Featured posts

Today we talk about more babies on the homestead, a chicken update, the poultry processing class, being behind on the spring garden, and more.

Featured Event: LFTN Poultry Processing Class, June 24

Today’s Sponsor: Agorist Tax Advice

AgoristTaxAdvice.com/lftn

Forage

  • Watercress
  • Plantain
  • Raspberry and blackberry leaves
  • Wild mustard flower 
  • Oyster mushrooms

Livestock

  • 2 forlorn Muscovy drakes
  • Baby ducks
  • Baby chick update: 5 dead of 50. Chick ICU
  • Brooder Tray Cleaning
  • Time to breed rabbit A
  • Sheep have integrated well

Grow

  • Things that are planted are growing well
  • Hoping the banana will come back
  • Time to transplant the first rounds of seedlings
  • Behind on planting and starting at this point – strategy to move forward anyway

Harvest Cooking – WE ARE BACK!

  • Baked chicken with lemon garlic dill & freeze dried broccoli

Holler Neighbors/Community

  • Easter Linner
  • Time to talk projects with the neighbors

Infrastructure

  • Holler Roost
  • Major home wiring redo is about done (there was fuckery afoot)
  • Need to repair the chicken tractor
  • Need to set up brooder 2.0 for chickens

Finances

  • Not buying anything for Easter Dinner

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. It makes a great Christmas Gift!

Community

Advisory Board

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Today I welcome Reed Richard, a fellow anarchist living the dream on an island off the western shore of Canada. We talk about his journey, the intentional community he has joined, island life, and the reality of living as an anarchist.

Featured Event: Exit and Build Land Summit, May 18-22

Today’s Sponsor: Paul Wheaton and Permies.com

Kickstarter: Low Tech Laboratory

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/low-tech?ref=5xwwb3

Show Resources

www.bendingreeds.com

https://youtube.com/channel/UCa6F6teRkjOukSg65SAbCQw

Main content of the show

Reed Richard is a father, permaculture enthusiasts, gardener/conductor, rouge thinker/philosopher, musician/dancer, bitcoin curious, novice builder/plumber/electrician, author, the list goes on…

Living on a semi small island on the Salish Sea on unceded territory, Reed enjoys life with his family of 5, all home births, in a community on 20 acres of land, celebrating the pagan sabbath in attempt to rekindle a connection through the generations. He also tends a 3/4 acre plot of which 4000 square feet is planted in a combination of berries and food forest along with bigger patches of squash and potatoes. 3 greenhouse structures, one of which is currently uncovered, handle tomatoes, cucumber, ganga, and various other edibles and medicinal.

Reed has lived in community for over a decade and spent 4 years studying collective living in North America.

Reed is a trained musician, saxophone being the primary instrument, and has been dancing in the ecstatic dance, dance temple, contact dance worlds for 16 years. Utilizing this sense of listening, Reed has turned his focus to the natural world to listen to the pulses of nature to assist with cocreating a thriving place of being.

Reed enjoys fatherhood, encouraging his 11& 2 year Olds, and 3 month old to live an embodied, hands in the earth, emotionally agile, engaged in discovery life.

His current home has space for chickens, with 60 birds coming in January to augment the 10 hens currently in the coop and run. Thoughts of ducks and pigs, to work the land are actively being spoken of with his other landmates.

Reed is also part of a weekly Manventure group. Engaged in a wide array of activities, the manventure group builds trust and fun into being healthy men and a strong network of doers.

Make it a great week

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

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Today I am joined by Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast and John Willis of Special Operations Equipment. We talk about the death of the Petrodollar, BRICS GDP surpassing the G7 GDP, and how to build a great small business. Seem unrelated? They are totally related!

Featured Event: June 24 Chicken Processing Workshop

Today’s Sponsor: The Homestead Consultant

TheHomesteadConsultant.co

LFTN listeners get a special offer of a free 20 minute initial phone consultation. Just send an email with the subject LFTN Consult to TheHomesteadConsultant@gmail.com with a brief description of the homesteading topic you would like to discuss and we will respond to you with available time slots.  

Show Resources

Special Operations Equipment

Living Free in Tennessee

The Survival Podcast

Main content of the show

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Resources


Every time there is an incident that causes death, whether it be a hurricane, earthquake or tornado – or something else, people say things like:

“I could never live there.”

Or they ask: “How can you live in tornado alley?”

Today, we will talk about what it is like to live in a tornado prone area, what we do to prepare for them, and why we stay.

