This Homestead Festival Gives me Hope For the Future

Happy day. We visit the largest gas station in the world. I move cows with Daniel Salatin and Rory Feek. How's that gonna go? I'm gonna do chores with triples, 13 years old, sheep and chickens. What do we have to learn? Then the Homestead Fest. We basically turned off the news for 5 days and it gave me hope for the future. The largest gas station there is. Hey, come here, grab Henry out. Do you know that Texas bought Arkansas? They're turning into one giant Buc-ee's. That dude, this is crazy. She's the only person that doesn't like Buc-ee's. Why don't you like Buc-ee's?

She's so like big and long and you gotta walk so far to go to the bathroom.

Yeah, but we need to walk. We've been in a car. I just need to take her to the wall of candy. Call the Enquirer. There's something on the floor in the bathroom. I do like these, uh, very private stalls. Usually it's impeccably clean, but maybe because it's summer. Look at these humps.

You look very homeless.

You look very homeless. How's that lamb stew? It's good. It's good, huh? And how did your, uh, Brussels sprouts carry? They were good.

They were a little cold. Oh, they weren't like cold, but they weren't hot.

They Does that stay cold?

No, this is warm. This is very nice. This is perfect temp.

We forgot to go to the wall of candy.

Oh, you're funny. Just what we need.

Get me some Reese's Cups.

Pack some pounds on.

You're gonna prep your speech now? I don't know, I might have to wait till we get there.

I can't really look.

It's hard. It's hard with all the kids.

Turn left on Tennessee 462 Interstate Drive, then turn left on—

It's hard to work on the road. Potty break, but it's no Buc-ee's. So that's why we brought the compost toilet. All right, do you need me to move that cooler? You got it. Got about an hour and a half. You're about ready to be there.

And root beer concentrate, then, Josh. My husband does it, so I'm not sure exactly what's all in it.

I'm fascinated by this package. So this is a plastic or glass?

It's actually— it's plastic. Um, okay, it's plastic, but I don't know, my husband found it and he thought machine and all the cups to go in it.

She's putting the concentrate in, then you're putting the carbonate in— carbonation in. Nice family business. We're going with, uh, Daniel Salatin. What's up? To— you're going to move Rory's cows?

We're going to move Rory's feed cows. Yeah, I think we're going to run into, uh—

and we hear him moving—

that Greg Judy guy.

Oh, he might see if we can— he might know what finger to—

nice guts on those cows. Yeah, boys, look at that.

Hey, should we video bomb? You want to go video bomb his show? Even Daniel Salatin struggles sometimes with a, uh, yeah, somebody's new thing with the Energizer. You guys are using these now?

We use some of these, yeah.

Do they work on that big scale?

Yeah, I've not used this one specifically, but they look like they do pretty well.

Yeah, right.

Rory Feek Homestead Festival, you get to do some crazy stuff like behind the scenes.

We gotta, uh, Video bomb.

You look straight in the camera right there and you say, guys, look at the video, look at the gut on that cow, folks, look at the gut on that cow.

This is great, we love what you're doing, buddy, keep it up.

I mean, there's enough of us, we could just about—

oh, I—

so you're just looking—

there's that, there's that over there, let's just— yeah, we can figure that out. Oh, here comes Roy there.

Oh, he's gonna just do a— he'll let him walk back to the water. Did you really just test it to see if it was on?

Yeah, grab the, grab the end.

We'll just pick the—

you get a post here, get the end down there. Here, Justin, put yourself to work. It says—

okay, okay, hold my camera. All right, that post. Okay, we're just going to move the whole line of fence. Look, he's pretty good. Look at that. All right. They ran with him. That's one way to do it, wasn't it? Instead of making the other line first, we just get enough people. Wow. I don't know why they're not just going into it. Why do you think they're not just eating? Because they're cows and grass is always greener on the other side. Why do you think they didn't just go right over and just start eating like normally?

They're a little jacked up, I would say.

Just all the difference, all the activity and all the people and us moving them, not Rory. Hey Rory, what are you gonna do with these guys?

Cows are very habitual things, and anything outside—

Yeah, have you sold some of them? Are you gonna eat them all yourself? Heck yeah, you look great. Thank you, you guys are doing well. Thank you. Your son looks great. Yeah, we're doing well. I'm glad you're back here with us. Yeah, I know, I'm so glad you had me back. We were afraid we were gonna lose our relevancy.

