10th DAY OF CHRISTMAS

Happy day today in the 12 Days of Christmas. 10th day. So there's just 2 more days, uh, Thursday and Friday. We are giving away Redmond's Real Salt. I'll talk about these later. I've got a big old bag of salt. I think this is like a $200 bag of salt right here, 20 pounds. Uh, we've got some electrical electrolyte, my favorite. Instagram on live, Instagram showing up. Um, Valley Homestead, Alarmers, Flowing Meadow Farmhouse joint. And we got some shakers from, uh, from Redmond Salt. Several hundred dollar package there. We're gonna give that away to somebody who signs up, or if you already signed up, it's great. Uh, the, the new Homestead Directory— be found and find others. I got an update from my assistant Heather. No feedback at all. It was feedback for a second, but it's good. All right, um, we're good. We, we have fixed it. If you heard an audio technical there, it seems like we have fixed it. We are at 4,290 folks inside the directory. Get in there, see if you can't be found, see if you can't find other like-minded homesteaders. Let's get, uh, Graham, the man behind the curtain. He'll come in and monitor, um, comments. There he is. Everybody welcome Graham. He's the one that throws up the comments on the screen. So let me know if you guys have any— well, how should we get this started? Tell us, uh, Have you been found or found somebody on the new directory? Put that up and say where you are. How about this? Say where you are and, you know, it'd probably be good, appropriate to say where you are and if you found anybody. Amy needs more people in Iowa. So Iowa, where are you at? I will say this too. I, uh, once we had a 5-year anniversary at the Great American Farm Tour And we said, we got to do something special. We decided to show the film for free over the weekend, the documentary of that trip. And I thought, well, we could have it online and that's great, but how could we also facilitate community? So we actually got all— we put it out to all the Abundance Plus members and said, hey, does anybody want to host a viewing? Well, we ended up getting 77 people across the whole world. Decide they were going to host a viewing, and something special happened. They might have started with this party going to be at their house, and then they had like 30 people RSVP, or 50 people in some cases. And so then our hosts were scrambling and, and finding community buildings or church buildings or wherever they could to take all these people. So people are hungry for community all over, and, uh, And somebody told me, somebody messaged me or something saying, oh, it was a bummer, I, I didn't find anybody close to me. And long story short, we— I vetted and figured out what she meant by close to me, and she was talking like 10, 15 minutes neighbor, you know, like 5, 10, 15 minutes. I remember it being something Crazy, something not very far away. So don't get on this map thinking, I mean, if you're in Western, we looked at Western North Carolina yesterday around, where did we look? Burnsville, there was like 50 people within an hour. So you're probably gonna find somebody pretty close there in some of these populated areas around Charlotte. We looked, what was that? Was that up in Indianapolis where we looked at yesterday? There was up in Minnesota, there was someplace that had a lot. Just near populated areas, of course. But I had to tell them, 10 minutes, 15 minutes? No, because at the time we, we were hosting monthly gatherings with friends in the homestead community, and it was up to an hour away. So that is a homestead neighbor, an hour away. If you're even 2 hours away, it still could be worth getting together at least once a year, if not twice a year, maybe even once a quarter. An hour away? Yeah, you're probably going to do once a quarter. You could maybe pull off once a month for a time. But isn't it funny when you get— when you're— I'm 45. Once a month seems like a long time. It's only 12 times a year. But it just, it comes, it comes around. It came around too soon for a monthly meeting. So we started to have quarterly meetings. Yeah, I'm taking the boys mountain biking once a month. And I thought, that's not enough. That's only like 12 rides a year. but it just sneaks up on us and it seems like, oh my gosh, it's just, it was just yesterday we were writing. My dad used to say, because he lived till he was 86, he used to say, I feel like I stay busy just flipping the calendar. Like time just flies by faster and faster. Can anybody relate to that? So, okay, found a couple near me, 45 or so minutes, but there were none when I first joined. Western Iowa. Okay, good, good, Shell. So keep at it. And 45 minutes is very reasonable. We've had people 45 minutes away come borrow our trailer, our processing equipment, things like that. I'm kicking cancer's butt. My connection is 15 minutes away from me. They have raised meat birds, and that's what I'm looking into doing. So I've got help there. Yay! Thank you, Justin, for that. That makes my