Live at the Mother Earth News Fair Texas!

Hello! Oh wow, we, we're like, wow! And anybody seeing this part, you're seeing replay viewer, I think. Did we go live a little early because we're like 40 people on the show already? Okay, let's get some people going. We just went live.

It tells that it's—

so we got Holland Heroes already in there. How do we have a— uh, anyway, let's get some people on the show. 6 people, we're here. We're gonna let the public know. The public's been— know that we're live. Not trying to get out from— I'm just trying to show the— get, get the scope here as people roll in. We're about to walk across the Mother Earth News platform here in Texas. For those of you that cannot come, we miss you.

Yes, where are you?

Where you be?

I know, right?

Where you be this— what is it, Sunday?

It's Sunday.

This Sunday afternoon. It's later where we are. It's 2:30 at home. Oh wow, 1:30 here.

1:30 here.

This is a real live show, guys. I'm gonna walk around with the cell phone. Uh, hopefully I can, I can flip the camera.

Look, there we go.

Look at that. Look at this bookstore, y'all. Incredible bookstore at the Mother Earth News Fair. You ready to start walking, Rebecca? Maybe we'll see people, we'll see things, we'll talk to the people from live. Oh, we got Alaska in the house, we got Canada in the house, we got Hawaii. Uh, maybe I should face it out so you guys can actually see the booths. How about that? You guys want to see the booths? We're going to take you across the entire platform. There's booths, bookstores. What else is here, Rebecca? What, what have you liked to see?

Wow, there's BTS down there, and then there's just lots of good different types of vending. Like, here's the bees. Like, there's bees right there.

Wow. Oh, there are bees. Okay, let's go see the bees. Okay, nice. Real live bees in the house. Yeah, so somebody says so excited homesteading in Idaho is just so exciting. For the bees or for the Mother Earth News story? We're not sure, but they go together. All right, let's— we'll reverse it. Look at this, guys. It's in an auditorium, a dome. At first when we came in here, I'm like, what am I gonna speak in an auditorium. I actually did end up speaking in an auditorium right over there. Let me point this out to you. So, so I just did my talk right over there behind that. People were sitting up in there, people were sitting in there. Uh, that one was our story. We were unlikely homesteaders. Holston Roots says she loves bees. We were unlikely homesteaders. We didn't grow up doing this. And we, like everybody else, had to learn. Uh, we struggled with time, money, energy, and really got through it just with trial and error. A little bit of study, a lot of trial and error, and just getting through it, having a plan, reworking the plan, and trying to see— talking with folks. You love this. You love talking with everybody. I do. Meeting everybody. Okay, which way?

Straight.

We're going—

where are we going?

I am lost without her. Okay, so not only is it one building, not only is it one dome, it's one dome plus a building.

It was so nice today, I could even take my sweater off.

I thought you said this was sweater weather. Guys, it was going to be 76 today. 76. And Rebecca's telling me that's sweater weather.

Now it's cooler in this building cuz it's like a metal building.

If you were here with us This is the classic smell. I smell hay, a little bit of manure. Let's walk through the animal section. These people will be very mad at us if we— yes, we might polar plunge. Well, some guy told us about a river.

I didn't bring a baby.

Do you remember the name of the river?

No, but I could probably find it.

Okay, you Google it, I'll plunge. Bo and I will plunge.

Maybe Bo will plunge.

We could do that. This afternoon after lunch. Maybe we'll plunge. Should we plunge, guys? Should we find a— should we find this river and jump in it? I feel like it. I've been standing, I've been standing. I know he is sore, inflamed.

He's sore.

I need something more than the CBD oil you got at the other.

All right, there we go.

She's saying shut up and just show this, show the animals. We got Dexter cows. Okay, hey again, guys. Okay, we have Dexter's. We have a Dexter bull. Everybody, Sally would love to see the plunge. Jennifer says we should plunge. Jenny too.

I'm gonna talk to Bo.

