How The World's Most Famous Farm Started w/Joel Salatin (Polyface Farm)

how poly face was born in 1982 I came back to the farm and we're you know we're starting in I handed in my notice walked out of there and course everybody friends relatives everybody said we were crazy did you intend for polyface to be what it is today okay no what what was your vision then not even close my vision then was was just I want to make a living on a farm that's all Mastery takes time it just takes time and it takes generally 10 years and 10,000 hours so the same is true on the on the farm as well it's it's a long haul deal and if you come at it too fast you'll disappoint yourself and then and then you start then you start doubting yourself as soon as you disappoint yourself then you then you lose your confidence you're not giving me all the Heartbreak but I I feel it I I know I know what it what it is and uh I I I think that this is a great rebound so I'm in polyface with you people who are watching this video probably know who you are but just in case you're Joel Saladin yes and your farm is like is it okay to say The Godfather of like the small region Farmers I feel like everyone every farmer that I've been to and talked to they say well I found Joel salatin and then I did all the things yeah well you know we we've been doing this a long time right and of course I stand on the shoulders of greatness and I'm just uh I was just too stubborn to quit so yeah we've just been real blessed to to have been to have had you know my mom and dad who worked off the farm their careers to to pay for it so when teres and I got married we didn't have to Reby the land and so we had a nice Launchpad to be able to start but fortunately we were not rich and didn't have money and when you're not rich and don't have money it makes you hungry hry and hungry makes you creative okay and so I'm very glad that we were not wealthy that we didn't have bank accounts and and it it forced us to be really creative and so uh yeah so there we are but I wish with the you know with the whatever notoriety we have now I wish dad were still alive to enjoy because he he truly was a Visionary I mean he he wanted this but never got it because it had to be paid for and by the time it was paid for he was too old to to to get it started so you know he was I came back to the farm fulltime September 24 1982 wow and um and he died in the spring of 88 okay so he got to see the first you know five years and he he knew that we were that we were on to something yeah so did you did you intend for polyface to be what it is today okay no what was your vision then not even close my vision then was was just I want to make a living on a farm that's all I didn't have any Notions I didn't know that I would ever write a book now now that said I knew I had a gift for writing yeah uh because you know before I came back to the farm after college I worked for two and a half years as a reporter at the local newspaper even in high school um High School in college I entered essay contest you know americanism you know Daughters of the American Revolution you know they do these ESS cont and stuff and I had a couple in college that I entered and I never entered one that I didn't win I mean it just it's a crazy track record and so I knew I had a gift for this look my my first my first um plan strategy so I grew up you know I was in high school during the Watergate you know Nixon years 1970s and I said oh okay I'll become a journalist I'll find my deep throat you know expose some you know corrupt official write a besteller and then I can come back to the farm that that was kind of my strategy was I I'll I'll go do my journalism thing and hopefully in a few years I'll I'll be able to make enough that I can come back to the farm and what happened was in high school I my Junior and senior years on Saturday nights I became I got on as the receptionist at the local newspaper Daily newspaper and um they liked me and I loved the newspaper I mean I I'm I'm a nu aholic I just you know it's just in your blood yeah and so they told me when I went to college they said okay uh as soon as you graduate we we'll take you back wow so so I had suddenly I had that little kind of safety net back here uh meanwhile I'm think how do I get on the farm Flor how do I make this work how do I make this work and my first uh kind of business plan as I was thinking through it we we always milked a couple milk Cs and a couple gsies we made you know ice cream and cottage Che chees and butter and all that stuff and I I knew that there was a market for that because I had sold at the local Curb Market uh which was a precursor of today's farmers markets it was a leftover Depression era Market that when I turned about 14 or 15 it was a Saturday market I would go down there every Saturday morning and we'd sell stuff and we sold a lot of our our dairy stuff and we were unregulated okay at the time and so you just sold it raw yeah to anybody who bu it and yeah and and and there was no inspection no nothing uh I joined the 4 Club to get that exemption it turned out that the government agencies had kind of um memorandums between each other if a farmer you know if if if somebody joins like most of them or women joins the extension Homemakers Club then that shows that they're at least interested in Orthodox science you know okay and so we'll exempt them from inspection assuming that they're following protocol okay so when I came on to do they said well we don't haven't had any kids you know what are we going to do about a 14year old they said well how about you join the 4 you know 4 is kind of Quasi government right and uh and that'll show that you're you're making a good faith effort to you know Embrace Orthodoxy and so I did that's how I joined 4 and so we sold we sold uninspected chicken pork beef I I would cook my chickens pick the meat off and sell it as as uh boneless pre-cooked chicken ready for you know uh casseroles and stuff uh we did all our Dairy and you know this was this was from like whatever 1971 to 1975 looking back on it now I realized we were probably I don't know 15 years ahead of our time yeah you know just just a little bit ahead of the curve but anyway but it was enough to give us a taste of retail what does the difference of that retail dollar so then you know we shut we shut that Market down everything was done when I went to college because nobody else in the family had the time or interest to do it and so you know when I came back from college now I'm sitting there thinking