Ben & Meg Hollar | Marrying Young, Raising Teenagers and Making NC Home

So you're, you're one of the most requested people that we would sit down and talk to.

Really?

Yeah. Why do you think that is?

Charming good looks.

Ruggedly handsome. That's right. How old were you when you had your first children?

We were young'uns.

Yeah, we were young. I was 19.

I wanted him to say 20.

You were 19 when you gave birth? I was—

well, I just turned 20.

Okay.

Okay.

Pregnant. I was 19 when I got pregnant.

Yeah.

How old were you then when you got married?

I was—

you were 19? I was 21.

Yeah.

We didn't waste much time.

All right.

Is that a good idea or a bad idea?

Uh, you know, societal norms tell you that's a bad idea.

Yeah.

I encourage everybody, get married and have your kids young.

Yeah.

Uh, it's a lot easier when you're in your 20s to deal with a non-sleeping baby than it is in your late 30s.

Amen, brother.

Or 40s. Or 40s.

So you recommend that? Well, your children are now 17.

The twins are going to be 18 in a couple weeks.

So that's like in one year they're going to get married?

Possibly. They need to find some women.

It does, it does require a spouse.

Yes.

I like that. Face.

He's like, there are no, uh, candidates, if you will, currently.

I mean, a lot can change in 3 months though.

It's true.

You know, when I was their age, I remember thinking like, this is what I want to do. Like, I want to get married, I want to start a life. Uh, I don't even know any females. Like, how the heck can I make this happen? And then here comes Meg.

Here I am, the female.

So what do you mean, here comes Meg?

So are we going to tell our story?

We're going to talk about it. How you didn't like me at all. You wanted to do anything with me.

She was kind of obnoxious.

He's like, okay, we're going there. Are you sad?

You said so.

This is gonna be couples therapy.

Yeah, I guess. There was a Bible study that we both went to that our moms took us to. Like, we were kids, we were teenagers.

Now you both were homeschooled. We were both homeschooled.

This was a had nothing to do with homeschool. It was called Bible Study Fellowship.

Okay.

Um, we were in the, the youth thing.

Yeah.

And, you know, it was just something to do. And I had— how old were you, 15 when we met?

Yeah, I think so.

And you don't know much when you're that old. And so we weren't really even friends, but like our moms were friends, and so like we were acquainted and all that. Um, there's a lot of this. How, how deep we going?

I don't— you got to tell our story, babe.

If he goes too deep, Meg, just say, 'Matt, cut it, bring it back.' So had been going to Bible study together. We knew each other, like, we were, we were cool, but We weren't really like hangout friends or anything. Didn't really talk enough there because it's a Bible study. Like, you're there to do the Bible study, not hang out.

Right.

And there was like once or twice that there was like outside stuff that we went and did that our moms dragged us to. And, you know, we were older teenagers, like we were both working. Yeah, it was just like probably wasn't going to happen. Well, anyways, I used to have a band. Way back in the day, and my drummer was a girl. Well, she was a lot younger than me. She was like 14, 15, something like that.

You know, I was like, this part of the story.

Oh yeah, this is where it started for me. This is where it started.

You unleashed him.

So we would, you know, I think back, what were her parents thinking letting their, you know, 14, 15-year-old girl play drums for a couple, you know, 17-year-old dudes? Yeah, I mean, it was in my parents' tool shed. That was where we practiced. But I mean, if I were in that position anyway, I don't know.

I want to say this was the '90s. What wasn't it? It was—

this is like 2003, something like that.

Yeah.

All right.

Close enough.

Okay. Okay. You know, people— parenting was a lot looser, right?

20 years ago.

Yeah, it was.

So there was one night, the other guy in the band, he had to take off early and I took this girl home. Well, on the way home, she's like, hey, I'm really hungry. Can we stop at— it was like Del Taco. Can we stop at Del Taco and get some tacos? Like, sure, I got like $10. Let's stop. And so we stopped. We went in, we're sitting there eating food, and I see a familiar car go driving in through the drive-thru. And it was Meg's mom. And I see her younger sister who was like, was she 8, 9, something like that? Glaring at me through the window, just like burning, shooting daggers at me. I was like, why was— that was Meg's sister. Why was she glaring at me like that? Well, then the following week at Bible study, she kind of marches in the door and she marches right up to me and she's like, so not my sister. Yeah, yeah. Meg walks up to me and she's like, so is that a girlfriend?

I was like, I did.

I was like, what? And right then it was like, I got you. You exposed yourself. I know, I know. You actually kind of—

I had the hots for Ben.

You had the hots for me. So it wasn't too much longer after that, that kind of broke the ice and it's like, all right, you want to come to band practice?

Yeah.

You were 16?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's hilarious. Your sister, did your sister know that? I guess that, that you—

Yeah, she, she knew that I was like kind of—

Were you guys tight?

Me and my sister? Not really at the time.

Okay.

No.

So But she was still gonna look out for you.

I know she was looking out for you.

She was. We're tight now.

Making sure that Ben ain't tramping around with some other girl.

No, that girl was not my type. She played drums really, really well.

She had the hots for you too, though.

She did. And when me and Meg got together, it kind of ruined the whole band thing.

It did. I broke up. I literally broke up the band.

Why? Because you couldn't focus.

I don't know.

Well, and then—

well, no, because she left.

The drummer got upset.

Oh, that's right.

Actually, the drummer didn't leave. I got kicked out of the band.

You got kicked out of your band? Yes.

I was the lead singer.

Because of me?

Yeah.

Wait, they kicked you out because you started—

they kicked you out and the band collapsed?

That's what happened?

It was just one of those things, like, it got to the point where it was like, I would rather hang out with Meg than— yeah, do this going nowhere band. And they were like, well, we don't feel that way, so we'll find a singer and another guitar player to replace you. It's like, all right, you know, peace.

It didn't end ugly.

It didn't end ugly.

That sounds kind of like what we were talking about before, before the show, about pigs. You know, they, they knock over their own water, they'll knock their own food into their own poop, they'll pee in their own wallow.

Yep.

No foresight.

Break up your own band.

They broke up— they fired the lead singer. And bass player.

That's right.

Okay, so when you're going to bring back the band, were you a bass player?

Oh, heck no. Lead guitar.

Oh, I thought you played bass for some reason. Why heck no? Is that an insult?

Anybody who knows any bass players, they're gonna know. Like, there is something about bass players. If you've ever been in a band, you would understand. Like, sorry, any bass players listening, but it's true. You know it's true.

Hey Matt, is this true? You're on a lot of musicians. That's what he does, musicians.

Are you a bass player?

No.

Oh good, we didn't insult him, so we're cool.

But he records, he records for bands.

About that, like, oh no, what happens if Matt's a bass player?

There's a lot of stereotypes. There's a lot of stereotypes for sure.

Is this online? Can I like Google?

Oh yeah, yeah, you can absolutely find out what you guys are talking about.

Okay. Yes.

Memes about lead guitarists.

I fit the stereotypical lead guitarist.

He does. He's a bit of a drama queen.

So, 16, 17 years old, your kids are that now. Is that not trippy? I'm tripping out.

It is pretty weird.

Because we met when we were 16.

Yeah.

Jonah's already past that.

Yeah, we would have already been dating.

Yeah, it's very weird.

Jonah would already have met his wife. Like, what?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we, we, we, we're raising our kids very differently than how y'all were raised and how we were raised. Are we making a mistake?

We actually have this conversation on a probably biweekly basis.

We have this conversation with each other, and then we actually also have this conversation with our children. Like, hey, do you feel like we're screwing you up? Yeah, they don't feel that way.

So, okay, maybe we need to ask ourselves, though.

I, I don't think that we're— we are raising our kids differently, but I don't think that we're screwing up. I think that our children are way more innocent than we were.

Oh, totally.

When we were that age.

And I think that's a good thing.

I don't think—

yeah, I rush because there's so much time, right? You have the rest of your life to, to like be an adult. Why rush that into the teenage high school years, right?

I guess that's what I mean.

Not that we're not— I do want to say that we are putting responsibilities and letting our children start to make decisions for themselves because they're going to soon. I'm not saying that we're like shielding them from all the things, but I think the way we've raised our kids is, I think, going to help them in the long run. I mean, I look at Jonah, and Jonah can have conversations with adults better than I could when I was a kid.

Yeah, like So y'all had this doubt and y'all even talked to them about it? Yeah, just casual, or was it everybody, let's sit down and have a meeting? I mean, no, we're just like, I think everybody was in there.

So we were both homeschooled and we kind of, we came into, uh, the real world, if you will, uh, already being outsiders. We were already different just by the way we were raised. Our parents raised us different. And, you know, once you start working, you're an adult, you're doing adult things. All of the homeschool hate that you hear your entire life, at least for me it was, you'll never fit in, you're never going to be able to socialize, all of that stuff. I believed it. And I went into the real world, the workplace, expecting to not fit in. And you know what I found is I actually fit in with adults. Better, you know, older people at the time when I was, you know, a teenager still. Um, I fit in with the adults, the older people in the workplace better than I fit in with people my own age, and I was completely okay with it. And it actually benefited me because every place I ever worked, go find the old guys.

They're the ones who know the boss. Who's the boss?

Exactly.

You know, not that you're like doing anything wrong, but like, that's going to be an advantage. Friendship with the boss is an advantage.

Yeah. So what's all this pressure to get your kids to like socialize? I don't know if that pressure's there anymore, is it?

Uh, not since the internet.

I mean, we're so far removed.

That kind of killed all that.

I don't even feel— but there used to be a talk and pressure of like, if you told somebody you're homeschooled, they would then say, well, then how do they socialize?

Yep.

But I feel like—

I think that might be gone.

That— well, one, homeschooling's so much more widely accepted.

Yeah.

Than it was. I mean, when you guys were doing it, it was weird.

It was—

no, it was very weird. We know that.

And I mean, not in a bad way, but like, it was weird. And, and Like, your— did your parents like take you guys out during the school day? Was that— because like, I know, I, I know some people that are— so you guys are 10 years younger than us, so people who are our age that were homeschooled, they would say that their parents wouldn't take them to like the grocery store in the middle of the week during school because there was too much— like, it— they didn't hide, but they didn't like expose it. Whereas like, now I don't care, I'll take my kids in the middle of the day.

And we don't get those kinds of questions anymore. We don't get those kinds of questions.

No one blinks an eye.

Yeah.

Yeah, nobody's being at the grocery store with you on a Tuesday.

Yeah, yeah, it's becoming more common now.

Yeah, I think so.

Do you feel— do you still feel that way, Ben? Do you still feel sometimes if you go to an event or something like, or a new place, oh my God, I'm not— do you still have that homeschool stigma?

No, actually, I think it kind of turned into something else, uh, and now it's kind of a, I am proud to be different. Okay, I'm, I'm proud that I don't fit in with society.

Yeah. When did that come along?

I don't know. I have never conformed to society. While all of my friends and family were— they were all going to college, I was working and starting a family for a very, very long time. We were the only people our age that had kids the age— like, we have always been alone. It has been me and Meg. And our boys, and we're just doing our thing by ourselves, just kind of minding our own business because nobody understands, especially out in California. Our area in California, there was nobody our age with kids. And so we were, we were extremely alienated. Like, it was, it was weird. And people just look down on you like, oh, too bad you have all those kids. It's like, too bad? Like, this was our choice.

It was.

And so, you know, I don't know, there's so much I could say. I would probably ruffle a bunch of feathers, but choosing to work hard and have a family put me in a way better position than a lot of people that I know that chose to go to college. And they're, they're just now starting their families. Yeah. Wow.

At like 35.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you felt alone growing up because you were homeschooled and a lot of people weren't homeschooling. And then when y'all had children by yourselves, nobody else was doing it. And then, forgive me if I've missed one, but the next one would be alone in homesteading. Nobody was doing that.

No, no, we were weird because we had chickens in our backyard.

By the time you started growing your own food and having chickens in your yard, had everybody already written you off? Had you already claimed this weird, weird, weirdness lifestyle, or were you still— or were people suffering and feeling alone?

Or were people still shocked when you were like, oh, we're going to do this? Were they still like—

what I mean by that is Rebecca and I went down alternative paths so much and for so long. By the time we converted a school bus to travel all of America, nobody thought anything of it.

No, they're like, it'll be fine for them. You guys always do weird stuff and it works out just fine. We had already been putting our life out there.

On YouTube. We had already eat organic, we had already been vegan, we had already homeschooled, we had already home birthed. Yeah. So where was the homesteading? Was it— were you— was everybody like, yeah, yeah, there they are? Or was everybody around you being like, what in the heck are y'all doing?

I feel like by that point, by the time we were leaving California and moving, people were kind of like, okay, yeah, that sounds about something you would do.

Well, you had jammed out your yard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were maxed out. I mean, we only had like an eighth of an acre.

People can go and see your— do you still have those old YouTube videos up?

Unfortunately.

