HERE, We're not So Crazy ~ Homesteaders of America

It was nice to meet you, Gideon. I see you wear your shoes like my Gideon. Thanks for watching the show. All right, we'll see you, buddy. Bye. Thank you. I started my day with, um, Llama Acres, and I love, I love watching y'all. I really do. I learned so much from y'all. Just, I started meat chickens because of y'all.

Grace, did he tell you? Grace. And what's your name?

Lee.

Lee, it's nice to meet you. And you're from, uh, North Carolina?

Yep, northeastern North Carolina.

Nice. Awesome.

She met you guys at the Mother Earth News Fair. I was going to say, I feel like I've seen her before.

Hey, I'm I'm going to tell you something.

You got the coolest dad in the world. I know, that's awesome.

I'm glad you know that.

To build you a Chickshaw, to bring you over here in the morning, his time off. He probably took off work. Yeah, his phone's blowing up. That's a cool dad. I know you got a long line. Can I get a picture of her with you guys?

For sure.

All right, you coming in?

All right, sure.

Awesome. Nice to meet you, Rebecca. Jose.

Jose, it's nice to meet you.

You guys are the reason why in 6 months I'm going to take a leap of faith because I'm going to go to Mississippi and start a farm. Nice.

I've been watching you guys. Congratulations.

Congratulations. Left the service and now I'm ready to go do something else. Yay. I want to thank you guys.

Awesome.

And your kids. And I actually just took a picture of them.

Oh good.

Mr. Brown. Oh good. He's my favorite.

Oh good.

Every time I watch him go out with you guys, you guys, it inspires me to do the same thing with my boys.

Good.

You guys going to tour America again? No, we've done that. No, we're like Johnny Cash, we've been everywhere.

No, actually, like this, even this weekend, like traveling, I'm like, this is hard. I kind of want to go home.

You know what it did do is it showed other people that are doing it and connecting on the YouTube to other folks. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Like Shay Elliott that's out in Washington, and I've been watching her as well.

If we ever write a book about it, it's going to be called I Traveled America So You Don't Have To. I'll tell you all about it.

I watch a lot of your videos.

Okay, she knows everything about you. You're the ones.

Good.

Now I know who I'm looking at when I look at this crazy little eyeball. I'll see you guys.

Yeah, exactly. But anyway, I just really appreciate it, and, uh, I learned a lot from you.

Gonna be, gonna be good. Okay, I'll be like, oh, we should do that.

No, Justin says we should do this.

Who is this Justin guy? I know, right?

Because he's always like, oh, that's so cool, you get to do this. I'm like, no, that poor woman is in a bus with 4 children, right?

I have children, they're grown now.

It was all my idea though. Like, what's your idea? And I was already throwing him under the boat, and he was dragging you along. That's why, like, every time, every time, like, I would get upset, he's like, "Brother, what's your idea?" I'm like, "Oh, you had that ace in the hole." We made it.

And it's like the marathon runners at the end of the race, she collapsed.

I know, right?

I've been watching you now for about a year. Okay. But I went back and watched some of the older videos. You know, I've subscribed to your channel and all, and you've been a big inspiration to me. Okay. I've, my whole life, I've been I always wanted to do this, but never had anybody to show me because nobody in the family has ever done it. My great-granddaddy used to do it, but he was dead before I was born, so I didn't have anybody to ask. So you've made it tangible for me, which is good. I actually just bought my first Premier One net. I got it in the mail yesterday. You're real. He's living it. What state? North Carolina. Oh, okay. You got that beautiful North Carolina accent.

That's right.

I'm Annie. I'm Mose.

Okay, are you— what's your name?

I'm Annie.

Annie.

Annie. Mose. And Mose.

Annie and Mose.

Yeah, you got it. Yeah. Yes. Hey, we appreciate everything. Our kids really, really enjoy your videos. Good. Your kids do? Yeah, we do too. Watch it together. Okay, good.

Yeah, it makes all the other movies be so fake. It's like we watch a movie, we get disappointed about it.

Yeah, like movie, movie, like Hollywood.

Yeah, like any kind of movies, you know. So, Tina. What's your— Tina. Tina. Robert.

Robert.