So we're hanging out with Bo from Better Together Life, the shed to house conversion. I gotta see— I gotta find him. We gotta see if he'll go plunging with me. Because it's better with friends. You guys gotta— hey, you guys have got to see these pigs. You guys ready to see guinea hogs? Rebecca's about to convince me that we should get breeding guinea hogs.

Well, no, I didn't say they have to be guinea hogs. They could be something else. We should farrow some pigs.

Oh, you just want piglets? Yeah, you want to see why she wants piglets? Here we go, turn it around. Okay, bam! Does this zoom?

I think it does zoom.

Oh, it does.

Wow.

Oh, there's little piglets. What? And these are the kind you can pet, hang out with. Bacon seeds. Somebody said these are bacon seeds.

They are.

I get it, I get the joke. Hey, look who's here! Randy Kleiman is here!

Hey Randy!

Hey Randy! You're here, buddy. I shared your story yesterday on— in the speech, the 10 things I learned from the Great American Farm Tour. I don't want to move to Minnesota.

Negative.

Oh, I don't know. Let me straighten out here. Uh, what else? Oh, you want to see some, uh, chickens? Just in case you've never seen some chickens on this show, here you go. There's some chickens.

There's the turkey.

Oh, okay. Now you might not have seen this. Here's some turkey.

Yeah, it's really hanging.

You're welcome, Randy. The point is, it's a wonderful point. It's -60 up there. Tell me how cold it is there, Randy, because it's 76 here in Texas, and in Arizona they only have 3 inches of rain. But you and Arizona have something in common. Look, is that better?

It's better.

Can't really do that. Okay, so it's 19. It's 19 degrees. It's 19 degrees in Minnesota. I thought today was going to be a warm day. Hey, is Joe ready yet? Did we just walk through the whole place?

No.

Are we— I thought that's what we were going to do. Oh, you want to go walk through the booth area? And then come back to Joe. Um, I thought that's what we're gonna do. Anyway, the point is Randy's in my— oh, it's -23, Emery. And where? I don't know, she didn't say.

Terrible.

It's 45. Everybody's dropping their temps. Um, so we— Randy is in -6, -19 right now. It's 60, it's almost 70 degrees here in Texas. No, almost 80. It's probably nice in North Carolina where we are. It's probably 45.

It's like 50 today, I think.

Look at the tractors, right? That's nice, the big red tractors. It's— and the point is, Randy isn't moving. Like, you can cross state lines, bro. It's warmer in other places. And Danelle isn't leaving Arizona. It's only 3 inches of rain there. People were happy where they were.

Negative 34 wherever Lewis is.

We learned we can— you— we can be happy where we are. As beautiful one has told me, you can water, uh, the grass is greener where you water it, not on the other side of the fence. Now I can never move. Randy says now you can never move, then you kill my story. I'm sure I can make some joke out of it, Randy. You can move. Don't let my, uh, never move. He said okay, so we got Premier One fence. I could not do what I'd do without— well, uh, I thought we were gonna— do you want to show them in there real quick and come back? So tell Beau and Koli to meet us here in what, 5 minutes? So we'll come back. We'll come back to Premier One. Oh, Joe's available right now.

Can you hang out with Joe? Hey Joe, can you—

okay. Hey Joe, we're live. We're live right now, just so you know. 1,000 people. Hi everybody, I was— questions about fence?

Justin's got that.

Yeah, I like how you shift it off to me. You're— he's over it. He's been done answering those Why did you highlight the banding out of all your products?

Oh, so folks that don't have everything already. Yeah, this is just the basics for what a lot of people are using.

This is, this is a quite interesting product.

She's— they got the band out of all the things.

Well, I want people to come and talk to me.

What a conversation. So everybody needs to have this on their coffee table at home is what you're telling me. That's right, that'll get the talks going. So yeah, see, so Joe sent me one of these. I just got it. I just got it. Yeah, I just put it in the vlog. It's in, it's in Friday's vlog. Okay, well, so go check it out. I thanked you there. You're wondering why I haven't thanked you, but it's there. Oh, now I found you don't watch the show. Oh yeah, you were traveling. Yeah, we were too. So you sent me this. I'm looking forward to it because we can feed our sea monster feed in there. Sea monster, the chicken broilers. And, uh, it's plastic, so it's not going to rust. Correct. That, that other stuff rusts and they get too much iron. And, um, and we've been putting it on the ground, but sometimes they trample that. Yep. And they don't eat that well. So we're gonna try that.