okay so how do I how do I get back on the farm and my first thought was based on our experience when I was in high school was I you know I could milk I could milk 10 cows sell the milk to Neighbors at retail price not high because it's organic not high because it's grass but just at regular commercial retail price and make a nice Liv Living 10 cows were they pasteurizing milk at that point oh yeah they were yeah they were they mandatory pasteurization came in way in the like 4 yeah 40s and 50s so yeah so that was that was well well done um but that was my problem it had to be pasteurized well then then you're into all this you know regulatory so um I've I have never gotten over and people ask me why I'm such a Libertarian and I you know I don't have much to say good about the government I I view the fact that that that regulation kept me off the farm for several years until I could get back and I've never I don't resent it I'm not I don't sit here and dwell on it and get ERS about it but I've never forgotten it that that and and and I run into young people every day that are ready to make their living on the farm marketing to friends and neighbors the government says no you need a you need a $200,000 facility to do that you need a license to do that and suddenly it's it's too it's too complicated it's too complicated especially for a young person yeah especially for a young person who might be a first generation farmer yes and doesn't have any money and it just it's overwhelming absolutely absolutely so what people don't understand is that all all Innovation requires embryos I mean you've had a child I think Y and you know if that baby was the size of an adult that would have been a really tough birth you might not even wanted that to get pregnant and so what what the reality is that these food regulations make the size of the of the embryonic prototype so big that it's a that it's an embryo too big to be birthed that's the truth and and I you know I've done conferences before he died with for example Bob Evans of the Bob Evans rest um Don Tyson yeah Tyson chick Grandpa Tyson started from the tailgate of a pickup truck Bob Evans started with tailgate of a pickup truck all these Agro bus Titans today started in the 30s and 40s from the tailgate of a pickup truck they were just you know Savvy entrepreneurs and they you know ran with it and they outdid the others today if we don't preserve the same option to start from the tailgate of your pickup truck young people can't get in people can't get started and and uh and it's it's just unfortunate that that's where we've gotten to so you know so I come back well I can't do milk you know can't can't do that so what of course you know we were doing some beef so I began selling uh freezer beef sides you know halves quarters to Folks at the newspaper and and other acquaintances and we started building up a little bit there and and you and I went to the I went to back to the newspaper then because of that at 2 and A2 years because tce and I were living here in the Attic driving a $50 car if we didn't grow it we didn't eat it and uh we you know we had all of our own Dairy we had all our own food uh drove a $50 car you know our living expenses were incredibly low we had our firewood we didn't have that we didn't have rent even though I didn't have a very high-paying job I was able to save half of it and within two and a half years we' saved up enough that we said we could we could live here for a year without any income and because we were living on $300 a month wow wow and uh even for back then that oh even for back then that was unheard of I mean today's equivalent would be let's say four times $1,200 a month yeah that still is really really low right all right I said you know let's I fully intended to go back off Farm to work but I said we're going to get so many things done in a year that maybe we'll cut the time away from whatever 10 years to eight or eight years to six or what that was my thinking so you like I'm just going to take an extended vacation yeah yeah yeah so I handed in my notice walked out of there and of course everybody friends relatives everybody said we were crazy everybody said that we were crazy we didn't have one single one single positive whatever affirmation that's hard not one single one but we we came back and what happened the thing we didn't plan on was just how much slippage I'm I call it s slippage happens when you're not around a lot of farming is timing the cow having trouble delivering a calf can't wait for you to help her when you're off on Saturday you got to help her now the green beans that need weeded if you wait till Saturday you might not find the green beans and there a lot of things like that right and and so so we just found and not only that but by not going to town to work suddenly we dropped from filling up the gas tank once a week to once a month well that was a huge savings wow and I at that time I always said if we could have figured out how to grow toilet paper and Kleenex we could about pull plug on society and We just hunkered down and what happened then because the the slippage uh eased because I was here all the time for for the timeliness of everything that little Nest Egg stretched and it stretched farther than we thought I I did a couple little odd jobs I had a had a a guy uh that was putting in a a a new boundary fence through a a section of woods and he'd gotten a quote from a commercial fence Building Company well they were going to come in with all this equipment they were going to cut half the trees and had to make a great big swath you know through the I looked at I said I think I could just do this with a by hand with a post hole digger and shovel and get you a nice fence in here without cutting anything and we'll just we'll just you know come snake it through and uh he saidwell you're on and Daniel Daniel our son was was he was just little at that he was maybe five years old at the time so this is you know 1984 885 and and we we put that fence in it was it was wonderful and it was a nice I don't remember what I charged but it was a little bit under what the commercial fencing company was going to charge he was thrilled because he didn't have a mess yeah or pay more yeah or pay more right but for us you know a $1,200 job was 4 month of cash living yeah we for for about four or five years in the spring um I helped the guy plant trees he was he was into planting trees and and um I would help him plant trees there again you know, $1500 in cash you know we did a couple