Building Their Dream Homestead (Sow The Land)

I have to almost treat it like that like it's an art school project because I and I take it too seriously because then I don't I feel like I might get burnt out by it and I have to like keep it fun we had no job we had no family we had no connections we had no community and we still moved out here if we're going to like any of this so it's like the one and a half acres seemed more doable I don't think we would have been as successful if we would have started big I think it's always fun being out here I mean with the animals in nature sure I I mean we make it fun because this is our life and we love this so we are at an amazing place I'm sure everybody knows who you guys are in this Homestead Farmstead world but we are at so the land with Jason and Lorraine are going to check out your guys' farm and just kind of dive into why you're doing this how you got into for maybe those of those that don't know and just kind of go from there but I think you said that was it this morning yesterday you had babies born yes we just had a baby Cooney coonies we raised Cooney Cooney pigs here in uh we just had some born a week ago a week ago okay but they're coonies so they'll still be really small yes coonies are really small they're just like giant I mean little little burritos or something so are we are they here or are they up they're right here okay this m well hi Mama this is AAR how are she's the mama this fence is on but okay yeah so we've had her um 3 years no going on three years so she's about three years old uh we had her first litter last year her first very first litter last year she had eight and this this time she had six okay those are good numbers for Coy cois yeah I mean it took about a year for her to breed our boar is over there but it took her that long to get bread yes oh that's interesting is it just because of age or what I I think just Cooney coonies in general they they have a hard time or they could have a hard time breeding yeah it's just I think it's just the nature of them that makes sense oh goodness you guys are so cute and it's cold out I know yeah we have a heat lamp in there just in case supposed to get down to 30s that next couple days so yeah we've had it on like once the heat lamp but it's not too bad I mean they're they're pigs they're they're pretty warm so what do you do with the piglets then cuz you don't feed them all out right do you sell them or you like sell the meat yeah so we sell the uh we sold like pig pigs piglets uh last year and that's what we tend on doing at these so the six we'll probably keep two for meat for ourselves and then uh sell the rest uh last year we we kept four of the pigs that they're up there and then we sold four of them very cool cuz you guys this is your second Homestead right yeah yeah cuz you moved here when did you move here so we moved out of California in 2016 and we we bought a one and a half acres we start that's where we started from and we're there for about six years and then two years ago we moved to this 14 acres now uh we just felt like we outgrew that place you know it just it was just nothing I mean it was it was a different time in 2016 so remember coming out here out this way and and seeing like 12 properties on a weekend of abandoned properties like these are properties that nobody wanted yeah and even this place it was that one and a half acres was was there for a year with nobody living on it it was on a mobile home and and it was run down and it was like I think this is where we want to be and so we start that's where we started and you know we didn't know any of this stuff when we moved so we didn't even know if we would like doing gardening or animals so that was kind of like our starter and like just to get us familiar we kind of treated it as like a a test almost like a like a school okay for ourselves like we're going to come out here figure it out see if we could do this on one and a half acres and if we can well maybe we'll move up to bigger property if not maybe we'll stay but after about 6 years we felt like we really wanted to grow and start raising larger animals like like steers or cows or pigs and so that's what we we did when we moved out here interesting so when you guys moved to the 1 and 1/2 acres you knew it was going to be a test and maybe one day you'd move off of it and go somewhere else yes and correct me if I'm wrong but you moved all the way from California so you moved out or I know that you wanted to get into like homesteading because of your health but why here like why North Carolina from California I know it's yeah we looked at other places and you know we kind of took a year to like we didn't really travel but we looked we wanted to stay in California okay but it was just so expensive and you know all our fames out there they still out there most of them and then uh so I don't know we I think we felt we really felt a good sense of community out here even we really didn't know anybody out here we didn't have family out here but we just felt I don't know we felt that of a lot of like-minded people that are kind of want or doing what we wanted to do a lot of small farms you know it's like the Asheville area so it's just a lot of people doing that over there yeah um and we just fell in love with it like the green the seasons uh it's not too hot too humid and it's not too cold you're like far enough into the mountains that it's like pretty solid weather right it's not like if there's no way we could have moved to like Minnesota like from californ Southern California to there like that would have been too extreme so here's kind of the perfect Four Seasons yeah perfect world there that's awesome so and we can talk about this here in a second but I'm just curious when you're moving from like the 1 and 1/2 acres to 14 acres I mean you you went through the schooling like you said you're kind of schooled yourselves you were learning on that one of half acres but like when you came to 14 acres like what did you anticipate the difference being or like maybe hardships that you're going to run into and what didn't you anticipate well I think we putting animals and Gardens in spots because you know if you're