In this YouTube episode, host Victor Justin Rhodes visits Appalachia’s Homestead, hosted by Patara and joined by Matt Hefner. The conversation weaves through a practical homesteading model where egg sales generate enough income to cover chicken feed, livestock upkeep, and other farm expenses. They showcase an integrated chicken‑garden system where chickens provide shade, seed‑planting assistance, and natural fertilization. The tour highlights the use of silkies and broody hens, noting a 100% hatch rate achieved through careful handling. Family‑made products appear, including a beef‑tallow and olive‑oil lotion crafted by the daughter, and a DIY fly‑repellent spray made with Dr. Bronner’s soap and essential oils. Matt and Leah Hefner discuss their companion books, Intentional Love: 31 Ways to Love Your Wife/Husband, and direct viewers to their blogs and the Red Oak Collective. Culinary moments feature Tennessee cornbread cooked in cast iron, a “perfect flip,” and buttermilk accompaniment. The episode also introduces farm animals—a milk cow, steer, buck, and a rescued turkey turned mascot—while emphasizing low‑cost, part‑time homesteading strategies. The tone is conversational, enthusiastic, and supportive, aiming to inspire viewers to adopt similar sustainable practices.
Chapters
Nice. I heard that you pay for your own chicken feed by selling the eggs.
That's correct. Don't touch these because they'll get your hands dirty.
I've fed them sunflower seeds and these have all come up, so I think they're tall enough now where they'll provide some shade and some food for them in a month or so, and they shouldn't eat them down too bad. I have to cut down just a couple of things in the back fence to go through there. I'll let you out, bud.
Just making a little path. Your ducks and goose, you're just gonna follow along?
Yeah, once I open this up, I'll put some feed in the new spot so they hopefully don't devastate the garden, but they do pretty good. These last couple lengths always get a little He's feeling the burn, y'all.
He's feeling the burn. That fence gets pretty heavy towards the last few. Earth gym, right? Yep. Are they cage fighting, Mr. Brown? Yeah. Are y'all cage fighting? Settle down now, settle down. They're being pretty calm this morning right now, right now. Give them a few minutes, the cage fight will continue. I like his idea here. You see, this fence was going to be too long. See, it's going up on that plateau into the other garden area, so we're going to make that The corner. Bring that here and then wrap this around it. Let me review this chicken system. Chickens now preparing a garden area. This is what it looks like after they're done. They go and plant seeds, and then it looks like this. That's an absolutely amazing system. Good morning, guys! You guys ready to go to Patera's today? Appalachia's Homestead. Let's go, let's pack up the bus and go. All right, bye-bye. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
It's fun having y'all.
Thank you.
That was really fun. I think the kids— I think maybe your kids will take a nap.
I think my kids are warm out.
I know. Well, my kids were sleeping until like not too long ago.
Nice headband, Lily. Just say you ready to go. I'm not convinced. You ready to go, Jonah? Okay, good. Let's do it, Matt. We'll see you, buddy.
All right, thanks for all you're doing, brother.
This is the poster child right here. He's proving it can be done. He's proving these methods really work.
They work.
It's not just Justin Rhodes' individual magic. It's for everybody.
And it's very part-time, you know, effort on my part. I have a lot of other things going on, and I can keep chickens in a great garden, and I can do it without a ton of effort. It's I'm all for it.
If people want to find out more about what you're doing, I understand your blog and your podcasting. Where can we send folks to find more from you guys and to be blessed by you guys?
Uh, we have, we have two. Leah has a blog, leahheffner.com. She encourages wives and mothers in the busyness of, of those roles. And I have ourdailyrest.net. But probably checking out the Red Oak Collective. We just wrote companion books You trying to say something? You trying to say something?
You have a message? Okay, what is the name of the book?
The books are called Intentional Love: 31 Ways to Love Your Wife or Your Husband. They're companion books, and it's come out of a place where we're looking for ways, small ways, to be intentional and practical and building our marriage even when we're in a busy season. So that's those books as just small things that you can do in 5 minutes a day.
Okay, Matt, you send me those links. I'll put them in the description, buddy. I appreciate it. Are these the books?
These are the books they gave us. They gave us the books and lotion.
Woo!
I know, I like it.
Is that homemade lotion?
It is. It's made out with beef tallow.
Nice.
Did you really? Yeah, and olive oil.
Look at her light up.
And actually, our daughter made it. I only did the warm part, but she did everything else. So she did the— Awesome. Whatever.
No, it's—
Essential oils, what is that called? Yeah, those things that make it smell good. I can't remember what it's called.
These look like cool books. One written by Matt Hefner. 31 Ways to Love Your Wife with Purpose. And then she wrote the other one, 31 Ways to Love Your Husband with Purpose.
Cool.
All right, we're ready to go. Next stop, Patera. Lunch there. Appalachia Homestead, here we come. Just like a new day, a breath of fresh air in my life. Hey, how's it going?
Good morning, how are you? I'm getting a hug. This is the big helper here.
Jump right into the hug.
How are you? Oh my gosh, we've been sitting in the van with the air on because I'm like, when they pull up, we're not missing that. So we've been sitting in the air conditioning. Okay, so what do you need us to help you with?
Air horn, right? You gotta experience the air horn.
Yes, that's right.
