Coleen (24:26)

Rude.

Kody Hanner (24:26)

The only way we could figure out it we couldn’t find anything long enough to like poke at them. we were blowing them out with a leaf blower. And like my kids are all sitting at the inn. They had food there so that when they came out they’d see the food and go towards it and stuff. But we’re all in our pajamas because this is like six in the morning. And the kids are like all sitting there. My husband’s, you know, blowing with the leaf blower and I was like, What a nice family bonding experience.

Coleen (24:51)

I love how resourceful homesteaders are. Yes.

Kody Hanner (24:55)

And so I was kind of like, I’m not running the leaf blower and I’m not laying in the gravel at six in the morning. I was wandering around and picked almost a whole bucket of elderberries while waiting because we have probably 40 bushes on the property and most of our neighbors are like, yeah, we don’t use them, so whatever. which is great. I mean we always have an abundant amount and those are like the homestead ones that people have planted and have just lived here for, you know, 100 years. But then we go hunting in the mountains and they’re like wild up there, so

Coleen (25:25)

Yeah. Well they grow prolifically here, but you do have to beat the wildlife to do that. You’ll like watching very popular. Yeah. they’re little. they’re green. we’re getting there, you know, and then about the time you’re like, Okay, we’re ready, I’ll plan to go next Tuesday. And then you get there next Tuesday and half of them have been wiped out.

Kody Hanner (25:41)

Yeah, a lot of mine that I picked were wiped out but and or starting to get a little dry, but yeah. We’ve we missed the window on like harvesting everything.

Coleen (25:49)

Yeah, ours is definitely like the beginning of August. ours

Kody Hanner (25:53)

I missed raspberries, I only got like two hundred pounds of grapes, my pears went bad, and I’m just like

Lesli & Coleen (26:00)

Were you traveling during harvest? Is that

Kody Hanner (26:03)

Not really. It was just after having a whole summer of my entire team gone for running both the businesses, then trying to jump back into that was we’re like prolifically behind at the moment. So

Lesli & Coleen (26:15)

Yep.

Lesli & Coleen (26:21)

So…

Kody Hanner (26:23)

I don’t know. I had a question in my head and it just like left my brain. you talk about the tummy troubles is your like go to. what are some like I heard you mention collisal colloidal I can never say it right. colloidal silver. There we go.

Lesli & Coleen (26:38)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (26:41)

Yep. I have to like say it all at once. Right. and I’ve heard a lot of people talk about that over the years and I’ve picked up a couple of books on it. I’d love to hear just a little bit more about that or just even explain what it is for my listeners.

Coleen (26:52)

Okay, so that is your natural antibiotic. you are binding silver particles into the water through whatever system you choose to use. I have an off-grid colloidal silver maker that you can do. It looks like a science project gone wrong. Like Bill and I would be so impressed right now. it’s got nine volt batteries and alligator clips that you can pick up at the auto store and you can get silver rods from a jeweler or you can buy them on Amazon. the only thing that I would say is a little more beneficial to have if you if you want to truly get into it is the meter to test the parts per million on the silver. then you put your rods in there and it creates an electrical current with the batteries that is causing the silver to To go into the water molecules and to bind to those water molecules. that is our natural antibiotic that we use. You can ingest it. you’re gonna, if you Google it, you’re gonna be like finding articles that say, my gosh, don’t take this, you’ll turn blue. there’s one dude who did that and he was drinking like a gallon a day for an extended period of time.

Kody Hanner (28:11)

There’s couple here in our county that are blue.

