S4E165 Southern Adirondack Homesteading Festival: What Is Homesteading?

On today's episode we jump back to May's Southern Adirondack Homesteading Festival and the talk I gave called "What Is Homesteading".

Enjoy!!
Brian

Transcript

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I'm your host, Brian Wells, and I'm a fourth generation homesteader. Since 2008, my family and I have been homesteading here. Beautiful upstate New York. In 2019, I launched the homestead journey podcast. To help people just like you get started and find success. On their journey towards self-sufficiency self-reliance. And sustainability. This is the homestead journey. And this. His he's in for. Well, hello everyone. And welcome back to the homestead journey podcast. Excited to be with you once again. This is of course, season four. This is episode number 165. And my name is Brian Wells coming to you from. Three beef, farm and homestead here in beautiful upstate. New York. Now this episode is going to be a little bit different than episodes past. And in part that's because this week was the big week for us. When we took our son, Brian. Junior to college. We just got home late last night. I've spent a lot of the day getting ready for the wonderful Washington county fair that is going to be taking place this coming week. And so instead of recording a full episode, like I normally would, what I have done is reached back into, well, not so much the archives, but I've been sitting on a couple of recordings from the Southern Adirondack homesteading. And festival that took place back in may. Of this year. And so this week and next week, Are going to be episodes where I'm going to be sharing with you. Uh, a couple of the talks that I gave at that event. And so today's episode, if you are someone who normally follows this on. Odyssey rumble, uh, or YouTube, uh, Basically any of the video platforms. Eh, unfortunately, you're not going to be seeing my ugly mug in any of this. I am recording this audio only because, well, I only recorded audio when I was at the. Uh, homesteading festival. So I am so sorry that you will not get to see my wonderful looking face, but you will get to hear the sultry tones of my voice. And so that will have to suffice. For the next couple of weeks. I just, before we jump into today's episode and we're not going to have a homestead happenings, but I did want to let you know that we did get Brian Jr. Dropped off to college, uh, successfully. Uh, everything went well. And honestly, I did not shed as many tears as I, I thought I would, but we will save all of that for another episode, when we do a little bit of a followup. Uh, in our series. Uh, on empty nest homesteading, but for today, we are going to just go ahead and jump right in. This is the talk that I gave at the, uh, Southern Adirondack homesteading festival back in may of this year. And it was called, what is homesteading? This is probably a talk that you've heard me give many times before here on the podcast, at least bits and pieces of it. But I do hope that you will glean something from it and that you will find it enjoyable. And then next week we are going to be following up with a chickens 1 0 1. Talk that I gave as well. So you're not going to want to miss that, but right now let's jump right over to this. Week's charting the course. What is homesteading? Let's find out. Today we're going to start out by trying, or I'm going to try to answer a couple of questions. What is homesteading? Why is it important? And then we're going to talk about some reasons why people maybe get scared to start their journey. And then we're going to wrap up with how to get started. So that's a lot to cover and I'll talk really fast, but, um, let's jump right into it. So what is homesteading to me? Homesteading is something that it's, it's a, it's a word that's really morphed in meaning over time. And I don't think there is a standardized definition of what constitutes homesteading any longer. My guess is if I were to ask. For your definition of homesteading. I would probably have as many definitions as there are people here. We all see homesteading. I think a little bit differently, but I think a lot of times when we think about homesteading, we have a tendency to define it from the standpoint of where someone lives. And what someone does. So, someone might say, well a homesteader is someone who lives on the country on 20 acres of land. And on that land, they're doing all of these things. They're raising and growing their own food. They've got a large garden. They're processing that food. They're maybe canning, preserving, uh, freezing, freeze drying, fermenting, dehydrating. They're raising animals for meat and other products. So, maybe they're raising chickens for meat and eggs. They're raising. Uh, cows for meat and milk, goats for meat and milk, sheep for meat and wool, they've got ducks, geese, guinea hens, maybe they've got the odd donkey, emu, ostrich, um, and the list could go on and on. They're maybe cutting their own firewood and chopping it and they're, they've got a compost toilet. They live off grid. They homeschool their kids. I mean, the list goes on and on of ways that we would say. A homesteader is someone who lives here and he does, or he, she, they do this. What if it's less about where you live and what you do, and it's more about how you live your life and why? To me, homesteading is a journey. It's not a destination. And it's really a journey towards three things. It's a journey towards self sufficiency, self reliance. Now, those words are words that have, again, I don't think necessarily have standardized meanings. A lot of times we'll use self sufficiency and self reliance kind of interchangeably. And sustainability