What I really like— Joel was actually talking to me about this style of feeder, more or less told me to start offering it— is, yeah, that knurl in here.

Yeah, there's a lip.

Yeah, that lip. So when they're Is it packing and bringing their feet back? They're gonna leave it in the feeder. That's super less likely to drag it out.

I'm super excited about this. Are these for sale yet? Yes. Oh sweet. Yeah, I plugged it. I plugged it on Friday's vlog. You should go check it out. You sent me a nice card.

Yes, you did.

Okay. I'm like, I didn't order anything from Premier.

No, you're on a subscription service now.

Yep, I'm that guy.

Yeah, yeah.

So you guys, I'm not gonna soak the feet in that, but I'm gonna— I guess you could, but we don't like to feed the water from the soak of the feed. We like to pour that out, uh, that's where the impurities are. So we're going to use this feeder with our soaked feed, so it's moist. Yes, we would have strained it or poured out the liquid as best we could on the ground and then pour the rest in this. And because it's wet, that we're excited because we can feed our soaked feed and this not rust. And we've been feeding it on the ground, but I was like, I was telling Joe The chickens walk on that wet feed, it can get compact. And if you— we got to where we could feed just the right amount twice a day, but maybe with this we could just feed the once a day. So Randy in the house, Ken Chapel in the house, thank you guys for coming and moderating this and hanging out for a little bit. This is where we wanted to end. Maybe we'll poke our heads in the, in the booth area.

Can I have this catalog?

Oh no, I have more.

Okay, okay, okay.

So let's talk a little more.

Okay, you got a new catalog? Yep. Yep. Yes, we're gonna start, uh, smoothifying our cow operation, so we're gonna be taking a look at that and getting some— it—

yeah. But no, we— I like, cuz I was like, how I got— I started looking around like, Justin, why did you tell me about this? And he's like, you can look. So we're going to, we're going to do that soon.

I need to—

that's probably when we get back. I need to just walk all the bins and kind of like mark, mark all the how many I need of each thing, and then set up for multi-strand already, like cut some reels, so that way you can just kind of partially figure out what you're wanting to do.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The owner of a young boy wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt, please report to the information desk. Everybody's checking their shirt.

Is that me?

Once again, put the owner of a small boy wearing a shirt.

Good job, Jesse, catching us. Becky's getting catalogs. Yes. Oh yeah, she's got to ask about the mini reel. Okay, let's check out the mini reel.

The $89 range.

Okay, so do you have this where it can actually fit onto a T-post? Do you have anything that it can mount onto a T-post?

I Not this reel specifically. I have mounts for my EasyReels and EasyReel XLs as well.

How much bigger are they than that? This will be close. Okay, it's just across the street is what I need it for.

Uh, Randy said, am I visiting Jason? I'm talking to the crowd. Yes, we already visited them, but we were not able to shoot a show on them. We got a picture and we're not able to get a show due to time, but we did visit them. Daryl, the talk went really good.

Spider-Man's owners have been found. Once again, Spider-Man's owners have been found.

Hangs on the line. Okay, okay. So wrap it around the post a couple times.

I like that idea.

Okay, yeah, that way it's not actually touching the coast. Okay, right, right.

And honestly, I don't even know, do we even plug that in? Does that even get electricity?

I'm going to want to hear a guess.

Well, it's, it's because of why this— it's literally just a guide for them to go across the street. Like, it's not like— it doesn't—

no, that doesn't get electricity. That does not get electricity.

So that they don't go down the It's more just like, go this way, and then it goes like down our driveway.

And then it's only as we're just moving, bringing them in to milk.