Coleen (28:14)

Okay, that’s crazy. That’s interesting. I’ve I’ve only ever seen the picture of one dude on Google and then never met anybody in real life that that was

Kody Hanner (28:21)

Well, who knows? The guy on Google might be the guy here. So

Coleen (28:25)

You’ll have to Google it later in reference. but we I’ve we have used it for ear infections and pink eye. that’ll be like to put it in whatever spot you need. we’ll drink it to ingest it for my husband. Came home from a mission trip down to Florida after one of the hurricanes. and he had bumped his leg on some debris down there and didn’t really think anything of it. It didn’t hurt. he came home and It was a day or two later and it looked and I looked and it was like splotchy and red and angry. I was What’d you do? He’s I don’t really know. He goes, I won’t do, but nothing, you he’s in construction, so it’s nothing he wouldn’t normally do. I treated that. he drank colloidal silver. We did a little bit topically, sprayed it on, and then I used oregano oil, which is another good antibiotic as well, and diluted that onto some gauze pads and whatnot. And so we got it all cleared up, it was totally fine. Only for him later to realize it was cellulitis and apparently by the time it gets that bad you’re supposed to be hospitalized and have IV antibiotics and all the things.

Kody Hanner (29:28)

Well, side note, my brother died from that.

Coleen (29:31)

Okay. Well

Kody Hanner (29:33)

He was a hunting guide with my dad. He was hiking like fourteen hours a day. And my brother was kind of he was I he was twenty years older than me. and he kind of was like lived on the ranch as a ranch hand. He wasn’t I don’t wanna say he was dirty, but he wasn’t you know, and so like a situation like your husband down where there’s a hurricane and you’re not getting to shower every day and stuff. Right. he was hunting every day and his sock had rode down and his boots were rubbing on his leg. And he ended up getting cellulitis and he wouldn’t go to the hospital. His girlfriend finally convinced him to go. And literally within like an hour of being in the ER, he went into a coma. His kidneys had shut down.

Coleen (30:17)

I am so sorry.

Kody Hanner (30:19)

Yeah, it you know. and turns out he had liver disease and then so then his body wasn’t able to recover from that. But you never know what’s going on in the underlying you know, situation and, you know, even the doctor kind of said like, it’s not just the liver disease, you know, like the liver disease is making it where he’s not recovering, but his cellulitis was so bad his kidneys would have shut down anyways. Because they actually they got him back out of the coma. He even came home, but they knew that he was never going to recover from it and he passed away a couple weeks later. So

Coleen (30:55)

Man.

Kody Hanner (30:56)

But yeah, so I mean My kids like I drive them crazy ’cause I follow them around and make them put socks on because my little boys would live in just their muck boots. Yeah. And no socks. And they get up to the barn and they don’t like how their muck boots get stuck in the mud. they take their boots off and go play in the pig pens their

Coleen (31:14)

Right.

Kody Hanner (31:15)

Boots back on and come in the house and

Coleen (31:18)

Yeah, not a good idea, but can happen. Yeah.

Kody Hanner (31:23)

Yeah, I’m I’m definitely a sock Nazi on that one. But it’s a it’s a real you know, it sometimes you see things like that and you’re like, it’s just a scratch, like whatever, you know.

Coleen (31:32)

Right. And the more that you are out in the barn or out in the woods or you know what I mean, you’re doing these but you don’t think about it ’cause it’s not a big deal and just to to try to get on the front end of it.

Kody Hanner (31:42)

Yeah, when I was pulling picking those elderberries, there was like the kids had like a bunch of scrap wood and like metal sitting there and I was pulling it out of the way and there was like a piece of wire in between two pieces of metal and it cut my finger in two spots. I didn’t think anything about it. I mean I’m even looking at it right now, it’s these tiny little dots. But it hurt so bad and within a day it was completely infected, like draining and everything. Right. Which I was using an essential oil cream that I buy commercially that we really like on it and it was barely touching it and so I switched to some antibiotic cream that I had. But you know, that’s where most of the time though I get a snag nail or something and I the ones that get all achy and I’ll just put my stuff on there and it’s gone and we’re good to go. But sometimes I choose to take it a step further, especially ’cause I’m left handed and it was right where my like pin sets. And I was like, yeah, no, this does not work for me.

Coleen (32:39)

Yeah, no no no. This is going to be a slow process, yeah.