day. Elizabeth says, I keep sharing your 12 Days of Christmas on my Facebook to encourage my homestead friends to put themselves on the map. Yes, thank you. Listen, We have a goal of 10,000. We're at 4,200. You know, that's kind of how things go. You know, people jump on it at first and then it slows down. Like, if you want to call this a launch, we're launching the directory. Uh, we kind of have a deadline. We kind of have 2 more days of giveaways. So the salt today, but tomorrow $600 cash money, um, uh, Homestead Builds book number 1, and The next day, Abundance Plus Premium Lifetime Membership that includes text access to me and other experts. So my guess is when I do a launch like this, whether I'm selling something or putting up something free like this, when the cutoff— we're gonna have another boost. We have a boost in the beginning, kind of plateaus, and boost at the end. That's what it's gonna take. It's gonna take— I I've reached you all. I've— Lord knows I've tried. 12 days of live, that's, that's kind of crazy. All in on Instagram, Facebook. I've been sending out emails. Reading Destination: I have homestead community already, and they are about 20 minutes away, and we generally get together once a month. However, because of this map, I found 2 more that are close by. Yes! So she's already got something going, and many of you have something going already, so keep it going. So what I was saying was, um, what was I saying, Matt? You want to, um, you want to, you want to have, uh, I don't know where I was going with that. Oh yeah, of course, the hour isn't, uh, very long if you're looking for somebody. Oh, that's what I was going to say. We can get us to our, our goal of 10,000 if you guys share. So you guys are here, you're engaged. Now things like this work better. The more the merrier. It's just like these social medias. If nobody's on, it's no fun and you want to spread it. So that was good that you're on here and you're saying, hey, I want, I want more people to know about it. I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell my cousin Josh about this. We didn't look, we looked up Bishop yesterday and there was only one person within an hour radius. Well, they're there. So I'm going to encourage him to get on there. I'm tempted to do that right now, but I think— I don't think you guys want to watch me type that out. Okay, um, let's go to, um— I want you guys to have enough time if you're on here live to go to abundantpermaculture.com/map. So it should be in the description on YouTube, should be in the bio on Instagram, or if you're on Instagram, you can just hit directory in the comments and it sends you an automatic message to your message. Oh, that's good. Graham is linking it right now to all the platforms. So there you go. Thank you, Graham. You're on it, dude. So get on there. Let's, let's take a, do we have any questions, comments, derogatory remarks? Jacob says, I found one about 45 minutes away. Good for you, Jacob. Tricky Vicky, I was down to one small hen and on January 1st I got 4 beautiful hens from a farm that was rehoming their chickens sadly due to owner illness. I'm so grateful. I live in the suburbs. Now I don't know if that's— I'm happy for you either way. I don't know if that's— you found that person from the community or not, but sounds like you have a community going. Oh, look, I have sent messages to all the folks within 50 miles awaiting replies. Good. Charmaine, good for you. Now, let's hope we get some replies. Everybody be paying attention to your inbox, your email inbox the next few days. We want to make sure we don't get missed if anybody reaches out. Now, here's the thing about this. It's not like it goes away in 2 days. This is going to stay here. I'm personally going to think of ways to continue to mention it casually through the vlog in an organic way. Say maybe I'm traveling, maybe I'll look it up. To see, to see who's he, you know, who's in the area. And I'll shout it out from time to time. So hopefully you guys can also share it from time to time as you think of it. Let's go to, uh, yeah, Karen says happy New Year to all you. Happy New Year, Karen, and Merry Christmas. Okay, we are in. We're gonna do random generator. You ready, Matt? You can share in my screen. It is shared. This is just a Hive word random location selector in the United States. We are going to East Shoreham, New York. This is a random generator, guys, so I'm not, I'm not cheating this. We did just get like a New York yesterday, but here we go. I, like you, probably wish it would have, uh, gone outside New York. Maybe tomorrow before we hit that, we'll say no more New York, no, no Ohio. We've had two from those. Yeah, East Shoreham. But I feel like if I turned back now, it wouldn't be fair. Okay, so say you're in East Shoreham. This is a great demo for it. So I went to search. I mean, you can, you can zoom in on this and, and hover over and get this going, but my internet is a little, uh, shaky because of— because we're going live