Small Farm Nation: Farming | Marketing | Homesteading

Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com When people think of retirement, they often think of golf or travel. But what about homesteading or farming as a retirement strategy? In this final episode of season 1, I’ll share with you how we and many other farmsteaders are thinking very old-school about retirement. Several years ago as we prepared to transition from sprawling urban life to our rural farmstead, Liz and I were filled with excitement about growing our own food and being immersed in nature. Yet, during that period of intense change and learning we also spent many hours discussing, of all things, retirement. At the time the idea of retirement was many years away for us, but in our “former” lives we at least understood what the plan was, so we rarely thought about it. The plan back then was simply to keep working until we were, I don’t know, 62 or so and then let a 401K or pension plan fund the rest of our lives, perhaps with a little help from social security. But moving to the farm meant that there may be no pension plan and for many people it means converting a 401K or other savings into hard assets such as land. And then, just as we were moving to the farm the “great recession” of 2008 hit. Just like you, we witnessed the economic hardship forced onto so many people as a result of reckless lending and investments by major lending institutions and equally reckless government spending, which required government bail-outs and central banks intervention to prop up global markets. After that experience, our confidence that pension fund obligations would ever be met had eroded anyway, so we began to consider thinking of retirement planning, and homesteading, in a new way. Or, actually...an old way. You see, the concept of retirement is actually quite new. And it's a concept that's collapsing. Grab some coffee or tea, pull up a chair and listen in as we invite you into our world of modern homesteading.

Spring has sprung but the grass ain’t ris, and we can’t find where the flowers is. This week, Liz joins me as we shake the winter blues and share an update of what’s happening on the farm. Welcome to Episode 29 of Self-Sufficient Life! First off, we've received 70 reviews on iTunes, and Liz and I would like to thank each of you for leaving a review. This podcast is a labor of love for us and we greatly appreciate you showing us that it's not a waste of energy. This week Liz is back on the podcast, and she shares a surprising challenge that we've had to deal with in recent months. And that challenge is, boredom. The climate in our new homestead means winter is longer and spring arrives later, so we've really had to adjust to having more time off from garden and farmstead chores. Sounds like a good thing...but it it'll drive you stir crazy. Still, we've got a lot going on, and in this episode we discuss: -our recent cruise vacation and how these crazy preppers prepared to spend a week on the ocean -clearing land for pasture and putting in a one-acre pond -getting laying hens and building a micro-eggmobile -a new Dexter calf -building a milking parlor for our Jersey cow -home milking procedures and raw milk quality -hugelkultur and adding compost -to raise or not to raise meat rabbits -our Tamworth pigs -top bar bee hives and adding bees -permaculture, plantings and installing a vineyard of Norton grapes Grab some coffee or tea, pull up a chair and listen in as we invite you into our world of modern homesteading.

We love animals, so farming livestock was an easy decision for us. So how can we eat the animals we love? Today, I’ll tell you why PETA is dead wrong and why eating the "right" meat is best for people, the environment AND the animals. So, of all the decisions we contemplated when we began farming a decade ago, choosing to farm livestock was the easiest. Of course, that meant we would care for livestock, and then eat animals we cared for. We spent years hatching cute little chicks, watching Ossabaw Island piglets being born in the woods, pulling calves, collecting and cleaning eggs, and just watching our cows and sheep graze lush pastures. We’ve loved farm animals since we took our first steps out of the rat race, and we love everything about them. So it seems strange to some folks that we not only eat our animals, but we give them names and develop relationships with them before we do. If that doesn’t make sense to you, let me explain why it does to us. You see, there were four reasons why the path of raising animals for food was so clearly right for us 10 years ago, and continues to be today. Grab some coffee or tea, pull up a chair and listen in as I share why PETA is dead wrong, and why the best decision for the land, the eaters AND the animals, is to eat them. Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com

