So, if you’re the daughter of a famous homesteader, you’re destined to live off the land yourself, right? Today, you’ll find out what falls from the sky when a teenager rebels against the mother of modern homesteading.

So, imagine your mother wrote the book on Country Living.

I mean—literally.

In addition to bearing seven children in the 70s, Carla Emery also found time to write The Encyclopedia of Country Living.

That’s the first book that many wannabe homesteaders place on their mantles.

It’s a million word tome that’s on my bookshelf, and I’ve thumbed the pages of my copy until they’ve frayed.

But this isn't a story about Carla. It's the story of Esther Emery, Carla's youngest daughter.

Carla was 30 when her first child was born in 1970, 40 by the time Esther, her seventh, arrived.

In a “back-to-the-land” era when it seemed everyone wanted to know how to make it in the country,The Encyclopedia of Country Living began selling like hotcakes.

But Esther grew up on the latter side of that trend, as the go-go 80s and 90s saw Silicon Valley capitalistic values render the idea of homesteading as quaint and archaic.

When tragedy struck Carla's family and resulted in her losing her homestead, Carla, the mother of modern homesteading, was forced to move to the city to homeschool her children.

As a result, Esther knew nothing of the life of open spaces and farm chores that her mother wrote about, and took a long and winding path through life to where she is today.

That path included battling bulimia, enrolling in a far away college at the age of 15, a career in theater in southern California and even a full year of self-imposed exile from the Internet, a story she chronicled in her new book, What Falls From the Sky.

After that year of exile she and her husband, Nick, felt a calling to return to their Idaho roots, where they have lived off-grid in a yurt for three years while Nick builds their cabin from timber he milled himself.

Now that Esther is baking bread in a wood stove, doing laundry with the help of a bicycle and fighting off bears, she is finding that the circle of life is becoming complete. She is becoming like the mother she rebelled against as the land has summoned her home.

Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl18

How can a modern homesteader expect to achieve personal privacy in the digital age? This week, Liz and I discuss the homestead we settled on and the steps we have taken to live a private, self-sufficient life.

Listen to the Podcast

Subscribe to Self-Sufficient Life on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play or TuneIn

Welcome to Episode 17! This week Liz and I tell describe the homestead property we settled on, and share what concessions we had to make since there is no "perfect" property.

Here's what we discuss about the property:

How much acreage we settled on

Woods vs pasture/open land

House size/configuration

Well vs gravity water

Streams/water features

Southern exposure

Fruit trees

Garden space and outbuildings

To heat or not to heat with wood

Proximity to populated areas

Homeschooling/homesteading culture

We also discuss our overall objectives for homesteading. Those include:

Living as freely as possible

maximize free time

having a property that requires low maintenance

time to develop skills we're interested in, such as foraging, medicinal herbs and bushcrafting

maximize time together as a family

able to travel if desired

Be as independent and sustainable as possible

grow our own vegetables and most of our fruit

grow and butcher or hunt for our own meat

produce dairy and eggs

Teach our daughter about animal husbandry and...you know...the birds and the bees

Provide pollination and collect honey and wax from bees

Use our land's materials for building projects

Grow, harvest and produce as much of our own medicine as possible

Beyond that, we had an overarching goal that we began discussing in Episode 16. That is, to achieve and maintain a high level of personal privacy.

That's a hard thing to do in this digital age. But when a listener called in and asked about privacy, we decided to share our approach on achieving privacy in this episode.

Here's what we discussed:

Why privacy is important to us

bad guy takes license plate number (road rage, etc.)

That privacy is about keeping our private life private. It’s not about avoiding taxes or even asset protection, although it helps with the latter.

The importance of separating your name from physical residence

driver's license

managing FedEx, etc., deliveries

home ownership titling

deposits for utilities, DirecTV, etc.

Setting up PO boxes BEFORE moving. That way you can complete the USPS forms truthfully with your two forms of ID.

Providing no forwarding address

Setting-up bank account before moving or keeping existing bank account

Using passport for ID instead of Driver’s License. DL very seldom actually required.

Using cash over credit

Dealing with family who wants to know why they can't tell people where you live

What is a lie (intent to both deceive and cause harm)

It was a spirited and interesting discussion, and I hope you enjoy it and find that it gives you a lot to think about as you prepare for your self-sufficient life. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week. If you enjoyed this episode, please SHARE it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and I greatly appreciate it!

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates!