We set the next cross fence 2 posts down, right, Mr. Rory? Yeah, like the Dolly song.

How do you know? How do you know that's enough? Or too much? Is it enough or too much, Daniel?

It looks amazing. I don't know, they just stay—

how do you know?

Uh, I mean, how many days were they on that paddock?

One.

Nice, awesome.

That's a pretty well-grazed paddock, right?

That looks great, that's awesome.

Well, okay, part of it has— it's pretty, uh, I've tried to analyze it pretty well. We've got a big festival, I need to give them into a little bit of room, a little bit more, a little bit more room, and then when we run out, which is Let's see, what's 4 days from now? Something like that. I have no idea what we'll do from there, but we've got 4 good days, right? If this is just for you and your family, you're there, bud. Talk about arrival. Yeah, what do you mean? Just let's harvest, let's go. Oh no, when they get a couple more down, I'll move the water. So what will you do in 4 days? You really don't know? No, I don't know. We've got 4 really good days here, Jeff. Okay.

I don't know the rest of it, so I need some help.

Because he says it all the time. Rory's next big hit. What is it, two paddocks down?

Is that what you said? I said two posts down.

Two posts down. We're rocking it, having a party. Hey, good morning. What do you have there? They gave you some boots?

Yeah, they said I should take them home.

They said you could take them home? Hey, what happened to your Chickshaw?

Uh, that one got busted in a tornado.

Whoa, you got an OG chick, Shaw. All right, we're gonna go do chores.

If you want the real thing, you have to follow Judah. Judah's the chicken man.

Judah's the chicken man?

Yeah.

Is this what you raised your meat chickens in?

Yes.

Why did it fall apart?

Uh, because we got it from a guy who was gonna be done with meat chickens and it's just falling apart.

This is Emma, everyone, our host.

McKenna.

Oh, McKenna, sorry. Why do you guys look so much alike?

You have triplets?

Oh, you are the triplets? Yes, you're the triplets with, uh, Emma and Noah.

Yeah. Okay, all right, Sadie, stay still.

Whoa, we're moving these guys?

Not yet, I think we're moving them in the afternoon. I don't even know when, I'll have to ask Dad. I guess we just check on the waters and then I'll go ask Dad.

Okay. Where's the ram?

We butchered the ram.

Okay, he did his job, he's done. Oh, you like this waterer? Yes, I saw one of these at the event yesterday.

That holds a lot of water, it's easy to move. We just like to leave it open sometimes so it doesn't get hot and it doesn't— like when it rains, it fills up.

Oh nice, nice chickshaw. I see you didn't let the tornado keep you down? Do you move the chickens to where the sheep were? So this is the sheep, this is the chicken. When you move them, they come in here?

Yeah, but they don't—

they're not as excited as the sheep. Is that right? Is it bad?

No, it's just different.

Look at this! Yeehaw! We gotta move them today. They're hungry. Yeah, you're gonna move them this morning or afternoon?

I think we're doing them— he just said this morning. I mean, you could probably go ahead and get the paddock set up. Okay, good. And then a lot easier.

Oh, you need me to get the other one? You want me to get the other one?

We only use one for now.

Where are you gonna put them?

Right here. And then we'll kind of come back out because Dad wants to use this grass up So nice.

What are you gonna do with all this grass? Okay, well folks, that's what you do if you don't want to wrestle a fence. I know, you just kick it and unroll it and go back and put it up. So where are you going to string trim?

Um, well, we're gonna lay the fence out and then we'll just move it slightly in and then— well, it's already string trimmed here now. Well, yeah, string trim here and then right there.

All right, you're gonna set the fence up so you know exactly where it's going to be, and then you move it slightly out of the way to string trim it.

Yep.

I mean, Dad doesn't, but I'm not risking cutting the fence.

Johnny, you want to come help him?

He doesn't have to. You guys are on vacation technically. You wouldn't want to do this.

We're on workation.

Huh?

We're on a workation. You want to mow this, right, with the sheep?

Yeah.

So you want to go include the swing? Are you afraid the sheep are going to get on that swing and have a little fun?

Nah.

What would you do if you came out here and you saw one of them sheep on that swing having a good time?

They probably just poop on it.

Well, whoever comes out here and swings on that, uh, us. Oh, you do?

It's kind of crooked.

No fun for the sheep.

They get the alfalfa.