Yeah, it's just for bringing them in to milk because we, you know, we rotate them every day. So like when they're way over there and we're way over here, we just gotta— yeah, just to kind of have a line. Okay.

All right.

Is that you? So look at that, Joe!

He made the catalog. I want to see a cover. When you catching the COVID Oh, you've already made the COVID because I want to autograph. See if you can— Ben can pull it out again, get you on there. Do you know all these people in the catalog?

Yes.

Are they like staff or staff spouses? And where do you set up all these fences that are just so immaculate. Yeah, you've been asked that question before. Okay, this is your job. This is what I do.

Uh, these are set up primarily on the premier farms.

Okay.

Uh, you just go through a poultry catalog.

Yeah, so they have to be set up completely correct. But anybody's fence could look like that if they take the time and do it right. I don't know, I don't know.

Uh, so that is actually our, uh, CEO's backyard.

Oh, here we go, he's showing us. Okay, that's cool.

His garden. And that's actually at Premier.

Okay, nice.

And this is Three Brothers Farm in Wisconsin. So we did make a trip.

You did. And then this is one— because our fences do not look like this. He did, remember? We fed him Bulletproof Coffee and yep, he fixed our fence. And we never saw any of them make the catalog. Our fences did not look like this. We moved those fences. Every single day, and they're lasting. They get ripped sometimes. We don't have time to repair.

I know, we need to repair.

We're just getting it done. Come out, come out and work on the fences and take some pictures.

So let me ask you some questions.

Who wants to see us in the Premier One catalog? Put some pressure on Joe.

Just one gate, or—

oh, people want to see a purchase. We'll get the banders. Look, I've told, I've told Rebecca we ain't buying anything. We're already at like 49 pounds with each of our, uh, check-ins.

Okay, so, so I think we could buy a fence tester.