and stuff, so I'm not going to attempt it. Shoreham, New York. And then let's go 50. Like I said, 50 miles is going to be an hour, so let's do 50 miles. I don't know where Shoreham, New York is, but it's over there real near to where— dude, these— this is where we pulled yesterday right here. So Shoreham must be up here. Let's narrow it down until we— so if you're in Shoreham, New York, you've got 3 people within— is this Oh, I know. Now that's wondering— now that's a good question, Matt, because I don't know. Is that 50 miles to do that, or is it by the crow flies? That's a good question because that doesn't look like that would take an hour. Okay, so it's these three, but I swear these two were in there yesterday. Yeah, yeah, these two people were yesterday. Didn't Tracy win? Yeah, I think Tracy won. So we're gonna go with this one. Okay, Jerry, no thanks. Christian father and husband, suburban gardener and wood splitter, hoping for connection. And I guess you have to read more. And, uh, hoping for connection and community. All right, he did not leave his phone number, so— but that's enough, Graham. There you go, screenshot that please and get that to Heather. Uh, he's in West Haven, Connecticut. So congratulations, Jerry. Let me talk to you guys about these Redmonds. This, this brine salt— I call it brine salt. It's just a 20-pound bag of fine salt. What I like to use this for is I'll put a cup for every gallon of— I make it warm water so that I can mix it in, and then that's what we brine our meat in. So we soak our meat overnight. Best practice. I mean, we don't always do this, but when we really are feeling saucy and want a special meal, we'll brine our meat. So we soak it in salt water overnight and in the fridge, and— or to thaw it out, and then that absorbs that salt and moisture, and it just makes for a more moist meat. Okay, you got to be real careful about doing it with chicken because it's already hard to get that chicken skin crisp. So I kind of moved away from it there, but it's great for, uh, Boston butt getting ready to go into a big smoke, or a, uh, any beef, anything like that, roasts. Would be good for that. So it gives you some salt. I, I tend to rinse it off before we cook it after it's been soaking because the meat has absorbed a lot of that, so it's going to be salty. You don't want it to be too salty. So I found rinsing it off because once we didn't do that and it was a little too salty because there was too much on the skin. So, uh, that's what we do with that. This is my favorite electrolyte. I pretty much drink Uh, water and electrolyte. I— oh, here's a, here's a hack. I make a— I have a SodaStream, which it, it— why can I not think of this? It's— what's the word for that when you, when you, uh, CO2 and water? Sparkling. Sparkling water. It makes it sparkling water. That's not the word for— I mean, that's what, what do you call that process? I make sparkling water, but what do you call that process? Anyway, it makes sparkling water. I like to put this in that, a quart jar. So this, this has little individual bags. Actually, this is not the one I'm going to send you, so I'm going to open this up. We're going to send you a brand new one. Europe— in Europe they call it gas water, uh, and I put one of these little packs in a quart jar and then I put a little warm water in there to dissolve it and mix it in, and then I put my carbonated water— there it is, carbonate it— carbonated water and put some ice in it. Because I'm mostly carnivore, I will say I'm low carb and mostly carnivore, that is a treat. It's got zero— it's got zero everything in it, and it's minerals. It's got minerals, But then it's got, you know, it's got zero calories, zero carbs. It's a treat. Like Rebecca's drinking a kombucha and yeah, I miss a kombucha from time to time. And yeah, I have a half of one every once in a while when my blood sugar is good. But this, it doesn't elevate my blood sugar. It feels like a treat. Feels like I'm having a soda when I, when I put it in that SodaStream. So Redmond's, if you're watching this, that's a little hack. That I've discovered with your electrolytes. These are fun. I didn't know about these, but Redmond sends us salt from time to time, and they sent these, um, salt shakers. And I like salt on my food more than most people. And so when I go to somebody's house, which everywhere I go it seems nobody's putting enough salt on their— on the food. So without being rude and asking for the salt, or not knowing if they use clean salt, I'll take this out, you know, just be real discreet, pour that salt in there, and we're good. This could put— this can fit in your pocket. I have one in my briefcase, I have one in my man bag, I have one in my glove department. Rebecca's got one in her purse. It's these— it's like this emergency. I don't carry one in my pocket because I usually do have salt available, available to me when I go to eat. Louisiana hot sauce on his holster. Oh, Matt is saying there's a guy with a Louisiana hot sauce