E47: Homestead With Heart: Build a Family Legacy without the Pressure of Perfection | RuthAnn Zimmerman

Beloved HOA speaker and returning podcast guest RuthAnn Zimmerman is back to share what life looks like right now on her family’s 21-acre homestead in Iowa. We start with a glimpse into their summer rhythms—overflowing gardens, plenty of fresh milk, and kids’ morning chore routines—but quickly move into deeper ground.  RuthAnn reflects on the beauty that homesteading has given her family beyond just homegrown food.  She offers gentle encouragement for parents who feel stretched thin and reminds us that we don’t have to do it all.  At the heart of it, RuthAnn shares why this lifestyle is about so much more than food— it’s about faith, family, and building a legacy rooted in relationship.

In this episode, we cover:

• A look at summertime on the Zimmermans’ Iowa homestead— garden abundance, milk cow abundance, and finding the balance between chores and downtime
• Kids having morning meltdowns? The simple morning routine RuthAnn’s kids never skip to support mood and energy
• What RuthAnn discovered about her true passions through book writing (spoiler: it’s not actually homesteading!)
• The real reason the Zimmermans started and grew their 21-acre homestead— it wasn’t just about food
• Encouragement for young moms in the thick of it— you won’t always be in this season, and you’re right where you need to be
• A mindset shift for when life feels overwhelming: you don’t have to do it all
• Why knowing your “why” matters in homesteading; knowledge alone won’t carry you through
• How homesteading can be the perfect foundation for building strong relationships with your kids, even when the tasks don’t feel fun
• Why gaining real-life skills is just as valuable (or more!) as gaining formal education

Thank you to our Sponsors!

KubotaUSA.com | Providing the right equipment to keep us moving, shaping, and growing America’s farms, fields, and construction

Premier1Supplies.com | Your one-stop shop for a variety of homesteading supplies and expert advice

About RuthAnn

RuthAnn and her husband, Elvin, live in Northeast Iowa. They have 7 children, 2 sons-in-law and a grandson. The 5 youngest children still live at home, while the oldest 2 are married and have homes of their own. 

RuthAnn and her husband have been homesteading on their 21-acre homestead since 2001. They seek to preserve the self-sufficient lifestyle of their Mennonite heritage for the next generation by involving their children in every aspect of the homestead. From raising and harvesting the meat they consume, gardening and preserving to fill the family’s larder, processing the dairy from the family milk cow plus the many other skills that develop the character and integrity of a family that desires to bring glory and honor to their Heavenly Father. 

Resources Mentioned

Listen to RuthAnn’s previous episode on the HOA podcast

Pre-order The Heart of the Homestead through ChristianBook and use code RuthAnn to get 40% off

Checkout the pre-order bonuses for The Heart of the Homestead

Check out RuthAnn’s recipes

Connect

RuthAnn Zimmerman | Website | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook

Homesteaders of America | Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Pinterest

Homestead With Heart: Build a Family Legacy without the Pressure of Perfection Transcript

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America Podcast, where we encourage simple living, hard work, natural healthcare, real food, and building an agrarian society. If you’re pioneering your way through modern noise and conveniences, and you’re an advocate for living a more sustainable and quiet life, this podcast is for you. Welcome to this week’s podcast. I’m your host, Amy Fewell, and I’m the founder of the Homesteaders of America organization and annual events. If you’re not familiar with us, we are a resource for homesteading education and online support. And we even host a couple of in-person events each year with our biggest annual event happening right outside the nation’s capital here in Virginia every October. Check us out online at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. Follow us on all of our social media platforms and subscribe to our newsletter so that you can be the first to know about all things HOA (that’s short for Homesteaders of America). Don’t forget that we have an online membership that gives you access to thousands—yes, literally thousands—of hours worth of information and videos. It also gets you discount codes, an HOA decal sticker when you sign up, and access to event tickets before anyone else. All right. Let’s dive into this week’s episode. 

