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Today, we talk about the homestead revenue stack as well as our usual Monday segments.

Featured Event

Sept 12: ETNHA Festival near Knoxville, TN
https://steveandsandy.com/festival

Sponsors

Sponsor 1: DiscountMylarBags.com

Long-term food storage supplies that won’t break the bank.

Sponsor 2: AgoristTaxAdvice.com

Helping entrepreneurs, homesteaders, and freedom-minded folks handle taxes the smart way.

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

  • Took a Sunday Down Day to redo short-term storage and move things over to Basecamp for long-term.
  • Counted and organized: 41 mugs (yep, 41).
  • Set up a food plan for the week.
  • Making progress on air potatoes VS Chinese yam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6L-1POLF3Q&feature=youtu.be
  • Built a to-do list of things to gather for winter teas and herbal remedies.

Frugality Tip

Join the LFTN Stocking Exchange — because life is about more than just saving money.

Operation Independence

  • Reached alignment with Tactical on building a double-purpose shed.
  • Sold the old roofing from Basecamp (still have ridge caps available for sale).

Main Topic: Avoiding Burnout and Hard Work

If you came to hear how to NOT work hard on your homestead and still be successful you have come to the wrong place. We’ve been talking lately about the need for rest and recovering from burnout — and then I realized on a walk that hard work is part of homesteading – so burnout is one thing, but hard work another = so where is the line between these two?

Many people hesitant to get out and about lately.

Stories of burnout are common → led to conversations about resets, weekend retreats, and monthly calls for homesteaders.

Giving talks on Build Abundance Not Burnout (like at SRF in October).

Realization: some come to hear “how to make it easy,” but building the life you choose is not easy.

Burnout comes from:

  • Overcommitting and saying yes to everything.
  • Lack of rest or intentional reset.
  • Poor design → every task feels uphill.
  • No tracking or systems → constant re-doing and searching.
  • Trying to do it all alone without community.
  • Expecting it to be easy and feeling defeated when it isn’t.

Design makes things flow, but doesn’t remove the work.

  • Design for future you (20–40 years older).
  • Example: rabbit hutch above garden bed → nutrients flow without transport.
  • Design with profit in mind.
  • Tracking matters (avoids wasted effort).
  • Systems = less friction, but animals still need care, water lines must be buried, harvests preserved, fencing run.

Homestead Revenue Stack (Holler Homestead Example)

  • Core Product – Sheep
  • Service Layer – Airbnb experiences, tours, classes
  • Scalable – LFTN Podcast, HomesteadSkills.academy, cookbook
  • Community – Meetups, connecting people
  • Add-ons – Holler Roast Coffee (became its own core product), laminated cheat sheets, small guides, dried herbs
  • Game changer: Add-ons bolt onto existing work.
  • Sometimes the add-on is another person → ties into Holler Hub model (spokes).

Each layer still involves hard work.

Smart design + add-ons keep that work from tipping into burnout.

Honest contrast: the grind is real, but structure turns it into momentum.

Hard work is baked into homesteading — there’s no escaping it. Burnout comes when that work isn’t designed well or isn’t supported. The Homestead Revenue Stack shows how to make your effort count: core products require grind, but when you design smart and bolt on add-ons (whether that’s coffee, guides, or community), the same work builds abundance instead of exhaustion.

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

 

This year we thought it would be fun to do a stocking exchange.
Each participant will fill a stocking for a randomly picked person
and mail it to them.

A few rules of the game:

 Try to cap spending at $20
 One item must be handmade
 One item must be able to hang on the tree
 One recipe card

Margo, our Frugality Tip Guru, agreed to help make this happen this year. It’s sort of like a mailed secret santa. Except if you are going to the LFTN Christmas Party on Dec 20, you could hand deliver your stocking if your person is also there.

BE MENTALLY PREPARED TO MAIL BY DEC 1!!