Kody Hanner (32:42)

Yeah. And I’m a picker too, so

Lesli & Coleen (32:45)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (32:47)

Doesn’t help. how did your you said that you just started your business a year ago. So

Kody Hanner (32:54)

What do you have there? What made you say it decide to do this? How are you just okay, I’m I love small businesses. I love startups. I get really excited. let’s let’s hear all the let’s hear the scoop.

Lesli & Coleen (33:06)

Take one on the same. Sure. I think both of us individually with our husbands had conversations about something in this world, like doing a business in this world. And then one night we were just hanging out and talking about it and realized we were both thinking the same thing, and knew that we would be stronger together. And So around my dinner table, we just decided we’re gonna go for it. a big thing is like I said before, people had seen what was working for us and was asking for some things we had we were already making. And so we knew we couldn’t provide for everybody, but we also knew there was a need. And so Pretmar is not just about the herbal r remedies, but it is about being prepared for anything. And that could be a snowstorm or power outage. here we get a lot of flooding. We it where we live, we got flooded in for a couple of days and yeah, it keeps happening. But so we just want to make sure that we’re ready for whatever. But also this is a mindset and a skill that we’re realizing not everybody has. And people are starting

Kody Hanner (34:38)

They need to have.

Lesli & Coleen (34:39)

Right, right. And they’re starting to realize that it is

Kody Hanner (34:43)

Entire basis of my business. So

Lesli & Coleen (34:45)

Right. And so that’s kind of the heart behind Prep Mart too is like we want to educate people on how to be self-sufficient and how to be we say resources for resilient. And it’s not just the resources that you can purchase, but we want to help you learn how to do these things. Right. Education is actually a big that’s where our heart really is. Yeah. Is being able to teach people to be self-sufficient for themselves. It’s it might not be the best business model, but we’re one, you know. This is something we feel is really important for our families and we see the importance for other people too. because I will sell you a tincture all day long, but I want you to be able to go home and make this for your family that when you are snowed in for two weeks at a time or if the grid does go down or whatever, you have the knowledge and the ability and the resources on hand to be able to provide for the babies that God has entrusted to you. Exactly.

Kody Hanner (35:39)

When I actually from a marketing standpoint, it’s that’s a wonderful way of doing it. You know, a lot of people think if you like teach people how to do what you do, then it’s gonna put you out of business. But really all it does is it brings more people to you and you know, that trust and everything where there’s always gonna be something that they want from you or they’re gonna tell yeah, I make my own now, but if you wanna buy some, buy it from them. And, you know, you can have ebooks that people can buy and f you know, freebie downloads that are just bringing more people to your email list where you’re gonna continue to sell through that education. I mean I think it’s a perfect b business model.

Lesli & Coleen (36:18)

We appreciate it. Thank you. And then we actually just so our like startup email welcome packet is kind of what we call it that. And we tell people, like, if you want to sign up, yes, we’re going to send out a monthly newsletter. Yes, we’re going to show you new product that comes out. But in that first little packet, there’s a 72-hour checklist on making sure that you have your essentials if you are off grid for 72 hours or there’s a storm or power outage. and then we also do a pantry checklist, like a pantry challenge, I guess. Yes. And it’s like how to kind of slowly because I feel like people get into prepping for lack of a better term. and they get overwhelmed. And it is overwhelming. Like, what do I do? I can’t just go buy a year’s supply of food for all four people in my household or whatever. but you can buy four extra cans of, you know, carrots while you’re at the grocery store, or you can buy a couple extra boxes of noodles. And so just

Kody Hanner (37:10)

That was actually our podcast last week. My husband and I talked about the reasons why you would prep and how to just do it low-key. many people they only imagine preppers as people that are like building a you know bunker to move into. And

Coleen (37:24)

A bunker, yeah.