Amy Fewell Welcome back to the Homesteaders of America podcast. It’s been a little while since we have been here. We took a few months break—for those of you watching on YouTube as you can see why—because there’s a new baby in the Fewell household. So we’ve been taking a few months off of the podcast, but we are back and I am delighted to have RuthAnn Zimmerman with us again on the HOA podcast. For those of you who do not know RuthAnn (which I don’t know who that would be but I’m sure there’s someone), RuthAnn and her husband, Elvin, live in northeast Iowa. They have seven children, two sons-in-laws, and a grandson. The five youngest kids still live at home, while the oldest two are married and have homes of their own. RuthAnn and her husband have been homesteading on their 21-acre homestead since 2001, and they seek to preserve the self-sufficient lifestyle of their Mennonite heritage for the next generation by involving their children in every aspect of the homestead. From raising and harvesting the meat they consume, gardening and preserving to fill the family’s larder, processing the dairy from the family dairy cow (which by the way, if you weren’t at the polyface event we just had, RuthAnn led that session and it was like the most popular session) plus many other skills that develop the character and integrity of a family that desires to bring glory and honor to their heavenly father. Welcome to the podcast, RuthAnn, we’re delighted to have you. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Thank you, Amy. It’s very good to be back. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, so tell us what you’re doing right now. It is the peak of garden season and you’re a mama and a homesteader and a milkmaid. What’s going on in homestead life for you right now? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman So June and July here in Iowa is simply treading water, like trying to keep your head above the water. The cows have just freshened, so there’s gallons and gallons of milk every day. And the garden is somewhere between a wild jungle and a productive garden. And then there’s preserving and there’s always, you know, the yard to mow and weeds to keep after. So right now, I’m really, really leaning into just do the next right thing. Because treading water is what it feels like this time of year. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So did you have a break with the milking and stuff? I think I remember you saying you weren’t milking for a couple of months at least. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman That was the plan. So we were going to have like a good six-week break of no milk cows (and we haven’t had that in probably four years because our cows were staggered when they freshened) but last fall we rented a neighbor’s bull. And so I wrote on my calendar… You know, when you don’t AI your cows, you’re not exactly sure. So I kept a close eye on the bull and the cows and I wrote on my calendar, I saw him really loving Lizzie this day, then I saw him loving Brenda and I wrote it all down and there was a couple of times where I’m like, okay, he’s interested in her and then… Anyway, it turns out we had like 10 days of not milking, and then my one cow, my heifer, actually freshened with twins, which twins can often come early. So that threw us for a loop and yeah, that threw us back into milk after 10 days of not-milking, but in hindsight now, it actually was really good for us because 10 days was just enough for us to have a little bit of a vacation, but not enough of time for us to really start enjoying not having to milk a cow. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. Because you can get used to that, right? Like I’ve gotten used to that because I’ve had months of not milking a cow because our oldest son has been doing it. We brought on a new cow back in the winter time and she was a kicker. And so being pregnant—of course, I didn’t know she was the kicker when we bought her—I was like, nope, can’t do this. And so our oldest sun started milking her. So yeah, so I’ve a couple of months off milking too so I completely understand that aspect. But we’re fully getting back into milking this fall with a couple calves coming, so it’ll be fun to be back and doing that routine and stuff. What about school? You guys are off of school too because your kids have been home this summer. What does that look like for them? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Um, it looks a lot like… I probably should ask them. They would probably say, “It looks like mom has chores for us all day long.” But in reality, they get a lot of downtime. We have a good hour and a half of chores that we do every morning. But summer chores, the way they look different from when we’re going to school is they can kind of do them at their own pace. And during the school year, when we’re going to school, they need to be done in a timely fashion and we streamline things. But in the summertime, if they wanna take 10 minutes to drag the hose from one chicken coop to the chicken tractor, I don’t really care. So our chores are more relaxed. But one of the things that I know that I have to focus on in the summertime is when they get up, they need to have something to stabilize their blood sugar and bring their blood sugar up before we go out to do chores. Otherwise, we’re just having meltdown after meltdown and they can’t focus and they’re forgetting things and they are dragging themselves through chores. So especially for the boys, they need to either have a glass of chocolate milk or like right now, I’m making them clabber smoothies. And it’s mandatory. You know what I mean? You get up, you sit at the table and you drink this and then we’ll go out and do chores. And that helps our morning chores go a lot more smooth. And I think part of this is they are so active. You know, the sun is not setting till 10 p.m. And they’re so active from dinnertime until bedtime. And when they were younger, I was often giving them a glass of milk before they went to bed because it helped them sleep in in the morning, right? But right now, they are going to bed so tired and they’re either sleeping out in their hammock or on the trampoline or on the patio and we all just crash as soon as the sun goes down so I’m not getting them a snack as quickly before bed so they need it right after they wake up. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, I remember you actually sharing that a couple of years ago when I first started following you. And I’m like, why didn’t I think about that? And it’s made a world of difference. We have our second son, he has a very fast metabolism. And he would just reach a certain point in the morning if he didn’t eat within the first hour, he was having meltdown after meltdown. And now it’s not even just breakfast. Like now he’s gone into his picky phase, which I’m not sure where that came from, because he was not picky at all. And then it’s like he turned six and suddenly he’s just picky all the time. And so now it’s okay, even throughout the day when he’s getting upset or randomly crying, I’m like, no, no no no, here, eat this, eat a smoothie, eat a bagel, eat something and you’ll be better. And so I’ve had to tell my husband this. He’s like, “I don’t think that’s true.” I’m like, “It’s absolutely true, just wait and see.”