When you search for rural land you’ll find all sorts of places that look promising. But how do you know if you’ve found your dream property? Today, I’ll share what we’ve learned and cover the 23 questions you should answer before buying that rural property. Welcome to Episode 27 of Self-Sufficient Life! So, Liz and I have bought rural property twice now. It’s both an exciting and exhausting time, but before you plunk down that deposit on the first rural property that screams your name, consider this: you are planning to make a move there for life. A new life, a better life and, perhaps, not only the rest of your life but a homestead that future generations will cherish. So, yeah, it’s appropriate to take time and weigh the decision against criteria that are important to you and your family. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of 23 important questions you should ask and answer when looking for rural property. But, really, these 23 questions are more like 23 categories. As you’ll hear in this episode, each question…or category…has many sub-questions, so it’s way more than 23 questions. Listen into this episode as I walk you through the 23 Questions to Ask Before Buying Rural Land. And you can read the transcript of this episode word for word at theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl27 So, if you're looking for ways to tips and inspiration to become more self-sufficient, you won't want to miss this. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Many people believe that The Great Depression was a hard time for all Americans, but is that true? This week, I’ll tackle that myth and share 10 Survival Lessons from The Great Depression era. So, we all grew up reading and hearing about The Great Depression, right? That time in American history when times were tough, everyone was thrown out of work, food was scarce. On top of that we had the Dust Bowl with infertile land and tremendous storms of dust blanketing the heartland of the country. And, of course, virtually no one had money. Sounds like a made-for-TV nightmare that’s almost beyond belief. But—as terrible as that time was, was it really terrible for everyone? I ask, because sometimes the impact of events is often exaggerated when recalled, whether it be a personal or societal event. And, even if it is horrific, what percentage of the population is it horrific for? Just a few years ago, from 2007-2009, we had what we’re now calling the Great Recession. That’s when the 8 trillion dollar housing bubble burst. It led to a big reduction in jobs and consumer spending but, to be honest, I didn’t have much of an impact on my family. We were farming at the time, selling pasture based meats direct to consumers who still were hungry and could afford to eat. And, the truth is, while many people lost paper money during those years, the unemployment rate peaked at under 11%, meaning that over 88% of people could find jobs. It’s true that perhaps maybe not the jobs they wanted, and it may also be true that the real unemployment rate was considerably higher, when you factor in people who gave up looking. But the point I’m making is that it’s often a common misconception that times are harder than they actually were. I found that to be the case for The Great Depression when I listened to the audiobook, Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. In it, author Mildred Armstrong Kalish recounts her childhood fondly as she retells many stories of what it was like to live through hard times. Funny thing though; like many who lived pretty self-sufficient lifestyles, she wasn’t aware that there were hard times. Listen into this episode as I walk you through the 10 Survival Lessons From the Great Depression. And you can read the transcript of this episode word for word on theselfsufficientlife.com So, if you're looking for ways to tips and inspiration to become more self-sufficient, you won't want to miss this. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

A lot of folks have asked me if they can make money farming or homesteading, but is that even the right question to ask? This week, Liz and I will share why it may not be and what we’ve learned about the financial side of a self-sufficient lifestyle. So, we can't count the number of times someone has asked us over the years, "can you make money farming or homesteading?" Usually the question is more revealing than any answer I could provide, for it fails to consider one of the most obvious benefits of homesteading: saving money. Because, the truth is that homesteaders have far more opportunities to eliminate or reduce expenses than most people do. In this episode we list dozens of ways we found to save money WHILE enjoying a more fulfilling, free lifestyle. Some of the areas we cover include: -the importance of house size -the value of buying cheap (infertile) land and restoring it -unnecessary expenses you can do without -ways homesteaders and preppers reduce food costs -alcohol, gifts and other things you can make yourself -what and how to barter to build your homestead -the importance of paying for quality -how your need for vacation and entertainment changes once you move to the country So, if you're looking for ways to tips and inspiration to become more self-sufficient, you won't want to miss this. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Myself and many others on this podcast use the phrase modern homesteading, but what does that really mean in this digital age? So, here's a question for you: What do you visualize when you hear the phrase homesteading, self-sufficient or self-reliance? I’m willing to bet that many of you visualize a natural setting. Perhaps a loving family working hard together. Something between Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons, for those of you old enough to know those television shows. We often picture a family living off the land, tending to crops and animals while being…well…self-sufficient. But...this ain't the 1800s. This is the digital age. In this episode I'll define what modern homesteading really is, and dispel some myths surrounding the notion of homesteading. I also share why I walked away from big-time corporate America, trading in the boardroom for the barnyard. And I share several tips on how to start homesteading and becoming more self-reliant, even if you're cramped in an urban apartment. Things you can do right now to start down your path to self-sufficiency. So, if you're looking for ways to tips and inspiration to become more self-sufficient, you won't want to miss this. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair! Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com

