From Suburbia to Self-Sufficiency: Carolyn Thomas on Building a Thriving Homestead and Family

We have arrived! Welcome to the first episode of Everyday Ancestral. I am beyond excited to share this journey with you, and there's no better way to kick things off than with Carolyn Thomas as our guest. Carolyn and her husband Josh are the heart behind Homesteading Family, a resourceful and inviting community for anyone curious about homesteading, self-sufficiency, and making life just a bit simpler. They live on a 40-acre homestead in Idaho surrounded by gardens, livestock, and children. Carolyn spends her days rocking babies, homeschooling her children, and preserving food for the coming winter. In her spare time, she teaches homesteading skills to encourage other families to live simply and focus on the things that really matter: faith, family, and really good food. Enjoy this episode of Everyday Ancestral with Carolyn Thomas. Carolyn, it's so good to be speaking with you now where I'm the host and you're not the host.

It's great to get to be here.

I have been so curious. So, what came first, homesteading Or babies?

Oh, babies. Definitely. Homesteading came out of babies.

Okay. So can you share where, what, where did it start? And then of course, we're going to get to where it is. But most people know where it is. But I'd love to hear more of where did it start then?

Yeah, I mean, I think both Josh and I always had some like inkling of love of this lifestyle before we even knew that it was a lifestyle. Like we both had a little bit Yeah. But it all really kind of started to come together for us after our first baby was born. We purely by accident ended up going with a midwife and having a natural birth. And it's kind of funny, most people don't have that happen by accident, but we had a situation with our health insurance where we didn't realize until we were already pregnant that we were cut out of any maternity care. And so, so we were like, okay, we know how expensive births are, hospital births are. So when somebody said, hey, why don't you look into a midwife? It's a lot cheaper. We were like, okay, sounds like a good option. So it was really a financial decision. Now it's, you know, now I've had everyone with a midwife. But at that point, we had Baby with a midwife in a birth center. So it's a very different experience than a hospital birth where— You know, in the hospital, you kind of get put right into the program with the pediatrician, and the baby is right onto schedule with the doctor. And when you're with a midwife, they had to say, okay, now you need to go start doing your, you know, well-baby visits. And so we went to our first well-baby visit with a doctor, And the doctor said, you know, hey, you need to get your first vaccines for this little newborn. And so we kind of asked a few questions, and the doctor, looking back now, I know so much more I wish I had known then. The doctor actually laughed at us when we questioned the safety of vaccines. You know, there was, we were just hearing little rumblings at that point, and we're like, are these safe? Like, do we know where it's safe? And the doctor said something very condescending, like, hey, if you want your child to stay alive, you're going to get the vaccines or something like that. So we just kind of said, okay.

This wasn't really that long ago, right? So what year was this?

This was 2005. Yeah. And so, so we went ahead and we got the vaccines. As he said, he told us, you know, the nurse is going to come in with 3— or I'm sorry, he said with 2 shots for the baby. And so The nurse proceeded to come in and she gave the baby three shots. Now, when you're mom and dad holding down the screaming, struggling baby, you know every single shot that goes into that baby. So we're like, "No, that was three shots." We know we felt each one, you know, and went home that night. We didn't really think anything of it. We just thought, "Oh, the doctor misspoke." You know, the experts know what they're doing, right? And so we went home, and the baby had a vaccine reaction that night. He screamed. Our oldest. And screamed all night long, didn't sleep, feverish, terrible reaction. And so we called the office the next morning, and lo and behold, they had only recorded 2 shots. It was kind of a moment, you know, I'm not— this isn't even about vaccines for us so much. It's more that we saw this happening. We saw that 3rd shot go into the baby, and we never even questioned it because we were such good—

Followers.

patients, right? We were such good students. We had been trained to just trust the expert and let them do the thinking, and we just deal with the repercussions of it. But this was such a moment for us to wake up and go, we still don't know what was given to our son. Luckily, he recovered completely. And you can bet, though, what we did after that was we dove in and we started researching. And it started with vaccines, but it really quickly moved to And we started realizing what we were eating and what we were buying from the store. We just were like, oh, we just, we can't feed our family this food. This is not how we want to eat. We really want to give our children and ourselves really the gift of robust health. And that just wasn't going to happen if we weren't stepping in and like really stepping into the driver's seat of our own story and getting out of that passenger seat where we're just like, okay, we'll just do what we're told. And so And that for us actually was the beginning of homesteading. It was the beginning of all sorts of things. It was like sparks started flying off of that. And then we started realizing, you know, the delivery systems of just-in-time groceries. And we realized, you know, really what was going on in the medical industry. And we really started looking at the education side of things and even the entertainment side. And it just kind of like blew our world open to realize We're gonna have to be really intentional to navigate life in our modern world in a way that gives us a healthy existence ourself, but also gives our children physical health, but also mental and spiritual health. That is not what's being offered to us. And so we're gonna have to do this really intentionally and be really careful about what we do. I think now looking back where we're sitting here in 2024 and looking at the state of the world, we go, phew, thank you that we got those early warning signs. And, you know, we really heeded that call. But doing that sent us on a whole different life trajectory than we had been on at that point.

