We're stepping on ALL the toes in today's episode! I was thrilled to have Austin and his family from the popular Homesteady podcast & Youtube channel swing by our home to record this episode in person.
We held nothing back in talking about some of the biggest myths and misconceptions in the homesteading world. Do you agree with our takes on these issues? I can't wait for you to listen in!
Learn more about Austin here: https://www.thisishomesteady.com/
Learn more about Genuine Beef Co. here: https://genuinebeefco.com/
While supplies last, get 15% off our Genuine Beef Freezer Filler Special! Learn more here: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/freezer
Order my NEW book Old-Fashioned on Purpose now and get exclusive bonuses! http://oldfashionedbook.com/
Have a message you want to share with the world? Apply to be a guest on the Old-Fashioned on Purpose podcast here: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/podcast-guest-application
Weekly musings from my homestead: http://theprairiehomestead.com/letter
My essays on an old-fashioned life: www.prairiephilosophy.com
My homesteading tutorials & recipes: www.theprairiehomestead.com
Our Wyoming-raised, grass-finished beef: http://genuinebeefco.com
Jill on Twitter: http://twitter.com/homesteader
Jill on Instagram: @jill.winger
Jill on Facebook: http://facebook.com/theprairiehomestead
We're stepping on ALL the toes in today's episode! I was thrilled to have Austin and his family from the popular Homesteady podcast & Youtube channel swing by our home to record this episode in person.
We held nothing back in talking about some of the biggest myths and misconceptions in the homesteading world. Do you agree with our takes on these issues? I can't wait for you to listen in!
Learn more about Austin here: https://www.thisishomesteady.com/
Learn more about Genuine Beef Co. here: https://genuinebeefco.com/
While supplies last, get 15% off our Genuine Beef Freezer Filler Special! Learn more here: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/freezer
Order my NEW book Old-Fashioned on Purpose now and get exclusive bonuses! http://oldfashionedbook.com/
Have a message you want to share with the world? Apply to be a guest on the Old-Fashioned on Purpose podcast here: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/podcast-guest-application
Weekly musings from my homestead: http://theprairiehomestead.com/letter
My essays on an old-fashioned life: www.prairiephilosophy.com
My homesteading tutorials & recipes: www.theprairiehomestead.com
Our Wyoming-raised, grass-finished beef: http://genuinebeefco.com
Jill on Twitter: http://twitter.com/homesteader
Jill on Instagram: @jill.winger
Jill on Facebook: http://facebook.com/theprairiehomestead
Hey
Jill:friends, welcome back to the old fashioned on purpose podcast. So today I have a rare treat. Well, if you're watching this, you're going to see it's a rare treat. If you're listening, I'm going to explain to you why I just said that. I have done very few in person podcast interviews here on my homestead. Every once in a while it happens, but not very often. But today is one of those days. So I have Austin from Homesteady joining me in the flesh here in Wyoming today and we get to do podcasts together. So I just recorded one for his show and then now we're recording one for mine. So this is super fun. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll see both of us, which is. kind of a treat. So I
Austin:don't know, maybe it's pretty hot.
Jill:We're all getting a little bit. There are flies here. I tell everybody my interview. I'm like, if I start waving, it's because I'm trying to get the fly off my nose. So you can hear the fly go by. Yes. It's a little warm in here. Yeah. So I'm so excited to have you guys swing by. You guys have been on quite the tour. Tell us a little bit about that.
Austin:So we left. In the beginning of the summer for what we've been calling the off grid challenge, the off grid adventure our family has been wanting to build a new homestead. We've been homesteading for over a decade, but we wanted to kind of reset what we've been doing and go off grid. Yeah. And for about six months, nine months, we were planning and designing an off grid homestead. And then I realized I was making a huge mistake. I was. I was the gardener designing a garden who had never gardened, right? I was, I was designing a market garden and I never did a raised bed. So we figured, you know what, let's go live off grid, experience what off grid life is really like. And then we can come back to this idea of living off grid and designing a life off grid with some experience. And this summer has been some
Jill:experience. I bet I can only imagine. And I, I'm excited to hear what your conclusion was of. You know, getting in there and actually doing the things, but I, I know we're going to, you're going to reveal that when you put all of your adventures together in the series, it's series, right? On YouTube and a podcast. Yep.
Austin:So we're going to be covering on the YouTube channel, this whole off grid series. You'll hear about it on the podcast. We've had the. Wonderful chance to interview lots of different people on this tour. We started with people living off grid in Alaska. We went through, eventually, we were in Alaska for the summer. We're driving home now, which is why we're here in Wyoming. And it's a slow go, because it's the whole family, all eight of us. And the dog and the, and the cats
Jill:the cat that's in, that's impressive that you brought the cats.
Austin:The cats was next level. Yes. We almost brought the goats, but that was just
Jill:a, it's harder to fit in a van. It was the border. Yeah. honestly, the
Austin:border check, it was like we'd lose our goats in the border. Yeah. So yeah, so we've been going and we've been having really great conversations and this is the last one. We got to talk to Jill today. And like she said, she'll be on in that series.
Jill:So stay tuned. You'll get the grand conclusion, which I'm very curious to hear what they decided. We have a really fun topic today. We were, we were discussing like what we could, we could chat about. We're going to be talking about homesteading myths, lies, and opinions. We're going to get into some controversial topics today. You and I might not even agree on some of this. So this'll be fun. I love talking to people I don't agree with. I think it's so good. Whenever I do these episodes, like I was telling you before I hit record. I'm always nervous and my audience generally loves them because I think everyone just wants to hear the truth and nothing but the truth. They just want to hear it put out on the table and just have frank discussions.
Austin:And, and you know, Jill, you mentioned it just there, right? We might not agree because we have a different experience, right? Yes. So people listening, we might go, we have a list here to go through and they might agree with half and think the other half is baloney. Yeah. But it's all our experiences, just good to see things from someone else's angle, especially in the world of homesteading where we can kind of, you know, get in our corner and think our corner is the right
Jill:corner. Yeah, I think it's really healthy and in so many areas. So, but before we get into the the juicy stuff I was interested in something you said you've been homesteading for over a decade. Yeah, you want to simplify so a lot of people are going wait You already achieved the the ultimate what do you mean? Why what happened? Why are you simplifying again?