RuthAnn Zimmerman It is true. And the lady that tuned me into this had a son that was the same age as our oldest son who’s now 17. And her son actually had type one diabetes, right? And so Mitchell was doing a gym and swim class and he would have times where he just had meltdowns and he’d act like this, you know. And she said, “Oh, he has low blood sugar.” And she said, “Doesn’t mean he has type one, it just means that his blood sugar has crashed, and if he eats something, he’ll be a different child.” And it made so much difference in my parenting, especially in the morning and especially for my boys. And I think you’re right, it’s because their metabolism is so revved all the time that they’re hitting those blood sugar lows and having tantrums, and we just think they have an attitude problem. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. Maybe that’ll work for my 15 year old. I didn’t even think about that. I didn’t think about it. I’ll have to try with him too. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about, you know, you have all of this wealth of knowledge and recipes and homesteading wisdom and people have been begging you for years, I’m sure, to write a book and you’re finally doing that. And why don’t you tell us about the book? Like what is the book? What’s in the book? What can people expect? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Okay. Thank you for asking, by the way. This is my book number one. This is The Heart of the Homestead. And this is really a collection of homestead hacks and tips mixed in with stories from my childhood or stories from the homestead here. But at the root of it… I really discovered my passion when I was writing this book because I can write the practical knowledge of owning a family milk cow all day long, right? But in the end, having that raw milk is not going to save my family, right? Having the raw milk available to us or the organic veggies from the garden. At the end of every chapter, I came to this point where I wanted to tell people, “If you don’t have access to raw milk, but you are working on building relationship with your family, you’re still doing it right.” Right? Even if you’re buying milk from the grocery store, but you’re working hard at creating relationships, functional relationships with your family, you’re still winning. Because I know what it feels like to be a mom and feel like I’m never going to get it right. I’m not going to be able to afford all of the goodness, you know, all of organic veggies. I don’t have land. I can’t own a milk cow. I didn’t want to leave people feeling like that’s all there is to life. So in every chapter there is how to get to the heart of your family and how to impact those around us that we love and even those that just observe our life—how to impact them for the kingdom in a positive way. So there’s a lot about reaching the heart of your family in here and there’s a lot about homesteading. There’s some recipes. Book two, which I’m working on, is all recipes then. But book one will kind of give you a peek into my passion. And while I was writing the book, that’s what I started saying, I discovered that my true passion is not homesteading, even though I love everything about homesteading. My true passion is for people to impact their families. My true passion is for the heart of the family. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, that’s awesome because you know, when we first started Homesteaders of America, that’s something we said a lot was, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, how many acres you have, whether you grow it all yourself, or don’t grow any of it yourself. There’s a heart behind homesteading. And so I love that you wrote this book because it kind of is at the root of what HOA was when we first started it. And it was, if you’re doing better in any way, then you’re doing better, you know, and you’re doing better for your family. You’re doing better for yourself and for your community. And so I love that you are the perfect person to write that book, but I’m also really excited to hear that you are having a recipe book come out too because we all follow you for yummy Mennonite recipes. You guys, we’ll link to her book in the description of this video and it’s currently on pre-order. So just make sure you know that when you’re ordering. It’s on pre-order. It comes out… I think you said the end of August or beginning of September. Was that right? Yes, that’s right. 

Amy Fewell We’re taking a quick break so that I can tell you a little bit about one of our 2025 sponsors. We are honored to have Kubota as one of our sponsors this year. Over the past 50 years, Kubota has evolved from newcomer to neighbor to partner in pursuit of the American Dream. They’ve grown together through community by providing the right equipment to keep us moving, shaping, and growing America’s farms, fields, and construction. Hundreds of millions have been invested here at home, for over 7,000 American workers to fabricate, wield, and assemble with domestic and global parts. 1,000-plus Kubota dealership locations contribute to local economies and invest in the people that have lived there for generations. Constant evolution and innovation keep Kubota forward-looking and focused on working together to build a better future for all of us. You guys know them as the orange tractor in the homesteading and farm world, but we know them as friends and sponsors, as Homesteaders of America conference sponsors this year. Make sure you check them out at KubotaUSA.com.