I mean, that's incredible. So you've been on this journey, you know, going on 20 years. I'm sure any parent that's listening to this understands that feeling of like, You're just trying to, you know, you feel like your doctors should know. They do know that they're here to take care of you. And I do, I remember those feelings, the kind of both confusion and concern when we were faced with those questions. So I felt a lot of emotion as you were sharing that. Can you share a little bit more detail though, What was your life like then? So, you guys, well, I guess even a little bit further back, neither of you grew up on a farm, or you did? And then secondly, were you living in like an apartment? Were you still on a farmhouse then? Like, I want to get an even clearer picture of like, how far was this leap? Because obviously it starts with the research, but then how do you get from pre-that to now you actually own your own homestead, you know, your own farm?

Yeah, well, we definitely aren't coming from generational homesteading for Josh and I, but both of us do have some experience in our childhood. We had some experience with animals, a little bit with gardening, and a little bit with country life. We both had a childhood that took us in and out of the city at different periods of our life. But, you know, when we got married, we were living in the suburbs of Los Angeles. We were in a second-story apartment building. And so this was really for us, you know, I think there was a little bit of we were country kids at heart, but we hadn't ever really like learned that lifestyle all the way around. I was into horseback riding, so I knew a lot about horseback riding and about horses. My mom had always kept a few chickens here and there, and she'd have a garden wherever we lived, whether we lived in the city or wherever, just for a couple of fresh vegetables. But Josh had worked on a cattle ranch, so he knew a little bit more about livestock and had spent quite a bit more time out in the country as a boy. And so he kind of knew the ins and outs of that a little bit more. But we didn't really know anything about growing your own food to like survive off of, to actually fill your pantries, fill your freezers, and to be able to consume it and live off of it and really reduce the need to go to the grocery We certainly didn't know anything about herbal medicine, or some of the natural modalities of medicine, so there was a really big learning curve for us. At the point where the story happens that I was telling you about having our first child, we had actually gotten to move away from the suburbs of Los Angeles back up into our hometown in the mountains, and we were on this little, I think it was a little smaller than a quarter-acre lot. We had this tiny little house. It was so cute. Great little starting spot. Um, but we did have a little bit of room for a little bit of a garden out back, and we raised a few chickens. So we actually really learned a lot in that particular place. But yeah, for the most part, we were really starting from scratch.

And what were you guys, what were your jobs at the time? I mean, imagine if you were in LA, you're, you know, what were you doing?

Yeah, Josh was in construction. He had a, uh, his own company that he had started doing finished carpentry in homes in like the Hollywood area and West LA. So really kind upper-end homes way out on the coast. And I was a teacher, a 4th grade teacher at a private Christian school. And then once we were getting close to our first child being born, I went ahead and stopped work at school and started doing his bookkeeping for him for the construction business and trying to figure out how to do that, which was mind-blowing to me. I didn't know anything about construction or bookkeeping. So I had to learn multiple new things, plus learning how to work with your spouse is a whole skill all by itself, I think. Um, so yeah, that was quite of a journey we were on, but again, it really had nothing to do with homesteading or farming or anything like that. A good skill to have, construction and teaching. Those are great if you want to homeschool and build things, but—

And then how big of a leap was it once you did the research? You know, and you were getting clear, like, okay, what, what we're doing is not working. We need to change. So what was kind of the first change that you incorporated that was, you know, bigger than just like a mental or mind shift change? I'm talking like literally, you know, physical change. What did you first incorporate?

I think the first physical thing I incorporated was learning how to make bread, actually. And it was starting to learn how to actually work with healthy grains. And change the way we were eating grain. And so we wanted to go with a little bit more of either soaked, sprouted, or fermented grain. And we wanted to move towards whole grains. So, you know, what I did was I did the mistake that every, well, maybe not everybody makes, but definitely I jump in with 2 feet. I went right out and I bought a grain mill and I found some red whole wheat is all I could find from the the, you know, health food store. I had to buy it in the little baggies. I couldn't even get like a big bulk. I was in the middle of Southern California. You don't go just get bulk bags of things like we do here in Idaho. And followed a recipe and ended up making a little brick that Josh very kindly was like, this is so good. Keep making it. And I was like, it's inedible. I could use it for a doorstop. What do you want with this thing?

Paperweight.

It really was. It was so awful, but he was a good encourager and kept me going until I actually learned how to make bread, which, which now I teach people how to make bread that's actually good tasting and light and fluffy, actually slices, doesn't crumble apart, you know, but, but yeah, that was probably one of the first changes. We started gardening. That happened right after that, kind of all at the same time, and really started taking Um, making our own food from scratch much more seriously, just our meals. And, you know, got rid of the boxed Rice-A-Roni stuff and all of these different, you know, packaged foods and started to learn how to actually cook those things from scratch. And that, that is a skill that will take you a long ways if you just learn that.

Yeah, that's a huge, big step. Did you have any kind of, uh, mentors at that time? Because I mean, back then there really weren't many, right?

No, I really didn't. Again, we were in the middle of Southern California. Luckily, I had, you know, my mom was an excellent cook and had taught me how to cook growing up. And just by modeling it, she was very insistent that we had good homemade meals on the table at least twice a day, breakfast and dinner. And so I really had gotten that. And my mom lived very close by, so I was able to talk to her quite a bit. But when it came to the things like getting into food preservation or Or, you know, making bread. She really hadn't dove into those types of skills. And so at that point, it was some books here or there. YouTube wasn't— I don't think it was really a thing at that point. At least I wasn't aware of it if it was. And the internet was much more, much more like the Wild West than it is now. Like, there weren't just blogs all over the place with all these SEO articles so you can find them of like really clear step-by-step photos. You just didn't have that. And I didn't know anybody who was doing these things. I was totally on my own in trying to learn them as far as like step by step. So I had a lot of trial and error, just kind of diving in and reading, a lot of reading.

