We Opted Out of the Normal Life For The Farm (20 Years Later)

Rebecca and I grew up like most people, and we're very, very unlikely to become homesteaders. We were extremely normal. We both grew up going to school during the week away from our parents. We both grew up going to church on Sunday away from our parents. I mean, they went with us, but we separated there, went our separate ways. Our parents insisted that we go to college and made us wait to get married until after that. I at least quasi grew up on a farm. My dad— you know, this family land has been on our— it's been family land for 93 years. So Dad fortunately did keep some beef cows up here, and I do have some experience feeding them hay. That time we fed them grain, we didn't rotate them or anything, so it was a completely different experience. And you can see my trajectory was not towards that. Thankfully, I was an entrepreneur and pursued some of my own passions and followed my dreams of becoming a professional mountain boarder, which I succeeded in. Austin, anytime I mentioned mountain boarding like that in that career, you got to show a clip of that the height of my career in the Full Throttle commercial. The underlying quality that's in everyone that mountain boards is everybody's a little bit crazy. Yes! That, I think, in part was— is what's going to enable me to break the norm in the future. We're going to get to that here in a second. Whoa! We got a broody. Want to know you got a broody hen? She bites you when you reach down to get the eggs. Here's another sign. You reach in there and she puffs up. See her puffing up? See her puffing up? Rebecca as well grew up very normal. I'll say even a hair normaler. She grew up in Florida, and I like to say she never, she never touched dirt growing up in her whole life. She went from perfectly manicured lawns to concrete to swimming pool. That was her literal upbringing. How many we get? You might be a crazy chicken lady if you get so many eggs you don't even know how many there are. Rebecca and I, like most of you, not very likely to grow up and be homesteaders. Soaking the chicken grain in the skim milk— not only do we break down the anti-nutrients with the soaking, we get the added protein of the skim milk. So how did Rebecca and I go from being normal to being radical weirdo health nut homestead junkies? Well, the long story short is One little step at a time. One little question at a time. One little divergence at a time. Oh, and nobody's been getting your pans out. We have 4 pans. We need 2. You put in 2, you get the old ones out from yesterday, wash them, let them sanitize in the sun, and then you don't have to go in there with— Austin, play that clip of in Star Wars where Jabba the Hutt puts them down into that pit and they have to fight that crazy animal. What is it called? Yeah, that's, that's my beefcake. How am I gonna do this? One, the other one's in the middle. See how crazy I am? I'm daring me— I'm daring to get gross feed pans out of this pit. That's 2. What happened was, back in the day— gosh, it's probably been over 20 years ago now— we were married. Rebecca read this article about— remember that? Remember when you read articles and magazines or whatever? Uh, about high fructose corn syrup and how it wasn't that great for you. I'm gonna finish the story. I really need to feed these pigs. They're getting hungry. Oh shoot, zero delay gratification. Tipped the pan while I was trying to get it in there. Mmm, now she's gonna have to eat the dirt. Come on, lady. While they're eating, I'm gonna get their old pan. That's the plan. This couldn't be any more in the middle. That was smack-dag in the middle of the pit. At least they're together. Drop the fork. Note to self: get the long pitchfork. Let's cover their S-H-I-T. High fructose corn syrup is bad for us. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna replace anything that has high fructose corn syrup in it with organic. I remember the next thing we found out. There's hormones in conventional milk and all kinds of nonsense. We've gotta change it for organic. That's one thing going from conventional milk to organic milk, but it kept happening. As we ran out of stuff, we went to organic. I found myself in a good way saying, "Yes, dear." It was hurting us though. We're checking out the grocery store. That's what conventional— we call it booby milk for its hormones. Booby milk was $1 a gallon. Organic was $4 a time. That's 4 times as expensive. We're checking out with a bundle of, uh, bundle of lettuce. It's $3. I noticed a seed pack for sale over there. It's $3, 100 seeds, 99% savings. Let's go. We found the— we tapped our network for who do we know that gardens and got John Roach to come install our first garden, and we're off to the races. You know, gardens are socially acceptable. Martha Stewart has a garden. Uh, but it wasn't too far after that we got a chicken, and chickens, chickens become the gateway drug into homesteading. Now fast forward, we've got 100% raw, rotationally grazed, mineralized, A2-A2 genetics, loved milk. But it didn't just happen overnight. It happened one step at a time, and it happened because we weren't afraid to question something. Or we were afraid, but we were brave enough to follow through with it. And then we continued to question. Leave these in the sun to sanitize. You know, it's one thing to go from a garden to a chicken, but a chicken to a cow But keeping an open mind, Rebecca actually picked up on the book The Maker's Diet, and we actually got to meet the author Jordan Rubin at the Sustain Me Health Conference yesterday. Look who we were here with, Jordan Rubin. Rebecca, you gotta— I mean, he's written The Bibliodiet, but before that he wrote what?

The Maker's Diet, and my friend Shauna gave it to me, and then it had raw milk in it, which that was like the one piece that I didn't have, I would say, and to our diet. And so then I went to my friend and I was like, where do you buy raw milk? And she's like, I don't know, but you have all that land, you should just get a milk cow. And, uh, we did eventually.

