I spent a day with Jess & Miah Sowards

How many cows you got to milk this morning, Jeremiah?

2 cows.

No Jessica this morning, huh?

She usually doesn't come out in the morning milking.

She does evening?

Yeah, we kind of give each other breaks.

That's smart.

Like, I'll machine milk this morning and then she'll hand milk Hope in the evening.

The horse? Whose idea was that?

I'd say probably it's a joint idea, but it probably was more my idea.

You're the cowboy, huh?

Yeah, well, I wouldn't call me a cowboy, but What's that? It's called a Cow Can't Kick. Some of the worst marketing in probably—

that's the name of it?

Yeah, and they spelled it all with K's. It's just— it's great.

You cannot acronym that. No, KK.

It's a great product. It's just like, I'm just like, why would you do that? Like, it's not even the right lettering for the correct spelling. So I don't know, it's a kick bar. Essentially, it's better than a hobble. It just puts a little bit of pressure on the nerves that run right by the udder, which keeps her from picking her foot up. And since we started using it, we don't have any more spilled milk.

It's going to hold your milking.

Yeah, we have a belly milker, so it hangs underneath them. So that way the— like on previous milkers, the line from where the cups are back to the tank are usually pretty long. This one, it keeps them short, so it's easy to clean. You don't have to like scrub out the lines and like dry them out and stuff. It's just real simple.

He's nodding his head behind you.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

See, this is the line.

Yeah, we're about to get couple of cows are going to do 3 gallons a day. That's going to be helpful milking 6 or more gallons a day, huh, Jenna?

Because I'm the one doing it.

Yeah, you don't want to milk it by hand like Grandpa? No, Grandpa milked 15 by hand. Yeah, but I guarantee twice a day.

I guarantee you the teats on those cows were not that small. Oh yeah, see, this is why we looked into a milker, because she's a great cow but her teeth are tiny, especially the back ones.

It's ready to go.

I'm gonna take that So all you got to clean out is these guys. Yeah, and then you're just gonna turn, let it catch up. Just doing 2 at a time?

No, I'm just— you got to do 1 at a time or it loses pressure. Because you know I'm saying that when I press down in the beginning, I was adding, making the vacuum. So if you pick them up all at the same time, you actually lose your pressure.

That's the Wilder Steel film crew for their show on Abundance Bus.

This is an essential oil-based fly spray.

Does it work?

Yep. Now then, you know, your chemical-based stuff will work like all day. This works about half the day.

Now you said Jessica does not use the machine in the afternoon. Why is that? She likes, uh, I'm gonna say to you, I'm gonna ask you this: what about the romance? Quietly getting some work done in the in the morning, the cool of the morning.

What about the romance?

Yeah, the romance is kind of out the window with that.

Oh no, that's very romantic to me. See, because my hands aren't doing this, so it really warms my heart and makes me feel special to not have to handle it. Yeah, I really appreciate the milking machine. Jessica, on the other hand, she comes out, she's the wordy poet, and so she's like, I miss, you know, getting my hands in there, and I'm like, okay.

Yeah, that's about a gallon and a half you got right there. Yeah, she's actually 5 minutes—

she's down in production, I think, because she's in heat.

Yeah, they go through a—

they go up and down, so she's on it down. Like, that's actually about a gallon less than what I've been getting consistently, but like I said, it fluctuates a little bit.

Where's your bull at?

I don't have a bull right now.

What are you gonna do for these two?

I've got a guy with sexed Jersey semen who's going to do AI.

Okay.

On both of them.

What do you guys do with all this milk, Jeremiah?

We've gotten creative. We make a lot of butter, cheese. We've been giving it away to families, local families that can appreciate, you know, wild milk.

What next, Jeremiah?

Uh, well, we gotta get the milk in and bottle it. We gotta get it cold.

First time driving a four-wheeler. Jeremiah wanted him over there to help haul the milk and splash stuff in. Just before lunch with Jessica herself. I was here in January.

Yes.

And already there's compost piles, there's layer chickens on the rise.

Got some— that's the next stage of brooding layers and ducks.

The greenhouse. Where do you want to take us?

Um, I guess people are going to want to see that. This is my favorite place. Yeah. So kind of working little bits at a time. So we've got like this little strip of planted garden, but we'll spread out. Um, I had all my fruit trees over here and we just moved them. And, uh, yeah, so we did the greenhouse. It's been in an order of importance, like we had to get the greenhouse to get the seeds started to get the gardens in. So priorities and just going down the list and what has to get done or else not get done.

I saw this brand spanking new in episode 7, Wilder Still.

Yeah, that was—

it was 7, right? It wasn't 8, right?

I think it was 7. Yeah, 7.

Yeah, there was nothing there during here. We actually— so much.

Yeah, we actually crunched because the camera crew was coming for episode 7, and Jeremiah and Wes were out here that morning like finishing putting the tin. Actually, the first thing I ever did with this greenhouse was shoot episode 7. That was the very first thing.

Yeah, Jeremiah and Wes. Wes from the shoot film crew?

