3 Mistakes Every Homesteader Can Avoid Feat. Roots and Refuge

Mr. Brown, what happened to these potatoes?

Uh, I don't know.

Where are your shoes?

I don't need any.

Oh, okay. I kind of like that answer. I don't need any. Oh, well, there they are. For my children's book, Mr. Brown, where are your shoes? That would be a really quick ending, wouldn't it? Hey, Mr. Brown, where are your shoes? I don't need any. I guess it's gonna have to take place during the wintertime. Look, Mr. Brown, persimmons! Way out there, calf and mama are separated. I don't hear mama bellowing this morning. I hear the calf. You cold, Mr. Brown? You want to go get you a sweater? Did you change your mind about shoes? Okay, I'll go get a sweater. My friends from Roots and Refuge, Jeremiah and Jessica Sowards, will be here pretty soon to do chores. We're gonna pick their brains. They have homesteaded for 7 years, are moving to start over. What did you learn? What did you do that maybe you learned from the first time that you're not gonna do again, because a lot of you guys are starting over with homesteads and you're gonna appreciate that golden information. Hey, Mr. Beefcake, you behaving yourself over here? What about you, Cheesecake? You got any babies yet? Not yet. Very soon. We're back at the potato digging. Let me see that, Josiah. The sacks came. I think we have enough this time, just in time. Maybe, maybe late. Are these things gone to seed? I don't want the weeds to go to seed. Uh, we need to cover this. We need to harvest these potatoes and cover this garden. Yeah, there, there you go. Good call. And then, you know, they're spaced what, a foot apart? So you could do it that way too. Yeah, good potatoes in there. The help has arrived. Jeremiah? You mean Ben? Ben, Ben, you gonna help us?

Yes!

Oh man, you gotta take it easy on me though. Come on now. If you find one that's been pierced or eaten, you gotta throw it in this pile. For us to use quickly or to feed to the pigs. Okay, everything else goes in a sack. Look who else is here! We got Jessica, she's joining Jeremiah.

When I came down and you were in the garden, I was like, um, I don't know if he really needs my help.

Maybe I'll wait till the animal chores, right? Jessica just said— I did not catch it on tape— but digging potatoes is her favorite farm chore.

It's true, I love it. It's my absolute favorite.

That's crazy.

This came out of the earth.

I know, isn't that cool?

It's gonna be delicious.

That is so good. And you know, the earth is all warm this morning on this cool day. It's almost as fun as eviscerating a chicken on a cold day.

I don't think she agrees with that.

You can't get her to go with me there, huh? If you don't know Jess and Jeremiah's story from— they have a YouTube channel, Roots and Refuge, a beautiful homestead they've set up. They have a successful homestead. Well, you guys been doing it, what, 7 years?

Yeah.

And your big story now is you're leaving what you set up, that is beautiful, it's working, but you have a bigger dream.

Yes.

And so you've sold this, this beautiful homestead in season to move to— how many acres is it?

27.

27 acres.

So I think where you guys can really impart some value here is a lot of my people are getting new places— 5, 10 acres, 27 acres, 100, whatever.

Yeah.

What— give me 3 things, and you can think about it, we can work potatoes while we do it. What are 3 things that you learned with 3 mistakes that maybe you experience, that maybe other homesteaders experience, that you are not going to repeat going forward?

Don't get afraid. Like, when you start homesteading, basically a lot of people hop into this with the realization that our food system is really, really broken. And that's true, it is, it's very, very broken. But that can kind of incite a little bit of hopelessness of, of like, whoa, this needs a massive solution, and I can only do a little bit here at the beginning. But you know, you eat an elephant One bite at a time. Not getting afraid is massive in building an actual successful farm. Getting afraid will cause you to, to get in over your head, to make dumb decisions, to go into debt, to do all these things that are actually, uh, completely counterproductive as far as your, your real goal. And so I think it's really best to set a 5-year plan of what you want to accomplish on your farm and just do the next right thing in accomplishing that 5-year plan. And don't get scared.