little odd things like that to to just bring in a little bit of cash but uh I started selling firewood you know and and that provided a little bit of cash as well in the winter but it was it was just tight but at three years at three years The Nest Egg had run out but equilibrium came Financial equilibrium three years at the end of three years we we we kind of breathed and said like the Engine That Could I'm going to make it going to make it going to make and we said we're going to make it it took three years now were you selling farm products like were you selling chicken or like milk or anything time so the the second year we started the chickens okay and that was completely serendipitous dad dad was an accountant he did taxes for people okay and a lot of his clients were Amish okay and menites farmers and there was this one menite family that was elderly and they always raised a couple hundred of these bro uh meat chickens and they sold enough they sold them live to a few people basically they were just trying to get their own chickens free you know pay for the feed yeah and so they were selling you know a couple hundred something like that and they were they looked around their community and tried to tried to find another menite obviously that would that would do it and nobody was interested and uh and of course I had had these chickens you know when I was and a kid right had my first chickens when I was 10 they asked Dad you know would Joel be interested in in taking over this little chicken business I like chickens and that's fine and we had we had my old chicken shelters that I had had when I was in had the chickens when I was in high school they'd been pulled up in the barn Rafters you know just sitting there well we just pulled them down put meat chickens in them and Off to the Races yeah and of course their customers did not stay with us because because we wanted to process them and and and value add and get more the whole the whole thing I mean a couple of them did but most of them didn't so we had to find new ones but that wasn't a problem and so the chickens the chickens really provided cash cash flow um early on they were they were a game changer the chickens were a game changer I think a lot of people yeah I think a lot of people feel that um even my husband and I so we farmed in Indiana for six years and that's what we found with chickens if you can sell it like if you can raise a chicken you can sell a chicken nobody else was doing it we could do it and that wasn't very long ago so that seems to stay true when did you start adding the other Enterprises and bringing on interns and like turning it into the the whole kitten Kaboodle of polyface like I imagine it was probably a little slower at then like we look back on it right now and we're like holy crap look at how big you are but in in the moment I'm sure it was slow going but how did that go absolutely I mean yeah TR and I joke now we our our our expenses are more in a day now than they were in a year you know in in 198 so so 182 so um so we officially started polyface in 1982 when I came back to the farm fulltime was it polyface then that like you called it polyface yes oh so you kind of had a vision then for the for the multiac well well remember dad was an accountant right and he he realized from a tax standpoint we needed not only liability protection but tax um tax whatever uh diversion maneuverability wiggle room if you will okay that that a corporation would allow okay and so his first thing was well we'll just call it saladan Incorporated and I remember that one of that's one of the little tensions we had I said no Dad I said this is not going to be S this is bigger than us so I I already had you know I I just felt like that we were that we were on to something he was so he was so Innovative I mean he was so Innovative and and pretty much the things that he did worked okay you know the controlled grazing the portable chicken shelters the composting we had a chipper by then and we were chipping we were composting I was seeing the grass start to respond I mean there were basically there there was a lot of there was a lot of positive prototypes they just hadn't scaled yet yeah and they hadn't we hadn't monetized them or commercialized them they fed our family and you know all that so I said let's be let's be interface the interfacing of the open land forest land and water that's what I wanted to be interface ink and we submitted it to the state Corporation Commission I remember I was in the barn I was milking a cow and uh he came in and he said ah uh they rejected us I said why I said well because there's already an interface in Virginia and so we can't be that and I'm sitting there milking the cow oh shoot so you pull the thesaurus out of your head and you well if we can't be interface let's be mini face polyface we both liked it we submitted that there that's how there it was okay so so that that's how face was born uh and in 1982 so you know I came back to the farm and we're you know we're starting in I've got to give credit to my wife I mean I mean people she's she's The Quiet One you know she's she people don't see her much yeah but believe me she's the My Success is because I married a a wife more frugal than I am I mean she she is Frugal and she's a she's an incredible she can make anything out of anything she can sew she can cook she she would can 800 quarts of stuff a summer um so we could eat you know free and um and and you know churn butter and and was my tractor driver and and I mean we were just we were just together here we were starting in and it it it it customers grew we started selling all of our beef direct took a couple years to sell all the but we were only doing like 2 20 a year right so we started selling all of that direct did the chicken and I was selling the firewood and between the chickens the beef and the firewood we were we were we were making it then about the time dad passed away in Spring of 88 we started getting some media traction you know here's this young couple they don't have a Swiss bank account and and they're making a living on a small farm and uh and this is probably right after the 80s crash right so everybody's freaking out 8 89 90 yes absolutely everybody's freaking out especially like the hog market specifically right everybody's small farm is gone and dead and done absolutely so there was all this interest in how does this how does this couple on this small place uh make because that we weren't renting any land I mean we were we were on 90 acres