More Than Farmers Joins Us LIVE! | November AOAT Livestream

0:00 All right.

0:04 All right.

0:05 Hello.

0:06 Good evening, sunshines.

0:08 Thank you so much for coming to hang out with us tonight.

0:11 Um, we are here with Cody and Michelle from More Than Farmers.

0:15 Also, Alexander, who uh wanted to be part of the chat instead of go to bed,

0:20 so he's gonna just disappear shortly.

0:23 But yeah, thank you so much for coming.

0:25 We're so excited to talk about so many things

0:27 from how do we get started to soil health.

0:31 Oh, good.

0:31 This is a new [laughter] skill we've recently learned to [clears throat] Yes.

0:37 It's very special.

0:38 It's all very good.

0:39 He wants to be a star.

0:40 I mean, look, everyone, he's a Wait, I sorry, I forgot that this is backwards.

0:44 Healthy, happy baby.

0:45 Just in case anyone's just here to see that Alexander's a star.

0:49 He's perfect.

0:50 He He's very great.

0:51 Okay, on to the real business.

0:54 Cody and Michelle, more than farmers, [laughter] thank you for joining us.

1:00 Adam, you wanna um I wanted to just

1:03 give give a quick introduction about what we're doing.

1:05 We're going to be giving away uh some Redmond gift cards.

1:09 So, if you would like to be entered into the Redmond giveaways,

1:13 just leave a comment, ask a question, and you will be entered.

1:18 We have our friend Emily,

1:20 who you can't see because the screen is much smaller than usual,

1:24 which is why I'm just going to be continually leaning

1:26 out on the wrong side of the screen this whole time.

1:29 Uh, and then we have also someone on their end too, right?

1:34 Yeah.

1:35 Well, first, yeah, thanks for joining, guys.

1:38 Like, we just, so for people who don't know, like who don't have the background,

1:42 maybe didn't watch the video,

1:43 we did a video with More Than Farmers back in September.

1:47 Um, and it was really cool.

1:48 They were very gracious to have us at their farm.

1:51 Um, had nice lunch, film video.

1:54 It was a great day.

1:56 Um, and sealed our friendship for forever.

1:58 Yeah.

1:58 And we thought, [laughter]

2:00 we thought it'd be a really cool and fun thing to do a live stream with them.

2:04 Um, and also we got so many questions from that video.

2:09 Um, and we thought it'd probably be a really cool

2:12 opportunity to get together and and answer some of those questions.

2:16 So, wow.

2:18 [laughter]

2:18 This is like a cough laugh that he's really just trying to be.

2:22 Also, yeah, I didn't uh do our intro very well because

2:24 I was so distracted by my pet parakeet that we have here.

2:28 Um, but the thing about the video that we did with Cody and Michelle is

2:32 that it resonated with so many folks on every platform that we shared it on.

2:37 And I think that's also why it generated all the comments

2:41 that it did and the questions that it did because Cody and Michelle

2:44 are so incredibly knowledgeable about how to start with nothing and build

2:50 up to where they're now feeding

2:53 their family almost entirely from their homestead.

2:56 They have a 1/8 acre garden where they raise most

2:59 of the vegetables and fruits that they eat for the year.

3:02 And then they do some steers and some meat

3:05 birds in the back portion of their property as well.

3:08 Yeah.

3:08 Maybe like we haven't actually let them talk yet,

3:10 so I'd love to hear from you guys.

3:12 Maybe just tell I'll just run away with Alexander really.

3:15 Tell us like a little bit about for like the people who didn't watch the video.

3:19 Uh maybe just tell us a little bit about you

3:21 guys and what you guys are doing up there in Ohio.

3:25 Okay, go.

3:27 All right.

3:27 So, Cody, Michelle, and uh we have six children.

3:31 We're in Ohio.

3:33 A lot of people ask, we're in zone 6B.

3:35 So, if you're watching our videos and sorry,

3:38 6A, if you're watching our videos and you want to know like

3:43 what we're growing and how you can grow it in your area,

3:45 if you're in 6A, it'll probably be pretty similar or a zone close to that.

3:49 Um, we started out with like literally nothing, like no money.

3:53 Um, we worked ourselves up from the ground up.

3:55 We built the house that we live in.

3:57 We're on 5 and a half acres.

4:00 Um, like Ann said, we have about an eighth

4:02 an eighth of an acre of growing space for our gardens.

4:05 Michelle is the garden ninja.

4:07 She does all the gardening stuff and uh I help along with it.

4:12 And then I take care of most of the animal stuff.

4:14 Um, we've got a couple beef cows.

4:17 We just kind of started into that.

4:18 We used to have a milk cow.

4:20 We sold her because of some dairy issues in our family,

4:23 but we've got a couple beef cows and we raised some steers.

4:26 And then we have our we raise meat chickens.

4:29 We have egg layers, a dog and a cat.

4:31 And um yeah, we're living what some people think.

4:35 Did you say ducks?

4:36 Oh, and some ducks.

4:38 [laughter]

4:39 We're living what some people feel is a homestead dream.

4:41 And it is a dream.

4:41 It's a lot of fun.

4:42 It's a lot of hard work, but it is a lot of fun.

4:44 It's amazing.

4:45 And how how long ago did you guys say you started doing this?

4:49 Is it 12 years?

4:50 Um not quite.

4:51 So, we bought this property in 2014.

4:54 It took us about a year until we got the house finished enough

4:57 to move in and then it was another year till it was actually like finished.

5:01 But yeah, so we've been here on this property for a little over 10 years.

5:04 And before that, we were living

5:05 in a basement apartment and we actually started homesteading.

5:09 And that's something that we like to talk about on our channel

5:11 is that you can start anywhere like with pretty much with anything.

5:16 If you've got even just a single burner in your dorm room,

5:19 you could go probably get a little caner that you

5:22 could put on there and do some water bath canning.

5:24 You could go buy some vegetables at the farmers market or um at the grocery

5:29 store and can some vegetables and put it on your little shelf and eat from that.

5:32 You can start with just about anything.

5:33 So, we had some couple little raised beds.

5:35 We got some little banty hens that Michelle likes to say laid

5:38 little peanut M&M's and uh we just did like a tiny little bit.

5:42 We read a lot of books and stuff and yeah, that's how we got started.

5:45 That's amazing.

5:46 Yeah.

5:47 Like what I love about you guys is like is

5:49 you guys are actually doing it like like it's it's

5:53 it's quite a task I think to do what you

5:57 guys do and uh do all the homeschooling of the kids.

6:01 Um and I think it's super inspiring to see what you guys do and also

6:05 that you document it with weekly YouTube

6:07 videos and Instagram and it's super inspiring.

6:11 Um, was it let me let me ask was it who who first got into it?

6:15 Was it you, Cody, or was it you, Michelle?

6:18 It was me.

6:18 [laughter] No, like as a teenager, I was like growing a market garden.

6:22 It wasn't a successful market garden, but I've just always loved the earth.

6:26 I've loved growing things.

6:28 I love soil.

6:29 And so, I would help my mom in the vegetable garden at home.

6:34 And I mean, she taught me to garden.

6:36 I was gardening with my mom since I was just kneeh high to a grasshopper.

6:40 And um Cody when we got married, he thought it was just stupid.

6:44 He was like, "Guarding is dumb.

6:46 I don't want to do it." He wanted nothing to do with farming.

6:49 And I think kind of you read one of Joel Salatin's books,

6:55 but was it also kind of the off-grid like

6:58 you were concerned about the way the world was going?

7:01 And so that's kind of initially why he got so into it.

7:06 That was not at all my thing.

7:08 I didn't care at all honestly about what was going on in the world to me.

7:13 I just wanted to garden.

7:14 I just wanted my feet in the dirt.

7:16 So he read a Joel Salatin book and all

7:19 of a sudden just like overnight turned into a farmer.

7:22 [snorts] Um and honestly probably within

7:25 a couple months of you reading the book,

7:28 we managed to find a guy in our community who gave us a private loan and we

7:33 A couple months was longer than that.

7:34 But was it longer than that after you read the book?

7:37 Okay.

7:39 Yeah.

7:39 I don't know the time frame.

7:41 We were looking very soon after and we

7:44 bought a property and then from there it was Yeah.

7:49 That's where we started.

7:52 That's awesome.

7:53 Was the book You Can Farm by Joel Salatin?

7:56 Yes, it was.

7:57 Yes.

7:57 So, it actually started with my cousin was an intern at Polyface

8:03 and I saw on their family blog or whatever that he got this pair

8:08 of farm boots for his birthday and it was like I'm going

8:13 to a farm and I was like that's the weirdest birthday present ever.

8:16 The dumbest thing in the world.

8:17 Who would be excited to be going to work on a farm?

8:21 But somehow I ended up getting sucked in.

8:24 So, totally.

8:25 And when Cody makes up his mind to do something,

8:28 he does it with everything in him.

8:29 It was just like a complete 360.

8:32 And I kid you not, he did not even know that if you put a potato in the ground,

8:36 you get more than one potato back.

8:38 He was like, "Isn't this really pointless?

8:39 Just put a potato in the ground just to get one back." That's what happens.

8:45 I think actually one of the questions that we're going to talk about is actually

8:48 how do we get one potato and actually turn it into more than just one potato?

8:54 That's a sub subtle foreshadowing for someone.

8:57 [laughter] Yeah, we have some questions.

9:01 Um, like I said, we had got a lot of questions on the video.

9:05 Um, and I thought this would be a really good opportunity

9:07 and a good platform to kind of answer some of those questions.

9:10 Um, and so we're going to kind of go through those, but also um,

9:14 we we're going to take some live Q&A as well.

9:17 And so between some of the questions,

9:19 I'll pull up some of the uh Q&A that comes up in the chat.

9:24 Uh so if you have any questions uh for Michelle and Cody or ourselves,

9:29 uh feel free to just drop them in the chat

9:30 and we'll uh select as many as we can.

9:34 And don't forget that asking a question will

9:36 enter you to win a Redmond gift card.

9:41 That's right.

9:42 And actually, can I put a question in?

9:44 [laughter] Should we just start Adam with a question about potatoes?

9:49 The question five.

9:50 So yes, so I I also have some um YouTube handles here.

9:56 So C FOC 444 asks.

10:01 Yes, but what about rotation?

10:03 The land will be out of vitamin in no time.

10:06 How do you keep the ground from depleting?

10:09 In the old days, farmers would starve because their land would stop giving.

10:13 How do you rest certain parts of the garden?

10:17 Speaking of rest, I'm just going to go double check our baby upstairs.

10:21 Yeah, this is this is real life.

10:22 This is real life.

10:23 Welcome to real life.

10:25 Family businesses, my friends.

10:27 Shall I answer that one?

10:29 Yep.

10:29 Okay, I'd say so.

10:30 You weren't going to answer, Adam, were you?

10:32 Was this for me?

10:33 No.

10:33 No.

10:33 That was a question for you.

10:35 If y'all are expecting me to answer any garden questions,

10:37 we we're in we're in a lot of trouble on this live stream.

10:41 [laughter] Uh, so basically what I do to rotate crops is I'd make sure

10:46 that I don't grow the exact same crop in the exact same place every single year.

10:51 So different crops are going to be taking up different nutrients from the soil.

10:54 And so I would never plant potatoes in the same place every single year.

10:59 I like to just I and I'm not really picky.

11:02 Um, you don't you don't do crop rotation.

11:04 Like if you were to read a book about crop rotation and making sure

11:08 this certain family follows this follows another certain family.

11:11 I just make sure not to put the same crop in the same place at the same time.

11:16 So corn pulls up tons of nitrogen from the soil and so it would

11:19 just be fool hearty to try to continually plant corn in the same spot.

11:23 Also, we put compost on our garden every single year.

11:26 And I also mulch really, really heavily with leaves.

11:30 And all of that organic matter is going to be adding into the soil.

11:33 And then I also do some cover crops and things like that.

11:36 So, and I don't use any fertilizers in my garden

11:39 aside from if there's like a plant that's looking really sick,

11:42 I might use some fish emulsion or liquid seaweed,

11:46 but I am not a fertilizer person.

11:48 I think it can throw things off really fast

11:50 if you don't know what your soil actually needs.

11:54 And so I get a soil test done every single

11:56 year and I only add what actually needs to be added.

12:02 And soil amendments are actually relatively inexpensive.

12:07 Fertilizer is very expensive.

12:09 But

12:10 um soil amendments are like I don't think

12:13 we spend much money at all on soil amendments.

12:15 No.

12:15 No.

12:15 If you just get like bags of lime to add calcium in or something, it's so cheap.

12:21 Very inexpensive.

12:21 So that's how we keep our soil.

12:23 Our soil gets better every year.

12:26 Every single year.

12:27 So even though we're not using expensive fertilizers,

12:30 just using those amendments and using homemade compost,

12:33 homemade compost that's not even made very well.

12:36 Yeah, we're not very good at it.

12:37 To make good compost,

12:38 you should be turning it and maybe checking the moisture and things like that.

12:42 We just put all of our cow manure, chicken manure,

12:45 and scraps on a pile and just leave it

12:46 for a couple years and eventually it turns into compost by itself.

12:50 Yeah.

12:50 So, using that compost and leaves and those soil amendments,

12:53 our soil gets better every year.

12:55 I was actually able to make my garden smaller and smaller as the years went

12:59 by, just simply because what I planted um produced more as my soil got better.

13:09 Yeah, that's amazing.

13:09 it.

13:09 I know that um Annie and you guys definitely

13:13 differ on some of the some of the the techniques

13:18 and the concepts and I think that's really cool because you

13:20 know you both make it work for your different use case.

13:23 Yes.

13:24 Um and there's not necessarily like a wrong

13:25 or a right way to do things especially depending

13:28 on what zone you're in and kind of what

13:30 you're what you're trying to get out of it.

13:32 Um, so I think, you know,

13:34 this something maybe we can kind of talk about as we go.

13:36 I'm sure it will come up as we go through these questions,

13:38 like different styles.

13:40 Um, but I think that that's a pretty cool thing.

13:42 I actually, yeah, just to piggyback on that, I

13:45 love I love that like being true about gardening.

13:50 Like there is no one way,

13:52 one ring to rule them all when it comes to being a successful gardener.

13:57 And like yes, some, you know,

13:59 some people have figured out more stuff than others,

14:01 but but the reality is it's not like someone has this magic sauce.

14:06 And if and if they're trying to sell you on having the magic sauce Yeah.

14:12 You know, they're lying because the reality is that both of both like

14:15 all of us got our start with basically zero dollars in the bank, right?

14:19 And needing food security because we couldn't afford it.

14:23 And that's how like we didn't, you know,

14:25 spend thousands of dollars on soil and fertilizers and garden implements

14:30 and we didn't start with a tractor or like any of those things.

14:34 You can grow in your backyard with what you've got right now.

14:38 Even if you don't have a backyard, you can grow on your window sill.

14:41 When I lived in Taiwan, like most of my neighbors had things growing

14:46 in their like in the on their balconies.

14:49 Most of my neighbors had chickens growing

14:51 on the roofs of the the rooftops of our highrises.

14:54 Like it was if you want it bad enough, you will find a way.

14:59 You'll find a way.

15:00 Yep.

15:00 Totally.

15:02 Totally

15:03 amazing.

