In this 2‑hour vlog‑style recording, Justin Rhodes hosts the Homesteaders of America Business Weekend at Rory Feek’s farm. He opens by introducing the event, noting the presence of his children and a dog, and announces a book signing for his recent title The Rooted Life. Throughout the day he meets fellow homesteading YouTubers (The Real Teals, Hurricane Homestead), thanks sponsor Premier One Supply, and shares meals from the on‑site Carnivore Urban Market. The second half of the video is a live Q&A where attendees ask about practical homestead‑business challenges: pricing products versus feeding the family, navigating farm taxes and bureaucracy, deciding whether to join a Farm Bureau, integrating large families and homeschooling into farm work, and maintaining work‑life balance. Rhodes and other panelists respond with advice on mindset, involving kids in daily tasks, treating every day as “bring‑your‑kid‑to‑work,” and focusing on relationships over bureaucracy. The session ends with a teaser for upcoming vlogs with Jill Winger.
Chapters
We are speaking at Homesteaders of America, new event. It's a business weekend event. Super excited. You probably noticed we got all the niños on this business trip. Not by design, but by lack of grandma this weekend. We're gonna drop them off at a friend's house, Growing Up Naturally. So kind of them to offer to watch these kids during the day. We're still gonna have Mr. Henry, and we're gonna have Mr. Big Boy help us watch Henry. Looks like you guys are in good hands. You guys gonna have fun? We got a dog. Everybody gonna have fun today? Okay. All right, I think it's gonna be more fun than watching me talk for 2 hours. It's gonna be a lot more fun. They offered to watch Teddy too, so I think Teddy will have more fun here too, especially if there's another dog.
Oh my goodness, he's been crying, but I think he finally went to sleep.
He is asleep. We're gonna leave the car running with Jonah in there. We're at Rory Feek's farm. Beautiful farm. Going to check out, see where we maybe need to set up. We're going to be signing for my book, The Rooted Life. We're now here having a meetup. Look at all this. Everybody's having lunch. Have you eaten lunch yet? I haven't. What's your name?
My name is Greg.
Okay, you said that we've inspired you in some way.
Yes. So, well, I've been interested in getting a YouTube video or YouTube channel going, and watching yours over the years kind of gave me what I needed to say to just do it.
So about a year ago we started.
Yeah, what's the The YouTube channel, it's called The Real Teals, and we do homesteading.
Okay, cool. I do this so everybody can find you, but also so I can remember.
Dude, thanks, Justin.
Now go to the video.
Yeah, thank you so much, that means a lot.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
All right, take care. Thanks, Justin.
Yeah, we got another YouTuber here. Uh-oh, people like to find new YouTubers all the time. What's the name of the channel? Hurricane Homestead. Hurricane Homestead? Yep. Okay, I'm in your vlog, you're, you're in my vlog. That'll work. Okay, that'll work. All right, thanks. We'll go see what it's about. All right, looking forward to hearing you. It's going to be awesome.
Thanks.
Just met everybody. A lot of wonderful people here. Ambitious, hardworking world changers right here.
Alright, so today we're gonna start his 2-hour lecture. It's about the 20-hour work week and how to come home with content creation. So how many of you are already into the YouTube, blogging, content world?
A lot. What?
Good, okay. So how many of you know who Justin Rhodes is?
Who? We still lack a few.
Okay, well, he's got some good stuff for you these next couple hours. I do want to let you know Premier One Supply is once again sponsoring Justin for this event and all of our 2022 events. They were unable to make this event because of weather and all of that fun stuff, so, um, they aren't here, but, uh, Justin, I'm sure you've seen them use their netting and products on his YouTube channel. And so we just want to thank Premier One for sponsoring the HOA events once again this year. So I'm not going to take up any more of Justin's time.
We're going to get started. All right, thank you. Thank you. That's the secret to getting in the vlog— platforming. Platforming. Okay, good. We are back. Had a good time. Love meeting everyone. Good talk. We've got a special treat. Carnivore Urban Market. It's not often we get to eat out. It's actually been since May. Has it been since the last time we were here? Yeah, I think it was the last time we were here because they have a restaurant with grass-fed and organic options, so we are like We jump all over that. What'd you get, bro? Chicken tacos. What is it? Chicken tacos. Oh my, gluten-free desserts even. And I'm going all out. I got the pork— what was that called? It's like a—
it was called a pork Mexican street taco. No, Mexican pork sandwich or something.
And then I got the burger. Rebecca, what did you get? I bet she got the tacos. Oh, that's the kids' quesadilla.
I also went all out and I got pork tostada. I got a pork tostada.
