Will We Ever Retire from Homesteading?

hey everybody Welcome Back To Living Traditions Homestead well we are having our very first fire of the Season today and we thought we would share that with you guys also we thought today would be a perfect day to sit down in front of the wood stove and have a Q&A yesterday I posted a a question on our Facebook page and our YouTube Comm Community tab asking if you guys just have questions for us and that we would sit down today and record answers to them right and we were overwhelmed with the amount of people who ask questions so that was exciting we ended up picking about 30 different questions we printed them all out we put them here in this bowl and you guys what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to get through all 30 of these questions we're not going to spend more than a minute tops on each one and we are just going to try to blast through these and answer as many of these these questions as we can just randomly as we pick them out of the bowl so I think we'll go back and forth picking and reading and answering and all that kind of thing uh there are some questions that are more specific to one person or another so that's kind of how we're going to work this so let's just get started do you can or pickle any fruit and if so what's your go-to recipes or do you mostly freeze dry or freeze them well we actually don't have a whole lot of fruit that we produce right now we have wild blackberries uh that's really all that our property produces right now uh a few years ago I think three years ago now we planted an orchard and none of those trees are producing yet right couple years hopefully yeah we have gone um obviously Blackberry picking we've gone blueberry picking at a blueberry farm and the blackberries I normally can in just a syrup and the blueberries we just freeze because Kevin absolutely loves blueberries in his yogurt right um and as of right now that's really all we're doing for fruit do you do all of your own video work who films your videos besides a camera on a tripod or each other do the girls assist with the videos yes we do all of our own video work uh we do all of our own editing we don't have someone who edits videos for us and we do all of our own filming on a very very rare occasion we might ask our daughter Samantha to do a little bit of filming for us but that's maybe once a year and we do a lot of videos so uh our other daughter Grace as many of you know is grown up and married now so she's not around to do any filming for us so it really is just the two of us and that is all has always been the goal of our Homestead is to have our Homestead and everything that we do on here manageable by just the two of us and we both do all parts depending on the video depending on the day so we both know how to do all the processes right when do you fertilize your orchard well we fertilize our Orchard trees in the spring uh you can sometimes we use compost sometimes we use blood meal sometimes we use traditional fertilizer but always in the spring or late winter right before Bud break what do you miss most about the conventional lifestyle I thought this was an interesting question when we originally saw it and after giving it some thought I think my answer would be a quitting time when you're a homestead or when you're self-employed like we are uh you really don't have a quitting time so you pretty much work all the time now there's a lot of benefits to that you have a lot more freedom to go do things whenever you want but you're also always kind of on the clock when you have a conventional job you have a distinct quitting time you can kind of leave work at work when your whole life is your work it just doesn't happen that way what is your most favorite tool or appliance that you use in the kitchen kitchen both inexpensive and pricey um I would say I use my crockpot the most out of anything in the kitchen uh with the exception of our coffee maker right so I'd say crockpot coffee maker we also grind all of our own beans right now um I also really like our little cheap espresso maker that we have it's nothing expensive it's just like a Mr Coffee so I think those are probably my favorite because we use all of those almost every day how do you deal with with watering all the animals in the freezing weather and keep the water from freezing especially the pigs well we don't use any automatic waterers in the winter as soon as things starts to freeze we pretty much stop with the automatic waterers now this time of year right now we can still get by with pretty much turning stuff off overnight turning it back onto the day cuz our daytime temps are coming up above freezing once everything is Frozen all the time we pretty much switch everybody to the big rubber pans and and then we just go out a couple times a day and fill them up we break the ice out and fill them up that's what makes Winter that's probably the hardest part of the entire winter is making sure everybody always has water what new career field do you think that you would like to try if you are not in the agricultural field I've actually thought about this if I would want to go back into the traditional kind of work field I think I would want to be an ultrasound tech honestly I haven't given it a whole lot of thought but uh fishing tour guide sounds pretty good I think I think that's what I would want to do do you have a storm seller SLS safe room at your new property uh no we don't it is something that is on the list to get hopefully maybe by next spring or so when we get back into tornado season uh for right now we don't we do have a big crawl space under this house it's about almost 4 feet in in the front area so we could get under there if we need to um we just haven't decided if we want to do another inground one like we had at our old house or if we want to do like a safe room inside of the workshop or something like that so we're still kind of making those plans but it is on the list of things to get what sort of breakfast do you eat on a keto diet