Do you, Jeremiah, so So she's speaking from— do you feel like you guys were afraid in the beginning? Oh yeah, she's speaking to advice across the planet.

That's where most of our mistakes came— getting ahead of ourselves, trying to rush the process, being afraid, you know, making decisions out of fear rather than out of wisdom. And what that kind of looks like is like, uh, we didn't plant our garden first. It was actually one of the last things that we did was actually start planting the garden, which we should have done that first, you know. Brought animals home with no infrastructure, like We had, we had so little infrastructure on this place that was a foreclosure. The infrastructure was so bad we didn't have an outside spigot, so we had to run a splitter off of the cold water in the laundry room, punch a hole through the sheetrock, run the hose out there and then out to the garage door. And then we put 600 foot of hose on it and drug one hose around all parts of the property to water everything.

So embarrassed.

And we did that for like the first 3 and a half years because we couldn't afford to get the well system set up.

I mean, it was just all these issues, right, for the animals that we didn't really need.

We didn't produce a lot of food out of it. It was just like this massive mistake learning process. Now, you know, going into this new property, infrastructure has been the highest priority.

What would be another biggie that you're not going to repeat in South Carolina?

I really liked what Maya talked about, getting information and learning from people, um, and that just saves you those mistakes because you can learn from other people who've already made the mistakes rather than just bumbling through it yourself. And we did a lot of bumbling at the beginning. One of the things that we really messed up on on our old farm was we really liked We overtaxed our land because we didn't really understand how important it was to steward pasture and soil. No matter where you are in your journey, to turn your waiting room into a classroom— just because you're living in an apartment or you're doing an office job right now doesn't mean you can't learn these things. Because if you understand soil management and you understand rotational grazing and regenerative agriculture, when you get your property and you get to start, you are starting in such a better place than if you wait until you're there to figure out. Because you can make a lot of detrimental mistakes by getting in over your head and taxing your land, for sure.

One thing we did not do at our other property because we just felt like we— it wasn't necessary because it was so small, but we surely should have— is like spend a lot of time in the beginning planning out what to do, thinking about it, like drawing it how to run fences, where should the barn go, how much space we should, uh, allocate to animals and gardens, and just really think it through. On this new property, we've spent almost as much time as we have building it thinking about where to put stuff, because once we secured the property, we had months before we actually started building on it and running through all the scenarios of like, why would this not work?

What, what could go wrong here? What if You know, what are we going to want to do with this years down the road? What is this going to look like? Where's that— where are these trees going to shade when they grow? Like thinking about the long-term way that it's going to play out.

We're going to wrap up the potatoes here, and when we go to milk, we're going to flip the question and say, what did you do that was spot on and right that you are carrying over and taking with you? Look who I got. Serious as a heart attack when it comes to chores. Craning the neck to see what's going on. Look, you're a serious supervisor. Yeah, he's a serious supervisor. If Farmer Henry's here, Farmer Mama's here. Your tomatoes are about to jam, honey.

I know.

And your peppers are jamming.

I know.

I can't wait for them to turn.

I have one tomato And your beans are finally taking off over here in the middle. Rebecca, you got beans on this one. Look who's here! We got Randolph. Hey, hey, Randolph! We got ducklings coming next week and This is a big rat fest, okay? So we had a rat come in and get 100 chicks in there. So what my mentor told me to do, my mentor Joel Salatin, is we're gonna go ahead and get this bedding out of here, uh, maybe while you're going to get supplies. And we basically need to rat-proof this section. Okay, so we need to think about how to— we need to have a door into here, 1/2-inch wire mesh around, and, and roofed over it. So it might be that we do something with this current retaining wall. We wanted that pile lock in. Yes, it does, it does have to be able to to fill it to about that high. That gets to be a critical mass in there with the deep bedding, and it heats up and it breaks down the material, and it's, it's better. All right, so, so your door will need to be about that high? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, yeah, I guess we'll have that retainer wall door that high. See, they've dug under over here for the liner. Joel was telling me metal. Would it have to be a real thick wire so you can run all through it, or Well, I don't know.

I bet it would be.