Resources Relevant to This Episode

How to Make Money Homesteading by Tim Young

Start Prepping by Tim Young

The Accidental Farmers by Tim Young

Production Credits

Story written by Tim Young

Music Credits

Theme Song - Opting Out Today - Lyrics by Tim Young

Other royalty-free music by www.bensound.com, Kevin MacLeod, Nicolai Heidlas & Audionautix

How can a modern homesteader expect to achieve personal privacy in the digital age? This week, Liz and I discuss the homestead we settled on and the steps we have taken to live a private, self-sufficient life.

Welcome to Episode 17 of Self-Sufficient Life! This week Liz and I tell describe the homestead property we settled on, and share what concessions we had to make since there is no "perfect" property.

Here's what we discuss about the property:

- How much acreage we settled on

- Woods vs pasture/open land

- House size/configuration

- Well vs gravity water

- Streams/water features

- Southern exposure

- Fruit trees

- Garden space and outbuildings

- To heat or not to heat with wood

- Proximity to populated areas

- Homeschooling/homesteading culture

We also discuss our overall objectives for homesteading. Those include:

- Living as freely as possible

- maximize free time

- having a property that requires low maintenance

- time to develop skills we're interested in, such as foraging, medicinal herbs and bushcrafting

- maximize time together as a family

- able to travel if desired

- Be as independent and sustainable as possible

- grow our own vegetables and most of our fruit

- grow and butcher or hunt for our own meat

- produce dairy and eggs

- Teach our daughter about animal husbandry and...you know...the birds and the bees

- Provide pollination and collect honey and wax from bees

- Use our land's materials for building projects

- Grow, harvest and produce as much of our own medicine as possible

Beyond that, we had an overarching goal that we began discussing in Episode 16. That is, to achieve and maintain a high level of personal privacy.

That's a hard thing to do in this digital age. But when a listener called in and asked about privacy, we decided to share our approach on achieving privacy in this episode.

Here's what we discussed:

- Why privacy is important to us

- bad guy takes license plate number (road rage, etc.)

- That privacy is about keeping our private life private. It’s not about avoiding taxes or even asset protection, although it helps with the latter.

- The importance of separating your name from physical residence

- driver's license

- managing FedEx, etc., deliveries

- home ownership titling

- deposits for utilities, DirecTV, etc.

- Setting up PO boxes BEFORE moving. That way you can complete the USPS forms truthfully with your two forms of ID.

- Providing no forwarding address

- Setting-up bank account before moving or keeping existing bank account

- Using passport for ID instead of Driver’s License. DL very seldom actually required.

- Using cash over credit

- Dealing with family who wants to know why they can't tell people where you live

- What is a lie (intent to both deceive and cause harm)

It was a spirited and interesting discussion, and I hope you enjoy it and find that it gives you a lot to think about as you prepare for your self-sufficient life. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com

If you had an opportunity to opt out of the rat race and set up a modern homestead, how would you go about it? This week you’ll hear my wife Liz and I share our step-by-step process for choosing our new homestead location.

Listen to the Podcast

SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST IN ITUNES

Welcome to Episode 16! This week’s episode is a little different in that it doesn’t profile another homesteader or farmer. Instead, it begins the process of profiling us. By that I mean my wife, Liz, and myself, and the life of modern homesteading that we’re enjoying.

Now, many of you have followed our journey since we left the rat race, back in 2006.

You read the farm blog we maintained years ago. And bout a quarter million of you listened to our podcasts from 2010-2012, many from all corners of the world. And tens of thousands more have read my books, most notably The Accidental Farmers and How to Make Money Homesteading.

Still, many of you are unacquainted with our story.

In a nutshell, we lived in suburban Atlanta in 2006, on a golf course with a strict HOA. We’d never farmed, but that didn’t stop us from buying over 120 acres in rural Georgia, leaving behind our careers in corporate America and teaching to become first-generation farmers.

We raised pretty much anything that walks. Grassfed beef, meat chickens, laying hens, rabbits, pigs, geese, ducks, dairy cows and, just for fun, donkeys, guineas and guardian dogs. We built a great customer base from Atlanta to Athens, GA, and loved hosting farm tours for up to 100 people a month.

And then—we sort of went into seclusion in late 2012. We stopped blogging and podcasting, though we continued farming through 2015, selling grassfed meats and farmstead cheese.

But in 2015 we stopped farming commercially and began the process of migrating from being farmers to being homesteaders.