Thank Michigan. I just want to thank you guys for putting out quality content. My kids are obsessed. Awesome.

Putting out what?

Quality content. Quality content. It means a lot. We don't have TV, but occasionally we do need them to like sit down and be quiet and still for a minute.

I'll be the babysitter.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. What do I owe you? Um, but I just want to thank you guys for all you do. It means a lot, and I love what my kids are like learning from you guys. It's so much better than Caillou.

Okay, good, good. Okay, man, Scott Burton's got y'all your name tags. Oh yeah, okay, we're here now at a members meeting, members only, just to try to get everybody to meet each other. I'm actually surprised how many people have showed up to this thing. I'm like, is there a class going on? Okay, we got Abundant Permaculture members right here. Wow! Everybody say woo! Okay, everybody's excited to grow food. All right, I'm absolutely blown away right now. Had our talk. How'd my talk go, Rebecca?

Really good, I think.

There's a chicken in the front. So you have your— you— what? So we're having like a huge family reunion. We invited the members to come and meet each other, not us, each other, and it's a crazy turnout. We got We got West of the Mississippi group, guys. We got people here from California. Maybe you're within somewhat of a driving distance. If you really hit it off, you can put your chickens together. You hit it off real good. Wisconsin, that's next weekend for us. That's right. I got my own Wednesday.

Oh my goodness.

That's where mine are. Last one for the year. I started with 150, down 140. Okay, but, but I, I, I don't process it. Yeah, that's good. You know that. Yeah. And they're after us because somebody had called. We live on a main road. Somebody has been abusing our chickens and turkeys, keeping them in too confined an environment. I had them in like Joel Salatin style chicken tractors. Good morning, Grandma.

Good morning.

Drinking coffee. 5:45. Woke up pretty refreshed. Got into bed about 10 o'clock. Feel pretty good. I guess it's like a kid at Christmas. You just get so excited you just can't sleep. Rebecca, it's not even light outside. What are you doing awake?

I am making breakfast. I know, right? You know something's up with Rebecca.

After a big day. Dressed.

Showered.

Yeah.

No, while we're having breakfast with Rarifeek and his people, so we got a crew of 8. Yeah, I wanted to, I wanted to be nice. I wanted to be welcoming and I want to have lots of food prepared for them so that we can talk and get out of here.

Yeah, because I think that we continue to be amazed and surprised by the amount of people that want to come and meet us. We had to shut down the line twice because we had to go do things. Yeah, but it was wonderful meeting everybody, wasn't it?

Yeah, I'm hoping that this morning, um, so I'm hoping that this morning, because Joel's talking, yeah, doing his broiler, Joel's there too. Yeah, so I'm hoping that because of that, yeah, um, we can— let's not start the booth until, until after I get to walk around. I want to walk around.

Yeah, let's walk around during his presentation. Yeah, thankfully we have Grandma here helping us. Roy Feek is coming. For those of you who know, singer-songwriter, country music, and star of a TV show.

Well, he had a TV show with his wife Joey. Yeah, I know that.

So it's Rory and Joey who was struggling with cancer. Yeah, didn't make it. Wonderful story. Yeah, I'll leave a link to his story down in the description. It's an amazing story.

It is.

Grandma, you are handy to have around.

Yep.

You just love to— why do you do this? Why do you get in here and do the dishes and make the meals and all that and take care of the kids?

Oh, I love to cook, and it's fun being a grandma.

Oh yeah, this is a working woman right there.

Well, we appreciate it. I'm glad you didn't sleep because we couldn't do this without— I mean, we could not have brought the kids. No, you'd be at McDonald's.

No, McDonald's. She likes You waking us up this morning, aren't you? Threatening McDonald's. I know, I never go. The M word.

But it's funny, I like to tell the children to tell you, tell them we're going to stop by Dairy Queen.

That's right. And what do they do? What do they say?

No, we can't do that.

They're loyal. They're loyal to us. Is that organic? Um, what kind of—

what, what's the difference between these two? Um, This is breakfast. That's Italian.

Okay. By the way, we bring the farm with us. That's all our sausage. Well, the eggs— we did have to buy eggs because we're having to cook like, well, because we— dozens of eggs this morning.

But also at home we collect the eggs and then eat them fresh.