has kind of... In recent days become synonymous with environmental impact, right? I look at these a little bit differently. So to me, self sufficiency speaks to stuff. The things that you can raise, grow, produce, and or process on your homestead or on your farm. So eggs and meat and jelly and jam and those kinds of things, stuff. Self sufficiency speaks to stuff. Self reliance speaks to skills. Do I have the skills necessary to raise, grow, produce, and or process the stuff that I need or that I want? And then sustainability speaks to systems. Do I have in place systems whereby with minimal to no off farm or off homestead inputs, I can use my skills To raise, grow, produce, or process the stuff that I need. So let me illustrate this a little bit. So let's say from the standpoint of self-sufficiency, I want to be 100% self-sufficient with regards to chicken, meat, and eggs. Now, for our family, we have not bought eggs in the store for ourselves since 2008. 2008 was the last time we bought eggs in the store. And the reason why we did that, It's because we flew to Texas to my brother's wedding and we decided to do a Vrbo out there and I couldn't take eggs with me on the plane. And so I had to go to the store and buy eggs. That's the last time I bought eggs in a store until about a month ago when my, maybe it was a couple of months ago, my aunt had COVID and she asked me if I could go to the store and get some things for her. And on the list with eggs and it broke my heart, it crushed my soul to go in there and buy these eggs. But at this point we were a half hour from our house and I wasn't driving all the way back to get eggs to take them to her. But that was when I realized this eye opening experience. Eggs were 5. 69 a dozen. I was blown away. But that's a side note. Anyhow, so for our family, we are 100% self sufficient with regards to eggs, haven't bought eggs in the store for our family since 2008. And as far as chicken meat goes, we are probably 50, 60% self sufficient that we, through the meat birds and whatnot that we raise. So self sufficiency speaks to stuff, the chicken and the eggs. So the. The idea of self reliance would be, okay, do I know how to take care of chickens? Do I know how to raise them up so that they stay alive, that they don't die, that they don't get eaten by predators, that they don't, you know, get chilled, that they don't eat the wrong thing. Do I know how to take care of them? And then once I have them raised up to, you know, a good size, do I know how to process them? Okay. So that would be self reliance. Do I have the skills necessary to raise, grow, produce, and or process the stuff that I need? So sustainability in my idea here with regards to systems then comes in to play like this. Let's say I no longer want to go to the feed store and buy chicks. I don't want to order them through the mail. I don't want to work with a breeder. I don't, I want to make sure that I have a perpetual supply of chicks. And so I'm going to get a rooster. And some hens and the roosters gonna do the roostery things and the hens are going to do the henny things and then they're going to lay these eggs and maybe we'll have a broody hen that she's going to sit on the eggs and they're going to hatch or maybe I've got skills and I know how to put them in an incubator and so I move on to the self reliance piece where I'm hatching these chicks out. I'm not hatching them out. The incubators hatching them because I couldn't sit still for that long, but there are in the incubator. I'm applying my skills. They hatch out. I take care of them. I raise them up. I've got the skills now where I'm producing the stuff, the chicken and the eggs that I need. And we have this perpetual loop here where now I don't need to worry about anything off my homestead. But I have this perpetual loop where I'm supplying myself with chicken and eggs. Now, I'm not necessarily suggesting this morning. That's how we do it on our farm because we don't. And I'm not necessarily saying that's the most economical way or the best way. There's lots of ways to raise chicken. I'm just using this as an example. So you can see how sustainability, self reliance, and self sufficiency work together. And again, keep in mind, this is a journey. It's a journey. It's not a destination. We're on a journey towards self sufficiency, self reliance, and sustainability. None of us here are ever going to be 100% self sufficient, self reliant, and sustainable. We're always going to need outside inputs. We're always going to need help. And the size and the scale. Um, which you can homestead is going to definitely be impacted by where you live. Okay. But homesteading, it's a journey, not a destination. And so when we start thinking about it like that, no longer am I constrained by where I live. Oh my goodness. I don't live in the country. I don't have five, 10, 15, 20 acres of land. Oh my goodness. I don't have all of the infrastructure. Oh my goodness. I don't know how to do all of the things. Instead of looking at what I don't have. We now can look at it from the perspective of what do I have and what can I do with what I do have. And so when we start looking at homesetting from that perspective, to me that opens up homesetting to an entirely new group of people. Because now I don't have to wait until I've got 5, acres of land to get started. If it was, if I had to do that, I think I told you I'm 2. 