Kody Hanner (37:26)

I mean honestly, like you were saying you were flooded in for three days. We lost power for almost a week last year, which we lose power all the time here. It’s ridiculous. But We lost power for almost a week last year and for like three of those days the roads were so snowed in it was impassable. That’s for us, that’s not crazy extreme prepping, but that’s making sure you have your needs on hand. Right.

Coleen (37:51)

And so, and I’m gonna kind of jump back a little bit, circle back to when I said I married a prepper. at the time that we got married, he had two jobs. I had one, our vehicles were paid off. our housing was part of one of his jobs. He was an associate pastor, so we lived in the parsonage. And in January, he we shifted gears and moved out of the area of the church. we lost our house. We lost one of the jobs. The place where I was working closed its doors. I totaled our vehicle and we found out we were pregnant within like three weeks of each other. And so, like those canned goods that he had stocked away or that silver that he bought and we were able to hawk, that paid our rent. That fed our family. Like it wasn’t this big crisis. It wasn’t the zombie apocalypse that people like kind of joke with us about. But it it’s real life and life. throws curveballs that you don’t see coming and it makes those times much more manageable. yeah.

Kody Hanner (38:53)

No, I mean we had just a winter when money was tight a few years ago. And we the we had to sell all of our good meat to be able to pay bills and so we ate on the same old sow all winter long and we’d lost a freezer with all of our chickens in it that year too. Like the first time we could afford meat again in the spring, we were like, my gosh, this is so good. And you know, I think

Lesli & Coleen (39:19)

Yeah, that’s one button.

Kody Hanner (39:21)

Like even it was store bought meat too. We were just like slimy beef, like

Lesli & Coleen (39:26)

Yeah. We were just grateful for beef.

Kody Hanner (39:29)

Right. But a lot of people don’t get that there are still people out there that live you know, like we do, but also, you know, you hear stories of we ate on the, you know, same old cow all winter and it’s it’s real. Like we are a modern family with a nice home and then, you know, nice cars and all the things. But money got tight and we had to make choices and Thank goodness we know how to bake our own bread and that we had, you know, sealed, you know, flour that lasted us all winter and that we had a milk cow and all those pieces that we absolutely didn’t starve, but we weren’t eating I mean, we were eating like the same things, like three meals a day, you know. Right. You

Lesli & Coleen (40:20)

And you get creative because

Kody Hanner (40:21)

Put eggs with your pork in the morning, you put bread with your pork pork at lunch, and you put veggies with your pork for dinner, you know?

Lesli & Coleen (40:27)

Yep, definitely. For sure.

Kody Hanner (40:32)

You said you had a link to this download. Do I have that link? I don’t think I do.

Lesli & Coleen (40:38)

For the welcome packet.

Kody Hanner (40:40)

Well. Is it on your website?

Lesli & Coleen (40:41)

Yeah. if you go to the website, the pop-up at the bottom, well, I guess it’s at the bottom. It pops up. Pops up. and if you put your email in there, that is gonna sign you up for our email flow, which will send you those four emails over the course of a week or eight days. send you those four emails. And then after that, it’s just our monthly newsletter or where we’re gonna be if you’re local to us. blogs that we have going out. We send our blog out twice a month. yeah. And one thing I’d like to add with the welcome packet, one of our goals as well is to build a community of like-minded people. And so it is our local community, but within that packet it does give you some people locally who are I mean we have medical professionals, you know, organic farmers, like that sort of thing. hopefully we will grow that community to where it branches out further than just just us, yes. But that is one of PrepMart’s goal as well is is to build that community so because community really is how you get through. And so we want to be part of that for people and so we’re hoping we’re hoping to grow that as well.

Kody Hanner (42:03)

That’s awesome. couple couple more questions that I’m just like, you know, popped into my brain. Yeah. One is have you guys ran into any regulatory stuff with shipping or selling or any of your anything like that with your products?