Many modern homesteaders made a choice to opt-out and provide for themselves, but what impact does that choice have on their children? This week, we’ll begin a series of discussing the real life ups and downs of homeschooling children. Welcome to Episode 23 of Self-Sufficient Life! This week, Liz and I discuss how we arrived at the difficult choice of homeschooling our daughter. Now, since we've embraced modern homesteading, it's natural that people would assume that we would homeschool. But Liz has a Masters in Special Education and is a former public school teacher. Homeschooling her own child is something she would have never embraced...in our old life. Back before we "opted out" of the rat race. In this episode we share intimate details about: what led us to decide that homeschooling was right for our daughter and our family the unschooling process that Liz has had to go through as a former teacher the fears and worries we had before deciding to homeschool, and how we overcame them how we set-up our permanent homeschool room (see this post for pictures of our set-up) the various curriculum options we examined (Montessori, blending multiple styles - Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio, unschooling, thematic unit study, etc.) and how we chose what was right for us We also dive into the benefits and downsides of homeschooling, and what we've learned in our first year on the job. And, of course we talk about the "S" word, or the concern newbies have about "socialization" of homeschool children. We'll continue this discussion quarterly or thereabouts to track our progress. For now, if you're curious about the decision to homeschool, you won't want to miss this. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

I’ve shared many stories of people who have opted out of the rat race, but some of them had saved money to do so? But what if you haven’t? Welcome to Episode 22 of Self-Sufficient Life! Today, I’ll deal with a caller’s frustration on how to start a homestead or farm with no money. So, I got this call in from a listener a while back and haven’t had a chance to center an episode around it yet. In the call, you can really hear his pain and heartfelt desire to live freely in the country. But, while he has really enjoyed the stories I've shared of others who have "opted out," his perception is that they (and I) made enough money in the corporate world to afford to do so. What he wants to know is how can people with no money afford to live freely in the country. It's a struggle I hear all the time, and today I provide as much help and as many ideas as I can, including the six macro categorical options, at least as I see them. Have savings Inherit land or money Pay as you go Borrow money Raise money Get someone to give you money I dive deep into the ways to get money, from conventional bank and USDA loans to crowdfunding, venture capital, government grants and more. If you're looking for ways to find money so you can start your farm or homestead, you won't want to miss this. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair! Show notes at http://www.theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl22/

There are a lot of people who dream of moving to the country, but they all seem to have the same question. How can I make money? Today, I’ll give you the Entrepreneurial HELP you need to figure to start your home-based rural business. Welcome to Episode 21 of Self-Sufficient Life! I got the idea for this episode after talking with a friend earlier this week. She and her husband live in the country with their young children, not too far from us. And, like us, they love life in the country. The trouble is that there aren’t a lot of job opportunities in the country, so they struggle to earn the money to achieve the freedom they really want. They’ve dabbled in goat farming, raw milk shares and other “traditional” homestead income streams. And one of them still has an off-farm job to make ends meet. But being an employee means they’re not free. They’re away from the land—away from each other. And that’s not their definition of freedom and modern homesteading. Of course, they could start any number of home based businesses. And that’s what led them to talk to me about how to get started. But the notion of becoming a self-sufficient entrepreneur is foreign to them, and, I’ll be honest, I think it’s intimidating. They just don’t know where or how to start. And I thought that many of you may feel the same way. Because what they--and many of you--need to realize, is this: When you become a modern homesteader you're no longer an employee. You MUST become a self-sufficient entrepreneur This episode shares a tool I created called the Homestead Entrepreneur Life Plan, or HELP, for short. It's in the Self-Sufficient Roadmap, and I encourage you to download it now so you can complete it on your own. But if you haven't, or can't, I walk you through the Homestead Entrepreneur Life Plan, step by step, in this episode. In this episode, I share the three types of entrepreneurs or wanna-be entrepreneurs I observe. I also explain why most people never act on their entrepreneurial dreams. Those are the people I call the RAPPER's...listen in and learn who they are and why they never act. If you're interested in starting a business of any size or kind, you'll get something out of this episode. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair! Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl21

This week Liz and I address a caller’s question about how to research and decide the best way to make money homesteading. Listen in as we discuss the many ways to make money farming or with modern homesteading: First, find your PASSION Why exactly do you want to homestead or farm? What excites you and what do you want to do? Do you long to grow the best tomatoes and sell directly to leading chefs? Do you simply want to feed your family? Do you want to be the next Joel Salatin and have a farm of chicken tractors, eggmobiles and salad bar beef? Do you want to live freely in the country but still make a lot of money? Three Revenue Categories to Profitable Homesteading How to Make money using your land Large livestock -raising cows, selling calves or animals (registered or not). We bought our pigs and Dexters from somewhere Small livestock - chickens, rabbits, etc. (heritage/rare breeds) Farm Stays, events, wedding, private parties Boarding animals How to Make money with your skills Locally or Physical Teaching classes (preparedness, permaculture, edible landscapes, medicinal herbs, etc.) (we’ve taught classes on cheese, butchering, etc.) Organize and market classes and events on topics you can’t teach (we’ve marketed many classes we couldn’t teach) wilderness survival foraging butchering classes Start a business helping farmers Guided fishing or hunting service Woodcraft business (Patrice Lewis) Online or Virtual Monetized Blogging (Jill Winger, Lisa Steele, Daisy Luther and others) Monetized Podcasting (EO Fire, etc.) Copywriting or editing Authoring (Mark Goodwin and others) Illustrating for authors, web designers, etc. Become a virtual assistant Web or graphic design Voice overs Make money selling products from your land Farmstead meats (grassfed beef, pastured poultry/pork, etc.) artisan meats (charcuterie) Raw milk Farmstead or artisanal cheese Eggs Become a grower (vegetables, cut flowers, pick your own, transplants, etc.) Artisan soap (Little Seed Farm) It was a insightful discussion and I hope you enjoy it and find that it gives you a lot to think about as you prepare for your self-sufficient life. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair! Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl20

