Sheep are an incredible multi-purpose homestead animal that can thrive even on small acreage.  If you want to be part of the sheep movement in the homesteading world, this is a great episode to help you consider whether dairy sheep are a good fit for you!

After listening to this episode, you are going to be itching to add dairy sheep to your homestead!  Rachel gives an overview of all of the most commonly asked questions about getting started with dairy sheep: milk quality, sheep breeds, breeding, milking, feeding, and more! 

In this episode, we cover:

• What makes sheep such a great multi-purpose homestead animal
• Exploring the health benefits and taste of sheep milk
• Description of dairy sheep breeds and which are best for beginners
• Managing the breeding and lactation cycles of dairy sheep
• Various approaches to the nutritional needs of dairy sheep

E21: All About Dairy Sheep (An Incredible Multi-Purpose Homestead Animal) | Rachel Hester of Whoopsy Daisy Farm – Homesteaders of America

Thank you to our sponsor!

McMurray Hatchery offers a wide selection of poultry breeds and supplies to assist you with raising your flock. Find what you need at McMurrayHatchery.com!

About Rachel

Rachel Hester is the author of ‘The Guide to Homestead Dairy sheep’ due to be released by Sawdust Publishing in the fall of 2023. She lives in central Kentucky with her husband and son on 8 ½ acres. Using regenerative agriculture methods to reclaim denatured hayfields into a thriving farm while also supporting her husband’s occupation in Emergency Services has led her to some out of the box management styles for her livestock. In addition to dairy and heritage breed sheep, she has chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, honeybees, angora rabbits and a Jersey cow on her farm. She is a fiber artist and loves handspinning and knitting her sheep’s wool into garments for her family.

Resources Mentioned

Sign up to receive updates from Sawdust Publishing and Whoopsy Daisy Farm about the release of Rachel’s forthcoming book, The Guide to Homestead Dairy Sheep

Episode 20 of the HOA podcast with Janet Garman all about wool sheep

Connect

Rachel Hester of Whoopsy Daisy Farm | Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

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

All About Dairy Sheep 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. Thank you for joining me again this week. I have special guest Rachel Hester. Rachel, welcome to the podcast. 

Rachel Hester Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, sure. All right. So for those of you who don’t know Rachel, why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. 

Rachel Hester Okay. So I’m Rachel Hester, and I am in central Kentucky. We have eight and a half acres of old hay fields. So when we first moved there, we had no topsoil. So we did the typical homesteader thing and got all the poultry and tried doing eggs and poultry meat. But in Kentucky, everyone has eggs and poultry meat. So we now have sheep as our main farm product and we still have the poultry for our own consumption. We have small lard pigs, we have honeybees, and we have a milk cow. So we’re kind of trying the multispecies homesteading thing. And then my husband works in emergency services, so we kind of have to do things a little differently than the typical homesteader because his schedule is crazy. So we’ve had to learn how to make our animals very flexible, which has its own set of challenges and stuff. 

Amy Fewell Well, it sounds like you’re just homesteading away over there and that’s awesome. Today we are specifically talking about dairy sheep. You guys who have been listening consistently to the podcast know the last couple of episodes have been about sheep breaking down the different uses for sheep and how to raise them. And there’s been some fantastic nuggets of information in all of those episodes. But today Rachel and I are specifically going to talk about dairy sheep because this is Rachel’s specialty. She is an expert. She is the cause of me getting sheep, dairy sheep. She was like, “Hey, did you know that you could do this and this and get dairy?” 

Rachel Hester I did. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, she did. She was totally an enabler. 

Rachel Hester I did. I did. It was an evil plan. 

Amy Fewell So anyhow. Rachel, let’s dive in. Let’s talk about dairy sheep. Why don’t you give us just a general lowdown of dairy sheep and who they might work for, what homesteader they might work for. 

Rachel Hester Sure. Okay, so dairy sheep are awesome. I’ll just start there. Because you can get three products from them. You know, a lot of people are concerned with a dual purpose animal and sheep can be a tri purpose animal. And if you want to go into like the nitty gritty of all the other products they have, they can be a multi product animal. So if you want them for dairy, you can get milk, you can get meat, and you can get wool. And then you can also go into things like their manure is really beneficial. I think the other people you interviewed talked about that a bit. With dairy sheep. The dairy specific breeds are all wool breeds, and so you get actually quite a bit of lanolin, which is a very nourishing byproduct. It makes really good skincare products and stuff. So we like them. And the other thing is they don’t require as much property as larger livestock like a cow or large breeds of pigs and that kind of thing. And with dairy sheep, you can have one or two sheep for the milk, and you have your milk supply with just those two. I also like them because you can do nondairy breeds of sheep and still get milk, and you get better wool quality or better meat supply or what have you with that. So I really think they’re a great option for the homesteader because a lot of us can’t just dive in with a couple hundred acres and do the popular models of stuff. A lot of us, I’m noticing, have one acre or five acres or that kind of thing. And so sheep really do fit well into that model, especially if you have multiple species. They’re also really kid friendly because most breeds are under 200 pounds, more around 100 pounds. So we just had our first kid and we’re really looking forward to seeing how he grows up with the sheep and what he wants to do with them. But kids love lambs. They are very comfortable around sheep. And playing with wool is a really great thing for kids to dive into because felting is really super easy. It’s a fun craft and then you have a great product at the end of it you can sell. But then I’ve actually taught kids to drop spindle, which is… It’s like a disc with a stick, and you just kind of twist it like a top, and at the end of it you have yarn. So kids really like that. And then there’s another product at the end of it. They do require some skill learning curves when you get into it, but it’s not ridiculous. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So now for those… I know there’s people saying, “I didn’t even know you could milk sheep,” right? Why don’t you give us some of the benefits of sheep milk and what the differences between sheep’s milk, cow’s milk, goat’s milk, and all of that? 

Rachel Hester Sure. So actually, sheep were a far more popular homesteading dairy animal in the past than cows were. Especially in the United Kingdom, where sheep were such a popular animal for the wool and the meat. Actually quite a few people milked their sheep and didn’t have cows. And it wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that the cows became far more popular as a dairy animal. But the milk specifically— sheep milk has the lowest amount of lactose out of cow, goat, and sheep. So it’s actually closest to human breastmilk out of any of the milkable animals. So people who have issues digesting lactose products a lot of times can digest sheep milk. And if you are lactose intolerant, there is a Polish study where they had women who are lactose intolerant consume sheep milk kefir, and they found that the kefir in the fermentation process actually produced lactase. So even though they were lactose intolerant, they could consume it. They didn’t quite work with yogurt, but it worked with the kefir. So sheep milk is also naturally A2A2, but it’s a different kind of A2A2 than the cow. The fats are still… Or the proteins are shaped differently. So we switched to A2A2 cow milk for a while and we’d noticed a lot of health improvements with that. And then we got sheep just because… It’s a very long story involving COVID and all that gobbledygook. But we got sheep and we started drinking milk and we noticed that we had other health issues kind of disappear. Like we didn’t realize we still had inflammation, and consuming the sheep milk, that actually started going away. So the proteins are smaller, more densely packed. And the whey has the highest amount of certain proteins that are really beneficial, like proline, lactoferrin, or orotic acid. And scientists are studying those proteins and just what health benefits they have, and it’s really kind of exciting what those have. So goat and cow milk do have those proteins, but sheep milk has at least two times the amount, if not more, depending where they’re at and what they’re eating. So that’s the milk sugar, that’s the protein, and then the fats are really kind of cool. They are smaller and have a higher distribution, and so there’s more minerals with the sheep milk because fats and minerals are cofactors. So there’s a lot of specifics there, too, with the different fats. I can really geek out on stuff like that if you want to go into it.

Amy Fewell Well in general, it sounds like just sheep milk in general is just healthier even from goat’s milk and cow’s milk. I mean, it makes sense, right? You’re taking a 100 to 200 pound animal that is going to feed a baby that will only weigh 100 to 200 pounds versus 1,000 pound cow. Right? That’s raising a baby that’s going to come to be 1,000 pounds. And so one of the biggest questions people will ask is, “Well, what on earth does sheep milk even taste like? Is it homogenized? Is it non homogenized? What’s the difference in that? 

Rachel Hester That’s actually a big concern because, you know, I think goat milk… You either love goat milk or you hate goat milk, and there’s really no in-between. So everyone comes to me and they’re like, “What is the sheep milk like? Is it like goat milk? So sheep milk is actually known as the champagne of milks. So it’s very sweet. I had a lady come over to my house, and I gave her a little glass of sheep milk to try. And she liked it so much, when she finished the glass, she went to the sink and rinsed the cup out and drank the rinse water because she loved it so much, which I personally would not do. I’ve had toddlers come and they’ll try our raw jersey milk, and they’re like, “Okay, that’s fine.” And then I have the toddlers try the sheep milk. I have to cut them off because they will just keep drinking it and drinking it and drinking it. I’m like, “Mama, you’re going to have some interesting diapers tomorrow.” 

Amy Fewell Oh, yeah. 

Rachel Hester And because of the higher fat content, I don’t want to say it’s like drinking half and half because especially if you have a Jersey cow, and you have that half and half, it’s not really comparable. But if you took store bought half and half, it’s kind of between vitamin D milk and half and half in its thickness. It’s not like goopy or too thick. It’s just very satisfying. So like in the high summer where we are working and it’s humid and you just don’t want to eat, at the end of our workday, we’ll just have a nice glass of sheep milk and we’re good, and fall asleep and we’re full. 

Amy Fewell Awesome. So why don’t we talk about some sheep breeds? Like what are some dairy specific breeds that people can look for? And what would you recommend in regard to kind of like the first sheep? Like if somebody were getting into dairy sheep, what were some breeds you would consider to get them started really well? 

Rachel Hester So it is actually currently illegal to import sheep from other countries right now. And so when they closed the importation of sheep, we didn’t have dairy specific breeds in this country except for the Clun Forest. So we have a breed registry for the Clun Forest, and I actually mainly started researching them recently and I told my husband I wish I knew about them sooner because that’s probably the breed I would have picked if I could have, but I didn’t know about them. So there’s Clun Forest, which is a British breed, and they’re currently known mainly as a wool breed, so they have very nice wool in addition to their milk. They’re known as the jersey cow of the dairy sheep, so they have an even higher fat content. So that’s Clun Forest. They’re probably the least well known dairy breed in the dairy specific breeds of sheep. The most well-known breed is the East Friesian. They’re kind of the Holstein cow of the sheep world. They have the lowest fat content. They’re really large animals. They produce a lot of sheep milk. There’s some that will produce a gallon a day if you manage them right. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Rachel Hester They’re also a bit more fragile. They’re more susceptible to diseases and parasites because they’re putting all of their inputs into the milk. So people wanting East Freisians should be aware of that. If you want to go in for East Friesians, make sure you talk to your breeder and ask like, “What are your management styles? How much intervention do you need to do? What are they eating?” That kind of stuff. Because most of the East Friesian breeders I’m aware of feed a ton of corn to get that milk supply up, which isn’t the end of the world. It’s just I don’t digest corn or soy very well, so I have to be careful about that when I’m buying animals. And East Friesians have fairly decent wool. Some people get really snobby about wool, but I like the East Friesian wool for socks and sweaters and homesteading stuff. And then there’s the Awassi sheep. Globally, Awassi are the most common dairy breed. They’re incredibly hard to get here in the United States. They are working on a breed registration for them, so hopefully they’ll be more accessible. But just in the United States, they’re not very easy to come by, and they’re incredibly expensive. You have to be on a waiting list, but they are very hardy. They produce really good milk and their fleece is definitely more rug yarn. So if you want to make carpets and stuff… I also really love wool. Sorry, that’s why I keep going into the types of wool these breeds have because I like wool. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Rachel Hester Anyway, so that’s the Awassi. And then there’s the Assaf breed, which is kind of a combination between the East Friesian and the Awassi. So they were taking the Awassi genes and bringing it to the East Friesian to try to get them to be a little bit hardier. So those are the dairy specific breeds. Now for a homesteader wanting to get into sheep dairy, I don’t know if I would recommend them dive into a dairy specific breed right away, unless they were just completely sold, they wanted sheep milk. Just because, again, they’re hard to find. They’re incredibly expensive. You’re probably going to be on a waiting list, so it’s going to take a lot of input and time to get those specific breeds. But the good news is that there’s a lot of breeds of sheep and they all produce milk. So the thing with that is that if you want to do a nondairy specific breed of sheep, the main caveat is you don’t know what their lactation time is going to be, you don’t know what their udders are going to be like, and you don’t know what their teats are going to be like, which if you’re hand milking like I do, knowing what they’re teats are going to look like is kind of a big deal. 

Amy Fewell Very important. 

Rachel Hester It’s very important. We have Gulf Coast Native sheep, which are a land raised breed from the American South, and I have a couple of ewes where they’ve got nice long the size of my finger type seats and I can grab onto them. And I’ve got one where she has jelly bean teats and I have to milk her with my pinkies and it’s awful versus like my East Friesian crosses. I mean they’ve got nice large teats that you can just grab on to and go. Now if you’re using a milking machine, that may not be as much of a concern, but if you want to hand milk, you just need to be considerate of that. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, that’s what we did. So when we jumped into sheep, we had a friend and Rachel and I have a mutual friend who had some Longwools for sale. And you guys have probably heard me talk about this a little bit since the other two podcast episodes. And then I was able to find our ram, Steve, who was named before he came to us, who is an East Friesian. Rachel actually helped me find him and made that connection. And so we were then quickly the proud owners of three Lincoln Longwools and one East Friesian. And so the thought was… Actually one of the Longwool ewes came to me with a fairly nice udder. Not super long teats, but better than I thought they were going to be. And she was just being weaned from her lamb when she came. And so I was able to milk her a little bit. And it was very easy. I mean, she was very easy to milk. And so it’s been fun, and we’ve been interested in seeing what the offspring will be like. The breeder of the East Friesian ram was telling us that basically whatever we breed him with will double that breed’s milk production just because of what he is. And so that’s really interesting too. So it’s good for you guys that are listening to know you don’t have to go out and buy the best of the best right away. The other nice thing about sheep that we’ve kind of established in some of the other podcasts are that they breed very, very early generally depending on the size, and they only have a five month gestation period versus the nine month. And they can have twins. They can multiply babies more than cows do. And so there’s a whole lot of pros to sheep in general to where you can quickly build up your flock of sheep, and especially if it’s dairy sheep. So you’re not waiting a year and a half to breed a cow and then waiting another nine months before you get offspring to get that milk. You’re actually going into it, you’re breeding, and you’re waiting a lot less time. And so it is much easier for the homesteader to consider sheep as a viable dairy option. 