Lesli & Coleen (42:18)

Not yet. We’re we’re preparing because we know that could be a possibility. Our online sales, because we are we just passed our first year of like pop-up events and having the website up and running, our online sales are are not very prevalent at this point in time. It’s usually in person sales until our name becomes a little bit more recognizable through, you know, in interstate. But We’re yeah, we’re facing that. We have to put a lot of FDA claimer disclaimers on things, our tinctures and such. shipping wise, we’re still pacing ourselves on that. far, it’s not a problem. And I think as long as we just kind of pay attention to those laws, we should be fine. Which we’re we’re actively doing. Yeah.

Kody Hanner (43:11)

Awesome. Now, as homeschool parents, you know, something that we do is we, you know, integrate a lot of our studies into what we’re doing. -huh. Have you found that you like what are some of the benefits of or subject matter that you’re teaching through tinctures and other things that you’re doing?

Lesli & Coleen (43:32)

Great. I feel like the homestead lifestyle lends to so much education. Absolutely. as you well know. there’s that. but whether it is like baking

Kody Hanner (43:45)

I always like to find new ways of teaching the kids and like, you know, we were talking about the freebies earlier. I have a freebie on my site that is an a webinar and a whole packet on how to teach your kids how to homestead without having to buy a ton of curriculum. And then my business is literally selling curriculum. yeah.

Lesli & Coleen (44:05)

Right. There’s that marketable skill again. but yeah, I just feel like with everything we do, so even taking fermenting vegetable for fermentation in general, whether you’re doing sourdough or kombucha or kraut or anything like that, just like the science behind why why are we doing this? Why does this work? this is little, but I was making kombucha the other day. And of course you do your sugar and your water, and then you put your tea bags in there. And I had it really concentrated in a half gallon and was gonna pour it into my gallon. with the sugar water sitting in there and the tea bags on top, the tea didn’t ever float down to the bottom. And so one of my kids noticed they’re like, the tea’s not moving, it’s just sitting out there. we talked about like the density of the water because the sugar is in it, you know. it’s things that they’re like just pick up as we go. that it’s not necessarily like let’s sit down and crack open this book, but real hands-on stuff. they do help us with the teachers, they do know. You know, hey, I’ve got a cough. Okay, well, you need mullein, whether you’re gonna have a mullein tea or a bronchial tincture or whatever, like that is part of what’s gonna help you through this. be and to be able to recognize that. As I said, I did not grow up in this lifestyle. everything is if I’m driving down the road and I’m like, there’s you know, mullein or there’s elderberry or there’s goldenrod or whatever, and I can point them out as we’re driving, that is learned. And my kids are don’t realize they’re learning that, if that makes sense. They don’t know that they’re getting this education, I think is a big part of it. And one thing, like we our kids are involved in what we’re doing. Like they were building the coop, the chicken coop with us. They are taking care of the animals. They set up a butchering plant in Lake’s front yard. We butchered a cow in my front yard. And if you knew me eight years ago, you wouldn’t believe me. Nope.

Kody Hanner (45:56)

You know, we butcher a a sow every fall

Lesli & Coleen (46:00)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (46:01)

And so yeah, my kids are the little boys they love running like the grinder and the mixer for making sausages and stuff like that.

Lesli & Coleen (46:09)

We had our little army of children that were when they moving the meat and grinding the meat and you’re doing chickens and they run around with the little chicken feet chasing each other. You’re like we butchered chickens in my front yard too. we do a lot of things with the women’s that yeah, I would have never thought I’d do, but now it’s just life. but also like when my husband Matt is usually the one he does like all our concoctions and stuff. And he’ll have the kids in there and do a science lesson. And I’m like, check for the day. That counts. Put down those hours.

Kody Hanner (46:47)

Right, ’cause you guys actually have to track ours.

Lesli & Coleen (46:49)

Yes, we do.

Kody Hanner (46:50)

I always hear people say, like, Missouri homeschool laws are so lenient, like and I’m like, Nope, you have to write it down. And people are like, Well, what are the homeschool laws in I Idaho? And I was like, The entire law. There’s there’s sub laws about like, you know, that the kids can play sports and those types of things, but the actual educational law says you should teach kids ages six to sixteen the core subjects.