That idea to me, and I laughed because I knew what was entailed in raising cows. I had just had beef cows my whole life.

He's like, you can't do that.

I knew at least the dairy cow was next level. But eventually we did.

Years later, yeah, we did eventually figure it out.

Now then, from 2018, we've been milking a cow every single day. We've raw milk from our own land for 7 years. My kids are the 4th generation to hand milk on our farm.

Wow, that is amazing.

So now you've written the Biblio Diet. So how is this different than Maker's Diet?

Are they good together or should somebody choose one or the other? They're good together, but in 21 and a half years, thank God, I've learned more, but more importantly, the Bible gives new revelation because I think it's a living book. And so I talk a little bit about Solomon's daily provisions. It really is the roadmap for eating meat and bread, the 2 foods that most health experts say are bad for you. And number 2, God spoke to me very clearly about Ezekiel 47:12 and Revelation 22:2 that the leaves are for healing and the leaves are for the healing of the nations, fruit tree leaves. So we introduced something we call Healing Leaves, which combines 12 fruit tree leaves, which is a powerful source of polyphenols, other antioxidants, great for blood sugar, etc. And really, God spoke to me that that was an answer for cancer. So those And more you'll find in the BiblioDiet. We talk about sourdough bread. Really, we give the foods that people want to eat, the diets say not to. Red meat, dairy, fat, bread, and salt. Those are all God's foods, and modern science is telling you to avoid them. Although I think we're all seeing a resurgence. Food pyramid flipped, and we're all breathing a little easier now and finally feeling good.

Yeah, you were practicing this and voicing this before it was cool. Yes, it was very uncool. I mean, you were on the verge, you were early in on it.

Yes, I'm almost 30 years of drinking raw dairy every single day.

Okay, so how's your health? It's great.

I overcame Crohn's disease, cancer.

I'm 50. What?

So I'm 40% into my life.

Okay, this is a testimony.

40-year-old man.

Yes, yes.

You got a lot of energy?

I do. I want to live like Moses. The Bible says at 120, his eyes were not dim and his vigor was unabated. That means he could have fathered children at 120. I don't know about that part. I know, right?

But everything else— there's a time when you're like, I don't want to have any more kids.

Yeah, aren't you supposed to live to 120?

I believe so. Yeah, but live well.

So how long are you going to live?

At least 120.

Okay, I like it.

All right, well, we got to, we got to read his new book.

And it's a pleasure meeting you all, and, uh, it's, it's so much fun to meet like-minded people who are passionate about the right things.