and that's from your parents right yeah yeah yeah yeah 90 Acres of open now we had a whole bunch of forest land okay which we didn't even have a road to right you know we couldn't even access to get your P Boos on and go maybe so we started getting media attention and in in the you know by 8788 and the media attention then starts putting us in a in a place where we're we're talking a little bit and so in I'm trying to think maybe 1990 or something I'm speaking at a at a thing down in U Southern Virginia and I saw this thing with uh with pigs breeds of pigs it was a American livestock breeds conservant presentation and they were showing these pictures of different breeds of pigs what I saw was the pig standing on a steaming compost pile and by this time we were we were composting we were you know we were seeing progress I had a neighbor with a front-end loader we didn't have a front- end loader so I would hire him he'd come down with his front end loader and we'd work together and clean out and um did the windro compost piles you know double handling and all that I saw this why not let pigs do this turning instead of machinery and so came home got a a couple pigs tried the little experiment with the corn and the bedding and man it was fantastic and so that started us into the pig business so that's when we added pigs then by that time so well we you know I always had eggs you know we have eggs for ourselves if you're going to go out and gather a dozen eggs you can gather three dozen just as easy right so we started Gathering eggs and and we were we were processing chickens here at the farm chickens were the driver right um and people had to order them and they would come to the farm and meat chickens yeah meat chicken meat chickens so we said what can we add well we can add eggs you know uh pretty easily so we added some eggs I actually had them in a in a i' made a an egg mobile uh on bicycle wheels I had about 40 chickens in there in a in like a 6 by8 uh bicycle wheel I I pushed it around by hand push it around and I had a couple um Gates you know 10-ft Gates that would that would uh stand up by Serpentine you know you make corners and they stand up and I would just kind of spin this around like a like a fourleaf clover you know and then you know every four days I'd push it up the field and make another fourleaf Clover you know and and that's that's what we did and one day I had grazed with the cows and I saw what the chickens did to the cowps said oh my goodness we because at that we were still using I don't think we know we were not using ivran at that time but we had heel fly warbles and Teresa and I would put the cows in the headgate every not the cows the Cavs cows didn't have a problem Cals would get these Hill fly warbles come up on their back and and so um so I'd take a coke bottle and reef down on that on the breath hole and they'd pop up in the coke bottle it was kind of gross yeah fun work but fun work but but that's how we were battling it rather than using warbex or some parasiticide when I saw what the chickens did to those Cow Patties I said lights went on again you know Epiphany said oh boy we gota we gotta do something here so I quickly retrofitted the little bicycle wheel Egg Mobile to a three-point hitch that I could behind the tractor and move around and boy I was I was sold I mean it was it was Game Changer yeah so then the next year I I made a bigger one put a chassis under it put a 100 chickens in it and really started you know started selling more eggs so so all of these developments were incremental over time to try to solve a problem of course then the problem became so like the pigs we didn't need that many pigs to do the the piger rating but the pork was so good people wanted more Pork yeah well the eggs were so good people wanted more eggs so now suddenly you move it from just a a you know what's called a hole on a ho on is an Enterprise that you do that doesn't have any inputs or ex or or outputs because it it it actually just Cycles a salvage problem and conver converts that to something you can monetize so the day we grew more pigs than we needed for the composting they came out of the hole on and became an Enterprise same thing with the Egg Mobile people like the eggs so we added up the egg mobiles so by 1990 in in in late in late like 8889 uh I think Dad had just passed away uh I was helping a friend buy a bull he wanted me to help him go buy a bull so I went out there to this seed stock producer we looked at the animals and talked about them and then he went into the you know the inner the inner negotiating room to and I stayed out in the in the front foyer waiting for them to consummate the business and um I'm looking and they've got a magazine racked there and I see this magazine Stockman grass farmer I picked it up I mean in the first page I said this is us this is me this is me so I quick you looked at the little Mast head inside you know where's the address what's the subscription yeah got home sent off a check subscribed and wrote a couple letters to the editor next thing I knew Allan Nation the founder and editor calls me says can I come up and visit I oh my goodness yes Star Struck yeah Star Struck absolutely Star Struck so he comes up and he says I've been looking for you for 10 years said you're you're exactly what I've been trying to find but no you know they're in New Zealand but they're not here and so he said would you write a would you write a monthly Callum for me he said I'm bankrupt I can't pay you and he was at the time wow and I said sure i' I'd be glad to cuz I was I was eager to I love a writer loves to write you know that's part of your whatever your soul well it sounds like with your journalism background you already have that that desire to share information you you said that you wanted to go take down a big politician write a book about it and go retire to a beach somewhere well it wasn't even a beach come back to the F retire so you already had that and now you were given that outlet that's right and is that then what just set you forward multiple books later so let me tell you as soon as soon as I began writing uh for the Stopman grass farmer the our world blew open yeah because suddenly now suddenly now you're an authority yeah you have credibility people and and people started calling this chicken thing this chicken thing how you how do you do that and so in 1991 Allan said well I was writing for the for the magazine and people were I'd come in I was frustrated I'd come in at night you know from working