No, Wes from the— from our friend. Yeah, he's been on the show.

Bearded Wes.

Yes, Bearded Wes. This is now very used. Uh, we started thousands of seeds in here which are now at this point planted out. Um, kind of some scraggly stuff in here that'll be planted as we have more space developed. But we got to get everything out of it here pretty soon because it's getting over 100 degrees in here. Yeah, as hot as it's been. Almost everything in here was started from seed.

Almost.

Actually, yeah, like 99.

And it's all jamming.

Yeah. How happy are you?

Are you happy?

I'm very happy.

Is this everything you thought it would be?

Yes. Look, look at it.

Sassafras. But you see her eggs?

She's got eggs under her. She keeps chasing me out of my garden. I'm like, listen, honey, we're gonna have to work something out.

There they are.

Okay, so what killdeers do is they try to lure you away by going and acting like they're hurt. So like, watch, watch your head.

She's gonna act like she's hurt and she's just crooked.

Lure me away.

She's gonna act like she's hurt so you can attack her.

Yeah, and get away from her babies. She's acting like the sacrifice of a mother.

She's acting like she's easy to catch.

Yeah. We put up two high tunnels, and one is more perennial focused and one is like annual focused. So here I did leave a space to be able to— like, these are my fruit trees, and we'll keep them under the shade cloth until we can plant them, as well as some other perennials. And then in here we've got rhubarb, and we're going to do some artichokes and some ginger and other things that can grow kind of like perennials. And then down the middle is all citrus because we can actually grow that here with some protection.

Nice. This is where the pigs were. She used—

they were here when you were here.

Yeah, you used the pigs. They were here in January.

Two pens that were the exact footprint of these, and we kept our pigs in them, and they trashed the—

they decimated it. And then you could put down your things. So how appreciative are you for this weed paper? I mean, this weed plastic. What'd you say, Ben?

He said you need to try this, it's really great.

It's really good. All right, try it.

Okay, it's very sour.

Try it, Jenna.

So just prepare yourself. It's called calamondin.

You're gonna tell me how it is.

It's fruit.

Why do you have that?

Why do I have it? Okay, so very much too sour to eat on their own, but really good for using for flavoring with like, like a lime. So you can make things with it. I put it all in my mouth. I've told everybody these are all chestnut trees that Will cold stratified a bunch of chestnuts over the winter and planted these. And so these are trees that are going to go up.

Jess, are you a crazy plant lady?

I don't know. What do you think?

If you have hundreds of plants without a plan, you might be a crazy plant lady. Maybe. You sound like Rebecca.

I know. Rebecca's greenhouse is like bursting at the seams. We're gonna start piling a lot of wood chips in here and working towards building an orchard around this pond at the end of the season.

Nice. Where are you gonna get your wood chips?

We've just put our name on all the local arborists' lists and they call us and we just ask them like where they got them and hopefully they don't have anything sprayed on them. Yeah, Maya bought this land without me seeing it. He came out here.

How'd you feel about that? I mean, I know it's a mega trust.

Yeah, it was, it was an exercise in trust. Um, but he brought me back out in April. So he came in December, he brought me in April, and when we were here visiting, we planted this tree. So it's now over a year old because we've been here.

This is why Ben likes it. It's your first tree you've ever planted. There's the famous, uh, dock we all went fishing, I think. Well, there's still episode 2-ish.

Yep.

You talking about the kids following your lead?

It's pretty cool looking at while they're still in like the way that we've— I mean, we have this memory book of this first year here kind of talking about the process.

I know.

And being here now on the weekend of the big event.

I know, it's pretty cool. The grand finale.

It felt very far away when we started.

Jess, when Jeremiah came down here and bought this, you were blind. Yeah, to it. Was this going to be a legacy property, like forever in the family type of thing, like you're going to be buried here, or was this just going to be, oh, we could flip it and find our dream home one day?

We really wanted a place to like come and stay forever, like we wanted deep roots. And so this property was a little smaller than we were looking for, but it was so usable, uh, being that it was all cleared and all of that stuff. There was a lot of open land around it, so the hope is, is down the road to be able to acquire more. When you have a lot of kids, you know, like, and hope to have them close, we'd like to have more land down the road.

You unloading it a little bit?

Now we get the cooler out.

We're about to take Jess on a ride, uh, to see her shop, but she's never ridden in a Tesla before. Hey, you're like me, you can't find a door handle. You figured it out though.

A little too fancy for this.

You have to talk to it. You say, open the door.

Like, is there a code or something?

Face recognition. Didn't recognize your face.

Wow, this is fancy, right?

Look at this. This is the key.

Oh my goodness, that's wild.

And you hold it up to the car to unlock it. He's like, that's not a car key.

He said no.

It's like a hotel key. You ready, Jess?

I don't know. Oh my God, Justin! What the heck?

First impression of the Tesla?

It's pretty nice. I feel honestly like I looked back and saw Ben sitting on that solid white seat. I feel like we're too dirty to be in that. This is not a farmer's car. This is not a farmer's car. I see my little farm kid back there looking.