That's right.

But the chickens are laying the eggs at home and we're here in Virginia.

And we have interns who are there. Are eating. I hope we told them they could eat the eggs.

I think they know that. We'll text them just to make sure.

So Beth was asking us how Pop's doing. It's been quite the roller coaster ride because we left, he was stable. We felt like he was stable.

Yeah, well, he was— well, everybody acted like he was getting better.

We could fix the back, he's gonna be walking again.

Yeah.

Uh, he's going to therapy. Now though, they're talking about hospice.

So yesterday at the conference I got a text to call, so I called while Justin was speaking and um, basically it's not a good prognosis. Like, his heart isn't working like it should and so there was some talk about turning off his defibrillator. Right now They are letting him make decisions because he's conscious enough to do that, and he's going home, and we're gonna see what happens. But even though you call hospice— with hospice, yes, with hospice— even though you call hospice, it's not the end. It can— it's just, uh, care till the end. Yeah, so it can last a while.

So that's good. Okay. Yeah, and the doctor gave him 6 months.

Oh, I didn't hear that.

He gave him 6 months. That's what my brother told me.

Wow, good.

The doctor thought 6 months to live. Yeah, and that, that, but that came after my brother texted me thinking he was, he was not going to make it through the weekend. I mean, that's how up and down my dad has been. So he's— we're going, we're all going through this roller coaster ride. Let me off! Bulletproof coffee is ready. Grandma wants a cup today. Look at this guy. Let me see your shirt. When I grow up, I want to be a grass farmer. Yay! You don't even have to wait till you grow up.

I know, you already are a grass farmer. Yeah. Who wore the socks in that black bag?

Sun's starting to come up. It's gonna be a beautiful day. It's been beautiful weather. We're going to unlock the gate for Rory. You going with?

Yeah.

Look, deer!

Did you, did you have the squirt?

No, why are you asking?

Because Joe Saxon's water didn't get us sick.

Oh yeah, we drink that water with Joe Saxon. I'm gonna feed your microbiome.

Can I?

Sure, this is good well water with a little bit of cow slobber in it. He's looking at— I drink it routinely. Okay. And I haven't been sick in 15 years. If Joel did it, I guess we improved our microbiome, I guess, and didn't get any diarrhea. Jonah's wanting me to come over here to the game room. I didn't know we had a game room. Yeah. Oh man, it's a party now. We got about 10 minutes till they get here. You want to play this hockey? You got, you got one game you can choose. Probably don't want to play ping pong. Okay, you want to play this air hockey? Is that what you want to play? What about foosball? Well, is there a ball? All right, ready? Oh, wrong way! Game over. They should be here any minute. Oh, there's the text. Hopefully they're getting through with their bus. All right, look at that house though, that's fun. Rory and crew is here. You guys ready for some farm fresh? We are from North Carolina. We're ready. Okay, good. North Carolina and Virginia. This is gonna be your best on-road meal ever.

And this is breakfast sausage, Gaps pancakes, Swiss chard, fruit, yogurt, taco kraut, fermented salsa, mango, and cherry. And you can drizzle that on your yogurt or on your pancakes or whatever you want.

You want some coffee? No, no. Let me see your shirt. I like it. You gonna be a grass farmer when you grow up? Good morning. Who's this, Rory? This is Indiana. Hey, Indiana. Say hi, Mr. Justin. There's your broccoli in your pajamas. That's the way to do it. Yummy! Oh my goodness. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the new friends. Thank you for the beautiful day to wake up to. Thank you for the opportunities you put in our life, the way that you continue to work and surprise us. Breakfast is over. Time to say goodbye. We got to get back to the conference. Conference. Thank you for breakfast. You're welcome. Thank you for coming. It's good to hang out with you guys. Good to be with your family. Let's get ready to go back. Are you ready? No, we're gonna go take a bath in the bus. You know you can take a shower in the bus? Did you know that? All right, day 2 of the conference with my buddy Ken. Good morning. Island Homesteader helping us out our booth. Thank you for helping us so much, Ken.

Glad to do it.