15:04 And actually speaking of that, while Adam's queuing up the next question,

15:07 I will say that there one whenever a video goes like like does really,

15:11 you know, gets seen by a lot of people,

15:13 one of the big things that we get tons and tons of comments are

15:16 like [clears throat] everyone telling why it's

15:19 impossible for them to do the same thing.

15:21 Right.

15:22 Right.

15:22 The victim mentality like I could never do this because

15:27 or my favorite like must be nice because you must you

15:30 must be so rich to be able to afford all that.

15:33 generational wealth.

15:34 All that generational wealth

15:36 would have loved it if it would be great.

15:40 But

15:40 we were legit completely broke when we got our place.

15:44 So, yep.

15:47 You mean the thing that that like clearly

15:49 every Facebook commenter thinks was $3 million, right?

15:53 Yeah.

15:53 [laughter]

15:58 Yes.

15:57 Um, all right.

15:58 Next question.

16:00 This is from most definitely 6737.

16:05 Yeah, I know these

16:07 these YouTube names are great.

16:09 I'm very green when it comes to growing crops and was wondering what

16:12 you both do to prevent insects and rodents from eating up your crops.

16:17 Historically, I've had a huge field mouse issue.

16:20 Oh, that's a rough one.

16:22 We've never had that issue.

16:24 We didn't pest.

16:25 We had moles.

16:27 What is your pest situation like?

16:29 Because it looks to me like you all just have no fence around

16:33 your garden and like don't don't you have deer or anything that come?

16:39 We probably would.

16:40 We we did one year have uh raccoons that sweet corn

16:45 were eating our sweet corn and we've had bunnies in the garden a few times,

16:49 but we have an outside dog now and that dog loves to chase anything it sees.

16:55 So, we have a an ingground fence around our property,

17:00 and it's definitely big enough for her to have space to roam and stuff,

17:03 but it's also small enough that she's always looking for something to do.

17:09 Yeah.

17:08 And because she used to roam around to the neighbors,

17:10 and now she doesn't get to roam around to the neighbors anymore.

17:13 Um, so anytime she sees something out there,

17:15 she's got paths worn through the garden where she runs through

17:18 and chases birds out and chases away the bunnies and things like that.

17:22 So that's the thing for that kind of pest for bugs and stuff.

17:27 That's Michelle's area of expertise.

17:30 I mean, I have never yet met a gardener that has

17:34 such perfect soil that they don't have any pest issues ever.

17:37 I just I haven't met anyone like that.

17:40 Um for me though, I have noticed that the bug

17:44 pressure has gone down as my soil gets better.

17:47 Mhm.

17:48 And so for me, I try very hard to just handp pick because

17:52 that's the most effective way that I have found is to handp pick.

17:56 And I also just so butternut squash and any

17:59 kind of pumpkins are just awful here with squash bugs.

18:03 I would go out and sweep up quarts of them.

18:05 I'm not exaggerating.

18:07 Like I would come in with a cord of squash bugs.

18:10 And so I just don't grow pumpkins.

18:12 I grow butternuts because those are the best.

18:14 But I think you have to, especially if you care about growing organically,

18:20 you just have to choose your battles.

18:22 And so I grow butternuts, but I don't grow pumpkins because butternuts

18:26 are better than pumpkin in my opinion.

18:28 And so I just the things that are terrible with bugs,

18:32 I don't grow for the most part.

18:33 Cucumbers, those always go down with cucumber beetles eventually.

18:37 Keep trying.

18:38 I keep trying.

18:39 I get a little better every year.

18:41 Um, but my main weapon with bugs is soil health.

18:45 And I will use BT for what's that stand for?

18:50 Uh, something Jesus.

18:52 I'm saying it wrong, but that's what it is.

18:54 Something like that.

18:55 I That is one organic spray that I will use one time a year for my broccoli.

19:01 Um, there's tricks like with broccoli.

19:04 if you plant it early enough in the season

19:06 and then it will mature before the little wormies come out,

19:09 those white butterflies that lay the wormies.

19:11 So, there's tricks like that that you learn.

19:14 Um, but we don't use any chemicals of any kind.

19:17 And so, if there's a massive bug infestation,

19:20 I don't really have massive bug infestations anymore

19:24 just because I've learned what crops not to grow.

19:26 [laughter] So,

19:28 and when she says handpick, it also includes using a 20 volt DeWalt sweeper.

19:33 Yes.

19:33 We go out and suck up.

19:35 I was talking about the vacuum that you don't have.

19:38 Yeah.

19:38 Okay.

19:38 This is a really funny side note because when we were at her house,

19:41 she was talking about how their kids love to sweep

19:43 and I was like congratulating them because I also love to sweep,

19:47 but I mentioned that I really love that and she does.

19:50 And she was like, "Oh yeah,

19:52 we don't even have a vacuum." They

19:53 were talking about like a traditional house vacuum,

19:54 but literally as she says, "We don't have a vacuum in the house,

19:58 like a [laughter] vacuum starts up.

20:00 It's like and we like all looked at each other

20:03 and laughed so hard because it was the DeWalt vacuum.

20:06 But similarly like my my hand my version of handp

20:09 picking is I go out with my Makita vacuum and I

20:13 vacuum the bases of all the plants that have you

20:15 know that are more prone to having bugs on them.

20:18 Um a couple times in the evenings like you know before bed

20:22 and that generally gets gets rid of the the majority of them.

20:26 And then beyond that, same same here.

20:29 Healthy soil

20:32 Mhm.

20:31 makes healthy plants that while the bugs will still exist, [laughter]

20:36 the healthy plants he learned how to cough

20:39 today and it's like his new favorite thing.

20:41 He's not even sick.

20:42 It's just his new skill that that's the reason I haven't slept in a week.

20:46 Um [laughter] but yeah, the healthy plants create more foliage

20:52 that are then able to withstand pest pressure.

20:56 So, if you've got a stunted plant because you don't have like

20:59 good enough soil or you don't have the right nutrients in your soil,

21:02 then bugs are going to come in and eat.

21:07 Yeah.

21:05 And it'll be done for.

21:10 This is a question from the chat about black bears.

21:13 I don't We don't have you have black bears around here.

21:18 We also live by the road and so we don't have deer problems and so

21:23 in the future if we live in a woods we might have to have a fence.

21:29 Yeah.

21:28 I did see a bunch of uh comments earlier

21:31 people asking if there's any update on our property.

21:37 Yeah.

21:36 Just know there isn't.

21:37 There's just we keep looking.

21:39 Keep looking.

21:40 Haven't found anything yet.

21:41 So we're still here.

21:42 I'm praying that God will give me a house for Christmas.

21:44 That's all she wants for Christmas is a new house.

21:47 That's [laughter] it.

21:48 That's I mean

21:48 new house on 13 acres.

21:50 That's all I asked for.

21:54 Amazing.

21:54 Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

21:55 It could happen.

21:56 We have gone and looked at a couple houses.

21:58 Yeah, we've looked at a couple, but there's always a little something.

22:02 And then I'll go like on on realtor and I'll scroll for like half

22:05 an hour at all the houses that I've already looked at and I'm like,

22:08 surely one of these will work.

22:10 and I'll like uh put my radius out

22:13 farther looking farther and farther away but like

22:15 but no we don't want to move farther away from our church and so that

22:19 well really interesting you were saying um when we were there and I think

22:23 maybe you've talked about in the video

22:24 about like the pastorside drift is that yes

22:27 is that is that what's mostly uh kind of influencing this potential move

22:34 it's like one of a bunch of reasons that was the I

22:38 think that was the straw that broke the camel's this summer.

22:41 Shall I say what happened this summer?

22:43 Well, what I was going to say is in the past years,

22:46 we had these ugly fence rows beside

22:49 our garden that was kind of covering things up,

22:51 but then they got cleared to make it look nicer

22:55 and not scratch vehicles on on the driveway next to us,

22:59 but then open it up, right?

23:02 It opened it up to the fields next to us.

23:04 So now I literally have a field that gets

23:06 sprayed with Roundup a couple yards from my garden.

23:11 And so this year I started noticing that after the fields would get sprayed,

23:16 I had disfigured leaves um in my garden.

23:21 And also one of our daughters is having issues with like severe food allergies,

23:26 food sensitivities and stuff.

23:28 And I got her tested by two different doctors and they both

23:31 said that she has a high toxicity load with lots of agricultural chemicals.

23:36 And that was just the last straw.

23:39 Um, and we could put up a fence.

23:41 We could plant bushes or long grasses or trees or whatever.

23:45 And so there could be there there are

23:47 things that we could do because here in Ohio,

23:49 here in Ohio, you're not going to get away from all the sprays.

23:51 You can get a little farther away maybe, but not you're not completely get away.

23:54 But then it was like that on top of wanting to have more beef cows,

23:58 so we need more pasture.

24:00 Our house is as the kids get bigger, the house gets smaller,

24:04 so we either need to put an addition on or move.

24:07 And so it's like all those things combined, it's just time to find something.

24:10 Yeah.

24:11 Yeah.

24:13 Super chat.

24:14 Uh thank you, Helen.

24:15 Uh asks, "Should I plant a garden while we build a house?" [laughter] I mean,

24:23 sorry.

24:24 It like hit me all in a wave and that just like came out.

24:27 I mean,

24:27 we did that and it sucked.

24:29 I think if if I was to do it,

24:32 I don't think I could ever just not plant a garden because I'm me.

24:36 But what I would do is I would have a couple raised beds.

24:38 Those are so low maintenance.

24:40 I would have a couple raised beds and I would

24:43 I would be very strategic with what I plant in them.

24:46 So, if you have a raised bed full of lettuce, that's not going to do much.

24:51 That's not going to go very far in making a dent

24:52 in your food in your food security goals at all.

24:56 You can't freeze it.

24:56 You can't preserve it.

24:57 It's just it doesn't really fill you up.

24:59 I would plant it like chalk full of potatoes and you could get,

25:03 you know, a whole bunch of potatoes that will actually make a dent.

25:08 And raised beds, you don't have to weed them very much.

25:11 They're so low maintenance.

25:13 But we, you know, this was when like I was super excited about

25:17 getting started with the homesteading thing and we uh were building the house.

25:24 I was working a full-time job building my own house and we

25:28 were living in a camper while we were building the house.

25:31 We had two babies and we planted a garden.

25:34 A big one.

25:35 A big garden.

25:36 And it just Yeah.

25:37 It was not a good idea.

25:39 Super bad idea.

25:40 One thing I really appreciate about Cody and Michelle is,

25:43 and Michelle specifically, I mean, I don't know you quite as well,

25:46 Cody, but is how good you are at um realizing how limited your time,

25:54 effort, energy, and capacity is.

25:56 [laughter] and then prioritizing accordingly because I am famous for always just

26:03 having a way bigger stomach than I like a bigger appetite for projects

26:09 than there are hours in the day and that has

26:13 really worn worn us down in different seasons but uh

26:16 and I I mean I'm sure you guys have

26:18 experienced similar things but what I loved talking to you

26:21 about in the video that we did together was how

26:24 you actually like how little time you actually end up

26:27 having to do the things that you do because you're

26:31 so because you're really good at prioritizing what's most important.

26:34 So, I love you said like grow potatoes

26:36 instead of lettuce because there's more calories in potatoes.

26:39 Yeah.

26:39 Um Yeah.

26:40 What other kinds of stuff like that like do you

26:44 have like I mean can you can you give us

26:45 a couple other examples of things like that where it's

26:48 like focus is much better than um spreading yourself thinner.

26:52 Oh yeah.

26:54 Um I'm trying to think.

26:55 So, one thing I think probably my main piece of advice

26:58 that I would give any person who wants to have a homestead

27:02 and actually feed their family from their garden would be to focus

27:06 on root vegetables that don't need to be canned or frozen.

27:11 If you have a cold room,

27:12 you can make one with like a cool bot if you don't have a basement.

27:15 But if you have a cold room that's the right temp,

27:17 you can just cure hundreds of pounds of food

27:21 and put it in there with zero canning,

27:23 zero freezing, and it just saves so much time.

27:27 If I had to can or freeze or like actively preserve

27:32 all the food that we have to eat for an entire year,

27:35 I would legit go out of my mind.

27:38 Yeah.

27:39 So for me, we grow every year 400 pounds

27:42 of potatoes and at least 150 pounds of carrots,

27:47 butternut squash, and that many pound like 500 pounds

27:51 of food makes a dent in keeping tummies full.

27:55 So the I think of all the other vegetables like green beans,

27:59 there's they're very time consuming.

28:01 Um green beans, broccoli, sweet corn, peas.

28:05 I don't even do peas.

28:06 They're just you it's not going to feed you.

28:09 They taste delicious.

28:11 They just don't Yeah.

28:13 Um so I Sorry, I lost my train of thought.

28:17 Oh yeah.

28:18 I think of the those vegetables just as kind

28:20 of filling in the gaps between the foundation.

28:23 So figure out the foundation of what you want to make the biggest dent

28:28 in feeding your family and then just fill

28:30 in with all the the more difficult stuff.

28:33 And at first, you don't even have to grow all the difficult stuff.

28:36 Just focus on potatoes, honestly.

28:40 Can you think of anything else?

28:45 Um, I don't know.

28:46 One part of the reason that we started

28:49 our YouTube channel um was because we were learning.

28:54 Okay, back up even a little farther.

28:58 The reason that we are so passionate about what you were talking about, Ann,

29:02 with making sure we don't stretch ourselves too thin

29:04 and stuff is because we learned the hard way.

29:08 Yeah.

29:07 Um Michelle literally burned out.

29:09 She had adrenal fatigue, was like on the couch for weeks on end.

29:13 Like she just she just couldn't do much.

29:15 Um I got so stressed and overwhelmed and everything.

29:18 And it was through working ourselves out of that that we

29:21 wanted to help other people not go the same way.

29:25 And in one of our uh ways of doing that was just learning to be more efficient,

29:30 making things more simple, more streamlined, and figuring out ways to do that.

29:34 And that's a lot of the reason why

29:35 we started a YouTube channel to help with that.

29:37 So like just I don't I can't think of like specific things

29:40 that I do because I guess they're so ingrained in me now.

29:43 But like with the chickens, with the milk cow,

29:46 with everything, I did a video one time, it was a long time ago,

29:50 about doing all of my morning chores in less than half an hour.

29:53 I was feeding chickens, gathering eggs, milking a cow, straining the milk,

29:58 all that stuff in less than half an hour because I was working a full-time job.

30:01 And you got to figure out how to get all that stuff

30:04 done and still have time to do the rest of life.

30:07 And so, yeah, it's just and it it's just it's going to take time.

30:10 You're not going to watch a few YouTube videos

30:12 and figure out how to be more efficient, but

30:14 over time learning how to um make things better, I guess.

30:21 Totally.

30:21 [laughter] And oh good, he starts doing that right at that moment.

30:25 But I was gonna say the other thing just like for those who are watching,

30:29 I mean one of the most helpful things for me

30:32 in my online journey has been never compare your beginning

30:39 to someone else's middle.

30:41 So Cody and Michelle are in the middle of their thing.

30:44 Also, their thing is very different than what we're in the middle of.

30:49 Um, and when we start comparison, comparing,

30:52 first of all, comparison is the thief of all joy.

