Saying Goodbye to Annie + Hello Self Sufficiency

Just set out some chicken for a very special evening. We're having a goodbye celebration supper for Annie, aka the Smiling One. Morning. I need to get that meat thawed out really quick so I can marinate it. I gotta put a pulse on the farm. I've been gone for 4 days. Let's see what's going on. Did you do your chickens? No, about to. Turn the fence off, please. To talk about Annie, I gotta go a bit back to when we first— well, we've been homesteading 20 years. We've been documenting it for 10. We are homesteading. We are homesteaders. But then we found the blessing of turning into a business by making content surrounding it. That's these YouTube vlogs, that's Abundance Plus membership, that's my books, The Rooted Life, Homestead Builds, things like that. We set out into making content around homesteading as a business. It was a business play inspired by a mentor handing me the book 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, which is the idea to create content, build an audience. At that time it was create a video and a book companion on how to do something. Gideon, run get me the chicken feed please. I launched my first product, Permaculture Chickens. I had built up an audience with blogging. Y'all remember that? Blogging, like writing blog, and it did really well. We were blessed. I followed some business models I had learned online. I've been listening to— I had been listening to The Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn. I've been listening— I got the book Launch by Jeff Walker. Worm or something under the Feed. Look, they don't care about the feed, they'd go for the worms. But they love it. We could mimic that, guys. We could put logs in here and then move them out of the way and get the chickens some worms. That'd be free food right there. I think that's one of the things I taught back in the, the blog days, the permaculture chicken days, which I'm bringing it back. 10-year anniversary of permaculture chickens. I'm writing The Chicken Tender, which will be a book that encompasses what I taught 10 years ago with some updates. So I'm still doing that. I'm still doing that. We nurture and give valuable content to the audience, to you guys. Hopefully you learn something. Hopefully you're laughing. It's been our goal from the beginning. Hey, nest material is basically free. It's just they eat it or pick it out, so we have to replenish it from time to time. It gets pretty thin. We've worked hard. We've taking some risk. I mean, in those early days we had to. I was to the point I had Lyme disease, I wasn't able to physically contribute to the market farm we were doing, the ministry I was running, and it had to work. We were literally gonna sell— there's a 14-acre track right here, you have to go right through the middle of our property down here. We had— our family had more recently acquired that, and I was paying on that buying it for my dad, and we were literally gonna have to sell that just to be able to feed the family. We were jumping in dumpsters, we were renting out our spare bedroom on Airbnb, growing our food to survive. We were mowing to trade for rent and taking trash. We were scrapping by. Permaculture Chickens had to work, and thankfully it did. With some good fortune and hard work and risk-taking, it worked, and we continued that model of content and seeing the need of the audience and serving the audience with more product. What's that got to do with anything? Well, we hired our first employee to help free us up to keep doing that, to keep doing our job of creating the content. Y'all old schoolers remember Christy? We hired her to help watch the kids while we built the bus for the Great American Farm Tour. Some people would say, well, how did you afford Christy? And it was a, it was a risk. It was a Oh my goodness, we're gonna hope that if I get Christy, we can focus on these more on our work and bring in the extra income to pay for her and to continue to grow the business. So how do we pay for Christy? We— Christy is how we did that. Austin, if you haven't already, bring in a clip of Christy. There's probably definitely one in any of the bus build. Go back in time right now. And put some b— uh, bus footage as B-roll as I