We got so many people lined up for us yesterday, we didn't get to walk around. So let's, let's try to walk around a little bit before we get— see what they got going on. Yeah, Farmer Brad. Yeah, good to meet you. Good to meet you. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, uh, Pat, uh, is my mentor in, uh, Pat Foreman. Good, she's the best mentor. Yeah, so this is your stuff? Yeah, this is the automatic chicken water bucket. Okay. And I just went over to Sow the Land and converted his Sow the Land bucket into— Cool. Is it DIY or is it— do you sell these? I sell these. So it's $50 for a completely assembled solution. This is Joe Salatin's tent. This is— look, slam! It's coming out the edges. I believe they're watching him butcher a chicken. Is it a sin that I'm like walking around during that? Like, I should be going here and Joe Salatin Right, is that a homesteading sin? Are we all sinners out here? Not going to this talk. Oh, hey, hey, Jordan, how you doing?

Good to see you.

I didn't know you were gonna be here.

Yeah, brought my Justin.

Okay, good.

How's it been going?

Good. What are y'all doing here? Just chilling.

Hey, Samantha, nice to meet you. I just finished my permaculture master practicum with Wayne Wiseman.

Okay, and, uh, congratulations.

Yeah, I'm excited about it, but I know you're busy.

I'll catch up with you later. Okay. Yeah, we'll be at our booth in an hour.

Was that Jordan Green?

Yeah.

Oh, sorry, I didn't—

I know, right?

Well, you can go back and talk to her.

I'm sorry. It's all right.

What do you think about these for our deck?

Yeah, that'd be good.

Do you have room to take these home?

No, no, we already maxed out 2 cars, Rebecca. Hey, I'm in the vlog! Hey, Justin Rhodes! Jason Contreras! Where's Joe? Joe? Where's Joe? We gotta say hey to the Vermeer One folks.

Where's Joe?

Where's Joe?

So yeah, Joe sent the B team.

Yep. So we got Ben Roth here, the, the president.

Yeah.

Are you founder?

I, I'm like I'm a co-owner. I'm like a third generation. Second generation.

Oh, you didn't— I knew somebody else.

Yeah, no, so my Uncle Stan started the company 40 years ago.

So tell me that story. I mean, how do we go from nothing to Uncle Stan to this? I mean, I know that's probably a long story.

He went off to England and he was, uh, he was in the university out there and he ran the organic, uh, program out there. They were trying to feed themselves, and this is before organic really took off here in the States. And as, as time went on, he came back to his family farm in southeast Iowa, and he wanted to be able to bring some of that here, and the equipment didn't exist. So he said, look, they're doing rotational grazing over there, they're way ahead on that. He wanted this netting that he had used, and so he called up the university and said, hey, I want to import some of this stuff. He had— he knew where to get it, and before long he was doing a presentation at Iowa State, and he was telling other farmers about this, and they were like, hey, can you get me some of that next time? And so a little business was born. Yeah, and it was a great deal, and that was, that was kind of the The start of Premier One.

So how did you make it at first? I mean, it doesn't look like it's an easy make.

It's not. So, um, yeah, right now it's, it's, uh, we have it, um, we, we do a lot of the design and development based on what we hear from customers. Like this one in the front is for gardens, right? It's going to keep your coons out, your woodchucks, all the way to the one in the back where we worked with a vineyard who had some deer pressure on their grapes. Okay, so a lot of that, uh is driven by— the design of it is driven by that. And then it's very automated, the way it's kind of manufactured and put together. But it's almost like a big loom, you know, that it's just a more coarse weave.

Yeah. Okay.

If that makes any sense.

Where do you get it manufactured?

We have a lot of it manufactured for us in Europe and in Germany because that is where they're good at this. The Europeans are kind of ahead of the Americans in some of this grazing.

Okay.

There's a lot more sheep in Europe, and so they're— we're able to go over there and kind of work together on the R&D. So a lot of the R&D occurs here in the U.S., but we work with the Europeans to make it, and then it kind of cross-pollinates. They're selling a lot of our designs over there, and then we bring the manufacturing.

Good. It's good to hear a little bit of story.

Yeah, yeah.

We couldn't do what we do on our farm without this stuff.

I know, we love y'all.

Yeah, you guys are leading the way on it, and I appreciate that.