30:57 And also, comparison is a great way to get distracted

31:01 from what it is that's actually going to serve

31:04 your family because like all of us have very,

31:06 very different goals, very different reasons for doing things.

31:10 I'm so sorry.

31:11 [clears throat] [laughter] He just wants to be a star.

31:16 He just started talking.

31:17 Yeah.

31:18 [laughter] Um, we all have different goals,

31:21 different reasons for doing things and and like

31:24 truly if we're looking at someone else.

31:26 Yes.

31:26 Like learn from all of us.

31:27 Like we're we're both of us.

31:29 I mean, we talked about this when we were together filming

31:31 the video that we shot together is the reason that all

31:35 four of us wanted to make the videos that we make

31:37 is that we want to help whoever's one step behind us.

31:40 We're not the experts or anything.

31:42 We just whoever's one step behind,

31:43 we want to give them a helping hand to help like you know

31:47 bring you all like one step further in the journey because

31:52 boy howdy this stuff is hard but all of these skills are incrementally built.

31:56 They're not built like you don't just suddenly quit your tech job,

32:00 buy 30 acres and you know 112 animals and go for it.

32:05 I mean, some people do,

32:07 and I think that those are the people that end up really burning out.

32:10 And so, just as an encouragement for those watching,

32:14 you don't have to do everything that we're doing.

32:17 And I I hope you don't, right?

32:20 Um especially at first, right?

32:23 I have a lot of young moms who reach out to me and they're like,

32:25 "How do I do what you do with babies?" And I'm like, "You don't.

32:29 I mean, I just back in the day when people were doing all this stuff,

32:34 they lived in like closer communities and I feel like

32:37 the older women would help take care of the babies.

32:40 I actually grieve a lot of the hours that I missed

32:44 with my babies because I was so distracted trying to get it all done.

32:48 And it was after that that I came down with the adrenal

32:51 fatigue and I just learned that you choose what's most important.

32:54 Nobody can do everything.

32:56 And so I my advice to young moms is just choose something that fits, you know,

33:03 in your fits those small gaps in between your children

33:07 if you have have gaps and and start there.

33:11 We look back and we're like,

33:13 how did we get so little done yet feel like we were so busy?

33:17 because those same things we do way more now,

33:20 but it's so easy because we don't have to it's like um

33:23 we don't even have to think about it anymore because it's just normal.

33:27 Yeah.

33:28 Because those things have like incrementally built over time.

33:30 Like if you even if you had to learn how to bake bread and learn

33:35 how to like can and learn how to grow your first vegetable and learn

33:40 how to milk a cow and learn how to take care of animals and and learn

33:44 how to raise chicks and all those things all at once and have babies.

33:48 I mean we also like like this it took us a very long

33:53 time to have the babies that we wanted for a very very long time.

33:56 But it was during that time that we built up

33:59 so many of the skills that now serve our family.

34:02 And hilariously, we are in the thick of it as you can see right now.

34:08 And we had to massively downsize before he was born because we knew

34:14 like I know myself.

34:15 I know that if there was so much out there not getting done

34:21 that like I it then I would I would miss his childhood.

34:25 I would miss and then I would grieve all of it.

34:28 I would g grieve missing it with him

34:29 and I would grieve what was happening out there.

34:31 And the reality is I knew myself well enough to know

34:33 that we had to shrink things in a big way

34:36 so that I could put my full focus on parenting

34:40 especially like you know it gets harder the more you have.

34:43 We would love to hopefully have more.

34:46 Um so we're just we're we're in a season of like wow.

34:50 Um I mean you said you you got your chores down to 30 minutes.

34:53 I had to make sure that Adam could do the chores in 30 minutes.

34:57 And surely I could probably do a lot more chores in 30 minutes because I've been

35:01 doing this for 13 years than he could when he first started doing them.

35:05 Um but but that was our that was our cut off

35:08 is that you know if we were ever going to be able

35:10 to work and have a a kid and you know stay

35:14 married and all those things like shrink things in a huge way.

35:20 Yes.

35:21 Yeah.

35:21 Yeah.

35:22 The other thing I think with that too is what

35:23 people used to do is they worked all the time.

35:27 Like there was almost no such thing as play.

35:30 I mean there was but um we get I had

35:34 been getting chicken feed from some Amish about an hour away

35:38 from here and they are the very like there's different

35:42 brands of Amish if you want to put it that way.

35:44 But these Amish like no electricity.

35:46 They don't do the battery stuff.

35:48 They don't do anything like that.

35:49 And every time I go up there,

35:51 it doesn't matter what time of day it is, they're just always always working.

35:54 I mean, I'll go I would go up there like, you know,

35:57 later in the evening after I was done with my work

35:59 and I would go to pick up the feed,

36:01 but they were still working.

36:04 Yep.

36:03 And it's like that's just how they lived.

36:05 That's just what they what they do.

36:07 The social expectations now are so different.

36:10 And we don't feel like it's fair to make

36:13 our kids the complete weirdos by never having them do anything,

36:16 never going anywhere.

36:18 So that's kind of where the name More Than Farmers came from is like how

36:22 can we live this healthy lifestyle but still

36:27 be able to have time for social things.

36:31 Um yeah, totally.

36:38 I say I saw a super chat going there and I don't think I can put it up.

36:43 Let me ask a question.

36:44 Oh, you can.

36:45 Oh my gosh.

36:45 Emily, listen.

36:47 Thank god Emily is also here because I was just about to like just

36:50 move on with the live stream because I don't know how to do anything

36:54 uh technological at all.

36:56 Oh yeah, it is.

36:57 Look at you.

36:58 Wow.

37:00 Y

37:00 um if if this person's name is control Z, that's what pops up.

37:04 Thank you so much for that.

37:06 Uh by the way, how do we get rid

37:08 of dreaded pests like Japanese beetles and stink bugs?

37:12 Stink bugs are the worst.

37:14 Stink bugs.

37:15 I hate to tell you, you're probably never going to get rid of them entirely.

37:18 But I will say that um something that worked really well

37:20 for me this year that I was kind of skeptical about,

37:22 but tried anyway, was putting um wood ash

37:26 from the fire pit around all of my cucumber bits.

37:28 So that's cucumbers, um you know,

37:32 watermelons, uh squashes, pumpkins, all those things.

37:36 Um, again, I didn't actually grow a lot of those, but usually we like down here,

37:41 we almost cannot grow zucchini.

37:45 Um, and like, which is funny because back in Seattle,

37:48 we would literally grow hundreds of pounds of it

37:50 and give it to the food bank because we're just like,

37:52 what could we possibly do with all this?

37:54 But down here, it's like almost impossible to grow zucchini.

37:57 And I had so much zucchini this year, hilariously,

38:00 because I threw threw some in because I was like, I'm just going to try it.

38:03 Um, and also more cucumbers this year than I've ever grown.

38:09 Um, so for what it's worth, that helps.

38:11 And then with the Japanese beetles,

38:13 something that really helped us um was planting amaranth everywhere on accident,

38:18 but um, we're going to call it on purpose.

38:21 And it's because in Washington again, amaranth grows to be about this tall,

38:25 but here it grows to be 14t tall.

38:27 And it like puts off so much stuff.

38:30 Random side note, it's an amazing grain you

38:33 can then grind and eat as like oatmeal mush.

38:36 Like there's all kinds of things you can do with uh with amarance,

38:39 but the best thing that you can do is

38:41 scatter some seeds on the exterior areas of your garden

38:44 and the Japanese beetles will flock to it and eat

38:48 their hearts out on the leave your other stuff alone.

38:53 Interesting.

38:53 The thing that I found the most helpful with stink bugs,

38:56 those are just those are my nemesis in the garden.

39:01 The thing that helped me the most was trellising.

39:03 If you have everything on a trellis,

39:06 I have noticed that anything on the ground is covered with the stink bugs.

39:11 Everything on the trellis is almost left completely alone.

39:15 So, I trellis everything that I can.

39:17 And also, a sweeper works the best.

39:19 And if you if you can say what

39:23 the vacuum again.

39:24 Oh yes.

39:25 [laughter] If you can handp pick as many

39:28 of those but as many of the eggs as possible,

39:31 you can kind of get ahead of them a little bit.

39:33 I mean once I'm in canning preserving season, I give up.

39:38 But if you can keep the bugs away until

39:41 the squash are pretty big and then I'm like,

39:44 "Okay, you can kill the plants now." So,

39:45 you won't completely get rid of them that way,

39:47 but you can get ahead of them enough that you'll get some squash.

39:50 Totally.

39:50 And next year, try sprinkling some wood ash around bottom of your trellis.

39:55 Because actually, that was the other thing that I forgot

39:57 to mention is that like getting the leaves up off the ground

40:00 is important because then the bugs are going to have

40:02 to crawl up the stock to be able to get it.

40:05 And if they have to crawl through some dry,

40:08 and that's the key is that it needs to be dry.

40:10 Like every time after it rains, you you spread some more dry wood ash around.

40:14 But if they have to walk through that dry wood ash to be

40:17 able to get up the stock to be able to then their eggs

40:21 that it works basically the same as dietimmacous earth.

40:23 It's just free.

40:27 Oh

40:26 it desiccates their uh exoskeletons.

40:28 So the other thing is that they will um overwinter in the soil and so if you run

40:32 your chickens over your garden they will eat all

40:36 of the overwintering bugs out and that is very helpful.

40:40 I actually called Berlin Seed about squash bugs one year because I

40:43 was so desperate and I was like maybe their customer service can

40:45 help me and they said that even like pesticides are not crazy

40:51 effective on the adults because they have like this coat of armor

40:55 that the spray has to try to get through to actually kill the bug.

41:00 So you're much better off trying to take care of the eggs.

41:06 Yep.

41:06 I will say that chickens are not an option in our garden setup.

41:10 I was really envious of how you had that patch that we showed

41:13 in the in the video that you that you're like the grass just took over here.

41:17 So, we're letting the chickens take care of it.

41:19 But because we have so many perennials

41:22 interplanted with all in all of our garden beds

41:25 if I want to put the chickens out there,

41:26 and I'm just saying I'm not saying that like to argue with you.

41:29 I'm literally just in case anyone else here has followed my advice,

41:32 be careful not to throw your chickens in there or you will no

41:35 longer have asparagus and artichokes and other

41:39 things that are perennials next year.

41:41 So, slight difference there.

41:43 But, I mean, I will say that I like at one

41:46 point was so desperate to have the the birds eat through

41:49 that stuff that I literally made like a tunnel to I'm

41:52 like just like go for it as far as you can.

41:55 Yes.

41:56 Yes.

41:56 Do your best, but please for the love don't ruin everything.

42:00 Yes.

42:00 Totally.

42:01 Totally.

42:01 Awesome.

42:02 Well, I'm just going to ask the next question

42:03 on the list then because I don't know how to do Oh,

42:07 I Well, I can't do the ones on Adam's list, so I can do chat questions.

42:10 Oh, yeah.

42:10 Perfect.

42:11 You can probably just put it up.

42:12 Okay.

42:12 So, the next question is how Oh.

42:15 Oh, this is what we were the subtle foreshadowing from earlier.

42:19 Why are my root veggies, potatoes, garlic, etc.

42:24 always small?

42:25 H I mean obviously it's a soil issue of some kind.

42:29 It just is like that's what it always comes down to.

42:33 Well, number one beside you can go on with like nutrients or whatever,

42:36 but number one root veggies need loose soil.

42:39 So even besides any kind of nutrient deficiency

42:43 or anything like that, if you have like hardpacked clay

42:46 clay soil, roots need to be able to expand

42:49 and it's really hard for them to expand.

42:51 So that would be the first thing.

42:53 And if you have too much nitrogen and then root veggies are not

42:56 going to do well because it's all going to go into the foliage.

42:58 You're going to have beautiful foliage, but you won't have much of a root.

43:03 But for like onions, onions love nitrogen.

43:06 So there's like garlic and onions in there.

43:09 Those aren't really root veggies.

43:12 Totally.

43:13 So

43:13 yeah, I mean I think we can maybe separate

43:15 that and I'll ask you guys a se separate question,

43:17 but I will I will also say that like what you guys said is 100% right.

43:22 like your like either your soil is way too dense.

43:25 Um, we had solid clay when we moved here.

43:28 And instead of tilling it or anything else,

43:32 I just put a like I got really good at composting.

43:36 And so if you want to learn how to do a beginner's guide to composting,

43:39 we have a video about that.

43:40 You can check it out on our channel.

43:41 But I just basically got really good at composting.

43:43 I put a nice thick layer of compost and then arborous

43:47 chips and leaves uh because we have a forest right behind us.

43:51 So, I literally took my leaf blower and like gathered up as many

43:54 leaves as I could and just dumped it year after year on the garden.

43:57 And adding year after year to it instead of tilling or breaking up the soil has

44:02 helped me to like basically create a a buffer

44:05 zone where roots still have space to grow.

44:09 But in that with like like Michelle said, it's a it's an issue.

44:13 So it if you're a very beginner gardener, like nitrogen creates greens

44:19 and phosphorus and potassium create roots.

44:22 And so if you have like if you

44:24 plant carrots in some in like straight horse poop,

44:27 you're going to have beautiful carrot greens and you're

44:30 going to have the stubbiest little carrot that ever existed.

44:33 But if you plant carrots in nice loose

44:35 soil that has plenty of phosphorus and potassium,

44:39 um, then you're going to have a lot better luck at growing carrots in that soil.

44:43 And I think I mean one of the like everyone always

44:46 loves seeing the shots of you Michelle pulling enormous just like bushels.

44:51 Sorry, this is backwards.

44:53 So every time I try to be on camera off camera,

44:56 but like enormous bushels of of carrots out

44:58 of the soil because that's one of the other things,

45:00 one of your staple vegetables.

45:02 Can you just talk a little bit about your carrots and how you store

45:05 them really quick because I think that that's

45:07 something very interesting to everyone including myself.

45:10 Yeah, so I grow I try to grow around 150 pounds of carrots.

45:14 This year I backed off just a little bit

45:15 and I did 120 pounds just simply because we had

45:19 so many last year that I had to feed

45:20 some of them to the chickens which isn't a waste.

45:23 It's just not the best use of my time.

45:25 So, um, the way I just we pull them, number one, everybody asks me,

45:30 "How do you get carrots to grow?" For me,

45:33 the trick has always been it can't be too hot when you plant them.

45:37 So, if you're planting um like in August or whenever, no, it wouldn't be August.

45:43 It would be July.

45:46 For fall carrots, you have to cover your rows with a board,

45:50 just like a nice thin board.

45:51 And then as soon as they pop up,

45:53 soon as the um seedlings pop up underneath there, you take the board off.

45:56 Obviously,

45:57 that'll just keep them like shaded and moist for a little bit.

46:00 Damp and board on like like what kind of board?

46:04 You like like a one by like a like a pineex or if you had drop,

46:11 we just she plants the carrots, then we just put a board on top of it.

46:14 So the garden the carrot patch looks a little funny for a little while.

46:18 You're like, what are they doing?

46:20 Yeah.

46:20 but it keeps it cool and damp, which is what carrots like.

46:23 They have such a fine fine seedling that comes up.

46:27 And so if you have hard rocky soil, they're not going to germinate well.