Moving to a new homestead you get to start with a clean slate. So how do you decide what you need? This week, Liz and I share what animals and infrastructure we settled on for our new homestead. This week Liz and I candidly discuss how we settled on what we needed on our homestead. Listen in as we discuss our animal and food choices: What breed of pigs we settled on, and why Cows, both dual purpose and specific breeds for beef and milk Meat chickens Hens German Shepherds versus Anatolian or Great Pyrenees Top bar hives and bees Garden area requirements We also cover all the infrastructure and building we've done in the past year, including: Raised bed hugelkultur garden Building a tall fence to keep deer out of the orchard/garden Integrating a play area into the garden space Creating a medicinal herb garden Adding a metal building workshop Milling lumber and building a barn with hay feeder Building deer blinds Building a dual dog house with center "warm" area Building shelves (so many shelves!) for pantry, craft area and homeschool room Building a homeschool room with bookcases, tables, etc And building a woodland trail and survival practice area (click here for pics) It was a fun discussion and I hope you enjoy it and find that it gives you a lot to think about as you prepare for your self-sufficient life. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair! show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl19

So, if you’re the daughter of a famous homesteader, you’re destined to live off the land yourself, right? Today, you’ll find out what falls from the sky when a teenager rebels against the mother of modern homesteading. So, imagine your mother wrote the book on Country Living. I mean—literally. In addition to bearing seven children in the 70s, Carla Emery also found time to write The Encyclopedia of Country Living. That’s the first book that many wannabe homesteaders place on their mantles. It’s a million word tome that’s on my bookshelf, and I’ve thumbed the pages of my copy until they’ve frayed. But this isn't a story about Carla. It's the story of Esther Emery, Carla's youngest daughter. Carla was 30 when her first child was born in 1970, 40 by the time Esther, her seventh, arrived. In a “back-to-the-land” era when it seemed everyone wanted to know how to make it in the country,The Encyclopedia of Country Living began selling like hotcakes. But Esther grew up on the latter side of that trend, as the go-go 80s and 90s saw Silicon Valley capitalistic values render the idea of homesteading as quaint and archaic. When tragedy struck Carla's family and resulted in her losing her homestead, Carla, the mother of modern homesteading, was forced to move to the city to homeschool her children. As a result, Esther knew nothing of the life of open spaces and farm chores that her mother wrote about, and took a long and winding path through life to where she is today. That path included battling bulimia, enrolling in a far away college at the age of 15, a career in theater in southern California and even a full year of self-imposed exile from the Internet, a story she chronicled in her new book, What Falls From the Sky. After that year of exile she and her husband, Nick, felt a calling to return to their Idaho roots, where they have lived off-grid in a yurt for three years while Nick builds their cabin from timber he milled himself. Now that Esther is baking bread in a wood stove, doing laundry with the help of a bicycle and fighting off bears, she is finding that the circle of life is becoming complete. She is becoming like the mother she rebelled against as the land has summoned her home. Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl18