Amy Fewell Hey, guys. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode. We’re going to take a quick break and bring you a word from one of our amazing sponsors. McMurray Hatchery officially started in 1917. Murray McMurray had always been interested in poultry as a young man and particularly enjoyed showing birds at the local and state fairs. Nowadays, the hatchery is still completely through mail order, but they offer way more than ever before. From meat chicks and layer hens to waterfowl, ducklings, goslings, turkeys, game birds, juvenile birds, they even have hatching eggs and a whole lot of chicken equipment. Make sure you check out our Homesteader of America sponsor McMurray Hatchery at McMurrayHatchery.com and get your orders in today. And don’t forget to stop by their booth at the 2023 HOA event. 

Amy Fewell Now let’s kind of talk about breeding just a little bit because breeding for dairy sheep is going to be a little bit more intensive, in my opinion, than it is for cows because from my research… Obviously I haven’t experienced it myself yet. My research is that a cow will definitely milk longer in most cases than a sheep will, so could we talk about that just a little bit? 

Rachel Hester Yes. So sheep have, depending on the breed, between a 3 to 10 month lactation cycle. So in Europe, where they have the really strong pure East Friesian genetics, they will get a solid ten months of milk from those ewes. So you kind of have to breed them back while they’re still in lactation. My Gulf Coast Native sheep have a three month window, and as soon as we remove the lambs, they start drying up. So we have to lamb share with those sheep. So again, you know, when you look at your breeds, you really want to ask some questions as to the lactation time. When do they pull lambs? When do they start weaning? That kind of thing. So that’s lactation length. Some people don’t like that because with the cow, I mean, you can milk her for at least a year, sometimes two, depending on how you manage her. Sheep will just naturally dry off after a certain amount of time. I didn’t mind that because that meant we got a break when we were managing things that way. And then what we did this year is we bred our dairy mutts in the fall for spring lambs and then we bred our Gulf Coast Natives in the spring, so we’ll have fall lambs. So we will have a year’s supply of sheep milk that way. So yeah, they’re definitely different than cows in that respect. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. Now, do dairy sheep need anything nutritionally different than other sheep? Just regular sheep will need? Or have you found that they can survive basically the same way? You know, with dairy cows, obviously dairy cows and beef cows are two totally different sections of the cow family. But are you seeing that with sheep? That dairy sheep need a little bit more in regard to nutrition or is it all broadly the same across the board? 

Rachel Hester No. I mean, now that I have a son, I’m a lot more sympathetic to dairy sheep’s nutritional needs because I have noticed I need more than I did before. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Rachel Hester And so this kind of can get into a controversial topic, if you will. And I’m using air quotes for those listening because, you know, if you get into a group of dairy shepherds and talk about feed, it’s like, oh my goodness. 

Amy Fewell Oh, yeah, Everyone has an opinion. 

Rachel Hester Oh my goodness. Yes. And, you know, I think, too, there’s the whole grass-fed movement. Like everyone’s very concerned with grass-fed. And I was kind of struggling with this, but then I heard Beth Daughtery point out, you know, the grass-fed movement centered around cows because cows are designed to just eat grass. And so I have noticed… well, we have a Jersey cow and we also have sheep. They eat different things. So the sheep, when they go into a new paddock, they will actually go in… if there’s seed heads on the grass, then they’ll eat those first, and then they’ll go down from there. They also want more leafy things like the clovers or they’ll eat some multiform rose and that kind of stuff, whereas the cow will go straight for the grass. So you do want to make sure your sheep have plenty of grass or hay, but you also need to be aware that just in general, they do want some other things besides just grass. And then when they’re lactating, if your management is you’re leaving lambs on and you’re milk sharing—which my personal opinion is you should because you have healthier lambs and better genetics down the road—you know, they’re feeding those lambs and they’re feeding you and they’re trying to keep their own selves healthy. And so what we’ve found is if we’re not providing enough minerals and kelp and feed for our dairy ewes, they become incredibly susceptible to parasites and other health issues because they’re dumping all of those nutrients to keep themselves healthy into the milk. Cows are much more selfish, if you will, with their vitamins and minerals, and they’ll keep them from themselves. Sheep will dump it into the milk first. So we always make sure we’ve got really good quality minerals out for our girls, especially if they’re lactating, just because they’re constantly dumping that into the milk. And it’s not just you’re giving that to your sheep; you’re also getting the benefit of those minerals, too. So that’s a nice benefit. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Rachel Hester And then we’ve also just noticed feeding them in the stanchion… We use a milking stanchion to milk our sheep and having a good mix is really imperative. Again, I don’t do corn or soy very well. Corn and soy also ferment very quickly. So when you’re feeding your sheep, you need to be aware that they have a rumen, which is essentially a fermentation vat for their digestive system. So you want a slower to ferment type supplement to feed them. Otherwise you’re going to have to deal with other health issues if they get into too much corn and soy, because those two things have very high sugar, ferment very quickly. So we feed alfalfa pellets less, lespedeza pellets, shredded beet pulp, some oats, and some barley. So they kind of have a different spectrum of nutrients in their feed mix. And we’ve noticed they really do need a couple cup fulls of that per day when they’re in the stanchion, depending on the size of the sheep. Some, they just need about a cup and they’re good. The Gulf Coast don’t need that much. But the big girls with these Friesian genetics, where they’ve just been selectively bred for so many hundreds of years to have grain, they really benefit to have some grain consistently while they’re lactating. 

Amy Fewell Right. And I love how you kind of pulled out the things that you give them because a lot of times people will just be like, “Okay, I’m going to go to my local feed store and I’m just going to say, ‘Give me a bag of sheep grain.'” Right? But I love that you said you don’t just go to the store and buy them a bag of sheep grain. You’re getting them rolled oats, you’re getting them beet pulp, you’re giving them things like kelp and minerals. And so just really, for those of you who are… I know we have a lot of listeners that are like hardcore grass-fed, as you should be, but there are also options to not be fully grain-fed either. You can have compromises based on those genetics that you have or based on what your sheep needs. It’s like Rachel said, they’re in the field and they’re eating the seed tops first, which is technically a grain, if you think about it. If they were in a wheat field, they’d be eating those wheat tops first, or an oat field, they’d be eating those oat tops first. And so even just a little bit of those rolled oats kind of helps pack that that weight on them and put the energy out with milk, too. And so it’s nice to see… Like we always have… A lot of times we have hardcore people on here who are like, “No, no, no, no. No grain. No, no. None of that. But there are ways to compromise, too, based on the breed that you get and then transitioning more to the genetics that you want over the years as you get into more breeding and holding back and all of that. So that’s really cool. 

Rachel Hester And if you want to go 100% grass-fed, you can do that, but you need to have… You have to have very high quality pastures. You need to have a lot of land because sheep are incredibly more susceptible to parasites than cows are. If you own sheep, you are going to become a parasitologist. That’s just what’s going to happen because they have a lot of different things. So if you want to do grass-fed, you can do that. They need to be moved twice a day, every single day onto fresh pasture, and it’s got to be very good quality pasture. And you kind of need to know what those sheep need because, again, they eat different than cows do. So if you have only eight-and-a-half acres like I do. You just can’t do grass-fed sheep milk if you want to provide your own milk supply.

Amy Fewell Right. Yeah. And so that’s why it’s good for you guys to look into the genetics of whatever sheep you’re getting. Like Rachael said earlier, do they convert grass well? Do they not? Just like cows, just on a smaller package level. And then also keep in mind what your property has to offer those sheep. Just like with a cow, what does your property have to offer? So we kind of had an aha moment because 50% of our property essentially is pasture. It was just old hayfield that was managed not well the last 20 years, but still nonetheless it was managed. And then we have partially wooded or silvopasture, which was really great for sheep. Like they thrived well on silvopasture. And so our sheep were under stress when they first came to us. I’m not sure if I’ve said this in one of the other podcasts, but I’ll share it here. They were pretty stressed out, even just a very short ride here. Like we don’t even live that far apart from the the breeder we got them from. And so we found, like what Rachel just said, because parasite counts are… You know, sheep are so susceptible to parasites. We started moving them more frequently, and we also gave them a diverse area of nutrition. So instead of just pasture, when we moved them to our back part of the property with silvopasture, their health immediately took a turn for the better and they just knew how to self-medicate. They knew how to do what they needed to do, and they were better within like 24 to 48 hours. It was pretty incredible to watch. And so the other thing about sheep, too, especially dairy sheep, is—which we’ve been finding—is that dairy sheep, especially when they’re hungry, they will eat and eat and eat. Right? So they will rip your grass up if you are on a small acreage especially, or if you leave them in one place for too long. And that’s because they have to. They are putting out a product for you and your homestead. And so those are just things to keep in mind if you’re bringing on dairy sheep on to your property because they will eat, and they have to eat, and they will eat at whatever cost it is to keep producing that nutrition in their milk. And so just as you’re a new homesteader or even an experienced one that wants to get into dairy sheep, those are things to consider. I have found that I have to manage my property way more with sheep than I do with a cow. They require a few more strands of polywire versus the cow who I can get away with one strand of polywire. 

Rachel Hester Yeah, don’t do that with sheep. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, no. There are a ton of pros to dairy sheep and there are some cons to dairy sheep, just like there’s pros to cows and there’s cons to cows. And so what I’m really enjoying is we’re putting all of that out there because we really—I think Rachel would agree—we really believe that dairy sheep are the next big thing for homesteaders because you can have more on your property. I think we’ve established you can have 4 to 5 sheep which equals one cow, essentially. And so if you’ve got five sheep on your homestead property, so you’re milking a couple of ewes right, then you’re getting milk, but it’s a sustainable option for milk. And so for small homesteads.—like Rachel has eight acres, we have almost six acres—it might be a more sustainable option for you. Which leads me in to Rachel is writing a book about this. So you guys have all of the information in your fingertips because let me tell you, y’all, there are like no books about sheep dairy except for this really expensive—I’m holding up for YouTube people—The Practical Sheep Dairying book by Olivia Mills, which is forever and an age old, and it costs like 150 bucks online. Like you can’t find it for less than that. And it’s just crazy because they don’t print it anymore. So Rachel was like, “Listen, there’s a need and I’m going to fill it.” So, Rachel, why don’t you tell us really quickly about your book? 

Rachel Hester Yeah. So I actually have to give credit to the Homesteaders of America because we went and had a booth of sheep milk soap, and a couple people bought the soap, but most people wanted to talk to us about sheep dairy. And I just didn’t know that they were on the upswing as far as popularity went. And this one guy came in and was just asking question after question after question, so I’m trying to answer as best I can, just not having prepared. And he finally just like waves his arms and yells at me and he goes, “Where’s your book? Where’s your podcast? Where’s your pamphlet? Where’s your class?” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” He’s like, “We need this, so you need to provide it.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” And he left and I looked at my husband. I’m like, “I guess I should write something.” And he’s like, “I guess you should.” And the rest is history. It’s because of Homesteaders of America this book is in existence. 

Amy Fewell That’s awesome. 

Rachel Hester Yeah, so I am writing a book, and Sawdust Publishing is putting it out. And so I’ve been working with Janet Garman, who is just an absolute joy and blessing and so helpful. So it’s going to be 13 chapters. We’re going to go over why own sheep, why have sheep milk specifically. So I’ll go over in a lot more detail all the details of the nutritional profile of the sheep milk. I talk about how to feed your sheep and how to kind of decide what you’re going to feed them based off of their nutrition needs. I go over breeds a lot because, again, I have both. I have dairy mutts and I have nondairy sheep. So I kind of go over the pros and cons of when do you want a dairy specific sheep, when do you want a nondairy specific sheep? I do even talk about milking hair sheep for those of you who are diehard Katahdin and Dorper fans. I also have interviews from other dairy shepherds in there, which I’m excited about. Yes, we do have some recipes in there. We’ve got other things about recipes kind of in the works, but I don’t know if I should talk about that just yet. 

Amy Fewell Maybe not. 

Rachel Hester But yeah, if you want like a you know, I’m a homesteader, I’m interested in sheep, what do I do? This is the book where I was trying to just say, “Okay, this isn’t geared towards a professional sheep dairy or a big, huge sheep operation.” This is more for the homesteader who’s like, “I want to do this sustainably, I want to do this affordably, I want to do this enjoyably.” Because that’s the other thing. I mean, sheep are the most joyful, fulfilling heartbreak you’re going to experience because they’re very fragile and they’re very loving and they’re very stubborn. And so I want to help and encourage people to find ways to emphasize the joy of shepherding, because the heartbreak just kind of volunteers to jump out and smack you. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, well, I think you’ve reached it at the right time for homesteaders waiting to learn more. You guys, you can check the show notes for a link where you can preorder the book. The book is not out yet. Do you have a title for the book yet? 