Amy Fewell So, recipes. So your next book is full of recipes. Do you have a tentative publish date on that yet? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman I think it’s spring of… I want to say early in ’27. 

Amy Fewell Okay, all right. But in the meantime, you do have a membership, right? And you have recipes in there. Is that on Instagram? Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Okay, so I have a website. So what I’ve learned is people are kind of tired of Instagram. It’s starting to feel real noisy. And I do have an Instagram membership where if you are part of the membership, you get a PDF of all my recipes. I upload them there into a drop box and you can print them. However, recently we built a website and all the recipes are on the website, as well. And I’m not talking about that a whole lot yet because it’s not completely done, but it’s okay. People can go to RuthAnnZimm.Com and find all the recipes on there as well. And then YouTube… When I do a recipe on YouTube, I always link the printable recipe when I do the whole tutorial. So, my recipes, you should be able to type in RuthAnn Zimm and then the recipe you’re looking for, and it should take you to either my website or YouTube.

Amy Fewell Okay. What kind of recipes are in the book that you’re just now publishing? Are these like some of your favorite family recipes?

RuthAnn Zimmerman Yes. So in here are some of our staple favorite recipes, like pumpkin pie, pineapple zucchini. There’s some canning recipes in here. And I’m trying to think… There’s a lot of ways to use raw milk. 

Amy Fewell Oh, nice. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman And there’s some cheese recipes. And then there’s also some real practical, here’s how you make butter, you know, and then all the tips and hacks for making butter. I think ice cream might be in here? And mozzarella, and yeah, just some of the staples. We just chose some of my most popular recipes and put them in the chapters in this book. 

Amy Fewell Okay, very cool. So moving away from the book a little bit but also not because obviously your whole life has inspired you to write this book. Why don’t you tell us a little bit… I mean, I know your history and your story of how you became homesteaders, but maybe you could give the HOA audience kind of just a breakdown of how did you begin living this life that led you to writing this book. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman So, my husband and I were raised in the Old Order Mennonite community. So a lot of you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Amish and Old Order Mennonites, if that helps you understand what an Old Order Mennonite is. So when we were 27 years old, we met Jesus personally and got introduced to the Holy Spirit. And in an attempt to grow our relationship with Jesus, we left the religious culture of the Old Order Mennonites and joined a church that helped us deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ. And in a nutshell, we sold our horse and buggy, used that cash to buy a minivan. And so the Old order Mennonnites are very self-sufficient so homesteading really, it was part of the… That was the way we grew up. So for a short time, we kind of took a journey away from it because we knew how much work it is, right? We embraced the convenience of just living from the grocery store for a few years, but what really drew us back to the homesteading lifestyle was the need to instill work ethic and responsibility into our young family because when we looked at the modern world and the way… Like you could see the breakdown. Because in the Old Order Mennonite culture, things happen slower because they’re so separate from the modern word. Everything takes like half a century longer to reach them. So the breakdown of work ethic and taking responsibility and self-discipline was like a culture shock to us. When we left the Old Order Mennonite culture and became part of the modern world, it was very, very alarming to us when we could tell that, you know, the breakdown. Because it’s like we had gone 50 years forward in time and we could see what was happening. So we kind of took a step back and said, “We don’t want that for our children. We want to raise our children in a counterculture way to the modern world.” And so that’s kind of how we started our homestead. We bought animals simply so that our children would have chores to do because that’s how we recognize that some of that work ethic and taking responsibility was instilled in us. And then it didn’t take long until we realized that we were saving money and gaining a lot of nutrition through all of this. And then it kind of gained momentum and became this huge snowball. And, oh, now we have three boys that can milk a cow so we need another milk cow, and it kind of exploded on us, but in a very, very good way. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, yeah. So what were your kids ages when you really started diving into this lifestyle? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman I would say the older ones were probably 12 and the younger three were like… The youngest one wasn’t born yet. So we bought our first baby chicks when the oldest two were like two and three. And then, you know, we ate those chickies, you know, and then we bought a pig but I feel like the milk cow is where we really started embracing it. Because instead of feeding an animal for, you know, three, six, nine months and then harvesting it and then buying another animal, it was now a daily thing and it was now daily bringing nutrition into the house and daily processing of the milk. And we bought the milk cow… Oh, I can’t remember. I’d have to look. I wanna say 2010 maybe? 2011? So I feel like that’s when it became a daily thing of this is what we’re going to do to feed the family today. Whereas the garden—I’ve always gardened because that’s just, you know, the way I was raised. You raise your own vegetables. 

