‘My story tends to take people on an emotional roller-coaster’

Mirenda Rosenberg may have popped up on your TikTok explore page with videos discussing all things home-grown and home-made. 

The content creator moved from the United States to Donegal 20 years ago and now she has a following on the video-sharing network of over 600,000 followers and 26 million likes under her profile, Homestead Donegal.

Mirenda posts sustainable cooking videos to show viewers how to use every piece of food, from fruit to meat. Her goal, she says, is to convert to a physical learning centre where she can host classes and also live-stream to her followers.

There, she shares stories about things like a soap made from rendered animal fat, while discussing growth and zero-waste households. However, comfortable in dealing with her own experiences - and turning negatives into positives - Mirenda commonly shares and discusses her trauma to help others. 

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“I work with survivors of domestic violence, and I teach workshops for different community organisations,” Mirenda, who lives in Termon, tells DonegalLive.

“My story tends to take people on an emotional roller-coaster. People were really nice to me in Donegal, and my abusive relationship didn’t survive … it gave me the courage to think I’m not a bad person, and I left.”

After separating from her partner, Mirenda created the Grace and Whimsey online workshop that covers everything from sustainability to well-being. 

 “I had to figure out a way to feed my children,” Mirenda says. “I was able to learn how to live in a homestead by reading books and watching YouTube videos. I’ve always been a natural learner and nerdy.

“I began living in a housing estate, and converted the garden in the back… in a year and a half I was able to feed my family and four neighbours.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, Mirenda, who was born in Illinois, not  far from Lake Michigan in the American midwest, had to move house from Letterkenny to Termon “amongst the sheep and the cows.”

As she had done in Letterkenny, she farmed as “it became a way for me to give back” to the people who supported her, whilst she continued to evolve her skills to include natural skincare products. 

“Soap-making is an industry, so you have to figure out how to make it without spending a lot of money,” she adds.

“I didn’t want to use palm oil, it's harmful to the environment, so I replaced it with beef fat that I would render down to make tallow … no one would give me beef fat apart from a butcher in Kilmacrennan, so he would save it for me.

”I’m very privileged to have the time and ability to make my own products and grow my own food. People should protect themselves, their wallets, and the planet in a way that is accessible to them. Not everybody can do everything, I carry no judgement for anyone who can’t garden or make soap.”

After posting soap-making recipes to her online learning centre, and showing the process to her followers on TikTok, Mirenda is currently creating a book that will explain soap-making to readers in a “very simple, step-by-step guide”.

Using social media has taken Mirenda’s products onto a new level, with her social media following swelling by the day, much to her surprise. She has learned a lot since the beginning of this journey.

“My friend told me to …,” Mirenda says of why she started sharing onto TikTok, she was sick of hearing me talk about farming and soap, and it blew up so fast. The way my page grew was shocking to me. I didn’t go on to be an influencer.

”Two generations ago our grandparents were living sustainably. We’ve become so detached from that. I didn’t start out wanting to be sustainable, but once you start that, you begin to identify unnecessary waste.

“I had an entire perspective shift regarding the products I used to buy … and I’ve realised it's not an inconvenience for me to live this lifestyle”.