Austin:Great question. We Started homesteading. My son is sitting in the studio right now. My oldest he was on his way and we decided we were switching from being a couple who's in an apartment and ate Taco Bell to well we got a baby to think about now so we gotta do better and it started very very small scale I learned we didn't have any land so we couldn't raise animals so I learned to hunt it's the only thing I could figure out and fish so hunting and fishing to put meat in the freezer that taught me how to butcher right so well now I know how to butcher an animal and we had a little apartment yard where Kay could put in a garden. So she put in a little garden and the first year we got no deer and no tomatoes. we grew. And we got to the point where now fast forward 13 years and we have been running what is more like a farmstead. We've had, we peaked last year with 13 cattle, a bull and 12 girls. We had throughout the summer, five feeder pigs, as well as some breeder pigs and all kinds of little piglets running around. We had goats and sheep and chickens and chickens and chicken tractors. Then we had the meat birds and the egg layers. We did a day in the life of video on our youtube channel to show like how crazy our day was and We looked back at that video and we're proud of it. We built a huge Thing we we do all our own meat. We don't buy meat from the supermarket anymore, right? We're proud of what we've done But when you watch the day in the life of video Kay and I, we give each other a kiss, walk into the barn and we go like this. I know you could probably relate with all the stuff you guys got going on. And we really wanted to build a life where we were together more and we've done better than we had before we started homesteading. I worked in construction. I had to big commute. I was never home when my first two were little. I missed a lot of stuff, but now as things grow, we're very, very busy. They're very busy helping us, the kids. And so it's gotten to the point where. we realized we need to reset, simplify again. And that means doing a better job of juggling, you know, how and what we're actually doing and what things maybe we now let our community around us take care of.
Jill:So that's still good. And so important because I found that well, January this of this past of this year, I felt that same thing in my businesses, like, I love my business, I've been working on my business for a decade. And it was grow, grow, grow, expansion, expansion, higher, higher, higher. And I'm like, this is a behemoth. And I am not liking this as much as I used to, like, it's too complicated. There's too many irons in the fire. And I just started purging. I closed down programs. I let some employees go. They were good employees, but I'm like, we're too big. Like it's too, there's too much. And it, it felt so good. I'm still doing, I'm still in that mindset, but yeah, to have that self awareness is sometimes hard, but it can feel really good. Once you lean into it,
Austin:we say it's like within your homesteading, it's like pruning a tree. Yes. You have to, otherwise the fruit gets too big and the leaves you break and get disease. So it either will happen by. As you've probably seen if we grow too big too fast, there'll be failures. Yes, right We'll or we can self prone and we've had both. Yeah Talk about a lot of failures a lot of things that we've learned the hard way And sometimes we've been smart enough to self prune, other times things have gone
Jill:wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Good life lessons though, all the way around. Always. All the way. Always, always. Okay. So should we get into the list? Yeah. Ready for this? All right. Okay. First one on the list. Livestock breeds. They may not be as important as you have been told. Please divulge.
Austin:We have over the So we've been homesteading over a decade. We've had livestock since he was my son. I keep pointing to my son. He's
Jill:in here, we promise.
Austin:He's in here. He was one years old when we got his first batch of chickens. Okay. So 12 years we've had livestock and we've had chickens. We've had, I already said chickens, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, we even had camels
Jill:first. Oh my goodness. We had dairy camels. Okay, that's, that's awesome. I don't know what to say. I've never, I've never had a camel guest before. So
Austin:we've had all kinds of livestock. Kay loves new animals since she was a little girl. It was her thing to get a new animal, try something new. And So we try pretty much everything and we have tried many different breeds And so what we tell people nowadays when people say like, oh, well, what's the best breed for? You know, I want to get pigs or I want to get a cow. All right family milk cow. Yeah, we have a lot of Experience with family milk cows. We love, we have many jerseys and we love our mini jerseys. They're an amazing breed for your, you know, small homestead where you can go out and milk it. It's not a high production. You can milk by hand. It's great. We talk a lot about them on our channel, mini jerseys and on our podcast. So someone might see our show and be like, I need a mini jersey. I got, it's the best breed for a homestead milk cow. I would even have said that in videos. That's the best breed. Yeah. Bye. What may they may find is what we found when we got into mini jerseys. They're high demand Low supply. They're expensive. They're hard to find They could spend five years waiting For that mini jersey finally get it or they could say, you know, what the breed's not that important Yeah, let me get a regular size jersey and breed down or even better the farmer down the road has Whatever breed. Yeah, and they're willing to help me when we got into pigs, I had zero pig experience. We wanted to try the heritage pigs and all we could find was a farmer near us who was raising commercial Yorkshire land raised cross, big pink pigs. And you know, we were new and wow, we want to do the heritage thing, but well, the, these are here. Let's try it. That farmer Tom Dexter has become one of my biggest mentors. Because he was close to me. He was he wouldn't let me buy a pig from him until I came and toured his farm He said listen, you're gonna do it all wrong. Hmm. Come see my farm. See how I do it So it didn't matter the breed. I was new right? Yeah How many times do we get into a new animal and wind up it gets sick because of this mistake we make it could wind Up dying. So for in the beginning, don't worry about breed Yeah finds what we always tell people is find your closest Farmer or homesteader who's willing to take you and actually help you, you know You can find a lot of people selling stuff on craigslist but someone who's willing to work with you Give you advice. I have called tom dexter. I've been homesteading now. We said they're 13 ish years I've called him every year since I first called him. Yeah, not for pigs anymore, but still for advice on on pigs you know breeds all kinds of things so that we find is much more important and then the specific breed,
Jill:I totally agree with that. And I see a lot of new homesteaders getting hyper focused on the breed. Yes. Like it's, I, I like the heritage idea, that heritage breed idea. We've had very few because I mean, Wyoming is close to nothing, so no one is here. And so anything special it's you, it's far away. And so like we have pink pigs outside right now, big pink pigs. And I would love every time we get them, I, I have this little like, this isn't very homesteadery enough because I don't have the heritage breeze, and I'm not a real homesteader. But I'm like, there, I got them from the neighbor. Yeah. And I can't get the old spots anywhere near us. And I don't feel like driving 1200 miles. And so it matters. Yeah, it matters.
Austin:Yeah. And not only think about your source. What is your local vet familiar with? Rice. Yes. You weren't familiar with camels.
Jill:I can see that. I am not surprised.
Austin:So just, if it's what you can get locally that people understand, you can get help with, how much better than getting, you might see a YouTuber who loves their IPP. Yes. You might see a YouTuber who loves their old, old spot, whatever it is. There's a million different things out there. And great. I love mini jerseys, but there's things more important.
Jill:Yeah, I agree. I agree. That was a good one. Okay. I like it. I like it. Okay, number two. Oh boy, we're diving in. Oh, this is where the unsubscribes start. Unsubscribes are starting. I can feel the emails coming now. Big ag and factory farms are not your enemy. Not your enemy.