Lesli (47:17)

Wow. That is lenient. We thought we thought we did have a I mean Illinois is like crazy. Yeah.

Kody Hanner (47:24)

Right. And like if you look at the graphs or, you know, the pictures of the maps of like which states are, you know, green and Missouri and Idaho are both listed there. But I was like Yeah, Idaho.

Lesli (47:37)

We do have to log, yes. And we do have like required hours to log. But one of the things that somebody had told me when I because I’ve my kids have always been homeschooled. and my oldest is she’s in 10th right now, but she started it, you know, pre K or consider that just because she was a smart kid. And if you don’t keep her busy, my husband says smart kids are like sheepdogs. They need a job to do on the farm or they chew the furniture.

Kody Hanner (48:06)

My daughter took over cooking and preps and she is like I mean she goes deep into it so

Lesli (48:12)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. she started early, but the some of the thing that they told me at the beginning was log everything. Everything you’re doing, everything they’re learning, log everything. It all counts. All these life skills. If you’re baking a cake, now you’re doing fractions and math and you know, and so we incorporate a lot of our lifestyle into school because it’s natural. It fits naturally.

Kody Hanner (48:35)

It does. I honestly think that basically kids should be able to specialize in something when they’re young and then take like the more advanced math courses and things like that and then it all makes sense to them. Instead you’re giving them a conceptual thing on a piece of paper that makes no sense until they apply it. And then a lot of, you know, adults, they like get out of college or whatever and their brains just aren’t wired to apply those two things together.

Lesli (49:02)

Right.

Kody Hanner (49:03)

And so I’m fully on board for that style of learning. And I actually my nephew just moved up here and he’s twenty. And there’s a lot of pieces where I’m used to my kids being where they can pretty much handle themselves at about fifteen. Like I would expect them ’cause I always, you know, if you’re you’re not raising kids, you’re raising adults. Right. Yeah. You know he’s actually my best friend’s son, but her and I have been friends since we were two. sh he’s my nephew, you know.

Lesli (49:32)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (49:32)

And so I mean she did a wonderful job of raising him. He’s a great kid. But there was definitely there’s been a few moments where like I needed some stuff picked up from town and I was like, Okay, go ahead and take your truck and he’s like, My toolboxes make it where I can’t fit that in the back. I’m like, then take the trailer. Like, that’s cool. And he kinda was like, Aunt Cody, I’ve never y hauled a trailer before.

Lesli (49:58)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (49:58)

And I was like, well Take Wyatt, which is my 17-year-old who doesn’t have a license but has driven trailers and backed up. There’s different laws in Idaho, they got their permits at fourteen. But if you live on a farm, you just declare that and the kids can actually drive up to a hundred miles as the crow flies on farm business at the age of fourteen.

Lesli (50:18)

Interesting.

Kody Hanner (50:19)

We don’t we never opted to let them do that, but our kids drive their trucks around all over. And so I said, Well, Wyatt knows how to haul a trailer, so take him with you, but you’re you’re gonna figure this out. Yeah. It’s just it’s a I said it’s a very it’s an eight foot little trailer. If you guys get it in a funky position, just get out and move it. You know? Two big

Lesli (50:39)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (50:40)

Boys. And some of the stuff they were picking up was just a little bit of lumber and some hog panels and stuff. nothing that they couldn’t still lift. And he kind of he came to me a couple days ago and he’s like, I really like how much you just trust me to handle things that are very important to your home. Mm-hmm. That you just tr you trust me to figure it out, to learn it and to have those opportunities.

Lesli (51:07)

I love that he recognizes that like that.

