A Farmish Kind of Life

Audio replay from the Farmish Friday morning 4-15-22 livestream. Topics include farm journals, balance on the farm, and a very pretty mouth.

In today's interview, herbalist and mom Michele Marlow talks about autism, sensory gardens, and the outlet of comfort and peace that she and her son have found in nature.

What if "do what you can with what you have where you are" isn't a call to action, but instead, a cautionary request? Let's talk about knowing when to take on what.

Audio replay from the Farmish Friday morning 4-8-22 livestream. Topics include seed math, and time saving tips/fails, and when the internet is "internetty".

When you get to the heart of it, today's chat with Thecia from Ellis Family Farms is really about the importance of living FULLY until you take your last breath - regardless of age, situation, or level of support from those around you.

Today we celebrate 4 years and 200 episodes of the Farmish Kind of Life Podcast! Listeners share their stories of how the podcast and the Farmish community has helped them in their homesteading and life journey.

Audio replay from the Farmish Friday morning 4-1-22 livestream. Topics include burritos, ma nature's tricks, and gardening tips.

Today's interview is with Nate and Erin from Two Chicks Homestead, and we talk about getting started in ham radio. We discuss equipment, testing, licenses, challenges, and neat things you can do if you decide to dive in to the world of ham radio.

I recently received a bunch of questions about raising chickens. Here are my answers, two cents worth of advice, and some disclaimers about keeping chickens on your homestead.

Audio replay from the Farmish Friday morning 3-25-22 livestream. Topics include blue hair, the gym, and eating real food.

Audio replay from 3-22-22 livestream with Nicole Sauce, John Willis, and myself. We talk about many things—everything from dealing with jerks to raising and growing your own food.

In today's interview episode, Brian Wells from The Homestead Journey Podcast gets fired up and gives a whole buck fifty's worth of thoughts regarding what makes someone a "real homesteader". He also reminds us to not let great get in the way of good enough.

We're all a bunch of Judgey McJudgey Pants. Don't think so? Take a listen to your inner dialogue, and then ask yourself these two important questions.

Audio replay from a livestream with Nicole Sauce of Living Free in Tennessee. We talk about the things that are bothering us with the world today: entitlement, the media, laziness. Be aware, there is plenty of profanity in this episode.

Audio replay from the Farmish Friday morning 3-18-22 livestream. Topics include Aldi, date nights, garden plans, and Amy's next hair color.

What does it take to be successful in your goals? Today Tim Cook and I talk about hard work, support systems, and the fallacy of the overnight success.

Does the chaos of the world have you feeling like you need to raise alllll the animals on your farm? Here are nine things to consider before you add any (more) animals to the homestead.

Audio replay from the Farmish Friday morning 3-11-22 livestream. Topics include the tool box fallacy, prepping, grilled cheese, songs you sing to your dog, and hydroponic lettuce.

Today I chat with Kerry Brown of Strong Root Resources about community -- not only how to build a good one, but also why it's important in reaching your goals.

Some folks don't want to share what they're doing on their homestead because they don't want to make themselves a target if the SHTF. My thoughts? Here they are.

Today’s conversation is with Jessica of Back to Roots Farm, and we talk about all the expectations that go out the window when we decide to live the homesteading life.

You want to share about the cool things you're doing on your homestead, but you're afraid some folks think you're just showing off. Yeah, about that...

Today I talk with Brian from The LOTS Project about his experience being a vendor at several farmers markets. He shares tips and things you should consider before you decide to sell your homegrown/homemade goods at a farmers market.

There is a certain stigma that comes with having to deal with rats, but rats can be a common issue on a farm. Today I'm going to talk about our recent experience dealing with rats—what's worked, what hasn't, and where to go from here.

Today’s conversation is with Nate and Erin Lamaster of Two Chicks Homestead, and we’re talking about raising meat rabbits! Hear about Nate and Erin’s set-up, what they’ve learned along the way, as well as tips you should know if you’re thinking of raising rabbits for meat.

The things you want to do have to be more important than the things you want to complain about. Memes won’t feed the chickens, and complaints won’t pay the mortgage. Let's find a group of "do-ers" online and in real life… and do something else.

Country life is amazing, but it's also... different! Today I talk to Tom and Julie from Small Scale Life about their journey from being city mice to country mice, and all the things they've discovered and learned so far.

If you're out in the world dealing with all the crazy, you need a place where you can go to just be, to breathe, to know it’s going to be okay. But how many people don’t have that? And do you think that maybe feeds into the chaos of the world?

Today’s conversation is with Lettie from the Liberty All Day podcast and we talk about choosing to follow a "different path" and the negativity that you will sometimes experience because of that.

Today we wade into some deep, tangled muck regarding content creation, content consumption, what to do when platforms make you mad, how free content has really changed us as creators/consumers, and how to support content creators best. Make sure to bring milk, this one gets spicy.

We are 25 days into the new year. Remember those goals you made? Today’s podcast episode (181) and blog post talks about what happens when you gain new information regarding your plans. Do you change your goals to fit your life or change your life to fit your goals?