all day and I'd have six messages from around the country people to call back they want to know this chicken thing this chicken thing so I told Trace I said look I said I can't do this I can't you know be up all night doing this stuff so we wrote a little manual had a typewriter typed out the typewriter I had in college uh typed out a little manual 8 and 1 half by 11 you know with little Brads you know little on Xerox and uh and sold it through Stopman grass farmer well the first year we sold a thousand of them oh my goodness and I looked at her I said well my goodness there there there's money in that their information you know my dear uh so we reprinted a th sold that the next year and then Allen in 90 91 992 early he came to me he said look he said you you you got to do an honest book I mean you got to do an authentic book this is too good to just let it be a little you know backyard looks like something done in the you know back street so in 93 we came out with Pastor poultry profits and just just to just to show the broadness of this value added and and and the and the and the largess of Allen's heart he said because they published books I mean that they were in the publishing business stop rest for he said now when you do this book be glad to publish it for you or you can publish it yourself and we'll be glad to sell it okay and so I started looking at the economics and realized how little an author gets yeah I said you know I think we'll just so but that time we had enough cash flow from the farm to pay to self-publish this book so we did Pastor P profits came out in 1993 another game changer you know I've decided in the US there's two ways to get credibility one is with a PhD degree and the other is to author a book yeah those are the two ways to get credibility so so then you know the door started I mean I'm I'm I'm traveling around talking and and different things this is so so now we've been we've been on the farm full-time 82 to 93 that's 11 years yeah 11 years and I I went bore you with every little incremental thing but you know it just it just continued to grow and grow and in about 96 95 anyway we started getting requests from young people could we come an apprentice okay no no we're you know we got we don't have work for you we don't you know we just we just don't need it well we talk about how serendipitous I mean things think I'm smart but no I just fall into stuff so we had a lady contact us in um in I don't know 94 something 95 she says she says um I want to get in the egg business like you say but I don't I'm afraid to raise the chicks would you raise the chicks and I'll come and get them when they start to lay well we were we're always looking for another little right little side hustle right and so we said well sure we're raising for you so we did 500 they got you know two weeks away from laying I called her up and she said I changed my mind I don't want to do it naively we had not collected a deposit we had not you know we just we we're very trusting here we just we just assume people are like us so that you know that could be a fault I don't know it just it always seems to so here's what happened so now we got all these eggs and I'm giving away eggs I can't you know we're swimming in eggs so we had a customer at the time who you know was up in Northern Virginia and uh he came and he saw the the thing you know like buy buy 10 get one free you he says this is immoral you've got the best egg in the world and you're having that's like that's like having a drawer full of diamonds and you can't sell them give me a break you know he said I'll take 30 dozen okay so so 30 dozen two days later he calls says hey uh can I come get another 30 dozen well sure come get another 30 this guy this guy is he's you know he's um in his 60s okay okay empty nester you know five kids are all gone what are you doing with 30 dozen eggs in two days so we St him another 30 dozen eggs two days later he calls I went 60 dozen by that time curiosity killed the cat said all right what's going on here yeah well it turned out we didn't know what he did for a living he was a lobbyist for the National Health Federation okay in DC and he was constantly taking legislative AIDS and congressman and Senators out to dinners in these nice Washington restaurants this was his ministry in retirement he wasn't getting paid a lot for this but he' started he was a quintessential entrepreneur had started like five businesses in his lifetime you know took him up to and then sold them and so he he he was retiring he wasn't wealthy wealthy but he was fine off and he had he was just a total servant harded okay kind of guy he said I'm taking these eggs in these restaurants in DC and they're going crazy over them he said where do you get this egg he said um I want to go into business with you and but this time we you know we'd gotten pretty friendly we said well how many do you want he said I want 600 dozen a week ouch I know that's a lot he said how soon can you do it I said well you know in about seven months we got to buy the chicks we got to raise them then we got to get through the little pullet stage and blah blah blah meanwhile we'd had young people coming by remember you know we were in smithonian magazine B A peti you know we we've been in been in some stuff National Geographic and asking about apprenticeship we said no no no no and we said ah here's an Enterprise we could have The Apprentice be in charge of the egg egg Enterprise and it'll give more work to do and so that summer of whatever 95 we installed The Apprentice Cottage we built 20 chicken shelters that time we were running the chickens in in the little shelters like the brers but with uh nest boxes in them and started the apprenticeship program and started selling these eggs and he started selling these eggs in NDC so that's kind of how The Apprentice thing launched that was a that was a big that was a big step up that summer you know all that to launch together that was in I think 95 and and and then before you know it we had a second apprentice and it just kept growing it just it just kep it just kept growing from there and here and yeah and and then we added the stewardship program uh about 15 years ago because we had had so much to do in the summer we we felt like and we had people who couldn't give a whole year so we thought well we could we could double up in the summer and do short term shorter term and so we started uh four months uh summer program in in uh whatever 10 years later 2005 and and that has now grown to 11 each