just on one acre there's pretty much much only like one spot you could put a garden or run your animals and it makes you more try it really forces you to be an efficient farmer I think with a smaller acreage but here it was so it's so open it's very overwhelming okay you know because it's like where do I even run our chickens where do I put the high tunnel where do I put our raised garden beds and and in that aspect it was overwhelming but just to like be here after a year and just I think for us just putting it a place and just seeing how it goes yeah and then watching the land too and what areas flood obviously we can't put a garden where we have like you know heavy floods we can put you know baby piglets there or you know maybe stuff that doesn't grow so an area where there's just too many trees or whatnot we just had to watch where the land you know where the sun rises and sunsets and where you know natural um Heavy Rain flows down and yeah yeah and like are we you know we ra we made raised garden beds wood garden beds we had them in one spot the first year because you know you move to a new property you want to grow food you want to do all the stuff and so you don't want to wait and so we just made some raised garden beds put them in a spot and like I I don't we were still unsure if that was the spot and we had it there for a year then after a year we're like you know what that's not the spot let's move it over here but you know that's why we build them in the raised beds first so that way we can move it and we move the soil to where we actually have it now and that's where we that's where where it is but what made you decide that that wasn't the area that's funny because I when we first moved here I was like that is the spot I'm 100% sure that's where I want our race beds that's where I want the garden the first place and he was like I don't think that's a good spot and I was like well yeah I'm 100% sure that's exactly where I want it and then a year later um we were like yeah that's not going to work I don't remember what it was I think it was too far from the house that was one reason yeah and I oh and then it was just too much of a hill like from one area where you stand you can look at it and say this this looks great it doesn't look like a steep slope but then if you go and stand on the opposite end you're like wow we're going to have a lot of soil erosion it just better for better suited for something else like we ended up putting our Orchard there which works better that's interesting that like your perspective should be like 360 when you're looking at where to place things so like that's where we're at here with with the the greenhouse it took you two years to put this up can we like check it out yeah yeah and we did just see that you got all of this soil in too yeah we just put this up and we just put the soil in we haven't even started planting yet uh I still have to put make end walls so it's just kind of brand new but why did you decide that the greenhouse should go here like what about your land and topography you decided that it should be here well it's the flattest part of the land right here this used to be a horse property so right here where we're at used to be a horse Arena so it's been trampled down yes specifically right here it doesn't really grow much it's very hard and compacted soil right here and it's the most flat so that's why we had to bring in the soil yeah cuz there's no way we were going to plant in the soil that's there already that's really the only reason I mean it's fairly close to the house to you know it's not way out there but it's flat doesn't really grow here anyways so let's just try to rebuild that soil here where it's at that's a good point cuz if nothing's are if nothing's growing here then it's not really taking over something yeah it's not like I was running my couch here or running pigs here because there's nothing here to eat yeah you know it's already dead yeah that's really cool and it's flat like there's so many areas on our property where it's like we wouldn't be able to fit this large of a high tunnel anywhere because it's so slopey and what are they called swells swells oh yeah the swells yeah we have a lot of those on our property too okay yeah so what are you going to put in here I do you know well I'm not off the top of my head I have a chart that's um inside the house we're going to do cabbages and um broccoli and which I started here and they're supposed to be transferred in here however we do have some roaming chickens and we need end walls and we need water ah yeah we don't have water out here so I don't know okay yeah I mean we have we're going to grow tomatoes and peppers and lots of other things too if I if the season passes for broccoli and cabbage but we'll see we're just kind of taking it one day at a time so you came from California you didn't have like an agriculture background you do a lot of projects on your own here like all of your construction projects where did you get that information has it just been trial and erir did you have a background in that at all well I mean my previous well when we left I working in an office and I was a computer drafter so I went to school for like industrial design so kind of engineering yeah so I think that maybe helps me you kind of have an engineering brain already yeah even though I've never like I never built anything with my hands prior to doing all this but I've always drew it on paper Okay so maybe visually like I could see it and I could draw it you know so now I'm kind of like actually making stuff and that's what I wanted to do you know I wanted out of my office to work with my hands and just be outside and you know I got tired of sitting down in the cubicle all day and you know kind of I wanted to we wanted to work for ourselves too and try to figure what that looked like you know it wasn't just growing our own food it wasn't just having land it was also trying to figure out how to work for ourselves as a family together yeah so that actually brings up an interesting question you how did you work for yourself while you're here I mean obviously now we know you're a content creator that comes with income and you have