Hopefully the Cybertruck is gray or something inside.

It's black. Oh, it's black.

That'll do.

That'll hide it.

So Jess, you said the town is dying or was dying. Why are you attracted to a dying— why is that an opportunity for you?

Well, I would say like it was very much dead 15 years ago, and there's been growth that's happening that's very commercial. And for me, being able to come into a place— I see all of those empty buildings not as economic failure but as economic opportunity, because a lot of people are going to be able to come in and open a boutique or a cafe or a donut shop or whatever, natural pet food store, and all these little things that a town of 5,000 not— might not be able to support. But if we are serving as an anchor point, all those empty spaces are opportunities for other people's dreams. Because like, I mean, you know, when you have a YouTube channel and an online business, like, you don't really have to open a brick and mortar. Like, we don't have to do that. We could have enough success just where we are. But by doing this, there's multiplication possible for other people. So the Dying gives lots of space.

There's a gym.

Yeah, so this is actually our building right here.

The white one or the orange one? Orange one.

Haha.

Should I park?

Um, go around back. Well, I have my keys for the back door.

And then that's closed?

That's a little wedding chapel, and then these are empty. And then those— there's like a hardware store and like an antique shop. There are several empty buildings.

You have dreams for that house right there?

Well, yeah, I own it.

You own that? You got it?

Well, then can we go look at it? Um, we We can't get in right now, but it's got— we could walk around it, but we can park back. You can park back here and we'll walk over.

But you want to have a little homestead there, a little coffee shop?

Coffee shop, yeah. So where people can come and kind of see. And then this is actually the roasting building.

What? All right, we gotta see this.

Yeah, pull in here and park in this back alley.

I phoned Rebecca in FaceTime.

So basically we have the main building, which is the— it's the Carolina Homestead Exchange, which is the store that is going to have like homesteading stuff. And I'll take you in there in a second, but this is the alley behind it. And we actually— this is part of our property here. And my vision here, we'll have the Roasting House, which will have like a pop-up coffee shop out of the back. And my hope is, is that we'll be able to do like these farmers markets and these events where we have all this outdoor space for foot traffic, that eventually once phase 2 is done, we can run into the coffee house property and we'll all this foot traffic area.

Nice.

That'll be really cool.

What about this, this glass here? You're gonna change this?

No, I want to keep that. So right now we have to have like the— like we have to have all this like remediated and whatever, whatever it's called. Yeah, professional. Yeah, because this was actually a burger joint in like the '50s.

Wow. So yeah, and this is going to be where you're going to roast coffee.

Roast coffee. And then we'll do like a little pop-up coffee shop in the back where you can come up to this window And like, we'll have all of this for foot traffic.

Next up, this is a— this is going to be a mercantile. Yes, the mercantile.

Wow. So tell us what you're going to keep, what you're going to— um, so we had them leave all the old fixtures because it— just to be able to use some of them. We probably won't use, but This is cool how they had the outlets. Yeah, so this was a hardware store, and you can kind of see that in these fixtures. So a lot of them we won't use, but some of these have been in here for like multiple generations. Like, check out those old bins. How cool are those? And then like these old tables, that mail bin.

Look at this view of the town. You see, that's a bustling town.

You're gonna have—

yeah, you're gonna see every shop open. Oh really?

Chicken section where we sell chicken.

Nice supplies. What else are you gonna sell here? Um, so you're gonna sell chicks here actually?

Yeah, that's the plan.

Oh nice.

For, you know, Murray McMurray. Can't work with Murray McMurray and not have chicks for sale. So we'll have our, you know, days that we have chicks in the spring, but we want to have chicken keeping supplies, uh, dairy. So like a place you can go in person and buy a stainless steel bucket or cheese cultures or um, you know, organic or natural mastitis treatment and stuff like that, because, you know, you can't just go buy that stuff anywhere.

It's like a Mass General store but with more of a farm, yeah, approach to it for homesteaders.

So we probably won't have tons of, like, you know, we'll have some tools that are specific to certain jobs, but mostly it's going to be home.

What are you going to put in this?

I don't know yet, but I love it so much.

Something's got to go in that.

Something good. That's what I'm gonna put in it. All right, so my favorite part. So back here is going to be the classroom, and in here is where we're going to have like— imagine the biology tables from 8th grade, you know? Like, we're going to have tables and a kitchen set up, and so you can come and sign up for classes and learn to start seeds or learn to do sourdough.

Here we have a house that she will use to model a backyard homestead. You have a little homestead back here?

Yep.

Teach that. Well, I, I shot two shows today and I don't think I concluded either one of them, so I'm gonna do it here. Forget if you see the same angle, same outfit at the end of two different videos. So here we go. The first one where we toured with Jess and Jeremiah, an amazing couple doing absolutely amazing things, as you can see from this video. If you don't already, I encourage you to follow them on YouTube at Roots and Refuge. I don't think you'll regret it if you like and are inspired by people doing really big things. That's Jess and Jeremiah.