16 acres. Fail. I'm not there, right? But when we look at it from the journey perspective, we start right where we're at. So if I'm in a townhouse, great. We're going to talk about someone who lives in a townhouse and is doing some homesteading stuff. If I live in an urban area, great. I can still get started. If I live in a suburban area, if I live in an HOA, you're going to have to get creative. You're going to have to work at it. You're going to have to work out a little harder than somebody who has the five to 10 to 15, 20 acres of land, but you're no longer constrained by the idea of where I live and what I do, but we start this journey towards those ideals of self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability. Why does homesteading matter? Why are we here this weekend? It's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. Thank you so much. To me, homesetting is good for a whole lot of reasons, but there are four key ones that came to my mind. First of all, homesetting is good for you. And what do I mean by it's good for you? Well, homesteading definitely leans more towards an active lifestyle. If you're going to be successful as a homesteader, sitting on the couch, eating Cheetos and getting fat and Netflix and chill every day, all day is not going to be. A successful recipe for being a successful homesteader. So as a homesteader, it leads to, and I'm not against every once in a while a Netflix and chill day. I'm not, I'm not, every once in a while we need that. Okay. As a homesteader, it's more of an active lifestyle. It gets us off the couch. And I, I, in fact, the, uh, my, my buddy, Andy Defoe, the full family farm that I mentioned earlier, he used to own a gym and he sold the gym and he's now doing the homesteading thing. But I used to say to him all the time, Andy. The homestead is my gym, you know, shoveling out this or moving, you know, a ton and a half of feet or moving bales of hay or whatever, like you'll get in a good workout, right? So it definitely leads to a more active lifestyle. So in that regard, it's good for you, but it's also good for you because how many of you have ever had a homegrown tomato right out of your garden? Yeah, I've got lots of hands here. How many of you have ever had a tomato from the store? How many of you would 100 times rather have the tomato from your garden? Yeah, there's no comparison. When you stand in the middle of your garden and you bite into that tomato on those warm juices are dripping down your chin. There is no better tomato when all of tomato them than that tomato that you're eating at that moment. And my point is if you raise good food, you're going to want to eat good food. And if you eat good food, that's good for you. So homesteading from that perspective, in my opinion, is good for you, but it's not just good for you. It's good for your family or your family unit. So if you're doing this together with your family, what better way to teach your kids some responsibility than to have a homestead and learn how to take care of some animals and learn how to do some, you know, maybe some things they don't want to do, but to fall in love with some things that they do want. To do. And I like to think, this is a little cheesy, but I should get shirts up that say this. The family that grows together, grows together. Now, maybe that's a little cheesy, but there is something to be said about working together as a family towards a common goal. Growing food together. Understanding when you butcher an animal, what that means. The seriousness of that. Your kids growing up to appreciate food. In a way that a transfer of dollars will never ever give them appreciation. And so, homesteading is not just good for you, it's good for your family. And if it's good for your family, then it's good for your community. Because if we've got healthy, well adjusted kids, and we've got nice families that are working together, That's going to benefit the community and not only that, but homesteading thrives, in my opinion, within the context of community because you might like to do something that I don't like to do and I might like to do something that you don't like to do. And so maybe we work together, we collaborate and you do the thing that you'd like to do and I'll do the thing that I like to do and then we kind of. Swap things back and forth, or maybe you know how to do something that I want to learn how to do. And so I go, hey, could you teach me how to do X, Y, or Z? And you say, sure, come on over, and I'll teach you how to do X, Y, or Z. I've got a buddy, Jack Rollin. Uh, he lives about an hour south of here. And, uh, he's the vice president of the American Guinea Hog Association. And when I got into American Guinea Hogs, I didn't know how to castrate pigs. I wish I still didn't know how to castrate pigs. That is, by far and away, my least favorite thing to do. I would rather shovel out a hundred chicken coops than castrate pigs. I absolutely hate that day. I dread it. But my buddy, I didn't know how to do it. And Jack Rowland said, well hey, I'll come up and I'll show you. And he came up and he showed me. And then later on I had another friend who he got into pigs and he was like, Hey, I don't know how to castrate pigs. And so guess what? He called me up and he said, Hey, Brian, how to castrate pigs. So guess what I did? I went to his house and I showed him how to castrate pigs. And I think he still doesn't like to do castration. Uh, anybody that likes you that I don't know, but, um, yeah. I'm not sure, we might need to look over our shoulders. Sleep with one eye open. Um, but it's good for community. You get to learn, you know, do new things and interact with new people and meet new people. It's good for community. But it's also good for the environment. Now, initially I said with regards to sustainability, I look at it from the context of systems, but I don't want to throw in being environmentally friendly out the window, because in my opinion, homesteaders are the original environmentalists. And the reason being is because we understand that