This is a story of what to look for in a modern homestead property.

Liz and I spent a couple of years searching for a new homestead property, as we transitioned from being commercial farmers (for others) to homesteaders.

Of course, the process took longer than we wanted, as we had to sell off farm animals and a farm business. We discuss how we handled that in this episode, as well as the reasons that drove us from farming to homesteading.

Once we completed those tasks, we still had to find a new homestead. We wanted this to be a very long-term move, if not for life, so we established a series of criteria in looking for a new homestead.

Those criteria included:

1) macro criteria for new property

incurring no debt / strict budget

proximity to family

slightly cooler garden zone

southern exposure

higher elevation

rainfall

low taxes

low/no restrictions on building codes

state friendly to homeschool

2) micro criteria for new property

mature fruit trees

at least 20 acres, unless on a mountain

good well water or gravity water/water on property (pond, mountain stream, springs)

no sight of paved road

no sight of neighbors

good hunting/foraging

much smaller house

ideally heated with wood

pasture, but no more than a few acres

within an hour of sizable town, 30 mins of grocery store/hospital

around like minded-people (homeschool groups, homesteading culture, farming, etc.)

3) things we knew weren’t critical

school system

fencing

high quality pasture

outbuildings

existing garden (because we’d be putting in raised beds)

cosmetics on house…just well insulated and sound

Liz and I discuss all these criteria in detail as well as the life of farming versus homesteading. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Subscribe to the Small Farm Nation Podcast

Make it easy on yourself and subscribe to the show, and you’ll never miss an episode:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week. If you enjoyed this episode, please SHARE it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the...

If you had an opportunity to opt out of the rat race and set up a modern homestead, how would you go about it? This week you’ll hear my wife Liz and I share our step-by-step process for choosing our new homestead location.

Welcome to Episode 16 of Self-Sufficient Life! This week’s episode is a little different in that it doesn’t profile another homesteader or farmer. Instead, it begins the process of profiling us. By that I mean my wife, Liz, and myself, and the life of modern homesteading that we’re enjoying.

Now, many of you have followed our journey since we left the rat race, back in 2006.

You read the farm blog we maintained years ago. And bout a quarter million of you listened to our podcasts from 2010-2012, many from all corners of the world. And tens of thousands more have read my books, most notably The Accidental Farmers and How to Make Money Homesteading.

Still, many of you are unacquainted with our story.

In a nutshell, we lived in suburban Atlanta in 2006, on a golf course with a strict HOA. We’d never farmed, but that didn’t stop us from buying over 120 acres in rural Georgia, leaving behind our careers in corporate America and teaching to become first-generation farmers.

We raised pretty much anything that walks. Grassfed beef, meat chickens, laying hens, rabbits, pigs, geese, ducks, dairy cows and, just for fun, donkeys, guineas and guardian dogs. We built a great customer base from Atlanta to Athens, GA, and loved hosting farm tours for up to 100 people a month.

And then—we sort of went into seclusion in late 2012. We stopped blogging and podcasting, though we continued farming through 2015, selling grassfed meats and farmstead cheese.

But in 2015 we stopped farming commercially and began the process of migrating from being farmers to being homesteaders.

This is a story of what to look for in a modern homestead property.

homestead incomeLiz and I spent a couple of years searching for a new homestead property, as we transitioned from being commercial farmers (for others) to homesteaders.

Of course, the process took longer than we wanted, as we had to sell off farm animals and a farm business. We discuss how we handled that in this episode, as well as the reasons that drove us from farming to homesteading.

Once we completed those tasks, we still had to find a new homestead. We wanted this to be a very long-term move, if not for life, so we established a series of criteria in looking for a new homestead.

Those criteria included:

1) macro criteria for new property

incurring no debt / strict budget

proximity to family

slightly cooler garden zone

southern exposure

higher elevation

rainfall

low taxes

low/no restrictions on building codes

state friendly to homeschool

2) micro criteria for new property

mature fruit trees

at least 20 acres, unless on a mountain

good well water or gravity water/water on property (pond, mountain stream, springs)

no sight of paved road

no sight of neighbors

good hunting/foraging

much smaller house

ideally heated with wood

pasture, but no more than a few acres

within an hour of sizable town, 30 mins of grocery store/hospital

around like minded-people (homeschool groups, homesteading culture, farming, etc.)