on his holster. Yeah, I'm kind of like that, but with salt. Uh, I've got a concealed— I've got a concealed carry. This is your concealed carry for salt. Okay. Um, all right, let's, uh, so congratulations. I should have talked about that before I drew it. So hopefully everybody's with us. Okay, Graham, throw up some comments. Shandy's Garden, could you add fermented unsweetened kombucha to that as well, or would it kill the benefits? Could you add fermented unsweetened kombucha to that as well, or would it kill the benefits? Are you saying— okay, so if you want to put this in your— oh, it's unflavored. It might work if it's unflavored kombucha. But also, if you— I think they have— but also, if you had a flavored kombucha and you want some electrolytes, I think they have a non-flavored one. I think they have a non-flavored one. I'm not sure. Uh, Grandma probably pulled up. Uh, South Florida man bag sounds way better than a murse. Yeah, I know. Uh, or as Seinfeld would call it, the European carryall. But those man bags is where it's at, where it's at, guys, because I don't like to carry— I already carry enough with my, my point-and-shoot camera, my Leatherman. Uh, guys, um, you guys want to see what's in my pockets? Let's do what's in your pockets. Okay, I got a Leatherman, Leatherman multi-tool. This is a Wave. This is a legacy tool for our family. When my kids turn 10, they get a training knife, and then when they turn 13, which is you know, a traditional old-time Eastern biblical time of kids coming into adulthood. They get a Leatherman Wave, and then next to that is a, uh, the Sony Z7X. I don't get too particular, but this has a quick focus. If I don't have my big main camera, I've got this little point-and-shoot. Hey everybody, we're shooting right now. Uh, and then, uh, what else? I don't got any room to get over here in my left pocket because of those two things blocking it. I got the G— I got the Pilot G2 pen. It's go-to pen. I've been using this pen for like 10 years. Not this particular one, I lose them all the time. I might as well get on Amazon, subscribe and save now. I swear by these. Oh my gosh, these have changed everything. This is a Moleskine notebook. I just love the feel and quality of these things. And this is a softback mini or micro, so it's super thin. Okay, so it shapes to my leg. That's my front back. So there's not nothing too meaningful in this. That's the rule here. This is a to-do list. It's like groceries when you think, oh, we got to get this at the grocery or whatever. Oh, somebody had recommended a book when I was out. So I wrote down these books. The— oh, I wrote down the other day what I, what I learned when I watched the vlog. I'm trying to write how can I get better with the vlog for the next time. I'm just obsessed with it. I want to become a master vlogger. And this— pay property tax, it said. That's right, that's probably almost overdue if not Do, okay, but I did that. Yeah, so that, that, this can be lost, it can be thrown away, and I don't really care. Now in the back, just discovered these ones. This is a larger Moleskine, and it's a softback, 5 by something, and this is where it's at. I get the plain paper because I want to be able to draw if I want to. That rarely ever happens. Oh, and by the way, this is, this, this notebook I wish I could remember which style it is, but it has perforated paper so you can actually rip it out. So if I, if I see something that maybe a project for the kids or, or for the farmhand, I can write it on here, have a to-do list, and take that out and hand it to somebody. Or this can be my business card. I don't know, I'm not going to do business cards, but I could write down the name of the YouTube channel and give it to somebody. Why am I geeking out on this? You got me talking about notebooks. Justin, can you explain briefly the carnivore diet and its benefit? As I'm considering this. I'll talk to you to that in a second. Um, the small kind, I really like this. I really like to fill this, and this is for ideas, uh, funny stories, jokes, things, thanks, things. A lot of it is— a lot of what's coming out of this, this time, is what I'm starting to put on Instagram. I'm thinking of funny stories I want to tell or funny comments, and I'll write that down in here to, to then create an Instagram reel or something, something I want to share. So this would be something more that I would save this and put this in a lockbox and label it when I'm done. And it might be something that my kids would enjoy reading, or I would want to enjoy reading. And I have a big Moleskine notebook next to my nightstand for just more long-form writing stories and journaling and dreaming big for the business and stuff. So the Carnivore diet, that's an easy-to-digest food, low inflammation, low carb. Usually you can get a lot of fat on that too. I'm finding that I need just as much fat as I need protein. And it's just food that our ancestors would have, you know, for a long time we were used to eating meat, meat. And, you