Did you lose any friends as you started going down this path? You know, where people were like, you're weird, or like, what are you doing?

Yeah, I, yeah, it, uh, definitely we had a lot of people who had no idea what we were doing. Our life just started to change. You know, we started to eat differently. All of a sudden we were having, you know, in Southern California you have one child and then you have a second child and it was like, okay, you're done now. You know, especially a boy and a girl. People think, hey, that was tidy, wrap that up. And then we just kept having kids and kept having kids and, and people just did not know what to do with that.

They're like, are you Mormon? They're like, what is going on here? Definitely.

Yeah, we got a lot of that sort of question. Are you Mormon or Catholic? And we were like, can we check other? We don't fall into those boxes. So yeah, it was definitely a very refining moment for us in a lot of ways because most people didn't get it. Now there were a few who were very interested and like, wait, what are you doing? I've always wanted to do that. How do you do that? Will you show me? And so it kind of came It became a passion for Josh and I to actually share with people who were interested but didn't know how to find the resources to learn. And that's something that I've always been very good at is researching and finding resources, even if they're pretty obscure. And so I just determined that I wanted to take that skill to learn things, take the time to learn them myself, and then to be able to help other people who either didn't have the time to do the research or didn't know how or didn't have the resources. And, uh, to start teaching them how to do the same things.

That's beautiful. So about, so that's really when Homesteading Family took shape or when, what, what year would you say you kind of got clear on, oh, this is what we're going to brand it. This is how we're going to start monetizing all these things we're doing.

Yeah, that was not till years later. We just started sharing amongst our friends. At that point, we were still in Southern California in the mountains. And, uh, you know, so we had moved from our little quarter-acre land. We had, uh, really over-engineered that. We like filled it to where there were like chickens popping out the corners and fruit trees hanging over the edge. Like we had filled every square inch we could of that little piece of land. And we were kind of like, okay, it's time. So we moved up to 5 acres and we started to really fill that up.

Still in LA County or still?

No, we were outside of Los Angeles. We were in Riverside County, up in the mountains. Yeah, so a couple hours, about 2 and a half hours outside of Los Angeles. And so it was a really nice, very rural area. We found a spot a couple miles back a dirt road surrounded by forestry on 3 sides. So it was like as rural as you got. We were at the end of the road. And we just kind of went to town learning everything we could. And we really honed in raising livestock and butchering gardening, but we were still, you know, Josh was still working at his regular job and I was still helping him in business. And it wasn't until we eventually got up here to Idaho, things had shifted after the 2008 crash. We were in a different business working with family. And we hit a point where Josh helped sell the family business. He like That was the goal. And so we, we did that, but we're now, we're living up in Idaho and we have no income. And when you're where we are in Idaho, you, um, you've got to have an income.

How many kids at this point? 3?

At that point, no, we were at 8 at that point.

Oh, wow.

Now we're talking, we're here, This was like 2016 or something. So we took a lot of years learning skills and learning how to homestead and learning how to cook, learning how to preserve and learning how to garden and, you know, raise things, whether it was animals or vegetables. But we hit this point where we were broke. We were just totally broke. And so it was kind of this moment where the rubber meets the road, where we're like, okay, now we live it. Now, if we don't grow it, we're not eating it because there's no money. Like, we've got to save the money to pay the basic bills to keep some electricity on. And so we spent some time doing that, and it just really, it took our homesteading to a whole nother level of practical where it's not just, oh, I want to do this fun little homesteading project because it looks cute or it's going to taste good. It's like, No, if we want to eat, we have to figure out how to do it, and we have to figure out how to do it in the context of our life. So it means it has to be really practical. It has to work right now, even though we're busy and we have other things we have to go do. And so that just really helped, I think, developed a mindset of homesteading as a lifestyle that fits into a modern world? And not just is this little hobby thing I do on the weekends. It's like, no, how do we actually eat this way in a modern context where we all have busy lives? You know, Josh was working on starting a business at the time and, you know, trying to figure out what the next thing was. So as we kind of really honed that in, we kind of had gotten a name now even up in Idaho for people who were living the lifestyle. And people who had the answers when you had the questions, right? So there was this day that I remember that was really pivotal for me, and it was elderberry season. I'd been out harvesting elderberries, and for the most part, if you want to use elderberries that you've foraged yourself, you have to figure out how to get all those little stems off of them to detach the berries from the stems. And so I had come up with a full method for this some years before that had to do with rolling them down a screen after freezing them, and it works really, really well. But on this particular day, I had 3 different friends call me and say, how do I do this? I can't figure out how to do this in a way that's all practical. And I ended up spending several hours on the phone that day explaining to friends how to do this. And I thought, I I can't take the time away from my family to just sit on the phone, no matter how much I want to help people. It's just too much time. So I grabbed my— back then it was like an iPhone 5 or something like that. I grabbed that and I'm like, I'm just going to try and film a video really fast to see if I could just have a video that I could send everybody else who's going to call me and ask the same question. And so I filmed the video and And it was awful. I'm sure it was unusable. I'm sure I'd look back now and be like, it's not even focused. You can't even see what's going on. And I was so determined that I would not show my face in the video because I was horrified of the— I was terrified of the camera. I just, I did not want to be on camera at all. But something about it just really stuck with me, and I started thinking, You know, I really want to help people. I really want to help moms who are trying to navigate this modern world and trying to find a better path for their family, both for being like healthy. Again, it's not just physically, but being healthy mentally, being, you know, having strong family relationships, having a good spiritual life that, you know, is a healthy spiritual life and having all of these pieces. And I really wanted to help moms who are trying to navigate that. But everything you see out there is giving you the other message, you know, the go buy more stuff message, or that you have to look perfect message, or, you know, your kids should be in every sport imaginable and should be attaining all of these, you know, goals, even as low as elementary school message. And it just was breaking people up. And so I wanted to help them, but I had this problem of my own time. And so at some point I went to Josh and I said, I think I want to start a small business to be able to help moms and just to be able to put out some videos, maybe some classes, to be able to help them learn what we've tried to learn, but to do it without all the mistakes and without all the pitfalls. And he was on board for that. We thought it was going to be a little side business that was like me at nap time while the kids were all sleeping, I'd sit down for an hour and do this cute little project, right? And so that was right about, I guess, the end of 2016, right? 2017. And it started resonating not only with the people we were talking to so much, but it resonated with us. It was like authentically us, who we were. We were homesteaders who really wanted to help people. And so it just became this thing that I think grew inside both Josh and I really quickly. I turned to him and I'm like, this is getting bigger than I can handle. Can you help me? I need help with some of these pieces. And back then, you know, we're trying to figure out how to design websites. You know, we were also pretty much starting from scratch. Like, we In fact, we tell this joke about deciding that, okay, we want to start our business on January 1st, we just need to figure out how to market it, and we were at like December 20th, and we're like, we can figure out marketing in a few days, you know, and now we just laugh at each other. We're like, we knew nothing, we were totally clueless, and so, you know, it was a really good process for us to learn how to work together, on a whole different way on a joint project like that. And to also be able to share it with other people. And as we let that go and start, you know, getting out into the world and started publishing things, it just quickly became really clear that there were a lot of people looking for answers. And there were a lot of people who were looking for answers that weren't just coming from a source that was kind of saying, hey, I'm a brand new homesteader. Let me show you what I'm trying. Or, I've kind of done this once or twice and it kind of works. They wanted answers from people who were like, yeah, we survived off of this, and we know that it works, and we know this is the easiest way to do it when you have to get in, get it done, and move on to the next thing. And so it just kind of blew up from there.