actually yes Kevin and I are on a keto diet but we also do intermittent fasting and we actually don't eat breakfast at all right how are your cows doing uh they're actually doing really well we still have them on ground grass uh we don't plan to start feeding hay anytime soon we still have quite a bit of grass for them to be eating we had a great cing season this year all 10 of our cows had a calf so that was exciting now one thing we didn't share with you guys unless you subscribe to our newsletter then you already know this but U we got rid of our bull Tex we actually just sold him a couple days ago and dropped him off at his new home so that next spring we can get a new Bull and be able to breed all of Texas's daughters uh which we didn't want to bre them back to Tex so all of the cows are doing great we'll be weaning calves here soon and then we'll have all of our cows ready to breed again next year are you happy with where you decided to settle and build your homestead and do your children agree well we are very happy about our move to uh southern Missouri we love it here the people are great the climate is wonderful um we just love the lifestyle here we absolutely love our new property here where we've been living since almost a year since last November um everything is perfect and and we really enjoy that are our kids happy they absolutely are happy that we moved away from the big city in the Phoenix area to the country uh small school environment for them they really have enjoyed it right but also keep in mind we don't really have children anymore uh our oldest daughter is all grown up and our youngest daughter is a senior in high school so we don't have little ones anymore we're kind of moving on to the next phase of our life are you using the same internet on your new Homestead are they running high-speed rural internet in your area as well great question as you know since we've moved to the out into the country we've had a lot of different internet providers and for the most part they've all been terrible but for about the last 2 years now we have had starlink we were actually one of the first people in our area to be able to get it just because we signed up super early we were actually on a waiting list for like a year before we got it but once we got it you guys it has been an absolute Game Changer as far as speeds we can stream as much as we want uploading our videos has gotten so much easier when we used to have a different satellite provider it would take us about 12 hours to upload a video with starlink it takes average of about 2 hours now that being said with this good as starlink is uh they did just this summer run fiber internet down our road way out here in the country it isn't active yet but they said it's supposed to be active the first part of next year I think we will probably switch to fiber internet once that becomes available because it's supposed to be even you know a thousand times faster than what starlink is so um I think we will probably switch but U right now we are very happy with starlink what's your biggest piece of advice for new YouTubers over the years we've been asked this uh several times and our answer is really always the same uh consistency and publish videos on a schedule and make that promise to your viewers and stick to it and I would also just add stay focused on what your channel is if it's a homesteading channel focus on homesteading um and just kind of you know stay in that lane don't try to do a million different things how are your dairy cows coming along so our Dairy heer her name is Babe uh she is pregnant and should be caffeine I think sometime within the next month or so uh we don't know an exact date because we just had her in with our bull so we don't know an exact date that she was bred but we're hoping within the next month um and then our dairy cow Rose as many of you know we sold several months ago and she is with a new family so we decided that one dairy cow was all we needed for our Homestead that provides plenty of milk to do everything that we want to do and one Jersey in milk will be just fine what do you miss about Arizona uh that's a a good question a fair question I think what we miss the most about Arizona is really good Mexican food right because we haven't quite found anything like that in our area uh and also we missed the Citrus right now we are pretty good at making good Mexican food but you know sometimes it's nice to go out as well is there anything you've always wanted to try but decided not to for some reason like an animal outbuilding Garden technique Etc of course there are um you know there's always things that you would like to try but we've learned over time to first of all not rush into things and that not everything is appropriate for every Homestead so I've played I've thought about and actually done a lot of research into doing like aquaponics um it's just something that has never really panned out for our Homestead I don't have a good spot to do it and I just haven't really it just never felt like it was the right time so that's one thing um I don't know there of course there are different animals that we would like to try but again because of fencing or housing or whatever it just never is right so I think if anyone is honest they have to say there are things they would like to try but just haven't and you have to sometimes come to the real ation though that not everything is right for every Homestead do the American breast hens go broody we actually did have several hens go broody this summer we never allowed them to hatch any eggs out that's something that I would like to experiment with or try next year but we were actually really surprised that several of them went Broody in the two flocks that we have right do you think you guys will ever retire and what does that look like for you um woo that's a tough question I don't think when you make this kind of Lifestyle your entire lifestyle that you ever really retire and I don't think we ever will I do think at some point down the