Amy Fewell Right. Yeah, so you’ve seen different seasons. You’ve had seasons of homesteading where you have little tiny ones and then you’ve had this season now where many of your kids are older or at least like seven and up, right? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Yeah, the baby is nine. 

Amy Fewell Oh yeah, he’s even older then! So, there are a ton of moms I know who look at you and look at me and look at other homesteaders (and of course, I have a tiny little one again, it’s like starting all over) and not understanding the different seasons of life and how homesteading has different seasons. So I wonder if you might talk to that a little bit, just experience in it and how those seasons look different for you and homesteading. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman So I think social media is our biggest downfall when it comes to this, because it’s easy for somebody to look at my garden and they have a baby on their back and one at their ankles, and they’re holding themselves to the same standard that I’m holding my garden. I’m holding my garden to a very high standard this year because next week, Justin Rhodes is coming to film a documentary. And then the end of September, I’m having a book launch party here on the farm, you know. So let’s say somebody in your shoes, your baby is priority. That is the next right thing. This is the season for you to either not grow as many of your own things or just accept that weeds are going to be everywhere. The seasons are not forever. And I also feel—if I can get spiritual for a little bit here. 

Amy Fewell Absolutely. You know you can. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman So yeah, I already knew that I was going there. So you know, the enemy has no original thought of his own. He can only take what God has designed and twist it until we’re shooting off to the side. Right? So let’s take a brand new baby and that beautiful life and God has designed all of that for a good purpose and to bring him honor and glory. And motherhood is just a spiritual experience to start with. But if the enemy can get a mom with a tiny baby, if he can get me distracted to think that, oh, I’m failing because my garden has all these weeds, then he has succeeded in getting me to take my eyes off of the most important thing in my life right then, which is nurturing this baby and forgetting about the weeds for a minute. If the enemy can get you to switch your priorities—and he’ll use social media to do it, I promise you he will. And he’s gonna get you to take your eyes off of this baby who needs a secure attachment. It’s okay for me to spend all day doting on this baby, right? And not grow any of my own veggies this year, and next year we’ll just start over. We’ll mow all the weeds off, we’ll put cardboard down, and we’ll start in slowly but surely. Because next year, your baby’s only going to be one year old, and you could be pregnant again, right? But I promise you. I promise you now, looking back, my baby is nine. My oldest just turned 24. Looking back, I don’t remember the weedy garden. It has no impact on the here and now. The weeds that grew up through the last 25 years, I don’t even remember them. But guess what has an impact—Is the relationships that we worked on during those 25 years. And what always blesses me is when my daughter comes home and she brings my grandson, and we go to the garden, you know, we pick raspberries, and the funny thing is she will buy him raspberries at the grocery store—he won’t eat them. But he’ll eat them by the handful if they come out of grandma’s garden. And it’s the relationship, like we’re relational that way. Anyway, The point I wanted to make is when I go to the garden with my grandson, I am not remembering how many seasons worth of weeds I went through. I am remembering that I actually built a relationship with my daughter in a way that she loves to come home every day and she wants to bring our grandson here to pick raspberries from the garden. Nobody remembers the weeds, but the proof is in the pudding—relationships are what matter. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. And that’s the basis of the book, right? I agree. This year, I was pregnant. My husband had a freak health incident that happened, and we got absolutely no gardening done except for some cold crops and some raised beds. This was our year to do all of it. This was our year to plan all of the things and grow 90% of the food. And so in the beginning, I was a little bit discouraged, but the reality was that the Lord just spoke to my heart and was like, these are not important things. The important things are your household, your husband, your children. And it’s easy for people who are very motivated to do things to be like, “No, I wanted to do all of the things.” And it has been the most peaceful season, once you embrace a different season. And my husband, once he was feeling better, he’s like, “You know, we could plant those tomatoes, we can plant those things now. We could do all these things.” And it was the beginning of June or so, and I told him, I’m like, “No, because then come September, I have a three month old or smaller and then I’m going to be rushing around and not enjoying that time, either.” I said, “I really am going to enjoy just the peace in our house for the remainder of the year.” I think in the homesteading world… The homesteading and prepping world often cross over. And so people homestead out of fear instead of what you’re saying: out of relation and out of just building legacy and building longevity. And so we’re thinking, if we don’t do all of these things, we’re doomed. What happens if the world goes to heck in a handbasket? And the reality is that this season for us has taught us, one, what you just said, that relationships are so important and just tending to your family is so important. But the other thing is just relying on God is so important for all of your needs, right? Even if the tomatoes go away, even if you don’t get any green beans this year, you know, God will supply all of you needs. And so I love that you and your family are like-minded in that because it’s so important, especially in the times that we’re in. 