what we have, A, it costs us a lot of money, B, it's not easy to replace, and so we need to take care of it. We want to make sure that we can continue to use this year in and year out. So kind of the old idea of reduce, reuse, recycle, right? Um, you kind of get creative. If you go to the poultry processing, uh, demonstration, you will see two of my creative... Um, endeavors, shall we say. Here in, I live on Bald Mountain here in Greenwich. Anybody that knows, uh, Bald Mountain, Um, there's a guy that I used to work with, uh, Um, he was a, a math teacher here in Greenwich. But he said when he first moved to Greenwich, If you jerry rig something, you know, as a cob job, they refer to it as a bald mountain hookup. And so I have fully embraced this idea of the bald mountain hookup. And so if you go into the poultry processing demonstration, you're going to see a stand that the scalder is sitting on. If I look underneath that... You're going to see that that is a potty chair, you know, one of those chairs that you put over the toilet. You're like, yeah. So I got one of those for free. I put a piece of plywood on top of it. Now I have something that's a perfect height. I can adjust it up and down and it works great to hold my scalder. Some of that, uh, you know, reduce, reuse, recycle kind of mentality. There's an old server rack there that's now got a kill cone on it. Um, and so again, environmental impact. We try to feed our soil, right? So instead of going out and buying a bunch of You know, fertilizer and stuff like that. If you've got chickens, you allow that manure to age. And then you put that onto your garden or you get some cows, you put that on, you know, manure and you, not cows, cow manure, and you put that on your garden and you know, pigment, like whatever it is, but you're feeding your soil. And that's very, very environmentally friendly. And if you go to some of rich Giordano's classes, you know, he's going to talk to you about saving seeds and things of that nature. Homesteaders, in my opinion. Uh, I'll need Original environmentalist, maybe not the original environmentalist, but, uh, definitely we're right up there at the tops and in my opinion, homesteading matters because it's good for you. It's good for your family. It's good for the community and it's certainly good for the environment, but what keeps people from homesteading? If homesteading is such a great thing, what keeps people from getting started? Let me keep an eye on the time here because I could talk all day, so I don't want to do that. We've got a great session coming up here on, um, Getting started, getting started with mushrooms. Mushrooms 101. So I don't want to, um, get in the way of that. Um, but what keeps people from starting? Well... I think there's a few things, but a few things, there's a lot of things, but a few things that came to my mind were these. First of all, the idea that you have to have a lot of land. Um, and again, it goes back to that definition of defining things from the standpoint of where someone lives and what someone does. So you have to have a lot of land. You need to do all of the things. Um, self doubt. Can I really do this? Or imposter syndrome. Am I really doing this? And then worrying about what other people think. Well, am I a real homesteader? Am I like so and so? Do I do it like so and so? And oh my goodness, my family thinks I'm nuts and crazy for doing this thing. All of that. And my opinion keeps us from getting started on our homesteading journey. I've got, now I get way off script here, so hopefully let me catch up. Ah, so for a few minutes, let me just talk about these things and try to debunk them a little bit. Do you have to have lots of land in order to be a homesteader? I don't like looking at that, that from that perspective for a number of reasons. First of all, as I mentioned earlier, it's exclusionary. If you have to have 5, acres of land. And you have to wait to get to that point. I'm not there. 2. 16 acres. Hashtag fraud. Hashtag phony. Hashtag not a real homesteader. But how many of you have realized that land is kind of expensive? And has it gotten more or less expensive since COVID? Yeah, more. And how many of you have gone to Home Depot or Lowe's or Curtis Lumber lately? Anybody been to any of those places? Building supplies, are they less expensive or more expensive? Like way more expensive. How many of you have ever relocated your family? That's not easy. It's complicated. And so, if we have to do these things, if we have to say, well, I can't start my homesteading journey until I get the 20 acres of land, and maybe the cheapest place I can find land is in, I was going to say Colorado, but I know Colorado, I don't even know where there's cheap places to find land anymore, but we're just, North Dakota, okay, so we're good. Let's say we got to go to North Dakota. That's a complicated situation, and you're going away from all of the things that you know, and the families that you know. Do you need to have 5, 10, 15, 20 acres of land to to be a real homesteader? No, I don't think you do. But the other thing I would say is this, be careful what you wish for. So there's someone I know. I actually interviewed her on my podcast. She and her family got all excited about Homestead. They went out and they bought a 40 acre farm. They hadn't grown, I don't think, maybe they'd grown a little bit in their suburban backyard, not much. But they went on to a 40 acre farm and they started doing all of the things and it didn't work out real well and they ended up selling and moving on. So be careful what you wish for because bigger isn't always better. You see, in my opinion, learning how to take care of land and learning homesteading skills and learning how to take care of animals. All of those have learning curves. And if you're trying to do it all in one fell swoop, all at the same time, be careful what you wish for. I'm not sure that's necessarily a recipe for success. And certainly with more land comes... Greater temptations to do all of the things and raise all of the things and grow all of the things. Do you have to have 5, acres of land to be a homesteader? Well, that's a great question. Thank you so much for asking it. As I said, our homestead 2. 