How can a modern homesteader expect to achieve personal privacy in the digital age? This week, Liz and I discuss the homestead we settled on and the steps we have taken to live a private, self-sufficient life. Welcome to Episode 17 of Self-Sufficient Life! This week Liz and I tell describe the homestead property we settled on, and share what concessions we had to make since there is no "perfect" property. Here's what we discuss about the property: - How much acreage we settled on - Woods vs pasture/open land - House size/configuration - Well vs gravity water - Streams/water features - Southern exposure - Fruit trees - Garden space and outbuildings - To heat or not to heat with wood - Proximity to populated areas - Homeschooling/homesteading culture We also discuss our overall objectives for homesteading. Those include: - Living as freely as possible - maximize free time - having a property that requires low maintenance - time to develop skills we're interested in, such as foraging, medicinal herbs and bushcrafting - maximize time together as a family - able to travel if desired - Be as independent and sustainable as possible - grow our own vegetables and most of our fruit - grow and butcher or hunt for our own meat - produce dairy and eggs - Teach our daughter about animal husbandry and...you know...the birds and the bees - Provide pollination and collect honey and wax from bees - Use our land's materials for building projects - Grow, harvest and produce as much of our own medicine as possible Beyond that, we had an overarching goal that we began discussing in Episode 16. That is, to achieve and maintain a high level of personal privacy. That's a hard thing to do in this digital age. But when a listener called in and asked about privacy, we decided to share our approach on achieving privacy in this episode. Here's what we discussed: - Why privacy is important to us - bad guy takes license plate number (road rage, etc.) - That privacy is about keeping our private life private. It’s not about avoiding taxes or even asset protection, although it helps with the latter. - The importance of separating your name from physical residence - driver's license - managing FedEx, etc., deliveries - home ownership titling - deposits for utilities, DirecTV, etc. - Setting up PO boxes BEFORE moving. That way you can complete the USPS forms truthfully with your two forms of ID. - Providing no forwarding address - Setting-up bank account before moving or keeping existing bank account - Using passport for ID instead of Driver’s License. DL very seldom actually required. - Using cash over credit - Dealing with family who wants to know why they can't tell people where you live - What is a lie (intent to both deceive and cause harm) It was a spirited and interesting discussion, and I hope you enjoy it and find that it gives you a lot to think about as you prepare for your self-sufficient life. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair! Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com

If you had an opportunity to opt out of the rat race and set up a modern homestead, how would you go about it? This week you’ll hear my wife Liz and I share our step-by-step process for choosing our new homestead location. Welcome to Episode 16 of Self-Sufficient Life! This week’s episode is a little different in that it doesn’t profile another homesteader or farmer. Instead, it begins the process of profiling us. By that I mean my wife, Liz, and myself, and the life of modern homesteading that we’re enjoying. Now, many of you have followed our journey since we left the rat race, back in 2006. You read the farm blog we maintained years ago. And bout a quarter million of you listened to our podcasts from 2010-2012, many from all corners of the world. And tens of thousands more have read my books, most notably The Accidental Farmers and How to Make Money Homesteading. Still, many of you are unacquainted with our story. In a nutshell, we lived in suburban Atlanta in 2006, on a golf course with a strict HOA. We’d never farmed, but that didn’t stop us from buying over 120 acres in rural Georgia, leaving behind our careers in corporate America and teaching to become first-generation farmers. We raised pretty much anything that walks. Grassfed beef, meat chickens, laying hens, rabbits, pigs, geese, ducks, dairy cows and, just for fun, donkeys, guineas and guardian dogs. We built a great customer base from Atlanta to Athens, GA, and loved hosting farm tours for up to 100 people a month. And then—we sort of went into seclusion in late 2012. We stopped blogging and podcasting, though we continued farming through 2015, selling grassfed meats and farmstead cheese. But in 2015 we stopped farming commercially and began the process of migrating from being farmers to being homesteaders. This is a story of what to look for in a modern homestead property. homestead incomeLiz and I spent a couple of years searching for a new homestead property, as we transitioned from being commercial farmers (for others) to homesteaders. Of course, the process took longer than we wanted, as we had to sell off farm animals and a farm business. We discuss how we handled that in this episode, as well as the reasons that drove us from farming to homesteading. Once we completed those tasks, we still had to find a new homestead. We wanted this to be a very long-term move, if not for life, so we established a series of criteria in looking for a new homestead. Those criteria included: 1) macro criteria for new property incurring no debt / strict budget proximity to family slightly cooler garden zone southern exposure higher elevation rainfall low taxes low/no restrictions on building codes state friendly to homeschool 2) micro criteria for new property mature fruit trees at least 20 acres, unless on a mountain good well water or gravity water/water on property (pond, mountain stream, springs) no sight of paved road no sight of neighbors good hunting/foraging much smaller house ideally heated with wood pasture, but no more than a few acres within an hour of sizable town, 30 mins of grocery store/hospital around like minded-people (homeschool groups, homesteading culture, farming, etc.) 3) things we knew weren’t critical school system fencing high quality pasture outbuildings existing garden (because we’d be putting in raised beds) cosmetics on house…just well insulated and sound Liz and I discuss all these criteria in detail as well as the life of farming versus homesteading. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!