That's so powerful. I'm curious though, because I've historically worked with my wife at times, It's not always the easiest thing to work with your partner, let alone to have as many kids as you do. One of the things I think most of us struggle with is, well, how do I be a woman in a relationship with a man, you know, or a partner? It doesn't matter what gender, but it's like, how do you maintain your womanhood and your wifehood and your motherhood? And then, of course, now a very big part, your entrepreneurship. You know, you're a businesswoman. So how are— how have you and Josh navigated those waters? Um, and I have to imagine it's gotten tough sometimes, particularly financial struggles, the moving. I mean, those are all very stressful times. So how did you, how did you get out of those really tough times?

Yeah, I think, you know, for us, There were, there were some very hard times, especially coming from a place where I had worked for Josh for his businesses and did his bookkeeping, but it was, you know, Josh's business, and to go into something like this with Homesteading Family where I was really the driving force behind it, and I had a lot of the ideas, and I had a lot of shaping the way I wanted it to go, And that definitely created some rubs for us. But it's kind of amazing when you work that closely with somebody and you work through those rubs, you actually become closer on the other side than you ever would have been. You know, if he'd just been going off and doing his thing and I'd been doing my thing, you know, we would have just kind of had our separate lives. But now we've gotten to know each other on a whole different level. And something that for us, you know, communicating through all of it has been really key. When we got married, we had our commitment was the 3 C's. We had communication, we had commitment, and we had Christ as Christians at the center of everything. And so for us being committed to all 3 of those things really helped. Like we knew there was no way out. There's no divorce. Like, yeah, we may want to strangle each other in the middle of it, But there is no way out. So we better figure this out and we better work through it, which really meant a lot of communicating and really getting to moments past the frustration and sitting down and saying, okay, how are you feeling? How can we make this work? How can we make this good for everybody, including the kids and the household? And, you know, what we really found is that we were able to really identify each other's strengths and weaknesses in a way that we hadn't before. And learn how to use those to complement each other instead of to fight each other, and that was the real key because those opposing traits can really be a place you butt heads, or if you kind of go, hey, this is something you're really good at, and while I have a strong opinion about it, I also know that it's really not my specialty, so I'm just going to defer and let you— You know, let's go with your thing because you're really good in this area. And, you know, we have, luckily for Josh and I, we have very opposing traits there. And so, yeah, very complementary. So, you know, he is great with numbers. He can do business math like nothing else. He can look at a profit and loss sheet and he just like can see the health of a business. It is amazing. I look at numbers and I'm like, I don't know. It was something. There's a few numbers there. It almost means nothing to me at all. But on the teaching side and on the creative side and being able to communicate with people, that's more my specialty. And that's a place where I'm really good at. So when we started working together instead of against each other, it just kind of changed the whole scenario. Now we have a lot of the kids joining us, in doing different parts of business for us. And it's kind of the same thing, you know, communicating through that, finding the strengths and making sure we're encouraging each other in their strengths and, you know, deferring in our weaknesses.