46:30 And so I try to when I have planted carrot seeds,

46:34 they take a little bit longer than some seeds to germinate.

46:36 I keep them damp all the time.

46:38 I'll water them twice a day until they pop

46:40 up and then I thin them into to at least

46:43 like two inches apart because your carrots are only going

46:47 to get as big as the space you give them.

46:50 Um, so thinning is a huge huge thing,

46:52 especially if you want the big storage carrots that are

46:54 actually going to last in your refrigerator or cold room.

46:59 Don't last.

47:00 The little ones will just shrivel up and they taste delicious right at first,

47:03 but they're not going to store long.

47:05 So, if you want carrots to store until next spring,

47:07 they've got to be the big ones.

47:09 And do you plant dovers?

47:10 Is that the variety you plant?

47:13 Danverlong.

47:14 What's it called?

47:15 Danver halflong.

47:16 I think I think they actually changed the name

47:18 to Danver's 126 or something like that, but doesn't sound near as nice.

47:22 It doesn't.

47:23 Yeah, that sounds organic, but we'll go commercial or something.

47:26 But the halflong comes from that they're like shorter and then they're stumpier.

47:31 And that's another secret to like the stumpy ones.

47:35 Those are the ones that last a really long time.

47:37 And also the short ones are easier to pull

47:40 and they don't break off as easily as the long ones.

47:42 And if you have a broken carrot, it's not going to store.

47:44 So that's a big one.

47:47 Just basically, right?

47:48 Say what?

47:49 Just like sweet potatoes.

47:50 Like you know like you could these like really long huge ones are great,

47:54 but what like if it breaks off it's going to be more prone to Yep.

47:57 Then you have to eat it right away.

47:59 Yeah.

47:59 Then I just cut the tops off and put them into plastic bags.

48:03 And I tape the bags shut.

48:06 This, I think, is probably controversial.

48:08 I didn't even know it was.

48:10 I just found that if there was air that could get into the bags,

48:13 the carrots would kind of shrivel.

48:15 It was like they were somewhat dehydrating, I guess.

48:19 So, I just tape them shut, tape the bags shut with packing tape.

48:22 I just use like Walmart bags.

48:24 Double bag them.

48:25 Tape up any holes and they will sometimes sprout in there.

48:30 Um I don't know, they might get like

48:33 a little bit slimy by the end of the season,

48:36 but when you wash them up, they are still perfectly fine.

48:39 I [clears throat] think that's another thing with any storage crops is you

48:42 have to adjust your expectations of what a potato that is 6 months old,

48:47 what's it going to look like?

48:48 Totally.

48:49 not going to look like the perfect grocery store potato,

48:53 but it's 100% edible and all the stuff.

48:57 And we store them in a refrigerator in our basement.

49:00 I have like an old fridge.

49:04 Say what?

49:04 Not the potatoes.

49:05 You store the carrots in your fridge.

49:07 Carrots in the grocery bags.

49:08 I store those in an old fridge.

49:10 Just put it to one of the warmer warmest settings on the fridge.

49:14 You want it I think it's like 40 some 45 degrees.

49:17 It's not warmest.

49:18 It's It's pretty cool.

49:19 But you don't want one of those refrigerators

49:20 that the stuff in the back freezes.

49:22 You don't want that.

49:23 That will destroy your carrots.

49:25 And that's all.

49:27 Yeah.

49:27 So, we skipped one of your questions,

49:28 so it didn't have the headline, but we're now on a different one.

49:31 So, [laughter] picking him up from baby duty.

49:34 Do you want your mic back?

49:36 Oh, yeah.

49:36 Sure.

49:36 This I want to show this one.

49:39 Okay.

49:38 Because it's from a Saturday.

49:41 Hi, Nora.

49:43 Nora.

49:44 So we have uh let's see all together there is four of them

49:49 out there right now but only two of them would be considered cows.

49:53 So we have a older mama cow and then we have a heer that is needing to be

50:01 bred to become a mama cow and then we

50:04 have two steers out there that we're raising for beef.

50:07 So, we have four.

50:08 And the goal is that someday we will have more land and we will be able

50:12 to have I want to have at least I don't know maybe six mama cows out there,

50:17 something like that.

50:18 And so, part of the problem is what we're

50:21 running into is we keep running out of beef.

50:23 Um, we used to keep up with it fine

50:25 with the cals we were raising from our milk cow, but

50:28 our kids are getting older.

50:29 Our kids are getting older and we

50:31 also just started eating more protein in general.

50:34 Yeah.

50:34 and we're just we keep running out of beef

50:36 before our next year is ready to be butchered.

50:38 So, um we need more beef for us and then

50:41 I would like to be able to sell a little bit.

50:46 Yep.

50:44 Especially in this economy, it's we had just like we had to kind

50:50 of started over with our herd a couple years ago,

50:51 but we like had just gotten to the like tipping point

50:55 where suddenly we have more cows than we have land to support.

50:58 And uh I had previously been like, I'm never going to take an animal to auction.

51:04 I'm always just going to butcher.

51:05 But anyway, we we our our neighbor recently passed

51:08 away and we took his like we had taken care

51:10 of his cows and took his calves to auction and we

51:14 were like we got more for those calves than like fully raised out stuff.

51:19 So we were like uh yeah.

51:21 So, we loaded three cows,

51:23 like three three steers up into the trailer

51:25 and just took them straight to auction because we're like,

51:27 why would we go through all the trouble when we could

51:30 just make more than we would have made a few years ago?

51:34 And and with that, we supplemented like just from those we

51:38 supplemented all the rest of our cash for the year.

51:40 So, that was cool.

51:43 Wow.

51:42 It's amazing.

51:44 Adam, I would you mind throwing that one comment up there?

51:48 somebody saying about our realistic life.

51:54 Oh,

51:53 it's it's like

51:56 maybe eight comments up or something like that.

51:59 Emily's got it.

51:59 She's she's on it.

52:01 This one.

52:03 Yeah.

52:03 I just wanted to to say to that [laughter] real quick because we

52:07 were talking about earlier how if you want to make something happen, you can.

52:11 So, I understand where that would be coming from, like that that what

52:16 I was doing seemed a little bit crazy, but it was true.

52:19 I

52:21 I wanted to lose some weight and so I was on a diet and I wanted

52:25 to get faster at running and at so at the same time I was running to lose weight

52:31 and then I also had my chores to do and I also had my full-time job and I

52:35 did make it happen and I did not run nine miles in the morning before my chores.

52:40 If I did nine mile runs, they were on Saturdays or something like that.

52:44 But if it's just it comes back to again if

52:47 if you want to make something happen, you really can.

52:50 You just got to figure out how to make it work.

52:52 I see I'm on Strava with um some of my family and stuff and I see

52:58 that my brother-in-law is up at like 4:30 doing

53:01 his workouts and stuff before he goes to work.

53:04 And you know, you just got to make it happen.

53:06 What is Drao like an app?

53:08 Yeah, it's like bicep.

53:10 It's like social media for running nerds and legacy running too.

53:14 Love that.

53:16 Yeah.

53:15 And actually this that really leads into something that's like been

53:19 pinging around in my brain a lot lately is that uh again

53:23 because I read if you ever leave a comment or anything

53:26 on any one of our social media things like I will see it.

53:30 I might not always be able to respond but I read every single comment.

53:36 Wow.

53:35 Even negative ones.

53:37 Uh, it's true.

53:38 She does.

53:39 Yeah.

53:39 And so, and it's just because I'm like, well, so be nice.

53:42 [laughter] Yeah, be nice.

53:43 Although, I will say that after so long of doing

53:46 this, I do kind of cherish some of the really awful comments.

53:50 It is like half of our uh humor between We have a very dark sense of humor.

53:56 Appreciate screenshotting the most awful things

53:59 that guys on the internet will say.

54:01 Our our camera roll is our camera roll is like

54:04 half of it is just screenshots of really weird comments.

54:07 We are very different people.

54:08 I don't read any comments because I [laughter] um but anyway,

54:13 all that to say that this thing has basically been pinging around

54:16 in my brain because I get I mean I'm sure you guys do too,

54:18 but like I get the question,

54:21 how do I start or or where would I get started or or like you

54:25 know I could never imagine doing what you do in a day or whatever it is.

54:29 And like the the the phrase an object in motion

54:34 stays in motion and an object at rest stays

54:37 at rest has been just like pinging around in my brain

54:41 in response to that kind of attitude a lot.

54:44 And it's not that like not in any way throwing shade

54:47 at at at you know people who aren't already doing the things.

54:52 It's just that when you're already in the mindset of, hey,

54:56 like I wake up and I do these things

54:58 and my body's moving from sun up to sun down,

55:02 it's not as big of a deal to add a little another thing to it,

55:06 but it is a really big deal to try to like to suddenly

55:10 try to do something that's very different from what you're already doing.

55:14 And I say that not as a discouragement,

55:16 hopefully it doesn't come off as that, but really

55:18 as an encouragement for people that if

55:20 like starting anything like it takes an enormous

55:23 amount of energy to get the pendulum swinging.

55:28 Yeah.

55:27 So if it if you're trying to start and it's really really hard.

55:33 Yeah.

55:34 Yeah.

55:34 Duh.

55:34 It it it would be Yeah.

55:37 Like and I can even say that just

55:38 like recovering from pregnancy and everything like that.

55:40 I used to be able to go hard for 18 hours every day and it was no problem.

55:46 And then we had a really complicated pregnancy, delivery, etc.

55:49 And like I I spent more time on the couch in the last

55:52 year than I've spent on a couch in my entire life cumulatively.

55:56 And boy howdy has it been so hard for me to like pick up and try to start again.

56:03 Figure out.

56:03 Yeah.

56:04 To start again.

56:05 And so if it's hard for you to to start right now, I'm just Yeah.

56:10 It's okay.

56:11 And and yeah, I would expect that it would be.

56:14 Yep.

56:14 Yeah.

56:15 So take heart, be kind and gracious to yourself because I think a lot of us

56:20 who really want to change things for ourselves

56:22 are not very good at being kind to ourselves.

56:24 Yes.

56:24 Absolutely.

56:25 Absolutely.

56:27 Super chat in the comments.

56:28 My channel PC2XY.

56:30 Thank you.

56:31 Could you guys talk about some about how

56:34 you deal with power outages and stored food?

56:37 Did you rewire or just plug into generators?

56:42 You guys answer first.

56:44 Uh, okay.

56:45 So, first of all, uh we talked about our root

56:49 vegetables a little bit that we store in our cold cellar,

56:52 and that's actually one of the reasons why we like relying

56:56 on those foods more than other foods

56:59 is because that doesn't require any electricity.

57:02 The stuff in the cold cellar can just be in the cold cell.

57:05 It doesn't matter what the weather is outside.

57:08 Um and then we do have our freezers for our meat and stuff like that.

57:12 And we have I know what you have and you what

57:14 you have is maybe a little cooler than what we have,

57:16 but what we have um is a gas powered generator that I did the work myself.

57:23 I put a plug on the outside of the house

57:25 that has a wire going to the breaker box and you get what is called a uh darn it

57:32 now I don't remember what it's called but it's just

57:34 like this little metal piece that you put inside

57:37 your breaker box with a big breaker and it just

57:40 makes so you can't have the breaker for the plug

57:43 and your main breaker turned on at the same time.

57:45 So, you have to turn that main breaker off and then you can

57:49 turn the other one on and it lets your generator feed into your house.

57:53 And our generator is big enough that I don't

57:56 think we could like run multiple big things at once,

57:58 but we could easily run our cook stove or run the dryer or whatever.

58:04 And it'll keep our freezers running for sure.

58:06 So, um there's that for the freezers.

58:09 The other thing, um, people have asked about,

58:12 uh, chest freezers versus upright freezers.

58:16 And just as a little bonus, chest freezers will keep food frozen longer.

58:21 So, if there is a power outage,

58:23 you could probably go for up to like

58:25 three days if you don't open those freezers,

58:27 and the stuff in there will probably stay frozen.

58:31 Um, yeah.

58:30 It's just more efficient.

58:32 Yeah.

58:32 Plus, upright freezers are like the idea

58:35 is great because you can see everything,

58:38 but like trying to stack meat that you raised yourself,

58:41 which is not square or like stackable.

58:44 It's very lumpy.

58:46 Great word.

58:46 Slows down.

58:47 I had I can't even tell you how many times I have played pinky toe roulette

58:51 with like going out to the freezer with my bare feet to our one upright freezer,

58:55 opened it, and had like 16 two pound like

58:58 things of bacon fall out right near my toes.

59:01 Oh yes.

59:02 And so yeah, actually I love the idea of an upright freezer,

59:06 but I really don't like the application.

59:09 Function very well.

59:11 Yeah, downright chest freezers are the way to go.

59:13 And the the the thing is that with that, use a FIFO system.

59:17 First in, first out, like just constantly be rotating.

59:21 I keep I I have a a um a dry erase marker that I keep

59:25 on like tied to the freezer and I write on top of the freezer what's in there

59:30 and when it went in so that I like without opening it to look through it

59:35 I know exactly what's in there like how

59:37 many uh pork shoulder roasts I have left,

59:40 how many like uh ribs I have left and all that stuff so that I'm

59:44 not just like creating a you know ever shrinking icicle of death for our food.

59:52 Yeah.

59:54 Yes.

59:53 Um, also canned goods obviously don't need any electricity.

59:57 For our heat, we um would probably be a good

1:00:01 idea to have a wood stove, but we don't.

1:00:02 We have a pellet stove, which does take a little bit of electricity,

1:00:06 but it takes such little electricity.

1:00:08 All it is is running the augur and the fan.

1:00:10 So, a generator will easily keep that going.

1:00:13 And for water, let's say our generator wasn't working and we just needed water.

1:00:18 I actually have a hand pump on top of our well

1:00:22 that it's not going to be a lot of flowing water,

1:00:26 but you could pump it and you can get like it'd be I could

1:00:29 do it to where we could have water for ourselves or for our animals.

1:00:32 So, there's like a few little things we do here and there,

1:00:35 but one thing that we do really stress

1:00:38 um on our channel is not living out of fear.

1:00:42 So, obviously some of that stuff,

1:00:43 some of that preparedness stuff is just necessary.

1:00:46 We live in the country and power power outages happen,

1:00:50 but we're not like we don't have pallets of MREs stashed away in the basement.

1:00:55 We don't have like these massive setups and, you know,

1:00:59 tinfoil hats and all the kind of stuff to like protect

1:01:02 us from anything and everything because it's not based on fear.

1:01:05 It's based on responsibility.

1:01:07 So I think

1:01:08 I think that's actually why we're friends because

1:01:11 [laughter] uh we also are constantly like it's just

1:01:16 a I mean I understand I understand like

1:01:19 there there are many things that that that could

1:01:22 provide a fearful existence in this and and I

1:01:25 think that there's an echo chamber among

1:01:27 many homesteaders and farmers right now of how

1:01:30 things are definitely going to go to crap.

1:01:32 But I also really like to like believe in humanity a little bit more and

1:01:40 like I don't think the grid's going to go down.

1:01:42 If it does, okay, yeah,

1:01:43 our life is going to become a little bit more inconvenient.

1:01:46 But we also kind of know what to do if it does.

1:01:49 And I'm not going to live in fear of that.

1:01:51 I'm going to live today.