road we will scale back quite a bit now keep in mind we're only 47 years old so we've got a long time before I think we get anywhere near thinking about being retired so I feel like we're still quite young we still have a lot of energy we still have a lot that we can accomplish so this is I mean I'm talking maybe 20 years down the road at that point I think we will probably scale back at some um but a lot of that will depend on you know kids and grandkids and how involved all of that wants to be and where we've taken this place by then so uh that's a really tough question to answer do you still have your beagles yes we do we have two beagles a male and a female Rosie and Bubba and they are doing well and they primarily uh sleep they primarily lay on the couch yeah yeah so we do still we love them so much and we have where does Kevin get his shirts oh I guess it's a good thing I got this one I like all the funny sayings on them the Tomato Whisperer is my current favorite um I don't get my shirts in any one certain place which is why it's always been difficult to answer that question a lot of you have asked that I pretty much when I see a funny shirt that I like I just get it so there isn't just one current place now I will tell you though the Tomato Whisperer shirt that was actually a Father's Day present from my mom this year so I think she just bought it on Amazon but she thought it was a good fit for me and I would have to agree that uh if there was such a thing as a tomato whisper I would want to be it will you point me to where I can learn to water bath can absolutely uh I have done a bunch of canning videos over the years and we have a can playlist so you can go to our playlist on our YouTube channel and uh learn about a ton of things to can how do you think you'll Homestead differently as you get older okay I guess this kind of goes back to the last question um so again we're not that old uh you know I feel like we've got a long time before I would consider ourselves old but um you know I think we'll probably just scale back I don't think we'll probably give up much of anything but I think we'll scale back as we get older um you know the raised beds while we didn't decide to switch to raised beds for any reason like that we switched because our ground is terrible I do think raised bed gardening when you're older is probably easier than inground gardening um but I think mainly we'll probably just scale back on what we do were you able to put your cast iron rack up in your new home yes we do have a cast iron rack up uh you guys don't see it on our kitchen videos because it's actually on the opposite wall of what you guys see when we film in the kitchen but it's up and I love it what was or is your favorite thing about each of the homesteads you've had that's a good question um I'll go first I think we should both answer this one I think uh our Homestead in Arizona my favorite thing was all of the citrus trees that's the thing I absolutely missed the most about that Homestead we had about 14 citrus trees we had oranges lemons limes tangerines with both juicing and Naval oranges so I definitely miss the Citrus the most as far as our previous Homestead here in Missouri what I miss most really is the wooded areas even though it was considerably smaller than what we have now uh the wooded areas were much flatter and really better for hunting than where we are now uh we do have a lot of flat land on this Homestead as well but it's more open it's like our Hayfield and those areas so I miss having flat wooded land and that that property had quite a bit of it and for me uh for our Homestead in the Phoenix area I miss um well I missed the Citrus too but we also had established pecan trees on that property uh we had a date palm tree and established Mulberry so really just all of that goodness I miss and the uh previous Homestead that we had here in the Missouri huge fig tree remember the huge fig yeah huge fig tree um and then our other Homestead that we had here in the Missouri area uh you really just the storage the house there had a whole lot of storage and we added some uh cabinets and things so I this house even though it's bigger it doesn't have as much usable storage inside the house and I guess I do miss that how do you guys work so well together working and living together can be a challenge what's your secret well uh we do work really well together we have you know we've been married over 25 years now we've learned to work well together um you know I won't say that we always work well together you know you guys see what we decide to put in videos one thing we decided early on in our videos is that we're never going to show you guys if we argue we just don't think it's respectful to our marriage we don't think it's anything that anybody needs to see now that being said I would say 95% of the time we get along great while we're working together we just enjoy each other's company we have very similar interests um and that's something that we've made a very conscious decision to do over the years we've never thought it was a good idea in a marriage to have like girls time and guys time and you know while we don't do everything together every day our interests are the same so we enjoy being together how do you have so much energy do you take supplements or natural remedies do you clean with natural cleaners well I think overall we have a lot of energy because you guys we're still young yet we've said three times I think in this video already we're 47 so we feel like we're still very young uh we prioritize eating as healthy as we can we prioritize getting enough sleep and you know one thing that we've been prioritizing a lot lately is maintaining a healthy weight for our bodies and our sizes and I think that that helps us now and that's going to help us in the future right surprisingly I think we have found that since we've started doing intermittent fasting m we have a ton more energy in fact we normally don't eat until 100 p.m. um and we can tell you that as soon as we eat we