Kody Hanner (51:10)

And like this morning he came in and he’s been doing a lot of our milking. And we, you know, have the new we ha we’re milking three right now. We have one without a calf, one that’s like a 10-year-old Belfare, like just all these different and he yesterday was the first day we separated calves, and he got a gallon and a half from one of our cows, which is our bell fair, and so that’s you know, that’s pretty good for her. You know, our brown switches, we get way more. But he and but she’s like our drinking milk. And he goes, I got a gallon and a half from Bailey yesterday, but I only got three quarters of a gallon today. And he goes, I know it’s the second day, so things might be settling. He goes, But while I was milking feta, I went ahead and Googled it and it says she might be holding her milk back. He’s like, So I have a couple ideas on how to fix that. And I was like, Look at you.

Lesli (51:58)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (52:00)

We just kinda were like, Okay, do your thing. Honestly for us, we’re like if a gallon and a half a day plus the two brown Swisses, like, it’s not gonna kill us over a half a gallon.

Lesli (52:11)

Right.

Kody Hanner (52:11)

But I really loved that he was taking that initiative to find the best way to maximize our production. So

Lesli (52:17)

Absolutely. Give them the confidence to solve their own problems is a goal for us.

Kody Hanner (52:24)

Right. I also tell my kids your reward for doing for completing a job right is more responsibility. And you know, they kind of everybody laughs when I say that, but when you really think about it, when you have a job and you go once they trust that you can handle the responsibilities you have, your reward is more responsibilities, whether that’s a raise or you get to take on a new project or something like that. You always tell them they did a good job and I’m proud of them and you know we don’t pay our kids a wage but I mean I just bought like one of them a brand new jeep not brand new but you know brand new to her Jeep because she pretty much runs my business and doesn’t have the time to go work somewhere else you know but when she masters something and has it totally locked in then I say what do you want now? And she goes, I really honestly prefer doing this part. over this part and I’m like, Great, I’ll hire someone to do the parts you don’t wanna do and you get to do the parts you want to do.

Lesli & Coleen (53:26)

Right. So

Kody Hanner (53:28)

All right. Well, I have really enjoyed this chat today. Do you guys wanna tell everyone like where they can find you? Like, I mean, we kinda talked about it a little bit, but you know, what just just give the business like elevator speech.

Lesli & Coleen (53:44)

She’s our website gal, and the other handles social media. Our website is PrepMartUSA.com.

Kody Hanner (53:51)

Okay, okay. I need a you.

Kody Hanner (53:57)

I made out well.

Lesli & Coleen (53:58)

Need me. our website is pretmartusa.com.

Kody Hanner (54:05)

I

Lesli & Coleen (54:06)

And we do have all of our home remedies up on the website. We are working to expand it. there’ll be a lot more there soon. we are in, I think one of our biggest growth areas right now.

Kody Hanner (54:21)

Yeah. Which always comes with growth pains. So

Lesli & Coleen (54:23)

Yes, yes. bear with us if it seems like there could be something wonky. I’m working on it, I promise. We’re also on Facebook, we’re on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest. we are we do have a YouTube, there’s not a lot on it, but our goal, as we said earlier, part of the heart of what we’re doing is education. And we did a few classes at the beginning of the year locally, which was fun and it was great to meet local people. but Our holistic mama class, which we were like the most excited about because again, that’s where our journey starts. our art was there. we had two people attend, and although they are wonderful people, we were like, okay, other people need to know this stuff. And we believe very strongly in the methods and the products that we have that we’re using here. we would like to transfer our these classes to an online class. we don’t have those up right now, but that is part of what to what to watch for on that. Yeah. And that and like we said, that is our heart. we are really working towards being able to share more of the educational side of Prep Mart. Yeah.

Kody Hanner (55:37)

That is awesome. Well, and I believe I got a discount code to share with everybody. All

Lesli & Coleen (55:42)

Yes.

Kody Hanner (55:44)

Right. it’s homestead education. Do they need those capitals in there? Okay. homestead education will get you 10% off and I will link all of that in the show notes. And I just wanna thank you guys for coming on today.

Lesli & Coleen (55:58)

Thanks for having us, Kody. Thanks so much.

Kody Hanner (56:00)

Definitely.