Austin:Carefully worded here. Yes. We're real careful, me and Kay, when we come up with our ideas and talks, we're really careful to word things right. Because people will pick in the comments and in the emails, right? They're not your enemy. The man I mentioned there, Tom Dexter. Yeah. If you were to go to his operation, he is a large scale hog producer. Yeah. A lot of people would look at him as a factory farm and there are certain practices that he does on his farm that factory farms do that people don't like. Yeah. And if I was, the first day I went to Tom's and I saw how he You know keeps his pigs I could have judged him and said this isn't a homesteader. This is a factory farmer He's got all these sows and he's got the room with the sows and they don't they're not on dirt He keeps his piglets off the dirt on a on a raised floor. People don't like that. Yeah When you talk to tom, you'll learn This particular breed is really bad about crushing their babies in the mud. They'll get sick off of that So what's best for his pigs on his farm is to elevate them and keep them in a heated room. Now people might not like that. It's not natural, right? Oh, I want to see pigs out in the dirt. And that's fine if you want to do that in yours. But I had a pig get sick. This was a couple years ago. I called Tom up. It was a little piglet. And I said, Hey, Tom this, this little pig has got diarrhea. I can't stop. I'm going to lose it. Now this is again, he could be considered a big ag factory farm guy. The first thing he said to do was not get drugs. It was not go not that again. We'll talk about that too. But yeah, it wasn't go get a shot pharmaceutical. It was go out back Take a one foot square of sod Lift it up with the dirt and the sod and everything and feed it to it. Oh interesting and then feed it a banana Big ag right tom conventional agriculture big pink pigs I did it because this guy's got years of experience. I, I, nothing else was working with this pig. Stop the diarrhea. Now it was a pig we ate. So the end of the story is we ate the pig, but
Jill:that's the point seems right to me. I don't know what the problem is.
Austin:So we saved him until much of that. So it totally fixed the problem. Now, I don't, if you look at my farm and you look at Tom's farm, they look very different. We have now, since years later, done breeder pigs. We've done heritage pigs. We don't elevate them off the floor. We don't use the heated rooms. We, we find, but I've learned so much from that guy and I could go through the list of interviews we've had on our podcast. We've interviewed Kirsten Bordner who does the IPP pigs. She works in a grow facility for turkeys, factory farm, right? It's a big grow house where they put the turkeys on one side. She does, she handles diseases and cross contamination. When all the turkeys drop dead, she comes and figures out what's wrong. How much have I learned from Kirsten, right? Like, so these people who work and you talk about this, I got, we got a sneak peek at the book Jill's book. You talk about this a little bit. How people wind up working in a factory farm, you know, big ag, maybe it's the way their family's done it forever. Yes. You know, maybe it's just how they've learned to do things. There's so much knowledge, right? They have so much more knowledge than us. Who knows more about pigs, me or Tom Dexter. Yeah. So we can learn so much. They're not our enemy. Yeah. Even if we don't like everything someone does, we can still learn a lot.
Jill:Yeah. I think that's so important. And I think, I think as homesteaders, I know at least I, I think a lot of us have dipped into cause we get passionate, right? We dipped into like all pasture, all regenerative, you know, it's all bad. It's all industrial. And I, I have definitely been there, but as I've just kind of matured a little bit and also it, you know what's that saying? It's hard to hate up close, not that we're hating, but like, once you get to know somebody in the other camp and you look eyeball to eyeball, it's like, Oh, you're just a human. And you know, we're surrounded, we live in ranching country. So it's like old school ranches here, but these are people who raise cattle for feedlots and we raise grass finished beef. A lot of these guys don't appreciate grass fed beef. Like they don't, they, they don't want to eat it and they think it's a horrible idea. And so initially I was like, Oh, let's, let's fight. And I'm like, no, they're really good people. And they're the ones who have mentored us as we've learned how to run cattle. And so, yeah, it's get to know these people. I do think, you know, I'm not a fan of Monsanto. I, I really don't think they have a lot of good in mind, but there's a lot of humans, you know, on the local level that are just really awesome. And like you said, have a ton of knowledge to share.
Austin:I think it's you, as you go through life, you see division is a tool to control people, right? The more we can divide, here's a guy who's raising cows for people to enjoy. And here's another guy raising cows for people to enjoy. If they do it differently, they're still doing a lot of the same stuff. So yeah, finding, Just finding more learning from each other even if we don't copy everything. Yeah,
Jill:totally. Yeah, I think I open minded is good It's really healthy too. Yeah. Yeah, but it doesn't get as many hits on YouTube. No Division sells Yeah, all right Number three, here we go. Your homegrown food isn't always better than the grocery store. Okay, again, worded carefully. I can tell there's even asterisks around.
Austin:Because, I mean, there's a reason we've been homesteading for 13 years. Raw milk usually is pretty delicious. Yeah. You know, the, the pastured pork we raise in our backyards, the bacon we've cured just fantastic. Right. Yeah. And we, by nature we have YouTube channels and podcasts that we tell people about our products and, and usually we like to share the wind. Right. Yeah. And we're also, I know, Jill, you're good about sharing the realities. We try to, on our channel, be very open and honest. There are a ton of times you go through a ton of work, you spend a lot of money. I can think back to the most problems we've had have come from either dairy endeavors, usually uh, or chickens. We've raised Cornish cross chickens, Red Ranger chickens, heritage chickens. We have seen you ever seen green meat disease. No, so yeah, you you finished this big fat bird, right? You spent eight weeks dragging him around your pasture sweating it out bringing him water bringing him food doing it You know the Salatin way and the tractors, you know You're John Siskovitch chicken tractors and you're feeling like such a homesteader butcher day comes and you're you get them all packaged and sealed You're so proud and then you go in your kitchen you cut into that and you open it. It's green Like green, green. Like green, green. And you're thinking, okay, this is rotten, this is spoiled, you know, but then the next one's green. Oh. And the next, green, green green meat disease, I should have wrote this in my notes. It's something like green meat disease, basically it's something to do with a weird oxygen issue. I don't know the science behind it, but your chicken meat turns green. Yeah. Do you want to sell that to your customers? Do you want to serve that to your family? Technically they say it's edible.
Jill:It doesn't look, doesn't look great. Doesn't look
Austin:great. No. We've raised chicken tractor chickens that have been so, so tough. Like, like, you know, all right, well, stick them in the crock pot for 24 hours and we'll eat it. Yeah. Oh gosh. It's so much work. And then, and then on the, like on the dairy side, dairy goats, weird tasting milk, funny issues with the flavor. No, it is not all that right. We have our wins, but before you get into like, you know what, I'm going to grow all this and it's going to be amazing. You have to know there's a lot of failure. Yes. Yes. A lot of times the quality or the flavor will not match either what you're used to. Like you mentioned with the grass fed beef and the you know, feedlot finished beef. It won't either be what you're used to or it'll just be outright worse. Yes.
