Joseph Lofthouse is the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination.

Landrace gardening is adapting crops to your land and climate, and then saving seeds, while also selecting for the best flavor, color, and pest and disease resistance.

Joseph lives in the high mountains of Utah - a mountain valley with cold air coming down out of the mountains, yet sun almost every day in the Summer, and low humidity. He grows for the farmers market and for himself and friends, and with a shorter season and these conditions he had difficulty growing warm weather crops.

Seeds have a memory and they "remember" where the plants grew and the seed was saved.

Heirloom crops did not grow for Joseph because the seed was from far away and not grown in his climate. Hybrids had low germination rates and did not thrive because they did not like the conditions and the plants that they were saved from were used to lots of inputs.

He saw 80% of the crops that he planted die. He saved the seeds from the ones that survived and planted the next generation. And it only takes about three generations for the crops to get really happy about growing at his place.

He next selected for flavor and color, and even selected plants that were raccoon resistant (!).

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/landrace-gardening

Get Joseph's Landrace Gardening book here

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.

Gear that I use and recommend: Meadow Creature Broadfork 14 - I have used this to turn over sod for new Milpa garden beds, and even hand dug swales with it. Bulletproof. https://amzn.to/4c7Dhve

A lot of people are talking about Civil War lately. There is even a big budget movie coming out in April 2024 that depicts CW2. In the movie trailer a guy in camo points a rifle at the main characters, journalists, and says, "What kind of American are you?"

That clip from the movie trailer has become a meme online, especially on Twitter. 

"What kind of American are you?" seems to be the theme of 2024.

Cyprian (aka Vin Armani) and I talk about the ramifications of this and talk about it from an Orthodox Christian perspective.

The Invisible Enemy

For totalitarianism to come into power you must have an Invisible Enemy.

In 2020, Trump called Covid the "Invisible Enemy".

Who is the Invisible Enemy today? 

For the Left, it is White Supremacy. It's the white guy with a rifle asking, "What kind of American are you?"

For the Right, it's Trans people or "illegals". 

What about the homeless and the poor - are they the Invisible Enemy?

Fear of the Invisible Enemy

The fear of the Invisible Enemy is fueled by social media, especially Twitter. You get more Likes and Views when you scare people with it. 

This pattern of declaring someone (or specific people or groups) as an Invisible Enemy and then declaring (social or real) war against it usually happens right before a big upheaval, and usually leads to some form of totalitarianism. Examples in the 20th Century are many: Germany, Russia, China.  

The Real Civil War is Within You. What are YOU going to do?

Positive solutions to face your own personal Civil War:

• Pray. Pray for humility and discernment. 
• Avoid the mind virus trap of thinking of groups of people as the Invisible Enemy. It never ends well.
• Give.

We discuss: do you give to the homeless person if he will likely spend it on drugs?

If you have an issue with this:  

How about asking his name? Greeting him with his name would be acknowledging him as human being.

How about having a meaningful conversation? 

"The rich exist for the sake of the poor. The poor exist for the salvation of the rich.” - St. John Chrysostom.

• Read the daily Lives of the Saints. Their strength in trials and persecution will be a guide and model for you as you face the same. Because it is coming. (Didn't you learn anything from Covid?!)

You may think you are winning. You don't think it will happen to you, but someone will be asking you, "What kind of American are you?" and you likely won't fit their definition.

Episode website and show notes: https://thrivingthefuture.com/civil-war

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.

Gear that I use and recommend: Meadow Creature 14 - I have used this to turn over sod for new Milpa garden beds, and even hand dug swales with it. Bulletproof. https://amzn.to/3V988kO

Positive Solutions in a Tough Labor Market

You are in a social gathering, like church or some other social function, and the question comes up: "What do you do?" (for a living). How do you respond?

Most people answer: "I am (this role) at XYZ company". But what is that really saying?

You have boxed yourself into a role. And you (perhaps inadvertently) declared your allegiance to your current company. It is better to say: "I am a (role), currently working at XYZ company." This is subtle, but it leaves the door open. I have seen a person react with, "oh we have an opening at my company", or "my relative has been looking for that role at his company". That works for project managers and it also works for all jobs in a tight labor market.