Featured Event: 2023 Permaculture Technology Jambouree in Missoula, MT at Wheaton Labs

July 3-14 – multiple tracks. Tickets range from 

$1600 to $2500 depending on the options you choose. 

  • Natural Building
  • Cooking and preserving
  • Homesteading
  • Beekeeping
  • Rocket Mass Things!

https://wheaton-labs.com/permaculture-tech/?f=495

Today’s Sponsor: Strong Roots Resources:

https://strongrootsresources.com/

Build Food Freedom outside your front door.

Permaculture assessments and support.

Livestream Schedule

  • Tuesday: 9:30am Live with Jack Spirko
  • Wednesday: 9:30am Live with Reed Richard
  • Friday: 9:30 Homestead Happenings

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

  • The pantry looks like an angry toddler got in there and ripped everything out
  • Kitchen Normalcy has returned – Thanks Tracy and Mama Sauce; Matt, KH, T
  • Deep pantry audit – webinar being prepared for members

Weekly Shopping Report from Joe

03/27/2023

Saturday’s trip included a couple of extra stops as well. Dollar Tree was first. We’ve been buying single-use applications of superglue there, which has avoided a lot of waste. The coolers were all in good shape; all pretty much full less typical usage. Other shelves were also well-stocked. For those interested, they now have seed packages.

Our second stop was a little ethnic Mexican store we visit from time to time for things Sonia particularly likes, such as plantains and a vanilla flavoring she adds to her coffee. I like their small bags of pasta noodles. Here, we paid the price for a late start to our day, as it was lunchtime and the store was packed. Their shelves are always full.

Next was Hobby Lobby. They were busy as well. Sonia only wanted a couple of mixed media pads, so it was a quick in and out, but I didn’t see any empty areas.

Home Depot was next. A 2x4x8 remains at $3.35. They looked busy as well. If I had to guess, people are ramping up their gardening.

Aldi was lastWe found heavy cream this week. I definitely noticed higher prices. The meal replacement shakes I get are at least $2 higher.

I stopped in Food City. There is still very little choice in larger bags of dry cat food; I saw mostly generic that I wouldn’t feed a dog. There are a lot of recipes online for mug cakes, but we like the simplest, which is to combine one box of angel-food cake mix plus one box of any other kind; no oil needed. They’d had little angel-food cake on recent trips, but today they had multiple boxes of two different brands.

Untainted regular gasoline remains at $3.999/gallon.

Frugality Tip

(none)

Operation Independence

  • Holler Roost – Function Stacking, Getting Into Eggs Again

Main topic of the Show: How Can You Live in Tornado Country

Weather this weekend – What living in tornado land is like

>Situational awareness, getting information

>Jokes vs taking responsibility for your welfare

>Zello, FB, TG Communications Throughout the State

>Weather Radio

Preparing

  • Avoidance is the number one goal (mountain views, building quality, driving in it, leaving an area, staying in an area)
  • Likelihood
  • What happens when a bad set comes through: 
    • Power Loss
    • Road closures
    • Need for assistance
    • Water system failures
    • Communications knocked out
  • Be ready to: Take care of yourself and your community, render aid to those nearby, provide temporary shelter, go help if you can (Share photos/video as an emotional processing thing)

Why do we stay?

  • Odds of being killed in a tornado are relatively low and other locations have different things that are risks. Floods for example.
  • It is beautiful here
  • People become nonchalant about risks with more time spent near a danger
  • Where else would we go? We accept the risk, take what steps we can, and go on

How about you? Would you stay somewhere where tornadoes happen?

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

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Today, I talk about new chicks on the homestead, THE SNAKE INCIDENT, garden update, sheep matters, rabbits for dogs and more.

Featured Event: Self Reliance Festival March 2023 Recordings!

Today’s Sponsor: AgoristTaxAdvice.com

Matthew Sercely of Agorist Tax Advice can help you make sense of all the options, understand how to stay on top of tracking write-offs, and see new ways of organizing your finances so that you keep more of the money you earn in your pockets. 

Matthew has a broad knowledge of business finance, real estate and rentals, end of life planning and more which means that he can help you find legal tax loopholes and understand risks. 

Head on over to AgoristTaxAdvice.com/lftn to sign up for a free consultation.