Yeah, that's their fun. I thought they were gonna come down through here, be a small paddock. Yeah, what you can do is just unroll it how you think. Yeah, and get to the end, and then you go and adjust your circle based on— yeah, well, I can go from the end. Does that make sense?

Yeah, right.

You roll this out and get to the end, and then you tighten it up, making it bigger and bigger or smaller and smaller. You want to help them, Jonah?

I just don't feel like you guys should help.

Oh really?

Yes, you guys are on vacation even though you're doing a little work.

It's one of life's greatest pleasures, sit here and watch somebody else work. You're gonna have to start making your turn pretty soon. Can't not help. You're gonna sell your sheep?

Yeah.

Oh really? This must be the 182 feet net. You gonna wield that electric string trimmer? Yeah, it's really light compared to the gas one. Go. You see where this is? Come on. We ready for the move?

Yep.

But that ever get old to you?

Not really, but we need her to get out. Oh, come on. Thank you.

Yes sir. That's an easy way to do it. So we're gonna move the chickens too?

Yep.

Oh cool. I think the bell's ringing for breakfast.

I know, I know. We better hurry.

Tofu or tempeh coming in. That's zone. Joke's a little old. It's gonna be a good dad joke if it didn't overuse it. Look at that, they got them moving to nothing over here. I like how our yard using one fence and then and having the sheep run through it and then the chickens. Putting a FiberTuff post in. What do you got, fans?

Oh my gosh, they kill the mosquitoes and flies.

Oh nice, you like that sourdough bread Mrs. Fountain made? It's nice. What about that pop? Good. Thankfully the rain's holding off for a moment. It rained on the way here.

It did.

I don't think it's touched this.

It's not rained here yet. Hopefully it won't.

So you think we'll be spared?

I hope.

I could almost use some rain though.

No, it just makes it more humid.

I see.

It doesn't, it doesn't make the rain go— I mean, it doesn't make the heat go away.

I see.

Hi, this is Rose.

Nice to meet you. Where are you guys from?

Um, originally, originally I'm from Haiti. My husband's from Nigeria, but we grew up in New York City and COVID happened and we realized a lot of the limitations in New York City in our life and we moved to Middle Tennessee. Now we're like an hour from here. So we are happy. It's funny because now we're like, we need more land, but we started small.

I mean, what homesteader doesn't say, I need more land?

This is your talk?

I don't know, I'm so scared.

It's huge.

Yeah, I know.

Back.

Okay, I don't know if I can handle this.

Why not?

This is a lot of people. I've never had a talk this big before.

Okay, well, look for the—

oh my gosh, just do this.

Look for the friendly faces. You're just here to wash dishes.

Okay, and there's the podium.

That's good.

You're just serving. If you freak out, you can give me your notes and I'll prompt you with questions.

Okay? I've been practicing for probably a month now, and I'm gonna go slow. I'm not gonna talk fast. I'm not gonna be nervous.

Don't grip the mic so hard you're sore afterwards.

When I spoke, I think it was The first year they had me here, I gripped the microphone so tight that like 30 minutes in this muscle like was seized up and then I was like shaking. I was like, I gotta move the mic over here and then I was like, oh, I'm gonna drop it. So I'm gonna try and not—

I gotta go home and burn my mattress now.

If you wanna come with me.

Turn off my Wi-Fi.

It's 1:16 PM right there.

How do you think you did?

I think I did okay.

Did I do okay? You get better and better every time.

I have been working really hard visualizing me not being like so clammed up and scared and like gripping the mic at a ridiculous—

you didn't grip the mic—

and like being, um, you were sweating like crazy.

I saw sweat coming down your legs.

Oh my gosh, I had sweat pouring down my legs. Like, my underwear are wet. I know that's pretty TMI, but I was like, I was like, he's like going down my back and I might— I mean, like, I am like under my armpits is completely wet. I think this is one of my better talks, like, like that I'm more—

You're in good company.

I've learned a lot about it.

You're in good company.

I hope that people were like encouraged and inspired and like will make change in their life.

Jonah's going over here.

If they need to.

I think so. I think so. You had them engaged the whole time? Yeah. Jonah, where's Gideon?

This is the tent.

This is bad. So the speakers and the VIPs have an air conditioning tent. This is nice. And private-ish bathroom. I want a tour of this bathroom. Air conditioning. Little tiny sink. This is airplane-esque. Sweat going away. Had sweat around my belly. Hopefully it doesn't start developing around my crotch. Little heater, air conditioning, beaker, wiener dog. Nice. Look at this.