Oh, yes, they're there. Hey, unfortunately, unfortunately, they're so bad.

Sit on the porch. Hey, let's talk.

It's good. It's so good that they're there because people can see how far you've come. Yeah, I mean, us too.

Or beard.

Hey, you know what's weird is I every now and then I'll like go watch one of those videos. It's like, what has happened to me? I've aged like milk.

Like, this was just—

this wasn't even 10 years. Like, I hit like 38 and it's just like, what, what's happening to me?

38. Something happened at 38, huh?

That's it.

That's the edge. Just go downhill from there.

I think that you're aging like— I think you're aging well, Ben.

Thank you.

Yeah, I don't think— I'm not looking at you like, oh, like, if, if what happened to you? I'm thinking of like a cup of milk. Ben, I'm not like— I do not react to your you, you're aging the same way I would milk.

You are. You're raw milk. You're not pasteurized milk.

That's right. You're just—

you're not going putrid.

I'm turning to cheese.

Gideon and Henry made a smoothie the other day. They put milk in it, of course, you know, and pineapple and all this stuff. Oh, yeah. See, I didn't know that. And so they went and drink it. They're like, oh, yeah, it's— first it's real good, and then it's like, what's the deal? And I want them to drink it because they're wasting all this stuff. And the aftertaste, like throw up.

Yeah.

Well, when they're editing, when my editor's editing it and he comes over there, well, he's editing it and Ashley heard it while he was editing and she says, you've got to tell him right now, pineapple ages milk.

Yeah, yeah, it curdles.

Ashley told him that.

Yeah, it's acidic.

And he didn't tell me, so she walked over here and told me. She was so excited to break the news. So you've just gotten some pineapple.

That's it.

Pineapple is the only fruit that digests you when you eat it.

Yep.

Oh, is it really?

It does.

Now that's a mood pill for you.

I'm not—

I mean, mass quantities, maybe.

I think you can ingest too much.

I love pineapple.

It'll make your tongue go raw before you can eat so much that it'll actually—

you'll get other warnings from your body.

Eaten pasta when I was a kid.

And what's funny is, how do they know this? Pineapple eats you.

Like, seriously, one time we were at my mom, like, threw a baby shower, and there was the pineapple, like, on the platter.

Yeah.

And I just kept eating it, and my tongue was like, you know, screaming, stop, stop! And I'm like, I just kept going.

I just can't stop. Oh, hold on, let's see.

I can't take that, but I will call her back.

Okay, so, um, where were we? We— would you— before we talked about pineapple rotting milk, um Okay, so would you recommend this path for your own children? I mean, it's already—

it's a little too late.

I guess it's too late about them getting married at the same stage y'all were at. I mean, but okay, so they fall for somebody really hard in the next 3 months. Yeah, they're ready to get married at 18. You up for it?

Yeah, I don't know. See, that's where it's, it's kind of— it's different I was already working full-time. That's like, I was, I was fully ready to just like leave. I was tired of being under my parents' thumb. Like I needed my own space at that point. Like it was going to happen sooner than later. And then when we got together, I mean, I slept at home, but other than that, I was never home. Like the only time I came home, like I quit eating dinner at home because we were always together. That's something that— that's loud.

FedEx.

That's something that was, I guess, kind of crazy, was we got together and we just spent every waking minute with each other. We've always been best friends. We've always just clicked. We've always just— we've been each other's best friends and Uh, it really happened so quick, honestly, because—

so how quick was it from the time you started dating until you got married or engaged? 2 years. Well, yeah, we did it for 2 years because you guys were underage when you met and started dating.

Yeah, yeah.

And your parents thought you were nuts, or they were supportive?

They were supportive.

Yeah, they were cool with it.

I'm pretty sure my mom was like, yep, out the door you go, be gone. That's all right.

My mom was probably the same way.

Were you causing some problems at home?

I, I have always been the black sheep.

I am.

I am the most difficult child. All of my brothers and my mom will vouch for that.

I do like you didn't even know the story and you took the mom's side.

That's the Ben.

I don't even know your mom.

Because we know how this goes.

You knew.

Well, I just think the whole, like, the kicking out— not kicking out, but like being okay with a child being gone.

Yeah. It's usually the ones you butt heads with that you're like, yeah, that's fine. You can move out.

Even the ones I don't butt heads with, I'm like, I can see the value of like, so we were with some friends and they're, they have an 18-year-old. He's going to graduate from high school, um, this May. And so we were kind of like talking like, so is he going to stay at home and like go to a community college? Like, what, what's the plan? Like, what, what's he gonna do? And so, and the husband's like, he's gone. Oh no, he's leaving. Like, he, he has to go. Yeah, like, he has to mature in this. And at first I was like I like know these people. I've known them since I was a child. Okay. So like, I really know these people. And I was just kind of like, this is so— it felt like it felt a little out of character. And I was like, what? What? But the more he like talked and like the, the reasons he was saying it, the more I was like, you know, that makes a lot of sense. Like, I get the wanting to like keep them at home, but also I get the like let them learn. Yeah, they have to be seen. Not, not—

depends on the kid too. Yeah, I need to learn that.

It does depend on the child, but also like, I think it is good because if you think about like, you know, 100 years ago, like, were people staying at home? Or when, when they were becoming like— and not right at 18, you know, it could be 20, right? But like, they were forging their own ways and it was beneficial in some way. So anyways, and not to hijack the whole podcast, but like the more he talked about it, and for their family that is the best thing. I don't know if that's what's going to happen for us. Um, but yeah, it's interesting because one of the reasonings was like he has a lot of his own ideas and he's like trying to impose them on the family.

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah, I get that.

So what are you gonna— what's your plan for the older kids?

Well, we're not kicking them out, and we've told them we're not like booting you out at 18.

I don't know. You know, I would like to say I have it all figured out, but I don't. Honestly, most days I still feel like I'm the age they are currently at.

Right.

It's weird. Something happens. It's called getting older. You wake up one day and it's like, I'm going to be 40 this year. What the heck? I feel like I'm 18. Like, 18 was just like last year, right?

When I look in the mirror, I'm like, I don't look like this.

Yeah, I feel like I'm just 22.

Hey, like, yeah, kind of, kind of where I'm at with it. This has been a recent kind of thought process for me. For a very long time, I've been like kind of pushing them towards, you know, you need to go out, you're going to get a job, you're going to yada yada, you're going to do exactly what I did. And then it finally clicked one day. It was like, do I want for them what I experienced. Do I want them working 80-hour work weeks?

Yeah. No.

Well, I know how bad that sucked for me, and sure, if you want to work an 80-hour work week, go find that job. There's those jobs out there everywhere. Um, if money is more important than your sanity, you know, more power to you. I don't want that for my boys. There is more to life than a job. And I think what's been interesting is once we moved out here and I— there's some reprogramming I had to do. I— for you, for me, when I quit, you know, I quit my good-paying job and we sold everything and we hit the road. It was like, okay, like, it's fine. What we had— we sold our house and that was what we traveled on. That was a big chunk of money in the bank that we just lived off of. I was like, okay, no big deal. But when we finally decided on North Carolina and we bought a place, we literally landed with $10,000 to our name. That was it. And we're looking at trying to rebuild a house and build a— start a homestead and all of this stuff. And it was like, and we didn't have a job, didn't have a job. And I can't— like, there are jobs doing what I did, but I've got to get closer to the Gulf. I've got to get closer to any of the coasts. You know, I was like, in your town, not in our town, hour away in any direction, I might find something. And there's no way I would be able to do the homesteading thing if I'm working 80 hours a week plus a commute.

So let's have 6 kids.

Yeah.

So, and a sane wife. Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Well, why, why come out here and just repeat what what we had been doing. Yeah, you know, it's crazy to come out here and just continue doing what got us in this position of wanting to leave. And we were, we were ready to throw in the towel on the marriage. We'd been married for 10 years, and it was just like, what are we doing? Why are we— it got to the point where we were no longer having raging fights, we were having calm discussions. And it was kind of a scary place to be.

It was like calm discussions about—

I was in California.

Yeah, like, how are we going to split this?

That was in California.

California.

Yeah. So then you're like, oh boy, this is getting serious.

Yeah. Yeah.

So to come out here, and I guess one of the things I realized was a lot of my self-worth was tied up in a job title. And so coming out here, I've, I've had to let that go and really focus on being a better husband and father. Honestly, I've told a lot of people I felt like a stepdad to my own children because I didn't know them. You know, the last I saw the twins, they were 2 years old, and now all of a sudden they're— they were like 13, 14. It was like, I don't know these boys.

I was—

because I was never home.

Yeah.

So to want to impose that life on my boys I feel that I, I, I'm still continuing to change my mind and my thinking on what life needs to be. So, you know, whereas I'm pretty sure Corbin is going to acquire some heavy equipment and he's going to disappear off into the wilderness and just run heavy equipment, like the writing's on the wall with that boy.

Very much.

Yeah.

I don't know what the rest of them will do.

Yeah.

Um, in that business they can, they could, yeah, they could work.

And he would be, he would be as happy as a clam if he had tractors to run from dawn till dusk. Like, that boy loves— he has loved tractors since he was like tiny, like 6 months old, big enough to like reach in the toy box past all the other toys and pulled out the tractor. And he's still that, that, that little baby. As far as the rest of them, you know, when you have your kids, you try to push them in the directions that you see interest. Yeah, and sometimes it can feel like you're just pushing in circles because they, you know, you get into something and then they lose interest and then they, they— yeah, go in another direction.

Where did you learn that, to push them in the direction where you see interest?

That was probably my parents.

Yeah.

Um, that's kind of like a homeschool—

that's an unschool.

Yeah, an unschool mantra.

Yeah. Um, I know there's about a million things that my mom kind of pushed me towards things that I had interest in. And I used to do archery and stuff like that, all those things that you do, and you look back later and it's like, you know, if I'd stuck with that, I might be somewhere with it, right?

But, you know, but you didn't have that interest.

I didn't have that.

Yeah, because I see that with our kids, like, being like, hey, why don't you explore this? And they're like, and I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm not pushing.

No.

Yeah. But then, like, Lily with horses, she's crazy about horses.

We know.

We have not had—

no, it's like Corbin with machines.

Yeah, there's no pushing. So, so we can support that.

You know, but the— yeah, the boy, you know, their interests, Wayne, you know, that was a good way you put it, circle. You know, you had just talked about how—

let me choke on coffee.

Sorry, guys.

No, it's good.

All right, I'm done with coffee.

You okay?

Went right down the wrong pipe.

You can, uh, um— oh, we were talking before the podcast about how you had had a dream to be a Hairdresser. And my dad crushed that for you. Yes, because, you know, you— we met, we were, we were young when we met, and you were still a kid, really, because I— well, we were not as a parent figure. He crushed that. He said there's no money in it or something like that.

He said there's too many of them.

Boots said this?

Yeah, Boots.

Oh man.

Oh, he was a dream crusher.

He said that.

Well, God rest his soul.

He, he crushed your dreams.

I was going to be a forester. I wanted to be in the forest and be a ranger.

Um, and he's like, you're gonna end up in an office or something.

I mean, he was probably right about that. I feel like he said it was no money in it, but he would be right about the—

my grandpa was a hotshot and he did eventually wind up in the— in an office. Yeah, he hated it.

I know, right?

And I think that's—

or leading other groups around the same path all day long. Yeah, it's not like I thought it was. But anyway, what was the point? The point was that your mom was pushing your interests and helping you pursue those. I think she was maybe a little ahead of her time or doing something a little better than— I'm not saying she's perfect, but she got that right. Our generation of parents, and probably y'all's too, of peers and things, weren't pushing our dreams. They were pushing the American— America's dreams, society's dreams. You got to go to college. We still see that pressure in some of our friends now with their, their kids will be still going to school with no vision.

Yeah.

And it's worse now. It's like tens of thousands of dollars in debt instead of just a few thousand back when we were there.

That's how it was with my mom because she came to me when I was about 16 and she was like, all right, you know, the sit-down talk of you need to figure out what you're going to do with your life because you're 16 now and you're gonna, you know, grow up because she You're 16 now. I said I want to get married and have babies. That was my dream.

Yeah.

And she was like, well, that's nice, but you really need to go to college and get a career, you know, because if you don't wind up getting married or you don't have babies, you need something to do with your life, right? And I was like, no, I'm gonna get married. I don't even know Ben at this point.

So Rebecca was told, um, well, you need to go to school, even though she was going to be a homemaker, right? That you need to go to school.

You this.

You need to go to school because what happens if you get a divorce?

That was what happens if Justin leaves you. That was like, they—

not, not just your husband, but it was specifically Justin. Oh yeah, because we were dating and we already knew we wanted to get married, but you know, we were navigating all of that with the parents.

So there's a societal—

there—

yeah, there's a societal pressure to do a certain thing, right?