Rachel Hester The Guide to Homestead Dairy Sheep. 

Amy Fewell Okay, so you can check that out below in the show notes and links are all there. And if you want to go through a transcript or anything of this to kind of pull out all these nuggets that Rachel’s given us, you can find that on our our blog at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. And all of this information that she’s been talking about will be in there. Is there anything else, Rachel, that you feel like people need to know about dairy sheep before we hop off here? 

Rachel Hester Oh, there’s lots of things. You know, we have a dairy cow and we have dairy sheep. And I have owned dairy goats in the past. My friend, who’s a fellow dairy shepherdess, we joke that dairy goats are like dogs and dairy sheep are more like cats. They’re much more standoffish, they’re much more whatever. But once you become their shepherd, it’s really amazing. And as a Christian, you really start to understand the heart of our Lord so much more profoundly than you did before you owned sheep. And I think that was the most surprising thing for me is learning… Like, we would get through this really frustrating thing with a sheep, and at the end of it I would be like, “Oh, those darn sheep. And they… Oh, okay, Jesus, I’m so sorry because I do that.” 

Amy Fewell It’s like, “Why do you do the stupid things you do?” Right? And then you’re like, “Oh.”

Rachel Hester Yeah. And the other thing would be on a much more materialistic level, dairy sheep are wool sheep, which scares a lot of people because they’re like, “I don’t know what to do with wool.” And I would just really encourage people wool is really a gift to homesteaders, especially. There’s so many uses for it. We’ve become so much healthier since wearing wool products in the winter and using it in our daily life. So don’t let the wool scare you. It’s a good problem to have. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, yeah. So many things. If you guys want to know all about wool, check out the podcast episode, a couple podcasts back. Or maybe it was right before this. Janet Garman talks about wool and wool sheep and all kinds of fun things about that, and she has a book about that too. Awesome. Well, thank you for joining me, Rachel. This has been super fun, and I’m sure lots of homesteads are going to have dairy sheep on them soon.

Rachel Hester Yay. Thanks for having me, Amy.

Amy Fewell Yeah. All right, guys, thanks for joining us on this week’s Homesteaders of America podcast. Make sure you’re subscribed if you are not already. Check out the show notes in the link below. And until next time, happy homesteading. 

Amy Fewell 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. 

Pin this Podcast for Later

As a long-time content creator in the homesteading space, Justin Rhodes has become something of an expert in building an online business that can support your homestead dreams.  In this episode, Justin shares the journey from where he started to where he is now.  We even chat about ideas for the future and how to plan for tomorrow in a constantly changing online business environment.  Whether you are dreaming of starting your own business or hoping to take yours to the next level, may this conversation with Justin Rhodes inspire you to take the next step!

Join us as we discuss:

• How Justin got started creating homesteading content
• Navigating the online world and adapting to the fast-paced changes
• Learning from mentors and teaching as you learn
• Finding the right business idea for you
• The challenges and benefits of learning from the internet
• Planning for the future of your business in an ever-changing online landscape

E18: From Homesteader to Homesteader Extraordinaire | Justin Rhodes – Homesteaders of America

Thank you to our sponsor!

Premier 1 Supplies is your one-stop shop for all things homesteading!  Visit Premier1Supplies.com to browse their catalog.

About Justin Rhodes

Justin Rhodes is a permaculturalist homesteader who has inspired (and taught) thousands of people to grow their own food. After 10+ years of farming experience and countless hours of training, he creates daily “edutainment” on his wildly popular YouTube Channel, Justin Rhodes. Justin Rhodes is also the owner and creator of Abundance Plus, a network providing all original shows for homesteaders. It includes a streaming platform, A+ social media site, and marketplace to buy and sell.

Resources Mentioned

Permaculture Chickens

Abundance+

Where Are Your Shoes, Mr. Brown?

Connect

Justin Rhodes | Website | Instagram | YouTube

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

Join us at the Homesteaders of America Conference in October 2023!

From Homesteader to Extraordinaire 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 Hey, guys. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Homesteaders of America podcast. This week I have the notorious Justin Rhodes with me. Welcome, Justin. 

Justin Rhodes Yes, thank you. 

Amy Fewell So I don’t know, for those of you watching on YouTube, you might be able to see his name at the bottom says The Bird Man, which is awesome. Justin, there might be people who don’t know who you are on our podcast. So why don’t you give us the rundown real quick? 

Justin Rhodes Well, I’ve taught and inspired tens of thousands of people at this point to grow their own food. We’re in western North Carolina. My children are a fourth generation on this farm—75 acres, we’re probably using about 12. The rest of it is pretty steep. And we got into homesteading just to…a healthy lifestyle, be connected to our food, grow the most healthiest food possible. And then we enjoyed it so much, it’s like, we want to share that with the world and we want to go pro with that. It’s like that’s been a thing I’ve done all my life is I’ve found a passion and then just wanted to make a career out of it. And that’s what we’ve been able to do by simply just sharing what we’re doing, teaching what we’ve learned. And it’s worked so far. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So those of you who have been to an HOA event, you’ve seen Justin at almost every single one of them. And then for those of you who are coming for the first time this year, we have a lot of new people this year that jumped on tickets before anybody else, so you’ll get to actually see Justin for the first time if you haven’t seen him at another event. So make sure you stop by his booth, which is super cool and interactive, and meet him and everyone. So funny story. I knew of Justin Rhodes before Justin Rhodes was cool. So I was in the blogging world and I remember someone saying, Hey, this guy is putting together a documentary about chickens and, you know. So I knew about you starting with..was it Permaculture Chickens? Was that the first documentary you did?  Yeah. And so the documentary thing was new. That was, what, over a decade ago, right? That was pretty…or almost. 

Justin Rhodes That was 2006. 

Amy Fewell It was a while. 

Justin Rhodes Yeah, we’re getting pretty close. 2006 or 2007. No, that would’ve been 2016 not 2006.

Amy Fewell So your Permaculture Chickens kind of set you into this career, right? So that was your first your first thing or were you on YouTube first? 

Justin Rhodes No, the Permaculture Chickens was the first thing and that was our venture into this. That was a Kickstarter to, you know, we had we had seven people on our email list going into that. And it’s funny, you know, you speak of somebody talking to you about it and hearing about it, it’s interesting. I guess, what permaculture chickens did, you know, we just…one really good thing that we did was did a really good, polished video. You know, at that time I wasn’t even videoing myself, so I had to hire that out and take the chance and take the risk. And Kickstarter enabled that because we had zero money. We had minus money. And you know, the concept of Kickstarter is hey I’ll create this if everybody gets behind it and backs this and basically preorders. You preorder and it gets successful and I’ll go and make it. But you know, it must have just been, you know, looking back on it, it was, yeah, I would have never known this. I never could have guessed it. You know, chickens, it was just right. Getting Joel involved. So Joel Salatin at that time, he was well known. So getting somebody that was well known since I wasn’t yet, and then working on that Kickstarter a month before it launched and working with other people who had audiences. So I always say, if you don’t have an audience, borrow someone else’s. And I mean borrow like you’re indebted to them. Like you don’t just ask, you find a way to serve this influencer and get people on board and excited about this. And I think they just got excited just because it was a really good video and a really good project and just something that was needed at the time. And for whatever reason, and you can’t always explain it, Amy, there was buzz. And that would have been your friend telling you about it. So that was interesting. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, but I think you kind of hit it at the right moment, too, because there there’s kind of this foundational group, I feel like, of homesteaders who, you know, they’re the old school homesteaders who started kind of pushing homesteading in a more prevalent way to get it out into media and get it out into the open and make this lifestyle…people more aware of it. And so when I think of those foundational homesteaders, you are one of them that I think of because of the Permaculture Chickens documentary. And so let’s kind of talk about you and what you do businesswise, because there’s a lot of homesteaders who want to do exactly what you’re doing, not necessarily with YouTube. You know, we see you on YouTube, but you have a much more expansive business set up with your farm and just what you do so I wonder if you can talk to us a little bit about that. 

Justin Rhodes Yeah, there’s so many things. And I will say that there’s never been a more ripe opportunity to make a living on a homestead through content creation. I mean, Joel’s the OG. He’s writing books. That’s content creation. Beth and Sean Dougherty. How’d you find out about them, Amy? Probably through their book. And then you got him into the…and even if they come as speakers and have a speaking career there, well, that’s content. So it doesn’t have to be just YouTube. YouTube is extremely hot. It’s as hot as it ever has been and is more ripe than it ever has been with YouTube shorts and things like that. YouTube’s killing it there and there’s so much opportunity there. I mean, it gives me chill bumps to talk about the land of opportunity that is YouTube. But there’s also…what are we doing here? We’re podcasting. You’re going to capture a video, you’re going to capture audio. You can take those and turn those into short 15 second, one minute clips that goes on reels, shorts, TikToks, whatever. But there’s podcasting, there’s video creation, there’s book writing, there’s blogging. Think about the opportunities there in blogging. People say it’s dead, but perhaps it’s going to be on the rise. There’s things going on with artificial intelligence. Who knows what that will do for blogging and how blogs can be better identified for what really is in the content. You know, search engines getting smarter because of AI and stuff like that. So I think there’s opportunity there. Somebody who just likes to take pictures or short videos, there’s Instagram and even on such a platform is YouTube it’s even more out of the box than it ever was. Because when I came on the platform, well, first it was mostly instructional style videos. And then we came on and we introduced the vlog to homesteading, which is more of a just lifestyle shots, like a long-form Instagram story type or an Instagram story type of video that’s on YouTube, just little updates throughout the day. So that’s a vlog style, but you could do skits, you could do straight up teaching and lecturing, short, long, put a documentary up there, whatever. But now there’s even more opportunities because of the shorts, you know, the vertical video post that is on on Instagram reels, YouTube shorts. I’m a little leery of TikTok, so I’m not mentioning that much I’ve gotten…I deleted it from my phone. 

Amy Fewell I deleted mine too. 

Justin Rhodes It’s not minding it’s own businesses, is it? 

Amy Fewell No. So here’s a funny story. I told this to Joel on a podcast a few podcasts back. We actually got a TikTok for HOA because every homesteader in the world was like, Get TikTok for HOA. And I’m like, I don’t even like this stuff. Like, don’t even understand it, but I got it. And within three days we were kicked off TikTok. And everybody’s like, Well, yeah, They’re like, Well, how do you get kicked off? Nobody gets kicked off TikTok. I’m like, I don’t know, let me try again. So I mean, I couldn’t even contact anybody because there’s nobody to contact. It’s like nothing. So I started a new one for HOA, and three days later we got kicked off again. And I’m like, Well, this is not meant to be. We’re getting off. 

Justin Rhodes They’re very strict about sensitive content. I mean, you can’t even show a gun, let alone using it to kill an animal. 

Amy Fewell We didn’t even do that. We posted a video about a dairy cow, like how to get started with your dairy cow. And then a video I think was about gardening, and that was very offensive to them. So we are no longer on TikTok. 

Justin Rhodes Well, that’s that’s a funny world we’re in now because even YouTube’s getting that way. They’re going that way a little bit. You know, at first it was, okay, you can’t…and it was just monetizing. It wasn’t necessary pulling them down, they just weren’t letting us run ads on them to make money off that. You couldn’t do that with butchering. Now it’s even…we had a peaceful cow birth and that got flagged. I don’t know if somebody flags or whatever, but a human reviewed it and said, yes, this is shocking. And, you know, it wasn’t even any blood involved. It wasn’t even any drama around it. And, you know, some vegan in San Diego decided that was shocking and pulled it. So, you know, I feel like I’ve been back and forth on this. These platforms are here…certainly that was one reason we created our own platform with Abundance+ back in 2017 when they started pulling the butchering and gun videos. I was like, okay, we’re going to have to have some diversity here. And because what if our channel got pulled? Well, we would need some private platform where people can be. And so that’s where that came from. But I look at it as a way, a massive way, an opportunity to reach people. And I’ve been to where I’ve pushed the envelope, where I show the chicken butchering, just everything but what I think they’ll pull from the chicken butchering, really trying to push it and be a rebel. But then I backed off of that and it’s more of a how do you turn a problem into solution? I mean, that’s one thing they’ve taught me in permaculture, right? Turn a problem into solution. The core of the problem is to seed of the solution. Yeah, it is because think of an avocado. The core is the seed for the solution. So it became, you know, just show what we can on YouTube. It’s their platform. If we’re going to be true libertarians, they can do what they want with it and we as freedom people can choose not to conform and be there and go somewhere else or obey the rules. So one thing I’ve decided is, okay, we’ll obey the rules, but we’ll say, “Hey, if you want the uncensored version, it’s on Abundance+.” And so we’ll get some members there. Yeah, so thinking about it along that lines. 

Amy Fewell So let’s kind of back up a little bit. So you started with documentaries. Can you kind of take us through quickly how you’ve built this homesteading empire essentially and how you’ve diversified your income? Because, you know, you hear this, Oh, Justin Rhodes is making money and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you’ve put a lot of work into this, Justin. You’ve really worked to get where you’ve gotten. So why you kind of tell people how this is built on top of each other to get to where you are now and then, you know, talking about YouTube, like what’s next? Are you going to pour more time into different avenues? What are you seen trending in the future? 