This is also why the recommended career advice is to change your LinkedIn profile title from your role at XYZ company (which is the default) to your role built into a one-line hook (like a one-line elevator speech).

Not only the "what I do", but also the "where"

“Where you are is more important than who you are.” - Wendell Berry

You are greater than the sum of your parts.

Write down all of the ways you would describe yourself to a new person that you have met - if you were initiating the conversation. Most likely, you would not start with your job title.

Positive Solutions in a Tough Job Market

• Own your own career.
• Get training and stay at a job that is providing opportunities. Change jobs for better opportunitiesKeep the mindset that this may be temporary. Be prepared for adversity, but don't be ruled by the fear of it. Prepping is necessary to offset downturns and adversity.
• Your mindset is everything.

You know stuff. You might not think it is all that much. You could even lay out the steps to do it. But someone will pay you to do those steps instead of doing it themselves.

Establish your authority by doing.

It has never been easier to outperform someone by doing. It's Proof of Work.

Go beyond the hobby. Run it like a business.

This is my side hustle formula:

• Dream, Plan, Build
• Build in Public, releasing often.
• Measure the outcome. Pivot if necessary.
• Tweak. Repeat.

Episode website and show notes: https://thrivingthefuture.com/you-are-not-defined-by-your-job-title

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out How to Pick Your Homestead Property series on Thriving News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise at ThrivingNews.com

In this episode, John McCoy and I discuss creating content and building your own brand.

John McCoy is a freelance blogger and owner of JustEnoughSEO.com. John was on Ep. 75 - How to Reinvent Yourself as Freelancer.

"Time is the most precious asset that I have. And I decided that my time needed to go into building my own brand, not their brand. Numero uno comes first."

Surfer SEO app (and most SEO tools) prod you to game the search engines by keyword stuffing and doing things that make it machine readable but not user friendly.

As John says in his pinned tweet:

"You are creating content for human beings and optimizing it for machines. Don't forget who you are writing to."

We share our takes on ChatGPT one year later: You can easily tell that something is written in ChatGPT or other AI tools. It either talks around the topic, or it is overly effusive and the emotion is contrived and not believable.

Tip: If you can write well, you can outdo AI. There is an ever-increasing market (at least for now) for human written content. Many blogs are selling the fact that their content is written by humans rather than machines.

"If you are worried about AI taking your job, maybe you should spend your time getting better at what you do."

And many more tips on SEO and optimizing your content.

Episode website and show notes: https://thrivingthefuture.com/build-your-own-brand

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out How to Pick Your Homestead Property series on Thriving News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise at ThrivingNews.com

You're looking for a side hustle. What if you could buy a mini business that already has a website created for you?

Flippa is an auction site to buy websites. It is similar to eBay - everything is an auction.

There are two types of sites on Flippa: 

• Startup site: This site does not have any traffic, or very little. It does not have any significant income.  
• Established site: This has been running for some period of time. It usually has some traffic to the site and it may or may not have monthly revenue or income.  

Mindset:

• Do you want to own the business?  
• Do you want to flip the business? Like build it up a little bit, improve it a little bit, and then flip it?
• Or do you want to use a domain name for something else?  

Monetization:

Usually through AdSense ads or affiliate sales - Amazon, or your fave affiliate or partner. May also sell e-books, courses, training, or services.

AI:

Would you, in good conscience, spin up a side hustle website with AI content just so you can make bank with affiliate marketing?

The pros and cons of using AI.

• Most sites have some AI content.
• "Google favors content written in a way that illustrates first-hand knowledge of a topic" - John McCoy.

Real world examples:

All Garden Advice:

Startup site (no traffic or revenue) - Garden blog site with great graphics.

And another Startup Garden site - Garden Guide with a nice layout that sells e-books.

Some of the problems that I ran into: 

• Read the fine print!  

• Do you really own the content and the website assets? Do you get those assets with the purchase? Do you “own” them or is it just a license? Can you use those assets somewhere else?
• Will the seller clone the website with a different domain name and resell the same content (competing with you)? And how many other sites have this same layout and content? - this is a common occurrence. 