Amy Fewell A quick interruption in our podcast episode for today to bring you a little bit more about one of our sponsors, Premier 1 Supplies. At Premier, they’ve been providing electric fencing and electric netting, sheep and goat supplies, clippers and shears, ear tags, poultry products, and expert advice for over 40 years. I can personally vouch for Premier 1 Supplies because they have been a tremendous help for us personally here on our homestead, and they’re a tremendous help every year when you visit them at our conference. They have fencing, sheep and goat supplies, clippers and shears, all of those things, and even poultry supplies. Make sure you check out Premier 1 Supplies at Premier1Supplies.com.

RuthAnn Zimmerman I think you’re exactly right and what you did is simply had a different mindset. So all of the peace that you feel in your home is simply your mindset—the mother’s mindset has changed. And when you talk about God’s going to supply all your needs, it probably started with God supplied you with the mindset that he needed you to be in, and that’s where it starts. The simple prayer of “God, give me a mindset that brings you glory and honor” will usually set the whole day right for me. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. And I know that some of our listeners are not, you know, they’re of different religion or mindset, and that’s totally fine. But I love being able to talk about just this way of life and how the Lord just speaks to us in so many different ways. So going back to your book a little bit, why don’t you tell us the sections? Since we’re talking about The Heart of the Homestead and kind of what exactly are those sections in your book because that’ll kind of help people know, is there a section about kids, you know, does she talk about the seasons of life? What are all the things? 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Okay, so chapter one is guided by homestead goals: working together as a family. And in this chapter, I really lay out the chores and how to use your chores and your homestead to build positive relationships by spending time together and how to set your goals for your family. And that was probably one of my favorite chapters to write just because I’m so passionate about giving children chores and helping them develop character that way. And then that chapter two is farm from the farm to the family table and that is enjoying the feast and the fellowship. So I have a lot of practical—this is how to prepare meals. You know, this is… And then how to make sure that you’re enjoying the fellowship around meal time. Chapter three is the homestead garden: growing food for a growing family. And chapter four is filling the larder. So those two chapters go hand in hand—growing and then canning and preserving. And of course, there’s stories about growing up with my eight siblings and how we handle big harvest days and how to bring your children alongside you and teach them and build relationship while you’re doing that. Number five is pigs, poultry and planning: embracing the learning curve. So there’s a lot of things that went wrong and how we made it fit for our homestead. And then number six is the queen of the homestead. You know what this is gonna be about. This is appreciating the family milk cow. And probably one of the big things about chapter five and six is helping people to learn that you can’t change the nature of an animal to fit your needs. You can only change your homestead to fit the nature of the animal that you’re trying to raise. And then number seven is the art of thriftiness: gaining contentment through a budget-friendly lifestyle. And I just have a lot of tips on how to live economically and not be influenced to think that you need everything that is available to you. And not everything makes your life easier. Basically, chapter seven is a whole chapter on every convenience gained is a skill lost. And then the closing is where your treasure lies: a few last and lasting words about the family. 