And keeping the big picture of family and like you said, faith and keeping that as the bigger picture. You know, you mentioned And something when you first were starting and down this path that you were like, oh, well, I thought I would just do it when the kids were sleeping or something like that. But clearly that it rarely works out that way, right? Particularly if you have that many kids, there's not gonna be, everyone's not gonna be sleeping at the same time. So that's something I think a lot of entrepreneurs that have kids struggle with. How have you— How have you kind of like juggled those situations? Like, is it delegation? Is it boundaries? Like, how do you maintain your business while also maintaining a home with so many kids?

Yeah, that's kind of an ongoing discussion because as the kids change ages, the needs around the house are changing. At this point, we have a couple adult children, we've got, you know, older teenagers in the house, and we have little ones. The littlest is about 19 months right now. And so, you know, we kind of have a steady stream of them all the way through. And different age brackets with the kids look different and have looked different. For me. Sometimes it's looked like, you know, a day that Josh stays home with everybody and I go find a quiet spot to just buckle down and focus and work and get through whatever I need to. Sometimes, like this season, I have an older daughter who is interested potentially in teaching, and she came to me last year and said, may I homeschool the kids this year? I would really like to try it. And so we worked out a schedule where she could have a couple days off so she could keep her school up also, but she took over homeschooling, which gave me some time to spend some of those hours getting stuff, you know, business stuff done, and then being able to spend the afternoons just being mom and in the house. And so, you know, it looks different in every season, but one thing we've definitely done is we've definitely taken on a lot more help on the business side. to free Josh and I up so that we're not so, you know, tied to just business stuff all the time. No more are the days of Josh and I trying to figure out HTML coding or anything like that. Like, no, we hire somebody to do that. And we focus on what we're really good at. And, and then find people who are really good and really passionate about families and homesteading to help us with the rest.

I imagine you You probably have people attracted to what you're doing and they sometimes come to you, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's powerful.

We actually have had a lot of really amazing people who have been in the corporate world and see what we're doing. They're like, I just, I want to work in a way that is authentic to my values. I want to actually help people and not just make money. And so they've come to us through that.

Well, I think you're, I mean, I mean, I've known you both now for a little bit of time, and you both just seem like such the model of authenticity. And so hearing your story of how you got here is so authentic, and it's so practical and honest that it doesn't surprise me that you're attracting, you're continually attracting people that are seeking that kind of authenticity, that transparency. Now, you've been doing this though long enough I could see you getting burnout or maybe someone else who's doing homesteading getting burnout. So how has that come up? And if so, how are you navigating that? Because most, that is what most humans struggle with, right? Is consistency.

Yeah, that is it. Burnout, especially in the homesteading world, is a very real thing. It can be very real for entrepreneurs too. And, you know, for us, it comes down to making sure we get as much help as we can when we can get it, but also to prioritize, keep our priorities straight. You know, keep the family in the first place, keep Josh and my relationship really high up in the first place, faith very high. But it's also taking care of ourselves and taking moments for rest, taking moments for a break. We never work on Sunday. It is not as a religious thing. for us particularly, but we just feel like, hey, God designed a day of rest in, let's take it. It's probably a good idea. So we don't get on our computers, we don't do anything like that. We just hang out with family, go to church, visit with friends, and take a rest day. Another thing that we're doing is this coming year, we're taking a year. It'll be our 7th year on this piece of property, our kind of hopefully final homestead. And we're actually taking a year where We're still homesteading. We're still going to do all of our normal stuff, but we're not going to do any big projects this year. So we're going to take a much lighter year. As homesteaders, it's our tendency to get on a piece of land and just like, we have to shape it, we have to get everything right. We just, infrastructure project after project after, oh, we need to update the water systems or the fencing or the pasture or whatever it And we've been doing that. We've been going hard for about 6 years straight on this, and this next year we just said, nope, this is a break for us. Again, we'll still be gardening, we'll still be raising all of our animals, we'll still be, you know, making YouTube videos and doing all of our regular stuff, but we're not doing any extras this year, which is gonna feel like a huge reduction in pace for us because we've been doing so many projects every year.

Oh, that sounds exciting. What are some of the things you and Josh are doing to put your relationship first? So are you— do you have date nights once a week? I mean, you do. So how does that look?

We do. We do. We do. Every Thursday night we have a date night. So we get out of the house now. The kids are old enough. We have, you know, built-in babysitters now. So they have their fun rituals they do here. So everybody looks forward to us leaving the house for the night, you know, for the evening. So we'll go out and we'll have a date night once a month. We do an overnight date night where we take a slow morning the next morning. We get everything off the schedule for the next morning, and so we can go out to breakfast, and we can go do a little window shopping or skiing or whatever it is we're doing. And the fun thing with that one is we take turns planning those. So we kind of do all sorts of really interesting fun things that like, just one of us feels like would be really Do you get a little competitive where you're trying to top each other?

You know, like—

We have, you know, for the budget's sake, you have to like set a budget and say, okay, we're not topping this, 'cause you can start making some pretty grand schemes there. But yeah, we have a lot of fun with that. And then Josh and I try to get away for a couple of days several times a year where we'll go and get on a plane and go usually somewhere warm and sunny in the middle of winter and go get some vitamin D and get some time to hang out with Josh. just the two of us and away from business, away from the homestead and just get some downtime.

It's beautiful. I love though too, the journey of, you know, of we don't know how we're going to pay our bills to now getting to really enjoy the reaps of all the work you've done. So that's, that's a beautiful journey. Congrats on that. Um, what, so you kind of touched on it, but what is a, what What does a day look like for you homesteading? Because you mentioned we're going to still do our basics going into this year. We're not going to take on big projects, but what are the basics you do on a normal basis? I know you mentioned taking care of the animals, but maybe walk us through what it looks like inside the home for homesteading. Like, what are you doing with your food on a weekly or daily basis?