Stepping away from the crowd? Want to do things differently? Be careful. Today I talk about two traps people can often fall into along the way to living a life that's more free.

Today we take a look at the realities of working from home: the pros, the cons, and the tips that make working from home... work better.

If you live in a house, it's bound to get messy. Here's my list of 30 focused, manageable tasks to get your house on the road to organization.

Today I talk about the two focus words I've chosen for 2022 and why I chose them. To make a long story short, it's time to get out of my own way.

I'm celebrating ten years of being on our farm by talking about ten(ish) things I've learned from a decade of farm life.

There is a difference between anger that gets things done, and anger that just spins our wheels. What are you doing with your anger?

Ready for some hard hitting truth? We choose the majority of the problems we will deal with. Let's talk personal responsibility and the pros and cons of every choice we make.

Embrace the line between hope for the future and the reality of current times, and show others that walking that line is possible.

There is a difference between relying on each other and relying on Them. I believe healing and progress will take place in our country when there is more of the first and far less of the second, but in order to have less of the second, we have some uncomfortable questions to answer. I think this is important to talk about because as the world is going through these challenging times and shifting into whatever is coming next, I hear so many people say, “Screw it. I’m just gonna lock my door and be a hermit.” or “I’m gonna move to the woods and be all by myself because I don’t need anyone else.” And so they shut themselves off from the benefits of community, sometimes because of a misguided belief that we're not supposed to have to depend on anyone. But here's the thing. There's a difference between learning to rely on each other and learning to rely on Them. Relying on people with a face and a name you know—someone you could invite over for coffee—in a relationship that's an agreed upon, two way street is completely different than relying on Them, the government or giant corporations/systems. Each other vs. Them Surviving and thriving because you depended on each other was normal way back in the day, and is even pretty common in some communities still. (I'm looking at you, Yoder.) Community and depending on each other used to be the name of the game. If it was 1800 whatever and you were on the prairie, would you give a rat’s ass or probably even know what the government was up to on a daily basis? But I bet they knew what Mr. So and So was up to down the way. They had to. Mr. So and So and Mrs. Whoever and your family were the only ones for miles. You had each other. You didn’t have Them. Community is give and take. Community is I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine. Community is I’ll help you finish siding your house if you butcher and process my deer this year. It’s bartering. It’s helping each other. It’s following through on your end of the agreement. It’s offering help in ways that you can and knowing other people will help you out when you need it. I don’t feel that with government. I don’t feel that with the public school system or the medical system or the corporate food system. That’s not community. That’s Them. And yet there's a lot of people relying on those things. And when that system starts to break down—as it currently is—we have a lot of struggle and chaos. Because people have been relying on Them, not each other. This is important to talk about I hear people in the survival community sometimes spout off the importance of being able to care for yourself because ain’t nobody coming to help you. And while I agree with that, I think some people misconstrue what they’re saying. The way I see it, they’re saying learn to take care of yourselves because They aren’t coming to help you. But you’d better believe that someone is coming to help you. Your community will help each other, right? You’ve seen this happen in times of struggle, right? Gosh, I hope so. If not, you need to build that community. I also think it’s important to talk about because there are people out there who won’t accept help from others because they’ve learned that relying on others is weak. Or that you’re taking a handout. Or that you should be able to fend for yourself. And I think they’ve learned that because of watching others take from the system and everything that comes from that. Some uncomfortable truths Now, I want to point out here that I think it’s great that there are food banks and soup kitchens and places for people to get clothing and there are shelters for people who need it. I’m not against assistance. I just know that some forms of assistance are horribly abused by some people. And I think it’s harder to abuse that assistance when it’s not done on a large scale by Them. But, and this is a huge but, if we’re going to be a people who talk about how it’s not the government's job...

When talking about the state of the world, it’s common to hear people say, “well, when things go back to normal...” but is that what we really want? In today’s podcast episode/blog post I explain why I don’t think things will ever go back to normal, why I don’t think we should go back to normal, and what is a better option.

Thoughts today on why it's important to know your neighbors and build an in person community -- and how the internet has made that entire process more complicated (and not for reasons you think.)

The path I talk about will mean different things to different people. But hopefully this will be helpful to anyone who listens/reads these words.

See, the thing that always gets me is this: in a world where everyone is busy, where everyone has so much to do, people took time out of their busy lives to help us with ours.

Don't let the concept of prepping freak you out. Prepping is just keeping extra supplies on hand. That's all it is.

Before you get too excited about how you’ll take on an apocalyptic collapse of society like a boss, let’s be honest. When put in a situation you’ve never actually been in before, you don’t know *how* you or anyone else will react to or deal with that situation. People both excel and struggle differently—and that is magnified when dealing with stress.

Okay, I’m going to say it. Ego is a problem in some homesteading and prepping communities and it needs to stop.

Online communities are great, but we need to remember the importance of in person, local communities. Let's bring them back!

There are no sick days on a farm, so how do you deal with homestead work when you can barely get out of bed?

Six reasons why it's more important than ever to take care of yourself—hint: look at current events—and three ways to do it.