Justin Rhodes Yeah, so to get to this point and to speak to everyone, I was certainly where they are, or even worse, you know, as I was…we were living on food assistance. We were growing our food to get by. We were renting a spare bedroom. Not a spare house. A spare bedroom on Airbnb. And we having people from all over the world come and stay in our house just so we can make rent. I was hauling the trash for the landlord, who was my dad, who had two other rentals. I would haul the trash for everybody as part of the rent and mow the grass, everything you can think of…I would go to the stores and intercept the food before it went to the grocery store. I’ll come every Wednesday and get what you’re throwing away, and we’d feed that to the animals…well we’d go through it first and then we’d feed it to the animals. Maxed out credit cards. And if there’s one takeaway of how I’ve been successful, it’s by stepping under mentors through books and podcasts. And I would just consume it like crazy. And I think if you want to succeed, well, you’ve got to be good at the thing you want to teach or share or document. So for me, that was homesteading. And you always got to want to continue being good on that. So you’re going to study that, you’re gonna need to know that, you’re going to need to know that, you’re going to need to practice that. But you’ve got to be good at one more thing. Well, two more things. The second one would be the content. So you’ve got to be good at the content creation. You’ve got to become a student of that, too. Don’t just listen to homesteading podcasts all day. Listen, if you’re want to go in on YouTube or you’re not sure where you want to go all in on. Maybe you want to go all in on Twitter. Look up the podcasts and the books that are on that subject. Then you have to be good at the craft and then you need to be good at the the marketing. So I remember early on, I’d be doing dishes and I would be listening to Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn. I’d be listening to Tim Ferriss, his podcast. So consuming those podcast, audiobooks. Guys, in the car…this was before smartphones were out or I could afford one, I used to burn podcasts to CDs and listen to in my car and just absorb it. So if there’s a quick win out there, it’s put yourself under mentors, and they don’t have to be physical. They can very much so be podcasts, audiobooks, and books. Take what you want to do, find somebody, and it’s available in the world today, even if you just go online…you can consume it online, invest in it with your time and money. It’s going to be worth it. And you know, so for Permaculture Chickens, where’d that come from? Well, a mentor knew we were struggling so he gave me this book, The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. And at the time, I’m struggling with Lyme disease, we’re struggling financially, I got a bunch of kids. I felt like I only had 4 hours. And so I read this book and basically it’s just about being smart, just thinking through things, taking advantage of modern technology and really challenging the norm. And what came out of that is the concept of creating a book video companion and selling that. And in the book it mentioned something about Kickstarter, so I said, Oh, you know, well, long story short, I explored all different kinds of businesses, Amy. One of the business ideas I explored was I was going to have this endurance race where we had this bull, you put a red tag in it and that’s the race. Everybody chases the bull until finally somebody gets it. Because humans are endurance animals, nothing else. We’re the primal…we’re the best endurance animal there is. So that would be kind of fun. I even called about insurance for that, Amy. I was having a hard time getting insurance. 

Amy Fewell I’m sure that was outrageous. 

Justin Rhodes That was…okay. I can’t get insurance. I was calling the rodeo companies to see if I couldn’t get insurance for this. 

Amy Fewell My goodness. 

Justin Rhodes So I guess the point there is, though, have ideas. 

Amy Fewell You’re going to have a lot of bad ideas, right? 

Justin Rhodes You are. And you won’t know it until you explore it a little bit. So don’t just…because I could have sat on that and said, this is a great idea. Ooh, look at me. It’s a great idea. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Justin Rhodes And I could have just went all crazy into it, too. No, I said, I think this is a good idea or a reasonable idea. Okay, I’ll need an insurance. I’ll call. It took less than 10 minutes to figure out this is not a good idea. 

Amy Fewell No, no, not at all. 

Justin Rhodes We explored looking at… we were going to buy a Y bike business. You know, these little bikes that kids can get on and there’s no pedals. Our kids were doing successful with that. We found the site where you could just buy businesses. How about that one? Buy a business that’s already in place. But finally we figured out from the Four Hour Work Week, let’s create a content business. But then what was it, Amy? We finally landed on chickens, but basically, because I felt like I knew the most about chickens and I wanted to learn more about chickens. And that’s the thing, too. People are hiding behind the excuse of “I’m not an expert,” or, you know, “I’m not as good as Justin”, “I don’t have a pole barn like Justin Rhodes” or machines or whatever. You’re just hiding behind that excuse. And if you’ve learned that you can keep eggs on the counter unwashed for four weeks to six weeks and they’re still good, you’ve learned something. You can then teach that. And be bold in it and okay with it because, Amy, you might say you can keep eggs on the counter for eight weeks. Somebody else might say two weeks. Somebody might say, “Oh, no, you’ve got to wash them and put them in the fridge.” You ain’t going to please everybody. Nobody’s going to agree with you. Right, Amy? And you can follow experts right on Instagram about health, about farming, and have two very smart people disagree. 

Amy Fewell Yep. Well one of the best ways, too, is… Like the best way to learn something is to teach it. And I have found I know more and retain more when I teach someone about something. And so I think that’s a really good point that you just made. If you know the basics, you having to teach something causes you to be more accountable, which causes you to learn more. And the more you teach it, the more you retain it and the more experience you have. And so there are a lot of people who they think they’re not good enough or they’re not smart enough to do this. And it’s in everything. It’s not just in the homesteading, but the reality is that we’re actually extremely smart to do these things, especially as we’re learning them. And as we teach them, we learn more. It’s incredible how the human mind works.

Justin Rhodes Well, if you want to talk about mindset, I would encourage folks to get out of this scarcity mindset and get into an abundance mindset. And one of the best ways you can do that is stop saying “can’t”. And instead of saying, “Oh, I can’t do that,” you get two choices. Either own it and say, “No, I won’t.” Because maybe you don’t want to do it and so you can’t. So owning that and you just saying “I won’t” is empowering yourself because what kind of person are you to say “I can’t”? Versus the person that says, “No, I won’t do that.” That’s so much more empowering and positive to your self being then saying “I can’t.” But if it is something you really want or want to do, you need to say, “How can I?” I think I learned this from Daniel Pink in To Sell Is Human. His book To Sell Is Human. You say, “How can I?” And you write down six things of how can I. So maybe you want to buy the property next door and it’s too expensive. It’s unimaginably expensive. Well, either say, “No, I won’t do it.” Just own that or say… You know, don’t give yourself an excuse. “Oh, I’m only working 9 to 5. I only make this much money. Oh, I’ve got five kids. Oh, I’ve got this disability.” Well, no. Stop that. And start saying, “How can I?” And write it out. One of your lists, one of your items might be “rob a bank”. Just write it down. Keep going. Go gambling. Go to Las Vegas. Win the lottery. You might have some really dumb ideas, but you need to give yourself permission to write down dumb ideas. It’s a lot easier to make a mistake on paper than in real life. Write down all these crazy wild ideas because it frees up your mind, and write all these out and then start experimenting on these. I love to fail, but fail small. So it didn’t take too much to call the rodeo company and find out I can’t get insurance. So it was a failure. Okay. But it was failing small. It wasn’t like I went all out and got investors and spent $1,000,000 on this event and then no one showed up. Okay. So I would say going into that, as an example, going into that Kickstarter… Or having the Four Hour Work Week, deciding I needed a video piece and a companion book and deciding on chickens, then going into the Kickstarter, what do I do? I mean, at the time, I wasn’t online. Facebook was hot then, and that was about the only social media there was. I didn’t even have a Facebook. So what do I do? I don’t know anything about Kickstarter. I literally went online. I think I got one or two articles and then I literally went to the library, Amy, Because we could not afford to buy a $14 book. So I went to the library and checked out this book on how to do Kickstarters. And between that book and two articles, came up with a plan for a launch and just followed what I had learned from other people who had gone before me. That’s really all it is. This brings up a lot of thoughts. Thinking about the past, about where we’re going next. So I feel like, you know, after what you said with Permaculture Chickens, I was inspired by the movies Permaculture Orchard. It was just a well put together… It’s not quite a course. It is more like a documentary. I appreciate that you called it Permaculture Chickens documentary. It’s just more cinematic. It was a beautiful film where you can learn something from. And it’s succinct. It gets right to the point. And I was inspired by Permaculture Orchard. So if I feel like… I was kind of… I don’t know if I should say before a time or top of the game or good timing there with that. Permaculture Orchard was really good timing or even before it’s time. And then I got into YouTube and not on purpose, not even being under a mentor or reading it in a book, like “You got to get on…” You know, it was just we’re creating content. At the time, we were writing blogs. And we didn’t even foresee that the blog business was going to be more of a struggle down the road. But we were writing blogs and then at the end of each blog we’d have a little bonus where if people signed up for it, they’d have to give their email and they’d get something free. And then we’re building our email list, right? And then we discover a need and we can pitch, we can create a service or product to service that need and then pitch the audience. So that’s how that business… that’s a model for a content creation business. And then Rebecca saw this couple who the man found out his wife was pregnant. He found out. He snuck up one of those pregnancy tests in the toilet, and she didn’t know it. And he found out, so it went viral because the man was getting to say “we’re pregnant” versus… It’s always the woman doing the pregnancy tests on the man. And that went viral. And she started following them and she realized, “Oh, wait, they’ve been putting up videos every day. What is this?” And she started following them on YouTube, and I can hear her… That was Sam and Nia. If anybody is an old school YouTube fan. And I could hear them talking. I never watched, but I could hear them. And every once in a while I’d glimpse and it just looked like he was walking around with his phone. And I at least thought that was an interesting model. And the business guys that I was following were saying… You remember Twitter’s Periscope? Periscope was the first live app. 

Amy Fewell Oh wow, I forgot about that. Yeah.

Justin Rhodes Yes. You know, now we take it for granted. You can go live on any of these platforms. But it was a big deal to be able to go live from just your phone. And they were saying… Just like people are saying Tik Tok is where it’s at, they were saying Periscope is where it’s at. And nobody knows what Periscope is nowadays. Right? It’s totally gone. And maybe Tik Tok will follow. Who knows? But I got in on that. And, you know, I went in hard. But still failing small, Amy, because I didn’t quit blogging. I didn’t quit what was for sure working. But I started experimenting with these Periscopes and did one every day for like 150 days. From butchering a chicken live to milking my cow out there in the morning. And somewhere in there, somebody said, “You know, you ought to put these on YouTube.” And between that and Rebecca finding Sam and Nia, we just gave it a shot. You know, we just got us a… I think we got a G7X by Canon. It’s just a little point and shoot camera because I’m thinking we were pretty sure we were going to enjoy this. And we tried it and it felt so awkward, Amy. It felt just so weird, and it’s just so anti homesteading and country boy lifestyle to film yourself. It’s selfie at a next level. Us 40-year-olds already feel a little weird taking selfies. Like who are we? You know? And now I’m going to put a camera and videotape myself. Who do you think you are? But how do you know? So I tried it, and I made one one video. How do I edit? Guys, guys, how do you edit? What film thing to use? I don’t know. Ask Mr. Google Pants. Ask Mrs. Boob Tube. Do something. And so to edit, how did we do it? Well we kind of knew this guy from the business world. He had this course, do it yourself. DIY Video Guy or something. And we got his course on how to edit. Now you could get a course, you could go on YouTube. There’s all different kinds of platforms now where you can go and get courses. So that’s no excuse. You know, we were walking out of the Apple Store one day. We had to go get our iPad repaired. And we had four kids at the time, and it’s pretty much guaranteed with four kids, “You’ve got your hands full.” You know, everybody’s got to say that. How many kids you got, Amy? 

Amy Fewell We have three right now. 

Justin Rhodes Okay. So you’re already getting it? 

Amy Fewell Oh, yeah. And we have different… Well, here’s the thing. Let’s stop on that for a second. We have lots of age differences, and so it’s like, “Oh, my goodness, they’re not even like a normal age span.” Like, I’m dealing with teenage hormones and I got a ten-month-old and I’m like, “Wait a second. This is not how this is supposed to work.” 

Justin Rhodes We’re in that, too. So your hands are literally full because we’re probably walking out of a store and a baby’s in this hand and holding a hand here and you’re trying to carry the iPad. But this well-meaning lady, “You got your hands full. How are you going to pay for them all to go to college?” And I thought about that and I thought, you know, that’s funny. I guess she didn’t see what I was holding in my hand because I’m walking out with the world’s information in a little pad like this called the iPad. And now all the world’s information is in something this small. So we don’t need no college. They got the world’s information right here. So that’s what I’m saying to these people listening is you don’t know how to edit, but you can find out in 10 minutes or less. 

Amy Fewell Oh yeah. I did it. It’s true. For free. For free you can do it. So it’s crazy that you don’t even have to buy a course like Justin Rhodes did. You can go on YouTube and you can watch 30 videos on how to edit a video. And you know, I don’t know about you, but are you finding because of this… We’re going to change this topic for just one second. Because of this, I’m finding that people are less likely to look stuff up and they just want you to tell them how to do it. And I’m like, “No. Go on YouTube, figure it out. There’s stuff there.” Do you have that issue? Do a lot of people just come to you and ask you because you’ve already done it? 

Justin Rhodes You know, that’s funny. Sometimes, Amy, what’s funny is… because we have member texting through Abundance+ with premium, and a lot of people are reaching out to me with questions. I end up becoming their Google service, Amy, because—

Amy Fewell That’s funny. 

Justin Rhodes It’ll be so specific or so niche. I don’t know. I don’t know. So I just Google…

Amy Fewell You just get on Google? Oh my. No, you don’t. Oh, my word. That’s hilarious. 

