In this informal family homestead vlog, Victor (Justin) and Rebecca Rhodes discuss their motivations for homesteading, personal health struggles, and a broader approach to healing that extends beyond food. Victor explains he initially turned to homesteading to save money but stayed for the deeper connection to food, family collaboration, and the nutritional quality of home‑grown produce. Rebecca shares her experience with Hashimoto’s, the extensive medical journey, and how dietary changes have helped manage her condition. The couple introduces the concept of "Zone 0"—the indoor environment of the home—as a critical, yet often overlooked, area for detoxification, contrasting it with the more commonly discussed "Zone 1" garden. They describe ongoing efforts to identify and remove household toxins and announce a free health summit focused on home detox, inviting viewers to sign up. Victor teases a follow‑up video revealing five simple, easy-to‑implement home detox practices (including using stainless steel) that will be released if enough people register for the summit. The video blends personal narrative, health education, and promotional calls to action, emphasizing that their healing journey is both personal and communal.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Justin Rhodes. I'm a husband. She makes the smoothest, most delicious yogurt.
The runniest.
No, it's not runny. It's not runny. Take that back. I'm a father. Man, it looks good. I'm a farmer. Filmmaker.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Rhodes. I'm a wife. I'm a mother. I'm a farmer. What's the word on Violet, Rebecca? I don't know, she's just shedding a ton.
And I'm tired. Most days it's hard for me to get up in the morning, and if I don't get at least 8 hours of sleep, Every night I'm toast. I go through ups and downs, but on some weeks like this week, I'm pushing through exhaustion. I don't feel motivated to do the chores. I don't feel motivated to turn on the camera.
I have Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease, and it's really hard for me to know how to fix that. I have to take lots of supplements. I've had to go see lots of specialists and doctors, and I've had to learn how to take care of myself. I think that our plants are struggling. Because of the amount of nitrogen to carbon ratio in the garden currently. And so, plus we had all that water and it just seems like they're struggling. So I mixed up some fish fertilizer and I'm just putting that on them just to kind of make sure that they're getting enough nitrogen.
I'll admit, I first got into homesteading to save money. I'm a frugal guy. Food ended up being one of our most expensive bills, and homesteading promised to lower those bills. Now, dollar for dollar, I imagine it does. I mean, yeah, you save money, but then when you begin to consider the time commitment Energy commitment? Not so much. Fortunately, we got deep enough into it before we realized this, and we discovered the many other reasons to do it. Like, we felt more connected to our food. Our food had a story that was special. This was something we could do as a family. We could all work together doing something good to accomplish something together. That's cool. And the other thing, we realized this is the healthiest possible food we could grow. It's fresh, it's nutrient-dense. This is untainted soil. So I guess you could say I was tricked into homesteading but stayed for the other benefits. So what really keeps us going when we're tired? What finally gets us up in the morning? This is our healing.
I know that if I didn't eat this way that both of our healths would be really a lot worse off. I know when we didn't know what was wrong with you, we tried to clean up our diet the best that we could, and we got rid of every offender that could be causing problems for you, and it helped you, but it didn't cure you. And that's when we knew that it was more serious than just a food sensitivity or something along those lines. We knew that it was more of something that you had an infection of of some sort. And for me, I know that cutting out certain foods and eating a certain way really helps the Hashimoto's.
That probably doesn't come as a surprise to many of you. We're doing this for our health. It's a lot about the health for us and the health of these children. What might surprise you is it didn't end with food. We don't talk about this much and probably should, You know, we talk a lot about Zone 1 permaculture. That's the area right outside your house. It's the kitchen garden. It's the high-intensity stuff. But we don't talk about Zone 0, right here inside the house, which is where we ultimately end up spending most of our time. So we've done a number of things to start the healing process inside of our house. Many people don't know— we didn't know— there's things in this house that are toxins, for a lack of a better word, and we're going at those things. And that's why we're excited to be part of something different. This is not like a— I've had speaking engagements and podcasts for permaculture events, homesteading events, but now health events. We're in our like first health summit and it's on detoxing the home, right? We have a talk about growing food, right? As a way to detox and improve your health around your home. But there are so many other talks about how to do it in the home.
There's so many talks on how to transform your home from a possible toxic environment to a non-toxic, more healthy environment.
So I encourage you guys, if that interests you at all, to sign up for it. It's a free summit. It's coming up at the end of the month. I'll leave the link for that down in the description. Actually, I really want to know if you're interested in this. I actually put 5 things we're doing in that video we just played for you guys. 5 things, the easiest things that we do to detox our home. Did you guys catch it? I bet you at least caught— I'll tell you what, I bet you at least caught stainless steel. Okay, that's one way. There are 4 others, and if you guys are interested in this topic, I need to know. And so if I would say what 500 people? If 500 of you go and sign up for that summit, the link is in the description. If 500 people sign up for that, we'll do a special video on the 5 easy things. It's like a dedicated video. I think we'll put it out Sunday, so we'll need to know soon. So get on there in like the next 24 hours and sign up for this thing so we'll know. And we'll talk about the 5 easiest things inside of our house. We'll go inside of our house that you could do really easy to detox your home. And we'll air that Sunday. That comes out Sunday. I hope you guys are interested in it like we're interested in it. It's part of our journey.
Is that it?
Let me make sure. I mean, I have to do my talking head part, but—
Yeah.
I think so. It's good? Yeah, I think you did it. Okay.
Alright, now if you want to sit with Papa, you can. I'm gonna—