1:01:53 Like I think you know you you worry about the worries of today and you

1:01:56 let tomorrow take care of itself because boy howdy there's a lot that we

1:01:59 could be worrying about and that's just going to take energy and and time

1:02:04 and everything and joy away from the life

1:02:06 that we could otherwise be living well.

1:02:09 And if you're homesteading out of this place of like

1:02:12 I have to do this, I have to do this.

1:02:15 Um I know what that feels like actually.

1:02:17 It's kind of like this this panic.

1:02:19 And so when something goes wrong, it's like, oh no.

1:02:22 And you it just it's very hard to be

1:02:24 gracious with yourself when you're doing something out of fear.

1:02:27 And I just found that I'm a far more productive person when

1:02:32 I am working and creating things out of a place of, oh,

1:02:37 I love this lifestyle.

1:02:39 I love feeding my family wholesome food.

1:02:41 love having my bare feet in the soil rather than oh, you know,

1:02:47 the grid might go down, so this potato crop had better happen.

1:02:50 You know, it's just it's grinding versus

1:02:53 just doing something out of I love this.

1:02:56 Yeah.

1:02:56 And we we think that a lot, especially now with our kids, too,

1:03:00 that we would love for them to take

1:03:02 on some of this, at least some of this lifestyle,

1:03:04 even if they don't want to do all of it,

1:03:06 at least some of it, but not because they're scared.

1:03:09 Like we don't want them when they're adults looking back and be like,

1:03:13 you know, our parents were just living in fear and doing all this stuff.

1:03:16 We want we want them to look back and be like that was so much fun.

1:03:20 Like our parents loved, you know,

1:03:22 partnering with the soil, partnering with nature.

1:03:25 Our parents loved living this lifestyle and so we love it too.

1:03:29 So that's part of it, too.

1:03:30 And that question that was asked

1:03:33 pro didn't sound like a question that was fear-based at all.

1:03:35 So, I didn't mean to like throw that person under the bus to ask the question,

1:03:38 but anytime that I think about the power outage stuff and whatever,

1:03:42 it always leads me into thinking about

1:03:44 often what comes, you know, people are asking basing it out of fear.

1:03:48 So, totally this like farming and stuff,

1:03:51 it it's hard enough like already and fear is not a good long-term motivator.

1:03:56 I mean, it can it can help get you going if you're really really

1:04:00 like stuck or something, but long term,

1:04:03 it's just not sustainable to have fear be the thing

1:04:06 that keeps you going because it's not going to keep you going.

1:04:09 Yeah.

1:04:09 Joy will.

1:04:10 Yeah.

1:04:12 Yeah.

1:04:11 And I think too that like um posting about joy

1:04:14 on social media isn't as viral as posting something fearful.

1:04:18 And so I think that a lot of channels true in this economy

1:04:24 I think that a lot of channels I mean you get more clicks

1:04:28 you get more engagement if you say something unexpected or something that's like

1:04:33 whoa what you know oh I have I have to look at that and if

1:04:37 that is somebody's business model you know think about that before you

1:04:44 buy into it buy into it.

1:04:47 Yeah.

1:04:46 Yeah.

1:04:46 Again, this is why we're friends.

1:04:48 Joy, hope is far more valuable, I think, in the long run than fear will ever be.

1:04:56 Can I get an amen in the comments section?

1:04:59 [laughter]

1:05:00 Light up the car.

1:05:01 All right, Adam, let's get this back on track.

1:05:04 In your absence, I really

1:05:05 I don't I don't I don't know what I missed,

1:05:07 but um I put a question up on the screen for you, Michelle.

1:05:11 I don't know if you talked about this, but I'm actually

1:05:14 curious to hear your your answer to this as a new parent.

1:05:19 Well, I mean, first of all, enjoy enjoy your baby.

1:05:22 Honestly, I we waited five years,

1:05:24 then we had our first three really close together.

1:05:27 So, right now, we have a 12year-old, a 10-year-old, and a nineyear-old.

1:05:32 12 11 9 12 11 They'll be 12, 11, 10 here before.

1:05:36 And then we had a 5year gap, and I had another baby.

1:05:39 She's five now.

1:05:41 and I just soaked up everything about her because

1:05:44 I realized what all I missed with my first three.

1:05:47 Um, and part of that you can only soak up so much when you have a one-year-old,

1:05:50 a 2-year-old, and a baby.

1:05:52 So, just saying, but um, I mean, I just worked at nap times.

1:05:59 I had I was a very scheduled person.

1:06:01 This is very controversial, but I had adrenal fatigue super bad.

1:06:06 And if I didn't get my sleep at night,

1:06:08 I just couldn't I I could hardly even exist during the day.

1:06:11 And so I was a very very scheduled person.

1:06:14 I got them up at a certain time and I put them

1:06:17 down for naps and I just really capitalized on the nap time.

1:06:20 I would like if I could um I knew the things that I could do with them

1:06:26 and the things that I could do with um

1:06:29 the things that I could only do without them.

1:06:31 And I was just I just prioritized that little nap time.

1:06:34 I just hammered down.

1:06:36 So, I mean, honestly, that's my biggest tip,

1:06:38 but like there is only so much you can do.

1:06:40 I would take a blanket out to the garden and sometimes

1:06:44 they stayed on the blanket and [laughter] sometimes they didn't.

1:06:47 And I would, you know,

1:06:48 put snacks and stuff on the blanket and hope they stayed on there.

1:06:52 Um, there's just only so I don't know if I

1:06:55 have any better tips than that because babies are babies.

1:06:57 There's a number of women uh especially like on Instagram homesteading

1:07:02 with the babies on their backs or whatever doing all their work and stuff.

1:07:06 Michelle had back issues and she couldn't do that.

1:07:08 It's just not not she wasn't that kind of girl.

1:07:11 So,

1:07:11 well, and I also felt like if I had the baby on me,

1:07:15 I worked slower and so it was actually faster for me

1:07:18 to actually put the baby down for a nap and hammer down.

1:07:22 I got just as much work done that way as if I had the baby on me the entire day.

1:07:26 And I'm also a bit of an introvert and I get like over stimulated

1:07:30 so I WAS JUST LIKE AH I can't [laughter] I can't be touched all day.

1:07:36 So I don't I I don't know just be gracious with yourself is my best advice.

1:07:40 And I think you already like you knew

1:07:42 yourself well enough that you downsized like right

1:07:46 you knew that you're going to need to take

1:07:47 a little break and I think that was really really wise.

1:07:50 I will be publicly honest and tell everyone that even though we downsized,

1:07:55 I did especially in like the throws

1:07:57 of postpartum really really struggle with like

1:08:00 like the identity loss, like the independence loss and like other things.

1:08:04 Again, we wanted this so bad that I think that there's half

1:08:07 of us that are really good at uh really good at enjoying him.

1:08:12 Um because we know what it was like to not have him.

1:08:16 Yes.

1:08:16 And how painful and hard and everything that was.

1:08:19 But also on the other on the other side of it too,

1:08:23 we had 12 years without kids and we

1:08:27 both like got really independent during that time.

1:08:30 And me especially like I'm used to just being

1:08:32 able to like pop out and hop on the tractor.

1:08:36 Yeah.

1:08:36 Like do what needs to be done in an emergency situation.

1:08:39 And so it's not like I've never resented him.

1:08:42 Like and I I I do genuinely believe that like

1:08:45 in if we'd been able to have kids much younger,

1:08:48 I would have probably had a much harder time with this than

1:08:50 I do now because truly even the hardest things I'm like,

1:08:53 you know what, this is actually like as hard as this is, it's kind of great.

1:08:57 But

1:08:59 but you know that's again after like many many struggles to get here.

1:09:03 But the thing is that as prepared as I thought I was,

1:09:07 I also have like for anyone who's here who's like,

1:09:11 "Oh my gosh, you're still doing so much." I'm like,

1:09:13 "Trust me, not it doesn't feel like it, right?"

1:09:17 And I laugh about your blanket because actually

1:09:20 Adam is the mother hen in this relationship

1:09:22 and he's very good at like kind of reeling me in when it comes to like, "Well,

1:09:28 maybe don't do that with him." But like I

1:09:30 literally put him like we were out in the garden

1:09:32 the other day and I put him out on like

1:09:34 a piece of cardboard and he like kind of rolled off.

1:09:38 No.

1:09:38 I was like what's the worst that could happen?

1:09:40 Like he's in

1:09:41 he's grounding.

1:09:42 [laughter] We're in it.

1:09:43 He's working on it.

1:09:44 It's great.

1:09:47 Yeah.

1:09:46 Anyway, so

1:09:47 another thing I will say that I did and like now everyone says,

1:09:51 "Oh, this is so bad for a baby's build,

1:09:54 whatever." But I had a bumbo seat and my kids loved to be

1:09:58 sitting up in the bumbo seat and they couldn't get out but I

1:10:00 would put stuff on the tray and I could really get things

1:10:03 done while they were sitting in their seat and but yeah is that

1:10:10 oh yeah we yeah there's another controversial little thing that like listen

1:10:14 I am a fully confident able adult the elf at this point.

1:10:20 Who knows if my spine was shrunk by this thing

1:10:23 but like seats that like you can run around.

1:10:26 Like Alexander wants he is the most active baby I've ever seen in my life.

1:10:29 Like he and when I was pregnant he like

1:10:31 we started feeling him on the outside at 14 weeks

1:10:34 because he never stops moving or kicking and it's

1:10:38 the same on the outside as it was on the inside.

1:10:40 So he wants to be moving even though he can't actually walk.

1:10:42 So we got him one of those little

1:10:44 scootery thing seats and it's like you know whatever.

1:10:47 All that to say, [snorts] uh, I showed yesterday on Instagram my little wagons,

1:10:52 my wagon situation that I have for him,

1:10:54 and that's it's got a piece of firewood that's

1:10:56 a brake and a blanket and a bunch of his toys

1:10:59 and I get to like pull him around and he

1:11:01 does the stuff and it's it's been a real game changer.

1:11:04 So,

1:11:05 yes.

1:11:05 Yes.

1:11:06 Anyway, yes, thank you for asking that question.

1:11:08 Love it.

1:11:09 And [snorts] also, thank you.

1:11:10 I mean, this is actually why the timing of visiting Cody and Michelle

1:11:13 and making the video we did was so impactful for us because

1:11:18 we have seen and admired how they've chosen to do life differently

1:11:22 with their kids and involve their kids in life instead of just being like,

1:11:27 you know what, this is separate.

1:11:29 Yeah.

1:11:30 Um because that is [snorts] I mean the only reason

1:11:33 we left tech and work together as hard as it is.

1:11:38 I mean are working together as spouses fun Michelle and Cody?

1:11:41 Is it is it great?

1:11:42 Is it the dream that everyone hoped it would be?

1:11:45 It is the dream.

1:11:47 Um, nobody says it's not a nightmare sometimes, but [laughter]

1:11:53 this is what we spent I think most of the time we were

1:11:55 when we were together talking about is is that it is a dream.

1:12:00 It is

1:12:00 and we're thankful for the dream and it's also it takes a lot of work.

1:12:03 It's a nightmare.

1:12:05 [laughter]

1:12:06 So, we tolerate though that though because it's

1:12:09 like what are we doing for our family?

1:12:11 And this comes back to

1:12:13 yeah what like why are we doing what we're doing?

1:12:16 Are we comparing it to other people or are

1:12:18 we comparing it to what we want for our family?

1:12:24 Totally.

1:12:23 I think this is a really good question and and if you've

1:12:27 already covered this in the brief moment I was out of the room.

1:12:30 I apologize.

1:12:31 I love that question.

1:12:32 Um but I think that this is a very practical question for people who maybe

1:12:36 watched the video and want to know well okay what's like the first thing I do?

1:12:42 This is all you Michelle.

1:12:43 [laughter] So I think it's hard to lean back that far.

1:12:49 Well, I think though what they're saying the way

1:12:53 I took the way I'm taking this question is what are the first steps to having

1:12:58 a garden that actually will feed your family rather than just

1:13:01 rather than just a regular garden.

1:13:03 I think it's just like pairing

1:13:06 everything down to the absolute necessities first.

1:13:10 Like what are your I call them staple crops.

1:13:13 My staple crops are white potatoes, number one,

1:13:16 sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash, and onions.

1:13:19 And if I have those five crops,

1:13:22 I can I can make a massive dent in my in feeding my family over the winter time.

1:13:29 Yeah.

1:13:29 And so when I'm planting my garden,

1:13:32 I the first thing I do is I get a piece of paper and I make

1:13:35 sure that I have the space blocked out for as much of those crops as I want.

1:13:43 And then after I have that established and then I will

1:13:46 start going and finding other things to fill in the gaps.

1:13:50 Like that to me is the number one thing.

1:13:53 Um, like I said before,

1:13:55 you can have a raised bed of lettuce or a raised bed of white potatoes.

1:14:00 Which of those is going to give you the biggest bang for your buck,

1:14:03 the biggest return for what you are putting in?

1:14:06 For a while, I didn't grow like when I had babies, I didn't grow flowers.

1:14:10 I didn't grow herbs.

1:14:11 I grew nothing except like the basics.

1:14:16 But back up a little bit when we were first like getting started.

1:14:20 Me, I think me especially,

1:14:21 I was just I was like looking at these seed cataloges and I was so excited

1:14:26 about all the different things we could grow and so

1:14:29 we were just trying to grow all these different things

1:14:32 but then we just didn't do very well.

1:14:33 Yeah.

1:14:33 Like I would grow Swiss chard tastes like dirt.

1:14:36 Nobody likes it.

1:14:37 Thank you.

1:14:37 Thank you.

1:14:39 I I mean whenever I say that people are like I like it.

1:14:41 I'm like okay if you like it fine.

1:14:43 But um I was growing Swiss chard one year.

1:14:46 I grew like grocery bags full of turnipss because I was like, "Man,

1:14:49 these things are so easy to grow." And you can it's like a root crop

1:14:54 that you can store in a refrigerator just

1:14:56 like a carrot and they'll last for months.

1:14:58 But we didn't like them.

1:14:59 Well, okay.

1:15:00 So, to be fair with that, if you do like turnup,

1:15:03 it was his idea, so he's defending it.

1:15:05 No, if you do like turnipss,

1:15:07 that would actually be a good thing to grow to feed your family.

1:15:12 True.

1:15:11 But we just don't like turnipss.

1:15:12 So, wait, I have a quick follow-up question.

1:15:15 Is the reason that you like turnups

1:15:17 because they're cooked in bacon grease with garlic?

1:15:19 Because that's the reason that everyone tells me I should like shard.

1:15:23 That's like the number one comment on.

1:15:24 Here's the thing.

1:15:25 Bacon grease and garlic are delicious.

1:15:28 And if you cook what if you cook something

1:15:31 else that already is delicious in bacon and garlic, I will say delicious.

1:15:37 I do I do love a sliced raw turnup,

1:15:41 but you can't like you can't put turnups in all.

1:15:44 You can't you can only do so much with a turnup.

1:15:47 So,

1:15:47 I don't know about that either.

1:15:48 I mean, I have you can make like mashed turnipss like mashed potatoes.

1:15:52 You could add

1:15:53 Why would you make mashed potatoes?

1:15:54 [laughter]

1:15:56 Preach preach.