Well, yeah, so, so, you know, we'll, we'll need to check. Hold on a second, this was also the late '90s, early 2000s. When college was something. I think that it's just a very— yeah, like, for us, I mean, we graduated high school in '97, we graduated college in '01. I mean, even us going to business school, business is different now. Yeah, like, it is not the way it is. Like, it's not. I mean, even with COVID changed it so much, like, people working from home, not having—

like, yeah, you know, I mean, if you're gonna take business in college now, you better be talking about content creation.

Exactly.

Online marketing.

Yeah, totally.

Advertise, you know, online ad strategies and all that kind of stuff. And affiliate marketing.

The internet was new. Yeah, we took a class on how to build a website.

Oh, I did. That's what I did in college for my 6 months or maybe a year that I went. I did web design.

There was no Squarespace.

You had to like code it out.

Shopify.

There was no Squarespace. There was, there was no way to sell online. You could just go find out about the product online.

Well, you could put a PayPal button.

I don't even know if we had PayPal back then.

Well, I did. You're 10 years older than me.

Yeah, so, oh, one, because we graduated, so we took that class in from January to— and it was probably a new class. Yeah, you know, because the internet was new. So it was, it was that last semester of college we took that. So like January to May of 2001, that was like new. There was no— yeah, there was none of that. Oh, I guess— wait, you were buying— you were selling online then?

Yes, I mean, eBay was a thing.

I was ahead of it, man.

Yes, he was. I guess that you were, but I don't know, it was just very complicated.

Yeah, like we had to—

oh, it was so complicated to build a website.

Yeah, I had to hire my uncle to build the website.

That—

yes, it was thousands of dollars.

My aunt's husband built websites that could—

and you could list yourself in a Yahoo directory. I was selling mountain boards, so I got in Yahoo directory, and you could apply, you know, it was almost like paid search, but you didn't have to pay for it, right? It was that early. You could just— if somebody's searching for mountain boards, here's my website.

Shipping— before they were calling it—

yeah, I would contact suppliers and be like, I want to sell a mountain board, and then once I sell it, I want to come to you and I want to give you the money and you ship it right to the customer.

There you go.

Okay, and they agreed to drop shipping. I made 35, 50 on that. Yeah, and that's drop shipping before it was even a thing.

But, um, don't you see why we didn't want to get the product here and then have to reship it so much? Yeah, it was crazy.

This is why we would question things ourselves now. Like, are we, you know, did it, you know, our kids are so close, they're at home. I mean, we were mountain biking one Friday and my kid with my boys and they're 15, 17 years old and they're, they're talking about what movie we'll watch tonight. It's not talking about like with other people, talking about like as a family what movie we're gonna— I'm like, what in the world? Pinch myself, right?

Yeah, because when we were—

they're planning their Friday night with me in this sweet age. That's such a sweet age too. They're fun to be around. 15, 17-year-olds, teenagers.

Yes.

And yeah, that— and we, we do, we sit probably every night, we wind up sitting around in the living room, you know, if everybody finishes up chores and we one by one trickle in and we just sit and we talk for an hour before bed. And I was not talking for an hour before bed with my mother.

Oh, they all come into her, or my sister or brother.

Yeah, either, because I'm getting— I'm getting Henry in bed, so we have a long ritual of like having to lay in the bed and eat a snack in the bed and drink water. And that, you know, like, let's put on the music. We have music that we play that's quite, you know, to calm, right? Read books, you know, it just takes forever. So the kids trickle in and we, we have our conversations in there because I'm like, you know, that's the weird part is having like a 17-year-old who wants to talk at 10 o'clock at night and I want to be asleep.

Right, right.

So here's one, because we, we have 17, 15, we have these teenagers. So we're like, 3 teenagers, uh, one, one, one teenager's driving off to go play soccer with some friends, but we're still wiping this other one's butt, right?

Right.

We're having these conversations about spouses. So how do you feel about that? Did we make it? Did we make a mistake there? Because we were like in this whole other stage.

Yeah.

And then now we're back into this baby stage and we're kind of having to stay put, right? You know what I mean? Can't do like—

you can't go running off with your children, teenager stuff. Yeah, that is— I do think about that sometimes. Like, that is a little—

I feel like yes and no, but it's nice because Henry kisses and hugs me. Yeah, I'm not sad about cuddle. Whereas like Jonah and Josiah, like, they'll hug me. Yeah, but like, that's the— I was taking somewhere today and Henry saw me and he goes, I want to give you a hug and a kiss. Yeah, no one else came to give me a hug and a kiss.

Ah, so, so, so, yeah, they're, they're involved.

I do enjoy the fact that I have this, this little one that's behind, and I will.

Yeah, that's good, that's good, because they—

the older kids will Um, well, they want me to have more kids. They ask me, yeah, yeah, they'll be like, are you pregnant? I'm like, no, I'm not. I don't want to have any. I've told you this, I don't want to have any more children. Like, if I, if I'm like, oh, I don't really want to eat any more meat, they're like, are you pregnant? I'm like, no, I'm not pregnant, I'm just full, right?

Yeah, I always want— they— so I think we're putting ourselves in there. I don't know, we're putting ourselves on them. I am.

Yeah, and how we felt when we were—

yeah, we have that age because, because like y'all are telling us no, they, they want more kids, and we're saying our older kids want more kids. Yeah, so they don't have a problem about with it. Who's— whose issue is it then? It's mine.

Uh, societal, probably.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because people are like, stop having kids.

I'm like, I have 5 children.

Everybody in our family likes having these children, so what's the problem?

I heard, I think it might have been a sermon a long time ago about children coming into a family, the joy that it brings. And it made so much sense to me. Yes, it does bring so much joy. Like, if you're not having to pay for it, it's none of your business.

Yeah. No, I think that's been one of the biggest blessings to me that I didn't realize my heart needed was having teenage children and then having babies and watching my teenage children with these babies, it's the most beautiful thing because there's like, there's no pressure on them to parent because they're not the parents, right? So they just get the freedom of enjoying the beautiful small children. And like, they love, they love Liliana and they love Elizabeth and they like tote them around and like, they play with them, they play with them. And like, Liliana runs off with Brett and Corbin and they just go on these adventures in the woods, and she's like marching around behind them with her sword and all that. And it's hilarious, and it's adorable, and it's, it's so good for my heart. I've loved seeing it.

How old is Brett?

He's, he's gonna be 16 this year, and he is playing happily. Yeah, with our 4-year-old, with his 4-year-old sister.

Yeah, like, that's why I'm like, this is so beautiful.

It is. Yeah, yeah.

Because I'll catch the 16-year-olds or whatever playing Legos.

Yeah, yeah.

Or like, I would beat up a kid if I saw him playing.

Yeah, no, we pulled up—

I used to make fun of people if we still getting Happy Meals, and we probably in the 6th grade, right?

That's like 10, right?

We're just making fun of people at school for still getting Happy Meals.

We pulled up to go swimming with another family that they aren't like from here, they're, you know, it was just, it's a very different scene with them, with those teenagers. They're very teenage-esque like we were.

Yeah.

And, um, like we pulled up and Jonah goes, I forgot my goggles. Oh, bless him. And I hope that didn't just embarrass him. And maybe I'll make sure that he's okay with me putting that in here, but because I don't want to embarrass him, you know what I mean? Because that's innocence. Like, he's more worried about about looking under the water with goggles than about being cool with these other kids who are very cool. Like, they're the very cool kids.

Yeah.

And so, like, I love that.

That's awesome.

I was like, when I heard him say that, I was like, I love him.

Yes, yes. Like, our kids, our teenage boys, like older teenage boys, are still running around in capes and swords and, like, you know, playing Lord of the Rings, all the— yeah. And I'm like, you have such an awesome childhood, and you are so much cooler than I was at that age.

Right?

I was like all worried about what I looked like in a bathing suit.

Yes, it's ridiculous.

I know.

Yeah, what's the hurry?

Do you remember, do you remember when you quit playing?

I was an older— like, I was, I was one of those people that Justin would have beat up. I think I was like 13, still playing with Barbies. Oh yeah, but it was quickly after that I quit.

Why'd you ask that?

Because this is also something we've talked about as of late, you know, we've got next month we're going to have two 18-year-olds. A couple months after that, all four of our boys are going to be teenagers this year. Actually, I guess technically the older two are going to be adults. So, oh my gosh, they're still teenagers. It's just weird to find ourselves here.

Yeah.

And so we, we watch him playing and I, me personally, I kind of wonder, it's like, man, was I still playing when I was 18? And I think about it, it's like, I was, but it looked different.

Yeah.

You know, by then I was playing music, and that music was a big part of my life when I was that age. That's— you need something to do.

Yeah, you were playing still.

Yeah.

And so, like, I was—

I don't remember playing.

I was like, yeah, we used to play hide-and-go-seek.

I mean, I guess, yeah, we would play. We played the dart game. Yeah, we all— did you guys have the dark game too? Just hide and go seek in the dark. But like, we called it the dark game. So when we'd get together with other families, we'd play the dark game. Yeah, and once part of the house, like—

but you probably mean play, play like with toys.

Yeah, no, no, just playing. It's just like any kind of play. Uh, when we started dating, like, there's a few times that, you know, because I still had younger siblings, like, we'd, we'd play hide and go seek and stuff like that, right? Uh, but the, the playing kind of becomes less and less the more involved in, I guess, life activities you get.

Yeah.

I remember when I was a kid, I sat there playing, having such a good time with toys. It was such a good moment. I said, I am never gonna stop playing. I see these, you know, I was thinking, I see these adults. I swear right now I'm never gonna stop playing with toys because this is so good.

Are you still playing with toys?

I have to say, I do have to say that.

I guess I go mountain biking and play soccer every once in a while.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I guess as, as like a mom, I'm now like realizing that my kid— my older 4 are going to be, you know, I have— we have 3 teenagers in the house, and Gideon's 10, and then Henry's 4. So I mean, I still have kids at home, but I'm also realizing that I need to find something to do with my time because my older kids are rapidly getting other lives. Yeah, not that they're going to like abandon us or anything, but you know, like they're gonna have their own life. I don't—

it could happen this year and you wouldn't even realize it until it happens.

Exactly. And so I'm like, okay, like I started thinking about this last summer because, you know, Henry's like sleeping through the night. Like, hey, I feel different, you know? Like I'm, I'm—

he's wiping.

I know he's body trained.

I don't know when that last one is, right? It was just the other night, I'm like, wait a minute, Henry's sleeping through the night now.

I know.

And then he started stirring that very night and you're like, Justin, why did you have to bring that up? She woke me up. I was sleeping just fine then.

Me too.

I was just— I was just like, it just made me realize like I need to find something to do with my time. Like a play. Not, you know, it's not playing. It's gonna be adult activities that I enjoy. Do you know what I mean?

A hobby of some sort. Yeah.

Because I don't want to, um, I don't want to be a meddling mother-in-law because I'm going to be a mother-in-law 4 times over. Yeah. So I need to— I want to, I want to do so— I wanted my idea. This is my idea. I want to do something that I can love and enjoy and, and does take up some of my time but also gives me enough free time that I can also be there for my children when they need me.

Yeah, that's my thing. I don't want it because like my mom I mean, even before she was done schooling my brother, my sister, she, she bounced and she got a job. I mean, she didn't bounce, I shouldn't say that, but she got a job. And she was in a circumstance like, like my parents were split up and like she needed to have an income, but she wasn't always available when I needed her, right? It's like we had a very traumatic birth experience with the twins. They were 3 months early. And so I was in this point in my life where I was like, I need my mom here. And she wasn't available. And so that kind of shaped me in my thinking of like, well, I'm gonna make sure I'm always available for my children no matter what they need, you know. Yeah, if they need a nap, honestly.

So one of my ideas was to be a doula, but I was like, I don't know, that might be too on-call. Yeah, on too on-call. So I'm like, I'm gonna have to be a potter, I guess. That's it.

Yeah, there you go.

You can walk away from that for a while.

To themselves, right, and go help my family, and then I can pick it up. Or a painter, something like— something creative. Yeah, I'm like, I need to do something creative. And those were my ideas. So we'll see what happens with that.

I'm curious now.

Well, maybe that's why it's good then to have little kids, even though we have older kids, because we don't want to make our life theirs or something, or be dependent on them.

Yeah.

For our life?

I don't, I don't. I listen to enough. Yeah, I just, I just know that there's a lot of meddling parents in the children's lives that I'm like, I cannot be that. And I can see that I could be that if I don't find something else to do, plan my life. Yeah, right, get a hobby. Yeah, I mean, that's what a lot of this is. I mean, right, isn't that what a lot of it is?

It is. And I think what's weird is like we're both at this point where we're thinking about this I know, where we're like, oh, this is part of parenting and adulting as well as, yeah, making sure you're not a meddling parent, but you also have time available for your children. I was not worried about this when I was 18.