courses and things like that workshops workshops that's I I was like Labs was the only word coming like okay it's not this isn't a university it's not a lab but I guess it works workshops how did you like get the financial side of it on your first property when you first started before he made the move it took a good six years to actually to say okay this is what we're going to do six years of uh paring down what we had this was in California as far as like we're trying to live more minimally you know we go from two cars to one car try to get rid of some debts as possible from two careers to one career Two careers and then eventually like no career yeah she was in the fashion industry you know pairing down and and we had a big house and and and and trying to get rid of stuff and so it took that 6 years to do that and then um eventually we sold most of the stuff in our house and we sold we ended up selling our house and with that we were able to buy the one and a half acres when we moved out here but then it was like I she had already created her career to be a stay-at home mom and I before we left I wanted out of my office job and I didn't know how to do that and the only way I knew how to do that was just quit and just quit figure it out just just going to move and we have a little bit of savings you know a little bit of cushion there to help us but we still didn't have enough money to actually pay the one and a half acres out right like we had to take out a mortgage so we had the mortgage we had our four-year-old we had no job we had no family we had no connections we had no community and we still moved out here wow and we were just going to figure it out that was we had hope but we had hope and that was it that was that was a huge and there was something driving you like maybe something that's like just under the surface unable to be like given a word that you were like no this is the right thing to do this is what we're going to we believed wholeheartedly in what we were doing we believed in this food this lifestyle and this healthy food of us raising this food is going to heal us we believed in that wholeheartedly that this was this was the right path for us and we just we did a lot of things to make it work we did everything we could I mean there's there's a lot of things that Jason does he works very hard and I I kind of want to say you work harder than what you did in the office oh yeah for sure but it's but you love it more well yeah yeah the office was easy yeah if I want it easy I would have just stayed yeah but but all this is not easy yeah but you love this more because we believe in it we believe that this works and this is healthy for us yeah so I have this conversation it seems like a lot with almost every farmer and probably just because it's on my heart given where Paul and I came from we had our farm we got burnt out we sold it and I think of this instant gratification and I don't know maybe it's our age like the millennial side of things but the fact that you took six years to pair down first and then we six years on an acre and a half and now it's like you're kind of on your dream property is that maybe a misunderstanding but is that right that's not our forever we don't know we're not saying I don't know that's hard to say it's hard to say we we definitely like it better than Aces like we really like it here it's it's still interesting though that you're going through this work you're not trying to do it all right now you're not like no I want a 100 acres I want to own a whole mountain and I'm going to do all the things on on that mountain and it's going to be all mine we do want that I think that's what we initially wanted but then you know when you actually like reality checked in well reality was like I didn't have a job and I didn't know what we were going to do I didn't know if we were going to like any of this so it's like the one and a half acres seemed more doable I think you I get asked this too often is like don't you wish you would have started on the on this 14 rather than get the one and a half acres like why why even bother with the one and a half acres if this is what you wanted to do and it was like I don't think we would have been as successful if we would have started big yeah because I think we would have been too overwhelmed we would have probably maybe got burnt tow we didn't know anything anything you know never had chickens and and end it nothing and uh so I think we would have just been too overwhelmed and maybe we would have been like okay 14 acres is too much let's pair down to one we went backwards um rather than doing the opposite so I'm happy the way it turned out and I wouldn't do any different how do you put that in your mindset where you're like no we need to go slow or like do you have you said that you want to like you wanted to buy the whole Mountain you wanted to do it all right away but you pulled yourself back so how do you like pull your foot off that gas pedal a little bit is it just like something in your head it was Financial it's hard well it's it's my wife I'm the one that's like home with all the animals and I'm like wait we have to read the books first yeah we have to finish the fencing first it's going to cost this much on Feed and this and that I'm like oh yeah you're right all right M this we but yeah it's hard it's hard I do think that there is something to be said about starting out slow like when we when we were living in California and we took the six years to pair down and everything it was hard it was painful to to kind of get rid of things that we thought were ours and when we did that we kind of felt like oh we have nothing we moved here with nothing like we had no family we had this little mobile home which I was like this is ugly I have a different appreciation for it now but you know I you know and we had this you know one and a half acre farm that had nothing like not even a barn or a garage or our tools were out there in the rain getting wet and this little tiny mobile home you know where all of our belongings we had sold and got rid of and so we we had nothing so we we we didn't have anything but our dreams to kind of like we could it we could do this one day