start to feel sluggish so there's something about the intermittent fasting I think that gives you a ton of energy and it also just frees up more of your time so you worry less about you know having to make breakfast and take the time for all of that we just move on with our day we get a lot accomplished uh we do use natural cleaners and um most of those are from Azure standard where I buy that in bulk and then I can you know refill my little bottles and stuff but uh yes we do right and Sarah's not really into supplements I take more supplements than Sarah but to be honest these days the only thing that I really take consistently and I have been for about 5 years now really is I take grape seed extract not grapefruit seed extract grape seed extract and I take that because it's a natural blood pressure medication so when I was a little bit overweight uh my blood pressure was starting to creep up it was never bad but it was a little bit higher than it should have been and the grape seed extract brought that down into the normal level to be honest now that I've lost almost 30 lbs my blood pressure is great and I don't really probably need it but I continue to take it because high blood pressure does run in my family and I don't want any issues why don't you folks raise potatoes onions carrots and sweet corn well there's a good reason we really don't raise those things and it mostly goes back to our diet uh we eat a keto diet which means low carb uh pretty much no sugar except we have just recently decided that Sundays will be a little bit of a cheat day for us because uh we do have a potluck every Sunday after church and it was getting hard for us to be able to stay and eat at church because most people don't eat the way we do so um other than that we eat pretty much low carb no no sugar diet and you guys the things that were listed here well except for onions so potatoes carrots and sweet corn are pretty much out when you're living a keto lifestyle and onions you guys we have planted in the past uh We've grown you know a fair amount but they're just not high on our priority list they're not expensive to buy in the store they're not part of what's called The Dirty Dozen which is like the foods you should never buy in a store because they're so sprayed with chemicals should buy them organic or you should buy them organic so um onions are just one of those things that yeah every year we grow a few but we don't grow a lot and we just buy the rest as we need them when y'all travel who takes care of y'all's animals or do y'all travel for any length of time well we have a lot going on here and you guys know that and so the real answer is we very very rarely leave the homestead together right so that one of us is always here to kind of hold down the fort uh it's a lot of work for just one of us to do when the other is gone so we very rarely leave separately either to be honest and most of the time it's just me so that I can go visit my parents who live out of state um there's been one time recently that we've been able to go together we went to Kentucky to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and we did have a family that we trust that we know from church come and take care of our animals but that really has to be very rare for us because of really the level of responsibility it is just to take care of everything we have going at different times of the year right like we would never ask someone to take care of this place during the springtime when we have sometimes like last year 3,000 plants starts to take care of that's just too much responsibility to ask someone else to take care of and when we have a cow in milk there are very few people around us that know how to milk a cow that are comfortable with an animal that large well and our milker and our cow and and the cleaning process and you know refrigerating the milk and you know it's just a lot to ask somebody so on the rare occasion that we do leave the homestead we have a family that we trust that cares for it for us all right I think the final question oo okay what is the one thing you'd add to your homestead if money or location wasn't a factor to me this is an brainer if money were no Factor now it is a factor but if money were no factor I would install the best biggest nicest fishing pond that I could install probably it' probably be considered more of a private Lake to be honest that's what I would do because we I love to fish and we just never have the time to actually be able to go fishing because the nearest lake is a couple hours away or a little over an hour away and so and the lake we really like to go to is a couple hours away so I would install a big pond that would be able to provide all the fishing that I wanted to do and so that would be what I would do what would you do I probably do the same thing cuz I like to fish too I mean that's what we did when we were dating when we were first dating at 19 years old we'd go fish right so I guess the pond has to be twice the size cuz we both want a big pond well I'll fish right next to you so but I won't steal your fish and so there you go you guys uh 30 questions in I don't know how long this is going to be once it's edited hopefully about 30 minutes or less we hope that this was fun for you guys we had a good time looking through all of these questions we hope to do this more down the road it's always nice to be able to answer directly with you guys what you want to know about us you guys if you're enjoying videos like this make sure that you hit the Subscribe button and as always the best way that you can help us here on the home instead is just to share our videos on your social media until next time thank you so much for stopping by our Homestead take care and God bless God bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 59,934

Keywords: Living Traditions Homestead, Missouri, Ozark's, homesteading, Ozarks, self-sufficient, homesteaders, unjobbing

Id: 5gefZQorEQQ

Length: 25min 7sec (1507 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2023