I was having— you having these moments yet? You probably passed it. You guys are younger. You're like significantly younger, like 10 years younger, but we're in the same parenting stage. But, uh, Jonah was having a lesson, online lesson tutoring, and he had his feet up up and he's slouching. And I'm gonna go by and I'm like, put your feet down. I come back, his feet are back up. Put your feet down. You know, and then third time I'm like getting upset and I'm— but then I'm like, wait a minute, at some point he's more of a friend or a peer or something disappointing me. And this is at a friend level versus I'm the dad, you got to do what I say.

Yeah. And then you have to switch and say, hey, wait, you just—

I mean, you then have that conversation more like you're talking to a friend.

Yeah.

Well, it's more like I'm paying for this. So you're going to sit in and like pay attention rather than kind of be slouchy in this situation. And maybe it's not even—

and then I realized the teacher wasn't upset. She caught me. She heard it. She's like, who cares?

Right. So like we have this conversation sometimes of Is what we're trying to do in, in like trying to like control them, I guess we could just say controlling, is this moment worth our future relationship with our children?

Yeah, that's a good one.

Because like, yeah, there's things you have to do for training and just like adult training. Yeah, this is something you need to, you need to learn to like be respectful and you need to learn to like discipline yourself and like these things are important. But like, am, am I getting mad at you because you didn't pick this thing up and now I'm losing my crap on you? And I'm potentially wounding our relationship from here on out, is that worth it? Because I have moments that I remember as a child where my parents like lost their crap on me, and I don't have a relationship with my parents.

Yeah.

So like, these are just conversations that we have a lot of, like, oh, is this worth, worth the long-term relationship?

Yeah, yeah, that, that's it. It's got to turn into a relationship at some point, as opposed to Yeah, I'm just keeping you safe and alive. Yeah, that's what you're doing so long when they're just little.

Yes, and that's the hard time because you don't realize when the transition is, and the transition is different for each kid.

It's so true.

Like, we have, you know, Brett at 13, it was like, yeah, cool, whatever, like, you're, you're more mature. Corbin's about to turn 13, we're like, we're just trying to keep you alive.

The age doesn't mean anything necessarily.

Yeah, so true.

I feel that deep deeply in my soul.

Yeah, that's why we need to give ourselves less pressure about this 18 thing too.

Oh, totally.

Just a number.

Yeah, it is. It's just a number.

Like, anybody might turn 18 at 15, so to speak. Well, I'm also realizing though, take until they're 22.

Yes, I agree.

Or 30.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. We were just saying last night that we forget that Liliana is 4 because she acts like she's 10.

Yeah.

And so she does all of these things that are like—

she has a second firstborn. Yes, that's what you have, a second person, right?

Eager to please.

And yeah, she's— I mean, she's very—

she's so articulate. She can communicate and comprehend stuff. It's like, right, is she really 4?

She's physically— this is your first girl alive?

What's that?

That's your first girl? They're much brighter. Yeah, at earlier ages.

Not in a mean way. It's not— that sounded terrible. They just mature at different ages.

They're more concerned with keeping themselves alive.

Yes, yes. It's funny because, yeah, when we had Lily, it was— it's different. Like, so we have Jonah, he's the firstborn of the boys, and then Lily is the firstborn of the girls and the only girl, right? So like, it's just— and then Henry is the firstborn of—

yeah, he's like a second— I call him a second firstborn, right? Because he acts like a firstborn child.

Yeah. Oh, that's how it is with Liliana.

It's hilarious.

He's eager to please. He, you know, he doesn't take much— it doesn't take much correction to get him to do the right thing.

He's just— I mean, he's still very much a boy.

So, so really, I— Jonah putting his leg up, geez, I need to let him make his own mistake. Well, hold on, I need to let him fail. I need to let the teacher, if she's upset about it, to get him onto him.

I agree with that. But also, I do feel like like, because I know he's going to be 18 and he's gonna have to do things that he doesn't want to do when he's 18, right?

Yeah.

Like, we were doing something after dinner and like, the boy— none of the kids were like paying attention. Like, so we're trying to do a daily meeting too, just, just for scheduling purposes at this point, because like we've got people going in all different directions and now we have to like sit down. So we're including them in it because it's their stuff that we're going off in these different directions. And so like, they're not paying attention and they're goofing off here, and I'm like, hey, yeah, y'all, you got it. Like, when we were group home parents, we had to sit through a Tuesday, uh, staff meeting every Tuesday whether we wanted to be there or not.

All morning.

And they were talking about things that did not involve us. But we were there and we had to sit there and not— I mean, phones weren't really a thing then. I mean, they were flip-flopped, so there was none of that. But we had to like sit there and not be nodding off and be paying attention to what the person was saying because it might affect us as the, you know, parents, the group home parents. So like, it's funny because one of our children in particular was like really pushing back on me about it, and I was just like, look, I'm not trying to control you.

Yeah.

I'm trying to teach you, right, that, that this is a thing. So I feel like there are times it's good to crack down.

Yeah.

But also letting him put his feet— I saw it and it didn't bother me none. Yeah, it's funny because he came— because I went in and he was in, and then Justin walked by and he was like, his feet are up. What are you getting your panties in a wad for?

Bad thing out of all the things.

Yeah, I know, it's so funny because I was like—

and then it came down to, oh, he disobeyed. I told him to put it down. I gotta fight this battle.

Oh dear, help us, I pray. Well, okay, this is what we tell Jonah though too. We're like, hey, you were our first.

Yeah.

And like, we're still learning.

Oh yeah, we told—

we're not trying to like—

you tell that, you tell that to the twins, the big—

the, the 3 big kids. So the twins and Brett, because they were like basically, they were a unit for a long time. They get like really upset at how we discipline the younger two now.

Liliana, they get away with so much because she gets away with it.

According to them, they get away with so much. She gets away with so much. And so we have this conversation all of the time. It's like, they are, they're totally parenting experts. You are such an expert when you don't have your own children. I know, I know. I knew everything about parenting when I was like 17 years old.

Even with that first one, when they're complying, I mean, you don't know this because you have twins, right? So it's different. But yeah, when somebody has one child and it's their firstborn, that child does whatever they say. I'm like, I know, I think you're such the expert. I thought I was such the expert. I was like coaching other people. I need to apologize.

And now it's like the more kids we know, we're like, we know way less.

Yeah, even— yeah, 6 kids now and I'm like, I know nothing. I know, I'm just Flying through this. Yes. I just pray you all turn out somewhat normal.

We had someone come to us and they were like talking about their— I think he was like 2 or 3 at the time, their son. He was their only child and he was very difficult. Like, it was very difficult.

It's the Jeep.

Somebody's sitting on a pig.

Oh.

And, um, so she like kept coming to us and we like, we had many kids at that point and we knew nothing. We knew we knew nothing, and we would just be like— she'd be like, I need your— I need you to tell me what to do. And we're like, just keep doing what you're doing, because she would tell us what she was doing, and she was doing a great job. And she's like, but I need to know where— and we just tried to encourage her. That's all we could give. We could give no parenting advice. It was just encouragement. It's hard, right? Just keep doing what you're doing. It— the child will grow out of it. It's gonna be okay.

You know, 90% of parenting is survival.

It's true, it's true. It's kind of funny because like, it's like the best thing in the world, but it's also like the absolute hardest.

Oh yeah, we say all the time that parenting is the hardest job we have ever had. It is the hardest.

It is both the best thing in the world and the worst thing in your life.

Like, I love having all of these children. It's amazing. Yeah, at no point that I'm like— have I ever thought, oh, I wish I wasn't a parent. Parents. I've never ever thought that. In fact, we're like, hey, maybe let's add more people. No, I love it. But it is, it is the hardest thing in the world if you are going to do it intentionally.

Yes.

That's why when somebody says we're pregnant, I say congratulations, and I'm sorry.

Oh no. Oh no. You actually say that?

It's a joke. I haven't pulled it yet. Should I?

It's, it's so— it's funny because like, it is, it's so hard because like those first years you're sleep deprived.

Oh yeah.

But honestly, I feel like those first years were easier than these teenage years. Not— and our teenagers aren't bad.

Yeah, ours are great as well.

But the, the keeping them alive, it's a lot easier. That is easier.

Yes.

Than like the, the emotional training, the letting the go, and the The allowing them to fail, and that's hard because it's a bigger fail. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

But hopefully at this point it's not life-threatening.

It's also, it's also easier because you like— I miss the days where we just stay home.

Yeah.

And we're just all together all the time, and it was fun. And we— do you know what I mean? Because like now everybody has all these different things that they're going to, and I'm like, oh I kind of miss it. I kind of miss that, like, being at home and slow. Yeah, it's so much slower when they're younger.

Yeah, it is.

And all we're talking about is a Sunday soccer match, and I know we're not even talking about, like, so much, but, but no, because, like, they do—

like, the boys will go off, they have a group of friends, and they'll go off and do things.

Not all the time.

Yeah, like, what night was that? That was Saturday afternoon they were gone, you know? And it was, it was weird. Lily was gone with Was Lily gone? Maybe Lily wasn't gone. There was one point when it was just Henry and Gideon, and Gideon looked at me and he goes, this is what it's gonna be like soon. And I was like, yeah, it is.

There was actually— it's kind of weird. It is weird. Yeah, the boys were working with some friends seasonally this past fall, and so it was the twins and Brett, and then there was actually a day where Corbin got to go as well because somebody was in sick, and so they needed extra hands. And so all 4 of our boys were gone. It was just us and the girls.

Weird.

And we were like, are we ready for this? We're not ready for this.

I know, it was really sad. It is sad. Yeah, it was sad when Gideon said that. And I don't know that Gideon was like excited about that. I think he was just observing. Yeah, that like— and, and I mean, I've said that to him, like, hey, sooner than later it's just gonna be Gideon and Henry in that room. Instead of Jonah and Josiah. Yeah, like, that was kind of like, that's weird.

It's weird.

It's hard to think about.

But, but hopefully they're just gonna move into these houses.

There you go. You still have them around.

Housing is too unaffordable. This is what I keep telling you. That's right. You can't go anywhere.

Stay here forever.

That's right.

It's not affordable enough.

That's the trick. Yeah, having something on. Well, I would say that about homesteading. Is that's one way we can get away with this. Yeah, I mean, if y'all were still in that 1/8 of a backyard— yeah, no, there's nothing for anybody to do.

No, they'd be gone with friends.

They're gonna have to go.

Yeah, they'd be bored. They'd be so bored.

Nothing for them to do or be a part of. And they're not eating you out of house and home. You're not paying for all this food. Your boys are helping make all this food, so it's not a burden. And if anything, as they become teenagers, they're certainly not a burden. They're actually asset. Yeah, they really are actually contributing more than they're taking.

Yeah, we actually talked about that too.

So when Hurricane Helene happened, like, I kind of knew what I had, like, as far as a crew of young men at my disposal. But it wasn't until there was, you know, 10,000 trees on our road and we're clearing our road. And at one point, you know, I'm on the tractor and they're all up there with chainsaws and axes. And it was like, oh my gosh, like, we're getting stuff done. We're getting stuff done. Getting up to neighbors' houses and these neighbors don't even know how to use a chainsaw. And it's like, my boys know how to use all this stuff because they work with me every day. Like, it's just— it was a weird thing to finally— like, light bulb turned on.

Yeah.

And it was like, oh, like, what we're doing is doing something, right? And I can see it with my boys.

Yeah.

I have to say, like, I've recently thought, like, we expanded our garden. We are thinking about getting more milk cows. Like, we're raising 4 pigs this year instead of 3, you know, because the food needs are greater in our household.

Yeah. That's kind of—

'Cause we have so many big, big—

Big men. Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

There's more of me now. But like, I was thinking the other day about how we're going to shrink it back down one day because they're going to be not on that food bill right now. Maybe we won't because they'll be living close by and still participating so that they can have a share, right, of the food. But like, it just kind of dawned on me at some point, Justin and I, if our children choose not to live this lifestyle and choose not to stay, which they could choose that, and I'm okay with it, you know, I obviously love for my kids to stay close by and have grandkids close by and all of that, but I mean, if it ever becomes just Justin and I, I think we might just abandon the farm and get an RV and drive to our children's houses and have our own RV so that we can still be close by to help when they need us, but yet not imposed on them, right? Like, Justin and I've thought a lot about this. I don't know about abandoning the farm. I just don't know if we could. I mean, we probably won't have a milk cow.

Well, you, you wouldn't need as much. Yeah.

It was just because we don't drink milk. I mean, we just eat the yogurt and cheese. So like, I would just meet—

yeah, you can just buy from a farmer.

But they— but, but, but, but they're drinking a lot of milk. But Jonah and Josiah are milking the cows by themselves.

They are, right?

Like, I don't even have to milk anymore.

Yeah, yeah, we're just— yeah, because I was thinking about that, like, with the cows. Like, well, we don't even drink the milk. I mean, I do use the cream Right. So I don't know, it's just like, life is so crazy. Like, I, I think one thing that I'm really grasping is the, the ebbs and the flows, the changes. Like, I really enjoy our life right now, but I also like realize in 2 years it's, it's probably going to be drastically different. Yeah. And it's not that I'm not gonna like that. Like, so trying to just really be present in this, like now.