Good, good. How are you doing? Good, how are you? Phenomenal, nearly cosmic. Hey, Tim, it says try me. I think I'm good on that. It wouldn't blend well. Okay, Ken? No, I think I'm good. You gotta read the rules. They don't have my color. Okay, I'm not an earthling. No color. Okay, high five. Do we need some deodorant, Rebecca?

Yeah, we'll get you some deodorant. Pick out your scent.

I don't know, Ken, do I need some deodorant? Rebecca's saying you smell all right. Pick out my scent. What's my scent, dude?

Boston fir.

Okay, Boston fir. Yay! Everybody will thank me. Sure, we're live. Yeah, we're live. This is my normal Saturday morning live show, Mr. Justin Rhodes. Hey, nice to see you. Okay, nice to see you. Sorry about the camera thing. We've been, uh, I've watched your stuff for a long time. Watched you come on scene because I've been on YouTube for 9 years. Yay! And as Daddy Curbs? Daddy Curbs, yes. Okay, permaculture homesteading in real life. Yes. Okay, so it's really cool to see you come on scene and then just blow up. Oh yeah, it's been fun watching you guys take, take that journey. Okay, thank you. Thanks for stepping in. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, hey everybody. Hope you're having a great time with this guy. Yes, sir. All right, who else you got here? This is Kilted Gardner, Mr. Riley. Okay, cool, good. You're having all kinds of cool people on here at your show today. This is amazing, really. Yesterday I, I just— I put the camera away and I walked around, talked to people. Yeah, me too.

Yeah, this is all we have. Okay, she just bought that. I know, we weren't gonna bring it out, we're gonna bring anything out, but somebody came by earlier and was like Do you have anything else? We just want something. I know, anything.

You got nothing left? You got one thing left? So then what are you gonna do after you sell out?

We're gonna hang out with people.

Okay, good. So the land here, folks, sold out, sold out. I don't blame them. Good quality handcrafted stuff. Jason and Lorraine. It was a flip-flop barnyard. Cool, I like it.

For us.

You're filming and editing?

She's filming.

Okay, you edit. Okay, you're still going at it. How many movies a week?

Well, we were daily vlogging till like 3 months ago, and then we just stopped all together for a while because, you know, life is nuts.

But, uh, I wonder what happened. Life gets crazy. Why would you say that?

Well, like hurricanes happen, and then you move.

Oh, you guys have been through it then.

Good, how are you? What's your name again? Jenna. I know, I hate to ask. I know.

They started letting out the sessions. We're gonna get to our booth. People are starting to gather.

What a blessing.

What a blessing to meet all you guys. Thank you for coming up and introducing yourselves, waiting in a long line to meet us. Thank you. Thank you. We love you. I see, you know, commonality between our family and yours, you know, just, you know, because I guess both of you, you know, have had your health issues, right? And my wife certainly has and still to this day does. You know, there's a lot of encouragement there, you know. So we're gonna, uh, get some pigs in the spring.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I'm rubbing off on them. I'm serious. I just— pigs for everyone. Yes, yes. I just, I just think they're the ultimate complementary enterprise to any, any operation. For sure. Ain't that right, Ken? Yeah, absolutely. Get a kickboard. Absolutely. I guess I need to talk Shannon into it. Ken's on board. All right, Shannon's all like, no, on the pig board, pigs under a pig port. Oh, oh, we got it, baby! We've met a ton of people, but we gotta go. It's 1:30 and our meetup is now. Rebecca, you coming? Oh, okay.

Thank you for your time, it was good to meet you.

Yeah, you're welcome. Good to meet you. Beautiful face. Hello! Look at all these crazy crazy people. Here we don't feel so crazy. All these people, over half have traveled more than 10 hours. Why? Because at home they feel like they're nuts, but here everybody else is nuts too, so you don't even notice it.

Look at it.

Look at all those crazy people. We're all here crazy together. Rebecca! Oh look, We need our— we need our steak back. Hey Charlie, have you seen Justin? I think he's outside on the phone. He's the guy who stole our steak.

I know, he totally did.

He's the ribeye thief.

Like, I still have to like keep up. I think tomorrow we're not running over.

No, we have to just keep them short.