1:15:58 I'm just saying some people do have Okay.

1:16:00 Like some people have the um what is it?

1:16:02 Colorado potato beetles that are like super bad,

1:16:05 like wipe out their crops of potatoes and stuff.

1:16:07 We don't have that problem.

1:16:08 So, if you had that problem and you like turnipss, you could plant turnipss.

1:16:12 Point being, one of the first steps towards a garden that feeds

1:16:16 your family is growing something that you can grow that will store easily,

1:16:22 that takes as little work as possible, like storing a potato or a turnup.

1:16:26 takes very little work compared to um like shelling peas

1:16:30 and frozen them or like blanching certain things or whatever.

1:16:34 So something that's easy to grow and that's

1:16:36 something that's going to vary with your zone.

1:16:39 Um that's a huge thing.

1:16:40 So just don't just look at my garden and be like, "Okay,

1:16:42 I'm going to do exactly what she's

1:16:44 saying because sweet potatoes in certain zones don't

1:16:46 grow very well." So choose what works

1:16:49 really good for your local for your climate.

1:16:52 And then kind of the way I chose my staple crops is

1:16:55 it has to be relatively easy to grow, not too many pests.

1:16:59 It needs to be very filling and nutritious

1:17:02 and um it needs to be very simple to preserve.

1:17:06 I need to be able to grow like hundreds of pounds of it.

1:17:09 And it has to be something versatile that you really like.

1:17:12 So I just went through my garden.

1:17:14 This only I mean I'm embarrassed to say I grew

1:17:17 Swiss chard every single year for probably six solid years.

1:17:21 And all of a sudden it kind of kicked me in the butt.

1:17:23 I was like, why am I growing this because it stresses me out to cook it.

1:17:28 And I also used to grow spaghetti squash.

1:17:30 And I was the only one who liked it.

1:17:32 And so spaghetti once a week I had to fight my family to eat

1:17:37 the spaghetti squash because it was easy to grow and it stored well.

1:17:42 And so I ended up giving that up.

1:17:44 So just grow food that your family likes.

1:17:47 That sounds super um obvious, but it's like not obvious,

1:17:52 but it's lifech changing.

1:17:53 Yeah, it's not obvious because I think that there's again this comes back

1:17:57 to like the the social media and like having having people

1:18:01 to look at that are growing things well like the reason

1:18:04 squish chard not to like really really just dry this one out,

1:18:07 but the reason it grows so well is because pests

1:18:09 don't eat it because it tastes like crap to them too.

1:18:12 And the reality is like even turnipss in this environment like all

1:18:17 the like uh the the shoot I've like the little black beetles

1:18:23 that eat everything really early in the early in the season love

1:18:26 turnipss and so here turnipss ironically this is the great climate for them.

1:18:30 This is where they should grow really well but they're really hard to grow

1:18:33 early in the season because um those little black beetles get them really early.

1:18:38 And then similarly we're in a warmer climate than you.

1:18:41 So, actually growing regular potatoes here is way

1:18:45 harder than it was when we lived in Seattle,

1:18:48 but growing sweet potatoes is so easy here.

1:18:51 And so, again, just like thinking like I

1:18:54 just I love um your five like categories

1:18:58 for what makes it a good crop to grow for your family that you like it,

1:19:02 that it's easy to grow, that it's easy to store,

1:19:04 and forgive me, I forgot the last two, but and then just grow that stuff.

1:19:10 Yes.

1:19:10 Then once you get good at that stuff,

1:19:13 add things,

1:19:14 add some more stuff in.

1:19:15 But yeah, if you try to grow it all at once, that's where you'll struggle.

1:19:19 Frustrated

1:19:21 and then you you'll want to give up on it or be like, I can't do this.

1:19:23 But you can.

1:19:25 Yeah.

1:19:25 The other thing that really hit me when I was at your guys's

1:19:28 farm was that when you like when we were walking through your garden,

1:19:33 like I grow my garden very differently than

1:19:35 you and for different reasons because like we have

1:19:37 a like our my dairy partner who I

1:19:40 my like our business is dairy and my dairy partner,

1:19:43 her husband has a CSA, so we don't have to grow a ton of vegetables,

1:19:46 but what I do in our garden at home is I grow a a picking garden.

1:19:52 So, like every night we just pick what's fresh for dinner.

1:19:55 But when I was talking to you about that and time management specifically,

1:20:00 it really hit me that like one of the reasons

1:20:03 that your [clears throat] life works the way that it does with kids,

1:20:06 with homeschooling, with everything that you're doing is

1:20:09 that you are not you're not growing a picking garden.

1:20:13 You're not for half an hour for dinner every day.

1:20:18 And though that is like a personal soothing fun thing for me to do

1:20:23 in a season like what we're currently

1:20:25 going through as we've all experienced together tonight.

1:20:28 [snorts] Um it's not sustainable for me to spend a half

1:20:32 an hour harvesting the freshest goodest things for dinner tonight.

1:20:36 It's like we're lucky if we can [laughter] pull something out, grab it,

1:20:42 and run up to the house and cook it before we all fall asleep.

1:20:45 Right.

1:20:46 And that was the thing that really really stuck with me

1:20:49 from from like watching you do your thing at home

1:20:52 was that you were not like you're not growing shard

1:20:55 so you can pick a beautiful shard salad for dinner.

1:20:59 You're growing the things that are the biggest bang for the buck calorically.

1:21:04 That's like calorie dense things that also your family loves to eat.

1:21:08 That's easy.

1:21:09 And I love that.

1:21:11 Yeah.

1:21:11 Absolutely.

1:21:13 Yep.

1:21:13 All right, Adam, get us back on track.

1:21:15 Where's our question?

1:21:15 Where are we with our questions that we had?

1:21:17 So, we have another super chat super chat from Lizra Realm.

1:21:23 Michelle and Cody, what was your biggest takeaway from container gardening?

1:21:27 Anything you would or would not.

1:21:28 [laughter] So, the container garden really threw me for a loop.

1:21:34 I thought I was going to be great at it.

1:21:35 I really did.

1:21:36 I was like, how hard can this be?

1:21:38 Um, but number one, my porch was very shady.

1:21:41 So my biggest takeaway is if you basically find

1:21:47 a very good fertile soil for your container garden.

1:21:51 Um I I way underfertilized.

1:21:54 Basically when you are watering those containers,

1:21:58 the water drains out the bottom and it just pulls nutrients straight out.

1:22:02 And so I was trying to treat my container garden like I treat

1:22:05 my ingground garden with like no fertilizing and stuff and it did not work.

1:22:10 So everything stayed really small.

1:22:12 I got almost no yield from it.

1:22:14 The only thing that really grew well was lettuce.

1:22:17 Um which that did well.

1:22:20 It was actually kind of cool for the lettuce because we don't grow

1:22:24 lettuce in the main garden in the summer because it just gets bitter too hot.

1:22:27 Yeah.

1:22:28 But then we could have some fresh

1:22:29 salads that were nice from the container garden.

1:22:31 That was cool.

1:22:32 I really enjoyed it.

1:22:33 I enjoyed teed pretty well.

1:22:36 But make sure that you're getting adequate sunshine.

1:22:38 That's a really big deal for container garden.

1:22:40 They need everything they can get and fertilize big time.

1:22:45 So, side note, one of my very favorite comments that we've

1:22:49 ever gotten on our YouTube channel was somebody that was

1:22:53 saying that they live in an apartment and all they

1:22:57 have like they don't have anywhere to grow and there

1:22:59 I guess they might have like a little balcony

1:23:01 but it's um shaded and so they put their plants

1:23:04 in a wagon and every day they pull their plants out

1:23:07 into the sun and then they pull them back in later.

1:23:10 And I just thought that was so cool.

1:23:11 It's just like dedication blew it out of the water.

1:23:14 for those comments that are like, "I can't do this.

1:23:16 How do you know whatever?" Like that person was doing it.

1:23:19 Yes.

1:23:19 Like they were making it happen.

1:23:20 That's that's like if you want to, you will.

1:23:23 Yep.

1:23:23 And I love it because the reality is that's

1:23:26 [clears throat] like one of the things that frustrates me

1:23:28 the most about like online comments because I read every

1:23:31 single one is like all the reasons why we can't.

1:23:37 And like the thing is that if you're focused on why you can't, you're right.

1:23:40 But if you're also focused on why you can, you're also right.

1:23:44 Yes.

1:23:46 Yes.

1:23:45 And Yeah.

1:23:46 That's a big thing.

1:23:47 Yes.

1:23:48 So, just to be clear, I loved the container gardening.

1:23:50 It was a very fun experiment.

1:23:52 I think coming from the the size and the yield of a garden um that I do,

1:24:00 I felt like I was doing nothing because I mean,

1:24:03 I would pick like a little head of broccoli and I was like,

1:24:06 "What's this going to do for me?" I mean, that's me being very honest,

1:24:10 but if I was living in an apartment or something, it would absolutely

1:24:16 do me so much good, but if you're going to do it,

1:24:19 you have to fertilize and fertilize weekly.

1:24:21 Towards the end of the season, I started fertilizing every single week.

1:24:25 And all of a sudden, my stuff, my um greens were growing beautifully.

1:24:30 So, just be sure to choose um crops that also

1:24:34 do well in the amount of clarifying question there.

1:24:39 What do you mean by fertilize?

1:24:42 So, I mean like actual fertilizer.

1:24:44 I tried worm castings.

1:24:46 I tried all kinds of stuff and the only thing that worked

1:24:50 was a it was an organic fertilizer that I got at a greenhouse.

1:24:54 Um the owner told me, "This is a really good one.

1:24:57 Just use this." And it changed everything.

1:25:00 And I kind of just feel like it needs

1:25:01 this extra punch because I watered it every day.

1:25:05 So every single day you have water running through the soil and down

1:25:09 out the bottom out of the drain holes and it just pulls everything out.

1:25:12 So and you have to water it more often because it dries out a lot faster.

1:25:15 Yeah.

1:25:16 It's just a whole different animal.

1:25:20 Yeah.

1:25:19 Quick devil's advocate on that

1:25:23 if like in theory compost like good quality compost.

1:25:28 Compost is water insoluble.

1:25:30 So it like the nutrients from com from good

1:25:32 compost don't run out the way that uh like that fertilizer does.

1:25:38 Fertilizer is water soluble.

1:25:39 So, if you are on a massive budget and you're trying to do this stuff, okay,

1:25:46 you don't want to fertilize and those things,

1:25:48 the best bang for your buck is actually just

1:25:50 to spend a little bit of time learning how to compost

1:25:53 really well and then spending $30 on a soil test

1:25:57 to find out exactly where you're at with your compost.

1:26:00 And like I think for like for me even te I never thought to test

1:26:05 my compost until the last two years when I really got into like soil stuff.

1:26:10 But the thing is that when you're adding

1:26:13 like a fertilizer like man-made or any kind

1:26:16 of synthetic things even if it's organic all

1:26:18 that stuff is going to be water soluble.

1:26:20 So when you're when you're container gardening that's going to wash right out.

1:26:24 Whereas, if you have compost that is well balanced that you

1:26:28 can use as your planting medium to begin with, it's water insoluble.

1:26:32 So, it's not those nutrients aren't going to run away as quickly.

1:26:35 And so, that's my devil's advocate thing.

1:26:37 And I will just say that like I don't do a ton of container gardening,

1:26:41 but I have done like a bit this year literally just because I'm like

1:26:46 the garden that has thrived [snorts] the most mid

1:26:49 baby is the like tiny little thing that I

1:26:52 built in packing containers on our front porch so

1:26:54 that I can like walk out and grab it.

1:26:56 And the only reason that it has done as well

1:26:59 as it has is that this we're like five years

1:27:01 in on me adding like like these are Home Depot

1:27:06 packing boxes with like really really good soil in it.

1:27:09 And in that container situation like the nutrients

1:27:14 in theory at least don't wash away as much.

1:27:17 Interesting.

1:27:17 That's such a great perspective.

1:27:18 I mean I've done like no research.

1:27:20 I didn't actually even put our compost in it.

1:27:23 I just got this like brand new soil from the greenhouse

1:27:28 that I was told was like really good and [clears throat]

1:27:31 and I mean surely it is.

1:27:32 I mean that's and like just to like for everyone watching like

1:27:35 in a moment of encouragement if that's what you're starting with like great.

1:27:39 It's literally just like understand the science too that's going into that.

1:27:43 They've created a product that they can sell and then you can buy it but just

1:27:48 know what you're know what you're putting into it.

1:27:50 So, it's worth probably the $30 and the like, you know,

1:27:54 30 hours of experimenting with compost to add to that.

1:27:59 And season after season, what are we trying to do?

1:28:02 We're trying to learn a lesson that we take into next season's growing

1:28:05 because like if you're just doing it for this year and it's like,

1:28:08 well, this year was a total fail, right?

1:28:10 I'm never going to do it again.

1:28:12 Well, we none of us here,

1:28:14 how how good were you at growing cucumbers the first year you tried?

1:28:17 like how good were you at like you know whatever it is like I sucked at growing

1:28:21 most of the stuff that I grow now aside

1:28:23 from shard it somehow grows really well every year yeah [gasps]

1:28:29 there's a a channel on YouTube called become becoming a farm

1:28:32 girl and she does a lot of container gardening on her porch

1:28:36 she is really good at it and she has a really good

1:28:39 channel so for people who are interested in container gardening [clears throat]

1:28:42 that's a really good channel to go to and so yeah

1:28:45 I would say it's one of those things that I For Michelle,

1:28:48 it was just extra disappointing because she's used to growing out in her garden.

1:28:53 She's worked on that soil for 10 years now and we get so much out of it.

1:28:58 And so she got this little stuff out of these containers and it was like,

1:29:02 well, this wasn't worth it.

1:29:03 But totally, if you're in a situation where you can't have the big garden,

1:29:08 you have the containers, it would be totally worth it.

1:29:11 Learn how to do it well.

1:29:12 Yeah.

1:29:12 And be something you could learn and grow.

1:29:14 100%.

1:29:16 Yeah.

1:29:15 Yes.

1:29:15 So, one of the main themes of the video

1:29:18 was talking about cold storage and so and we got

1:29:21 a lot of comments on the on the YouTube

1:29:23 video um about a lot of questions about cold storage.

1:29:27 Um and so one of the questions I wanted to highlight was what

1:29:31 can we easily do for cold storage in Tennessee where we don't have basements.

1:29:35 So Tennessee, a lot of the south don't have basements.

1:29:39 Just not like not a good idea to build a basement in this kind of climate.

1:29:43 So, what kind of advice I guess do you have

1:29:46 for for that if you weren't able to uh do it without a basement?

1:29:51 Well, it seems like maybe you should answer that question.

1:29:54 [laughter]

1:29:56 Uh I saw a really cool thing the other day that is probably totally impractical,

1:30:02 but um you know, you could put a regular like root seller in the ground.

1:30:06 You can buy these pods,

1:30:07 these root seller pods that are like over in Switzerland or something.

1:30:11 So, it it costs like tons of money to get them over here.

1:30:13 I don't even know how available they are, but you could get one of those.

1:30:16 I thought they were so cool.

1:30:17 You just like bury it in the ground and you have an instant root seller.

1:30:20 So, why is it that they don't do basement?