Yeah, I think that's where we're at too, is just trying to make sure we're focused on being present. Because I mean, it's like you said, they could find a woman in 3 months and bounce, you know, like, just like, like, just like, yeah, just like we did. And, and we won't have them around to sit, you know, until 10 o'clock every night.

And so just so, you got to be the fun house so that they bring the girls to you. Well, yeah, that's how I'm like Because I mean, see, you have two girls, so it's like you're gonna have two sons, you know what I mean? Like, because in our society it's the girls that are closer, right, to her parents, you know? I'm thankful for Lily. I'm so glad we have one girl at least. I was definitely meant to be a boy mom. Yeah, I am glad that I have one girl. She's— we have so much fun together.

All I can think is I have to bring 2, 2 of these punk kids into my house and I have to accept them because they're who my daughter's brought home. Like, it's a long time before I have to deal with that, but it's on the horizon.

You're glad you're kicking it around with you.

I don't know if it's gonna happen like that because we—

they got 4 older brothers.

It's gonna— yeah, you're gonna know this kid. Probably before he's interested in her.

Yeah, that's why we like have a friends group. It's like you gotta like connect with people who have kids your age that are, you know, kind of living this life and doing— right, you gotta, gotta network, uh, kind of keep a potential pool going on.

Yeah, not, not that they'll wind up with any of these people, but you know, it's not a race. Marriage, it's not a race. That's right.

Choose from this pool. Yeah, but I don't know, they could find somebody anywhere. Everybody knows that's not how it works.

No, I know.

Well, um, they could go to Starbucks and meet the love of their life.

Well, it's funny because we've encouraged our boys to, if they see somebody out, invite them to come play soccer with our family or come swim in the pond. Like, do you know what I mean?

Like, they're looking at me like I'm crazy.

I know.

And Austin, he grew up like we did, and he'll be like— that's our editor— he'll We used to go to the mall to talk to girls. Yeah, that's shaking his head like strange girl. Like, this is not—

our children are like, you can just see somebody.

That's kind of cute. Go, you know, just—

it's— and I'm like, I don't want it to be like vain, but I'm like, if you see somebody, that's how it happens anymore. That you—

I don't know how people date anymore.

I don't, I don't know either. I mean, we were like you guys, like we were together in high school. Yeah, got the last chopper out of 'Nam.

That's right.

People don't go to the mall anymore, I don't think. I don't think people go to the mall anymore.

I don't think—

I don't think there are malls anymore. What?

I don't even know. I think the mall is a thing, but I don't think it's like it used to be where it was like a hub of activity.

Yeah, I don't think there's malls anymore.

I don't think the mall is a hub of activity anymore like it used to be.

Not for teenagers. I don't know what they're doing. Orange Julius and a lot of us is them online. They're getting a lot of their social— oh, you know, hey, can't they just get the what is it, Tinder or something?

Oh my word.

Oh my gosh, we'll help them.

Let's not go there. No, you're scrolling for them.

No, no, no, no, no. I don't know exactly how that works. I did hear you scroll it through it.

What's it called?

Um, oh, FarmMatch. I'm gonna tell you guys this though, you guys have been to events, it's older people or very young families. I don't see a lot of teenagers.

No, there's not.

So where's— where are they all at?

I think they're at home doing the chores. That, or, or I think that they were doing the homestead thing when their children were young, but then as their children got older, it dissipated. The homestead dissipated, and they went into like a regular societal life.

Yeah, well, people—

maybe. And I don't know if that's true.

We've actually met a lot of people at the events we meet, they're coming into homesteading at an older age.

Yeah.

Yeah. So everybody at a homestead event had— yeah, they're new to homesteading. Yeah, we'll say that usually. And so they're coming into it at an older age, or they're— yeah, they're— and their kids are in their 20s or 30s.

Yeah.

And they have very young kids because it would be hard to be having teenagers and start living this lifestyle. I mean, people are doing this even now.

People are doing that. It's difficult, but people are doing it. I've seen— I mean, I see like on Abundance Plus forum, they'll ask like how they get their teenagers involved. And that's hard because, yeah, when it— when like, could you imagine if we were living a regular life and then we were like, okay, we're gonna do this? Like, our kids would not—

if they say, yeah, they had a really hard time.

I don't think you know such a lifestyle that it is, do you? I'm speaking for ourselves maybe, but did you know that when you got into homesteading— I don't, I don't know, maybe you can tell us why you did it. But, uh, you know, we just got in just to eat healthier food, and then all of a sudden it's this really conducive lifestyle for a healthy lifestyle, you know, where sun exposure, cold exposure, exercise, right?

It's crazy.

And then now with like keeping the kids around, it's conducive for that. Every— I mean, a little tiny 2-year-old can pick an egg. And then a 17-year-old can run a machine. So it's like everybody has a job on the homestead. But we didn't know that.

Yeah. No, no, we didn't.

And we didn't even know the commitment either.

No.

Like at first we didn't figure out, well, you could just keep your electric net hot and not even have to put up chickens. We were— we didn't know that. We were going home and putting up our chickens every night.

Yeah.

So we had had to leave the social party early and then we got really hardcore and we got a cow and the calf. And so we had calf separate at 3 in the afternoon, right? Well, so then we had to be home at 3 in the afternoon. So then all of a sudden we're just these hermits.

I know, isolated.

Yeah.

Did y'all know what you were getting into when you got into homesteading?

No.

I mean, when you came to North Carolina, I mean, it's one thing to do 180 acres.

Yeah, like I would say we, we're an accurate representation of a hermit. Like, we lived in the trailer and traveled across the country. Our home was on our back.

I have to say, I liked that, the bus, having the bus. Now when I travel and I'm like, don't have my bus, I'm like, it's a nightmare. It is so nice having your Everything.

Mobile bathroom, kitchen, everything.

Coffee maker, everything.

Cast iron, your favorite knife. Yeah, it's great.

We'd stop on the side of the road and make lunch, go to the bathroom, and now it's like, I gotta use a public restroom.

I know. No, you know what we did in our trailer? We got a haul cooler, compost toilet.

Yeah, there you go.

And it's so nice. Yeah, we stop even at Buc-ee's. I'm like, I ain't trekking all the way in there.

Oh, I'm going to the Buc-ee's. I go into the Buc-ee's. It's clean and private.

No.

They're private stalls.

I've never been to a Buc-ee's.

It's a haul from the car to the bathroom. It's a haul. I'd rather just pee in the trailer in my compost toilet.

Buc-ee's is nice. You get private toilets.

That's good.

It's walled all the way down thick.

It's clean.

They're known for their clean bathrooms.

It is clean.

How's the rest? Like, I've heard they—

yeah, you've told us about the—

it's just all junk food.

Oh, of course it's junk food.

I mean, they might have like Pirate's Booty. Like, it's just like a, a more natural health food snack. I don't even know if they have that. Yeah, they have ChapStick. Okay, I was just telling you about ChapStick.

Who is that?

It was Paige Jackson.

You got to get closer, Rebecca.

Oh, sorry, you said—

oh, sorry, I pulled you.

Sorry. There you go.

Get the ASMR going. I know, right?

So y'all can see why we wonder, oh, are we doing the right thing, you know, as they get to me, because of the way everybody else is doing, or the way we grew up was just so different.

Okay, I have to say something to that. One time I was talking to a mentor and I was concerned because I didn't want to make this mistake with my children. And I was like talking about this and like, how do I not make this mistake, you know, and this, that, and the other. And he looked at me and he said, you know, you're not going to make that mistake. And I said, how do you know that? And he goes, because you're conscious of it. Like, you know that this could be something that you could fall into. And so I don't know, by us asking that question, are we not going to fall into the trap because we're conscious that there could be a trap? I don't know. I just like— it always stood out to me that he— when he said that to me, because I was like, he doesn't know the future.

No, but I think I see his point. I think that's very wise because I think there are a lot of people who are parents that don't consider what they're doing in their parenting.

Yeah.

And they— I don't say run wild, but I think you know what I mean. Yeah. And they do wind up affecting their children in the long run because they aren't thinking about how their kids are going to turn out by making whatever this decision is.

Yeah, I really hope that my kids don't need to go to therapy and talk about me.

I feel like our kids are going to be okay.

I do too.

Both of ours, I really feel like they're gonna be okay.

I just wanted to be like, you know, on Instagram you see these like reels of these families that actually get together, and I'm sure there's problems in the families because no one's perfect, but like they can all be in the same room and they all seemingly get along to an extent. Yeah, that they're like laughing and playing these games, like, so it's particularly Christmas.

Are you doing that now? Is that how you're—

Yeah, I mean, we're trying.

Then I would say it's probably going to carry through because I, I grew up—

I think part of the problem is, is that we have the 4-year-old and we cannot play games. Yeah, but with the 4-year-old— Yeah, but we are having culture.

Yeah, is very together. I grew up in a house where we, we didn't even have dinner together.

Okay.

I mean, you know, Christmas and Thanksgiving, like, that was our sit-down.

Yeah, we practically have 3 meals together.

I know, we do. We have 3 meals a day. Yeah, we do.

All of our meals are together. All of our conversation time is together. Like, so much so that it's like, y'all need to go find something to do. Like, Mom and Dad need some alone time.

We had to institute coffee time.

Yeah.

Whether or not we're drinking coffee, it's, you know, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, whatever. Y'all kick rocks, right? Okay, for an hour, so we can have an hour alone to just talk.

If your general family culture is you are together all the time, then I really do think that's going to carry through.

Oh yeah, why wouldn't it?

Yeah, that is true.

Think about our cultures growing up. It was not let's stay together. It was everybody figure out what you're going to do.

Yeah, yeah, we lived in our rooms, we ate in our rooms, we had TVs.

Really? You ate in your room? Oh yeah, like it's wild. We listened to a podcast of like this person, this teenager who got like really famous on TikTok, I think.

Okay.

And they were—

probably to me, yeah.

Okay, they were being interviewed by somebody else. I don't know who it was. It was a podcast and we were listening to it and they—

the parents were on with her.

The parents were on with her and they said, yeah, like we realized that they're gonna be going to college soon. And so we started doing a family dinner one night a week. And I like literally paused it and like had to rewind it because I wanted to make sure that I actually heard that correctly.

One night a week as they're going into college. Yes, it's too late. I was like, I mean, okay, whoa, it's never too late, right? Like, you can—

my mind though, but it just blew my mind that like, yeah, they're not eating—

change the culture, the family culture, the family culture.

That's because see, we ate dinner together, so we, you know, we had dinner every night, okay, in our family. So we ate dinner, but we didn't, you know, like breakfast was obviously like different times because we had different schedules, and then lunch was was at school. So, um, yeah, but every night— and I feel like I'm pretty close to with my parents. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, like, yeah, I would say you were very close to your parents.

Yeah, like, so then what made you want to— well, was it that moment that you talked about earlier, like, I'm gonna do something different? Yeah, for my kids.

I was so lonely as a child because we each had our own separate rooms and we each had TVs in our rooms. And, you know, my mom had her room, her area, and her TV, and my grandparents had that because we lived my grandparents, and they all each had their rooms with their TVs.

How many siblings do you have? I have two.

Okay, so there's three of you total. Me and my sister, she's 6 years younger than me, and my brother's 9 years younger. So there's an age gap, like that's part of it too, but, but that doesn't change the family culture. Like, we all were separate, right? Separate lives. And I was so lonely and I hated it. And so it was like, no, we're gonna eat. And then, you know, I found Ben, and Ben's family ate dinner every night together, and I was like, this is the most magical, amazing thing ever. And, and I can say that it does carry through because when we were there, we did all spend all of our holidays together with his family. You know, all the brothers and sisters came together. Yeah. And we would sit around and laugh, have fun, joke, and barbecue.

Yeah, I feel like that's what I want. Like, I want my kids to want to come home and want to be with their siblings and look forward to it.

Yeah, she's— I think she makes a good point. I'm hopeful for it. Um, I mean, had we wanted to come back to— it's like we weren't invited. My parents, it's like there was nothing to come back to.

Well, see, your parents divorced.

Yes, so that was different.

So then, you know, definitely messed things up with my parents. There was, you know, I could call my parents on any given night. You knew years ago that I could go have supper with them if I needed to.

Yeah, yeah, divorce will mess up the family.

It will, it really does. I was—

my parents were divorced.

So then you have maybe something your, your mom might do that is her culture, and then something that your dad might do is his.

Yeah, yeah.

But so this— so then if I'm 14 and the family culture becomes on Christmas Day driving to mom's and then driving to dad's, right? Then that's— that's sorry, I don't want to have part of that when I grow up.