know, I won't even say veggies like we have them today because it's only very recently that we've been able to develop and cultivate and have fruits and vegetables like that year-round. So think about what people— if you think about here where I'm living, and, and the people before us, the Cherokee, would have been living here, they would have— what would they have had right now in December? They would have had mostly meat. I don't think they're— sure, there's some wild— maybe there's some wild edibles. I don't know enough about that. I have heard that some of them have figured out how to grind up and process acorns and be able to eat some of that, but I don't know enough about it. But For the most part, meat is something that is available in every place in the world all year round. I mean, there's, there's, uh, meat in extreme environments, cold, extremely cold environments. And so anyway, it's low inflammation, easy to digest, and super nutrient dense. And especially the kind of meat we're growing with— if it's fed grain, we're feeding it organic. And if not, like the cows, it's just getting grass and hay. And it's, it's, it's, it's amazing. And so it's helped me lower my inflammation, lower my blood sugar. And hopefully over time, it will address— at least it's helping, you know, with my, my chronic Lyme. We always wonder what it would be like if I didn't do all this stuff. Has it been a hill all? No. And I'm not a doctor, by the way. Okay, how big of a garden would feed a family of 5 for at least most of the year when they have 2 teens who eat a lot? I'm gonna say, um, if you're super efficient with it, like you start seeds or go buy plant starts in the spring— and in other words, you're going to have a spring garden, a summer garden, and then a fall garden. Or maybe you do some low, low tunnel coverage when it's frosty and you kind of cheat the season with either starting in a greenhouse or you're buying your plant starts after your last frost date. Like May 10th is our last frost date, so we can start April 10th in the greenhouse and then transplant them out May 10th. Or you could just go to the store and buy the plants have already been grown out. I'm gonna say And you're just saying most, so that's only like 51%. 1,200, 2,400 square feet. So I think that is 2 different garden plots. We'll put, we'll put 6 30-inch beds in it, and they're 50-foot long. We'll put 6, they're 30 inches wide with a footpath in between them, and that takes up about, that takes up a 21-foot by 50-foot space. So I guess that's not 1,200, is it? Is it? Is it 1,200 grand? You're not supposed to do math in public. But anyway, uh, 60 by 50, I don't know. It's— no, it's 50 by 21. So then you'll, you'll, you'll grow a lot in there. And, um, especially if you cheat the seasons. And then, so then, and especially if you time it. Guys, listen, okay, let me, let me tease this. I have an encore gift from you guys with, uh, SeedTime. Okay, we're gonna do a webinar on this Sunday, and, um, it's free. Stay tuned, you're on my email list. If you join the directory, you'll get an invite to this on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so it'll be hard to miss it. So just stay tuned with SeedTime. It's a new software that Rebecca and I are going to try. They're going to walk us through it, planning our garden for the year. And if you guys want to, uh, so stay tuned for that. And you guys can watch Rebecca and I with Seed Time plan our garden. And what I'm saying is, what, what, one, one thing you're going to want to do too is when that, when those spring crops are done and you pull them out, you're going to want to put something there for maximum efficiency. You want to have not much empty space. But so you need to know what to do every week, every day. So this thing, this, this, this stuff's cool. You just, you're plugging in what you have as gardens, you're plugging in what you want to grow, and it puts it in there and then it tells you what to do week by week. So we're going to be doing that this weekend, Sunday. Stay tuned. So if you're on the directory, you're also on my email list and you'll get a special invite to that. So definitely join the directory and join my email list. And I say that to say, get in Seed Time, get in there and watch us do it. You can get Seed Time during that event for free. And then you, you can learn how it's used by watching us plant our garden. You can learn some things and then you can go and do it for yourself with that software. Okay. Are you working on more children's book or books in general? I'm getting to it. I'm trying to get to it so hard. I want to I need— I got a children's book for every one of my kids, and I've just done the Mr. Brown. So thank you for the reminder. And I'm trying to get some help with the, the Abundance Plus marketing. And, and once that happens, I can free up some of my time there, and I can focus on more content. I don't want to take any time away from the blog. I'm really passionate about that, want