was talking about building the bus. After that, it was many wonderful people. I mean, we have Heather, my assistant. There's no way this business would be what it is without Heather. Let's see, after Christy, it was Anna who helped us restore our health. Got us on the GAPS diet, helped in the household, did a lot of cooking. Then of course, some of y'all's favorite, Randolph, helping us with the carpentry stuff. Some of you old schoolers remember Arun, who helped us out on the farm. What about Jacob, our physical trainer? Helped us get a good strong foundation so that now we can train ourselves. More recently, I want to say Little John because I knew him from when he was little. Our neighbor and our boys' best friend who would come and get some hours throughout the week. And then finally Annie, the smiley one. We're all gonna get to share more about what we're taking away from her in a bit. But why? What's happening? Well, there's two things. You know, this has always been a business and there's ebbs and flows in the business. In 2020 2022 was our peak. Everything was exploding. More and more people were at home. More and more people were wanting to get food security, and they were getting into homesteading. And then there was this boom, and we're happy to share during that boom. In fact, Randolph came during the— he came right there. We had this little talk right there at our mailbox at the road. He just drove over here one day during 2020, and he says, my work has dried up. Do you have any work for me? I said, we'll find some, and we've been employing him since. Now, interesting enough about Randolph, he's helping us with the guest cabin and Jonah's future home. He's helping us with that, and I had this conversation with him saying, hey Randolph, I don't know, we're not gonna have full-time work for you after this. And he's like, good, because I'm gonna retire. So that's working out. Incidentally, John moved away, and now we're laying off Annie. You know, there's these ebbs and flows. And so 2020, 2022 is this booming business, and it slowed down some. And also we're looking at our lives and saying, where are we now? We try to do that constantly. Wow, we have 3 teenagers. Rebecca's feeling great. Our house is established. In many ways, we've very much arrived. Our systems are established. We've gotten through the hurricane. We've got a couple of machines. 2 men. I'll say men. A 15-year-old and a 17-year-old. We didn't know how much of a blessing teenage years would be. And I enjoy so much making the vlogs and now the Instagram and X content. And it's— Austin's still editing. It's been neat to have a bit of a return. It's been happy and sad. And with Annie, it's— we want to now take more responsible, full responsibility for ourselves in the house and on the farm. And if that means we have to slow down, that means we slow down. It means— because we will miss her. She was a ferocious worker, and we won't be able to keep up at the pace we were. Our children will step up, we'll all step up, and we'll just continue to do the most important to remember our goals, growing our own food for health and wellness and longevity, and not stress out about it. Remember the goals, have our— make top priorities and do the most important work and call it a day. I mentioned all those people to say we did not build this alone. The Justin Rhodes Show is not alone. First of all, it's my family, and then it's these extended helpers. And then now it's to the point where, you know, Abundance Plus members are coming once a month to get an experience on the farm. They come and help us butcher. It's a broader family that has gotten here, and I appreciate you all for watching these shows, sticking with us. That helps tremendously. Those who have joined Abundance Plus or bought some of our books, thank you, thank you, thank you. I say all this because this isn't the Justin Rose Show. It really isn't. There's so many people are behind it help make it happen. I've got the chicken breasts peeled. We're making Chipotle copycat tonight. It's delicious. We're trying to make one of Annie's favorite meals she's had while she was here. Oh wow, you cleaned up. Thank you. Wow, I love it. It's Friday. We're prepping for rest day tomorrow. What's this?