Yeah, well, and honestly, don't be surprised if I don't want to be part of your holidays "when I'm grown." [Speaker:GINGER] Well, and that was part of it. When we were married, when we were first married, we would go because we had no kids. It was easy. But then, when we started having kids, it was like, "You want me to do what?" [Speaker:ERIN] "This is a mess." [Speaker:GINGER] "I have to drive here." And I mean, we're all over the county, all over the county, 'cause I wanna see my family. And then, we gotta see 2 people on his side. And I'm not kidding you, one Mother's Day, I remember we went, and went and spent time with my mom, and then we went and spent time with his mom, and then I was like, what about me? Yeah, like, I'm a mom too. I know, not being selfish, but just kind of like, there's no celebration of, of my motherhood.

Well, and you're a stressed out mother because now you're dragging your kids all over the place and they need naps.

I think that's when we said we're not doing that anymore. We were so tired. I feel like it was like we were in the car so much because everyone 30 minutes anywhere you go, you know. And so it was just like we were just dragging people around.

Yeah, we got to the point— I think it was not too long after Corbin was born, so, you know, that's 4 kids.

It's a lot.

And we were like, hey, we're gonna make breakfast on Christmas morning. You're welcome to come to our house and do Christmas here. If not, that's fine, no pressure, you know, whatever, it's all good. But we're not going anywhere because our kids need to have Christmas.

Yeah, we need to have traditions.

We would— they would get to get up, they would open their presents and be like, okay, now we have to go to Grandma's house and other Grandma's house and Grandpa's house. Yeah, all that.

Yeah. And it was just like, they wouldn't even get to play with their own toys.

Grandma and Grandpa houses.

I think what it is for me, like, and that comes back to the RV comment, is that I'm like, I'm one adult or two adults. We're two adults together. I think we can make our way to the grandkids instead of being like, everyone has to come to my house. In fact, we hope our children stay on property because we already have it that we're going to go pick up all the grandkids on Friday night on the property and give the parents a night's sleep. We will take the grandkids, all the grandkids. They will have cousin time and we'll do all the fun things. We'll, you know, watch a movie and make popcorn and all the things that you do. And then give— and then the parents can come on Saturday morning whenever they want, or Saturday evening, afternoon, whatever. And we can get— they can get their kids back and they can have some time alone.

I love that.

And I think that's because we just so desperately wanted that for our kids.

Yeah. Hey, that's another trick if you want your kids to stay around and be around when they're older: serve them like you just said.

Well, yeah.

Offer them something, not be always asking them for something.

Yeah, well, people ask us a lot like, oh, was it so hard for you to leave California? And I mean, it is hard to leave our family, but I won't try not to be mean.

Careful how you say what you're gonna say. I think I know what you're gonna say.

Um, I don't mean— but it wasn't as hard as it could have been had our parents been more inclined.

Would you have left though?

Yeah, right.

If, if you were— if you had like what I'm talking about, I don't think you probably wouldn't want to leave.

No.

I mean, I've realized like it's so nuanced. It's so new. It is.

It's very nuanced.

It's California. But I'm just thinking like, even with my kids, like, that might be great, but they are also going to marry somebody who has another idea too, right?

Yeah.

So I have to be very open-handed. Yeah, with all of this, like, I hope this happens, but also being like this, right? If it doesn't happen, I'm gonna be okay with it too, you know? I really hope it happens, but if it doesn't, I'm okay. Yeah, and we'll drive our RV to you, right?

So we have some Catholic friends. I always appreciate my Catholic friends because they have something sacred in their life that do at least once a week with the Mass. If not, some of our Catholic friends are daily Massers.

Yeah.

And they have this, I don't know, higher sense or something. And then, but anyway, the one friends, they all have a meal after Mass, and that's their tradition. And their older kids come over and have that. And so I was like, with Rebecca, what's, what's gonna, what's our weekly thing? Everybody could come over as an adult. It's kind of nice to have that centerpiece. But we don't go to church.

No, but you could do Sunday dinner.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people, particularly here in the South, you do Sunday dinner, you go to church, and then you just send a dinner, but you could still do Sunday dinner.

And from the South, dinner is— you're talking lunch, right?

1 o'clock.

Yeah. And you see, but if my boys marry a churchgoing girl, and they're going to church, they ain't coming here, they're gonna go to her parents' house. So that's why I'm like, let's do another night.

That's her family's culture. Friday night is our culture. Culture. We watch it, we eat something, you know, we cheat, you know, you know, we cheat. You being gluten-free? Our cheat is like gluten-free pizza. Yeah, yeah, honey sweetened tea.

I mean, like, you know, we're really not—

popcorn for the movie.

Wild.

We're off the wagon here.

I thought you were getting Little Caesars.

No, our cheat is like not just meat and vegetables.

It could have been Friday, but now you're gonna, we're gonna have to babysit the grandkids that day, so.

But you don't have grandkids.

Well, we could, they could all come, bring the grandkids, eat a nice dinner if they want, if they want, if they don't wanna go have a date.

Yeah.

And then they can go do whatever they want or just drive the grandkids. You guys will figure it out. Yeah, I know.

But the fact that you're thinking about this now is like really amazing because a lot of parents don't think that far.

Yeah, and then when it doesn't happen, they're like upset.

They're very upset, yeah.

So you have to, you have to.

Or they don't want it.

Well, I have a friend who was like, saying like, "Well, I wanted my daughter to live down the street from me." And I'm like thinking in my head, "Well, you gotta be working on that when she's 15." Or you gotta be fun to be around.

You gotta be encouraging. You gotta be not telling him to put his feet down.

Yeah.

And not freaking out if she doesn't. Yeah.

And it just made me realize though that, okay, well, maybe because of the way we're trying to set up our life now, that it's gonna be— it could maybe happen.

Yeah, I think what's hard is, and we've kind of talked about this, a lot of people don't realize that they're missing the family culture until they have grandchildren, because then they go, oh, well, now there's these new children that they want to spend a lot of time with, but you kind of missed the boat with your own children. Yeah, they don't necessarily want to spend time with you, and now it's too late because they I want to spend time with you.

Yeah. Okay, so Ashley and Austin are, you know, we hang out with them. I treat her like she's my daughter-in-law.

Yeah.

And Austin like he's my son. You get practice so that I'm practicing.

There you go.

Because I'm like, that's why you—

so like, get your mouth shut with Ashley and then you, you bust balls.

100%.

You ride him all the time.

I don't ride him all the time. I make comments. Occasionally, just like, are you sure you want to do that? I did say to him today, did you get that disability insurance that we talked about?

So he comes in with his first MMA injury and you're, you're just like, punch him while he's there?

No, we've had this conversation a long time ago.

Should have done that.

No, I just said like, because I know he's gonna do this and that's fine, but I'm like, you could get injured and you need to provide for your family, right? I mean, like I was like, you know there's disability insurance. Just checking, like, do you have life and disability insurance? 'Cause if you're gonna do something that could disable you, you better have something to ensure that.

He's your son, you gotta push them in the direction of his interests.

That's right.

I'm not—

Wisely. I am not—

She added wisely.

I'm not telling, I just like, I don't know, it just worries me. Because these MMA people, like, they get brain injury.

So are you going to let your boys be rodeo cowboys?

Want to be, you know, we've gone the wrong way.

I'll go and support them going like this.

Yeah, we've all been doing mixed martial arts for 2 and a half years.

Yes.

And we actually finally just quit the dojo we were going to because it wasn't violent enough. We were not getting out of it what we wanted.

All right.

Yeah.

Um, so I need to go talk to Austin, figure out where the heck he's going, because yeah, yeah, somewhere in Nashville.

He's got a good one.

We're gonna have to—

maybe you need to come to Asheville once a week.

Um, so I don't know, Ben, it's so— I think I have broken both feet in the past 2, 2 and a half years.

Wow.

Like from kicking, like me and the boys.

Your brain And I'm worried about the brain. I'm not really worried about your feet, although you better get some disability insurance.

It hurts if you, uh, you miss and you kick someone in the shin with, you know, the, the wrong part of your foot and you hear a crack and it wasn't a toe. It's not very, not very fun.

But, uh, that's terrible, Ben. That makes my mom heart.

Okay, let me, let me kind of talk about that for a minute. So So doing that with my boys completely changed our relationship, my relationship with them.

Yeah.

Um, in what way?

In the, uh, vastly improved, uh, I went from just being dad to the, the alpha male of the pack.

Okay.

Um, and not in a, in a forceful way. No, like forceful way, like they're friends now. Like, yeah, these dudes have my back so hard. They are willing to beat the crap out of somebody at a moment's notice, anywhere. If we go out in public, hey Dad, that guy was really giving you the hairy eyeball. I mean, it's, it's like, you want me to go take care of him? Pretty much. And it's, it's just been amazing.

I know, it's like, it kind of is. They all have these red geese, they look really scary.

Yeah, but the, the unintended consequence of, uh, getting beat up by my children was how it changed our relationship, uh, because it, it kind of puts you on like a, a similar level.

They were comfortable. They're now comfortable coming to him because they're like, hey, Dad will let us beat him up, you know, rather than like constant fear of, oh, Dad, we can't do anything to Dad because he's Oh, once we put on gloves, we can beat the crap out of Dad and he's cool with it.

I'm not going to get in trouble.

Yeah, that's fun.

It's been— that was something that was really, really cool.

So I'll take you back to where you said that you had that work crew and you guys would go and do that hurricane relief. Well, we felt that we were on the other end of that because you guys came here 2 or 3 times and just gird up your loins, just hopped out of the truck with your own tools, your own cement. And just got to work. The boys are out, you know, goofing off right now playing airsoft. But not that day. Everybody helped, all the way down to, uh, Corbin, down to Liliana. Yeah, that was neat to receive that. I think people see that too on your, your YouTube channel. You know, it's, it's hard to not hear the haters, but most of everybody is lovers and they appreciate a family that's, you know, sticking together and fighting it out together and doing good for the community together.

And also, I think the transparency that you guys have had with your audience of, yeah, we were gonna call it quits, and look, there's redemption. Yeah, like, I think that there's something to be said because if you've been married, you know that it can be hard. And so to then have somebody else on the other end saying it was hard, but we also worked through it and we came out on the other side. And I don't know, I think there's just something beautiful about you guys.

It's never too late. It's never too late. You can always make a change. Like, it's never too late. You just have to be willing to rip the Band-Aid off and address the issue.

Right, right. So like you were talking earlier about children going into college and they're starting, you know, one, one family night a week. I mean, that's, that's something. Yeah, it's not actually too late for that.

I mean, but it did, right?

They'll have something there, but it's not much for a family culture, right?

Yeah. I mean, they are girls though. They're done. They had two daughters, so I feel like by default it'll be a little bit easier. It's going to be easier. I feel like I was definitely meant to be a boy mom, but also I, but also I just, I'm a little bit like, I'm so, I am so, I'm just gonna say it again, I'm so glad I have Lily because I like know that I'll have that one connection, do you know what I mean, that, that she has. And I hope that Yeah, I don't know, this parenting gig, it's hard.

It's hard.

Yeah, but I did want to say I'm so glad that you guys came to see us when we came to California. Ah, me too, because it started all this, and you guys are some good friends.

Oh, thanks.

Wait, could I like, like talk about this for a second? Yeah. So you came to California and we drove for 4 hours to come meet you guys.

Yes.

And then exchange numbers. Like, that isn't weird to anybody on any level?

Because like, now that we do what you do, we're like, I mean, that might be weird.

No, no, because this was October. We've been doing it since February.

Yeah.

So I did not give my numbers. No, no, I don't think I gave it to anybody. Yeah, but I feel like we'd already been messaging.

How do you know? No, I don't think so.

No, we hadn't. So you guys are talking about coming to— I think there was 500 people at that meetup because Primal Pastures was also promoting it. And you guys came through the line and we did that in many areas.

But I just felt your energy, Meg.

Really?

I just felt—

You might have been the only person we got there, not total strangers.

Yeah, that we exchanged numbers.

Yeah.

I don't know. You guys were just—

And then the real question is, how did you then keep contact? I don't know how you guys found stuff to contact each other about, but you did.

Well, you were traveling.

Yeah, I was traveling.

We were getting ready to travel.

And so then she would ask questions and I would ask her. I would check in with her and say, hey, how you doing?

Right.

What's going on?

What's happening?

Where you at?

I'd like to say it's—

You gonna come and see me?

I'd like to say it's in hindsight, maybe it was an energy because we can't tell the future, but it was like, you guys were homesteading, you're about to go on the road, and I believed you.

Yeah.

And I think I said this about a YouTube video I made about you guys when you were first coming here. And, uh, which you're gonna have to make that fire pit because you said you were gonna do it. And I think that's the whole point of the movie, is like, they said it, they're gonna do it eventually.

I believe it.

I believe it.

Let me tell you, so I've been on your end and it just takes as long as you do, because a lot of people people will say they're gonna do it or into it, and you just know it's just—

it's just gonna be too hard. If somebody came and told me they were gonna— on the farm tour, if somebody came and told me they were gonna farm, they were gonna go on a tour too, I would say, I'm sorry.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I wasn't excited. Having done it now, now if they said they're gonna homestead, I would say congratulations, and I'm sorry.