to master that. And, but I do want to take more time to write. I have an idea for all kinds of— we have all the children's book. I have an idea for another homestead book. And the— there's all— join the email list too. We're going to do a workshop towards the end of January where we're going to do a booklet, speaking of writing, on intro to permaculture, how to design and set up your homestead. And that's appropriate going into as you want to plan for your year. So that's coming. And then I'm playing with the idea of a novel. Um, and all kinds of things. So thanks for asking that. I'm gonna geek out on books too if you ask me about that. I'm reading one book a week, uh, my 45th year. So I really love books and I need more time to write them. So I'm working on that. So I'm working on getting more help with the Abundant Permaculture business so that I can focus even more on content creation, which would be books, because books are hot right now, aren't they? Books are hot. You homesteaders like books because it's something physical, right? It's something— if the grid goes down, God forbid, or the internet or whatever, you still have this physical book. And there's just something really cool about something that you can hold and open up to and refer to and underline and pass to a friend and lend out and all this and that. But anyway, we're up on our time. Thank you guys for coming. Thanks for the great questions. Tomorrow Get on, get on the directory. Let's have a big push. 4,200, I bet we can at least get to 5,000, if not blow it out of the water if everybody shared. Mike, we definitely need help with permaculture this year, planting water for us with swales, subsoiling, berms, etc. You know what, Pleasant Places, you're in North Carolina, you ought to look up Permaculture Lackey. Because you need some advanced permaculture stuff. You don't necessarily just need the intro stuff, you know, where do I put what, where to put what, how much do I need to feed a garden. You, you're getting into some more advanced stuff, so I would, I would suggest a consultant. And that Permaculture Lackey is where it's at. I've used him here on the farm and he's in North Carolina. A lot of you are probably in North Carolina, so look up Permaculture Lackey on Instagram. I'm sure he'll appreciate this shout out. Maybe Graham will pull it up, share it. Oh, maybe he did it. Is that his site, Graham? SoPermaculture.org. That might be his site. Okay, well, we could hang out all day, couldn't we? But I've got to go. No, there's Lackey. He linked Lackey's Instagram. So maybe that first one, SoPermaculture.org, was Lackey's site, and then there's his Instagram. Yeah. So go see it, Lackey Mike. Tell him I sent you. He's a good one, just like you recommended that, uh, oh, let me tell you the Mike story. Mike's on here at Pleasant Places Farms. Um, you know, this one, we just, you know, we just started putting ourselves out there online and, uh, was after the farm tour, and, you know, and it was kind of like after we got off the farm tour, it was like Rebecca had just ran a marathon. You see those marathoners run and finish a race and they just collapse. Well, that's what happened to Rebecca. Her health collapsed and it was bad and we were struggling. And somebody reached out and said— and this is what can happen when you put yourself out there and you just start sharing on social media. You get a following whether you're going to make a career out of it or not, doesn't matter. And somebody reached out and they said, can I come help you? Look at Ken Chapel in the house, man. Old time. OG fan right there, Ken. Good to have you, buddy. Anyway, um, Mike reached out and said, I'll help you, let me come to the farm, I'll do anything. And I said, okay. And we got him out here and we had him string trim under an electric fence wire. Not a fun job, and it had plenty of briars and grass. And it's not one of those jobs that you want to vlog either. Nobody wants to watch that. It's not one of those exciting, sexy jobs. So it's like, wow, And he came out and did that half a day or whatever, and we've been good friends ever since. And, and just recently he shared a, um, a holistic vet when we were having that problem with Nacho, and the holistic vet was great. And actually Mike was the one that told us about that farm sale a couple years ago, which is where we got Winnie. Mike. And then, um, So then we've been able— so Mike, I'm gonna pay— I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a solid back. So permaculture lackey. All right guys, see you guys tomorrow at 2. Who's gonna win? Who's gonna win the Chick Shaw cash with cat— the, the homestead builds? So you can build any of those builds and we're gonna give you $600 to go towards it. I mean, you can do what you want with the money, but theoretically I hope you build one of those builds, but no hard feelings if you don't. All right, you might have some property taxes too, like I did. Okay, see you tomorrow. Cash money and homestead builds.