Justin Rhodes Now, listen, there’s a caveat there. At least, and you know this, at least as somebody with experience, you know how to interpret Mr. Google Pants. You know how to take which answer because he’s going to give you like 1.5 million answers. So I could see how maybe the novice even then wouldn’t understand how to search Google Pants. Who do you trust? And that’s what it comes down to, Amy, because… You bring up some interesting. Because of all this information, people really desire an authority. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Justin Rhodes Somebody that they can connect to and trust. And they know they’re not perfect. And so like I was telling you earlier, even in the niche-ified things, like I eat mostly meat. I’m in the carnivore world. Even carnivore guys, which is like an extreme sect of the health world. Even carnivore guys can disagree and butt heads. Like do we eat honey? Do we not? Oh, I would never. I would never have a cheat. You should never have a cheat day. It does this and this and this to your body. Oh, you should have cheat days because it challenges your body and it’s a healthy stress. And these are two very brilliant people. You want to pick one. You do. At the end of the day, you have to pick one because there’s too many other things and you have to just say, I’m taking it. I’m going to go for it. I’m going to learn the foundation of what they’ve taught me and shown me, and in the meantime, maybe explore my own ways. And you can end up mixing things. It’s really beautiful. For example, our winter system for our chickens… It’s got Joel in it, it’s got JM Fortier in it and it’s got Paul Gautschi in it, Back to Eden. So Joel puts his chickens in the high tunnel over the winter. So we do what Joel does and does that. Joel puts 18 inches of deep bedding and is done for the winter, and then in the spring removes it all, puts it in a manure spreader, puts it out in the field. We get a little different. On the homestead level, we’re not packing it in with as much chickens, so it’s not going to get as much as much manure. It’s not going to break down as well. Our high tunnel is too big for the amount of chickens we’re going to have. So I put about four inches of woodchips, and that’s plenty to last them the whole winter. It doesn’t break down like Joel’s does. But it’s like Paul Gautschi in the sense of now we have… After the chickens leave, we have four inches of a Back to Eden garden. So we have four inches of a wood mulch garden, so we don’t remove the material. And we plant the crops down into that. When we move the chickens out… So where does JM Fortier come in, which is a master gardener. When we move the chickens out in the spring, we’re not quite ready to plant. So we put down a silage tarp, which is very much JM I feel like was pioneering that idea. And then that keeps the weeds from coming up in through the shallow wood chips and going. So you have to pick somebody and form a foundation before you start making too many changes. But you can learn from all different kinds of people and make something your own. And even now, I would imagine we dare even call it original. 

Amy Fewell Right. Right. 

Amy Fewell Hey, thanks for listening. We’re going to take a quick break to introduce you to one of our sponsors that has been with HOA for a few years, and that’s Premier 1 Supplies. At Premier 1, they’ve been providing electric fencing and electric netting, sheep and goats supplies, clippers and shears, ear tags, poultry products, and expert advice for over 40 years. Whether it’s electric netting for your chickens or cattle or horses or poultry, or clippers and shears, and even poultry supplies such as fencing, feeders, waterers, egg handling supplies, hatchery items, they have it all. They are a one-stop shop for all things homesteading. Just like many of our sponsors. Check out Premier 1 Supplies at Premier1Supplies.com and don’t forget to check them out at the HOA event this year.

Amy Fewell All right. So you started with the documentary. You’ve moved into all these different marketing and blogging, newsletters. Now you’re on YouTube. Now you have Abundance+ plus. And then you’ve got a lot of courses and stuff on Abundance+, too. So you’ve leveled up on your teaching. But what now? So you brought up at the beginning of the podcast, we were talking a little bit about how YouTube has some censorship now, especially in the homesteading world. So some people are leery, like, why should I get on YouTube if they’re just going to censor? Is this a good business option? What do you kind of see trending in the future? Are you seeing a trend yet for something new? And what does that look like? 

Justin Rhodes Yeah, I like this question and what is next? So to calm everybody’s fears with YouTube, I think it’s okay. I think it’s going to be good. It’s going to be hard to beat them. So in a way, you join them and you take the challenge. And I think challenges are the birth of some of the greatest creativity that we’ve ever experienced. So in the face of that challenge… oh, I can’t show butchering. How can you turn that into a solution? Well, I could create a little mini course or an e-book. And I’ve built my audience up on on YouTube because there’s a million and 788,000 other things you can show on YouTube. So we tend as humans to look at the negative and we tend to look at, “Oh no, this is what’s coming,” the bad. Because that’s how we survived for so long. You’re looking out for the bad, but then we have to then train ourselves to say, “Okay, there’s good here, too, and there’s a way to take advantage. There’s a way to twist this bad into something good.” So then I feel like I’m using it. I feel like I’m using YouTube because it’s there. I post a video. And I posted a video the other day and got 100,000 views and that’s a lot for us and that was in like 24 hours. I didn’t promote it at all. YouTube did all that promotion. And so I just filmed today a video that’s going out on YouTube as well. It won’t do as well based on history. Well, it might in the long run. It’s an instructional video on how to raise turkeys. People are used to vlogs on my channel now, so that video will tank at first. But what I’ve noticed over time, those have a longer tail. They do better in the long run because they’re just ripe with information. And YouTube is trying to figure out who’s this for. It’s obviously not for his regular people. And so the YouTube machine is trying to figure out who is for and it’s pushing it to the right people and it goes out. And it’s a good model as far as people can watch my YouTube channel for free and that might be even more important now as people are tightening their belts and cutting budgets and that’s affected Abundace+. That’s brought down membership. Membership is not where it has always been. And I contribute that some people just having to tighten up their belts and save some money. 

Amy Fewell Oh, yeah. 

Justin Rhodes But they could go to YouTube and watch things for free. They watch an ad, and then the creator gets 60% of that ad, okay. And YouTube pushes out. So I’m going heavy in on YouTube probably more than I ever have. I’m putting more thought and energy into how to please the folks watching my YouTube videos so that then YouTube will send that out to even more people and reach a broader audience. I’m continually blown away. I was scrolling through some videos, and we have the videos in the million plus range. I have a million subscribers, Amy. I would have never guessed we had that much interest in homesteading but we do. And Amy, here’s the encouraging thing: I’ll go to a local plant sale where it’s people picking up veggie starts to plant, like it’s not a homestead conference or something. If I go to HOA, most everybody knows me, it seems. But if I can go to the local plant store or little event, there’ll be hundreds of people there and maybe one person recognizes Rebecca and I. That’s telling me we’ve only tapped the very tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more. There’s so many more people that aren’t online or aren’t on YouTube or whatever. So one thing I’ve noticed… So what am I going to do? So we created our own platform to have some more control. And it turns out the audience doesn’t like the censorship nonsense either. They don’t like to be parented by Facebook or YouTube. They want to make decisions for themselves. I’ll decide if I want to watch a butchering, and I’ll decide if that’s shocking or offensive. You know what I mean? Who are you to tell me? I’ll decide if it’s appropriate for my kids. So with Abundance+, it became a streaming platform with the eve of apps. I wasn’t a big happy app guy, but when I first announced that, I was at HOA and I just casually mentioned it at the end of my talk and people clapped. I was like, what the heck? I had no idea there would be so much excitement around an app. And there just was. And I came to that, actually, Amy, I came to the idea of the app from a membership area because Jason and I were driving home from Polyface. Jason from Sow the Land, we had just done a film shoot at Polyface. And he mentioned the show. Is it The Chosen? It’s about Christ’s life. I think it’s called The Chosen. Have you heard of that? Oh, yeah. And you have to watch it on an app. That’s how you consume it. It’s not on cable. It’s not on YouTube. I mean, maybe an episode or two, maybe clips, and then it’s free. And then I think it’s the total church model: pass the plate, some people put in some money and that funds it, really. Some people they’d call it pay it forward. You can do different levels. And one cool thing about that is you get to a certain level, like you pay a thousand bucks, you can be an extra in the movie or the show. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Justin Rhodes So it’s kind of cool. What I was seeing there was a lot of things, first of all, apps. So we talked about went from blogging to YouTube. TV killed the radio star. YouTube killed the TV star. I’m seeing streaming and people having control of their own platforms killing the YouTube star. And, maybe it’s not killing because radio is still around and radio is still doing pretty good. Rebecca just downloaded… She just got the app for Dr. Laura, some therapist show that’s on SiriusXM, it’s an app. So there’s like all these thing… You know, that was once on the radio. Now it’s an app through SiriusXM. So where is it going? Is it going to these streaming platforms and these membership platforms? I don’t know. There’s a lot of them rising up. That was the thing. There weren’t many other vlogging homesteaders when we started. There was some people teaching and stuff. Wrangler Star and Doug and Stacy, I think, were out there and some of those guys. But those were like teaching, and this was more lifestyle. And then it went on. And now, we got into the membership sites very early on. We had membership sites before there was really even great platforms for them. And then apps came along and we said, “We got to move to that,” and we made a good decision. And now what? Because Instagram has memberships and you can join YouTube channels. 

Amy Fewell Everything has membership. 

Justin Rhodes Everybody and their brother’s doing memberships now. So what I see… And this is inspired me a lot in making… Have you noticed something? Things outside of the homestead world are inspiring me to make these big moves. I’m seeing the trend by people who are maybe closer to what the trends might actually be. Because as homesteaders, we’re down in the dirt really where we should be and where our happy place is. I just like making content. I don’t like doing the marketing stuff now. And so I’ve gotten to a point… You do it at first. Everything. And then you hire it out. And the first thing you hire out is a bookkeeper because you can’t stand that. 

Amy Fewell Exactly. 100%.

Justin Rhodes And then you get to where all of a sudden you have an editor and a filmer. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about because you’re growing your business. I told you earlier, I think before off camera, you either either crush your dreams or expand your team. So you either dream small and downsize and bleh. Or you figure out a way to expand your team. So I see a trend of people coming up with physical mainstream products. So a lot of YouTubers like Mr. Beast coming up with his own snack line. He’s one of the biggest… Well, he is the biggest YouTuber. And then Logan Paul. These are not people… Logan Paul, your average homesteader is not going to want to watch that guy. It’s not going to be family friendly. They’re not going to want to listen to Gary Vee with their kids. But that’s going to be some motivational good stuff. You got to find the good stuff in it. So Logan Paul, Prime Energy drinks. The Nelk Boys. Definitely not going to want to listen to that, certainly not with your kids. Coming out with the Beer Happy Dad. Okay? And then these companies being worth… Because I do a podcast too. It’s on Abundance+, and I had Nathan Berry on, a business guy, and he talked about Mark Sisson, who is a health guy. He does Mark’s Daily Apple. He was a blogger. And he got to where he was making $2 million a year. I mean, anybody would say that’s very nice. One guy, maybe handful of part-time and full-time virtual assistants or whatever. Well, he then came up with a physical product. And many of you have heard of this, but you haven’t heard of Mark. And it’s called Primal Kitchen. 

Amy Fewell Oh, yeah. 

Justin Rhodes You heard of Primal Kitchen? Ranch? They’ll do like a healthy salad dressing similar to ranch. Maybe it’s avocado based and stuff like that. So Primal Kitchen and he’s got this whole line. Well, he ended up selling that for 200 million. Okay? 

Amy Fewell Wow. 

Justin Rhodes I mean, to put that in perspective, Amy, you could put 5 million into an endowment in the S&P 500 and get 8% a year on that and pay yourself for the rest of ever as long as there’s an America with a functioning economy assuming that that stays in place where you’re going to live on $36,000 a month forever. 

Amy Fewell That’s insane. 

Justin Rhodes And still have $5 million in that account. You’re just going to live on the interest. So that’s how much 200 million… So I see people going with products. And so I think, well, what’s my product? Is it a… You know, I use this multitool every day. Is it a multitool? Is it a line of pork jerky? There’s not a lot of or I don’t think there’s any organic pork jerky. Is it a line of beef jerky? Is it something, Amy, where I… What if it’s homestead grown, Amy? How can we disrupt the food business? How can we make buying local food even more convenient? You know, the biggest hotelier in the world doesn’t own one single hotel. It’s called Airbnb. The biggest taxi service in the world, not one car. It’s Uber. Okay? So how can we Uber-ize grocery stores? So could a homesteader grow two pigs? And have this whatever brand it is… For lack of a better term, the Justin Rhodes stamp on these two pigs and we’re able to send that off and they can contribute to the source for this pork jerky. Okay? There’s no organic pork rinds around. I don’t know. These are thing… I’m in that stage, Amy, where I was thinking about what was my content product. Now I’m in the stage of what is going to be my physical product. Is it an apron? Is it this hat? You cannot buy this hat anymore. The guy who made this hat, these flat caps is… Like I ordered 10 from him and paid extra because I knew he was done. 

Amy Fewell Wow. That might be it.

Justin Rhodes I’m in the stage of exploring some of these dumb ideas. And I need to think about how I need to explore those small. But how did Mark Sisson do that? Well, because he had somewhat of an audience, he had somewhat of a name. Maybe somebody, a Whole Foods buyer, was a fan of Mark and that’s how he got in at a bigger distribution. We taste that a little bit, Amy, when we go to publish our books and we partner with the publisher. I had our mama’s helper sent us a picture this morning. She was at the bookstore and she took a picture because there is my book in the kids section, front and center, Where Are Your Shoes, Mr. Brown? And she’s taking all these pictures to send me.

Amy Fewell That’s awesome. 

Justin Rhodes That’s kind of an example of what we’re looking for, but like at a bigger, more mainstream level. And so we’re early on in this. I’m not promising anything to anybody, but I’m even brainstorming with you as a business lady. What is this physical product that goes mainstream? Or what is this product that disrupts an industry because we make it more convenient?