Well, you can imagine that a household with, you know, There's 10 kids at home right now. We have one who is married, and just this week we're starting to watch our texts for baby alerts coming in, so our first grandbaby on the way. But we often have multiple interns in the house, so right now there's about 14 to 15 people at pretty much every meal with us, with all the interns and the kids who are At home. So that creates a really dynamic household. So there's a lot going on in a house even on just a maintenance day. For us, the day kind of starts— for Josh and I, it's usually pretty early. We like to get up early enough to have some quiet time, prayer, Bible time, a little bit of stretching or exercise, and then time to get ready for the day, you know, just your basics, getting dressed. And then we head on at about 6:30. Everybody meets up for doing chores and everybody knows what their chore is. It's, they have the same chore for about 6 months at a time. So it's kind of the first thing the kids do rolling out of bed. They, they have their quiet time. They make their bed, they get dressed, do all their little self-care items, and then they're expected to be at chores at about 6:30. So, Some people are out in the barn, some of them are milking the cow, some of them are in the house getting breakfast going, some of us are, you know, cleaning the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher, just doing all kind of our regular stuff. So we do that. That usually takes about an hour in the morning of chore time. And then we have about half an hour of like, get your room cleaned up, a little bit of personal time. This is a moment where Josh and I sit down for a cup of coffee together, and we kind of look at the schedule for the day and for the week. You know, what's going on? What do we need to do? Oh, we've got to plant that garlic. You know, like we're getting a little late. Or, you know, next weekend I really think we need to butcher sheep, or whatever it is that we're doing. So it's kind of our planning moment in the morning. And then we all sit down to breakfast together. That's usually— we're at breakfast right about 8 o'clock. And we'll take about half an hour together for a hot breakfast. We also do family Bible time at that point, and little devotions there. And kind of just catch It sets the tone for the day. And then by about 8:30, we're all getting to our own jobs. We have another set of chores right here that we call daily chores, and they rotate every day for every person. So nobody gets stuck with cleanup, breakfast cleanup every day of the week, or dishes. It gets rotated around. But this is kind of a period of the day where we do A lot of our basics that we need to take care of the household. So that would be, you know, somebody's making bread or somebody is making breakfast casseroles. I am notoriously not a morning person or a breakfast person. So I learned a long time ago, if all these hungry people that I have at the table are going to eat their breakfast, a hot breakfast in the morning, that I have to make it ahead of time. So we do a lot of breakfast casseroles.

And are those frozen ahead of time or how far in advance?

No, we just make them. Usually it's Monday morning and Tuesday morning. They're making enough to get through the entire week, Monday through Friday. And then Saturday, Sunday, we usually will do a hot breakfast or, you know, if we're running out the door to church, we'll do like muffins or something really easy. And so we kind of take care of those items right there, whether it's cleaning items around the house, again, keeping the laundry going, folding laundry, different things like that. And then we get to, by about 9 o'clock, we get to what we call the work of the day. Work of the day. That's whatever we need to do that day. The policy around our house is we homeschool any day we're not doing something else. So we homeschool through the summer, we homeschool in the winter, we homeschool all the time, but we also take whatever time we need to homestead when there's a project that needs to get done.

So it's seasonal then what's going on, obviously.

It's seasonal, but it's also reactive beyond just seasonal. So right now we're end of October, it's raining out, It's a great homeschool day. So everybody's doing their homeschool. Tomorrow, however, we're expecting some sunshine and we have a local expert coming up to take us chanterelle mushroom hunting and learn how to go chanterelle mushroom hunting. So we have something else to do. We're not going to worry about school that day. We're going to go learn how to hunt mushrooms. You know, it's, it's just about butchering season here. So Friday, we probably won't do school. We'll probably be out butchering pigs. Um, but any day in between, and this, again, this is true in the middle of summer, any day in between where we're not doing something, uh, you know, big project on the homestead or something like that, we're homeschooling.

Now what, right, right now though, you're, right now you're specifically, is it canning your focus? Like right now I feel like you're specifically focusing on specific type of homesteading or category of homesteading. What is that based on seasonal? And in your household, are you kind of only doing that, what, a few days to a week a year? Or how does— how do those kind of practices that you promote to your followers and beyond, how do those play out in your household?

So some of us You know, luckily homesteading is very seasonal, right? So you move in and out of things. Luckily, it's not everything all at once. It feels that way some days, but in general, it's really nicely patterned between a planting season, a growing season, a harvest season. And then for us in Idaho, we have a very strong winter season, which is kind of a down season or maintenance mode season. And so for us, that becomes homeschool season. where we really double down, buckle down, and do a lot of homesteading there, or homeschooling. But within the week, we have different things going on. We have things like preservation happening, and it kind of happens throughout the season. So again, if we have a big day, let's say we have a whole bunch of tomatoes coming in and we need to take a canning Then that's the work of the day is to can the tomatoes and it's not a homeschooling day. So, you know, for me, that kind of skirts in and out of doing business work and having time to sit and chat with you or to answer emails or to create new classes or write books. But in general, we kind of just kind of buckle down and do what the work of the day is, whatever it is. So if it's again, canning tomatoes, Actually, I say canning tomatoes, but I don't can tomatoes anymore. Now I exclusively freeze-dry tomatoes because canning tomatoes is a lot of work. I do a lot of other canning, but we also do freeze-drying and fermenting and dehydration and a lot of other things. But if tomatoes are what we're putting up for the day, we just kind of go to the kitchen and get it done. I also have the help of some of our interns who are here. And so sometimes through the season, I'll get them started on a project and then let them try their wings out and doing something by themselves. So, you know, there's a lot of hands, uh, which, which makes it doable also.