1:30:22 Is it because like I think it's because of water.

1:30:26 Water info.

1:30:27 Well, so then would a root seller actually work?

1:30:29 Like, would a real deal root seller work?

1:30:31 So, here's the thing.

1:30:32 Our our neighbors Tyler and Eric um

1:30:35 they recommend just like they're legit farmers.

1:30:39 I mean, these are the people that we like I do the dairy business with them

1:30:42 so we can trade for their veggies so we can get our milk and etc.

1:30:46 But they are like just bury they're like just bury a freezer

1:30:53 like bury a broken freezer.

1:30:55 And in in Tennessee, that's actually like I mean,

1:30:58 it's a three-day project probably to just literally dig and bury a a freezer,

1:31:05 but you can get them on Facebook

1:31:07 Marketplace for free constantly because people are like,

1:31:09 "What do we do with a dead freezer?" And that's it's already insulated,

1:31:14 everything like that.

1:31:15 So, I mean that's that's like you can also do other things like you

1:31:19 know put it in hay like put it in whatever but like the reality

1:31:25 is if you can if you can get it like the point of a root

1:31:31 seller is that you get it down to the like down in the ground.

1:31:34 And hilariously, even in our video we did together,

1:31:37 I said a misnomer, which is not even true.

1:31:39 But here, our frost point is 18 inches below the ground because

1:31:44 we just like we have a very low frost point, high frost point.

1:31:48 Anyway, so here you only have to bury things 18 inches till

1:31:53 where like the ground is kind of at an equilibrium for temperature.

1:31:56 And for most storage crops 18 inches down here in Tennessee because that is

1:32:02 a specific Tennessee question is uh yeah I would say bury a freezer.

1:32:11 I have heard of doing that.

1:32:12 Um and it would work for like we wouldn't be able to we'd

1:32:16 have to bury a lot of freezers for all the food that we store.

1:32:18 [clears throat] So, [laughter]

1:32:20 but I've also been I would also be a little worried of like

1:32:24 a kid like getting in it and the door getting closed or something

1:32:28 down at ground level.

1:32:29 You just have to be really really careful and you

1:32:31 have to have a lock on it or something.

1:32:33 But the other thing that you can do is you don't

1:32:36 have to have a basement to have a cold room either, right?

1:32:40 To have a completely off-grid cold room.

1:32:42 Yes.

1:32:43 But um I know a fellow, you guys might know who he is actually, Noah Sanders.

1:32:48 He lives in Alabama.

1:32:50 He's written some books and stuff like that.

1:32:52 He's a market gardener and they built a cold room and they just like built

1:32:56 this super insulated room and then they used an air conditioner and a cool bot.

1:33:01 And our our basement actually um our cold room is not even

1:33:08 like we call it a cold room because it's not a root seller.

1:33:11 So, it's not even in the ground like a root cellar is supposed to be.

1:33:15 It's got two of the walls are against the dirt,

1:33:18 but then the other two walls are just walls I built in our basement.

1:33:22 And so, we actually do have a hard time

1:33:25 getting it as cold as we want to sometimes

1:33:28 but it does [clears throat] stay cold enough.

1:33:30 But you could do that in a garage or anything.

1:33:32 just build a super insulated room and then you put an air conditioner

1:33:36 in it and you can get these things called a coolbot that makes so

1:33:39 the air conditioner runs and keeps it it's like it basically makes a big

1:33:42 walk-in cooler and from what I've heard it's not that expensive to run.

1:33:48 Yeah, that was a question we got a ton in the comment section of that video.

1:33:51 But the reality is like for anyone who's never heard of a Coolbot,

1:33:55 um my like one of my mentors in in Washington had a like cheese seller that was

1:34:03 run with a cool bot and he was like it cost me $8 a month to run it.

1:34:07 Wow.

1:34:08 and and and even here, our dairy room,

1:34:11 which is in a very poorly insulated barn and everything,

1:34:15 but because we just very carefully insulated the dairy room specifically,

1:34:20 um we're able to keep it very very well

1:34:23 like like at the proper temperature to make sure

1:34:25 that our milk is safe and everything else for like

1:34:28 again it's like I think it costs like $18 a month.

1:34:32 Yeah.

1:34:32 And that's you know two two gallons of milk that we sell covers that cost.

1:34:36 So, like, yes, you know, for anyone who's never heard of the the Coolbot,

1:34:41 it it sounds much more um tech techsavvy

1:34:45 than maybe someone like me would know about,

1:34:47 but it literally is just a really cheap window

1:34:50 air conditioner with a little thing you plug into it,

1:34:55 and Adam would have to be the one who helps me plug it in and does the things.

1:34:58 Yeah.

1:34:59 And you would actually like somebody who's

1:35:00 doing that would actually have an advantage

1:35:02 over us because um I can't I think I did some people did say

1:35:07 I think you can maybe use a mini split with a coolbot but like

1:35:10 our cold room in the basement I can't put a window unit in there.

1:35:14 So like I can't even use a cool bot down there

1:35:16 unless I'd find some kind of mini split that would work.

1:35:19 So, somebody who has a room in there, and like I said,

1:35:22 we sometimes have problems getting it cold enough in there,

1:35:25 but if you were building a cold room specifically,

1:35:28 like in your garage or something,

1:35:29 you could put that window unit in there really easily and make it work.

1:35:35 Totally.

1:35:34 Sweet.

1:35:35 Um, I want to be respectful of you guys' time

1:35:37 because you're in Eastern time and we're in central time somehow,

1:35:41 even though you're like right above us.

1:35:43 [snorts and laughter] The crow flies directly north.

1:35:47 Um, so I'll just do one more question and then

1:35:49 we'll announce the winners for the uh the Redmond Redmond giveaway.

1:35:54 Um, so Herbal Mermaid, great username.

1:35:58 [clears throat] Uh, when freezing veggies,

1:36:00 do you need to blanch it first or just put it in a freezer bag?

1:36:05 Do you want me to answer that?

1:36:07 Yes, please.

1:36:08 You're the carrot expert here.

1:36:09 We get our carrots from uh Tyler's husband.

1:36:12 Yeah.

1:36:12 Yeah.

1:36:12 So, um, so I assume you mean

1:36:15 like freezing vegetables like broccoli and sweet corn.

1:36:20 So, it just depends.

1:36:21 Like sweet corn, we blanch it first.

1:36:24 I do have people say you don't have to.

1:36:26 My mom always did growing up.

1:36:28 We blanched it on the cob and then we cut it off.

1:36:30 So, I blanched sweet corn.

1:36:32 I blanched broccoli.

1:36:33 You for sure have to blanch broccoli.

1:36:34 If you just throw raw broccoli in the freezer, it's going to be a disgusting.

1:36:39 It's going to be rubbery and gross.

1:36:41 Um, green beans, you have to blanch those before you freeze them.

1:36:45 Um, I'm trying to think what other vegetables are there.

1:36:48 Peppers, you don't have to.

1:36:50 Kale, you don't have to.

1:36:51 Like, I um chop and freeze kale.

1:36:54 We use kale for one soup.

1:36:56 Um, and I freeze that in little baggies without it.

1:37:03 Say what?

1:37:04 Spinach.

1:37:04 You don't have to.

1:37:06 Okay.

1:37:06 I never freeze spinach, but no, you wouldn't have to freeze that.

1:37:08 I don't see any point in freezing spinach.

1:37:10 Our family doesn't like spinach either.

1:37:14 We [laughter] love spinach.

1:37:15 I eat like I mean well let's be honest.

1:37:17 My cows eat like 90% of my vegetables and turn them into ribe eyes.

1:37:21 But I do love a good spinach in my smoothie.

1:37:26 Uh yes.

1:37:27 I'm trying to think of other vegetables.

1:37:29 Um peppers.

1:37:30 You don't have to blanch those.

1:37:32 So it just depends.

1:37:33 It just depends.

1:37:35 Yeah.

1:37:35 Carrots.

1:37:36 You would definitely have to freeze carrots.

1:37:37 Almost any blanch me.

1:37:39 What did I say?

1:37:40 You said freeze, but if you're freezing, you would blanch them.

1:37:43 Yeah.

1:37:43 Okay.

1:37:44 But most veggies are best if they are blanched first.

1:37:49 So, and by blanched, we mean a very light boil before putting it in the freezer.

1:37:55 Yes.

1:37:55 Yep.

1:37:57 Uh question for you, Ann, that I saw in the comments earlier.

1:38:00 Somebody asked what you're drinking, and I wanted to know, too.

1:38:03 It looks like coffee.

1:38:05 I was right.

1:38:05 Yeah, I love coffee.

1:38:07 Also, for anyone who's like curious about it,

1:38:11 I drink more like coffee calms me down.

1:38:15 Some people it like hypes them up,

1:38:17 but coffee is like the thing that keeps me not

1:38:22 although Adam actually did tell me that I was yelling earlier.

1:38:26 [laughter] You're not supposed to tell them that.

1:38:30 Well, like listen, my parents started giving me coffee when I was

1:38:34 three years old because it was like the only thing that would like

1:38:38 So that's why you are the way you are.

1:38:39 [laughter] It is the way that I am.

1:38:41 I I wish I was different,

1:38:43 but like also I am the way that I am and I'm 37 years old.

1:38:46 I think that was that was a great opportunity to transition

1:38:50 to segue into Redmond and I think you totally missed it.

1:38:54 Oh, darn.

1:38:56 Okay.

1:38:56 [laughter] Shoot.

1:38:58 [clears throat] I we really miss the boat.

1:39:00 Let me just tell you while we're here [laughter] Redmond.

1:39:06 All of us here all all of us.

1:39:08 Let me just reach to the prop [laughter] the right part of

1:39:12 Why don't you do that while I find who the winner is?

1:39:14 Let me reach to the proper part of the screen

1:39:16 and say that all of us here love Redmond.

1:39:18 the like Redmond makes at least for us making

1:39:23 videos for free for you to watch like possible

1:39:28 and we love every Redmond product.

1:39:30 We use it all.

1:39:32 They just released this is actually very exciting for me specifically who's

1:39:36 been brushing my teeth with bentonite clay which is very like effective.

1:39:42 But they just released a new product called Leaf,

1:39:45 which is like more toothpaste that regular humans are used to using.

1:39:50 Highly recommend it because it's it's the same

1:39:53 product that keeps these pearly pearlies pearly.

1:39:56 This is the funniest like [laughter] sponsor.

1:40:00 This is very ad.

1:40:02 This is what happens when you give me like no warning.

1:40:06 But I'm just telling you,

1:40:07 they just released a new toothpaste that's actually more

1:40:10 toothpasty than just dipping your Sorry, this this side.

1:40:15 Dipping your toothpaste.

1:40:16 That could be their slogan.

1:40:17 More toothpaste.

1:40:18 More toothpasty.

1:40:20 Anyway, but not just that.

1:40:22 I will say that um as a breastfeeding mom,

1:40:25 I staying hydrated is extremely important.

1:40:28 And because I have the taste buds of a three-year-old,

1:40:33 I'm drinking their [laughter] Redmond grape relight for kids.

1:40:38 For kids.

1:40:40 I thought I already clarified that, but here we are.

1:40:43 I mean, listen.

1:40:44 Uh, also I'll make the bold claim

1:40:47 that that like I've watched my animals get healthy

1:40:51 on the right kinds of mineral salts for so

1:40:54 long that after 13 years of struggling with infertility,

1:40:59 I gave myself a little selenium salt lick

1:41:01 and boy howdy were we pregnant three months later.

1:41:06 Wow.

1:41:05 Uh, yeah, we love Redmond here.

1:41:07 We've been giving away uh though we

1:41:09 actually haven't actually given away any gift certificates,

1:41:13 but if you've been comment about, yes, we've been selecting comments.

1:41:17 We I say collectively because I don't even know how to read on here,

1:41:21 but uh collectively we have been giving away gift certificates.

1:41:24 We'll announce the winners.

1:41:26 We love Redmond so much.

1:41:28 Uh great company, great people, absolutely better product.

1:41:32 If you're afraid of eating salt because it's not good for you,

1:41:36 that's a lie from the pit of hell.

1:41:38 [snorts] Good salt comes from the pit.

1:41:41 There's just like slogans just coming out left and right.

1:41:44 [laughter] If only we had a t-shirt company and if only

1:41:48 I could execute on any of these [laughter] ideas ever.

1:41:51 Um, Redmond, feel free to just use these.

1:41:54 I'm sure they're taking notes.

1:41:55 I don't.

1:41:57 [laughter] But anyway, um

1:41:59 the like one other just like really funny thing that we talked about.

1:42:03 Sorry, wrong way again.

1:42:06 We did Where?

1:42:07 How do I get this to like look like I'm looking at you?

1:42:10 Talked about that.

1:42:12 We all have been using Redmond salt without

1:42:15 really knowing it's a thing for many, many years.

1:42:18 Years.

1:42:19 I think for us it's been like what 13 years

1:42:21 for you, but for me it was ever since I was a kid.

1:42:24 My my dad was a health nut.

1:42:27 Like we were going to health food stores before health food stores were cool.

1:42:32 I remember eating like for a while.

1:42:34 Like he was super health nut for a while.

1:42:37 Then he kind of like mellowed out after a while, but for a little while.

1:42:41 And I just remember like our version of dessert

1:42:43 for a while was little sesame seed candies.

1:42:47 [laughter] Wow.

1:42:49 Well, the good news is great.

1:42:51 Now you can make grape popsicles.

1:42:54 That's an inside joke for people who

1:42:55 really really watch every one of our videos,

1:42:58 but you can make grape popsicles using the grape

1:43:01 relight and a silicone mold that cost $13 from Amazon.com,

1:43:05 a small family business we also support.

1:43:08 Yeah, they ran out of grape popsicles at the hospital when she was giving birth.

1:43:11 Yeah, we my labor and him being in and Alexander

1:43:15 being in the NICU so long literally caused Vanderbilt Hospital,

1:43:18 an enormous hospital in Tennessee,

1:43:20 to run out of popsicles because I ate so many of them.

1:43:23 They went to other wings of the hospital

1:43:25 to get me more grape popsicles to eat [laughter] and still ran out.

1:43:30 And when we had to take Alexander

1:43:32 the emergency room later on, I actually was like,

1:43:37 "Listen, we're paying $3,000 for some baby Tylenol.

1:43:40 I'm getting my popsicles." I asked for popsicles

1:43:42 four times while we're in the emergency room.

1:43:44 It was great.

1:43:46 All that to say that we love Redmond and we're so

1:43:48 thankful for Redmond support and like for every area of life,

1:43:53 whether it's your livestock, your children's stock, your husband's stock,

1:43:59 they have a product for that and it's great.

1:44:03 We love Breadben.

1:44:04 It is it is truly a a company that is um very unique in this in the way

1:44:10 that they run that company and we really

1:44:12 actually enjoy interacting with the people that work there.

1:44:15 So they're the real deal.

1:44:17 Even the products aside, the way that they care about personal

1:44:20 development within their employees and with the people

1:44:23 that they work with is so impress like that is why we work with them.

1:44:28 Like I had loved their products for years and then I was actually as like

1:44:34 a side business studying how good businesses ran

1:44:37 their business and Redmond came up as one

1:44:40 of the things and the way that they take care of their employees is literally

1:44:44 why I was like I want to know more about this and it's a great company.