Amy Fewell Yeah, I agree. I think there’s a lot of stuff up in the air right now. I know for me, this has kind of been my year just sitting back because I have a little one, you know, there’s not a whole lot I can do other than kind of just fly on autopilot. And so that’s giving me time to look at trends right now. And so you mentioned blogging earlier, and I think you are right on with that. Blogging, you know, that’s how I started with my homesteading content was blogging because I’m a writer, naturally. And I got to the point where I was making money off of that blog content. And then YouTube took off and reels and shorts. You know, the attention span of people, they would rather scroll through and watch a short video. And so we have seen blogging tank. But here’s what I’m seeing happening, which is really interesting. In the beginning of blogging, we could blog about anything, right? We could just write. We didn’t have to have any special content or keywords. And then in order for the algorithm to pick you up, then you had to throw all your money and time into figuring out the best keywords for Google. You have to write it ten times in your blog post for Google to pick it up. And it took a lot of time to learn those things, but I did it, and the blog started making money. And then it started tanking again once video content really started perking up. But the interesting thing now is, a few years later, now that the YouTube trend is kind of changing a little bit, writing is coming back up, but it’s in the membership level that you just mentioned, which I think is really interesting. So now we’re not necessarily blogging to appease the algorithm. Now we’re getting paid to blog, which is… you know, you have Substack and various different platforms that are doing that. And I was blown away. Just wanted to see what would happen. Last week or two weeks ago I guess now, I started a Substack for my writing and instantly got like ten subscribers the first week, which doesn’t seem like a lot. But when but when it’s people paying you monthly to just read what you’re writing, it’s like, “Wow, okay, that’s interesting.” And so I haven’t put a lot of time into it, but I think you’re right. I think a lot of this stuff is product based. You know, we started an HOA magazine this year which is hilarious because when you and I first started homesteading, everybody wanted everything online because we didn’t want to waste paper. Right? Okay. Now it’s the opposite ten years later. Now nobody wants it online. They want to get away from the Internet, but they want the paper product. And so it’s interesting to watch these trends change. And so for all of you listening and watching, I think if you take one thing away from this, it’s that everything changes. Definitely become an expert in what you love to do. That’s what Justin has done. He’s living his life, his passion, because he made a business out of what he wanted to do. That’s the American dream, right? The American dream isn’t working a 9 to 5 in an office for somebody else and making them all the money. It’s getting paid for what you love to do, but you have to put the work into it to get to that point. And as you can see with the trends that we were talking about, the various different products Justin’s created, even with HOA, like Justin, you helped us. You probably even know this. You had texted me a few years ago when we started our HOA membership, and you’re like, “Amy, you have to do membership tiers. You’re going to make more money with membership tiers.” And I was like, “No, I can’t do that.” Like, I can’t. But he was right. And we did membership tiers and you guys loved it. You guys loved the tiers. And so, you know, it’s just finding mentors, finding friends that are willing to share information with you guys, putting the hard work in there. I’m a mom, I’m a busy wife, and a homesteader. And I stayed up 1:00, 2:00 in the morning sometimes trying to get these businesses off the ground because there’s no other time to do it. And so when you guys are looking at this like I have a 9 to 5, I don’t have time to do this, we all have the same 24 hours in the day to get this stuff done. You just choose how you want to do it. And so I just want to encourage you guys, you know, you hear us doing this, but just know there’s a lot of hard work and hard years that have gone behind it. You don’t have to hire a VA tomorrow to to help you do it unless you have the income. But it is worth doing. If your passion is to be at home on your homestead, on your farm, making money off of what you love doing, then find a way to do it. It’s like Justin said, you either say I’m not going to do it or I am going to do it. I’m going to write down ten things or six things on how I’m going to do it. And you might have to put in a year’s worth or more of work to get it done. But I think it’s totally doable. Justin was right. We’ve not even barely tapped into the peak of this homesteading movement. You mentioned The Chosen. There’s actually another series coming out by the people that work on the chosen related specifically to homesteading. So they’re trying to use that platform. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of homesteaders are going to be created just from a series like that? I hope that this podcast encourages you guys to realize the homesteading peak… We’ve not peaked. We’re still just going up. And you can make a business off of this. And you just have to take the time to to put into it and make your list and go from there. Right? 

Justin Rhodes Yeah. For sure. 

Amy Fewell All right. Justin, do you have any more words for anybody listening before we get off here? 

Justin Rhodes No, I don’t think so. I mean, you nailed it right there at the end. Can’t do any better than that. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us. And thank you for sharing your information and knowledge and for just being a pillar like so many others in the homesteading community and available to teach and talk about things. So we really appreciate having you this week. 

Justin Rhodes This was fun. Thanks for having me. 

Amy Fewell Awesome. All right, guys, make sure you check all the show notes below and subscribe if you haven’t already if you’re on YouTube and for the podcast. And until next time, happy homesteading. 

Amy Fewell 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. 

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Join us as we have a candid conversation with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms as we discuss the homestead tsunami sweeping the world.

We fondly refer to Joel as the grandfather of the homesteading community.  With decades of experience in the farming and homesteading world, he brings incredible insight to this discussion of the current state of homesteading.  Joel’s upcoming book, Homestead Tsunami, serves as a source of inspiration and aspiration for those who desire to articulate a solid “why” behind their decision to live a homesteading lifestyle.  No matter where you are on the homesteading spectrum, may you find encouragement that this way of life is worth it.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why are so many people flocking toward homesteading right now?
• Rejecting fear-based motivations and moving forward in faith
• A picture of homesteading in Israel
• How homesteading is like building an ark
• Raising hard-working children of integrity in our current culture
• The power of disconnecting from manmade things and connecting to God’s creation
• Exploring what is behind the urban vs. rural mindset
• How to ignite meaningful change in our current climate

E13: Why Homesteading? A Candid Chat About the Homestead Tsunami | Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms – Homesteaders of America

About Joel

Joel Salatin calls himself a Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer. Others who like him call him the most famous farmer in the world, the high priest of the pasture, and the most eclectic thinker from Virginia since Thomas Jefferson.  Those who don’t like him call him a bio-terrorist, Typhoid Mary, charlatan, and starvation advocate.

With 12 published books and a thriving multi-generational family farm, he draws on a lifetime of food, farming, and fantasy to entertain and inspire audiences around the world.  He’s as comfortable moving cows in a pasture as addressing CEOs at a Wall Street business conference.

Often receiving standing ovations, he prefers the word performance rather than presentation to describe his lectures.  His favorite activity?–Q&A.  “I love the interaction,” he says.

He co-owns, with his family, Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia.  Featured in the New York Times bestseller Omnivore’s Dilemma and award-winning documentary Food Inc., the farm services more than 5,000 families, 50 restaurants, 10 retail outlets, and a farmers’ market with salad bar beef, pigaerator pork, pastured poultry, and forestry products.  When he’s not on the road speaking, he’s at home on the farm, keeping the calluses on his hands and dirt under his fingernails, mentoring young people, inspiring visitors, and promoting local, regenerative food and farming systems.

Salatin is the editor of The Stockman Grass Farmer, granddaddy catalyst for the grass farming movement.  He writes the Pitchfork Pulpit column for Mother Earth News, as well as numerous guest articles for ACRES USA and other publications.  A frequent guest on radio programs and podcasts targeting preppers, homesteaders, and foodies, Salatin’s practical, can-do solutions tied to passionate soliloquies for sustainability offer everyone food for thought and plans for action.

Resources Mentioned

• About Joel’s upcoming book: Homestead Tsunami
• Polyface Micro by Joel Salatin
• The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher
• Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher

Connect

Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms | Website | Instagram | Facebook 

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

Join us at the Homesteaders of America Conference in October 2023!

Why Homesteading? A Candid Chat About the Homestead Tsunami 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 Hey, Joel. Welcome to the Homesteaders of America podcast. How have you been doing? 

Joel Salatin I’ve been doing great. Grass is growing. It’s all green. And we’re about, whatever, two weeks earlier than normal for spring. And turned the first batch of cows out yesterday. Quit feeding hay on them. Not everybody, but on one batch. So yeah, life’s good. 

Amy Fewell That’s good. It’s always good when springtime comes and it’s getting warm outside and cows can eat grass. We only have one cow compared to your—what?—hundreds or thousands that you have. But we’re happy, too, for our one cow. 

Joel Salatin Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. 

Amy Fewell All right. Well, today we are talking about a couple of different things. I always ask you whenever we interview, just because, believe it or not, there are people who don’t know who Joel Salatin is. So why don’t you give us a quick rundown on who you are and what you do. 

Joel Salatin All right. So my self-acclaimed handle is Christian, libertarian, environmentalist, capitalist, lunatic farmer. Our family owns Polyface Farm in Virginia, Shenandoah Valley. We’ve been here since 1961. So I’m second generation. And day-to-day operations are handled by our son, Daniel. He runs the farm so I can run around. And basically our first 20 years here were basically a glorified homestead. Mom and Dad worked in town to pay the mortgage for the farm. So I grew up milking cows and running chickens and having a big garden, canning, and fruit trees, all the stuff that you do on a homestead. And then in September 24, 1982, came back to the farm full-time, and we developed now a commercial, full-time living on the farm, and it’s done very well. We have beef, pork, chicken—both eggs and meat—turkeys, rabbits, lamb and forestry products that we direct market to some 10,000 families, some commercial institutions, and we ship nationwide. 

Amy Fewell That’s it in a nutshell, huh? 

Joel Salatin Yep. I didn’t mention… You know, some people say now your educational and informational branch is as important and big as the farm. But that’s what we do in the production phase. But yes, we do have a full cadre of seminars, and we do gatherings here. Last year we built the Lunatic Learning Center. And so we have a pretty active informational… and that component as well. And I’ve written a few books. 

Amy Fewell Yes, you’ve written quite a few books, which is some of what I’d like to talk to you about today. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about the new book that you’re working on, what the inspiration was behind it, and what people can expect in that book. And from there, I think we’ll have a really fun conversation. I was telling the guy that helps us with the podcast earlier that this would probably not be your typical homestead podcast because Joel and I can get into some various different topics. Some of them might be controversial, so go ahead and tell us about the new book. 

Joel Salatin Aw, no controversy, Amy. There’s no controversy with us. So yeah, so actually, today I’m hoping to finish the final revision, so I’m that close to the final revisions. But the title is Homestead Tsunami: Good for the Country, Critters, and Kids. And it’s the why. It has developed out of a speech that I did last year for Rory Feek’s Homestead Festival in Tennessee. And he asked me… And at that time, the speech title, I think, was Homesteading: Hottest Trend in the U.S. or something like that. I kind of condensed it and came down to the Homestead Tsunami idea as this progressed through the season. Last year, Amy, we had an unending parade of RV’s here at the farm of people from California, New York, Michigan—all blue states, of course—that just paraded through here. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just every day there was one, two, three, it seemed like, and their stories were all the same. We’re bailing out. We’re done. We’re heading to the country, and we’re going to start homesteading. And I mean, I get chill bumps. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this. And it struck me at one point: this is a tsunami. I mean, this is crazy. Two years ago, I wrote Polyface Micro, which is basically a how-to for livestock on a homestead. It’s everything that we’ve done at large scale pushed back to something under 25 acres, even down to one chapter is how to have chickens and rabbits in a Manhattan apartment in New York City, okay? So it’s really scaled down. The how-to. But I found out that people are really looking for a why. So I wrote this book for three people. Three people. The first one is the urban family that’s on the fence. They’re teetering. Man, they’re frustrated with what they see in the city. They’re concerned about where the economy, where crime, where things are going. Say, “Man, we probably should just should just exit this. But we’re scared. I mean, how do you live without pizza delivery?” You know, those kinds of things. And they’re teetering. And they need encouragement to just make the decision and jump off the cliff and go. To leave Ur of the Chaldees and head to the land of Canaan, all right? Okay. So that’s the first one. The second one is the people who are—a lot of times well-meaning family and friends—who are telling them they’re crazy. What? You can’t. There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to do. There’s no place to go. You can’t even get pizza delivery. I mean, you’re crazy. The cows are going to… Whatever. Okay. It’s nuts. So, well-intentioned, but they don’t understand. And the third group of people are the people that I’ve just learned exist. I didn’t actually know that this existed so much, but I’m really hearing this a lot. People that about two or three years ago made the jump. They had all these fantasies: “Oh, we’re going to have this, that, and the other. And we’re two years into it. The cow’s got mastitis, the cucumber’s got powdery mildew, and half of my green beans are rotten in the basement because the jars didn’t seal. And man, this is a bummer.” And they need a pick-me-up. They need to discover their first love. They need to be encouraged. Here’s why. Stay with it. Because it’s worth it. So those are kind of the three people I’m writing this book to. There’s nothing how-to in it. Nothing how-to. It’s all inspirational. A lot of it is how do you want to live? How do you want your kids to grow up? You know, it’s aspirational and inspirational. It’s the why of homesteading. 

Amy Fewell So why do you think a lot of people are turning to homesteading right now? Writing this book and just having the experiences that you’ve had… And we’re seeing this. I mean, you know, with HOA. I mean, we sold out. We sold out of tickets at the end of February. 

Joel Salatin Unbelievable. Yeah, unbelievable. And I think you need to do two of them back to back. 

Amy Fewell I agree. 

Joel Salatin But anyway, here we are. So why is this? Well, look, Amy, if you want to make a list of things that you’re concerned about in our culture, it’s a pretty specific list now. I mean, you’ve got urban crime. You’ve got urban crime. You’ve got empty store shelves for food. You’ve got Biden telling us that people are going to starve. There’s food shortages. There are supply chain issues, the economy, I mean, inflation, the price of eggs, avian influenza, processing plants with airplanes flying into them and exploding them. There’s just… And I’m not tinfoil hat. Okay, let’s not get too far off the path. 

Amy Fewell Sure. 

