Not happy? You Can Opt Out of Normal Life

We traveled home yesterday from the Mother Earth News Fair, Texas. I had a wonderful time. One last takeaway. So we're on our way out of Texas.

You know how you would—

when you go into the airport, you have to go through these gigantic body scanners? Those scanners, whatever you want to call them, whether you believe this or not, it's not really the point of this story, but those give off a radiation, EMF, and Rebecca and I don't think that's good for us. But we, like everybody else, just go right through. That's just gonna be the cost of traveling, isn't it? Yeah, it's gonna be the cost of traveling. Well, we must have been talking about that with a friend one day, and they said, you know, you can opt out, right? Wait, opt out? She said, yeah, all you got to do is say opt out.

Okay, all right.

Well, I remember thinking I'm thinking, "Okay, this is too good to be true." She did say, "Oh, but you do have to get physically scanned." Oh, okay. We'll take it. So we try that, and it's been a couple of travels back, and it works. So this time, you know, you go through the line, and I asked the guy, I said, "Who do I talk to about opting out?" And he's like, "Oh, that's me." You know, a little frustrated. That was the most frustrated anybody ever has been.

But actually, what do I want him to do? Get excited? I don't know what this gentleman is getting excited about. About to pat me down! You know?

Under my britches.

Every—

everywhere.

Are you nervous this time?

Um, not too bad.

You're doing so good. You know what I think it is? What? The polar plunges.

The polar plunges are helping.

Training yourself in those minor stresses, preparing for the very real stresses.

Yeah.

Well, this isn't really—

it's just I don't like it.

It's a real stress, honey. We're gonna be at 30,000 feet flying 700 miles an hour. Stop, stop talking.

Oh, sorry.

Okay, we're gonna be like a butterfly migrating.

Let's just not think about it. Let's just get through it and do it.

I don't convince you that it's a stress?

No, no, I know you're like trying to convince me.

It happens every day. It's safer than a car.

It is.

And like, these people, they all want to come home, so we're all going to go home.

Yep. I think I have to turn the camera off here.

When we did that podcast with Marty Rainey, so he being an off-grid in Alaska, that kind of lifestyle. And then there's me, very much on-grid but still doing a lot of the same. You know, he's hunting. I like to captivate my food.

Y'all go hunt.

I'm a control freak.

I like, I like them in a fence. When we get hungry, we just go out to the fence.

So we were, uh, Very much the same but also very different. But one thing we had in common, the overall theme, is that we had opted out. We had opted out of the mainstream. Most people are just going along with it. And I dare say a lot, most, maybe a lot, if not most, a lot are unhappy doing that. But they don't know one thing. You guys might not know One thing. And I'm here to tell you, like our friend told us, you can opt out. Stay with me there. So did you hear that? All you got to do is say, opt out. I'm getting out of this. I'm getting out of the rat race. I'm going to do whatever it takes. May not look the same for you as it looks for me. But if you want to go home, by golly, go home. Make it work if you want it.

You got to want it.

And never has there been a better time, more opportunities to be able to do that. It's hard. If this is your goal and this is where you are, there's a huge gap there. But you guys, I'm not afraid. You guys aren't afraid of some calluses on your hands.

That's true. That's true.

You can opt out. It's going to cost you something. You're going to have to get patted down and you're going to be the weirdo. And the one guy's going to roll his eyes because he's got to do it. But you can do it. Two things. It's there. It's a possibility. I'm here to tell you now it is.

Second thing.

It's more difficult. It's not as convenient. But it's better.

Back on the ground. Back in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina. I saw the Biltmore House from there.

Yes. I didn't. I was closing my eyes trying not to barf.

You're so glad to be back?

I'm so glad to be on the ground.

Grandma and Mr. Brown come to see us. Pick us up. The other kids are having too much fun. They're still at home. They wanted to stay home.

Let's go, let's go find the niños.

Is that our luggage right there, Becca?

Yeah. Why don't we drop all this stuff off?

Sure.

And then we'll get our luggage and we can sneak Eddie in.

