Spend Local Great Lakes™ supports Great Lakes small businesses as a courtesy to our readers. Support local Great Lakes Basin Region small businesses and love where you live!™
Just past the tree line in Sanford, Michigan—where the road thins and the forest thickens—there’s a little place called Small House Farm.
It’s not a brand crafted in a boardroom or polished to perfection for social media. It’s a working homestead. A real one. Built on sweat, seasons, and the kind of quiet knowledge that only comes from paying attention to the land.
Everything they make—body salves, seed packs, tinctures, even books—is done by hand. Small batches. Intentional ingredients. Grown or gathered with care. Nothing about it is mass-produced. Everything carries the weight of where it came from.
Sustainability here isn’t a statement. It’s just how they live. The garden feeds them, the herbs heal them, and the compost gives back. Chickens wander the yard. The work is steady, slow, and deliberate. It’s not about selling a lifestyle—it’s about living one.
Ben teaches too. He’s often on the road sharing what he’s learned: how to save seeds, press oil from native plants, wild-harvest without taking too much. His workshops aren’t flashy. They’re grounding. And the message is always the same: the land remembers. And so can we.
Heather keeps everything moving. She’s not loud about it, but you feel her presence in everything. Their sons, Elijah and Anakin James, are growing up in it—doing the work, asking questions, getting their hands dirty. This is their rhythm. No fast-forward button. No need for one.
Nothing about Small House Farm is rushed. They’re not in a race. They’re just living close to the earth and offering pieces of that life—real ones—for others to hold. And in a world that’s always speeding up, that kind of honesty is worth slowing down for.
Spend Local Great Lakes™
Small House Farm offers a variety of homemade products. You can purchase directly through their online store, or book Ben for an event.
Seeds & Weeds Podcast
Listen to their Seeds & Weeds podcast featuring all things about sustainable living and featuring gardeners, herbalists, farmers, and other groovy plant people!