Do you think, you know, in, in, in a certain regard, like you were just kind of, I think you just alluded to this, but in, in a certain regard, when we can, for example, there's kind of one main method to can, right? I mean, there's, there's, you sure there's multiple ways you could try, but there's kind of one that's tried and true. Like, this is how you do it.

Right.

But then for someone who's been doing it as long as you, what changes for you? So, 'cause let's say you create a video and you show people how to can that one way. Well, is that just, I mean, clearly though, after doing it for 15 years, you probably adjust things, right? You sort of learn, well, actually, I think we can do this better or we can do this even more efficient. And so how does that change for you? And what does that change too? Like, what is your criteria for change?

You know, I've honestly, what changes the most when you do something year after year is the mental space that that job requires for you. You know, at the beginning, when you start doing something like canning, your whole focus has to be on canning to make sure you're doing it correctly. At some point, all of a sudden, you're just checking a number or 2 and going, okay, I have to process this for 25 minutes. And you're kind of on autopilot because you've been doing it for so long. You don't have to put all of your attention to it. So, you know, maybe I'm answering some math questions while I'm canning, or I'm giving directions for somebody to go do another project, or maybe I'm filming while I'm canning it and showing other people how to do it. But for a lot of things, I find that the biggest change is just that mental space because when you're learning a new It takes so much mental space. It takes so much effort in just the learning and the putting that into practice. But you start doing that 5, 6, 7 times, and all of a sudden, it becomes about, like, muscle memory. And it doesn't take the amount of sheer effort and planning to get it done. So, while it used to take me, you know, a couple of days to, like, gear up and get the recipe and get all the supplies and get all these things ready, and then to just buckle down and do the canning. I now laugh, you know, a couple of canner loads used to seem so stressful to me because it was all so new. Now it's like, oh, I think I can get a canner load in before dinner. You know, I'll just do that real fast and just throw it together and get it going. And it bubbles away and does its thing during dinner. And then after dinner, it's out on the counter. So it starts just kind of fitting into life. With that said, there are things that I have found that make things so much more efficient. So there are places where the skill itself changes, and I think that's a place where you're just always asking yourself, you know, have I gotten new information that lets me know a better way to do this? One that I can think of is going back to that elderberry discussion I talked about that very first video of trying to get those elderberries off the stems. Well, I've now learned to use a steam juicer for anything like that. Like, I don't even mess with the stems anymore. I just kind of get most of the berries off and I use a steam juicer and it takes almost no work on my side. And I end up with this perfect elderberry juice that's been steam juiced and I don't have to mess with all the little fussy bits. So it cuts out a lot of time.

I don't know a steam juicer. I'm going to have to look that up.

Yes, it's for anything like currants, Any sort of little fussy thing that you want to get the juice out of, that is the way to go so that you're not dealing with seeds, you're not dealing with little stems, anything like that. I also use it for apples because what I found is I can juice apples just slightly, and then I can run them through the food mill, and I can get apple cider and applesauce out of the exact same apple. And like double my return on one product. So that's been a great method for me. Another place where I've really changed methodology is using the freeze dryer. This is something I've spent a lot of time talking about, freeze drying, this last year because I just published a freeze drying book, and we created a full class on how to use a freeze dryer, a video digital class. And It's just something that I feel pretty passionate about in this, in this, like, you know, the heart of being practical and on getting things done in a practical way. And while I'm really glad for all my other preservation methods, and I plan on using them forever, I don't plan on giving up canning or fermenting, definitely, or dehydrating. While we have the electricity available to us that we have, a freeze dryer is a great way to go because it saves so much time in processing.

That occurs to me. I mean, in one sense, homesteading is very ancestral, right? It's basically utilizing the ways of our past and maintaining those ways. But you seem very open to modern techniques. That, that still, um, that enable you to do some of those older techniques, which is really exactly what this podcast is about, is taking the best from the, from the past, but, you know, bringing it into our modern lives. Do you have a line though where you're like, uh, like, like if there is a modern technique, what, what line do you draw in the sand and say, nope, I will not do this because of this? What's your line?