I think with you guys, I don't know what it is, but like There was probably more people, but I don't know that I ever got the chance to.

You guys have experienced this, I'm sure. You've talked with somebody and you thought, you know, I might like to get their number, but you can't just ask for their number and not ask for the other 30 people in line.

Well, it's just weird though.

Like, I think y'all were last in the line.

Hey, you guys were second to last.

You guys were. And I think then we messaged on Instagram first, and then I was like like, and it's just too hard to Instagram on Instagram. So I was like, here's my cell phone number, right? And I accidentally typed it in wrong.

You did?

And then you were like, you texted me, and then like you texted— you messaged me back on Instagram, and I was like, oh, wait a minute, that is wrong. You know, here's the real number. I did not mean to type that wrong number.

And so then 2 years later, y'all are on that trip. I don't know if it's 2 years later, but it's—

no, it was 18.

You guys are on that trip.

Yeah.

And you're going around the nation and and you come to North Carolina, of course we take you in. We're happy to take you in.

I forced them, and I forced them to come.

I think I talked to Meg.

You did not want to stay here. I think you guys were going to stay in a—

well, we didn't want to impose.

Yes, but I was like, you are coming here and staying in my driveway.

They didn't know we were going to be on the Gap stat, and we're going to be very—

oh my goodness, irritable Jess. I was thinking about irritable Jess the other day.

I was like an irritable No, Justin was later. You were— we were not on Gap site yet.

Yes, you were.

No, we were not in the beginning.

Oh, not in the first time. That's right.

But we did talk you into staying longer.

Yes.

Yes, we did.

Okay, I think it was your second visit. But anyway, one of these visits, one of these visits, we were already good friends. One of these visits, um, you were going to do an affiliate thing for us or something. And so I went in the house and I looked at, you know, I went to type in your email. You gave me your email so I could do it. Well, I went and typed it in. What came up in my history? And it was you 2 years ago telling us about your little homestead in California, saying to come visit. Because you were going to reply, I'm sorry I missed it, but will you come visit us?

We were— I think we were sitting out in your driveway.

I know you were. You were.

I think what's funny is thinking about it now, it's like there's no way that bus would have fit, like, no, where we were.

We would have had to stay in a hotel.

And then we had one neighbor, he was an awesome neighbor, but he would have been up in our business, been like, what's with the tour bus?

Yeah, we had one guy come by when we were staying in a neighborhood and he goes, is this a party bus? Oh no, like, no, I have 4 children, ain't no parties going on, there's no party happening here, we're trying to sleep, buddy.

That bus didn't look like a party bus.

No, not at all. I know, but it was just hilarious.

Another reason to say no and chew him on.

Yeah, right. No, but all right. And, and I— and this is another thing I want to get out there— I lobbied hard for you guys to come here.

You really did.

I was working.

So what you're saying is basically you're just why they're here?

No, it's all right.

They made the choice. Everybody can think they made the right choice.

Y'all, right time too. Right time. I know, because I bet your property— I bet Property is 4X already.

I did try to get you to move down the street.

You did.

I wanted it deeply. Our first visit, I know, I was like, hey, there's a house for sale down the street. You want to go see it?

You know how much that is now? That house was for sale for $159,000.

$169,000.

It's $309,000 right now. Whoa.

Yeah, that's the side of a mountain.

It is the side of a mountain.

It's not that bad. I was going to try to talk you guys into moving there. It's terrible.

So, so, so is North Carolina home?

Oh yeah, North Carolina's home.

Yeah, it is.

Uh, I was telling Meg a while ago, um, living this life, I used to always have a hard time with winters, um, even out in California where it's not very cold during wintertime, but it's dark, you know, you still get the darkness, short days. Um, I've always had a hard time with winter, um, just, uh, depression, stuff like that. Like, I've, I've never been able to deal with the darkness. Moving out here, because there are seasons and there is a time for everything, especially living this life, there is something to do in every single season. And you, you better pay attention to changing weather. So out here, I've learned how to butcher, I have learned how to process animals, I've learned how to make cured meats, I've upped my smoking game on you know, smoking meats and all the things. And I've really had to step up my game as far as, you know, all of that stuff. Well, out in California it was warm year-round. You couldn't do some of the stuff we do here. And now, uh, we start butchering animals whenever the weather's cold enough, right? And basically the entire winter I am busy putting animals in the freezer. I'm curing meats. I'm making various things, and I can do it without refrigeration because it gets cold enough here. It's actually cold here. And so something has happened over the past couple years I've been, you know, doing this. We've been here, what, 6 years now?

Yeah.

And 5 years I've been processing a pig, at least one pig. You know, here lately, I think this past year I processed 13 or 14 pigs for our family. And so like, you know, from never having my hand inside of an animal to moving out here, I'm nearing 100 animals, 100 pigs I've done since, you know, leaving California. But what has happened is I no longer have the blues in wintertime. I look forward to the shorter days and the colder weather. Because that means it's, it's meat season, it's butchering time. It's a very old world feel, and I have purpose in the wintertime, and it's, it is, and it's such a cool purpose too. Like, yeah, yeah, I'm putting this year's meat in the freezer, and what's cool is like any cuts I want, anything I want to experiment with, because I do all the cutting, we can do it. And it's been, it's been the coolest thing. Like, it, it has changed our culinary repertoire. Like, all of a sudden, man, I'm gonna have— we're gonna have to double how many pigs and chickens we do just so we can play around with stuff.

Yeah, just like you can have all these cool recipes, right?

Taking something as simple as like a pork loin and realizing there's so many more things you can do with just a pork loin, it's just like, oh my gosh, we don't have enough pigs anymore. Like, how am I gonna— how am I gonna make Canadian bacon How am I going to make lonzas? How am I going to make pork chops? We do, but we don't. We're going to run out of pigs this year.

It's pig math.

Yes, kind of. Very much so.

Different than chicken math.

Last year we discovered suckling pigs, and that's a whole nother ballgame. Yeah, you just, you know, cook an entire little pig and—

Yeah. How, what, how, what, what age do you—

So I've done them up to about 100 pounds.

Okay.

That's getting on—

I mean, they're not really suckling anymore, but they're guinea hogs, so they're small.

So yeah, we're from like 25 pounds up to like 60 pounds is a good size for us.

Okay.

Just depends. I don't know. Like next week is Corbin's birthday and he straight up said, Dad, I want a suckling pig for my birthday. I was like, no problem. We got it.

It has to fit in the barbecue.

It has to fit in the smoker. And then he's like, but can I butcher it?

Oh yeah, he wants to.

Like, he really wants to. He wants to learn this. If he wants to. Yeah.

You shoot them when they're little or you use a sledgehammer?

Uh, these ones I could probably use a hammer.

Uh, didn't—

been some bigger ones that I just use a.22.

Our kids all killed lambs this year, I think.

Did they? Yeah.

What else did they kill? There was something else that they Oh, they, um, castrated everybody. Castrated?

Yeah, everybody got it.

Castrating on the castration. I think Lily even did it.

Yeah, Lily did it.

Just like, I'm like, all right. They came in, they're like, we cast—

Lily has no reticence. She's a female. Yeah, it's the boys. They're like scratching the chalkboard.

Yeah, I know. All the boys are like, I'm like, yeah, I'll hold the pig, whatever. I'm the one who kills the chickens.

It's like, you know, yeah, I'll hold the pig, whatever.

Yeah, that's so funny.

Yeah, people always say, oh, on this way of farming, the animal only has one bad day. No, it's not true if they're a male.

That's true.

If they're two pretty bad days, bad days, only one of them you can remember. Yes. The other one, they don't even know it's coming. So maybe it is only one bad day.

The male pigs really only have one bad day as long as you're a good shot.

That's right.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We try to stick with the, the one bad day.

Yeah.

Uh, and it's not even a bad day because they don't—

no, they don't remember it if you get it right.

Right.

If you miss it, yeah, yeah, it's a bad day for everybody. Isn't that the worst feeling in the world to miss?

It is the worst feeling in the world, especially the way that animal looks at you because it no longer trusts you.

Yeah, yeah. We had— well, we didn't do it, we weren't shooting it— our very first cow The guy missed. Um, what was his name?

I can't remember. He's gone.

He was so old. He got out of the truck and I was like, he has to be 90 years old. I mean, the man was old.

Oh goodness.

And he shot most of them just fine, but that one, the one that we had like—

and it's running around the field, oh, blood coming out of its nose.

I was like, dear Lord, help us operate.

And that was your first cow? It was our first one. You had—

so we just made a lot of mistakes.

We had a friend, a friend wanted to come out and bring his little daughter for that, that one too.

And she's sitting there in her pink puffy jacket with the fur around the thing.

She was a prissy little girl.

She was prissy. And she's sitting in her little chair, a little camping chair, and she's eating her snack. Oh no, it didn't faze her.

Oh good.

She's not— she was not fazed. I mean, like, she was dressed in pink, but she was okay with it all.

Yeah.

But, um, it was— so we had bought one cow and we meant to get a steer and we ended up getting a female. Was this— was this that one? Was this A1? Did A1 run away?

A1 was the one who ran away.

You had a cow run away? Oh yeah.

So we got— so we went to— we picked out and we picked out a steer with a farmer and he brought A heifer.

Oh no.

So we just got one, and we just got one because we didn't know what we were doing. Yeah. And so then, so every 3 weeks she starts acting a fool.

Oh no.

And she's walking the fence. We're thinking, what is wrong? She would wear out this path. She would mellow, and I'd go out there and try to figure it out.

And we're like—

and then she just stopped. And then, and then it'd come again. And then one day I woke up and she was not there.

Oh my God, she's gone.

And the problem was I'd sold her. Told me this story. Other people— this is our first experience, all these other people on the line. And I, you know, I had spent the money on, you know, the fencing and stuff, you know, surviving. I mean, it's a week we gave up. I mean, I looked all over the place.

We drove around. Jonah was 18 months old. I was pregnant with Josiah.

Finally had this gumption. It's been a couple days I said, I'm gonna go over the mountain. And I went 5 miles over the mountain in a four-wheeler, and then got to the very end. I thought I'd give up and got out and went pee. And it was next to a fence. I saw these hoof marks, and I followed it into a broken part of the fence. I went in there, it was this herd of 20 Angus or so.

She found him.

We were like, she's in there.

I went, yes, she found her boyfriend.

He ran all the way around.

And I learned my lesson. Lesson. And I said to that farmer, you know, you got an extra cow? And he did. And I said, well, do you have 3 more for sale? You know, never, never raise just one cow, right? Especially a heifer, right?

Right.

Because even if they have another female though, you know, it was wild. They're still okay.

It was, it was a wild ride.

Yeah.

And then that's the one that—

yeah, and then we didn't even give her a good death, did we?

I know.

Oh, that's a bummer.

It was a bummer. And we were just— it was just me and Justin, and then Jonah was 18 months old and I was pregnant with Josiah. That— we killed those cows the week before I gave birth.

Oh my goodness.

So, um, yeah, so we were just a really small family. We kept 1/4 of the cow. Yeah, like now I'm like, we need 3 cows at least, right, to survive, to keep us in meat.

Yep.

Not just one cat, that's just one source of meat. That's not including the chicken and the turkey, right? Pork.

Pork.

There's so much— we eat so much meat.

So do we. Yeah.

So to wrap this up, what is your— what is next for people, for people watching and for y'all, y'all's YouTube? What is going to be the next adventure homestead thing or whatever? that you look forward to, that people who watch your show can look forward to?

You looked right at me without hesitation.

Is he the boss of the YouTube now? He is, but he wasn't always.

No, I started it.

You started it. Yeah, you got to finish it.

Yeah, this has been something we've talked about a lot. Uh, we aren't sure what direction we want to go with it. Um, We're going to continue doing it because we enjoy doing what we're doing. We like documenting it, uh, but we kind of have this feeling that there's a change coming. We don't know what it is, uh, don't know what direction, but, uh, in the meantime, there's a whole bunch of building going on this year. There's a whole bunch of stuff we're building. We're finishing an addition on house. Um, it'd be kind of cool if we could get to everything on our list that we want to get to this year, but we'll see.

Yeah, we sat down, we wrote out a list.

It's like, here's, here's, here's like step by step, here's the order that everything has to happen. We are not— yeah, and we're not touching this project until this project's done.

Yeah, so, so we're guilty of that. It's like, you know, we have this project and then we're like, oh, let's go over here and do this thing.

Oh yeah, that It's the one you want to do, you know, it's the sexier one, right?

Right.

You don't want to, you don't want to, like, finish, fix what you already have, right? You want to start something different.

Yeah.

Having a baby last year really kind of put the brakes on everything we were doing.

It did. Um, she was a great—

she was a great baby. Like, she slept good. She, you know, I can hold her and Meg can go off and, you know, have a shower and stuff like that.