Is that it? Yeah.

It's right there.

Letting him out.

Hey, little man.

You're here. We're back together.

Oh, you want a hug from me too? That's good. You saw me?

Oh, looky there. There.

Thank you.

Did you buy flowers?

Oh, you gave your mom flowers?

I missed you.

I'm glad to be back.

Are you shy?

No.

Okay, good. Good to see you, Grandma. Thanks for picking us up.

You're welcome.

You're gonna help? Okay, look for the cooler and a cardboard box.

Did you have fun with your friends?

All right, grab that side.

Okay, you got that side. Get over here. Good job. Are you helping me? Oh good. Let's put it down and then we'll put that box on this and then Pop will carry it. We're home, Becky.

I know, it feels so good.

Hey, hey!

Ow!

Running into me. The farm manager.

How does it look? You see nothing?

It looks good so far. Oh wow, it's clean up. You got a swing up there. You're gonna give me a hug or what? Yeah. Look at you guys making mud packs. I gotta go change and get these chores. Well, I'm out of touch. What do we got to do? Hey Anna!

Hey, welcome home!

Thank you. You packed our cooler spectacularly. It worked out amazing. Our favorite meal too. Oh my gosh, what's this meal called again? Creamy Tuscan chicken. Oh my. Rebecca, I will have to to unpack later. Okay, because I want to eat this dinner while it's hot. I couldn't unpack when it's dark. Come on, you want to go with?

No.

You sure? Just 20 minutes.

20 minutes?

Yeah, we don't have much to do, right? Afternoon chores don't take long. Yes. Oh, that's huge!

Cool.

I didn't mean to order such a big— oh wait, what else we get? Uh, just some vitamin C. Hey, where's my fence tester? I leave it in my apron. Is it not in the apron? How are you holding up? You feeling tired?

Yeah.

Look at you. You look like a big— you look like a little man right there. Good. Oh, you found it. Okay, good. So do you need a break? You want me to go out there this afternoon?

I'll take that up tomorrow.

Okay, you got it. And how about Mom and I— we're so proud of you, you guys did such a good job— we're gonna order you the Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon. Yes!

Yes!

Is that good? We didn't bring you anything, but we'll order you that as a bonus.

The expensive one or the non-expensive?

No.

Well, if you give it to me like that, the non-expensive one.

Okay.

You ran the farm. Ben helped, but you were here, and I'm sure you worked hard. Gideon, you coming with?

Yeah.

Okay. Oh yeah, get those shoes off. Where is he?

He's gonna fall on the table.

All right, Gideon, we're going. You gonna stay there and play? Have you been helping Jonah? Yeah, she's been getting up with you, Jonah. Okay, I got a surprise for you. I got a bonus for you guys, my farm hands. So you're getting your normal pay, but I'm gonna get you guys the Lego Millennium Falcon.

Thank you.

As a bonus.

Okay, is that it?

Good hard-working boys get a good reward.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, you're welcome. That's the only mineral we have to feed every day.

Mama told me every day take this and they needed it every day.

Hey Grace, how'd the boys do when I was gone?

Good.

They did good? You kept them in shape?

I filmed my video.

What video?

My Rhodes brows.

I didn't know about this.

I filmed it.

What do you mean Found it. I didn't know it was lost. Oh, oh, you filmed the video?

Yes. Okay, it's gonna be really cool, Papa. All right, it's a skit. It's a skit about— and it's a B-continued skit too.

Really? Ooh, hold them in suspense. I like skits. Checking your water, that's good. Ben did a good job there doing the water.

It does a good job.

Yeah, he does. Which would you rather have, more pay or a Lego?

Lego.

All right, so we had a little problem while I was gone. Jonah called me, he said our big Energizer wasn't kicking hard anymore. It's too much for him to troubleshoot, so you put that one on it. Let's test it. Let's test the fence.

Guess what happened?

What?

When I took this one off of Lily's, because I put the nicer one on, the mini version, this one I just hooked it up, it was hitting at 13.0 because she never—

I was doing good, the 120. All right, test the fence. Let's just see if it's doing good. 4.3.