Amy Fewell That’s awesome. This is such a fun book for our homesteading community because it kind of brings it all together, right? We’ve been inundated and saturated with education and information about homesteading for so many years. When I first started HOA, that’s what the goal was, right? It was to educate and just drink from a fire hose, learn all the things that you can at one time. And now we’re seeing (basically us who were doing homesteading before it was cool) coming into this and saying, “Okay, but there’s more.” There’s more to homesteading than just learning the education, you know, learning what to do when a crisis happens with your cow. What are all the 10,000 feet options? Those are great. And I love reading books like that. That’s not what I’m saying. But even this year, when we were planning the October HOA event, I told my speakers, “If you have something inspirational—it doesn’t even have to be educational. It can be inspiring, it can be encouraging to people.” Because what we’re seeing now in the homesteading community is so many people have learned how to homestead, right? They’ve learned all the logic, they’ve learned how all the education, and now it’s, okay, but what is the “why”? Because if we don’t have a “why”, we’re gonna not do this anymore because it’s not always easy. It’s not easy at all, actually. And so what is our “why”? And I’ve had this conversation with many homesteaders and for us, for our family, obviously, yes, we wanna eat healthier. We want to know where our food comes from. We don’t trust the government systems at all when it comes to our food. And we’ve seen our health better by eating better. And we just believe it’s a biblical way to live from the land. But the other part of it is exactly what you said. It’s, you know, our kids are not filling their time with extracurricular activities all day, every day, and not be at home. One thing modern moms always ask me is, “Well, your kids don’t play softball every weekend?” Or every day around here. They have practice every single day and then you’re never home. My “why” is home. You know, it’s just being home. The first year that we had the HOA conference, Joel Salatin, his whole talk was basically the heart of the homestead is the home and it’s the family and it is your life and your everyday living. It’s not necessarily the milk cow, it’s not the garden, it’s not the canning—it’s who you are and why you’re doing it and that’s what’s going to sustain us through it all. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman I think you’re exactly right. So 2020 brought everybody into a panic about how am I gonna feed my family, right? So that started this whole thing rolling but now five years later, okay, they’ve mastered a lot of it. They’ve decided what they can and can’t do and we’re tired, you know? It’s an exhausting lifestyle. I mean it’s beautiful but exhausting and I think without understanding the deeper “why,” people aren’t going to continue because we’ve tried it. We’ve seen, we’ve learned and it’s easier to go to the neighbor and buy my tomatoes. It’s easier to get a herdshare and have my milk. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but you’re exactly right. The deeper “why” and possibly because Elvin and I were already raised in the homestead lifestyle, we already knew how much work it was before we started. But we started with a deeper “why.” We started with wanting character built into our children’s everyday life, those character building skills. And I think one of the biggest “whys” that people can grasp, whether they’re Christian or not, is the long-term goal of having a relationship with our children, because relationships are built on positive shared experiences. And I’m sorry to tell anyone this, I don’t want to offend anyone, right? But relationships are not built by sitting on the bleachers watching your children build relationships with other children. Relationships are built around positive shared experiences, meaning anytime you’re spending time together, you’re building relationship. And the homestead is the perfect opportunity to build those relationships. And if anybody is still looking for that deeper “why,” that can be it: we all want relationships with our children, and the homestead gives countless opportunities. But here’s the thing—positive shared experiences. When you’re bringing children alongside to milk the cow or move the rotational grazing or weed the garden, it is not going to feel positive to them. And I know I’ve been on this podcast and we’ve talked about chores, so there’s probably no need to go into all of that. And I’ve covered it in my book. They are going to whine and complain, but your mindset—the mom—if you don’t react to that and you keep it positive, that is what’s going to build relationship. Doesn’t mean that you’re only building relationship when they are having a good time. When they are not having a good time, say they’re whining and complaining about pulling weeds, you’re building character and building relationship at the same time. That’s what it’s gonna feel and sound like. So the deeper why is relationship. 

Amy Fewell When you say that, it made me think about my grandma in the summertime. Her sister always had a massive garden. I mean, it was probably at least like an acre. And she was very diligent in tending that garden and she wasn’t married anymore. Her husband was gone. And my grandma would always haul me over there as a child to help her and her sister tend to this garden sometimes. Or sometimes they would be canning and of course she didn’t have AC in her house so it was very hot. Or it would just be, you know, shelling peas or snapping beans or something. And I don’t remember how hot it was, I don’t remember pulling the weeds, I don’t remember the miserable part of it, but what I do remember is my great aunt and my grandma and the conversations they had and the feeling, like how I felt. I felt safe, I felt wanted, I felt like this is an amazing life and I’m so happy to be a part of it. And so what you’re saying, even based on our own experiences is absolutely true. And so yeah, the kids are not going to like pulling the weeds and they’re gonna say I’m so sweaty and I wanna go inside and all of those things, but the memories that they’ll have and the relationship that you’re building on and the skills that you are giving them is unmatched, right? There’s no price you can put on that. It’s all worth it and it’s all part of the purpose. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman I think for the last, I don’t know, probably 50 years or more, Americans have put so much emphasis and gone into an outrageous amount of debt to get their children educated, right? But what happens when you simply ask the question that one day earning a paycheck may not be enough to feed a family. And so that’s a question that I ask often because you know, in the Old Order Mennonite culture, you go to school for eight years and then you graduate. So you have eight grades and it equates to about 12 grades of just the basics, right? Reading, writing, arithmetic, those things. So when we left the Old Order Mennonite culture I felt inadequate for the longest time because basically I’m a dropout, right? I don’t have an education. And everybody seemed to walk around carrying their education as some kind of badge of knowledge. And it took a while, but I got to the point where I was able to understand that an education does not equal wisdom or knowledge. And so understanding that an education or earning a paycheck may not always be enough helps us to focus on making sure that our children know the skills of putting food on the table without spending a lot of money. 