Jill:Yeah, that's so good. It's so good because I everyone's small and I I have totally said this But i'll have people come up and go well homegrown food always tastes better and i'm kind of thinking You haven't really grown a lot of food Because like it's not a fun thing to admit because I am a huge evangelist of homegrown food, obviously but I have cheese in the house right now homemade cheese That it's okay It's edible. Yeah, but like my family is like if my husband will like, it's in there, my husband will go to the store and get a block of cheddar and we'll go ahead and eat the cheddar from the store before we go. We only go back to the homemade one if it's like, okay, there's no cheese in the house. So we have to use this one.
Austin:I love that you mentioned cheese. Cause we were talking on the way here in case like how many wheels of cheese have I made or yogurt? Yeah. The kids won't touch. Yes. Yes. They'll eat their, their, their, the Greek full fat from the supermarket. They love that with a little honey on it. Yeah. They don't touch. It went too long. It went too short. It's too grainy. It's too sour. Something
Jill:in the air. Yes. Dairy is such an art. It is so, it is so hard. I love it, but it's so hard. Yeah. Yeah. What are some other ones? Yeah. I've had a lot of those. my, I had a big shock when I first started making sourdough bread back in the day. Like I was just like, it's sourdough. I went to a hundred percent whole wheat right away. Cause I'm hardcore like that. And I'd be like, look at honey, I have homemade bread for supper. And it was like, it would choke you. But yeah, and I was like, I didn't want to admit it, but it's really not better. It's actually worse. Now, now, now I can actually make bread that's better than the store, but it took me a long time.
Austin:Yeah, we did a batch of bacon. This was last year, Homestead in 12 years, right? I got to, we did a batch of bacon. We over salted it. It was inedible. We had to, to serve it. And bacon, we like literally raised the breed. We had breeder pigs, got the little ones, raised them up on the pasture, the whole thing, butchered it ourselves, hung it, you know, put in the house on the right temperatures, cut it.
Jill:Grind it every single step. You were invested in that bacon. That bacon. Yeah. There was no reason
Austin:for me to tell anybody this is awful bacon. Yeah. This is like, I, I look beautiful on Instagram. Yes. It was gross. We had to re brine it in just plain water to suck out some of the salt. Mm. Just, and then serve it only on like BLTs. Cause the tomato and lettuce would forgive the saltiness of the bacon. Yeah. So. Yeah. Gotta be ready for that reality. Sometimes you really mess up and sometimes it's just
Jill:not what you like. Yeah, what do you have any Or how do you handle that when you have such like bacon disappointments big disappointment? Do you have any any words you tell yourself when you're hitting those those roadblocks chickens got to eat? That is the one good thing. There's always something that will eat the failures. That, that
Austin:is actually really one of the best ways you just having chicken. And you talk about that in your book, right? Like just having chickens makes every failure. Hey, you know what? Cheese, a lot of protein chickens can have some cheese. Having pigs has been awesome for failure. Nothing. And this is something when you have a homestead with these particular things, chickens and pigs. And it's really, nothing goes to waste, but your time invested in a high quality product, you could say, well, we learned from it and we're sharing it with others. So there's value there too. Yeah. Yeah. But we talked about it in the episode we just recorded for our show. You talked about failure. Failure is a thing and you're going to learn from it. Yeah. You'll learn good from it. So, you know, that'll stick with us. We will not over grind bacon. Exactly.
Jill:That was, yeah, one time and one time. That's it. We
Austin:watch that clock now. Yes.
Jill:Yes. Good lessons. Even though sometimes it's just real hard. Real hard. Heartbreak. Heartbreak. All right. I, I love number four. I love number four. You won't save money. That's breaking some hearts right now. That is breaking some hearts
Austin:We got into homesteading. Talked about a little at the beginning, right? We had a baby boy We wanted to feed him better. The thing I didn't mention was and we could not afford to buy better quality
Jill:food Yes, that was the same right couldn't
Austin:afford it. We couldn't afford we would go to the farmer's market I don't know there's tricks and you share a lot in the book about how to you know, make more from less and from different cuts. But at the time, we just, we couldn't figure it out. We couldn't do it. Well, we can't do this, right? So we'll do it ourselves. We'll save money. We'll do it ourselves. And what we have learned after doing it now this long and with all the different livestock is generally speaking, what will happen is, You will spend way more than you would at the supermarket for sure. If you're really good and you get your systems really well, you can usually match your farmer's market, maybe do a little better. But people who sell stuff at farmer's markets, Aren't always great with their pricing and they're
Jill:probably losing money. We have found that with beef. Like, yeah. And it's hard on the people who are actually trying to make money and watching their margins. And I'm looking at these, you know, 2 a pound ground beef sales go by on Facebook. And I'm like, you're losing money. You can't do that. Barbecue shakes.
Austin:When we moved to 2 a dozen. There's
Jill:no way they're making money.
