Join us in Ohio for Food Independence (Sept 22-23)

and others at the Food Independence Summit in Ohio. This is not an online— well, I guess there's an online version, but this is an actual physical version. You can be there and meet and hang out with Joel Silton and I and Rebecca and other like-minded folks. I've left the link for that down in the descriptions. We are going to Hawaii, Ohio, and for that matter, we're going to Ohio in September, and then the only other event we'll do on the schedule this year is October, Homesteaders of America in Virginia. So there's only two places you can catch us. I would encourage you guys to get us there. Now live folks are coming in. We're just gonna hang out for a little bit, probably less than 10 minutes, just confirming the rumors. I mean, as soon as those the folks, the kind folks over there announced it, I was starting to get emails and messages, and now we've gotten a chance to go live and confirm it. Yes, we are going to the Food Independence Summit in Ohio. I'm going to tell you a quick story about food independence and what it means for us. But until then, let's share a little bit about what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about the Rooted Life at that event. And the Rooted Life is— it's growing food, but it's so much more than growing food. It's how to work with your family. It's how to get your children involved. It's how to push beyond illness. A lot of us are dealing with chronic illnesses or pains. How to do life balance. How do you balance things? Prioritize. Where in Ohio? You're gonna have to look at the, the link in the description to know exactly where and to get all your information. Very reasonably priced event. It's at a campground. Should be a lot of fun. This will be my first time going to the event, but I'm behind the organizers. Actually, Joel himself recommended these guys to me, as I guess he's for them for a bit, and he recommended them to me, and that's all I need, a word from Victor Justin Rhodes. So I'm there, they— we might have some hesitancy, looks like my internet might be in and out, so I'm gonna go ahead and make this short. Yeah, so our talk is gonna be on permaculture chickens. So how, how to, you know, you have a garden, you have chickens, but those two should totally be working together, and they totally can. So Permaculture chickens— how to raise chickens from hatching to the plate, uh, in a natural way that complements the rest of the farm. So we're talking about food independence. I can't think of much better than a chicken because it's delicious meat, it's wonderful eggs, basically on tap every single day. Absolutely incredible. And if push comes to shove, they don't have to have grain. There are many other ways to feed chickens with— without grain. There are at least a couple of dozen ways, pretty accessible to almost anybody. So chickens are amazing. We're going to talk about chickens, and of course we go beyond just raising the chickens, how to use them to improve the entire homestead, but then also how chickens can help you become food independent. Uh, quick story on that in just a second. I'll tell you about my other talk. Other talk is The— well, I already told you about the Rooted Life, so it's, it's, it's encompassing this whole lifestyle, not just growing food, work-life balance, that kind of thing. So yeah, okay, the permaculture chickens thing reminded me to tell you this story. Well, you know, we're all going along good. I've been, I've been making videos on YouTube for about 5-ish, uh, 5-ish years, 4 or 5 years at the time, and As you know, I started YouTube as a business. It's a way for us to share and teach and add value to what we know. We build and nurture an audience, and then we discover needs within that audience and create a service or product that solves that problem. And over the years, we have to identify, well, why, what Why do people homestead? Why do, why do people want to do this? And it was, for the longest time, it was for health. It was to save money. It was to be connected, be connected to your food. I did a survey once, and that was one of the most number one reasons you guys were growing your own food, is to be connected to your food source. And these are all wonderful and good things. But something happened in 2020. Things changed. And I spoke about it in my book, The Rooted Life. We talked about how in 2020, when phrases like food shortages, supply chain issues, those kinds of things entered our vernacular for the very first time, I can remember just right over there, you know, Randolph was coming to work He had no work during that time. You know, people weren't hiring, weren't advancing. Nobody was sure what was going on. This was early on. We brought him on. We brought him on. We took the chance. We brought him on and gave him some carpentry jobs during that time. We always have carpentry jobs here, handyman jobs really. And then he came in and he said, there's no chicken at the grocery store. That had never happened in 43 years of my life. Well, all I had to do was walk into my unfinished room and go to one of my freezers and hand him a couple of chickens. And that was part of the moment where I realized, you know, I even went into that time, it was a spring launch for Abundance Plus, it was time to do a spring registration, and I just wasn't sure. And so I talked to my assistant Heather and I said, you know, some people are losing their job. It feels kind of weird. Should we do this? And she's like, you have the answer. You have the answer. And I'm like, oh yes, I have the answer. I mean, Randolph says there's no chicken at the grocery store. I hand him a couple of chickens. You can— I guess it goes back to that old saying, you could give a man a fish and he won't be hungry that day, but if you teach a man how to fish, he won't be hungry ever again. So I can give Randolph chickens and/or I can teach him how to raise chickens and he won't ever have that problem again. So we went into that launch and our, you know, we still maintain the— I'm— this why Rebecca and I are doing this. We're doing this for health. It's still a way to save money. I mean, we went into that, people people were getting a $1,000, uh, stimulus, and we talked about what if you put $1,000 into a garden, even if you did the, the more expensive raised bed cedar lumber, uh, garden, you're gonna 3x your investment in one year. You're gonna 3 times— you're gonna get $3,000 worth of produce. Meat chickens, you're gonna double. Uh, layer, I, I forget how many laying eggs you would get out if you've invested $1,000 in the laying eggs. But basically outperforms the stock market by, I don't know, it averages 8% a year for the last 100 years. But we're talking about, uh, 100x, like 100%, no, 300%. We're talking 300%, okay? 200, 100 to 300% return on your money when you go into homesteading, when you invest in yourself in homesteading. So the point I'm trying to make here is that going into that, the message shifted a bit. It was then into more food security, wasn't it? It was then into more, if, if they don't have chicken at the grocery store, all you— no worries, all you got to do is go to your freezer. And that's what this event— I'm back. Hopefully that problem's good enough to conclude it. Some folks now. Cool, good for you. We'll see you guys there. Yes, we're having some technical issues. I'm gonna hang it up here. And that's all I really needed to say. More info down in the description. I left a link there. Oh, I would love to meet you guys, hang out with you guys there, and talk about this very important stuff. Alright.