Yeah, that's one good thing about these events. We get to meet the other speakers and our fans and all. Very true. So good to meet you. As you could see, we kept our mind open and just kept reading different things and let other people like Jordan influence us. And we may not have jumped into the family cow immediately because I knew that would be entailed. We eventually did, and it was, it was the initial oomph that we needed. Thank you, Jordan. Josiah, we got to spread that. Cows are not chickens and they will not spread that themselves. Changing the animals' diapers this morning. Then Jordan gave us his new book The Bibliodiet, which I look super forward to reading. I'm gonna try to read it with an open mind. I feel like I've sort of walked into our lifestyle diet, but I'm gonna keep an open mind, including his challenge to think about raising water buffalo for milk and meat and turkeys for eggs, giving it— the eggs have more cholesterol, fattier, more nutrient-dense than chicken eggs. Might be a fun experiment. While I was at the Sustain Me health conference with Barbara O'Neill and Jordan Rubin and others. My first health conference, which makes total sense because we are homesteading for our health, and the homesteading is the ultimate family lifestyle. And if you want to change a habit, you can't just change the habit, you got to change who you are. Hey, I don't think we need that there, do we? No, I don't think we do either. Do we need it? Put it there. I get up before dawn I put my bare feet on the ground no matter how cold, no matter how wet, no matter if the sun's out or not. That might be more difficult to do if you lived in the city. So we live in the country. There's no Wi-Fi, there's no EMF. We don't even have cell phone reception. Hey, you want to bend this back? No, come forward. Okay, that did it. Then I'm out doing chores. First light, so I'm getting the first sunlight into my eyes. I'm moving. I'm interacting with animals, which is good for your microbiome and mental health and responsibility. You got to go whether you feel like it or not. You got to move, and that's probably one of the best things you can do for you. Hey, it's a little cold this morning. I could have worn a jacket, a little bit of a cold exposure. My ears feel a little numb. And this afternoon it's going to be warm. I can take my shirt off and have some sun exposure. The boys are doing the, uh, spread the mulch feature at Earth's Gym right now. This is a job we can all do together. There's something everyone can do. And then we eat this nutrient-dense homegrown food that was grown with love, where we were the center of the story. We were the hero of the story. We didn't just know the story, we are the story. There's a connection to that, that it's just healing. This, the homestead lifestyle. Honestly don't understand these homestead gurus who get to such a climax and don't grow any of their food. The fuel, our fuel, they don't take any of it into their own hands, and they totally could. At least something. You could too. At least something. I don't care if you're in an apartment and you grow some basil in your windowsill. Some tips on forsaking a normal life for the Rooted Life. Tip number 1: share your journey, but be careful who you share it with. It's likely that your current friends and family are not going to be the ones that you share it with. They're going to think you're nuts. You're going to be the black sheep of the family, and that's okay. You're going to find new, new friends and new family. So share your journey online. You'll find your tribe early on. Before we were even earning money with this, we found a following and people would contact us and they could come out and do chores with us, and it just energized us. Share your journey. Number 2: Prune the bad influences. That could be dear friends and family, only if you're sure you're doing the right thing. It's okay to suffer for good. Don't suffer for being an idiot. Prune the influences in your life, and it's going to be It's gonna be hard for a while. Nobody said the divergent path, the path less taken, is the easy path. It's not. It's gonna be hard. Just embrace it. Embrace the suck and just do it. It's the right thing. 3, start small. It took us 20 years to get to where we are. We started with just a garden and we started with somebody else helping us install it. And bit by bit, day by day, a little bit every day. Hey, listen, if you just change one thing, 1% every day, in 72 days you've doubled. And 1% is not that impossible with homesteading. Just get your chores done, do a little bit of project every day. Fourth tip: make it a lifestyle. If you're walking away from something, something bad, something that was hurting your health, something that was hurting your family, you're walking away from something, walk towards something else. And that can be the homestead. Let's go beyond the basil in the windows. Still and let's become homesteaders where it is our lifestyle, where we're eventually like us. As we started to get into it, we started having to put chickens up at night. We started to have to leave the parties, you know, the people we were hanging out with early to go home to put the chickens up. And then we got cows and we said, hey, we got to go home and put the calf up so we could separate the calf from mama so we can have morning milk. And then we built a life around the home. We homestead, we work from home, we home church, we home heal, we home socialize. Uh, what else? What am I missing? I'm missing something. We eat at home. We eat at home. We might eat out. We could probably count on one hand how much we eat out in a year. Good job. We eat at home. We entertain at home. Friday night movie night. Yeah. Pit dip, my favorite. It's okay to be sad. It's okay if it sucks. It's okay if you're not happier. We're not after happiness. We are after fulfillment. We are after satisfaction. And you may be miserable in your job, and you want to make— maybe want to become an entrepreneur and break free and, um, get on the homestead, just spend less. Deep down, if it's the right thing to do It might not make you happy, but if you work at it, you might find joy and fulfillment in it because it's the right thing to do. We're not doing this because it's easier, because we're not going to suffer. We're going to do this because it's the right thing. And what did Paul say in Romans 3? He said, "Rejoice in your suffering because that brings endurance and that brings character." And that brings hope. And hope is what is going to bring that joy versus happiness. But only if you can tap that 6th one and have a higher purpose. Let me help them a little bit. We're going to talk about tapping this real wide. And those of you who have been doing this, you're still here after you got started at COVID, we're looking at year— what are we, year 6? Uh, You might need to be in some trials because traditionally people tend to burn out at 7-year mark. Let's talk about that in a second. You really have to lean into that bigger why because, you know, I've been dealing lately with anxiety and projects and finding satisfaction in my projects. But here's the problem: we'll never be done with this farm. There will— we'll finish one project and there will always be another. And that's a treadmill. I might as well be on the rat race. The only thing that can help is to have a bigger why. And your why can change. Our why in the beginning, I was just trying to save money. I wish it was some noble cause. It wasn't. I was following the— well, that was pretty noble. I was just saying yes, dear, to the beautiful one that's 10 in the garden of peace. But you know what I mean. And I pursued it for those reasons. I pursued it to save money, but now I am pursuing it for my health. This is my fuel. And how important is that? And I found success to be enjoying the moment when we're sitting around the table eating together, just enjoying that moment. That is success. Joel came and shared with us once, and we were doing a Q&A, and somebody said, how do you prevent burnout? And you could tell they were tired. They've been at it a while. And my heart went out. And I thought Joel would say, make sure you get enough sleep, take a day off. Go on vacation, make sure you're eating well, drink plenty of water. I thought he was gonna give me these real practical tips. He said, I think how you prevent burnout is to have a vision big enough. The problem is most people don't have a big enough vision. Link Abundance Plus in case people want to go and hear all that talk in our free trial. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. So you have to have a bigger why and a bigger reason, and this is something I've been learning since my long fast. What is the first catechism Catechism say? We're learning the Catechism slightly. Uh, you are not your own, but you belong to God. So you have to be something after something higher. I dare say something eternal. Because if our goal is to, you know, put food on our plate that is all from the farm— I've been there, I've done that, I've done that for months on end, 3 meals a day— it's not it, it's not happiness. And I have to keep it going. I have to keep on the treadmill. But if I work towards things that are eternal, those things last forever. So I think about doing this as a place to raise them, as a place to raise my grandchildren, as a place to teach and instruct them to do right things, a place for them to suffer in the sense where they can build their character and develop true hope. And I hope you can do that for yourself too. That's my message. I'm sticking with it. Happy day.