Amy Fewell Right and you nailed it just now. You know, the inflation costs right now on food and housing and everything else is insane. I mean, our teenager, you know, economics, right? He’s been asking those questions that teenagers ask when they’re getting ready to get their license and it’s, “Okay, well, how much does gas cost?” and “how can I afford a car?” and “how much are apartments?” And we’ve had that come to reality moment. And, you know, we’ve had the discussion about housing, like, “How much does rent cost and could you afford rent on a basic pay, you know, being 18, going out in the world, getting a job? I mean, you’re not getting a college level job once you graduate. And so how do you offset that?” Now, there’s a lot of people who are like, “Well, homesteading is not free.” Well, no, it’s not free, but there are certainly things you can do for little to no money, especially when it comes to gardening. And those are skills to have. You know, how do you provide… Well, I can have a conversation about this all day. You know the Industrial Revolution took families off the farm and how do you survive when the money isn’t enough and you don’t have the skills to feed your family? Provision just isn’t money. It’s providing. You know, it’s providing food and growing that food and all of those things. So I think it’s interesting and absolutely accurate that you said. So is there anything else that we need to know about your book before we hop off here? I’ve had you for about 45 minutes. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Well, I think if you pre-order it and here’s the thing: pre-orders help the book climb up the ladder and when there’s a lot of pre-orders, all the big companies take notice and then they order, you know, a lot of it. So pre- orders really help. You can place a pre-order by going to RuthAnnZimm.com. Oh, there’s some pre-order goodies too, so when you go to RuthAnnZimm.com, you can go to all the different links and see what their pre-ordered goodies are, because I think ChristianBook.com, if you pre-order from them, they actually have a 40% off discount code. And I’m fairly certain it’s going to run all the way through until the book releases. So just put RuthAnn in as a discount code. That’ll be 40% off. And when you do that, you also get to download a free ebook on childhood chores. 

Amy Fewell Oh, fun. Okay. That’s good, we’ll put that in the show notes for you guys too. That way you can find it easily. Well, we’re excited to support you, RuthAnn, and your book. I’m glad you came on the podcast to tell us more about it and to talk about family in general and seasons of life. I know that there are just so many women and families right now that need to hear that, and it’s always nice to hear. We talked about this in the other podcast—learning from generations who’ve done it and can encourage others in that. And so, we are grateful for your family and all that you do and you teach us and serving our community in the ways that you and being a HOA teacher. Like I said, you guys, when we did a survey, we asked which class everyone liked the most at the Polyface event in May, and they all said the cow class. We love the cow class. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman That was really… I really loved doing the cow class. I am passionate about my milk cows and I love my milk cows and I love to talk milk cows so it was a good fit. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. Yeah, it’s always so fun when we can do truly hands-on events, and with people who are also inspirational and encouraging and who’ve been there. So we really thank you for that. And we love your family. Thank you for being a guest on the podcast again, and we will talk to you again soon. Guys, all the information in this is below. RuthAnn, do you have any parting words to tell our audience before we get off of here? If there’s anything burning inside of you that you just need to say. 

RuthAnn Zimmerman Well, if there is, they can find it over on my Instagram, on my YouTube. That’s where I’ll put anything that burns within me that I have to get out. But thank you everybody for supporting me and my family in pre-ordering my book and watching our channel and being so gracious with your comments on our social media everywhere. 

Amy Fewell Awesome. All right, guys. Until next time, happy homesteading. 

Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s Homesteaders of America episode. We really enjoyed having you here. We welcome questions and you can find the transcript and all the show notes below or on our Homesteaders of America blog post that we have up for this podcast episode. Don’t forget to join us online with a membership or just to read blog posts and find out more information about our events at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. We also have a YouTube channel and follow us on all of our social media accounts to find out more about homesteading during this time in American history. All right, have a great day and happy homesteading.