Yeah, it might be better. I think this is because of that. I think you could do that. I think metal roofing's available. If it's available, let's just do that. Arun to the rescue! Randolph to the rescue! Arun, do you know how to do the electronic dump bed?

I think I, I know once, but maybe I can figure out.

Maybe I like that attitude. Oh, Gideon, you're going to show them? Well, first let's, let's collapse it and bring the seats back. Full dump bed. Now get in and show us how to dump it.

Nice.

Oh, that's gonna make life a lot easier. All right, go ahead. Y'all milk her for all she's worth.

All she's worth.

Nice. Good job, guys. Did we do half ration? Yep, man, you guys are on it. On it. We're gonna start drying her off. Whoa, watch out, sister. We're gonna do half ration because we're gonna dry her fire off. You're just into this.

He's here for it.

He just loves it. Oh man, look at this pro. You can milk a goat, you can milk a cow.

It's true.

Do I see cows in Roots and Refuge's future?

Oh, 100%.

Nice.

Soon, the near future.

Yeah.

The room's got a load.

Oh, you only have what, 3 loads maybe?

No, actually, because the— I only got like a little bit. See, there's so much is there. I think I have 2 or maybe 3 more here. Okay, all right, 3 maybe there. Okay, like, uh, 6 more.

Okay, we talked about what things— make mistakes you made. Yes, that you've changed. What did you do right? And I'm sure you did so many things right. What did you do right that you're carrying forward with you that is like a must-have?

One of the big things I think that a lot of people miss out on when they desire to homestead that we have really learned and are carrying with us is really confronting your appetites. There's a lot of people that start growing food, but they still crave a lot of food that's very bad for them. If you are in the habit of eating a lot of fast food if you're not in the discipline of scheduling your life around making sure that you can eat good food, like when you take vacation, staying in Airbnbs where you can cook, and, you know, kind of keeping your ear to the ground wherever you go for food sources and that sort of thing, it, it makes it really hard to take what you're growing and really utilize it to the fullest.

Do you only grow what you love?

Um, that's not Have you, have you gotten good about that? Tomatoes?

You don't love tomatoes? Yeah, yeah, but she loves tomatoes, right?

But I love what tomatoes make.

Sometimes people fall in the trap of growing things they don't like because it's cool, like tomatoes. Like, a lot of people like tomatoes, so you think it's cool, you got to grow a tomato, but you might not actually like it.

You should definitely grow the things that you're actually going to use. It doesn't do you any good if you're going to grow it and not use it. I think we learned soil building a lot. I would say that's something that coming in right off the bat with is really learning to utilize our animals to build up the soil in our spaces. That's not something we knew, but it— we did learn it. And just right off the bat, we're working those things into our plan to do things like set our high tunnels up near where pigs are going to be so we can get them in there easily to amend soil. And just rotating our chickens, that's something that we've now got to— we won't, we won't do a static poop. We're gonna do like— we have a chickshaw, and being able to move those and use those, I think that's something that's huge that we're taking and starting out with. Everything you do on your farm, you should think about what is the overall effect of this on the longevity of the health of my farm, the health of my animals, the health of my soil, my harvest, whatever I'm getting out of here. Because you can— there's so many multifaceted things. You can get eggs from chickens, but you could also move your chickens and get healthy soil too. We can always be getting— we should be maximizing what it is we have on our farm.

One thing I think we've learned that we're definitely carrying forward in our 7 years at the other property is, is how to combine an efficient functioning design with an aesthetically pleasing— you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, it looks pretty. I mean, I don't know how many of you, you know, know Jess that well, but things looking pretty is pretty high on the list of stuff to a priority. So it's like functional, look pretty, efficient is kind of actually below the look pretty side. Um, and so I've learned to make things look good, you know what I'm saying, and, and, and fit within her style and personality. And what we've learned that that's actually done is produced a stronger desire to go out and be in these places and do these things.