Uh, go to the bathroom.

That's nice.

Yeah, like, she's just been the easiest baby, but rut. Like, last year we didn't hardly even grow a garden because it was like, we're gonna have a baby right in like the middle of garden season. Yeah, let's not—

good call—

put in a huge garden. Let's not expect canning to happen. Like, just take it easy.

Yeah.

Well, the problem with sitting around is the more you sit around, the more you sit around.

Yeah.

And so we're just in this rut right now where we've sat around for almost a whole year now. That baby's almost 10 months old, so it's been 10 months of Like, I've gained 20 pounds since this baby was born. I have the baby weight.

Meg lost it, you found it. Someone said to us once.

That's what happened to us at the farm too.

Rebecca lost it, Justin found it.

So it's just, we are realizing sitting is not the best thing for us to do. We have never been people to sit around and we've sat around a lot in the past year and it's like, It's killing us. Like, we're ready to nut up because we've sat around so much.

So yeah, I think there is something though to say to showing the seasons of life. Like, you're having a baby in May, that is prime time working season, right?

And hey, I'm proud of you guys for sitting down on that.

Yeah, honestly, I know you're like, you're— it's driving you crazy, but I think there's something so healing one, in, in doing that, in resting, but then also just showing that you're human. Because I'm listening to this course, and the one thing I love about it is, is that she's like, grace upon grace upon grace for yourself. And I'm like, because, you know, so many times with health things, people are like, right, very staunch, and like, if you don't do this, then you don't get this, and then you don't get this, and then it's all messed And this is what I love about this course actually, is that she's just like, this would be best, but also I realize that you have a schedule and you have a family and you have this and you have that in your life. So I just wanna encourage you both that it's coming and your list is gonna get done eventually.

Eventually. Yeah.

I mean, the list is never done. I always tell people, Um, homesteading serves us, we don't serve homesteading. That means if you have a baby in May, it's okay to not have a garden.

Okay, I think that's where we hit last year, where we were like, oh gosh, we are slaves to our homestead, and we were not having fun anymore. And it was like, this is gonna change.

Like, we, uh, yeah, when I finally realized I was not having fun, it was because I realized I was married to the, the milk cow. And it was I can't do anything outside of the cow schedule. This is driving me nuts. And so I was like, let's get rid of her.

Yeah.

Couldn't get her bred anyways. So it was just one of those things.

It was—

she needed to go.

She needed to go for multiple reasons. We are in the market for another dairy cow, but things will be different. You know, we learned a lot with our first dairy cow, but as one does.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, with all that, I guess it's just a learning. And the more you do things, the more you learn about what you want and what you expect out of yourself.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

Well, I'm excited to see this cow.

Oh, when she, when she comes, you have—

comes to you. No pressure.

Rebecca has given us one word. For 2025.

Yes, that's rebuild, recover. No, it's recover.

That's right, recover.

Because last year it was a doozy for a lot before it even hit. I know it was a doozy before Helene hit, and then Helene just like packed it on because you had—

we had your mom, the loss of your mom, right? And your house, the loss of the farm. It's helped us though, because, you know, I started— you talking about sexy jobs, I'm like, I'm starting to put a hoop over the the chicken run and, you know, oh, it's going to be this awesome warm them up in the winter and we'll have vines on it in the summer. But it's— then I'm like, wait a minute, our word for the year is recovery. I need to be more focused on recovery, the rocks coming back upstream from the hurricane and just maintaining the garden we have and the animals that we have. It's not as fun and exciting. It's good to have a word like that.

Honestly, like, yeah, there's just— yeah, it is. It is good because then we start thinking like, oh, we should do this, we should do that. And it's like, wait a minute.

Run it through that filter.

Does it go with the word recover? Oh, it doesn't. Okay, we can't do it, right? It's too much. Yeah, it's, it's too much too soon of whatever.

It sounds like your word is build.

Yeah, I think something along those lines would be a lot of people's word.

Or it could be rediscover. Yeah, cuz you know, you're— you've, you've got to reframe the homestead for it, you know?

Yeah. And what we want.

Did you say rediscover?

Rediscover.

Yeah, rediscover.

Yeah, like you're talking about redoing a cow, like you got to rediscover how you you do a family cow.

Because I think that, and, and I think that when we create content surrounding what we're doing in our lives, it can feel just really pressured.

Yeah, to pressure to be doing something, to be doing something all the time.

And so like, it's, it can be difficult, but also at the same time, like, what are we wanting to show about this? We want to show the realness of it all. And so I think that Showing that having a baby in May and this is what— because, you know, we see those people online who they either are lying, right, or they have a lot of help.

Yeah, or they're only showing the exciting, or they're only showing—

but, but they have so much content, they have to be— I don't know, I don't know where it's coming from. I, I haven't— I, and I don't have enough time even think about these people. They can do their thing. But it— but then, then those people see that. People see that and then they come over and see our stuff, and then they're like, oh well, you're not doing anything with this, and you're not doing anything with that. And I'm not saying we should listen to those people, but I'm just saying that it can feel like there's a pressure.

Oh, totally.

Yeah. And so I think that maybe what makes the magic for your YouTube channel is the fact that you guys are real. And transparent and you're showing the ebbs and flows because that's— isn't that what, you know, isn't that what life is all about? Yeah, like people who are just like putting out content after content, I'm like, well, you showed that you got a cow, you're excited, it's working.

Yeah.

And then you show that it's not, it's not working for us anymore. Yeah. People would come through our line and say, oh, we love your show, thanks, it's so encouraging. And I would just say, all right, thank you. And I would be so happy and honored about that. But after a couple years, I was like, what, what am I doing? And I, I didn't know. I don't know. I didn't know what was— I didn't set out to be an encouragement. My goal was to make people laugh and to learn, make some learn something in every show. That's it. And then they're being this encouraged and inspiration, and I'm like— so finally I started asking them after they said that. I said, what is it? Oh, you show the, you show the failures.

Yeah.

I'm like, wait a minute, that's encouraging.

Okay, I got this.

I got this.

Yeah, we can fail.

We can fail big time.

Watch me fail.

You got no problem. I'm never going to run out of content.

I know. Oh, man.

I'm telling myself that now. You know, cow's near drying off and she may have mastitis and a toothache.

Yeah.

And the fact that they're trying— that they're going to be giving birth so close together. Like, the whole reason you have two cows is so you can travel.

We haven't had to worry about that. Yeah, it just worked out, you know?

Just— it just—

but now all of a sudden they're doing the same thing.

We think that He-Man wasn't able to—

he couldn't reach.

I don't think he was too small. Poor guy. So then— and then finally he grew enough that he could. And then she— and then the next one gave birth. Yeah, and so now we're, we're gonna have to really—

we're gonna plan it.

We're gonna have to plan it. We've never had to plan before. We've never had to plan. It always worked out that we at least had like 3 or 4 months.

6 years. We've, we've been milk every single day for 6 years. Oh wow, 365 days a year.

So easy. So, and now you're gonna have all the milk up front.

I know, now we're gonna have like so much milk.

We're gonna have to not let them get bred again.

At the same time. Yeah, we're gonna have to keep them separate, keep the bull away, because like what you said, they—

as soon as people don't know this, if as soon as they have a calf, they— you get a lot of milk, right? And then it tapers off. And so it's good to stagger it. And it was— you used to be good to stagger it because we used to dry them off 2 months before they were. But the problem was this time we didn't know when they got pregnant. We never saw the action there.

It was all very discreet. I'm like, why in the world? I've never seen such a—

but I learned—

modest cows, a very modest—

I from the Dohertys. Okay, you know them, real homesteaders. They never want— they never dry off before the calf is born. They don't feed alfalfa. They give the cow hay in the stanchion if they give them anything in the stanchion.

They're, they're so cool.

And, um, their house, just milk right up to the end.

They would love to have you guys. I'm just inviting you anyway.

That's very kind of you. Thanks. You're inviting them to our house.

They are.

It's— I— oh, I don't know if it is coming here in September. Hey, we're coming in September.

Fun.

Yeah, we're really excited.

We're gonna do a live cheese making. Cheese making.

Can I go?

Yeah, totally.

Tell me when.

Like how you whispered that. What?

We might— we say we have a possible engagement in September, but if I'm available, you can—

you do two engagements in September?

Yeah, I might.

I'll come to your house.

I'll come to your house.

September, talk about a slow I know, right?

No, no.

I'm already doing one thing instead of two.

I mean, isn't it—

Can you move them to October?

Can you tell we're hermits? We already have one thing in September.

I don't know that I can convince Victor.

No, I'm saying I might be out of town.

Oh, okay.

Might be out of town.

Okay. Well, hopefully you're not.

Hopefully I'm not.

I would love to come make cheese with us. Yes. Trying to think of when these cows are giving birth, if we'll have enough milk. Yeah, we will. Because I think they're— we have no idea when they're gonna— and I don't want to call the vet out to do a preg check. I mean, we know they're pregnant, right? Or yeah, because that was our concern is like, we really don't want to dry them off in case they're not pregnant, right? The whole concern. So yeah, one year we had Phyllis, we never saw her get bred, and so we had the vet out and she did the ultrasound. It was so cool. Yeah, it was really neat. I'm really glad we did it one time just so we could experience it, but like, it's not worth how much money we paid. Now we're just gonna fly by the seat of our pants with these guys.

You'll get a cow eventually.

Exactly.

Yeah, we have two calves growing up to be cows.

Yes. So we have two. One we know is A2, and then we're gonna see what the next one—

we're gonna have four cows.

Yeah, you eat a lot.

So these boys, they drink so much.

We still don't make our own cheese. We either use all the milk, cream, uh, butter, yogurt. We don't have nothing left over for cheese. Oh yeah, even with 2 milk cows, that was kind of our struggle.

Yeah, we'd have to cut them off and say, don't drink any milk, you know, this is gonna be cheese.

Take a break.

Brad will drink a gallon of milk a day if I let him. I know he'd probably drink more if I let him, but like, I have to cut him off.

It's nice that we have the milk fridge on a different level because they have to work for it. Yeah, they have to go down the stairs.

They drink a lot less milk just because it's not right there in the kitchen.

That's right.

That's a hack for you.

Yeah, we've got ours out in the, you know, the shed fridge. Maybe we buy our milk, right?

Well, what they do is everybody's taken to, uh, they'll drink until there's that much milk left, and then I get up in the morning and go to get some milk for my coffee and there's not enough for—

because the rule is if you empty it, you got to go get more milk.

Yeah, you're not dumb.

One of these mornings, I'm going to be— I'm going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and I'm just going to walk in there and wake them all up at 5 in the morning, be like, which one of y'all left a drop of milk in this jug? Go get more milk out of the back fridge. You get to walk out in the cold this morning.

Doesn't Tim Hawkins have a joke about that? Would you leave that much milk? What am I going to have, a cornflake?

Yes, cornflake.

Apparently this is a problem across the board. It is enough for a comedian to make a joke about it. Somebody's gonna have one Corn Flake in their cereal.

It's like, there's not enough, but I could have one Corn Flake. Actually, Ben, I was gonna tell you, I now have a mocha pot and I steam milk so that I can have a latte because I came to y'all's house. Yeah, you served me a latte.

I get you hooked on those. Aren't they—

aren't they bombs?

So now I put like an egg yolk in in it. And, um, Kaylee— what's her last name? The Bee Lady?

Richardson.

Kaylee Richardson. Yes, she sent me some of her mushroom stuff, so I put that in there. A little bit of maple syrup.

Oh, there you go.

You get coffee, fancy latte, protein powder in my milk, and like, as I steam it, because I gotta get protein, because, you know, protein's all about protein now that I'm 45.

Yeah, that's right, that's right.

So yeah, so if I'm— you're gonna do something, I gotta have something with protein in it, right? Protein powder too. So I'm like, open up your own Starbucks. I mean, I think they're pretty delicious myself, but I mean, it's, you know, it's not like the— I looked at getting a machine. I was like, I don't want to spend that much.

Yeah, they're either, you know, this much space, they're either $100 for the one I've got or they're like $1,000 for a massive appliance.

No in between.

And I'm like, I just really just want to have like one a week.

Yeah.

So that's why I bought the Moka pot and then I bought like one of the little frothers for $10. So I'm like working on like $30 here. That's fantastic.

And it takes up this much space.

I know, there's no— the only problem is, is my kids, like, I'll put the Moka pot like over by the sink to be washed, and then they just take it and they put it up in the cabinet, and then I open up and there's still coffee in it.

I'm like, oh no, oh really, guys?

Oh, all right, well, thank you guys.

Good luck. Thank you. Thanks for having us on the Rediscover. If folks want to follow you, they can go to Holler Homestead.

Mhm.

Find us on YouTube.

Yep.

Yep.

Just on YouTube.

Thank you.

I mean, I'm on Instagram, but I'm not on Instagram, so just a little bit.

That's right.

Thanks.