and but we have to we have to do the hard first and you know it was hard you know we wanted all these things but we couldn't I think like just taking all of the steps one foot at a time it's just like every day you look forward to every day because you're getting there you know yeah so you mentioned in the greenhouse how you guys don't have any water so you have a water collection system here and I know you've got a big one up there and we can get to that in a second but this one I think is so cool so do you want to I know you've done videos about it but do you just want like brief overview yeah so this is a portable one one it has skids so I can I can pull it around so yeah I mean that was one thing you move to a bigger property you're like wait a minute if I want to run animals way out here do I really want to run hoses too or dig water lines or dig a well or or you know all that and and yeah and that can get expensive and that's the the very first year we were here I did run like 500 ft of hoses you know because you know you just want to start doing stuff and so well that's one way to do it run hoses but after that gets old after a while so I figured you know let's let's try to save rain we save some rain at our our last property and you know we're from Southern California so we're kind of used to saving rain out there that's a good point and that's always kind of in my brain yeah when you come out here you're not really saving it rains a lot water's abundant here it's abundant I mean it's green like I got we got a creek running through our property like you know it's not a problem yeah but it's not that I'm saving rain because of a drought necessarily it's more so to water our animals so I don't have to run a hose right or drill a well because pretty much this is these are always full yeah and line you just grabbed some water and gave it to the chickens can I look at that real quick cuz when I think of saving water I think of algae growth yeah and it's going to get green and oh no this was clear I mean this bucket is stained but so is that just because it's in the food grade barrels well it's cuz they're they're dark you know they're they're blue but there's no light going into it and they're connected that's why there's two yeah I mean it's it's it's a small like roof area but tin you get you know you get one day of rain it's not these are not going to fill up but overall you know you get a couple days a good pour down and you know it goes into this one and then this is the Overflow that goes into this one and our our always our goal is to always use this and re and know use that water and not just have it be sitting there I mean the one up there sits up there because we haven't we just put it in but um we always want to make sure we're kind of we know we're going to have like 5 days of rain next week we'll try and empty this out and use it for but we have animals here in the middle of this property we where we don't have water so when we're watering our animals we're rinsing things off we're cleaning buckets so even when you're conserving water which like you said coming from California where you're like always conserving water but um so I tend to be an extremist and it's either all or nothing and so I see this and I'm like oh man you have to conserve like all the water and never use it and it's just like you got to be super careful but you're like no it's plentiful here we're okay use it to wash your boots off it's not a big deal do you have those same thoughts I do oh yeah I mean there's like last year I think where there was like maybe 2 months of no rain there was a little drought and we were getting pretty low on the rain water that we were saving oh well I didn't have this one but we have a ib a 275 gallon IBC Tote off of the little Barn yeah that's right and uh that was we've used that 275 gallons to feed you know pigs chickens pretty much the entire year last year and that's all we had as far as saving rain and um there was like one month where it got pretty low and it was almost gone but then at that point we can use their well can use their well you can use the hose so so you have the backup at the house it's not like your animals are going to die and I think that's always in my mind too like you got to have say what's your main source which is our Rainwater and then what's the backup you got to have a a backup to the backup right you know you can't just have one source cuz what if that goes out or like we're on all electricity here right so what if electricity goes out for number then our well doesn't work so how are we going to get water to our animals yeah well we have the rain collection system that's one way and this seems like a really simple I know you have build plans but this seems really simple and easy and said it's on skids so there's a lot of like homesteaders even but definitely farmsteaders that could really benefit oh yeah even even if you it's not on skids like you could just make a little water tower like this and you could hook up your chicken water to this and say if you have your chickens in a stationary spot they'll always have constant water going to them and you don't have to fill up buckets you know yeah what a great idea so you have your chickens out here and you use the premier one netting yeah what do you do with your chickens cuz your homestead based right so like do you sell the eggs no sometimes we have a lot of eggs for ourselves and sometimes we don't this this flock right here is our older flock um so not all of them are laying not all of them are laying I guess they're mostly pets our daughter is the one who mostly cares for them she feeds them and she Waters them and collects their eggs so when he's like oh well they're not laying anymore they're really old it's time to like Co some chickens and she's like no not Hannah we love Hannah did she grow up with these ones oh yeah for the most part for the most part they're like some of these are four years old some of are like three three 2 years old we just have a new batch that we got that are in our Brer right now so those will kind of be the the next generation of egg layers so basically we're just using them they do lay but also just to