summer to five months and then we keep anywhere from two to four apprentices and the apprentices now come out of the stewardship program so the the apprentices have been stewards and then they become the first level manager of the new stewardship team the next season they say you don't really learn it until you teach it yeah so that's that's kind of the idea yeah and uh but we we put a we put a lot into that stewardship you know we now have housing Forum we we then I don't remember when it's been been a good while about two years after we started the stewardship program I did a did a presentation down in uh Tennessee and on a farm that had a bunch of uh labor in it was a summer summer produce kind of situation and this guy had um he was selling to a lot of the chefs I'm sorry it was Kentucky Kentucky selling to a lot of the chefs in in town and the chefs would take turns coming out and cooking for the farm crew oh wow so they'd get a really cool you know gourmet meal and the chef would just walk through the farm and pick what he wanted to pick and and cook dinner and it was a and it just struck me I said oh and it got me to thinking because it was awkward here at the time you know we get done in a day I go into the house um and the apprentices go into the house and have you know have a nice supper with Teresa and the stewards are well go fin for yourself you know I mean they could eat out of our out of our Larder obviously but uh you know they needed an hour to fix it and and you just so we said you know I wonder what what so I started putting little feelers out would anybody want a chef here and we and we had an a steward who had left us a couple years before he heard about this he said are you serious about that I said yeah so I like to come back and do that so so we started it and boy we've never looked back that's been one of the best from from a from a farm whatever family community kind of standpoint that has been just you want to talk about like field to Fork option as a as a worker even I mean you are on the in the field working and then you get to see it cooked and eat it on your plate I mean I was talking about this with a farm tour uh the other day that my husband and I so once we kind of got burned out from the way that we were farming we realized we never ate our fillets we couldn't afford to yeah yeah yeah our our cost of living with the farm was so high that those filets needed to pay us yeah yeah yeah and we're like forget that that's not fair we're working hard we deserve to have the good meat too now I'm not saying I'm I'm going to hoard all of the F now I will hoard every single hanger steak because a hanger steak is a hanger steak is a hanger steak but you you deserve to to to eat the good food that you are making that's right and I love that that you guys are doing that that's awesome so that that was that was a game Cher um as a as a community on the farm so they're now they're in the summer you know there's uh 25 26 of us that live here on the farm and we so we have a summer Chef uh who cooks the evening meal and also handles all of our Gatherings and events and things and yeah it's been in really good it's it's a it's a pretty big investment for us but but what it allows us to do is we can work everybody right to the right to the minute of supper you know and then you have this wonderful decompression time yeah where we can talk about the day we can talk about plans for tomorrow we you know we have lots of lots of of luminaries who come through here we invite them to dinner talk to us for 15 minutes we call it sing for your supper yeah and I mean famous people you know come through and um in fact uh in fact we're going to have one in uh I'm trying to think if it's early June or late may I think I think it's early June Oliver Anthony oh really you know the rich men north of Richmond yes he wants to come and see the farm I said I said I'll tell you what I'll show you the farm CU he's bought some land out I mean he's he's rich I mean he's he is rolling to go oh man oh man what a what a wonderful and that I mean I'm sure I've listened to that song on YouTube I don't know a dozen times as a person I've heard that because um whoever Ticket Master I think was buying all his tickets and then upgrading them he's like cancel that that concert I'm not I'm not going to that you're not doing that to my people refund all of their money cuz we're not doing that what moral of someone you don't see that in in the rich people that's awesome he's coming here that's great so we we talked on the phone couple times already and he's just he's just as Down to Earth but he's making big money he's he's bought a place and turns out that he's been a fan of ours for a long time and I didn't even know it you never know and and so uh so he said you know he asked me to come and consult okay I said you know what before do that why don't you come up here and I'll show you what we're doing and then if you want to pursue a consult I'm I'm I do a lot of that I'm glad to come and consult for you but first why don't you come and see he said could I come I said absolutely come I said with one caveat you got to sing you got to sing for my farm Crew He said oh i' I'd be delighted to so we're getting we're getting a free uh Farm crew only uh thing from from um him in exchange for a farm tour that's awesome so so you know people come through and so for our young people who come uh being able to to talk directly with you know Sally Fallon Weston A price foundation people like that is just is just Priceless they would never be able to get access to them otherwise and and and so the evening meal is all part of that yeah it allows us then uh to invite people to and and they love to be you know with the crew and uh it's just it's just really really positive so you know it's it's an investment but man it's one of the best investments we ever made you you almost can't go wrong if you're investing in relationships and people absolutely that that that always comes back it always comes back absolutely so you guys started out kind of like homesteading almost yes from what I would Define it as to now true farmsteading and I've realized over the last couple days that people have different definitions for homesteading and farmsteading and I'll preface this with a little bit of my own background Story We farmed for 6 years cows pigs chickens on 5 Acres sold direct to Consumer after our second kid was born we just were like this is no longer fun we're we're making things too hard on ourself something