Austin:There's no way. They're doing it. So you would do better to just buy a person selling support them ish. Like ishish, I guess you're not really helping them. But we did a, a breakdown a video on our YouTube channel where we broke down what we spent on our family milk cow. Yeah. Every week, every week she cost, and this was kind of an average milk'cause we got a lot of cows and stuff, but we tried to do an average about 50 bucks a week for a family milk cow. Mm. Yeah. Now what we said in that video was. If you're a big consumer of dairy, you have a big family and you eat, you drink a lot of milk. Cause then with cheese making, as we just talked about, you can make the cheese. Is it the cheese your family's used to? That's more time, more equipment, right? So if you drink a lot of milk, like more than 50 a week, then go for it. If you're trying to save money, otherwise you're probably not going to save money. And that's a heartbreak for a lot of people, but now you can save on the better quality product, right? It can be, if you're buying it at the farmer's market, you can save there. But overall, if you're just looking to save money, there's better ways than raising
Jill:animals. Yeah. Okay. So then maybe people are asking or wondering why
Austin:do it? Why do it? Oh, man. Why did we keep going right after you know, after we got so far along, why do we keep going? The kids is a big one, right? Knowing because we have six kids. So knowing that I can feed them Knowing that we have a good quality product. We went through I mean with this is interesting in our story Why do we have the camels? One of my, my youngest son had really bad allergies and we had to like watch everything he ate. If it was chicken, was the chicken fed corn, was it fed soy just to give you an idea like birth or, you know, kid, they track kid's weight percentile. You're in the first percentile. You're in the hundredth percentile for weight. He was. His whole first few years of his life in the 10 and under as far down as yeah, scary. Yeah So we we got a camel because camel milk is super hypoallergenic Interesting, definitely don't
Jill:save a dollar. No, no, no. No, I don't imagine you save no camel money saving One of the most
Austin:expensive endeavors we've ever done but to know that we could have it even through the pandemic for yes So a lot of it is that and and don't get me wrong. They're still there and you guys probably seen this, too There are a few things we do we can save money. Yeah If you love grass fed lamb and you got a lot of grass out there, our grass, we like to, when we buy lamb back home, it's like 15 to 20 bucks per pound. We can get bummers from our family members across the fence, bummers are, you know, the lambs that aren't attached, they don't want to bottle feed. So we get a couple of bummers for basically nothing and raise them out on grass and butcher them. So yeah, we're saving this. You can find everybody's situation might have one or two things. But net net positive. It's much more for the security knowing where our food comes from. It's a good good thing We enjoy the lifestyle. Yeah, and You know, you're building wealth Your herd of cows you guys got a nice herd of cows. Yeah, there's wealth there. You might not save a ton of money Yeah, but when we sell a couple cows, there's something there It's it's you know, you might have a stock portfolio and a livestock portfolio. So there are advantages to it It's just not saving money
Jill:very much. It's not the money part. Yeah. And I think it's such a, it's such a fascinating concept because everyone comes in it. I think, or not everyone, I'd say 90 percent of people come to homesteading for the food, whether they just want to get rid of chemicals or they just, or they think they're going to save money. And I, what I see happening is that the people who are going to stick with it realize real quick food is cool. Yeah. And I, food is important, but I'm, I'm staying for those deeper benefits, the emotional health, making sure my kids know where their food comes from, work ethic, having control, having food security. So I think you have to latch onto those sooner versus later, if you're going to stick in the lifestyle. Yes. Yeah. It matters. Yeah. Okay. That was a good one. Number five. This is my language right here. We're not, we're not fighting so far. So I don't know, this is too easy. Maybe in the comments. I mean, everyone's going to be disappointed we're not going to knock down Dragout Hey friend, I'm interrupting this episode for just a second to give a shout out to our sponsor, Genuine Beef. Now, this is actually my beef company, the one that my husband and I started a number of years ago to bring our grass finished Wyoming beef straight to your doorstep. And I know that whenever we start to shift into this fall and winter season, I get the very primal urge to stock up on food. And I know many of you feel that same way. So we have put together a freezer filler special to help you do just you're going to get four of our most popular beef roasts, the ones that are great for crock pots and those cozy winter meals, as well as three pounds of our 90 10 ground beef. We're going to put it all in a bundle and give it to you for 15 percent off. Off while supplies last. Now we can ship this to anywhere in the continental U S we do second day air. We put a lot of dry ice in there, so we'll get to your doorstep safe and sound. And if you want to grab a box or two or three, head on over to the prairie homestead. com slash freezer. Uh, to grab your bundle and I'll go ahead and drop that link in the show notes too. Now back to our episode. Okay. You don't have to go to the extreme and do everything to have a successful or enjoyable homestead.
Austin:We, during that year or two, during the pandemic, my son's allergies were really, really bad. I mentioned we had to watch what our chickens were eating. Yes, right.
Jill:That's intense. Oh, that's
Austin:intense. Yeah, so we were raising Cornish cross chickens in chicken tractors out on pasture, but we needed to make sure that his That the chickens feed didn't have corn or soy
Jill:That's real hard, right?
Austin:Yeah, really hard to find both. Usually you can find one that's corn or soy Yeah, we couldn't have corn or soy either of them So we thought, you know what, we've been at this for a long time, we know what we're doing, we'll make our own chicken feed for our, for the broilers. So we did, and we even worked with someone who did feed on their own, they did custom feeds, and they knew a lot, but they had never done broiler chicken feeds. So we put together this custom feed from start to finish, we fed it to our broilers, and we watched half, 200 birds, half of them died. Just like no way and it was the weirdest thing because it looked like a disease Yeah, they started getting funny with how they would walk and they would start like getting dizzy and fall over and then Dead. Yeah, and it was a couple and then a couple more and then a couple more and then all of a sudden like Catastrophic loss. Yeah, and i'm calling do I have you know, bird flu? Do I have what's going on here? It was the feed. We did it wrong. They didn't have enough and I don't remember now that because I don't make my own But it was something about the amount of energy they could get from the carbohydrate just wasn't there Yeah, and where you could get away with it with maybe a heritage hen that's running around outside Sure, the broiler chickens grow big and fast and they need more Yeah, so the moral of the story was we tried to do everything just on that chicken And it was a big, big failure. There are people who are out there making feeds, support them, find a good quality feed, find something you like. You don't have to go by, if you don't want to, you don't have to go to your big boxes and buy that feed. Find there's, we found really good local sources who make really nice feeds. Whether it's feed butchers. Yes. Sometimes I Do you see this Jill? People sometimes get funny about using a butcher in the understood world. Yes, totally. They're gonna steal my meat. Yeah. I could, you know, it's an awful place for my animals to be. We have partnered with some butchers over the years. Yeah. Who are, first off taught me so much about growing our, our best butcher, well, I don't wanna say best'cause we've worked with a few but
Jill:one of the most, we're not playing
Austin:favorites here. Yeah. Well edit the that out. Yeah. But he, he was just a fantastic butcher. He had raised so much livestock. So he not only knew how to raise the animals, but he knew how to raise them for the best end product to eat. He taught me what to feed pigs. He taught me how to feed pigs. He taught me what breeds are better for what things. And he never stole any of my bacon.
Jill:Yeah, we've never I don't think we've ever had that happen Right or people are like they're gonna mix it up and i'm like the butchers I mean unless they're really shady, but I mean, I know it could happen it can
Austin:we've had that happen from one I never used again. Yeah, so you gotta like anything in life find your partner right find a good But overall we've had wonderful experiences with butchers. Yeah I'm a big proponent of learning to butcher. It's a if you want to save money Yeah, that's a great way to do it. But don't be afraid to use a butcher. They're awesome They're they're craftsmen that are going to turn you elevate your product do better than you will. I'm a hobby butcher I like to do it as a hobby. Yeah, i've done every animal we've raised at least a couple of them but When we have a big batch, especially for customers, it's going to a butcher because they're just there to
Jill:make our life a little easier. We had that same revelation. We had initially it was because I can be pretty hardcore. Like I have matured into more gray area personality, but I am naturally very black and white and dogmatic, which I've really grown, tried to grow, grow out of that. But initially homesteading, it was like, we have to butcher ourself because it's not real if it's not cutting it up. And so we would cut up several steers and several hogs and I'm glad we did it. Yeah. It was good. And we still butcher our own chickens. But, man, we have a butcher down the road who's a good friend. Like, he's three miles down the road. Like, it's not a traumatic haul for the animals. Right. And... When we would butcher it ourself, we could kind of get it done, but it was like, I didn't know that, I never knew the cuts, because it would be like roast, steak, I don't know what this is, and I, I, you know, the tenderloin would be labeled the same as the, you know, pork chop, and I had no idea, and it, it was, the product wasn't as enjoyable, and with the, with the cattle, we couldn't hang them. Cause we didn't have the weather, the temperature is not consistent. So we would just cut them up, hang them for a night and then wrap them. And I mean, that's chewy.