fertilize the land and we just continue moving everybody around and then your pigs are up here the feeders yep right they're feeder pigs no they're C Cy pigs but but they're going to feed us I say feeders yeah so I think of like screwing Market ones right like you're going to you're going to eat them right these were the baby piglets last year she had and they're they're a year old this month now do you get all of your meat off of the farm like do you have to supplement at all cuz I think of and I say that I'll preface it by saying that because Coy coin are known for their low yielding there's not a lot there you've got four here you're a family of three yeah do they do those do the coony coonies give you enough meat to supplement you guys so we haven't had them long enough to actually had any meat Cooney meat oh you wait what pigs did you have before we had feeder pigs we had just regular feeder pigs oh like just fast growing pigs I see but last year we did not have to buy any meat we raised two steer how many hogs we had three Hogs is it six not not coonies but they were just regular pigs like a lot of pigs we had three pigs and plus know meat chickens and then we had two steers that we raised but we haven't had yeah we we grow pretty much I think we grow all of our 100% of our meat here what made you switch from the domestic breeds to Coy coonies we still I still we will still raise the domestic breed I think we just I just kind of like the coonies cuz there's their temperament they like you're not afraid for your life on there like they're very gentle I could go in here and sit down and they won't eat me yeah I mean they're easy going and if they break out which is very rare but if they do they're easy to get back in and you you don't have to run for your life you plus they're they're grazers they're like gentle little mini cows you don't really have to worry about putting coonies in woods like you can but if you don't have any woods these are good for pasture versus the domestic thingss really should probably be in the woods I mean they've they will just mow down a grass like they're not I mean you can see the line they've kind of they're like RAC tracking the fence here and you can like see where it's lower here than it is over here yeah plus they take minimal they don't you don't have to feed them a ton they're going to take 2 years to grow out and you know I I figured we'll give them a chance you know we're not going to really know so we're going to start butchering these guys uh this coming up winter and we're going to see how much meat we get you know they're a large Pig so we might get more lard than meat but um which we use a lot of L we're just going to test it out see see if see and that's another conversation I keep having with the small farmers the regen Farmers the homesteaders is what's yield really in like what's production value actually mean for you like you personally on on a commercial pig farm yeah you need production cuz that's how you're going to get paid but with you you're like well four of these pigs don't really have cuz they don't eat as much they eat your grass down and then they're going to feed you so what's it really worth I mean I don't know I guess I have that question so I was raised conventional egg and everything's always about production yeah but I I question who's that production really for know like what are we really doing with those production values I think if we're you know if we're selling actually on the pork at farmers markets or something like that then yeah I mean probably Coy coonies are not the ones you want to raise you just want a fast growing animal yeah but yeah for us we're a small family like and they're easygo and they're fun and they're cute I mean they're too cute they are very cute you probably don't want a cute pig and you're going to eat it they are very cute well that's awesome like you didn't notice how much up we went from here but now we're like oh no we're going yeah this used to I mean it looked a lot different when we first cuz it was very overgrown yeah just overgrown but also like compacted cuz there was horses here and just random trees you know we couldn't even go in our Woods I had to bring in like a forestry muler to come in and just make Pathways in the woods so I had never seen a I I'm I'm going to call it a tree eater cuz that's like I'm like that's like a little tree eater I had never seen anything like that until we were watching your videos on it and then I saw them everywhere I was like man everybody's got these things yeah they're pretty neat what they do and like man what that machine did in a day like yeah I would still be doing this stuff like two years later it was super helpful like even random trees in in the pasture area they took out so it did not look like this I mean even the grass I mean it there was no grass growing here yeah when we first moved two years ago and it's very green but you could see the the quality of the grass is much more Lush and thick up there versus up here here but this is the area we want to concentrate but the whole property kind of looked like this like this yeah if you notice like down closer to the house we ran a lot of of our chickens there the first two years because we didn't have water up here right so now this year I'm going to start utilizing the upper part here because we do have this yeah this GI T what a great spot for it too and then everything's gravity fed yes so it just goes right down so I haven't we haven't actually used this yet I had just finished it uh like in the fall beginning of winter time so we haven't actually used it yet but in a good like two days this thing filled up it's like 1,000 gallons wow I had to build this structure to save which is a fairly simple structure like it's not it's just a roof right like yeah yeah it's just a simple like garage shelter lean to shed right now it's kind of our picnic area I love it but could be for animals too and then I we just brought this up here and this has been full for pretty much all winter I think a lot of people are worried that oh isn't going to freeze where at it's not going to freeze I mean it would take a lot for this thing freeze a lot I mean that's