Established site - ask yourself:

• Can I do better than this?
• Can I write content better than this?
• Can I create a better looking site? (or spin up a similar site in this niche)?

Episode website and show notes: https://thrivingthefuture.com/flippa-sidehustle

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out How to Pick Your Homestead Property series on Thriving News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise at ThrivingNews.com

Tips on Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) Diet and other ways to deal with Hashimoto's - from our own personal experiences.

Ryan Mitchel Brown joins me to talk about Hashimotos Autoimmune Disease, AIP Diet.

I have Hashimoto's Autoimmune Disease - where the body attacks the thyroid.

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is an autoimmune thyroid disease leading to progressive damage and inflammation of the thyroid gland. The resulting damage from Hashimoto’s prevents the thyroid from producing adequate levels of thyroid hormones, It originally presents with hypothyroid symptoms - extremely tired, weight gain, sometimes muscle cramps.

Just treating the hypothyroid symptoms with thyroid medicine did not help very much. I struggled many years with it and then took a Functional Medicine approach with a lab workup (showed high TPO (thyroid antibodies) and messed up values that were not being treated by the regular thyroid meds.

AIP Diet

Most of us have some form of inflammation, and many of us are allergic to some of the foods that we are eating.

The Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) Diet has helped me in the past. This is an elimination diet where you cut out and grains, legumes, dairy, nightshades (peppers and potatoes), sugar, carbs (including pasta) and other things that may cause inflammation, for at least a month. Then add back in foods, one at a time, to determine what you may have issues with.

It is also to see what clears up. Often your IBS-type symptoms, eczema, sinus issues, and other problems will clear up or improve.

We also discuss supplements having good light therapy - blocking blue light as much as possible in the evening by using blue blocking glasses or red lights.

These are the Sleep ZM blue blocking glasses that I use. I try (as much as possible) to go look at the sunset. Then I put these glasses on for the rest of evening. The result: I feel much more ready for sleep when it is bedtime.

Let's face it - we were made to look at candles and firelight in the evening. These blue lights from LEDs, TVs, and phones are likely messing up our circadian rhythms.

Disclaimer - We share our own personal experiences and should not be taken as primary medical advice. Please check with your medical or health practitioner.

Lots more tips on the episode show notes -

Episode website and show notes: https://thrivingthefuture.com/hashimotos-autoimmune

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Ryan Mitchel Brown at https://ryanmitchelbrown.com
• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out How to Pick Your Homestead Property series on Thriving News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise at ThrivingNews.com

How to develop skills while doing your side hustle.

Toolman Tim and I talk about how to develop skills while doing your side hustle. Lots of side hustle tips in this episode!

It was -46 in Canada in mid-January. What it is like living in a mobile home in -46. Note that Celsius and Fahrenheit merge at -40.

Skills Over Stuff

Practice with your equipment when the weather is good. "You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training."

Generator stories.

Side hustles that you can start easily: Lawn aeration, cleaning windows, property management.

Side Hustle Tips

"The more someone pays for something, the less likely they are to complain about it."

"Price by the job, not by the hour. If you price by the hour, the owner will constantly watch to see if you are on your phone."

More of Toolman Tim:

Toolman Tim on Twitter

Toolman Tim's Workshop

Toolman Tim's Workshop on Youtube

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/ToolmanTim

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Strong Roots resources at strongrootsresources.com
• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out How to Pick Your Homestead Property series on Thriving News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise at ThrivingNews.com

Tips on How to Handle Imposter Syndrome...and January.

It's the doldrums of January. Christmas has passed. Deer season is over and I didn't get a deer

Although I love the snow. I can't do anything when it's zero degrees outside and 25 mph wind like it is today. After shoveling 2 foot snow drifts on 60 feet of driveway, it has now drifted over again.

Like many of you, I'm starting to get the seed catalogs and I'm starting to plan my garden, even though I really need to stay in the moment and embrace this season.

We live in a world where we want permanence, but we buy stuff that breaks - and we do it on purpose.