Austin:Other things you can get away with that. But yeah.
Jill:So I'm like, you know what? I'm very happy to pay someone who can knows his cuts. He cuts it well. And it's labeled as I
Austin:can't tell you how many times Kay has pulled out of our chest freezer, a thing I've been like, yeah. What?
Jill:What is it? What? Yeah.
Austin:And now I'm like, hmm, I don't know, kids, what do you, cause they help out, what do you think kids? Yeah. It's like we place bets. Well, what June does, my sister does, is
Jill:do the labeling. Yes. So. You blame her? Yeah, just blame her, I mean that's fair, that's fair. But you know, I think that's such a good example because it's okay to admit that you're not doing something, like someone else can do it better. Yeah. And then when you do find the thing that you know you do better, sink into that. Yes. Like, we hired someone to butcher our chickens once. I didn't, he didn't do a good job. Like he, it just wasn't as good. So I'm like, you know what? We have the setup. I'm really happy to, to lean into that and become more efficient. So I think you just have to pick and choose.
Austin:And, and I like that advice because then you'll get more from what you're doing. If you're trying to do everything, you're gonna, even the things you're good at, you'll do worse because you're doing everything. You're maxed out. So if you're trying to feed. Make the feed, grow the feed, process it, raise the animal, butcher it, you're going to mess up a lot. Whereas if you say, hey, I'm really good at working with livestock. Yeah. Let somebody else grow the grains that we feed them or grow the whatever. Or, hey, I love rotationally grazing, you know, on grass, on pasture. We'll do that. Yeah. Lean into that and do what you're good at. Support your local butcher. Yes. You know, form that community, form that, that web. Because that ultimately, you know, a lot of us want to be self sufficient. You talk about this in your book. Yeah. If you're doing everything and you twist your ankle, right? That's your, but if you've got a network, a community, like you talked about forming and investing in, there'll be there when you need them too. We've had a few emergencies where we had to call up the butcher and say, Hey, you know, we need a hand.
Jill:Yeah. Yeah. And that, that, that's that your net, your network is so valuable when you build that it is such a valuable thing. And if we look at, you know, historically, Even out here like we're out in the wide open prairie The homesteads are few are far between like we'll be out gathering cattle on horseback and you'll ride for miles before you'll see one little house Yeah, and then you'll ride for miles and see another little house But they still were connected and if you look at their writings historically, they were still building houses Close ish to each other and they would get together at the Grange Halls and at the schools There was little schools everywhere and little post offices everywhere and they were still neighboring is what we call it out there They were still neighboring and so we might exalt them as like the pioneers and they were self sufficient I think they were more community sufficient than we are now as modern homesteaders Or we have this idea that we have to do it DIY Yeah, and Amish are another example They live in communities for a reason. We're surrounded by them. Yeah, because you're, yeah,
Austin:where you live. Yeah. And we actually have friends, families who are Mennonites, more Mennonites in our area. It is huge communities. Yes. Yeah, they do a lot of stuff themselves. They're a huge like Neighborhoods of community. Yeah, so it's all and they're all helping one of them's butchering one of them smoking the meat One of them has a store one of them's out in the field So it's it's all about just working together.
Jill:Yeah. Yeah, it's an underrated part. I think yes Yes world on especially online. It's easy to get into that self sufficiency Yes. Yes. Okay moving on to number six replicating the natural world won't mean There will be problems. Oh Let me rephrase that Replicating the natural world won't mean that there won't be problems. We call this the natural myth So what's the natural
Austin:myth we talk about this on our channel from time to time the natural myth and it This is one that we get a lot of comments for we were driving. So we we talked about we've been We're in Alaska for the summer. Mm-Hmm. And now we're driving from Alaska through British Columbia and the Yukon, British Columbia down into the States. Now we're all the way here in Wyoming going through state parks. We were just in Yellowstone Oh, nice. Couple minutes ago. That's the Yellowstone. Yeah. And while in Yellowstone we got to see some of the big horn sheep right. Running around Yellowstone. And my kids are all farm kids. My daughter, my oldest daughter has her own goats. First thing she said they come tumbling down the hill. Wow. They look really healthy Those those bighorn sheep and we were all like gazing at look at the hindquarters. Yeah Shiny coats okay right away. Notice the hoofs. Boy. Their hoofs are beautiful. No one's out there trimming their hoofs. Yeah No one's out there deworming them. No one's giving them any shots any medication Yeah, look at this beautiful creature in its natural habitat. It is the healthiest sheep we've seen maybe ever Yeah, right if we just do what they do on our homesteads Right, you don't need to give them shots. You don't need to give them medication just mimic nature You shouldn't have to worry about their hooves as long as they're out on the dirt and on the rocks You hear people say stuff like yes the difference is You don't own a state park.
Jill:Exactly. Right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, no you don't. You
Austin:don't have, maybe you do. I don't own a state park. You don't have that much land and we just, we were just researching because this piqued our interest. Look at how healthy they look. The mortality rate of the lambs. They did a study. They rake radio collared. They caught up a bunch of bighorn sheep lambs. 95 percent mortality. No way. Would your beef business be able to operate with a 95%? No. Yeah. Not only could you not handle that financially, emotionally? Yes. If every baby you saw on this homestead, if 9 out of 10 died. Now, 30 percent was because of predation. So we put up our fences and we get rid of that. Yeah. It's still like 60, even if we're generous, say 50%. Every other one is called by nature. Nature is a hard farmer. She makes, no, if, if your feet are bad, if you're bad, mother traits, she calls you. 50 percent call rate. I don't have the heart to call my herds at 50%. No,
Jill:no,
Austin:I don't have the heart to watch a sick animal. This was interesting. The 60 percent mortality after you took away after you took away, uh, predation was mostly pneumonia. And this is where we base this whole principle of the natural myth. There are some people out there and if they want to do this on their homestead, I will not argue. Hey, it's your home. You do what you want. They don't want to use pharmaceuticals, right? Yeah. We've had pigs get pneumonia. We've had our cows get pneumonia. Our precious mini Jersey cattle have had pneumonia. We've had in the past instances of this these bighorn sheep. 50 to 60 percent mortality, mostly pneumonia. Now, you can give them a shot. Yeah Pharmaceutical and it will I've never lost an animal that we've treated with a pharmaceutical to pneumonia. Yeah, never or you can mimic nature, but you have to be ready to accept a 50 60 percent death rate. Yeah for certain things. So we although we try to honor the natural practices, right? We rotationally graze, right? We try to move things on fresh grass as much as possible. We try to make sure that our goats have, you know, gravel and rocks to jump around on. We're also going to trim their hooves. Yeah. We try to prevent medical problems. We don't want to depend on pharmaceuticals. We've seen with goats. When you go to goats the world of worms,
Jill:oh man, that's yeah
Austin:Worm problem if you don't avoid it. We got to talk to last year The author of raising goats naturally. Oh, yeah, and she talked about Like the best thing you can do for worms is avoid it and that's all and how you manage and that's mimicking nature But at the end of the day, you will face a problem, something will go wrong, you'll have that, and if you're not willing to take advantage of, like you talk about in your book, some technology, some advances, then you just have to be ready to handle a much higher mortality rate than I could emotionally.