a lot of water so my intention is yeah hooking up a hose to it and gravity feed it down yeah for our animals or I could go this way with it to the woods so you own the woods too not just the tree not just the fence line but Into the Woods so the fence line here this is something I'm I'm currently doing is redoing the fence line because it was for horses and I'm trying to redo it just for smaller animals yeah so I'm kind of I'm just utilizing what was already here like all these main most of all these wood posts were already here like half of the fence was here so I'm just trying to reuse it and fix it so it's just cool that if you can and you can have that flexibility to be able to yeah to to do it right yeah yeah and I think like homesteading in general I think it's just all I don't know it's all like a a big uh art school project that's a good point here let's walk over there cuz can we walk the fence line yeah okay so that's a really good point because you started this in 2016 and you said it was a different world back then yeah so what do you think about the differences in people wanting to Homestead then versus now and I don't just mean like Co but just in the differences of the people that have come in the people that have gone out what do you think about that as far as like the art school project well I don't know I mean I you think people are more into it now like you think or or I mean people are more serious about it I don't know I'm asking you I guess so yeah I mean I mean I always thought about it just like uh I'm like I'm not sure you know cuz we not sure if we like doing this stuff and it was like oh we're just going to go see and kind of treat it as like an art school project where we're just going to try things and like build weird chicken chicken fun chicken tractors and and that's what it's all about and just having fun with it and just seeing if we like doing C certain things but then I also think I could see where maybe people are got really more into it and that's fine too I mean people have their different wise right I think for us it's just I don't know I have to I have to almost treat it like that like it's an art school project I and not take it too seriously uh because then I don't I feel like I might get burnt out by it yeah and I have to like keep it fun yeah you know how do you balance that I mean so you talked about how like hope kind of brought you here you obviously are established on social media so how do you balance like trying to make sure that you don't have to have an off Farm job but also keeping it fun again I asked I asked my wife if we can do this she keeps me grounded you got to have you got to have a balance like we're I think we're a good balance yeah you know she's like the list maker I'm the just like let's just go out there and do it and you know not just see what happens so Lorraine what do you think then how do you keep the balance of keeping it fun and enjoyable and not like set like a chore right like something that's getting boring or hard to do but also making sure that you can afford to continue to do it well I think it's always fun being out here I mean with the animals in nature I I mean we make it fun because this is our life and we love this and it's good we know that we we believe 100% that this is good for our bodies by being out here and being with the animals being connected stewarding them letting the land heal us and and that kind of so it is fun because you're always learning right there's I mean we homeschool our 12-year-old daughter so we're always always learning all of us we're always learning together more about Everything Herbs animals so it's fun um but there is a balance how do we keep the balance because it is hard work I would say taking breaks when needed yeah it's taking that's hard to do yeah it's hard to do I think that's hard for you to do taking taking breaks and and going and having fun like um like going to the beach for a weekend going to the beach or or going to the lake to go kayak or something like that so just taking breaks so how do you know when it's time to take a break is it just like I'm getting tired it's time to pull back a second let's go for the weekend or it's kind of hard because we both function very differently Jason I don't I can't answer that for Jason um I'm not sure when you take your breaks but like I'm very routine I will be like I don't want to talk about the farm after 10 o'cl at night or amount especially after come in here at midnight waking me up asking me if we should get chickens yeah exactly that's the way and that's the rule that is the rule because I had I have boundaries I love that you have to have that rule we yeah we have to have boundaries and that is my break sometimes like okay after five or after dinner and after we've done all the animal chores I don't really want to go back out there I unless there's like go look at the moon or or go take a walk or something like that but I don't want to spend all of my days and all of my nights doing just this so I I have for me like a routine of like okay this is my routine I didn't respect that routine certain like in the summertime it looks different like in the middle of the day when it's hot I will go inside and read a book or do school or right do something you know different with Penelope so it just looks differently season by season but but routines and and setting aside different times of the day it doesn't have to be like certain times of the year where I take a break it could be just different times of the day where i'm like I don't want to talk about it I don't want to do it I don't want to think about it yeah and I I you know it's midnight I'm sleeping I'm sleeping yeah so how do you know then Jason I don't know like I I think uh having a YouTube channel doesn't help things yeah because you always kind of feel like you have to pump out the content yeah and that's what's hard about it and that's always on my mind really it was like I got to what's the next video you know and then I edit too so it's like I need to do that I I'm I'm doing both but I I guess I try to I guess for me it's just I can't take a break I don't take breaks that's that's the answer you've said it