16 acres. I've given up trying to figure out what percentage of food we grow on our, it's a lot. I don't know. Percentage wise, I don't know. It's a lot. There's some areas, like I said, with eggs, 100% self sufficient, uh, tomato sauce, tomato, crushed tomatoes, jams, jellies, like, like all that stuff, 100% self sufficient. Other things, maybe not quite so much, but it doesn't matter. We're doing the thing. We're raising food and we're having fun doing it. My mom and dad, I think they have exactly an acre. If you go down into their basement, into their pantry, you will be amazed at the jars of food that they have put up off of one acre of land. They've got chickens. My dad has bees, although that's been a bit of a rocky, uh, and a sore subject, but, uh, my dad does bees. Uh, he's raised meat birds. One acre of land, but do you need an acre of land? No, there's this guy I know farmer Greg urban farm check him out got a great podcast great YouTube channel urban farm farmer Greg He for many years lived in Phoenix, Arizona Now Phoenix, Arizona is not a place that I would necessarily say is well known for homesteading being homesteading friendly Yet, from one third of an acre, Farmer Greg estimates that he was growing 30 to 35 percent of his food from one acre of land in Phoenix, Arizona, but you need to have a third of an acre of land. Well, no, no, you don't. I wish I could go. I wish I could go to these people's house and sometimes, you know, you have to be careful what you read on the internet. So I wish I could go and improve this, but there is a family who lives in Australia that claim that out of An 800 square foot backyard. They are producing 80% of their food. Now they're having to get creative. They're doing succession planning, doing vertical gardening. They're bartering with people, but from 800 square foot, 800 square feet, they're raising. 80% of their food. But do you have to have 800 square feet? Well, no, thank you so much for asking that question. Let me introduce you to my friend Claire on Instagram at start underscore small underscore homestead. Now, this is Claire excited about harvesting some things from her community garden plot. You see, Claire started her homestead journey three years ago. This is her bio on Instagram. I have 500 square feet of rented growing space and I'm homesteading. I even have some livestock. Two years ago, I had 80 square feet. Some dreams start small. This is where she started. And I know it's hard to see. I wish this was a better projector just for this, this picture. But this was where she started on an 8x10 patio. She's got totes. Another tote over here. She found a pool ladder by the side of the road that she turned into a trellis. 80 square feet. And then she said, you know what? I can do more. And so she went, she got quail. She can't have chickens, but she's got room back there somehow on an eight by 10 patio to raise quail. And she's generating eggs for her family. Last year, she decided to upgrade. She got two 10 by 16 foot plots at the community garden. And then this year, she said, you know what, I can do even better. And she got an 8 by 10, I think, square, uh, uh, another plot. So she's now got three plots at the community garden. Now, her dream is to buy her own place, and in fact, they thought they had a place, and kind of things, uh, fell, fell through on them. But she's not waiting to get started. She's doing the best she can with what she's got to work with. And she's getting super creative and she puts me to shame with the amount of food that she's able to generate and grow out of that small area. But the point is folks, you don't have to have five, 10, 15, 20 acres of land to get started on your journey towards self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability. If nobody else is proof of that, Claire, in my opinion, sure is. And not only is she raising and growing food, but she's learning how to can. She's making bread. I mean, you go to her, um, page, you will be amazed. Check it out on Instagram. Start underscore small underscore homestead besides thinking that you have to have lots of land people think you need to do all the things You don't have to do any of the things What I mean by that is this Obviously you have to do some things if you're gonna be a homesteader sit down the couch eating Cheetos getting fat is not a homesteader Okay, but what I'm saying is means something to you may not mean anything to me and that's okay What is self sufficiency to you? The things that you need, the things that you want to raise, grow, produce, and or process probably are going to be different than the things that I want to raise, grow, produce, or process on my homestead. And that's okay. That's the beauty of this. Now, I've heard people say, well, you can't be a real homesteader unless you have chickens. Well, I love chickens. I don't ever want to not have chickens. But Claire's doing just fine with quail. She was doing just fine without quail. So do you have to have chickens in order to be a real homesteader? No, you don't have to. Do you have to grow beans? You don't like beans. Don't grow beans. Do you have to grow tomatoes? No. If you don't like tomatoes, don't grow tomatoes. You don't have to do. What