1:44:48 We love everything about what they do and we absolutely love their products.

1:44:54 Yeah.

1:44:53 Yes.

1:44:53 So, Adam, tell us tell us after after that eloquent,

1:44:58 thank you for sticking around the great popsicle madness.

1:45:01 Oh, did I tell you that this is grape relay?

1:45:05 Yes.

1:45:05 In case Yes, I think you did.

1:45:07 The kids won.

1:45:08 There you go.

1:45:09 In case the inquir in case inquiring minds want to know.

1:45:16 Okay, there you go.

1:45:21 Okay, we have four winners.

1:45:22 Great.

1:45:24 Um, and no, this is Oh, that's not it.

1:45:28 Montana Reeves 9918.

1:45:30 Montana, my home state.

1:45:32 That's right.

1:45:33 Um, the second winner is Rock 5138.

1:45:38 The third winner is Little Homestead on Hiner Pond.

1:45:43 And then the fourth winner is Emperor Skia 21.

1:45:49 Um, and so winners reach out to us at hihianavalrades.com so that way

1:45:58 we can get your email address and send you your gift cards.

1:46:02 Yeah.

1:46:02 So, it requires a little personal responsibility

1:46:05 on your part if you want to claim your winnings.

1:46:10 Hi.

1:46:10 Hi.

1:46:10 Hello.

1:46:11 No.

1:46:11 Hi.

1:46:13 Not literally any [laughter] word you could.

1:46:15 This is actually you could say hello but like hi or any wordan oftrades.com

1:46:22 will get you to my email address

1:46:24 although I haven't checked [clears throat] my email

1:46:26 in three years Adam will check it [laughter] and get you there.

1:46:30 That's true.

1:46:32 Cody, you're the same way, right?

1:46:33 You manage a lot of the Yeah.

1:46:36 She doesn't ever look at emails or anything.

1:46:38 I do all of the I'm just not techy.

1:46:42 I get stressed with it.

1:46:44 preach.

1:46:44 This is what we I learned when we visited was

1:46:47 like Cody and like we're like basically living the same life.

1:46:51 [laughter] Even the same things that like annoy me when we're

1:46:55 filming annoy Ann were like looking at each other like, "Oh yeah, [laughter]

1:46:59 I know." It was literally like filming a video at home.

1:47:02 Even though I was extra nice, too.

1:47:04 Yeah, [laughter] it was.

1:47:06 I loved that whole video experience.

1:47:08 Like it was like four people just like it totally

1:47:10 in their element like a great video out of It was fun.

1:47:13 Cody was filming and then I edited it.

1:47:17 Actually, we have nine minutes.

1:47:18 Can I just say one last thing that really relates to this?

1:47:22 Um, one of the things that I saw over and over and over

1:47:25 in the comment section of that video that we did together was,

1:47:28 "Do I have to have social media to be able to have a homestead?" Oh, what?

1:47:35 And my answer for that is probably like third oh 15 years in now.

1:47:40 My answer to that is like hilariously no.

1:47:45 If you need money, get a real job.

1:47:48 And I I don't mean that in a like I re

1:47:52 like I don't mean that in a facicious way at all.

1:47:55 Like the reality of our life for the last 15 years has been like I worked

1:48:03 multiple jobs from the very beginning and also

1:48:06 did social media and our experience has been

1:48:12 that like if the farm if the farm has to make money to be able to make

1:48:18 our life work then it's going to put so much more stress on every single thing.

1:48:25 And the the reality is, and I think Adam would agree with me,

1:48:28 is that like when I first quit,

1:48:31 like I left tech to to try to do more stuff hands-on.

1:48:35 And when I did that, it was like I was leaving a 40-hour

1:48:40 a week job that had benefits and vacation and insurance and [snorts] all things.

1:48:46 And then leaving that because I was like, "Oh man,

1:48:49 it's like sucks working for the man to leave

1:48:52 to like I left that to work 80 hours a week,

1:48:55 sometimes 100 hours a week for myself who's a much

1:48:58 bigger jerk than any boss I'd ever had with no benefits,

1:49:02 no fallback plan, no anything.

1:49:04 And now that Adam has also left tech, left corporate, like we are the fallback.

1:49:10 I think you guys have experienced this similar thing.

1:49:13 And if the farm, like our farm generates

1:49:16 enough money to make everything kind of break even,

1:49:20 but we have a business that's separate

1:49:23 from our farm that's not related on how many heads of lettuce we can grow.

1:49:28 And I think that's a common misconception that people

1:49:31 have when they're watching like all of us that like,

1:49:34 oh, is social media like do I have to have social media to make our farm work?

1:49:38 And the reality is like no.

1:49:42 Because I think that doing the social media thing is like a very unique

1:49:47 limited way like to make money that like I truly think is is different than

1:49:54 actually like like working like do you guys

1:49:56 have like working for an off offarm job?

1:50:00 What would your guys' perspective be on that be?

1:50:03 Yeah.

1:50:03 So when we started I was working a full-time job.

1:50:07 We were I mean we were like when we were dating at one

1:50:12 point when we were dating before we got married I had I think

1:50:15 it was le it was less than a dollar or less than $2

1:50:18 in my bank account and that was all the money I had anywhere.

1:50:22 Um and but we ended up you know we got married live paycheck to paycheck.

1:50:28 Um we ended up being able to uh get a private loan to build this house.

1:50:34 It was nuts.

1:50:35 I mean, this is like this is 10-year-old numbers,

1:50:38 but we borrowed $80,000 to buy five and a half acres and build a house.

1:50:44 And we did it in that.

1:50:46 Yeah.

1:50:46 And that's you.

1:50:48 I know you can't do that today.

1:50:49 The land prices and stuff are way more than that, but we

1:50:52 made it happen because I did all the work myself.

1:50:56 Um, and basically what I'm getting to is we

1:51:00 were homesteading with a full-time job and that was working.

1:51:05 Like it worked.

1:51:06 It totally works.

1:51:08 Um, we wanted to turn our homestead into a farm business and we

1:51:13 came to a point where we figured out that it's either you either

1:51:17 got to go all in and have an actual like farm business

1:51:21 or just stick to your day job and have a homestead for your family.

1:51:26 Um, there's not really a good in between.

1:51:28 You're just going to be working way too many hours and not making enough money.

1:51:32 on all of our tax returns where we were making some money on our homestead,

1:51:36 we pretty much broke even with farm money every single year.

1:51:40 We might have made a little bit a few years.

1:51:43 Um, and then for like three years,

1:51:48 I was working a full-time job doing the homestead

1:51:51 thing and doing the YouTube thing on nights and weekends.

1:51:56 And basically, we were we wanted to make so I could work from home.

1:52:00 And so we knew it was going to be hard

1:52:02 for a while and we were just okay with that.

1:52:05 We decided we can make this sacrifice to make it work.

1:52:08 But and now it is working for us, but it's not a necessity.

1:52:15 Like I mean we've been talking this has been sprinkled throughout

1:52:17 this whole live stream is if you want to make it happen, you can make it happen.

1:52:22 And it's probably going to actually be a lot easier to make it

1:52:25 happen without trying to do social media and without trying to do other things.

1:52:29 just work a job and do a homestead.

1:52:33 You can do it.

1:52:34 Um people ask often like you know what it what do you

1:52:39 do for work or you know how does this support you or whatever

1:52:42 and yes we are supported by our YouTube channel and stuff and it

1:52:46 can look really easy to a lot of people but it is

1:52:49 people think we have the bougiest job and I'm like you have no idea.

1:52:53 It is really hard.

1:52:54 We actually went from we actually went from me working a full-time

1:52:59 job and her being a stay-at-home mom to us both working almost full-time jobs

1:53:06 together at home plus doing the homestead thing.

1:53:09 So like now it's taking both of us to run this business to make it happen.

1:53:15 So yeah, it uh it is a lot of work.

1:53:18 A lot of work.

1:53:18 And just for anyone watching,

1:53:20 like how long did it take you basically eating the time

1:53:24 that you were spending building your social media till it actually paid off?

1:53:28 Because I think that that's another misnomer that a lot of people have.

1:53:32 For me, it was seven years of basically doing a full-time

1:53:35 job that I wasn't getting paid for, which like not complaining,

1:53:39 like I'm I'm so thankful that I've had the opportunity to share and to teach.

1:53:43 This is also what we talked about when we were together is that we

1:53:46 love sharing and teaching and that's a part of the mission for us.

1:53:50 Yeah.

1:53:50 But for you guys, how long did it [snorts] take?

1:53:52 So, it was So, everybody looks at that golden monetization,

1:53:56 getting monetized on YouTube.

1:53:58 It took a year and a half to get monetized, but that still I mean,

1:54:00 you might make 50 bucks a month or something at that point.

1:54:04 A year and a half to get there.

1:54:06 Two years till it kind of started taking off.

1:54:09 And then it was it was two and a half

1:54:10 years from when we started till I quit my job.

1:54:14 So not nearly as long.

1:54:15 But in that two and a half years, I was like,

1:54:20 like [clears throat] Michelle said earlier,

1:54:21 when I set my mind to something, I'm all in.

1:54:24 It's all or nothing.

1:54:25 I listened to probably hundreds of hours of podcast, watched videos,

1:54:30 took courses, and like laser focused on making this thing work.

1:54:36 And like I would miss things.

1:54:38 We wouldn't go to things.

1:54:40 Um it was yeah I would like my life it almost like the short version of Mr.

1:54:47 Beast where Mr.

1:54:47 Beast talks about you know like just

1:54:49 dedicating his whole entire life to YouTube.

1:54:52 It wasn't quite that bad but it was you know for that stretch

1:54:55 of time it was really putting everything I had into it and making

1:54:58 and we we committed to that.

1:54:59 Like that was our agreement um is that he's going

1:55:03 to hammer down At that like 2 year mark or so,

1:55:08 I was getting pretty discouraged and I was like,

1:55:10 if by the end of year three, we're not making this work,

1:55:13 I think we're going to have to quit because it was

1:55:16 so much work and I couldn't just keep doing it forever.

1:55:19 But we all of a sudden Yeah.

1:55:22 And I feel like like when we started it was

1:55:25 definitely a nudge from God that this was our mission

1:55:28 and that kind of kept us going.

1:55:30 And then before that cut off time, you know, God made it happen.

1:55:34 It happened.

1:55:34 Here we are still on the mission.

1:55:36 Love it.

1:55:37 Yeah.

1:55:38 I mean, we have a six-month check-in where it's

1:55:40 like every six months we check in is like,

1:55:43 is this working for us and for our goals for the family?

1:55:47 like from a financial standpoint,

1:55:50 from a like family health standpoint, from everything else,

1:55:53 but like every like but it's a thing that we

1:55:56 genuinely do revisit every six months because like I am

1:56:00 always shocked that it still works six months later because

1:56:04 when I when I first quit my job in 2018,

1:56:07 like I've quit my job and then had to go back to work multiple times now.

1:56:11 Oh, but when I first quit my job, I was like,

1:56:14 I'm going to give it six months, and if it's still working after six months,

1:56:17 then I like and I I put a dollar value on it,

1:56:20 too, because like we couldn't afford to lose our house.

1:56:23 It's our only asset.

1:56:25 Again, starting from really really like, you know, meager means,

1:56:29 but like yeah, so every six months we ask ourselves like,

1:56:33 hey, on on a family level, on a missional level,

1:56:37 on a financial level, is this worth it to keep doing?

1:56:41 And as long as the answer is yes, we'll keep doing it.

1:56:44 But like like just like everything else on the farm,

1:56:48 when it stops working, like we stop.

1:56:55 Yep.

1:56:55 So anyway, we really really really appreciate you guys spending

1:56:58 your time with us and and sharing your knowledge with us.

1:57:01 Like I mean again, I think there's a reason

1:57:04 that the video we made together resonated so well.

1:57:06 you you both are a fountain of knowledge

1:57:08 of so many things and and you are goals [snorts]

1:57:14 in in so many ways like and you know we're new parents watching you guys

1:57:19 like when we got to actually spend time with your family

1:57:22 it was so like this is why ah try not to cry uh this is why we're doing what

1:57:28 we're doing like we want to be parents like you

1:57:32 we so appreciate like you share sharing your time

1:57:35 and your knowledge to like come and do that better.

1:57:41 Yeah.

1:57:41 Super super blessed to have you guys here, too.

1:57:42 That was a lot of fun.

1:57:44 And um any other YouTubers will know this.

1:57:48 It can feel really lonely sometimes.

1:57:49 And you guys being here and being able to like

1:57:52 talk together to our audiences and stuff is really cool.

1:57:55 I really appreciate being able to do that.

1:57:59 Well, this won't be the last one.

1:58:00 Like I said, when we hung out, like once we're friends, we're stuck.

1:58:04 You're stuck.

1:58:06 [laughter] I wanted to uh quick shout out.

1:58:10 I just saw a comment he left on there reminding people about

1:58:12 the uh giveaways where to get a hold of Ann uh Four Brothers Farm.

1:58:19 It's my buddy Cam that joined us for the live

1:58:21 stream to moderate and he's an upand cominging YouTube channel.

1:58:25 If you guys in the audience haven't seen him yet, you can go check him out.

1:58:28 I just wanted to shout that out real quick.

1:58:30 Say that.

1:58:31 Say that [clears throat] again.

1:58:31 Four Brothers Farm.

1:58:33 Four Brothers Farm.

1:58:34 He's the one that's been posting about Yep.

1:58:36 that Whoa, look at that.

1:58:39 How cool that it can just appear.

1:58:40 Also, [laughter] if you can show yourself out because like

1:58:44 I don't know how that works, but like Emily is myself.

1:58:48 The auntie of Alexander and also the auntie to the farm.

1:58:52 Like literally she and her husband Chris like saved

1:58:55 our farm when we were like in the trenches

1:58:59 of like me almost dying and not knowing what to do or how to deal with that.

1:59:05 And like Emily also when we went to Ohio too.

1:59:07 also when we went to Ohio.

1:59:09 But like Emily and Chris are like have showed up to do

1:59:13 the hard gross awful stuff time and again and we don't deserve

1:59:19 it and we are so thankful for their friendship and we love

1:59:21 them so much and Al is like I mean obsessed with them.

1:59:25 [laughter] They don't have a YouTube channel.

1:59:27 They don't have a YouTube channel but you can go to Four Brothers Farm

1:59:31 and subscribe to that YouTube channel in their honor.

1:59:33 Exactly.

1:59:35 How about that?

1:59:37 Well, amazing.

1:59:39 Great.

1:59:39 Thank you guys so much.

1:59:40 Thanks for having us.

1:59:41 This was awesome.

1:59:41 Super fun back.

1:59:42 And also, we're trying like hello YouTube pressure.

1:59:46 Um, let's get them down to our farm for a visit.

1:59:52 For sure.

1:59:53 I see it in my future.

1:59:55 Yeah, I see it in your future, too.

1:59:56 [laughter] A real pest.

1:59:58 We'll host We'll host the next one of these on our channel.

2:00:01 We'll do another We can't wait.

2:00:04 Yep.

2:00:04 All right.

2:00:05 Thanks, everyone.

2:00:06 Thanks everyone.

2:00:07 Good night.

2:00:09 Bye.