Joel Salatin I mean, the war in Ukraine, sabre-rattling in Taiwan. I mean, anyone who’s thinking right now, you just look at the whole situation, and I don’t know about you… I mean, I’m older than you are, but I just feel like… Have you ever disturbed a beehive? You find you find a beehive somewhere and you get too close, and all of a sudden, all those wasps… You know, a wasp nest on the back porch, and they’re all just kind of sitting there, just doing nothing. And you get too close, you bump them with a broom handle and suddenly they’re all bzzz, you see everybody. I think that’s the way a lot of us feel about the world right now. We feel like this beehive is not stable and secure. And you can’t just assume that if I put money in the bank, it’s going to be there five years from now or a similar amount of money. And I didn’t even mention digital currency, tracking, the pervasive personal and financial tracking that’s going on. It’s like you can’t hide anywhere, you can’t go anywhere. And then you have artificial intelligence and deep state databases. All right. I could go on. But the point is that thinking people are looking at all of this. Not the least of which was stimulated by the whole COVID outbreak and how fast we saw the lockdowns and the societal upheaval of that whole thing. And not to be partisan and take sides, but just the fact that it happened. And really on our farm, here we were… I mean, I don’t go to the grocery store, but I remember going one time. Theresa said… I mean she at least goes and buys Kleenex and toilet paper, right? She said, “You need to see this.” And so one day, we were with her. I said, “Okay, I’ll stop in.” We went in there, and I mean empty store shelves. I mean, I had never seen that in my lifetime. Never seen it. And so it has created an intuitive desire in people that there’s this kind of primal idea in all of us that if the wheels fall off, I don’t want to be in the city. 

Amy Fewell Mm hmm. 

Joel Salatin I want to be somewhere where I can shoot a deer, get some firewood, make a little shelter and survive. And that’s not fear. That is simply wisdom that moves us to a place of more stability and security. We create that for ourselves. So I think this phenomenon is as much, yes, there is fear running away from something. But you and I know, ultimately, you don’t have staying power if you’re running away from something in fear. You have to embrace something in faith. And so this book is about what are we embracing in faith? We hear enough negative on the news anyway. All right. So I’m happy to… I talk about the teen suicide rate, you know, and things like that. But that’s in passing. By far and away, the bigger part is how do we raise kids that shake hands and look you in the eye and who are affirmed and know who they are? How do we create beacons of hope and help when society is hopeless and helpless? It’s about that. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, that’s one thing we talk about a lot is with the world and how much it can consume you right now with everything that’s on the news and that’s on the Internet. You know, every teenager in the world has social media to some extent somehow. Or if they don’t have it… Like I always laugh when people are like, “My kids don’t have a phone.” Okay, but their friend has a phone. And when they get with their friend, they’re on their friend’s phone. They see the same stuff that everyone else is seeing. And so we’ve had that talk, like you cannot be shaken by what’s going on. And I’m very vocal with my faith on podcasts and YouTube and everything else. And what are you consumed by? And whatever you’re consumed by, you’re going to end up living that out. You’re going to end up living that out in fear. You’re going to end up making unwise decisions or not being able to think clearly. And so we’ve kind of pulled that into our homesteading lifestyle, too. Like let’s celebrate this life. Let’s make homestead disciples. Guys, there’s a better way to do this. And so people have caught on. And like you said, especially since 2020, you know, we saw tens of thousands of people come into the HOA  community in 2020. But then I would say probably even more than that in the last year, because of all of the stuff that’s been going on. People are… They’re like, “This is unstable. Everything is unstable.” And it’s not just in America. It’s everywhere. We have so many people in Australia and Europe that email us and ask for suggestions. And then you were just in Israel. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and how it’s kind of different over there? 

Joel Salatin Yeah, well, it’s really different. So where I was was on the “West Bank”, which is actually Judea and Samaria. So the phrase “West Bank” is used by the anti-Israel people to make it sound like Israel is someplace they shouldn’t be. But if you ask the average person, “Do you think Israelites should be in Judea and Samaria?” Everybody would say, “Of course, of course. I mean that’s where Abraham made his covenant.” Everybody would say that. And so it’s a direct attack on Israel to even use the term “West Bank”, so I have sworn off of using the term “West Bank”, and I’m using the terms “Judea and Samaria”. So, I mean, that’s where 80% of the Bible happened is in Judea and Samaria. I mean, you’ve got everything from Hebron to Bethlehem. Ephrata all the way up to Gerizim. You’ve got Mount Gerizim when they marched into the land. All right. So here’s what happened: from the Oslo Accords in 1995, the Oslo Accords took that land. There was so much worldwide outrage at the 1967 Six-Day War that Israel just… I got to tell you this story from it. So this guy, his uncle was a tank operator in the 1967 Six-Day War. And remember, that was a war… So to back up, 1948, the United Nations says, “Israel should have a homeland.” So here’s a completely abandoned place. There’s nobody there. Haven’t been there for years. I mean, there are some people around, but it’s not a country. It’s not a nation. Nobody claims it. So they drew this boundary line and said, “Here’s a homeland for Israel.” So Israel occupies. Well in 1967, the five surrounding nations, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, they all get together, Jordan. They all get together and conspire and say, “Let’s wipe the Jews off the earth.” And so they launched an attack in 1967, the Six-Day War. Israel beat them back. It was absolutely miraculous. So I’m talking to this this guy. He’s got an uncle. He a tank operator in the Six-Day War. So he’s got a tank. He’s supposed to defend Jerusalem. So he’s there with his tank, and here over the hill from Jordan come these 30 Jordanian tanks. And he calls his commander, he says, “Hey, I got 30 Jordanian tanks coming down.” I need to retreat. And the commander says, “No, you can’t retreat. You have to hold Jerusalem.” So he heads toward these 30 Jordanian tanks and suddenly all the Jordanian tanks empty out. Everybody jumps out with their arms up. They surrender. And he calls back to his commander and says, “Hey, you got to send somebody up here. I’ve got all these P.O.W.s here. I’m only a three-man crew. I can’t handle all these P.O.W.s.” So they send somebody up to gather them all up. After the six days, these P.O.W.s are being released, and so they do kind of debriefing as they leave. And every one of them said, “Why did you do that? What was going on?” And they did this independently, not in a group, not in a concert. So individual exit interviews from the P.O.W. camp. All right? And every single one of them said, “We came over that hill, we saw a hundred Israeli tanks, and we just surrendered.” But there was only one. Is that not cool? 

Amy Fewell That’s amazing. Yeah. 

Joel Salatin We’re talking about Elijah and Gehazi. Remember when they were scared and Elijah said, “Open his eyes so he can see. And he saw that whole legion of angels all around.” And I mean, it’s cool. God’s still here. He’s still on his throne. 

Amy Fewell Oh, yeah. 

Joel Salatin And he has not given up on the Abrahamic Covenant. So what happened was they were so successful that they took that land. They took Judea and Samaria, which are the historical birthright of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. Those were the three tribes that occupied those areas. Israel got a hold of it, but the world sentiment was so against Israel that they just felt like they couldn’t actually do much with it. So finally, the Oslo Accords in 1995 carved out individual places for the Arabs, for the Israelis, and for both. And so the entire region now of Judea and Samaria is a hodgepodge of intermingled territories called A, B, and C. A is for Arabs only. B is for both, and C is for Israeli citizens only. So these “Israeli settlements”, these are actually Israelis trying to occupy their designated C zones so they don’t get overrun by the Arabs who are supposed to be in the A zones. And so the farmers I was with… That brings us to when I was just there a couple weeks ago. So what’s going on there is that there are these massive thousands and thousands of acres of land that nobody is on. They’re C areas, they’re designated for Israel, and the Arabs are trying to encroach on them. They’re building houses. The U.S. Is sending aid. They’re building thousands of houses. They don’t even have anybody in them. Nobody even lives there. And so they’re encroaching. So I got to meet with about ten farmers. They are Zionists. I mean, they are going into these areas where nobody is there and establishing farms as beachheads of occupation in these areas. And so, you know, occupation is the first foundation of whatever ownership, right? So that’s what they’re doing. And they’re moving their sheep around. I met one guy that had cows; everybody else had sheep. And they’re moving them around. But it’s a tragically… It’s the most devastated land I’ve ever seen in my life. It is just rocks and no trees. I mean, the idea that Absalom got hung up in a tree, you know, there’s no trees where that battle took place. And it’s just rocks. It’s difficult. But these farmers are dedicated. They’re committed. And I think I was able to encourage them and give them some ideas to try to do their grazing better. They don’t do any controlled grazing. They really don’t have any fences because the Arabs come in and rip up the fences. So it’s a war. It’s a real war going on. And I felt, as a Christian and I was there, I realized… One of my biggest takeaways from the visit was the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Shintos, the pagans, whatever, they’re a diversion. The ultimate showdown is between Hagar and Sarah. 

Amy Fewell Right. Yeah. 

Joel Salatin Ultimate showdown is between Hagar and Sarah, the Son of Promise and the Son of Impatience. Ishmael, the Son of Impatience. And Isaac, the Son of Promise. That’s the ultimate showdown. It’s occurring right now on the ground in front of our eyes. 

Amy Fewell Mm hmm. Yeah. I noticed you had posted a blog post a little bit about your trip there, and I made the mistake of going into the comments and just, wow, the amount of people that are like, “Joel, we liked you, but now we don’t like you for talking about this,” is insane. And so, you know, it’s funny because we have a Christian school. I run a Christian school at our church. And so we’ve been talking about how Israel is a nation. It’s not necessarily just a country. Israel was always a nation group. So we think about tribes which is exactly what it talks about. So American children, when you say tribes, they think Indian tribes like here in America. That’s the closest thing that you can get to. And so we were reading in Romans about how different nations and how he would be the father of different nations and didn’t just mean the Israelites, but it would mean the Gentiles as well. And so I was talking about this to a homesteading family the other day, and her child goes, “Oh, you mean like homesteaders?” And I’m like, “What?” And she goes like, “Homesteaders. We’re like a nation group, if you think about it.” And I’m like, “Yeah. Kind of like that. We are kind of like a nation group.” And it’s funny because my friend, Corinne, she was sitting in on one of your talks in Israel, and so she had sent me a picture and she was so excited that you were there. And there were only a couple of people there when you had given your talk when she was there. And her and I have been talking for the last couple of years and how in Israel, a lot of the leaders in Israel think that homesteads and farms will become places of refuge for persecuted Jews and Christians. And it’s funny because I’ve had that talk a lot with a lot of people in America about homesteads and farms being a place where people can just come if they need food, if they need refuge, if they need help. A few years ago I was like, oh, America, it’s going to be a while before America gets to that point, right? And now we’re just sitting here watching this. And so I think your book, Homestead Tsunami, I don’t think it’s just a coincidence. I think it’s prophetic. I mean, I really do think that… And, as you know, in the homesteading community, we have all kinds of beliefs. Right? But we did a survey, and I was not shocked to see that 90% of the homesteaders that filled out that survey are of some denomination in the Christian faith. So it ranges anywhere from non-denominational to Protestant to Catholic, you know, all of that. But 90% of them were Christian. And the rest, there were some Jewish, there were some… There were all different kinds, like small percentages. And to kind of see this, to see the ultimate goal in this survey of people, when people started homesteading, one of the questions was, “What caused you to start homesteading?” And then “What’s changed now?” So if you’ve been homesteading for quite a few years, why are you continuing to homestead? And so a lot of people answered that they started homesteading because they wanted better food, okay? Which, great. That’s why we started homesteading. We wanted better food for our health, better health. We wanted to get into herbalism, all of those things. It was just a better way to live. Well, now it’s switched. Those people, we asked the same question why they continue to homestead, and then the newer people that have come in the last year, we asked that question, “What started you to get into homesteading?” And now it’s the culture, and the economy, and the government, and the way that the world is. And we feel convicted and compelled to have a homestead for ourselves, but also at the end of the day, to help other people. And it just reminds me of this talk that I’ve been having with multiple people over the years about homesteading and how the purpose in homesteading has changed. It’s no longer just I’m homesteading because I want to be healthy and grow my own food and know where my food came from. That was great and it’s still great to do that. Now it’s shifted to there’s something bigger here and my family doesn’t want to be a part of that. We want to be a part of something different. 

Joel Salatin Yeah, it’s shifted to building an ark. 

Amy Fewell Mm hmm. Yeah. 

Joel Salatin That’s what it’s shifted to. That’s where it’s going. And when folks make fun of you or say, “Oh, you know, this is… You’re putting your family through… What are you going to make your kids pull weeds in the green beans?” I think the encouragement is, “Look, we’re building an ark and we’re going to the ark. If you want to come with us, that’s fine. If you don’t, that’s fine, too.” But we’re not going to get pulled off of our ark to argue with somebody that doesn’t even know it’s raining. 

Amy Fewell Right. Yeah. Yep. 

Joel Salatin And it’s not prideful and it’s not selfish and it’s not greedy to stay on mission. Yeah, that’s how you get things done. So, yeah, the ark is a good… And I use that in the book. I talk about building an ark. But yeah, there’s so many reasons. And I talk about the difference of self-worth in children when they’re doing something that’s needful and purposeful versus just playing. I really drill down on screen time. I think screen time is devastating to our young people. And so in the book, I talk about the sense of purpose and self-worth when you’ve done something visceral and physical that the family needs, that the homestead needs, and you get to the end of the day and your value, the way you view yourself, is a result of accomplishment. 

Amy Fewell Right. 

Joel Salatin And what we’ve got today is we’ve got a whole world full of teenagers that have never accomplished anything. They’ve gone to school, they’ve gotten grades, maybe they played basketball, but as far as honest-to-goodness personal mastery of anything important to life, they haven’t accomplished… They haven’t even baked a cake. Many of them haven’t even run the vacuum cleaner. I mean, when our daughter went to… And this is going back, you know, 15 years… She’s in a suite with three other girls, there’s four of them, you know, two bedrooms and two girls. And there’s four girls together. She was the only one who knew how to run a vacuum cleaner. She was the only one who knew the trash pickup is on Tuesday. We got to take the trash down to the curb. She was the only one. I mean, it just went on and on and on. It was unbelievable. And, of course, I’m sure she’s the only student that went with more pint jars of canned meat. They’re looking at this, those other girls. I remember when we’re unpacking the car, we’re taking these boxes of canned chicken and stuff. “What is that? What is that?” So it was pretty wild. We were pretty proud of her. 