Forage

  • Watercress
  • Dandelion
  • Mushrooms

Livestock

  • Snake
  • Reuniting the sheep
  • Pigs gone
  • Rabbit escape – babies
  • 2 muscovies setting eggs (6)
  • Baby chicks
  • Watertown feed source

Grow

  • Brassicas made it through the deep freeze and there is a lesson there
  • Some Rosemary is still alive
  • Strawberry plants are blooming
  • Onions are up
  • Pea chutes
  • Seedlings are doing great

Holler Neighbors/Community

  • Saturday dinner
  • SRF
  • Kitchen Surprise

Infrastructure

  • Chicken coop is going in
  • Rabbit cage temporary solution
  • Pneumonia

 

Finances

  • 13 rabbits = 28 days of food for one dog ($50 in crappy feed savings)

Membership Plug

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. It makes a great Christmas Gift!

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

Pat Watson of Uncensored Tactical and I intended to talk about how he turned a lock picking hobby into a full time income. Instead, we talked about addressing the poverty mindset, how to build your empire, and taking ownership for your future. 

Featured Event: The Exit and Build Land Summit

https://livefree.academy/checkouts/exit-and-build-land-summit-iii/?ref=52

Today’s Sponsor

The Homestead Consultant

At The Homestead Consultant, we believe that the solution to bridging these gaps starts in the individual home. By taking practical steps toward food production, land restoration, independent education and rational preparedness we can begin to restore these disconnects. That is where The Homestead Consultant comes in. We will work closely with you to evaluate your property with your unique goals, vision and resources in mind. Using a restorative,  permaculture lens we will help you design a holistic and actionable gameplan to help make your homesteading dreams a reality. Our sincere desire is to see all of our clients become more connected and resilient! Find out more about our services by visiting our website at TheHomesteadConsultant.com 

LFTN listeners get a special offer of a free 20 minute initial phone consultation. Just send an email with the subject LFTN Consult to TheHomesteadConsultant@gmail.com with a brief description of the homesteading topic you would like to discuss and we will respond to you with available time slots.  

Show Resources

UncensoredTactical.com

Main content of the show

Pat Watson spent over a decade in military operations overseas and federal and local law enforcement including large scale counter narcotics seizures and anti-piracy off the coast of Somalia. Pat left his government careers behind to pursue real Liberty and to bring high quality tactical skill set development training to people regardless of their employment or badges.

Make it a great week

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

Today I toss around some ideas for how we could fund medical care in our communities. One of the big fears many have is getting ill and losing everything to the costs associated with medical care. How can we do this better?

Featured Event: The Gorham Homestead Workshops in Dickson, TN

Today’s Sponsor: The Self Reliance Festival Digital Passes

Livestream Schedule this week

(No livestreams after Monday due to the Self Reliance Festival. We will be back next Tuesday)

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

  • Having an organized pantry is racist – having that opinion is classist
  • Mostly been cooking straight from the jar into the crockpot
  • Late freeze beat back the early spring greens
  • Purging things that we no longer use to make space for things we do use 

Weekly Shopping Report

Frugality Tip: Ross or Homegoods

Do you have a Ross near you? Is there one on your travels? Stop in. Things like sneakers on clearance are great buys, camp chairs are half of Walmart prices, name brand garden tools are crazy cheap. My little secret is to check out the food section where I buy pink Himalayan salt for $4.99 for a 5# bag (they usually have rock and fine ground). You can get some really good buys in the spice section. 

Happy hunting y’all, Make it a great week.

Margo

Operation Independence

  • Kitchen redo update

Main topic of the Show: How can we fund medical care in our communities

The problem and how we got here

Conflating health insurance with healthcare and the resulting limiting beliefs (“I can’t”)

What is healthcare? What is health?

How to foster innovation and bring prices under control 

  • Separate lobbying from health care
  • Cash and trade
  • Subscription model
  • Community supported health care
  • Become realistic about care
  • The banker/irs mentality of health service billing

Funding ideas

  • Transparency in pricing/getting costs under control
  • Getting the regulator out of the way (Certificate of need for example)
  • The HOA Model
  • Patrons
  • Health share/community health care

But wouldn’t rural communities suffer?

How would you fund things if taxes were not an option?

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

Join me for an update from the Holler Homestead. Friends leaving the farm, new arrivals, winter returns 1.0, and more.