3) things we knew weren’t critical

school system

fencing

high quality pasture

outbuildings

existing garden (because we’d be putting in raised beds)

cosmetics on house…just well insulated and sound

Liz and I discuss all these criteria in detail as well as the life of farming versus homesteading. So grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Welcome to Episode 15! So, what can happen when an active youth pastor gets the results from his life insurance physical? Today, you’ll hear how those results and what the doctor ordered drove the youth pastor to become the beginning farmer.

Listen to the Podcast

SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST IN ITUNES

Ethan Book dreamed of being a farmer when he was a kid, but life's necessities steered him in a different direction.

After having children, his practical wife insisted he procure life insurance. But that required a physical exam, which revealed Ethan had very high cholesterol.

The two options for treatment included a lifetime of medicine, which Ethan wanted to avoid, or a drastic diet change centered on grassfed beef.

Ethan opted for the latter approach, but there was a problem. Grass fed beef was expensive, and Ethan didn't earn too much as a youth minister. So, he did the only thing he could do--he bought land, and became a farmer.

Today, Ethan blogs at thebeginningfarmer.com, and has an excellent podcast called The Beginning Farmer Show.

Listen in to how Ethan and his wife feed their family of seven on less than $150/month at the grocery store, while producing excellent pasture raised pork, beef and lamb for local customers in Iowa.

Subscribe

Make it easy on yourself and subscribe to the show, and you’ll never miss an episode of Self-Sufficient Life:

 

 

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week for Self-Sufficient Life. If you enjoyed this episode, please SHARE it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and I greatly appreciate it!

Read the Transcript

You can read a complete, word-for-word transcript of this episode here.

Resources Relevant to This Episode

The Beginning Farmer Blog

You Can Farm by Joel Salatin

How to Make Money Homesteading by Tim Young

The Accidental Farmers by Tim Young

Start Prepping by Tim Young

Production Credits

Story written by Tim Young

Music Credits

Theme Song - Opting Out Today - Lyrics by Tim Young

Other royalty-free music by www.bensound.com, Kevin MacLeod & Audionautix

So, what can happen when an active youth pastor gets the results from his life insurance physical?

grassfed-cattle

Today, you’ll hear how those results and what the doctor ordered drove the youth pastor to become the beginning farmer.

Ethan Book dreamed of being a farmer when he was a kid, but life's necessities steered him in a different direction.

After having children, his practical wife insisted he procure life insurance. But that required a physical exam, which revealed Ethan had very high cholesterol.

The two options for treatment included a lifetime of medicine, which Ethan wanted to avoid, or a drastic diet change centered on grassfed beef.

Ethan opted for the latter approach, but there was a problem. Grass fed beef was expensive, and Ethan didn't earn too much as a youth minister. So, he did the only thing he could do--he bought land, and became a farmer.

Today, Ethan blogs at thebeginningfarmer.com, and has an excellent podcast called The Beginning Farmer Show.

Listen in to how Ethan and his wife feed their family of seven on less than $150/month at the grocery store, while producing excellent pasture raised pork, beef and lamb for local customers in Iowa.

Show notes at http://www.theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl15

In this episode you'll hear the story of how an investment banker and a fashion designer traded the glamour of Manhattan for goats and brambles in Tennessee.

Imagine being a young couple living the good life in New York. One's an investment banker, the other's a fashion designer and both are on their way to the top. Then, they get this wild idea--"Hey, let's quit our jobs and move to the country to milk cows and make artisan cheese." Only when they find their farm, it's not what they imagined.

This is the story of starting an artisan goat soap business. Actually, the dream was to start an artisan farmstead cheese business, but one obstacle led to another and forced James and Eileen Ray down a different path as they struggled to give birth to Little Seed Farm.

If you're into modern homesteading, self-reliance, preparedness or self-sufficiency, grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Listen to the Podcast

SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST IN ITUNES

Many people dream of opting out of the rat race, but most don't act on their dreams. James and Eileen did. They walked away from great jobs and incomes, took a leap of faith and now live a life with purpose. A life they want to live.

Their journey is an inspiration to anyone wanting a self-sufficient life.

Subscribe

Make it easy on yourself and subscribe to the show, and you’ll never miss an episode:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week for Self-Sufficient Life. If you enjoyed this episode, please SHARE it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and I greatly appreciate it!

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates!

Read the Transcript

You can read a complete, word-for-word transcript of this episode here.