one time before I'm not sure I think it was like on your podcast or something you said when you turn off the camera and you go clean your barn and that reinspection this and I need to edit and I need to do this and I'm like okay I'm just going to stop not have a camera in my hand and go to the barn and organize it and whatever that looks like like hang stuff on the wall sweep like just organize something and then that usually kind of recharges me for whatever reason yeah and like clears my mind and if I even if I could have like a good clean barn or a workshop area whatever it is uh and then I'm like okay I feel better now or maybe listen to some music or something and then that's my break like that could be five hours or it could be a full day or it could be maybe Saturday and Sunday but that's my break yeah and that's all I get and we we do go on like vacations and I mean for a couple days in the year we just kind of started doing that last year yeah so I think that's helpful and you don't film during that and I think that's helpful take time for yourself it's hard when you're giving pieces of yourself to other people like when you're bringing them along with your chores it it definitely cuz when we had so we had our YouTube channel while we farmed and it started becoming that I was like I just want to go feed the freaking cow I don't want to tell somebody that I'm feeding the cows I don't want to set the camera up to feed the cows today I just want to go feed the cows but I felt like I wasn't allowed to do that because then I didn't have the content that was you know propelling our farm forward so it's it's a balance definitely and make things difficult and I think for me I we know we just left careers and left my job and I always felt like I never deserved a time off like I feel like I didn't deserve it because I didn't do enough to earn it yeah because I'm you I'm used to working for somebody else and I got paid every Friday so all of a sudden you move out here and it's like man I didn't get paid this month or I didn't get paid this Friday like yeah you know it's up to me you know to get it done and so for for a good I'm starting not to feel like that anymore but I would say for a good six seven years since living out here I really felt like that really really really bad and I feel like I I don't I don't deserve a day off I don't deserve that like I need to keep working because I made the choice to leave my career to come out here and bring my f bring our family out I mean it was both of our choices but you know like I I chose to leave and and do this so it's up to me I need to do it I need to figure it out and that's why I don't deserve any day off but that's hard you know it's hard for me to get through that but I think slowly I am the the guilt that you're saying like that I didn't deserve to have a day off is that where the living ugly kind of came from where you're like no I know that this is my goal so I'm going to live in a trailer that I thought was ugly or do house projects at a certain time is is that kind of did that flow together I think so I think um I think there there is some beauty to living in ugly um and it teaches you it teaches you to be humble it teaches you to um appreciate the very few things that you do have and and that that's what I meant by when we did live in that small um mobile home and it was ugly you really had to seek out the beauty you had to you had to find the beauty in the day in the ugly and it forces you to think like that and I'm so appreciative for that time period so there's there's nothing wrong with that and I don't feel like that that's why we work so hard is so we can have nicer things I don't I don't think that at all but I do think that we work hard so we can be more efficient and we can have more food maybe not nicer things though it's it's not more gear towards your health versus material things yeah and being more efficient in stewarding the land and growing food and May and having abundance so maybe we can provide meat for something else maybe we could sell it or maybe we could provide for another family or that kind of thing but it's really not for to have beautiful things or anything like that well yeah plus you know you know if you buy an ugly property I mean it's more affordable that's all we could afford and so but you could with a little bit of sweat you could make it into something great yeah and something that you've always wanted and envisioned and and I think there's more satisfaction in that than buying something that's already perfect and pristine yeah but we didn't know that living in California like I I feel like our mindset was so different like when you want a beautiful house you just go and buy it but but doing that here you know buying a property an ugly property and fixing up and there is gratification of like wow you know we worked really hard you know it was affordable we could up afford it and we made it work and and it made it happen and so it's it's just a lot nicer you said you didn't know earlier but you you may or may not be building this property up and maybe want something even larger or you you may just stay here and and that be it right yeah I mean maybe I mean I mean currently like I I love it yeah I mean we're putting a lot of work into it right now the Project's not finished yeah right for sure and uh uh Ian we've only been here two years so yeah I don't know it's hard it's hard to say yes this is our forever home it's hard to say that cuz I it's so weird to say that but I don't know in California did people and I I was raised in the middle of a cornfield and I didn't get out of that cornfield until December when we started on this journey okay so forgive my ignorance but in California or at least maybe I shouldn't specify to California but where you guys lived before did people people stay in one place like did they buy a home and stay there their whole lives it's hard to speak for everybody but I think a lot of the people that we knew and grew up with and family members that we that we know and grew up with I think that they they they did that maybe not the same home but the same area yeah oh neighborhood neighborhood neighborhood it's like suburb