Featured Event: SquatchFest June 21-25: https://foodforestfarms.com/store/p125/TheSquatchFEST_-_Solstice_Celebration_June_21-25_2023.html

Today’s Sponsor: The Homestead Consultant

TheHomesteadConsultant.com

In today’s chaotic world there is a major disconnect between our land, our food and our community. At The Homestead Consultant, we believe that the solution to bridging these gaps starts in the individual home. By taking practical steps toward food production, land restoration, independent education and rational preparedness we can begin to restore these disconnects. That is where The Homestead Consultant comes in. We will work closely with you to evaluate your property with your unique goals, vision and resources in mind. Using a restorative,  permaculture lens we will help you design a holistic and actionable gameplan to help make your homesteading dreams a reality. Our sincere desire is to see all of our clients become more connected and resilient! Find out more about our services by visiting our website at TheHomesteadConsultant.com 

LFTN listeners get a special offer of a free 20 minute initial phone consultation. Just send an email with the subject LFTN Consult to TheHomesteadConsultant@gmail.com with a brief description of the homesteading topic you would like to discuss and we will respond to you with available time slots.  

Forage

  • Watercress, dead nettle, stinging nettle, chick weed
  • Morels and other mushrooms
  • Ramps are up
  • Pea shoots and other early spring greens
  • A word on the frost

Livestock

  • Lady Pig and LB are leaving the Holler Homestead
  • Rabbit 2 is making a nest about 5 days later than we expected – this is why you wait a week to be sure
  • Sheep moving to the barn in advance of SRF to making things easier for the farm sitters – can do this because the grass is back
  • Getting ready for chicks in two weeks
  • Rats are a renewed problem

Grow

  • Seedlings are doing well
  • Brassicas made it through the freeze just fine
  • Rosemary and lavender is still with us
  • Strawberries are blooming 

Holler Neighbors/Community

  • BIIIG help on the kitchen redo (See thumbnail)

Infrastructure

  • Holler Roost
  • Pump House Update 

Finances

  • Sold some lamb in the network

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. It makes a great Christmas Gift!

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

 

Today we have an interview show with Spags Unfiltered one of the folks behind the Midwest Preparedness Project, a growing community of folks looking to build REAL community and REAL resilience. We talk a ton about choosing freedom and building community.

Featured Event: The Midwest Preparedness Project Spring Event, April 26-30 in Perry, Kansas.

Todays Sponsor: Agorist Tax Advice

AgoristTaxAdvice/LFTN

Agorist Tax Advice. Do you want to give Uncle Sam fewer of your hard-earned dollars? Do you wonder if the time has come to set up your LLC? Are you confused about what kind of business to establish? Are you wanting to pass along wealth you have built to your kids, but not sure the best way to do that?

Matthew Sercely of Agorist Tax Advice can help you make sense of all the options, understand how to stay on top of tracking write-offs, and see new ways of organizing your finances so that you keep more of the money you earn in your pockets. 

Matthew has a broad knowledge of business finance, real estate and rentals, end of life planning and more which means that he can help you find legal tax loopholes and understand risks. 

Head on over to AgoristTaxAdvice.com/lftn to sign up for a free consultation.

Show Resources

Spags Unfiltered Youtube Channel

Midwest Preparedness project

Main content of the show

16 years military, 3 private security, 8 years US House of Representatives, 3 military contractors, now EMPS. Was the Vice President of Kansas Prepper Expo and Full Spectrum Preparedness. Now works with the Midwest Preparedness Project and Freesteading to spread the word about being prepared, community and divorcing the state.

Interview

Make it a great week

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Advisory Board

Resources

 


Today we have John Pugliano from the Wealthsteading Podcast and Investable Wealth and John Willis from Special Operations Equipment to talk about what is up with bank closures, navigating the recession, building wealth no matter what and more.

Featured Event: Exit and Build Land Summit in Bastrop, Texas

Brave Botanicals

You all know John Bush from our time together in the Unloose the Goose podcast and also the webinars we do with Live Free Academy. But did you know that John has another company that provides organic herbal products? 

Brave Botanicals offers top-quality, organic CBD and Kratom products along with other herbal resources. 

This month, we are highlighting the kratom, an herbal supplement that comes from the coffee family, minus the caffeine. It grows in Southeast Asia and is traditionally used for medicinal purposes. Its leaves contain compounds that can have psychotropic and it has gained popularity in the Western world for its potential to help with the management of chronic pain, stress, and anxiety, and some people use it to try to overcome addiction to opioids or to reduce the severity of opioid withdrawal symptoms.

If you want to learn more about kratom, head on over to BraveBotanicals.com to learn about its many uses and dig into the different varieties and dosage.

Interested in trying it out? John Bush also offers a free ounce of kratom, plus 50% off your first order through his site, FreeOunceofKratom.com.

Show Resources

Special Operations Equipment

Living Free in Tennessee

The Wealthsteading Podcast

Investable Wealth

Main content of the show

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

Resources