everybody else is doing. One of the things that drives me nuts, I should say drive me nuts. That's probably a little bit of an overstatement, but when people will say, you know, they're all excited about gardening. What should I plant? What do you like to eat? I'm not going to tell you to plant what I like to eat because maybe you don't like to eat what I like to eat. So what do you like to eat? Do your thing. You do you figure out what self sufficiency means to you. You don't need to do all of the things. You don't need to do any one particular thing. Do what brings you joy. Do what brings meaning to your life. But certainly there's a temptation to do all of the things. Is there not to grow? All of the things. To raise all of the things. I mean, people talk about chicken math. Chicken math is real. Duck math, that's pretty real pig math. Um, I've had some unplanned pig pregnancies. What did we determine that was U P P P? Yeah, that's what he determined that was, uh, Rich and I last night, I think it was your PPP. Um, but yeah, I've had unplanned pregnancies. I think I've got a couple of them right now, but that's a story for another day. Um, there is a temptation to do all the things and raise all the things and grow all the things. And I'll tell you folks, it doesn't matter whether you're on year one or you're on year ten. I think that temptation never goes away, but don't try to do all the things and raise all the things and grow all the things. That's a recipe for disaster because it's going to overwhelm you. It's going to overwhelm you physically. It's going to overwhelm you mentally. It's going to overwhelm you. Uh, financially, um, it's just going to bog you down. So do the things that you want to do. Don't worry about what anybody else is doing as best you can put a break on it. Slow your roll a little bit. Be realistic. And don't try to do all of the things. But the other reason why I think it's not a good idea to do all of the things is because remember we're talking about community and there's things that someone else might like to do and I might not like to do them. So if I try to do the things that I don't like to do, then I miss out on that community aspect of working with somebody who might like to do the very thing that I don't like to do. And so I. At the end, achieve the same result, but on top of achieving the same result, I've built community. And I don't know about you, but sometimes you can feel a little bit alone in this thing. And so when you start building that community and working with people. The joy that that brings and the value that brings to the idea of homesteading. Another thing that keeps people from starting their journey is self doubt. I can't do this. I just can't do this. I could never kill an animal. I can't, I've got a black thumb. I could never raise anything. Well, what was it the other day I ran across something trying to remember exactly how it was, but it was like a baby doesn't know how To, to do roofing. Yeah, flat roofing. Yeah, there was some more to it than that. I'm not gonna, not all of it was, uh, but the point was, nobody is born knowing how to do anything. All of us have to learn skills as we go along, and so maybe you do have a black thumb. Unlearn it, or learn how to have a green thumb. And if you, maybe if you just suck at it and you're like, ah, that's them for me, then maybe there's something else that you're good at. Maybe you're good at raising animals. Maybe you're good at sewing. Maybe you're good at quilting. Maybe you're good at baking bread. Like, you don't have to, again, you don't have to do one particular thing, but self doubt. Put that out of your mind. In my opinion, everybody can get started on their journey towards self sufficiency, self reliance, and sustainability. I don't think homesteading is for everyone. Think that everybody has this desire, but I think if you want to, you can do it. But then there's this idea of imposter syndrome. People get started and they're like, well, am I a real homesteader? Am I doing this right? Am I a real homesteader? I mean, have you ever seen, anybody of you part of Facebook groups? Have you ever heard, seen anybody like, I don't do X, Y, or Z, does that mean I'm not a real homesteader? Have you ever seen people ask like that kind of a question? Well, let's switch off from homesteading for a moment to something else, basketball. Now, I honestly am not a basketball fan. I don't watch basketball, but let me ask you this question. Who is the best basketball player to ever play the game? Shout it out. Alright, so if you said anything other than Michael Jordan, you're wrong. Now, we're not talking about his wizard days. We'd rather forget the wizard days. But... Many of us, and there's some young folks here that never had the opportunity to see Michael Jordan play in the prime of his career. But, Michael Jordan was an awesome basketball player, and in my opinion, sorry, Larry Bird guy. Uh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, um. The best basketball player to ever play the game. But the point is not whether or not Larry Bird or Michael Jordan were the best basketball players. The question I want to ask is when did Michael Jordan become a basketball player? Was it when he was recruited by the University of North Carolina? No, he was a basketball player before then. Was it when he played high school basketball? No, he was a basketball player long before then you see some point in his life, Michael Jordan picked up a basketball and he dribbled a few times and then he took a few shots and then he got into a game and he started playing basketball and I don't know, I really don't know. Like his youth. level stuff, but maybe he got into a youth league and I don't even