Resources Relevant to This Episode

Little Seed Farm

Making Soap From Scratch: How to Make Handmade Soap-A Beginner's Guide

How to Make Money Homesteading by Tim Young

The Accidental Farmers by Tim Young

Start Prepping by Tim Young

Production Credits

Story written by Tim Young

Music Credits

Theme Song - Opting Out Today - Lyrics by Tim Young

Other royalty-free music by www.bensound.com, Kevin MacLeod & Audionautix

So, what can happen when a suburban couple living on a golf course decides to take a horseback riding trip? Turns out they decide to chuck the house, buy 100 acres in the country and become the accidental farmers.

Listen to the Podcast

SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST IN ITUNES

Welcome to Episode 13! This is a story about...well...it's my story. Or more accurately, the story of how my wife, Liz, and I found ourselves out here in the country when we used to be in there (corporate America).

Liz was a teacher with a Masters degree. I (Tim) was an entrepreneur, running marketing-type businesses. We were both successful, but not over the top successful. Just...typical suburban people living the typical suburban life.

I'd like to say we planned our escape out of the rat race, but we never even contemplated it. We just took a horseback riding trip for Liz's birthday and fell in love with the notion of rural living. Then, after reading books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma and Slaughterhouse, we immediately became aware of and appalled by how food was produced.

So, rather than doing something sensible (like just going to a farmers market), we sold our golf course house, bought a run-down piece of land deep in the country and became first-generation farmers.

We produced every type of meat--grassfed beef, pastured pork, chicken, turkey, duck, rabbit and geese, and even started a grass-based dairy. From there we began making farmstead and artisan cheese, and loved serving customers in Atlanta and north Georgia.

But we continually struggled to find the balance between farm life and homesteading. We openly shared that struggle for years in our blog and podcast, called the Nature's Harmony Farmcast.

In this very special episode of Self-Sufficient Life, I share one of our old Farmcasts, recorded six years ago in November 2010. It's appropriate to share now at Thanksgiving, and for you long-time fans and follower, I hope you enjoy this trek down memory lane.

Subscribe to the Small Farm Nation Podcast

Make it easy on yourself and subscribe to the show, and you’ll never miss an episode:

 

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me this week for Self-Sufficient Life. If you enjoyed this episode, please SHARE it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and I greatly appreciate it!

Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates!

Resources Relevant to This Episode

How to Make Money Homesteading by Tim Young

Start Prepping by Tim Young

The Accidental Farmers by Tim Young

Production Credits

Story written by Tim Young

Music Credits

Theme Song - Opting Out Today - Lyrics by Tim Young

Other royalty-free music by www.bensound.com, Kevin MacLeod, Nicolai Heidlas & Audionautix

So, what can happen when a suburban couple living on a golf course decides to take a horseback riding trip? Turns out they decide to chuck the house, buy 100 acres in the country and become the accidental farmers. Welcome to Episode 13 of Self-Sufficient Life! This is a story about...well...it's my story. Or more accurately, the story of how my wife, Liz, and I found ourselves out here in the country when we used to be in there (corporate America).

Liz was a teacher with a Masters degree. I (Tim) was an entrepreneur, running marketing-type businesses. We were both successful, but not over the top successful. Just...typical suburban people living the typical suburban life.

I'd like to say we planned our escape out of the rat race, but we never even contemplated it. We just took a horseback riding trip for Liz's birthday and fell in love with the notion of rural living. Then, after reading books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma and Slaughterhouse, we immediately became aware of and appalled by how food was produced.

So, rather than doing something sensible (like just going to a farmers market), we sold our golf course house, bought a run-down piece of land deep in the country and became first-generation farmers.

We produced every type of meat--grassfed beef, pastured pork, chicken, turkey, duck, rabbit and geese, and even started a grass-based dairy. From there we began making farmstead and artisan cheese, and loved serving customers in Atlanta and north Georgia.

But we continually struggled to find the balance between farm life and homesteading. We openly shared that struggle for years in our blog and podcast, called the Nature's Harmony Farmcast.

In this very special episode of Self-Sufficient Life, I share one of our old Farmcasts, recorded six years ago in November 2010. It's appropriate to share now at Thanksgiving, and for you long-time fans and follower, I hope you enjoy this trek down memory lane.

Please have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, and if you're interested in figuring out how to get out of the rat race and earn a self-sufficient income living off the land, grab some coffee and pull up a chair!

Show notes at theselfsufficientlife.com/ssl13