Sign up here:

LFTN Stocking Exchange

Name
Address (We will only share with your secret Santa if they need to mail it to you)

Direct Download

Today we talk about the cracked fitting, sheep hijinks, the meetups and more

Featured Event: https://steveandsandy.com/festival

Sept 12 and 13

Sponsor 1: AgoristTaxAdvice.com/LFTN

Sponsor 2: TheWealthSteadingPodcast InvestableWealth.com

Forage

  • Air Potatoes
  • Last Night’s Dinner
  • Watercress

Livestock

  • Lamb for sale
  • Rabbit breeding season has arrived

Grow

  • Fall Brassicas are in
  • Sweet Potato Leaves
  • Seed Fairy Time
  • When the saute is like wet fabric…

Holler Neighbors/Community

  • Meetup and Class Update
  • Painting Basecamp Lodge
  • While the cat’s away
  • Christmas Stocking Project

Finances

  • Holler Hub Membership Idea and Grocery – forms

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

 

It takes just a few minutes to put these together, then you can pop them into the refrigerator until appetite strikes.

We made the recipe without adding protein powder. Add your own favorite nuts, seeds, and dried or freeze-dried fruit.

Recipe and top photo courtesy of The Upside.

Read more

Direct Download

Today, I was joined by Brooke Whipple to discuss building freedom and using land to do so, but we ended up discussing mindset, living in the moment, small versus large decisions and her journey through life. And yes, we also discussed how she and her husband bought the land they could afford, improved it, then leveraged that into a better property. Rinse, repeat.

You will thoroughly enjoy this discussion AND you can meet Brooke in person at the SelfRelianceFestival.com, October 4-5 in Camden, TN at the Birdsong Marina! Use coupon code LFTN for $10 off your ticket!

Connect with Brooke:

Book we discussed: The Gap And The Gain: https://www.amazon.com/Gap-Gain-Achievers-Happiness-Confidence/

Book we discussed: Good Energy: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Energy-Surprising-Connection-Metabolism

Self Reliance Festival Links

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

Direct Download

Today we talk about transformational experiences in our lives and why being in person matters, as well as out usual Monday Segments.

Featured Event: Small Engines Class With Alan Bechard, Sept 20 at 10am
LivingFreeInTennessee.com

Don’t forget to get your SRF tickets!! Use coupon code LFTN for $10 off: SelfRelianceFestival.com

Sponsor 1: DiscountMylarBags.com

Sponsor 2: StrongRootsResources.com

Tales From The Prepper Pantry

Frugality Tip

Operation Independence

Main topic

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

This one comes with a video!

Ingredients:

1 lb sausage

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 of an onion, diced

1 jalapeno, diced

1/4 of a bell pepper, diced

1 8 0z package of cream cheese (or make your own)

 

Flatten sausage to 1/3 of an inch or so  and cut out a 6 inch circle, Use the rest of the meat tpo pack into a 6 inch cast iron skillet as the “crust”.

Mix the herbs, spices and diced things into the cream cheese and fill the “pie”

Top it with your 6 inch circle.

Bake at 350 until it is done. Like an hour or so.

>>Check out the video

 

Direct Download

Today I am joined by the Tactical Redneck to discuss: Redneck Pie, subdividing paddocks, food forest whisperer’s latest action, and old garbage revealed through grazing.

Featured Event: Sunday Meetup and Demo From Hoff Grid Meat Company! 1pm this Sunday

Sponsor 1: TheWealthsteading Podcast

Sponsor 2: AgoristtaxAdvice.com/LFTN

Redneck Pie

Fall is in the air – winter is coming!

SRF is so cool this year

Filling in rock wall with mint, oregano, thyme, and a sacrificial rosemary

Bean replacements are up

Ducks are in full molt

Cheese class update (Wild forage, fun, fellowship, reset)

Boys are out of jail and in the best paddock over here

The loud – paddock garbage revealed through grazing

Lambchop Rip cord

The roof is DONE at Basecamp Lodge

Comfrey in the swales

Hoff Grid Meat Company Order for the year (and why we are doing it this way)

The AI Class this weekend

Sweet potato flowers

Time to harvest Goldenrod

Passion flowers

Rose of sharon

Spice berry

Time to breed and process rabbits

Girls: Subdividing paddocks to increase density

Holler Hub/Basecamp Calendar

Wednesdays are back

The tomato wall problem

Finances – cheese class

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

 

Direct Download

Featured Event: SelfRelianceFestival.com Oct 4-5

Sponsor 1: TheWealthsteading Podcast

Sponsor 2: DiscountMylarBags.com

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