Okay, 2.3 then. I'll take it going up and down.

Well, you have to make sure you get it on like a— oh look, it's hitting right there, guys.

What?

Right there. See how that's— look, look, see how you're getting that in the metal? Yeah. Oh, that will not only bring the power of the fence down, it'll run the battery dead. Uh, we'll test it on our way out. Have we handled these guys at all?

Yes, I touched one every time I came out here.

That's good. Plenty of water.

I was so scared it was gonna be okay, really low.

Oh no, it's, it's, it's good since we brought water just in case. It's just fine. Ben did a good job. That was on his list, check the waters, and he did a good job. He did his job. Let's check their minerals. They have a little bit of everything still. Are they out of that vitamin C? Yeah, really? Did they eat it every day?

Every day.

Yes, Josiah.

One day the cows actually brought themselves in, like they broke out and they came.

Really? Yeah, they all came into the—

yeah, but Studd and I can't get in.

She just walked right up in here.

Come on, you gotta put the calves in, Papa.

Oh, you didn't put the calves in?

No, I forgot. I thought I was waiting on chores for you.

Look at Grace, she's already on it. Yeah, boy, she's got the groove down, but it's cut off somewhere. Nothing. Okay, so in the future you just do that and go back and figure out where it's—

I will.

Not making the connection.

Maybe I'll do that tomorrow and then I don't have to worry about any chores.

That's fine.

Do you mind if I just do that?

No, that's fine.

I love the cow fence.

You love the cow fence work?

I love this, like I just love moving the cows and feeding.

Oh wait, Josiah, do you just run them right under the fence? There we go. Well, that works, Josiah. Good job. Look at this. Oh, Jonah, catch him up top. Whoa, here it comes, here it comes, here comes Josiah. There we go. Good, good job, guys.

The day you left, the cows got out.

I heard.

Like they know you're not here and they know that it's harder for us to get them back in than it is for you.

Yeah, let's see how hot this is now that we fixed it there at the bottom. So you, you measure it right on top of a metal wire. See, it's hitting at 9.5, 0.3. That's much better. 10, that's great. So that's probably got a dead battery in it.

2, 1.5.

So normally I come back with a lot of energy and you're tired. No, I'm tired. I'm tired. I come to a new energy with the farm. Sure, it's good to get away from the farm because you do come back with a new energy, even if it's a business trip. Hey, will you put that— pick that up, Jonah? But yeah, good job. How do we get these boys excited about work? Well, we pay them. There are chores they have to do because they live with us, but all this extra stuff, you being part of the business, you get paid. I guess the Legos is a really good bonus, huh? Maybe next time.

Get them while you're gone. Get them before you're gone.

Oh, get them before I'm gone?

Ask us what we'd want or something, and then we'll tell you and you'll get it.

And that'll get you excited about doing your chores?

Yeah, because I'm like—

But what if the joy Diminished after day one. Oh, you got to be doing the chores looking forward to something.

The Millennium Falcon's gonna take us forever to build.

It's huge.

Ah, holy smokes, look at all the grass growing already. Let's go, grass grew while I was gone. Let's check on the pigs real quick. Oh, let's come skim right here while Josiah gets us a flake of hay for the luchadores. Hey guys, I want to show you this in a second. You see the We have— we've hired a guy with his, uh, what do you call that? Why can I not think of the name of that?

Uh, excavator?

No, mini excavator. Uh, back track hoe, right?

No, it's an excavator.

Okay, excavator. Oh, what's up with the block? Somebody put a block in here.

So open it.

Watch this.

You guys have grown just since I've been gone.

Get in there!

Wow, good job, Jonah.

Good job.

And it's nice, we don't have to feed them water. They got their nipple on.

Not leaking a bit.

It looks like it's leaking right here.

Oh, oh boy, it is.

But nothing major.

I didn't see that.