needs to change costs were really high let's make a change so we left um sold the farm sold everything and now we're on the road full-time and we're realizing that if we had started out just supplying food for ourselves and not necessarily making it be a business but saving money by not buying food from the grocery store we would have done things so differently and maybe and we you can play the should a Coulda wood game all day long yeah but maybe we would still be there maybe we wouldn't have gotten burnt out so I ask in for your advice or maybe just your opinion what you think is going on between the Dynamics of a homestead versus a Farmstead when I think Homestead I'm not thinking I'm not thinking commercial commercial marketing uh or or or or making a living now a lot of homesteaders would like to make a living right on it but you have to you have to get your kinks worked out and all of this takes time Mastery takes time it just takes time and it takes generally 10 years and 10,000 hours you know the and so the same is true on the on the farm as well and so what happens is if you if you start getting that commercial pressure to perform which means to produce to perform before you have Mastery you end up with sick animals or uncontrolled animals that then you're chasing all the time and pigs two miles down the road while I was pregnant yeah yeah that's that's that's not good no that's not good no and and that that burns you out so I I always I always encourage folks I like to tell folks if you want to do this commercially don't make your move until you have two years of nest egg if you can live for 2 years on your nest egg you're not under pressure to perform day one and you have time to sit on a bucket and observe the chickens and sit on a bucket and observe the cow and why she doesn't stay in or or check the electric fence or whatever else whatever else uh is necessary as you as you develop Mastery you get confidence and as you develop confidence I mean it takes time to develop confidence yeah you don't just get confidence because you wish it or the fairies woooo dust it to you you get confidence because you you earn it see I think in our case though some at some point I think our our confidence turned into uh Pride like we were overly confident huh you know like so I'm I'm a sixth generation farmer mhm and then my husband and I got together and we started farming and we' watched all your videos all of everybody else's videos we knew what we were doing doing we walked into it on a lower scale saw the demand and immediately jumped and it was great we we H we did have fun for those years but I think that when things did start getting to be not fun anymore and we started hitting roadblocks it just was compounded because we were so confident we're like why isn't this working this is supposed to work we know what we're doing and I almost wonder if it was like a a pride thing you know maybe I'm I'm not a I'm not a psychologist I'm not ready to I'm not ready to go down that road with you um I just I see it in other people but between the homestead versus The Farmstead side and making it work for you or making it work for someone else what I see more often than not is not so much I you can call it Cockiness if you want to but just a a lack of respect for the amount of of nuanced nuanced uh properties that the homestead requires like you said that slippage when you're gone yeah the slippage the slippage and and and that it's putting in a fence post you know putting in a it it's it's not it's not easy and you know you say well how hard can it be to put in a fence post well digging the hole with straight sides how to hold the post hole digger how to hold the the digging iron um where to put the post how to put it so it's straight uh putting it against one side taking the bark off off uh do you put it do you put it with the with it facing up facing down the way the tree grew um all these things these are all these are all nuances and you don't get that in a in a minute and so so when you're trying to like force it to make money it it gets to be to be difficult now what about on a on like a definition side um I heard someone say they kind of compared homesteading to being a prepper um and farmsteading to be a commercial Farm an entrepreneur so what do you classify like those as you kind of said it earlier but like in a deeper sense yeah so Homesteader you think of self-reliance for sure I I I just in my view and I speak at all the homestead fairs now right and because you're right you're right I feel like our first 10 years here 61 to 71 was just a glorified home that we weren't selling anything we were experimenting we were experimenting experimenting menting we dad was and of course us kids you know we we got it secondhand and all that experi experimenting while I know it was frustrating for him to have to go to town every day and work and not see the farm it it was it was critical for us to get systems in place that when when I finally I finally came back we we had some things under our belt we we knew some stuff work I mean the the one summer in college and I was home from college so when I went to college every summer June so I had June July and August okay out of June was always hay making so we made our hay in June July was a special project and August I cut all the firewood for Mom and Dad to be able to heat the house all winter so so July uh I did special projects one one summer July project was we had we had uh water drainage leakage problems in the in downstairs it's a the kitchen and dining room are are about I don't know three and a half four feet under under the ground you know the Earth submerged and um and we would have we'd have a flood big heavy rain water would would come in down there and so I hand dug down to the Footers all the way around and put in a leaky pipe French drain system and that stopped it another summer project was um I hand dug the solarium that's on the end of the house we were having the house is old 1790 Log Cabin wow and we were having the the soil had built up around the edge we were getting some rot on the on the great big um Chestnut Log plates well what do we do and so we said and of course you know dad and I you know love solariums so let's build a salarium so I I I hand dug a a a pit 30 feet by 8T by what 6 feet 5 feet 6 feet deep okay 30 feet by 8 feet by six feet deep with a pick and Shovel by hand you know and then and then the other summer I put in all by hand all of the initial uh electric fence posts to identify all of our fields