Look at this. View.
Well, when this clears off, we'll see your state.
Let's check this out. Oh my word, there's eggs everywhere. 187 eggs there, 87 eggs over here, 42 eggs over here, plus quail eggs, and it looks like one duck egg. Did I not say quail?
Didn't you say kale?
Oh, plus quail eggs and one duck egg.
One duck.
When people ask her how many chickens she has, she says 8. That's an awful productive Breed of chickens you got there.
That's what kelp does. Kelp, that's your magic?
That's my magic. That's your magic? Okay, so why are there so many eggs in here?
Because, well, tomorrow we're preparing for another egg sale. We sell eggs every 2 weeks. We have a big egg sale.
Nice. I heard that you pay for your own chicken feed by selling the eggs.
That's correct. That's correct. That's the goal of the girls, is what they do is they make— my egg sales make enough money every month to pay for their feed and their basic— what they need, and then to pay for the cow, the goats.
What?
Yeah, so now that doesn't include— yeah, the whole deal. So that's the goal, and it's always a little give or take, you know. You might be up a little bit or down a little bit. It doesn't cover like hay or major projects or anything like that, but it does accommodate everything else.
Because say you need 8 eggs for your fam— or let's say you need 8 chickens for your family, well, it's not that much harder to raise 200.
That's right.
Then 8, right?
A little bit more elbow grease.
A few more. We've done that. We've grown. It's not that much harder to have 8 chickens as opposed to 4. You need 4, sell the eggs from the other extras, and you paid for the feed and the cow and the whole homestead. They're a workhorse. Next thing we know, you're gonna be paying the mortgage with those eggs.
That would be nice.
Lunch with Patera, an amazing soup. Uh-oh, cornbread, Tennessee cornbread. We're back in the South, y'all. You feel at home now?
Yes, and that's a perfect flip.
Okay, what do you mean by a perfect flip? It— well, not everybody knows the cornbread tricks.
Yeah, well, you got to know how to use butter and cast iron first of all, but the perfect flip— and we've already cut it, but yeah.
So it cooked in the cast iron and you perfectly flipped it out of there into the plate.
Absolutely.
Justin's dad wishes—
oh, my dad's all about some cornbread and milk.
Cornbread. Oh, cornbread.
They even go as far as say buttermilk.
Uh, well, his dad's hardcore.
We can do buttermilk all day long.
All the kids will enjoy this.
Yeah, they got watermelon and just all sorts of good—
Patera takes good care of y'all.
I told you I'd make you—
You're way too young to be a grandma, but she's gonna make a good one.
I'm gonna take that as a compliment.
Spoiling everybody here. Done eating. Time to see some of the farm.
We're calling Miss Belle, who was our milk cow, and then that is our steer Mayfield.
Oh, here they come!
And there's Moses, our buck. Yeah, she's sort of getting in the family way there, you can see. Oh yes, yes, it's been muddy.
I see they don't have many flies. How are you keeping the flies at bay?
I use— I make a homemade freshener spray with Dr. Bronner's. I use— you can use whatever scent you like. I've used eucalyptus and I've used the lavender. It's my favorite.
Yeah.
What's your ratio soap to water?
Oh, a couple of dabs with a whole lot of water. No, probably it's probably a full cup. You measure like Rebecca. That's right, just kind of here.
Oh, Mr. Brown, you gonna meet Mr. Peaches? Oh, Mr. Peaches is going to have nothing to do with it. He didn't get the memo. Oh my gosh, what? She— you never know what's gonna happen around here. You look the other way and she comes back with a full-grown turkey in her hand.
That's right, he's our big buddy. Say hi everybody.
Oh my gosh, yeah, look at that, look at that, look at his little hair.
Yeah, okay, what are you doing with this guy?
Well, I didn't eat him.
He survived the Thanksgiving dinner.
He did.
So this is the mascot.
This is one of our mascots now. We only have one, and, uh, he is, uh, just, uh, one of our— he's now become one of our, like, barn guardians. He just hangs out.
Was the plan to eat him?
Plan was to eat him, and he won your heart. He won.
What was it?
It wasn't the He is just so sweet. I just couldn't— I don't know, there's decisions you have to make, and, uh, he just has a place on the farm for now. Let's get a silky.
Oh, these are silkies.
This is just two silkies. These are young. I've got one that's gone broody in there. We have six broody hens.
These guys ensure their place on the farm because they go broody. If you don't know what that means, they have a tendency to want to sit on eggs and sit long enough on the eggs so that they can hatch out into chicks, so you— or ducks or whatever. Oh yeah, you can just set them fertilized eggs under them and they become the mothers, don't they?
Well, a Silkie, we've had the best luck when you would do about 6 to 8. Okay, she wanted to attack them.
Come!
When we brought them in and did it this way, we had a 100% hatch rate with all of them, and all of them worked. This is probably some of them.
Thank you, Patera, for showing us around.
Oh, anytime. We're just happy you're here.
If you folks want more of her, she's Appalachia's Homestead on YouTube. I'll leave the link down below.
All right, thank you. Oh, you're welcome.
Tomorrow, Whistlepig Hollow. Oh, and Father's Day. Well, the time you're getting this video, it's Father's Day, so all you dads out there Happy Father's Day.