You need to do something that builds insurance against yourself into this because you're gung-ho at the beginning, but when it's an August afternoon and you got to go chase an animal or you got to go do a chore and your butt is getting kicked by your farm, you better love it. It's too easy to give up and go buy food at the grocery store. And while it's nice that it's not the Oregon Trail and Grandma's not going to die, you know, of dysentery starving to death But it's nice to have the grocery store as a backup, but you better realize it's gonna look really tempting to give up at times when it's hard. And so building a space that you love, it helps when your butt is being kicked. So we heated it up, then you put the rennet in it and you let it sit for 10 minutes for raw milk. You have to go a little longer for raw milk, and then the curds separate from the whey. So we're cutting them in this grid And there's a lot of cheese in this, which is pretty cool.

Nice. Now how are you going to get the whey out of there?

We're going to—

Pour it in a pig bucket if we're pouring it.

Yeah, we'll save the whey. But first what we have to do is we have to heat this back up, and then we're going to get these curds out, and we're going to squeeze the whey out and continue to dip it back in to heat it up. And we're going to stretch it, and we're just going to keep stretching it until all the whey comes out. We'll save the whey. So we re-dip these curds in here. Now this is real hot. Gloves are probably advisable, but here we are. And we re-dip these until they start to stretch, and this is about ready. So you can see this stretch going on here.

Wow.

And I've, I've squeezed this.

And it didn't absorb the liquid.

No, see, so we're getting this shiny, good long stretch on this cheese.

Look at this.

So it's very hot, which is is why I'm throwing it around here. But it— what you want to be able to do is stretch it several inches without breaking it. And once you're starting to get this, you know that it's, it's about done.

Could you have let it cool off, or you need to stretch it warm?

Yeah, you need to stretch it warm and make sure. And basically, once it starts getting that shiny look and it's stretching well without breaking, then it's good to go. And so I'm going to salt this, and we're going to make mozzarella sticks out of it. So I'm going to salt it and put it in a container and put it in the fridge so it'll solidify so that I can then cut it and bread it.

Randolph's back. I think he's getting some wood. We've got everything out. I'd say, I'd say that's, uh, rat-proof, wouldn't you? We've got it cleared out, ready to go. And it kind of looks small when it's like this. Half-inch wire mesh. That's kind of nice for lumber, especially now with lumber prices. Randolph just went over to our shed and got the lumber we harvested from our own farm.

This is a breading that Rebecca— I don't know if she came up with the recipe or she found it, but it's coconut flour and arrowroot flour, so it's gluten-free. It's really awesome because it's hard to find gluten-free cheese sticks.

So was this refrigerated?

Yes, this was refrigerated.

Okay, nice.

You can, if you want, softer, like, you know how you can buy those like balls of mozzarella at the store? You want to work them less so they don't harden up, and you want to store them in the way that we pulled out. We gave it to the pigs because we wanted it harder. To make cheese sticks, you want it a little more solid so it holds together.

Jess and Jeremiah are here, very special reason. We are launching a brand new show for them. It's called Wilder Steel on It's going to be on Abundance Plus, but this weekend we're premiering it for free. So if you're interested in following a story of an ex— of some experienced homesteaders starting over completely from scratch for a much bigger dream, leaving their dream that they worked so hard to accomplish to go do something bigger, you're going to want to check out the first episode. I'm giving it away for free this weekend. Link down in the description. See you Friday night, 6— uh, 8 PM for that. Link in the description. There it is. Oh my word.

Hey, if you're gonna eat fried food, this is the way to do it, right?

Right. Heck yeah. What's the oil we used? Avocado. Nice.

Are you gonna taste it?

Heck yeah. Oh man, looks good to me. Us right now.

Here, you want me to—

that's serious.

No, I'm gonna put this end in Justin's mouth and I'm gonna start on this end. We'll have a real Lady and the Tramp moment together. I'm gonna separate this.

Look at that.

All right, here we go. We don't have to touch lips, but we can share mozzarella stick. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. I mean, really?

I mean, really?

Hey, you won't like—

you won't like these.

You'll like these cherry tomatoes. Wait, let me have a bite. Yeah, get a bite.

No, let me have a bite of yours. Oh man.

Oh yeah, so chewy.

Wow, we actually do the whole box.

That's the happiest ending ever.