So this episode is about how to Embrace the Suck.

(military slang) To consciously accept or appreciate something that is extremely unpleasant but unavoidable.

And even though I've been at this for two years, I still struggle with Imposter Syndrome once in a while. So what is Imposter Syndrome? It's especially affects entrepreneurs. It's that self-doubt. It's that thinking: “you're not good enough”.

It's thinking that “I'm not an expert and I feel like I'm going to get called out on it.”

Way back in episode 11, we did an episode on Imposter Syndrome.

Here are some tips on how you can Embrace the Suck, whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're not:

• Look back and on your wins and celebrate them.
• Embrace the Suck and learn from your losses. A lot of the times the losses are just bad timing. Or it means that you need to tweak something, you need to adjust, you need to change.
• Ask yourself - "what can I learn from this?"
• If you're an entrepreneur, diversify. We are all stuck in a one-income mindset and that's not how it works. In a side hustle, that's not how it works. In entrepreneurship, you need to have multiple income streams.
• And the best tip is to Rest. And at this time, where it's the downtime, the doldrums of January: Plan. Everybody thinks that the nursery guy or the farmer are sitting around doing nothing at this time of year. But if you talk to anyone, like Akiva Silver from Twisted Tree Farms, they're doing planning and they might use this time to also do marketing and write a book. They're doing something, they're not just sitting around. Sure it's not as busy as summertime, but it has a season, it has a place.
• Free your mindset - Turn Off the BS.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/january

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Strong Roots resources at strongrootsresources.com
• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Thriver News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise at ThriverNews.com
• Will Horvath of Permaculture Apprentice has opened up his ​Permaculture Farm Design Course and it is HALF price for the next week.​ Get it for $197 now through Jan-26. Check it out.

With Brendan from Posterity Ciderworks

Brendan from Posterity Ciderworks tells stories of how he finds neglected heirloom apple trees on long forgotten homesteads in California and uses them in his cider.

His adventures are like watching an apple treasure hunt reality show.

Quince - the Homesteaders Secret -

Did you know that heritage homesteads had 1 or 2 Quince trees - to be used to create pectin for jams and jellies - before store bought pectin.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/posterity-cider

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Cider from Posterity Ciderworks.
• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns, adapted to the Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Thriver News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise. https://Thriver.News.
• New 2024 Homesteading and Permaculture Bundle from Permies. 35+ e-books, courses, and videos. Forest Garden, Agroforesty, Community, Fermentation, and more! Plus 2 books by Nicole Sauce.

Homestead Padre and Grant Payne join me and we share our Christmas memories and traditions.

Our memories are at times bittersweet.

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. For Homestead Padre and his family, their holiday season starts when eggnog becomes available in the store. They put their tree up in October. They also celebrate Hannukah.

In Lawrence in NE Kansas, they light the Christmas lights on the evening of Black Friday. The fire department mock rescues Santa from the roof of the department store on Mass Street. (there is so much hidden meaning in that, but that is for another time).

The Christmas lights are one of my favorite traditions. But they leave them up until Valentine’s Day.

We talk about the Foxfire Christmas book. The Foxfire books are a series of books that capture the oral history of the Appalachian folks during the Depression. “A Foxfire Christmas: Appalachian Memories and Traditions” is the book dedicated to Christmas memories and traditions.

I have been reading this book aloud to my wife in the evenings this week. This book was so humbling. The families in the book were beyond poor. Many of the kids got only a stocking full of apples, one orange, a Brazil nut in the toe of the sock, and some candy. A home knitted pair of wool socks. Maybe one small toy, a comb, or a mirror. That was it. Yet they celebrated family. They seemed more solid and more happy than many of us today.

They had gifts that they appreciated. (Whereas my daughter gives some of her kids’ toys away to Goodwill so that they have room for the inevitable new presents).

Christmas also can be bittersweet. You remember loved ones who have passed, and that loss is especially felt at Christmas. Homestead Padre and I also did not have very happy childhoods.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Thriving New Year!

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/christmas-memories

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture. Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, comfrey crowns, adapted to then Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Thriver News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise. https://Thriver.News.