Now what is this?

This is our elderberry kombucha.

Okay.

This is— today's actually the launch. Of our kombucha.

Okay, and you're bringing this to me?

Yeah, we're bringing this to you guys.

Okay, yeah, I will put you in the vlog if you bring me a cold drink. Yeah. Oh, this is—

I got more.

85 degrees.

So this is shelf stable.

Okay, this is— this is exactly like what I put in mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, you said this was our fault. How's it our fault?

So 10 years— maybe not quite 10 years ago, we fell down the YouTube rabbit hole.

Yeah.

And I— we were on a tenth of an acre in the city and didn't know how to butcher chickens or anything, and we had a whole thing. And I YouTubed, searched, found you, went down the rabbit hole, found Joel, found everything, reconnected with my old college friend John Moody, and, um, here we are with Abby's Elderberry.

What were you saying this whole time?

It was her idea.

I wanted him to learn to hunt. Hunting was his gateway.

It was the gateway. Okay, nice.

When you did your 100 days of—

Yeah, growing food.

Was it 100 days of food?

Growing food.

Yeah, so that was our first. Which we were like, just the other day we were like, why did we do 100 days?

It's so long.

Cuz you have to vlog every day.

Putting all that online.

Thank you.

Nice. What are you doing under there?

I'm doing fish cleanup.

Day 2. Homestead Fest. Today I've got the first talk. I like that. I'm best in the morning. It's When Homesteading Hurts. How do you thrive when homesteading hurts?

Nothing.

Josiah, how do you do it when it hurts, buddy? When you have that bum leg? Oh, you just do it. Just do it. How do you do it when you have a hip dislocated? And you're limping like crazy. You just don't. There is some truth to that. Yeah, you slow down at one point. Little brother steps up nicely when Jonah was hurt. We are staying with friends this time. A cool experience. We're saving money, but it's also more meaningful, more relational type of lodging. What? What?

Put the robot on.

Yeah, more experiential for the kids. You like those shoes?

Yeah, they let me bow on them. Okay, but when I wash them, I can ride them.

Okay, we are there. How exciting, how exciting! Events are. There's just an energy. You probably feel like you're crazy. You're starting down this road, your friends and families probably think you're nuts. But the good news is everybody here is nuts. It doesn't mean we're wrong. So we've— especially you, Johnny, you've been farming your whole life now. I'm pretty nervous. I wrote down the notes. Will you just do my talk? When will I be able to delegate my talks to you? Never. Never? You're gonna stick with the machines? He's wearing girl's boots. He could go barefoot here and not a single soul is going to judge us because everybody here seems like they have lots of kids and they're going to totally understand what's happened here. Okay, you hold that for your mother. Thank you. You can hold my hand.

Mama, I don't want to walk in the mud.

I wonder how big this rock is. It's very huge. I know that's loud. I'm in the right place. You are in the right place.

All right.

Hey, how are y'all? Yeah, nice firm handshake. You must milk cows. No, carry buckets.

Heavy things. Yeah.

All right, good to see you this morning. All right. Yeah. Hey Christian, good morning.

Good morning, how are you?

Yeah, all right. What, did you sleep all right? Yeah, good.

And I'm running about 10 minutes behind.

Oh, so you want me to wait 10 minutes? You're good. Yeah, show and tell time. What are y'all names?

Irwin and Teresa.

Okay, yeah, what are you showing me here?

That's our awesome little Chickshaw that we built by, by your plans.

Okay, it looks really good. Yeah, and they love it. Oh, you built that from Homestead Builds? Yeah. Okay, good, you got the final plans. Yeah, it looks good. Glad you're here. Yes, thank you. How you doing? Thank you. Good. I'm excited about this speaker. I haven't seen him in a couple of years. Yeah, he's had a lot of life going on, and he's, he's always, always working and, and, uh, dreaming and accomplishing. He— we were moving cows the other day, and he said, he said, you know, I feel like we've arrived. My family has arrived. We've done kind of most everything that we've wanted to do. We have all these systems in place, our home. It feels like we've arrived. What do we do now? I think he was asking me as if I know. And my only answer for him was, Justin, there is no arriving, my man. We're always moving towards. I can't wait to see where it's going to lead him from here. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Justin Rhodes. Thank you. Thank you. Happy day, everybody. Happy day. All right. Who in here, raise your hand if you watch our show on YouTube or Abundance Plus, our blog. Woo! Okay, good. Thank you guys so very, very much. Does anybody want to be in the vlog? Woo! You guys be excited to be in the vlog? Okay, you got to act like you're really excited to see me this morning. You got to clap and scream. I'm going to get back here. Now I'm going to give my editor some notes. Austin, take out the part where I asked them to clap and scream for me and bribed them, all right? And let's act like they're real excited to see me, okay? All right, thank you.