know what travel league was a thing back in those days, but, uh, somewhere along the line, the point is Michael Jordan became a basketball player. When was that? I don't know. Why do I care? It's like a crazy question to ask and yet people sit around and they worry about, well, when do I become a real homesteader? I don't know. I don't care. Pick up a basketball, play a basketball and start dribbling, take a few shots, start doing the things. And as you start that journey towards self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability, somewhere along the line, I don't know where it is, I don't care, you become a homesteader. But stop the self doubt and the imposter syndrome. Just start your journey towards those things. Anybody here ever think that you're crazy for doing this? I got a lot of nodding heads with a lot of emphasis here. Anybody have family and friends that look at you kind of cross eyed or when they see you come and they kind of turn and head the other way because it's like, oh, here comes that crazy chicken lady. Or I don't want to hear about what's going on in the garden. Yeah, what we're doing here, folks, is way outside the mainstream. Now it's become a little bit more acceptable, I think, uh, since COVID. But as COVID has gone on and I, man, I hate to say that word. I almost feels like a curse word, but as we kind of get beyond the other side of it, you know, people are going back to the ways that they used to live because homesteading, it's not the simple life. I hate it when people refer to it as a simple life and I know what they mean by the simple life. But to me, the simple life is going down to Haniford and picking up a styrofoam tray with some meat on it. That's the simple life. Raising a chick up through adulthood, moving the chicken tractor, dealing with the chicken poop, um, lugging feed, butchering the chickens. That's not simple. That's not easy. Very rewarding. The end product is much better, but that's not the simple life. People look at us like we're weird. Part of the joy of an event like this, look around. Look around. There's a lot of weird people here. You're in good company. You're in good company. And so, I hope that as you go through this weekend, that it's not just about showing up to seminars and hearing people like me blather on, but it's also about forming relationships and building community. With other individuals because at the end of the day we need that when we've got people looking at us cross eyed Like we're weird. We need to have that community those other people maybe they're a weirdo, but you know what we're weirdos together We're a good company. We get to meet other weird people. That's awesome So, how do you get started? How do you get started on this journey towards self sufficiency self reliance and sustainability? Well, the thing I would say is start small, just like Claire. Start small. Start with one skill. Master that skill. And then move on to something else. And as you start small, you might get in to something that you thought you really, really wanted to get into. And then all of a sudden you realize this really sucks. I hate this. And you know what? You don't have to keep doing it. You can move on to something else, but learn skills on a small scale so that if you ever get that five, 10, 15, 20 acres of land, you can scale up and you can hit the ground running and you can keep doing the things. Be creative. You saw, Claire had that pool. I would have never thought of using a pool ladder as a trellis. She saw that by the side of the road and in her mind, she thought, trellis. Now, like I said, I've got a potty chair over there as a, uh, uh, stand. And, you know, my mind generally does work that way, but... I would have never thought of a pool ladder as a trellis, but she was creative enough to see that. So be creative again. Don't focus on what you don't have. Think about what do I have and what can I do with the things that I already have before you go out and spend a lot of money on something that later on you're like, bro, this really sucks. Why did I spend money on this? Focus on what you have instead of what you don't have and do the best you can. with what you have to work with. Don't let great get in the way of good because if you let great get in the way of good enough, you're never ever going to get started. Now, my brother, um, Keith, who lives down in Tennessee, Um, he couldn't hack it up here in the great northeast, so he turned tail and ran. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but we moved to Tennessee and he jokingly refers to, uh, whenever he does some kind of a project around the house as good enough contracting, like that is good enough. Just have to do. And then he got into, uh, did some landscaping and so he says, uh, it'll do. So it's landscaping companies. It'll do. And his contracting company is good enough. But folks, what's the point? Do the best you can with what you've got to work with and don't let this ideal of having all of the things and the best of everything get in the way of getting started and learning how to do the skills and learning how to do the things. As you journey towards self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability. I also want you to keep in mind this. Homesteading is a marathon. It is not a sprint. It's also not a competition by the way. Sometimes I think people can get a little bit caught up in Trying to keep up with somebody else. Walk your path. Walk your journey. What is your journey? The things that are important to you are probably not what is important to me. You're wrong. No, I'm just kidding. But no, it's it's it's not a competition. It's not a marathon. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. So don't try to do too much at one time. Don't try to go too big too fast. You don't have to do anything. Grow, raise and do what brings you joy. Walk your path. You don't have to do it all. It's okay to hire others to do some things, barter with others to do some things that you can't or you don't like to do. There's no shame in that at all. But I want to tell you this, know when to quit. Just because you get into something, you might enjoy doing something for a while, but there's a season for that. And then maybe you need to move on to something else because your needs change. Or your life situation changes, or you decide, you know what, I'm tired of doing this, or I don't need this any longer in my life. So give yourself permission to quit stuff. You try something and it didn't work out. Do you want to keep try again? And if you want to try again, great, try again. But if not, give yourself permission to quit stuff. It's okay. Life has ebbs and flows. Right now, my wife and I are going through a big transition. We have one son, and, uh, he's getting ready to go off to college. And that scares me. That's a big change. That's going to be a big change on our homestead. And, uh, as we go through this season of life, now we're trying to understand, okay, what do we need, what do we want out of life, and as we get into this post Brian J. I hate to say post Brian J. World, but you know what I'm saying with the little snot nose brat snot at the end of the hall, um, what's life going to look for us? Our needs as a family are going to change. The same holds true in homesteading. As we go through our homesteading journey, there are going to be ebbs and flows. There are going to be times when we need, need tomatoes and there are going to be times when we don't need tomatoes. And if you don't need tomatoes, don't plant tomatoes. Plant something else, plant squash, plant cucumbers, plant, rich by the way has got a really great squash he's going to tell you about in the seed saving class. So definitely don't miss out on that, but plant what you need, right? Give yourself permission to quit. It's all good. The last thing I want to tell you is this. You don't have to wait to get started. There are so many people to say, I can't wait to get started on my homesteading journey. I can't wait till I get 5, acres of land and really get into homesteading. You don't have to wait. If homesteading is a journey towards self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability. Anybody can get started today, and if Claire isn't proof positive of that, I'm not quite sure who would be. I love to say, and I'm sure you've heard it, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a simple step. And so this weekend, if you haven't started, take that first simple step towards self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability. And if you've been on this journey for a while, take the next right step for you towards self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability. I don't know what that's going to look like for all of us. That's probably going to look a little bit different, but each one of us this weekend can start taking that next right step in the direction of self sufficiency, self reliance and sustainability. So I have got five minutes left. Did anybody drop a question in Slido or was I so enthralling of a speaker that you didn't even have time to think about it? Let me look here. Pulling it up. Work for me, please. Here we go. Any questions? And as that's coming, no, no questions there. So anybody have a question? Anybody have a statement? Anybody say, Brian, you're a great, you're wrong. Question. Statement. Oh, that's a good point. Well, that's a good point. And thank you so much for that plug for the Homestead Journey podcast. Um. Definitely. Check it out. No. Um, certainly. I, and that's one of the things in not trying to pound myself on the back here, but I really do try on my podcast to keep things as positive as possible because I want to encourage people. If you've tried and failed, get back up and try it again. You know it in, you know, if it didn't work one way, it might work another way and that's all right. What works for one person doesn't necessarily always work for another person, but certainly seeing success, what do they say? Success breeds success, right? And so certainly we want to be, um, positive ambassadors. Thank you for that. Well, I do hope that you did enjoy that episode. And if you have any questions or comments as always, you can reach out to me, Brian, at the homestead journey.net is my email address. Or you can follow us on all of the social media accounts. Did want to quickly remind you that home is, quickly approaching the, fall gathering of home setters in the England will be taking place. September 9th and 10th in Greenfield, New Hampshire. So you're not going to want to miss that homesteaders of england.com is where you can find out all of the information. Get tickets. You'll be able to beat me and Bonnie. But of course, more important people, more knowledgeable people like Jack polner, Morgan. Gold from gold Shaw farm alumna from lameness acres. Try McClung from red tool house and the pastured pig podcast. He's also going to be there. Don Bradner from little mountain life will be there. So just a lot of great people. You're not going to want to miss it. And if you are interested in coming, hurry up and buy your tickets because September 1st, the price is going to go up. So if you're thinking about coming. Save yourself, some dose ski by getting your tickets now. That's it for this episode, I hope you've enjoyed it. And next week, chickens one-on-one. Here on the homestead journey podcast. Until then as always. Keep up. The good work.