Okay, so what I'm doing is I messed it up a little bit. So I— this was in a bowl. This is fat that we had fried in, and it was just sitting in a bowl, and I had thought, okay, well, I'll just pour some boiling water on it and clean it. But what I should have done is— and then I boiled it because it didn't heat— it didn't— the boiling water didn't melt all the fat.

The fat has separated and gone to the top.

Correct. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm going to put new water in here and I'm going to boil this.

Oh.

And so then, so when you boil it, the water and the fat, then they don't congeal, but they're all liquid. And then I'll put it in the fridge And the, the— this hopefully will get caught in the water because I'm not doing— because now I'm doing it properly.

So non-fat stuff that was spoiled, correct. I'm also trying to render some chicken skins to get schmaltz, which is chicken fat. Every day we are getting closer and closer to rid our dependence of boughten foods and growing our own. So right now we've bought smolts. Okay, we're about to come on the Grow 30— eat what you grow or have found within 100 miles. And I think we can sum it up like this: it's, it's, it's basically a 30-day reset to cut our grocery store habit and to open up our eyes to the abundance that's all around us.

I think about it like, I, my whole life I have than going to the grocery store. Yeah, like even when we've been growing food, I still go to grocery store. And so I think that doing something like this can break a habit.

Yeah.

And then you can kind of reassess and see like, okay, well, this— I do need to get this.

I'll probably break my daily peanut butter habit, right? But I'm not ridding it for my life.

No, I think that we can still still have peanut butter. But I think that it is a good— it's a reset. That's what it is. It's not about being too strict and not about having— not having fun. It's about reassessing things, and this is a good way to break habits and then reset. It will all melt. The impurities will fall to the— to the bottom because it's heavier. The oil will rise to the top. So and it will be able to put it back in.

Oh, okay, okay, we're saving our frying oil.

Correct, because it's not bad, it's just got a bunch of—

from the breading, it's just got the breading and all the weirdness. Wish me luck too. Our scissors were not sharp enough to dice this up, so— oh dear. Oh, it's better if we diced it. Yeah, this is not working. I need to cut it up, add more water, be around. I can't be around right now, so I'm gonna put this some paws. Rebecca's experiment though seems to be working. Oh, blueberries! That blueberries in Iowa, that blueberries in North Carolina. I will say these are a little bit sweeter. They're a lot sweeter. Iowa has a very alkaline soil. It's probably why they're so good at growing corn and vegetables. So they do struggle to grow blueberries. Look at this! Friday night family night. This is, uh, maple sugar Arrowroot and blueberries, lemon juice. Here's what we did with that chicken. Chipotle chicken. We just pulled it out of our hat for you, Annie.

Thank you.

Since you like all foods—

I do—

it's hard to give you a special meal.

This is a special meal.

This is your special meal. This is your goodbye meal. Yeah, because this is a Friday night, we eat special anyway. Let's make something for Annie.

Yeah, it's not a goodbye meal, it's a see you later.

Yeah, take turns blessing Annie, and then maybe if Annie can share something that maybe she'll never forget or she'll take away from here forever.

She's a good farmhand and she sometimes does the dishes.

That's all. Oh yeah, on your week too, right? You want to say something? Tell us the story about what you and Annie do together.

Thank you for being so nice to me and for caring about me and for letting me go with you.

I can't say that. You can't say that? Yeah, that's what you say.

No, no, I'm saying it for you. I like Annie because she sometimes cleans my room and does my laundry and she takes me to my horse lessons sometimes.

Have you ever cleaned her room?

Like once.

Okay, well, that, that made a lasting impression. She does take you to horse lessons, so yeah. Oh, what about her taking care of your horses while you're in Florida?

And she takes care of my horses when I'm in Florida.

She's nice, she's fun to be around, and she's a good farmhand. Yeah, yeah, you're part of the family now. You're a family blessing.

Yeah, that's I see you all do it all the time for one another, and it's, and it's so sweet and so special, and it's nice to get a blessing.

Yeah, you only need to practice.

Yeah, well, you've never been here on your birthday.

No.

So yeah, now you two have a special relationship, so I know you got something. I mean, Annie's always been a good farmhand, and she's willing to learn and help with anything.

We were hiring you, I was like, oh, I really hope she does come and take this job, because we were like, it would be really nice.

And it's been very nice—

and nice isn't the right word, I'm trying to think of the right word. So it's like comforting, or like just to have another adult here that can do things, that knows how do things, helps, like looks around and sees what needs to be done. You've done that for us, and we're eternally grateful for all that you've done for us. You've helped us tremendously, and so we are going to miss you so much. Yeah, I am glad that this is not goodbye for forever.

It's just— and you and Big Daddy might not think about this because you were on the other end, but when your mom was passing away. Yeah, I believe Annie worked for 10 days straight, and we never asked her to. We never asked her. And it was odd hours, it was long hours.