Panel is over. We're filing out of there. Good questions, good thoughtful people here, and good answers too up there with some great insight, variety to insight. Hey, I've been admiring your shirt all day. Get this, get a shot of this shirt, Ken.

I brought one for you, man. I brought one for you. You know, you're— yes, see, I may be the permaculture pimp daddy, but you're the pimp daddy of poultry. But I'll tell you what I've been working on, and you guys are a big inspiration in it, is check it out. I might be the permaculture pimp daddy, but honestly, you won't believe what's happening. So I'm probably the first guy in America to actually do permaculture at work. So dig this, I actually talked them into letting me have this little site on a construction job. So I started an orchard, and then on top of that, permaculture orchard, you know, in accordance with the, uh, the guy you guys guys visit.

Trio of trees, then trio of shrubs underneath, and perennials, and that's it. It's pretty simple to lay out.

So, Koviak— I can actually say his last name.

Look at you.

So, Koviak, so, Koviak. So check this out, got that going. Actually started running chickens on the job. These people lost their minds because they said I could do it, and then when I actually did it, they were like, wait a minute.

So how'd you get that name? Permaculture.

Yeah. It was actually an accident, man.

We were—

it was— I was doing my PDC, the first PDC I ever did, before we did the online Jeff Lawton thing.

Yeah.

And the guy asked me, he says, hey, you know, we're doing a little— can you do like a testimonial? So I was just kind of, yeah, just kind of ad-libbing, making up some stuff, trying to be funny with it. And I was like pretending like I was in a York Peppermint Patty commercial, like, yeah, you know, when I come in this permaculture classroom, I get the sensation that I'm— I'm in the middle of Club 54, beats bumping, boom boom boom, girls yelling, is that you, Perma?

Permaculture Pimp Daddy.

And so it kind of, it was a joke, and then we kind of went with it. I was like, maybe we can dig it. But, and then also for me, since I'm trying to reach middle-aged people like myself, I've just started a YouTube channel.

Okay, so no, no, it's actually—

no, maybe I should.

Yes, it's Permapasture's Farm.

It's Permapasture's Farm.

Yeah, I get that, I get that, but it's not as memorable.

Yeah, but I don't want to make too much of a character of myself.

So the idea is, well, you're the Permaculture Pimp Daddy. At Permapassionist Farm.

Yeah, I tried saying that 3 times. I can say Sikoviak a whole lot better than I can that. But the cool thing is, is that I'm kind of sticking with it because I'm hoping maybe I can reach some of the people in the hood. Yeah, who will maybe gravitate to see somebody like me doing this stuff and they think maybe that might be accessible. I see this brother doing it, you know, hey, maybe I, you know, maybe I can do it too.

He's done though, he's like touched out.

What's happening here? What's happening here, Amy? Homesteaders of America. She's a baby stealer. You cranky?

He's all like, "Mom, take me home." How many is this for you?

2.

Okay, but there's 9 years between us.

Yeah, congratulations.

Years to have him.

So you're a trooper, put on this event with a little baby.

I know, right? Good job. It's not easy, but I have an awesome team.

Yeah, you have an awesome team. Here we go, last talk of the day. Are you tired, Ken? I am. Okay, yeah, it's winding down, but we're gonna finish strong, right, Ken?

Absolutely.

We're gonna finish strong, give these guys a great talk on using chickens in the garden so you don't have to do as much work. All right, let's do it. Might be the crazy chicken lady if— and guys too, you, you can also be the crazy chicken lady. You've, you— they've come inside on purpose for kicks and giggles. After permaculture chickens, we celebrated it. We brought a chicken inside and fed it what we were eating. You've at some point put an outfit on or walked them on a leash. We're losing more people. Come on. I mean, oh, we only got what, 5, 6 people? All right, we are back. And ready for the after party. Round 87. I hope I'm not— am I losing my voice? Feels like I'm losing my voice. But how often do we get to see our good friends from Wyoming, the Wieners from the Prairie Homestead? All right, all right, all right. Mr. Brown's begging me before we get talking, we gotta go to the hammock. I figured we should before it gets dark.

Is—

sure.

Make us like go upside down but not go upside down.

Get in the middle. We gotta get you in the middle. Okay, in the middle.

Don't let it go upside down, but like—

we're going back in. Supper should be ready soon.