Amy Fewell That’s awesome, though. I mean, yeah, it’s the truth, though. I meet a lot of families who… I can’t tell you how many moms—even some homestead moms—like, this is the thing, where they’ll say, “Well, I don’t have any help around the house because my kids don’t help.” Well, make them help. It’s not hard. Even my generation has grown up in this culture of “you don’t make them do anything. It’s going to teach them to rebel against you. There’s too many rules.” And I beg to differ. When we set hard rules in our house that are followed and they have to be followed, we get a much better child out of that and one who then expects rules elsewhere. And so homesteading has definitely taught our oldest child that. So we have a broad range of kids. We have a almost 14 year-old and then we have an eight-month-old and then we have an almost-four-year-old in between that. And so it’s funny because with our 13-year-old, we weren’t homesteading until he was probably five or so maybe. Like, we were all-out homesteading. And we definitely didn’t have what we have now. And so he just didn’t get his hands dirty a lot in that sense. But he did. He was an outdoors little boy and so he was outside all the time. But it’s interesting to see our current three-year-old and giving him chores even at such a young age, and how excited he is about that, and how he would choose going outside and doing that over screen time any day. So it’s just… Yeah, I agree. I mean, even us, we have to try to cut down on screen time, even as a business owner. I mean, you probably don’t get this because you have other people doing it, but we’re over here talking about homesteading, but we’re on a computer 60% of the time trying to make a business work. And so even adults succumb to those things. 

Joel Salatin No, I spend a lot of time on screen, too. I mean, just organizing what conferences, presentations, all of the different things that I do. You know, it’s a lot. But the sanctuary is outside where the birds are singing and the grass is green and the grasshoppers are hopping. I mean, that’s the place of sanctuary and actual anchoring, personal anchoring.

Amy Fewell Yeah. And it’s one of the things… A lot of people… Well, the other day, my husband and I were talking. So when he wants an outlet, he goes and he works on his cars. And I’m like, “That’s boring.” But that’s his outlet. He’s a car guy or a machine guy. He loves doing that stuff. And so I was sitting there and I’m like, “Well, I don’t have an outlet.” I was getting a little bit huffy, puffy, right? Like, “I’ve always got the kids and the house and all that.” He goes, “Well, that’s because it’s not springtime yet.” He said, “Gardening is your outlet.” And I’m like, “Oh, that’s true.” And so that’s something I’m trying to teach my kids, too. Some of my greatest ideas and some of my greatest moments happen when I’m in the garden just weeding or pruning plants or just out there with no sound in my ear. I hear a lot of people say, “Well, I’ll listen to a podcast when I’m outside in the garden,” or whatnot. And I think one of my favorite things is just being still, being in the garden and just not hearing anything except what’s around me. Even if the kids are around me, there’s just clarity. I feel like there’s so much more clarity. And one of the things I think about is like a lot of people have seasonal depression or anxiety, right? And we say it’s because of lack of vitamin D, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that. But I also think for me, just having been in the garden, is when we’re outside more, we’re not attached to this screen—normally, even if you’re not a homesteader—you’re looking at what’s around you. You’re doing stuff that’s around you. Even if it’s at the park with your kids, you have time to just have mental clarity. And it’s not this the whole time. And so I think one of the other things that we had on our survey was just overall general mental health and calmness and peace in your life. And a lot of people chose that. They can choose to detach from society, whether it’s eating good food or even if it’s just a back porch, like you said, it can be anybody, but it gives them that time to be outside and just be clear of mind and have peace of some kind. And I’m looking forward to spring for that reason. 

Joel Salatin Yeah, yeah, exactly. One of the points that I make here in the book… Look, I don’t think cities are evil. Okay? Trust me, this book is not going to make the cities empty out. I have no illusions about that. Okay. But I do want to minister to the tribe that’s seeking. So that’s the point. But I make the point that in the city, one of the hardest human things in the city, spiritual things, is we’re completely surrounded by everything that humans did. The roads, the traffic lights, the cars, the honking, the… You can’t even see the stars at night due to light pollution. And so your whole life is surrounded by humanness, by what humans have done. And this gives you… It has the tendency, I think, to give people a jaundiced view of our importance in the cosmos. Okay? In the system. Whereas out in the homestead, you’re surrounded by things that humans didn’t do: the deer, the groundhog, the tomato, the magic of a seed sprouting. You’re surrounded by the majesty and awe of things that supersede the human capacity. And that’s a powerful thing to be reminded of every day that I’m not the center of the universe. There’s something way bigger than me, and I have the privilege of viscerally participating in it. That’s a profoundly humbling and stabilizing thing. And much of the divide we see in our country right now, as you know, is urban/rural. I’ve never seen the… When you look at the voting records—blue, red—there is no question that we are in an incredibly partisan divide between urban and rural. And I think a lot of it is that rural people, we understand there are seasons, stuff out of our control. We get to step in and out of this majestic creation that’s so bigger than us. And in the urban, basically all we see is ourselves. And that’s a handicap. I mean, it’s a spiritual, mental handicap. 

Amy Fewell Right. Yeah. And there are. So I know, I can hear it now, somebody in the urban neighborhood is going to be like, “What? I’m not like that.” And there are people that aren’t like… I saw there’s a place in Chicago or something where they’re literally taking this land in cities and they’re turning it into gardens and community gardens. So, guys, we are not talking about that. We know there are urban people who are the same way. But you mentioned urban versus rural. And I remember… Not to hate on Biden or anything, but I’d say this whether it was Trump, too, just FYI. One thing that a lot of rural people understand is that it’s not Democrat versus Republican anymore. You know what I mean? So we’ll get that out there first. But I remember when Biden first won his presidency, one of the things that he said and I wrote it down, and I don’t know where it is right now, so I’ll paraphrase, and I even posted it on Facebook, and he said, “We have to get the rural people on board with the urban culture and mindset,” and how we need to bring more cities into rural areas because there are so many people and we need to urbanize rural areas. And I just sat there thinking, “What’s wrong with rural areas? What’s the issue with rural areas? We’re the backbone of America.” And so you’re right, it is a constant rural versus urban mindset. And we even go… We’ll drive through our town, which isn’t very huge. I mean, it’s huge now more than it used to be. And just look at the houses on top of houses on top of houses. And I’m like, “I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t even imagine living in a house like this anymore.” I mean, if we had to, we would, but we don’t have to. And praise the Lord for that because I think that I might lose my mind after living rural for forever. Even our last house, it was a half an acre, but the houses were kind of far away from each other. But even that was too much for me to be just right next to somebody. And somebody is always in your face and you’re always having to worry about what somebody’s doing, and there’s just no peace of mind there at all. And obviously, living out in the open is not sustainable for everybody. I get that. But being a homesteader and just getting your hands in the dirt and cultivating something of life, no matter how small it is or how big it is, there’s just an incredible satisfaction from that. And I think it stems back to Genesis. Being in the garden and being created to be stewards of the earth and being created to work. And suddenly we have these generations of nobody working and nobody doing anything. And I mean, do you know how hard it is to find people that want to work and actually work well? It’s very difficult. Even from an administrative standpoint, it’s very difficult. And no surprise, we have now this culture that is just depressed and following everything blindly. And they have all of these issues because there’s no outlet. The original outlet is… That’s not good enough for them. I can’t tell you how many people I hear, “Well, why would you do that? You’re not a farmer.” And I’m like, “Well, what? Define farmer.” That definition has gone… That’s changed now, too, even from when I grew up. It’s astounding to see that there are still so many people that are so against homesteading and so against ultimately creating a new system alongside the broken system is what’s happening. But to see so many people now coming into this lifestyle, I couldn’t have imagined, especially when we started HOA seven years ago. So this is the seventh conference we’ll have. I just couldn’t have imagined that there would be so many people. I mean, Joel, I’m pretty sure we could pack out a stadium of 20,000 or more people if we had that amount of space.

Joel Salatin Oh wow.

Amy Fewell So it’s changing. 

Joel Salatin We should do that. 

Amy Fewell I know. I know. But I have so many things to do. But there are a lot of other events popping up all over. And we have talked about doing more events maybe in different locations. We tried the smaller events, which are awesome, but we just feel an urgency. I think Mark and I definitely feel an urgency to bring people together and network people. And so I’m not sure. We’ll see. We’ll see what’s on the horizon for HOA, and where we go and what we do.

Joel Salatin Well, yeah, sure. Well, the fact is that we haven’t gotten where we are overnight. We’ve been now decades, losing a homestead rural craft from how to plant a seed to a home butchery. We’ve been losing that for a long, long time. And so we didn’t get here overnight and we won’t get out of here overnight. And now of course, one of the tricks is—for us, people like you and me—is to stay welcoming and at a level so that newbies… Because newbies are coming in every day. I mean, there are people every day who hear about this and suddenly they discover this and they’re brand new. And you and I, we’ve been doing this a long time. We say, “Go gut the chicken.” We don’t even have to think about it. We just go gut the chicken, right? But there are thousands of people coming to this every year that just are intimidated, ignorant, scared, don’t know. And we need to make sure that we don’t run ahead of them, that we take them by the hand and lead them into this… I like the term parallel universe. I think that’s what we’re doing. I think many of us who are coming to this are realizing that the culture is gone. If anybody has read Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option… His first big blockbuster was Crunchy Cons. Back, you know, crunchy conservatives. It was like the environmental conservatives back in the day. And now he’s written this Benedict Option. And the basic thesis is there comes a time when you have to give up on a top down strategy. In other words, we’re not going to solve this by changing the president. We’re not going to solve it by changing your congressman. What we’re going to do is we’re going to make enclaves of stable, secure, resilient oases. Imagine a U.S. map with little cookies on it or pepperonis or whatever. And what we’re trying to do is make places scattered around the country where there is resiliency, there is community, and there is morality and openness to share ideas. You’re not going to be censored. You’re not going to be accused of evil intent because you didn’t say the right word or didn’t recognize the right political jargon. And many of us are craving that. And so that’s what this is starting to develop because the homestead movement is also a community building movement. And so, where’s the best place to have your homestead? Probably within a mile of three other homesteads where one guy’s a mechanic, one guy’s a plumber, one guy’s know chainsaw, and one guy’s a woodworker, you know? Or gals. I’m not trying to be sexist here. The point is that we’re starting to realize that if you are proximate, if you are geographically proximate to people who know how to grow things, fix things, and build things, that’s worth more than a 401k. 

Amy Fewell Right? Oh, yeah. Because there’s no guaranteeing that’ll be around once you’ve got to use it. 

Joel Salatin None whatsoever. So where do you stash your cash? In fact, a chapter I just finished revising before you and I got on here is another reason for the why is economic investment. Who trusts Wall Street? Where do you put your money? Well, you put it in real stuff that has intrinsic value like land, animals, plants, and soil, and your own mastery. Maybe you know how to fix engines. Maybe you know how to… Those are all barter-able, tradeable things. The more we can disentangle from the system right now, the happier we’ll be. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So here’s funny, and then I’ll let you go. Because you were talking about being uncensored, so everybody and their brother that homesteads nowadays, they’re always saying, “Oh, you got to get TikTok. Do you know what I mean when I say TikTok? This TikTok app? 

Joel Salatin I’ve heard of it. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So for years, I’ve not gotten TikTok. And so last week, I got TikTok for HOA. I’m like, this is great. I can post. So what I do is we take little clips of these podcasts and we post videos of them, so it’ll entice people to come listen to the podcast. I posted two videos on TikTok, supposedly the most uncensored app in the planet, right? 

Joel Salatin Uh-huh.

Amy Fewell My HOA account got banned in two days. And everybody is just like, “How? TikTok doesn’t ban anybody.” I’m like, “Well, I have the proof.” And they won’t even let me get on it. And so apparently, homesteading is very, very controversial to TikTok. So we’re doing something. We’re making a bigger change, I think, than we realize.

Joel Salatin Wow. I can’t believe it. I mean, did you say something—whatever—racial or sexual or…? 

Amy Fewell No, I posted the podcast about starting seeds, which I guess that can be super controversial. And then I posted a podcast clip of… Oh, what was the other one? Maybe it was milk cow. Raising a milk cow. And that was apparently also very controversial, I guess. So they didn’t like that very much, and they banned our account. And they won’t even let us back on it. Period. I can’t even appeal it. 

Joel Salatin Wow. That’s unbelievable. Well, it just shows how dysfunctional everything’s gotten, doesn’t it? 

Amy Fewell I know, right? It does. All right, Joel, well, I’ve had you for an hour, so I will let you go. But this was a fun conversation. I always like our conversations because we just talk about anything and everything. 

Joel Salatin Yes. 

Amy Fewell So anything for us before we sign off? 

Joel Salatin No, just if people want to know what I’m doing, we’ve got our website, PolyfaceFarms.com. DI don’t have a personal website. I have no personal social media. But I run everything through the farm website, Polyface. Just Google in P-O-L-Y and it’ll probably pop up. And there’s a pretty comprehensive website. And I think there’s going to be another women’s HOA retreat at Polyface. 

Amy Fewell We’re talking about it. We are talking about it. 

Joel Salatin So it’s not firmed up yet. I just heard Daniel talking about it and I… We’ll talk about the one last year. Last year, you had one and I wasn’t here, but I heard good things about it and everybody left with a smile on their face. You’re doing great work, Amy, and thank you. 

Amy Fewell Well, thank you, Joel. Thank you for encouraging us to get stuff done and being the grandfather of the homesteading community, we like to call you.

Joel Salatin Okay. 

Amy Fewell All right. Have a good one. Thanks for joining me. 

Amy Fewell 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.

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