Yeah, and she just came and was like, you guys need support, I'm supporting you. And it was, it was just, it was like so comforting knowing that like you were here. Justin could leave and come help us and, um, like bring us food and support me and what I needed. But you were here like helping with the kids, doing things on the farm that need to be done, stuff like that.

Yeah. When you first came and you, you came as a farm sitter first, you were smiling the whole time. And worked really hard and weren't afraid to text me when we were gone. Because our farm sitters in the past would never text me with any problems, and we come home to big problems. You were such a good worker, we stole you from the whole community and hired you full-time. And you smiled when you came on that first day, and here you are still smiling.

Yeah.

So to me, you'll always be the smiling one.

Thank you.

And I try to let that rub off on me. At least in my heart I'm being a little more cheery because of you. Two things that stand out. When we were having to rebuild part of the basement wall and we had gotten some block, 12-inch block, and you grabbed two. And I couldn't do it. Boy, you never know when I make an impression. And he said, I got this, you know. Yeah. And he started walking. Oh yeah. Sometimes you can't even get a man to do that.

I know.

And then another thing is, um, you came up there and you weeded. Yeah, that flower garden. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was my absolute pleasure to do that for Beth.

I'll never forget that.

Yeah.

Thank you so much. Yeah. You weeded her flower bed at the end.

So, you had kind of given me some free rein on what you see needs done. Annie, you go to it, you know, and if, if there's something else that we need, we'll get a hold of you. Well, there was one day you all were just passing through and, and I think, I think Beth and I exchanged numbers so that I could run eggs up when you guys needed eggs. So that's how she had my number. And she reached out to me and asked if I would come and weed the garden. And I remember looking to Justin and Rebecca and saying like, I know you all hired me, and they're like, like, but is this okay if I go do this? And you're like, yes, please. And, and so I remember popping up one morning, and I think her garden was so telling of who she was.

Yeah.

And I'd never seen seashells in in a garden bed, and there were seashells everywhere. And then too, like this summer, uh, or this spring when Lily would— brought up a bouquet, it was all mostly from her garden. And so Beth had a good eye for things. And yeah, and just knowing too, to do that simple, simple task for her, to bring her that much joy um, was a gift. It was a gift to be able to do that for her and for you too.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Yeah.

And you got any long-lasting—

well, I was just thinking before we even started dinner, I thought I have never have put so much salt on my food before coming here. Um, salt. Salt brings out the flavor, and your farm— Stephanie taught me this term, it's called terroir, and it's a French term, and I'm sorry if I'm butchering the name of that, but it's literally the taste of your land. And like when you walk into the pole barn or near the animals and you kind of It's like you can almost smell your animals in your food, and I mean that in a really good way, not like in a bad way. Um, but it's neat. Yeah, yeah, look into it because it's really beautiful because you're not gonna get the taste that is on your table anywhere else. This is your farm. This is what you all have cultivated and created and I've been so fortunate to be able to be a part of it that it's not been a job. I've been saying that. Yeah, um, it's not been a job. It's been community. It's been family. It's been growing. It's been experiencing hard times together and experiencing good times together. You know, you celebrate the births on the farm and you celebrate and grieve the loss of what's on the farm, but you give thanks for it, and you sit down at this dinner table. You guys fix all of your meals, every single meal. Um, I've never had to run a dishwasher so much in my life. Um, and this family, the amount of dishes— that's not even— I know, that's— that's your mission, that's your passion. You guys You are educating people about good food, about health, and it just keeps going. It's caring for what's here, what's now, what's present, but then also caring for the future and the future that you want to build for yourselves. And what you guys teach every day, I think, is just timeless, and it will always be be timeless and always needed wherever you are in the world is community and growing and loving and nurturing and caring for one another and, and being healthy and living and loving life. So I've got definitely specific memories of everybody. I think what I'll do is I'll cherish those. I'd be glad to share with you, but we'll share everything.

Pie.

Yeah, there you go.

Look at how that turned out. That's the one you choose.

Yep. Let me be free.