We could probably get away with that, but is that going to be that exciting if I buy a fence tester? I'll have to see if he has them for sale. Oh yeah, we use them all the time. We couldn't do it with— to do without these guys. I know, right? You gotta get— you gotta get us in there. Get us in the catalog. Start a campaign. Rhodes in the Premier One catalog. I never dreamed of being in a catalog. Okay, back to business. All right, Joe, you got a lot of fans here. Somebody just said Premier One is the best. They also said, uh, who else better to be in the catalog than Justin? All right, so that was fun, guys. Thanks for getting on the show. We hung out for 20 minutes. For those of you can't be here, it's been a lot of fun. There's a lot of cool displays here. Uh, somebody asked how the talk went. It went really well. Where is Beau? He's supposed supposed to be over here. The talk went really well. We're unlikely homesteaders that went through common struggles just like you guys— time, money, energy, uh, fear of failure. And we overcome that by just getting a little information and then just going out and do and learning from that, just keeping on going out and do, failing a lot, failing small, hopefully taking baby steps, failing small but failing a lot. Fixing that situation and getting better every day. The other talk was on, uh, the Great American Farm Tour. I should have— they called it the top 10 things we learned from the Great American Farm Tour. I should have called it We Traveled America So You Don't Have To. Basically, the takeaway there is, in our search for a place, we realized everybody across America is so happy they're growing food. All you, all you guys are generally happy whether it's -60 in Minnesota or 3 inches of rain in Arizona, you guys are content and growing where you are. And ultimately, we went away with the grass is greener where you plant it, and— or where you water it. So the grass is greener where you water it, and that's been true for us because look what happened when we got home from the Great American Farm Tour. When we settled down and we, we put in the grind, what happened over 2 years? We We went from 2 freezers to 10 of our own homegrown food. Guys, we eat meat 3 meals a day. 3 meals a day, 6 people. We have enough for an entire year, and it's not stopping. It's continually coming, guys. 6 people, 3 meals a day. Clean meat, organic, pastured, forested. That can be you too. We were unlikely homesteaders. I told everybody here— should I tell you guys? There weren't a thousand people there. Should I tell you? Should I tell you what I wanted to be when I grow up? I should tell you because you came live. I love you. Rebecca grew up suburbia Florida. I grew up in the country but going to the city for school and everything else, in town every day. I wanted to be— now, guys, I graduated in '97. I'm giving you some hints. Uh, so what was going on in the music in the '90s? Yes, Justin, that's another hint. Was a grunge rocker. I wanted to be the next Nirvana. Oh my gosh, don't tell anybody, but my band was going to be called Utopia. We are unlikely homesteaders. That was our dreams as children. And now we are homesteaders. And it just takes putting one foot in front of the other, growing where you're planted, consistency, saying no to so many other things, saying no to the second car, second cell phone. Uh, for us it was going off farm for a job. We insisted on finding work that we could do work from home. Yeah, don't tell— I guess don't tell anybody else, guys. That was a secret for just us. I was going to be in a band. We were going to call it Utopia. I was going to be a grunge rock star. Problem is, I can't— I never even played an instrument, and I never even went to work at it. So I didn't work too hard on that dream, because the point is, the way we found success on the farm is: one, you gotta have a goal, you gotta know what you want. Two, you got to do a little bit of study, a little bit of study, not too much, don't get caught up there. And then 3, you've got to make a plan, whether it be in your head or on paper. Make a plan and then just go out and do it. Do the plan. Here's, here's why I don't end there, because when you do the plan, it rarely ever works out. So you got to go back and rework the plan, and that's okay, especially if you consider that as part of the process. And going into it, no, I'm gonna have to rework this, it's not so frustrating. It doesn't go as planned, it didn't grow as well, you need to move the fence, that's not the great place for the fence. That's then going inside and reworking the plan. Jeff Lawton, my permaculture teacher in Australia, taught me go inside, get some tea, rework the plan. Now theoretically, I've never gone inside and gotten any tea, but I love that concept and I think of it often when I have to rework something? My T is maybe I'll remember to what? Catch my breath. Catch my breath, right? Take a couple deep breaths. If I can remember, I put my hand on my heart, take 3 deep breaths. You'll see me do it sometimes in the vlog when I say what? Too blessed to be stressed. Or I'll say every day in every way I'm getting better. Do that. That's my taking of the T. When I don't have time to take no tea. But rework that plan and go at it. And then enjoy your day, your glory days in the hot sun. Enjoy that plate of food that you've grown that you can point out and say, I grew that, I grew that, I know that story. Not only do you know that story, you were a part of that story. And that story was hard. It was hard getting that chicken on the plate. It was hard getting those green beans. Because those chickens, you had to move them every week. You had to protect them from crows and from hawks and from Chidler stepping on them. You protected them. You bent over how many times for those chickens? And then those green beans, some of them got infected with a fungus and some of them didn't make it, but these did. And we had to pick through and we had to weed that, and the green beans made it. And then here's the pumpkin— pumpkin— here's some squash, you know, acorn squash, maybe. Here's some acorn squash. Squash, then you— that story is special because it was difficult and it has joy there. If it was easy, you might as well just go to the grocery store, and that's not a fun story. So there you go, that was the point. The fair is awesome, guys. You can catch me at the next fairs, uh, and Rebecca, she's going with every, every fair with me. The kids are coming to Nashville with us. The next one is in Nashville, Tennessee. Look up Ask Mr. Google Pants. I'll put a link in this video a little later. I should have done that beforehand, but now I realize I should put the link to all our speaking engagements, the Mother Earth News Fair, in the description. So you can just let me get you some links for that after the show. Maybe give me 10 minutes. And I'll have the links in the show notes for all you looking after, uh, the links in the show notes. Come see us, Tennessee, I think in May, May, and then July at Polyface. We're speaking both days there and all these, and then Pennsylvania in September. So we hope to see you guys there. Thanks for getting on and spending some time with me on this Sunday. Hey, Becky Doyle, I hope you guys have a great day. We love and appreciate you guys so much. Beau did not show up, so I cannot hassle him about going jumping in the big river with me. Maybe we'll find us a river we can jump into, cold plunge. Maybe not. We'll see. All right, goodbye guys. Have a good time. Hopefully we'll see you at the next Mother Earth News Fair.