that was a GameChanger cuz that meant now instead of putting up electric fence all the way around the animals all the time all we had to do was just subdivide yeah that was a game Cher so I'm telling those stories just to help people to understand this is an incremental thing it's it's a long haul deal and if you if you come at it too fast you'll disappoint yourself and then and then you start then you start doubting yourself as soon as you disappoint yourself then you then you lose your confidence then you lose your Savvy as as Pirates of the Caribbean would say Savvy uh you lose your Savvy and and and um and yeah and then then you get uh frustrated and then you get depressed and when you get depressed then you get discouraged and when you get discouraged you're you sell it all and you move into a camper and you go travel the country and have conversations with Joel Salon yeah yeah that's right that's right I mean the the interest the interest in this non-chemical whatever non-industrial food production is off the charts yeah and we love seeing so many different kinds of people I mean we've obviously seen you we've seen homesteaders on an acre we've seen herbalists on half an acre we went to go see Will Harris we saw um other a couple other YouTubers I mean we're seeing so many different types of people and it reaffirms to us that we believe everyone deserves a seat at the table and there isn't just one way to do things and if we can learn from all of these different methods uh a garden video that we did this guy the only thing he does with his garden is put old hay down that's it he doesn't he doesn't f it up or anything he I believe he uses seed starts and then he just puts it in a little hole in the hay and that's it he just keeps adding I'm like if I would have known it could have just been that simple I think I would have had a garden if we farmed but we were so caught up in all the animals that then weeding and tilling and planting and it just it was a lot for for us yeah um so yeah seeing seeing so many people and and visiting so many things we are already learning so much and we're like not even halfway yeah so that's wonderful Wonder we're having blast yeah good well I I I I know it'll be however it turns out you know whether it's whether it's financially rewarding or not I know it'll be tremendously emotionally rewarding absolutely it's a good it's a good healing time for after you're I you know you're not you're not giving me all the Heartbreak but I I feel it I I know I know what it what it is I I I think that this is a great rebound a great space to be in yeah uh as a rebound from from a heartbreak yeah thank you thanks so thank you Joel for talking with me you've talked now for I don't know what time it is but I'm sure it's going on like six hours straight so thank you I really appreciate it this is our second time being here first time with the kids and it just it's so nice being out here you just feel all of the the wonderful love that you have poured in onto this farm so if anybody can have a chance to come to do one of your lunatic tours they're every Saturday throughout the summer right uh not every Saturday but they are on Saturdays throughout throughout the season there's what eight or nine of them yeah yeah we're we're glad to do that and if somebody wants once more if you want to get actually really behind the curtain and seea chickens butchered and rabbits butchered and compost made and cows moved and pigs moved and trees cut and and logs cut into boards and you know our two-day polyface intensive Discovery seminar uh we do three of them in in July and August six meals it's worth coming just for the food trust me with your Chef right yes yes and cooking on the on the woodf fired flat plate there man um and and we it's our only really extended in-depth you know educational whatever format that that we offer but we basically we basically cram four or five days worth of normal seminar instruction into two long days Dawn to dark wow okay and um no breaks I mean it's it's intensive you know go through but we we find we find that there are a lot more people that can take two days off and do a day really just Sprint then to get you know a 4 day long thing but you know big long long uh syllabus uh outline and and it it's it's limited so it's not very big limited to about 30 35 people so it's very intimate and that's a you know that that's a step way up lunatic tour is a nice little you know kind of fun one time overview kind of thing uh but it's it's pretty it's pretty sh in in the big in the big scheme of things the Intensive Discovery seminar is is serious and you can sign up for that on your website yeah okay uh well our website gives you the link Stockman grass farmer actually does the registrations okay wow but but the link is on our website and the information on it and all that it's all on the website and you hit the link to Stockman and then you're you know then you're up and running sweet awesome well thank you again Joel I really appreciate it thanks for thanks for stopping by and talking and U blessings on all your trip thank you what a conversation I've read almost every single one of his books but he still talked about things that I had I didn't know and how polyface really came about and I just love hearing those things because when we're searching for our forever when we want our farm our Homestead our business whatever it is our goal we want it to be here right now and we forget just how long it takes to do it all and that it it it's going to come but we're learning on the journey you know it's not about the destination right part of our journey is being here and having that amazing conversation I I'm just so thankful and grateful for you guys for watching for supporting us and allowing us to come here have conversations like that with Joel and then be able to share them with you before I go I want to show off my uh cool t-shirt I don't know if you can like see that well enough or not we have some really awesome t-shirts that we've designed in our store check them out support us we want to make this journey last as long as possible but of course one day we will settle down again and of course we'll bring you along with us for that but until then we've got more Farms to see so so come with us and learn from these awesome farmers

Channel: Breaking New Roots

Views: 16,324

Keywords: Breaking New Roots, farm, regenerative farm, uprooted

Id: qT_F2MdsI8Q

Length: 57min 0sec (3420 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2024