Our version of Mr. Brown, which is the youngest of 6 boys, okay, and we talked, we've talked a bunch of times, a bunch of people online, you have to remember that. So we came, he found y'all looking for chicken videos just like you He said we stayed for the family. He loved every video of your— of the Great American Farm Tour.

Awesome.

Thank you.

We relate to real, not— we don't need the smoke and mirrors.

I appreciate what I— we had 20 acres in the family for years. My father's dream turned into a farm.

Yeah, 3 or 4 years ago, from the school of skills.

Oh, okay.

So we ended up getting that format, and then we started watching you guys for a long time ago since— because I was in a pretty major ATV accident, so I have some neurological stuff. Yeah.

Whoa, we just had an epic meetup! It is 1:45. My talk was done at 10:30, 11:30, 12:31. It's 3 hours meeting you beautiful people. Thank you everyone! For coming by and saying hey, standing in the hot sun to meet us.

Why is it smelling so bad all of a sudden? Are they pumping it?

Risking the rain. Are they pumping the porta-johns? Go to the kale-no section.

Kale-no!

Where's the kale-no section? Oh hey! I don't know. You made me a kale-no custom shirt once. Yeah, we did. What's the company?

Dirt and Devotion.

Dirt and Devotion, okay. You having a good sale? Yeah. Okay, good.

I always enjoy coming here.

Okay, good. It's a fun one. Yeah, it is. Look at that storm. You guys, uh, Natural Hill Herbals. Okay, nice. Do you guys use any of our beautiful ones? Attention. What I said, do you guys use any of our jewelweed?

No, we don't actually use a homeopathic for poison ivy that works really well, so I haven't really— we haven't actually gotten poison ivy.

It's not gone.

Well, that is a plus. Oh, you're taking off pretty soon?

Okay, I was just kind of at a point where I was ready to take a walk around, and now— all right, I'm not going to take a walk around.

Did you have a good sale? I think we've done pretty well.

We've done fairly well. We did better yesterday than we did 2 days of HOA last year.

So I like it. Lunatic hit.

Yeah, it's on the website.

And then this Okay, all right, here's the lunatic and here's the lunatic-ish. That escalated fast. Holy crap, sideways rain, it's pouring. Oh my gosh, whoa, sorry, sorry. And we got rained out. Thankfully it was towards the end. Rebecca and I were gonna go out and check out the booth, so I hate I couldn't see those things. Shout out some of those wonderful people. We went to this event and inadvertently we turned off the news. Let's face it, news these days is scrolling. It's social media. And if you're scrolling, you kind of, I don't know, you tend to see the negative posts work. You know how news works. It's click-worthy, whatever. And you can start feeling kind of down and maybe not even know it. You go to an event like this and you get lost in it. We got charged by meeting with our peers, you know, the speakers, and bounce off these at each other and just refresh. Then, oh, our tank just gets full meeting you all. You guys bless our hearts. We meet who's behind this lens. The night we went to the concert, everybody was dancing, singing, having a good time. I'm almost in shock when I get back on social media The same side's divided against itself. Fallout with Trump and, and Musk, and then, uh, the LA riots, all this craziness going on. And it's like, oh, that's real. But this is also real, what we came from in the homestead world. And a lot of young people there, and a lot of people doing really good things. Greg meeting that very young man starting his own farm.

It's so neat to to be able to have that, you know, experience growing up around the farm and homesteading, you know, right? That whole mentality is—

you look straight in the camera right there and you say, guys, look at the video! Look at the gut on that cow, folks! Look at this!

That's reality. Touching people, talking to people, interacting with people. I have news for you. The world is good. People in general are unkind. Are kind on both sides, the right and the left, religious, non-religious denominations. In general, everyone is kind, and we have a bright, bright future.