Jill:Yeah, this is such a good conversation. And I've seen it so many times in the homestead world where, where someone, we get so hung up on the natural, like the dogma of the natural order. And we have to remember we are still humans interfering and that, and I mean, there's, there's only a point, like you said, you can't own a state park. And so like, I think about milk cows a lot. There's a lot a lot of times I see homesteader milk cows and obviously milk, milk breeds are skinnier than a, than a brief beef. So you have to kind of calibrate your eyeballs. Yeah. But you can get so hung up on like, I want to only grass feed my milk cow. Well, when it works, it's great. I love, I would prefer my milk be from a grass fed animal exclusively, but some of those mamas can't do that. Or the grass isn't right because you're putting them on pasture that maybe they wouldn't have chosen naturally. Or you're putting two calves on them. which nature probably maybe wouldn't have done, or we're pushing production, like maybe nature wouldn't have done. And so when we refuse to follow up our own actions with some intervention, I think that can get us in hot water real fast. So we, I mean, I prefer not to feed grain to my milk cow, but if my milk cow is Skinny and her body condition is poor. I will give her, I mean, I'm like, I will give her grain.'cause I gotta, I mean I gotta treat her right for the position I put her in. I
Austin:that's a great example. We get that a lot on our channel'cause we have some that we can grass feed. Yeah. Our mini jerseys. Some of them come from the New Zealand genetics and they're just great. And we have, we're fortunate we have like acres and acres of Pennsylvania pasture. Yes, yes. But when we got, we got a Guernsey a couple years ago, we had to supplement her. Yep. And it would be cruel. And I think it would be cruel to take an animal that's been developed on that and remove it. It would be cruel to her. Yes. In my opinion. So if people want to make these other choices, again, the minute I cross the border into your homestead, you want to do things, it's your homestead. I believe we all should be able to choose on our own homesteads, but that's why we say, you know, you just have to be prepared. If you want to just mimic nature, she calls a lot of
Jill:animals. Yep. Yep. That's it. That's such great advice. Such great advice. Yeah. And the pharmaceuticals is another one, I think. And I think sometimes, you know, obviously I'm not a fan of big pharma in my, in my family's diet or my animal's diet. And I think we can get so hung up on pushing back against that. I don't agree with feeding animals, maintenance antibiotics. I don't believe in medicated feed all the time. But that doesn't mean that sometimes they need a shot of penicillin and you know, mastitis is one. We don't have it a lot, but every once in a while, we'll battle it. We'll try to do some natural stuff. And if it's not working, I'm like, I'm not, I'm not going to ruin her utter on principle. So it's, I'm not afraid to do that every once in a while, which that's pretty, that's pretty controversial.
Austin:For us to admit. And we, on our channel, we try it because people will deal with it. Right. Try to be very open with hate. We try to keep our goats from getting worms and we've done in the past, we've made mistakes. We've learned from it. We've lost goats to problems. We've learned from it, but if you are just so dogmatic, you won't consider it as a tool to be used. It's not the solution. Big, trust me. I feel very similar about these bigger corporations, how they make money. I have no love there. No, no. But if my cow, who I do have love for needs a shot of penicillin, they're not making much off that penicillin shot. Exactly.
Jill:Exactly. And I'm like, I mean, that came from, wasn't it mold? I mean, it's, it's a natural, like. So I'm like, I mean, I know it's the factory version, but I'm like, it's in nature. There's some antibiotic properties in different natural things. So I'm like, eh, I'm okay with that. Within reason we're not, we're not creating super bugs here. I'm good with it. Yeah. Nope. I think we're safe. Free from super bugs this year. So, all right. This has been so fun. We have one question left and I think this is a great way to wrap this up. Myth number seven or maybe not myth. But a fact homesteading won't solve all your problems, but it's still an awesome life to live and it's worth it.
Austin:Yeah You know, I know from being in the content side of the business, right? We've had a podcast a long time YouTube channel for a long time. You get the comments. You guys are living my dream I get that a lot right living my dream and I totally get what they're saying Like I understand it and I love hearing You know, people appreciate what we're doing all that. Right. But it is not a dream when you're in it, right? Yeah, it's a reality. Yes, when you're actually there. It's no longer a dream You know, there's the cold you talked about in your book the day you had to probably not the only day Yes, yes this high to get to the barn. I there's a video where we're working on We have a waterer for our cows that freezes up in the winter It's a frost free water, but yeah, I did something wrong and it freezes and I'm out there in the coldest day of the year Fingers freezing and water falling down my back and in my coat trying to fix this thing. And with the torch on it to try to heat it quick, put it back in the ground. There are some of the worst, saddest days of my life. Are direct results of homesteading. Yes one one day I can easily remember I felt at my lowest we lost a a sow with piglets We changed our water setup new infrastructure. Yeah, and changing infrastructure There was a problem in it. We didn't realize yeah pigs when they run out of water Very quickly, whereas another animal cows can run out of water. They get it from the grass you know, they still need I mean it's a problem but like It's not as pigs they get what's called a salt poisoning. Mm hmm kills him real quick Mm hmm, and we had to watch this Sal caring for all these little piglets Just by the time we realized wait something's off with her. What's wrong? Oh, no, the water's not working. She never she died Yeah, that was one of the worst days of my and I don't want to be overly dramatic like I've been fortunate I don't have a lot of loved ones who've died, right? But as far as like everyday life and work and what we do that is one of the worst days I've had in my life I just felt so bad because it was a hundred percent my fault It could have a hundred percent been avoided. You'll have days because of homesteading where you go through that. Yes, but net Why do we do it right when you zoom out? I can remember those days because they're hard and they're bad But it's the best life right now that I can give to my family my kids. Yeah, so you just I feel like When you follow our channels when you read our books or watch our videos or listen to our podcasts We love it. You obviously love this way of life since you were little I love this way of life But you have to be ready if you're gonna jump in It's not you it will bring you a new Okay, K and B always say everyone's life has problems. So you choose your problems. Amen.