yeah they'll go travel on vacation maybe but um it's it was very radical for us to do what we did and and leave you know Grandma lived on the next street over mom lived on the next street over know sister like everyone just kind of lived within 30 minutes from each other and that's just kind of stay in the area you know we went we met in high school and just stayed kind of around there yeah that's typical yeah uh maybe not the same house but definitely the same area I just find it interesting cuz that's also how I grew up everybody lived at least within an hour of each other except for a few family members and I find that like maybe it's a a comfortability that we are supposed to go find our forever property right now but talking with you it's it just is kind of I don't have a light bulb going off but it's like you know a little dim and that we don't have to go find our forever property once we're done with this traveling I don't know when when we'll be done but at some point we will be done and when that happens Paul and I say oh we'll go Homestead again but do we have to go by like you know the 40 Acres the 50 acres right away or can we like build up to that yeah oh yeah you know and and is it okay that we might be 50 years old and kind of starting over again is that okay like do you guys think that's okay I know you don't want to start over again at at like man I can't at like 80 years old we don't I mean we talk about buing a chicken coop I I can't be I can't be doing like this hard heavy work when I'm like in 20 more years I just can't do it but we we could move and hopefully if with the sell of this property move into something that maybe was already has fencing or something that has make a little profit from you know cuz we made some profit from the one and a half acres like you it was nothing and then we brought it to something and then like you know you kind of move up that's how that's how you work but I do think about that like at a certain point I think you probably have to say Okay this is it right you I don't I don't want to be like morbid or something but like this is where I'm dying mean you will bury me on this s and here I am this like I don't want to go you know re renovate another house either that or scale back down because you can't physically do stuff eventually move chicken TR or hoist up a cow after you butchered him but you know but then we have the conversation of well then our daughter's going to get married and her husband's going to come and help us on our farm you know and he doesn't know it yet yeah I mean you know and our daughter's going to live here or whatever if wants to or or not I mean who knows maybe she doesn't not doesn't want to but we do talk about that like what's what's next we don't know it's hard to foresee that future of what it's going to look like I think for me I just love the possibilities of it I mean when we sold the farm and did this people like well what happens if it doesn't work like I don't know we'll figure it out you know like you can always pivot and then I started having conversations with my friends like that where they're like well I'm not happy in my job change just because you have a degree in something doesn't mean that that's what you have to do for the rest of your life we're living proof of that and I just I I I think that's very inspirational and I think a lot more people need to hear that because we get stuck in this rut of this is what I chose I have to do it for 40 years and then I can retire to finally do what I want yeah you don't have to you have to stay in the same place forever many people say oh why are you moving out there you know why you quitting your job now like you should just wait till you're retired and many people told me that which is a lot of people say oh I'll I'll do that when I'm retired I'm like man a lot of could happen from now to retirement what if I get sick or you know what if I can't I'm unable to do stuff something like this physically unable you know for us our the momentum was there when we left you know like we had all these green lights of like oh we should we you need to go you need to go and there's never a perfect time to to do something like this but the momentum was there and we just just kept going and kept moving forward yeah yeah we definitely don't regret it look at the last eight years that we've been here it's just been a beautiful journey and you're still on it we're still on it cuz that's the beauty of life right like we're still living yeah and the same thing with retirement like we heard that especially at the firehouse like I'll do it to my what I retire and Paul's like I'm a paramedic I see people die every day we might might not make it like just do what do what makes you happy and I just I love that from you guys so thank you so much for having me out and thanks for coming out let us explore this has been absolutely amazing yeah just show me around thank you for coming out I appreciate it thank you it was good to meet you you too so if you're like me you probably watch all the videos on homesteading and farmsteading and things on on YouTube my family all all four of us have been watching Jason and Lorraine for years like literally years that's how we'd watch drink our coffee in the morning that's how we get Sydney to go to take a nap app she watches those big videos being able to come out here and talk with them has just been so cool and so inspiring too I mean what they're doing and just how humble they feel about what they're doing and where they're at I know we will definitely find a homestead for ourselves one day I don't know where that is but I will be taking a lot of the things with me that we talked about today and I hope you do too if um you want some more content more things we are building our membership page we're going to continue to do extra things keep doing live streams on the first Mondays of the month so just come along with us and we are just so glad to have you here with us thank you for joining me today

Channel: Breaking New Roots

Views: 43,393

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

Id: qq0yDk9zKeI

Length: 48min 50sec (2930 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024