I don't think that's major. Let's see how much water we got left. Nah, that's nothing major. There's plenty of water. Okay, let's go show them the excavating job in our garden area. When we would walk out here, all of a sudden there was a hole in the ground. And when it rained, water would come up out of the hole. And at first I just didn't know. I just thought it was crazy rain. What?

It's about right here somewhere.

It was about right here, and it would come up and flood our gardens. So we hired this guy and he dug this. We finally figured out that our culvert had gotten busted somehow. You think that was the bust? Yeah, I mean, because he busted it pulling it out. Would you think that was the bust?

That's probably getting busted.

So this had busted, and so I guess he pulled— he pulled out a lot because he went from way up there, he went from way up there to right down there. Look, he pulled this.

Oh, and he pulled up—

he got up our walnut tree. We asked him to do that with that little thing because we weren't gonna do it. I know that's That probably took him a while, huh?

Yeah, I saw him.

He was like— we did get rid of our walnut tree. It's not great for gardens. It puts off a, I don't know, thingamajigger. Only like tomatoes and peppers would do good around a walnut tree.

Look at that pipe.

Wow.

Oh, it was built up too because of the hole. Yeah, it was full of dirt. Hey, you want to go see? Let's go see if anything coming out of it. Well, I don't think there's anything coming out right now because there's no rain event.

It's—

that's a ditch.

I would go in there, but I think I have holes in my rubber boots.

I got new rubber boots.

Well, you want to go in there with the vloggers? Wait, is nothing coming out? There is.

See it?

Yeah. All right, let's go to the luchas real quick and then we can eat. Summer out here, it feels great down there. Josiah, did you put a flake of hay in the Sally?

Oh wait, no.

Okay, I can't believe the grass. And here I was afraid I'm gonna run out of hay. No, we're gonna be done feeding hay. We're like gonna be done feeding hay in 2 weeks at this rate. Throw it in where there's no poop. Right there. Good. They say, fine, get away from me, let me have my hay in peace.

Want to shut the chickens up tonight with me?

Sure.

The vloggers never see it.

Yeah, you guys never get to see that. Let's do that.

Kitty, do you want one of these?

Do you want a drumstick?

What's that?

It's some chicken.

Yeah, I want to take it out. I want to do a casserole pack. Uh, while I do the casserole pack, we can watch the rest of Survivor. Did you guys watch it without me?

No.

Okay, sounds like a plan.

Oh, the little tiny dad.

What about Lily's birds? Y'all put them out? Okay, we're starting with 3 eggs. Why are we starting with 3 eggs?

I don't know, I just throw this in there from yesterday, so I'm going to start out with it.

Wow, we got some packages that involve a wooden crate.

Holy mackerel!

We're going to see what that is tomorrow. Josiah's not fooling. He's done getting his eggs. How many eggs you get? Good night. Do you say good night? Do you ever talk to the chickens?

No.

No? Okay, good. That means you're probably not the crazy chicken lady. Have you ever named a chicken?

Yeah.

Oh, okay, okay. Well, you might be a crazy chicken lady.

You actually did name it, but I liked it.

Oh yeah, you're shutting off all the lights.

Every single light.

That's good. Look at all the lights that were on.

That's my everyday morning.

Okay, good.

Uh-oh, the Everflow's leaking.

Yeah, every time.

Well, then there's something— there's something in it stuck.

Yeah, it gets stuck.

No, it has to be deep cleaned.

I'm pulling out crazy amounts.

You are?

Yeah.

And then it starts flowing again. I still think it's clogged up in there somewhere. There's like no compost pile here.

I almost got the hauler boys and do this.

Oh my gosh, come on, let's get the eggs. Let's see what we're looking at here. Oh my gosh, eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs. Mucho huevos. Can y'all say mucho huevos? Huevos.

Mucho huevos.

Mucho huevos. Look, here's the Millennium Falcon me and Josiah are gonna get.

This is the one you're picking out?

Yeah, you don't, you want us to get the $800 one?

No, Lord no.

Let me show you it.

No, okay. Yeah, we don't need that one. $800.