Jill:Yeah, amen Pick your problems, right? And these are the problems we pick. Yeah So good. I've had those days as well the hard days. We lost a calf. This year it was my fault And I and everyone online was like it's fine. I'm like, it's not fine. I made a huge mistake I mean I left I I should have put it in the barn and I didn't think it would rain and it rained and she was a day old and The beef cow calves would have been fine. And she was a little more delicate. She was a brown Swiss and she's this big beautiful heifer and came out and she was Beautiful like healthy and I came out that morning. I had this little thought when I went to bed Maybe you should go throw in the barn. I'm like, it's fine. It's Wyoming. It doesn't rain here. It rains I think she just got chilled enough and I like felt so bad. Like I mean I was Like how I can't even describe how bad I felt because it's one thing to have an animal die. It's another thing when you caused it in essence, right? And I was like, you idiot, you knew better. But yeah, it's, it's choosing your heart and you have to choose. I mean, you choose your heart. If I was in, you know, if I hadn't listened to this calling and hadn't chased this dream, I think I would be really miserable, you know, fitting into the prescribed path. That someone else told me to live so I'm like I could choose that and be that miserable and this really isn't miserable There's just bad days sometimes
Austin:So those days I remember that day wanting to quit and this was I mean I wasn't a brand new homesteader. This was years in. Yeah, no, I'm done. Yeah. Yeah, usually there's been I think over our Decade plus probably three or four days. I've said no, we're done. Yes, and here we are.
Jill:We're still and you're still doing it Yeah, it's okay to quit as long as you start again So I I think I would love to see more people especially as homesteading picks up speed online and there's a lot of romantic Sensation of it, you know, which isn't all bad. Sometimes it makes me a little annoyed, you know But it's all white and my aprons and linen dresses, but I'd love to see people move past that stage of romantic starry eyed Yeah Cuz we all go through that and that's fine and just lean into it Like, you know those days when you're out fixing the water and it's cold Those that's your life. That's that's real. And that's okay. And it's okay. I mean, that's just part of the gig just as much as the days when you have brand new baby goats or the eggs look especially clean and beautiful in the basket. And I think as long as we can just accept both not to say there's some days that we just wish didn't happen. But I think that's where the real magic is. And we can stop chasing just the romance and just lean into this the messiness of it. I found that's where I find the most fulfillment ultimately.
Austin:And I, I think our, our, the bulk of the audience, the bulk of the fans, people watching and who are dreamers, I think most of them appreciate that. I think so too. You'll get, I think from doing YouTube a long time, the negative comments, sometimes it makes you not want to be honest about the hard stuff. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Those are hard to share a failure that results in an animal's death and we've on our channel over the years shared a lot of Big ones. Yeah, and you get some awful comments. Yes That just like add to the injury for every hundred people telling you it's okay You guys do a great job that one awful when you get sick. Yes. Yeah, but You'd be doing a disservice too. And that's why it's on the list today to the people who you're inspiring not telling them. Listen There are really hard
Jill:days. Yeah. So, and that's okay. It's normal.
Austin:Yes, it's normal. Everyone has hard days. Yeah. Like right, everyone, if we were doing something else, there'd be a hard day and yeah, we just chose. We just, yep. Cows and pigs and frozen waters
Jill:and worms. Yes, and worms. All, all the beautiful things. So, put that on Instagram. So, oh my goodness. This has been the best. I cannot wait to get the feedback from this. I think it's actually, I don't think we'll have many. bUt yeah, where can people follow along? I know. Okay. Homesteady Instagram, right? Just at homesteady.
Austin:Actually, it's like the last thing we do. I don't even know what else that might, I think it's homesteady show. Let me pull up. Homesteady show. Okay. I read in a book recently, I should delete these apps off my phone, so, oh, delete this one. That
Jill:book, that book does say that It's hard to delete Instagram though.
Austin:Yes. Okay. So on Instagram we are, let's see here. Homestead Show. Homestead Show. Pretty much what I always tell people is if you Google homestead, if you like YouTube videos. We've got a bunch of YouTube videos, you'll find us. If you like podcasts, we've got a lot of podcasts. If you like following stuff on Instagram or, or Facebook, we're very little on Facebook, but basically Google Homesteady, you'll find what we're up to. We have been very quiet over the summer because we were doing the Off Grid Challenge, so it will look like we have stopped. Yeah, but you haven't. We haven't. We've got so much good stuff coming, including the awesome episode we just recorded with you, Jill. The whole off grid challenge, all the stuff we went through, some real hard times there, some real honest, like, we don't like this today, and a lot of learnings that's coming out. So, if you check out our podcast, our videos, or whatever, we're coming back soon. We're in Wyoming, we're making our way back to Pennsylvania, and I'll start editing again once we're back on the grid.
Jill:Yeah, I can't wait to get your grand revelation of what, what you thought after the year. I also think it's cool you actually kind of went off grid while you were doing the off grid challenge. Like that's neat. You went dark because that's a little more authentic.
Austin:I wasn't going to, I tried, I even edited one video and it was so hard. And what ultimately we realized is. I'm like missing out on we're in Alaska with my all my kids and my wife are in Alaska My son's wearing a halibut fishing shirt. We went. Oh nice. Yes. So instead of editing I can edit when I get home You know like and i'm gonna I got a lot.
Jill:I got a lot of it. I bet you do. I bet you do
Austin:We enjoyed it. We went dark for a while. We'll be back probably We're starting to release content pretty
Jill:soon. Okay, good. It's coming. So go, go check that out, guys. It's going to be really good. I think you're really going to enjoy it. So thank you for coming here. Like actually coming here is so fun. Didn't see the farm. Yeah. Way more, way more just enjoyable to have a conversation face to face. The old fashioned way. I also hate Zoom. I also hate Zoom. I do use it a lot, but I hate Zoom. So yeah. Already. So everybody go follow Austin and his family and all their adventures. Good stuff. As you heard, like he's been around the block. been there, done that. He knows he knows this world inside and out homesteading on YouTube, homesteading show on Instagram, and then the homesteading podcast. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any other myths you would like to hear discussed on this show, send them over on Instagram or email or however you want to contact me. And that's it for today. So thanks again. And we'll catch up on the next episode of the old fashioned on purpose podcast.