Oh yeah.
And then I got, uh, nice steak tacos.
Another thing, since this is what we're calling a workcation, like it's a work trip but we're trying to make some fun with it, is dinner and a movie. Have you guys ever did dinner and a movie?
Yes.
Okay, cool, good. This coffee table serves as a good spot. There it is. They have a tortilla in the middle of that burger? Day 2, Homesteaders of America business. Today, a Q&A. It's cold. It's cold. It's been cold this trip.
We don't have an hour for this, so ask away. And Joel and Jesse, keep your answers a little bit shorter.
Alright.
Wow!
I didn't know this was a roast.
I'm sorry, I've been raising my hand so much. One question per person.
This question is for Sean and Beth. You had mentioned feeding your family first. So the problem I'm having is that our farm is doing well, our products are doing well, but they're expensive. So I'm having a hard time. We raise chickens, but we barely eat chicken because I keep thinking in my mind, oh my gosh, that's $64, you know, that I'm losing. How do I overcome that?
The—
we're selling, but it's for our family, but I'm realizing that I'm going to lose money if we're eating it.
Well, what do your kids say when you say, "I can't have that chicken"?
I have 4 teenage boys, and I mean—
And they're hungry. Yes. Yeah.
Right.
I think you should give yourself time to make this adjustment that you were— I think, reflect often. My most important product, the only one that matters. I get this, right? Because when you're feeding milk to a pig and you say to yourself, that's $8, right? Every day, $8. Shouldn't I sell the milk? I can go to the grocery store and buy $3 milk, feed that to my pigs. I'm such a milk to pigs person. I think over time, as you manage an ecosystem for real health, you get over that one. And it'd be a lot easier if it's— if you're looking into your kids' eyes as you're doing it. Cash ain't that important.
My question is, just starting out, we just got our farm in October, and we don't know what we don't know. Do we need to belong to a Farm Bureau? Do we need to know what kind of taxes our land needs to do? What we don't know, what we— I just, I don't know what I don't know. So where can I find that information out on those kinds of things?
That's why you're here.
Yes, yes, yes.
And so I can't think of a better way than to come to a thing like this, read, Do your videos, do your research, but I mean, I certainly wouldn't join the Farm Bureau.
That's like, anyway.
I figured maybe it was just a bunch of bureaucracy and crap.
So that's why I was like, I don't know if I should go and do that.
Yeah, so, so, you know, just, just find and build relationships with your tribe.
Okay.
And And that's the best you can do.
So as a group that obviously all has families, large families, what is some wisdom or best ways to make a farm or a homestead business work with also having like a large family? Most of us have homeschool children at home. Best way to make that work together without one overtaking the other?
For us, it's just including the kids as much as we can. So I try not to have— I mean, there's some instances where I can't avoid it. But I try not to have our business life and our homestead or homeschooling life super separate. So when we're doing renovations on a project, the kids are there. When we're doing our cattle work, kids are there. Um, you know, I can't have them in there when I'm recording podcasts, it gets a little hairy. But, you know, like including them as much as possible because I feel like we're, you know, we're homeschoolers. A big part of their education is coming to stuff like this, or, you know, being exposed to us working our cattle or talking about numbers on our restaurant, just as much to the school books they're doing. So that's, that's big for us.
Good. Get in the mindset of every day is bring your kid to work day on the farm and just plan everything to take 15, 20% longer. It's like planting seeds. Involve the kids, but plant 25, maybe even 50% more than you think you should because they're going to step, squash, whatever. Spill. So do that same thing with the work. We don't have a work-life balance. We threw that out the window a long time ago. My computer's right there in the middle of it all, and I love getting interrupted and helping in the middle of the things, and that's okay. We're all crazy, but sometimes crazy is the right thing to do.
One thing that we do is we make sure that the kids know how important they are to this operation, that they— we couldn't do this without them. Them. And so they, you know, the jobs are constantly changing. Who's doing the cooking this time, or who's doing the cleaning, or who's doing, you know, who has to go out and help with the milking or something like that. But they understand that this is a family project. And again, we, the hard balancing is, and we see it, is the people who can't wait to get off the farm when they grow up. So how do we make them a part of it, see how important it is, and still make them love it? And I think one of the things that's really important is that dads don't give the list and then send it to— send the kids out to go do it, but that mom and dad are out working with the kids when they're doing it.
Home sweet home. We've packed it up, we're on the road, and we're going back to the farm, which means about when you see this video, the very next video we're gonna do our vlog On the Farm with Jill Winger. Jill Winger and her family. And then we pick back up on daily Monday through Friday vlogs.