Well, my first line is in developing skills that don't need modern inputs. So for me, it's really important to know how to ferment my food. I don't need much besides salt to be able to do that. But if you think about it, even canning is a modern method. That is a very industrial method that we could not do without factories. And so we just have to be careful about what we see as an ancestral and what we see as a modern method, because a lot of us lump that canning right in there with that, and it just isn't. It's a very modern method that totally sterilizes your food. And so for me, I do like constantly a cost-benefit analysis here, you know, what is the nutritional downfall of what I'm doing. We know with fermenting, it can actually increase the nutrition in your food in some ways, right? At least in the short-term, medium-term. Dehydrating, that actually really decreases a lot of the nutrients in your food when you're talking about micronutrients, not the macros. And so looking at the amount of time you're spending on doing something, The amount of energy you have to put into it. What are the actual costs of it? You know, fermenting is almost free. A freeze dryer is really expensive. A pressure canner and a dehydrator somewhere in between. So kind of looking at all of this. But the other thing I like to think about is my intent behind homesteading and behind doing the things that I'm doing. I am not canning so that I can spend my days That's not actually what I want to do with my days. I am canning so I can have really great food security for my family and make sure that we have really high-quality food even in the middle of winter. So when I look at that and I go, okay, what are my resources available to do that? In some times of life, like when we first moved to Idaho, we're broke and we're like, yeah, well, I can dehydrate or I can use the jars that neighbors give me and I can water bath can, or I can ferment. And that's about all that's accessible to me right now. But there are points in our life where we go, hey, I have the resources to get a freeze dryer or a pressure canner. And, you know, how do I use that to my benefit to reach my goals in a way that lets me actually reach my larger goals, which is relationships, healthy families, You know, investing in people. By not spending so much time in the kitchen, but still being able to get to the same place, I'm actually being able to reach those goals in a better way. So, you know, it's kind of doing that constant analysis. It's a constant feedback loop. What works? What do I like? What will my family eat versus not eating? You know, fermenting may be inexpensive and fairly easy to do, But not everybody wants to eat a whole lot of fermented food. A lot of people's families are like, I'm not going to eat that. I don't like that flavor, you know? So, so just being really realistic with where you're at and what your resources are and your goals are.

Did you have a lot of learning curve with some of these things? I know sometimes when people go down the path of, let's just say fermentation, they have a lot of bad batches or batches that go bad. Did you, did you experience that as well?

I like to say that my job is to make every mistake out there so that I can tell people how not to do it. Like, because yes, I have a tendency to like just do it however I feel like doing it, and experiencing a lot of the negative effects of doing that. So yes, I have had many batches of fermented food go bad. I've had lots of things go wrong with dehydrating. Canning is probably the place because you've got to be so dialed into canning safety. Once I learned, I had a few near misses, and then I like started really learning about canning safety, and then I was like, okay, now we have this dialed in. But even freeze drying, when I started freeze drying, one of the early things I did was eggs, and I freeze dried hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of eggs. And I I think I lost about a third of them, which was so sad, but I just did. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't, I didn't know, um, the proper ways to tell that your freeze-dried food was actually done and done in the freeze dryer or how to store them properly to maintain them. And so when I went to use them, I had lost so many of them, but I learned and I learned all the tips and tricks. So yes, we've, we've made every mistake.

And you put those in your, your freeze drying Oh, absolutely.

Yep. Save everybody else the trouble. You know, when you've done something for 20 years, like homesteading, it's like, you're going to make mistakes. And you have to be okay with making mistakes.

So last question. Is there anything in homesteading that you've come across, you're like, no way, I don't want to do it? Like, is there, is there anything you've come across in your time, you're just like, not gonna do it. Done. Not— don't even want to try. You know, have you faced anything like that?

Yeah, like DIY toilet paper probably goes high on my list of things that it's like, you know, it's good to know how to do this in case, you know, COVID happens again and you can't get toilet paper, right? But I've got room to stock up a couple extra rolls down in my basement, so I'm doing okay with that. I'm happy to not deal with that with the family size that I have, definitely. So that's probably the biggest one for me that I can think of. I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to eating and getting into different things, but yeah, the toilet paper for me, that's one I don't need to touch.

And I guess the question I should probably ask, even though I said that was the last one, that everyone's probably going to wonder, Is, are you still gonna, are you planning more kids or are you done?

I don't know. We'll, we'll see. I mean, now we're at a point that we've got grandkids on the way. So, you know, it would be fine with me if the next generation just took over and, and kept the legacy going. They, my son married a young lady who is also from a large family. And they told me the other day that anything less than 6 just seems way too small. So I had to laugh. I think we'll keep the legacy going on at least through them.

Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know you're a very busy person, so I appreciate you taking the time. Please, you mentioned your freeze drying course, but please share maybe some of the courses, some of the few courses people can access right now from you, where to find them and the best way to follow you.

Yeah, the best way to follow us, both Josh and I, yeah, start over at homesteadingfamily.com. That's a great way to find us. We've got a really extensive blog over there with lots of how-to articles, a lot of videos over on YouTube. We're on Instagram and Facebook. Social media is only not really our thing that much. But yeah, we have a lot of classes on getting into homesteading, from bread making to canning to fermenting, even homemade dairy, herbalism, basic herbal medicine. And then the latest class on freeze drying is just out along with the brand new book. Freeze Drying the Harvest is now out. It's available right now through homesteadliving.com. Or Amazon. And I think it's supposed to be headed out to other book— big book suppliers any day now. So keep an eye out for that. Along with our classes, we also have a monthly magazine that we create that has all sorts of different how-to ideas for the homestead, but it's really centered around the kitchen and around making the most out of your seasonal harvest. Or from the, from the, uh, farmer's market, uh, and then getting that preserved in all different methods. So that would be another thing you can check out at homesteadingfamily.com.

And then magazines, I just want to share, I've seen them, I have them, and they are the type of magazine, like, that's kind of, I call it magazine plus, where it's just like, it's not one you're going to toss. Like, this is going on your shelf. because there's so much good content. There's so many good recipes. It's such— there's such beautiful photography that you're like, I'm gonna reutilize this again, you know? So, they're real resources. Thank you to you and Josh and your family for doing what you're doing. I just stress again, it's beautiful when we find people that are successful that truly came from their heart heart from a place of necessity and true passion for what they're doing. So, thank you for that, and may you continue shining your bright light to all the people that need your message, and look forward to more from the homesteading family. So, thank you again. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.