 We don't serve permaculture. Permaculture serves us. We don't serve organics. Organics serves us. We don't serve homeschooling. Homeschooling serves us. Meaning, not that we're not investing in it and putting it and giving it to the broad community. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about for your own individual life. It needs to work for you. You have a higher ethos. Justin Rhodes is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Justin has been on one of my podcasts before and he's a wonderful person. We're here today specifically to talk about his book, which we teased last time, The Rooted Life Cultivating Health and Wholeness Through Growing Your Own Food. Fabulous book. We're going to go into a lot of details. We have some nuggets of wisdom and some kind of ways that you can root yourself. Justin, he's a permaculturist, film producer, author, and teacher. He helps folks to learn to work with nature to produce their own sustenance so they can live a more abundant life. Justin is a seasoned homesteader having enjoyed many years of practicing beyond organic and permaculture methods on a 75-acre family farm near Asheville, North Carolina. Justin trained under highly accredited Joff Lawton of PRI Australia for his permaculture design certificate and has studied natural chicken care under popular author Pat Foreman. Justin founded Abundant Abundance Plus or Abundant Permaculture out of a love of teaching and the sustainable movement where you'll find exhaustive permaculture articles, plentiful photos, cinematic educational films, business tips and tricks and much, much more. Justin, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me back on. It's so good to see you, and we talked about it last time. We really jumped ahead of the gun before the book came out. We talked about homesteading and farming or generative ag permaculture and some different things, and we had a pretty large podcast, super response. So just right out of the shoot, I think we had something like 20,000 viewers and a lot of comments. It was amazing. So it really resonates with people, and I wanted to give them the opportunity to really see the physical copy of your book. You've got one behind you there as well. Go into, I don't want to give away the whole book or read it for them, so to say, but I want to kind of tease what they can expect, why it would be good to get the audible version, why it would be good to go in and maybe pick this up if this is something that resonates with them and give those things kind of a way. You have some bonus materials if they order it before March 7th that we can give them and things that you're shipping from your house yourself, which is fabulous. So first and foremost, before we kind of dive into it, how has these last probably about four or five months now since we last spoke been? How have you been? Has it been crazy? Can you kind of give us an update and tell us how these crazy times now were this Ukraine business? How's this life affecting you and the family? You know, the last first thing I thought of when you talked about the last four months, that's at the, hopefully at the tail end of my healing. I suffered from reactive arthritis over the summer, and that was the big event for us in 2021. We're basically pretty much all my joints at one point, if not at the same time, felt like they were broken. And so I'm just coming out of that. I told a friend this morning, I was probably, I probably felt like I was 94 years old at the height of that. And now I feel like a spry 65 or something. So that's pretty good. I mean, I look forward to being 65, you know, still having the energy, but having the wisdom and the connections. And I look, as Zig Ziglar would call it, the height of your life, the climax for a man. So I look forward to that. And I feel like we are coming out of just, we had made it to a point of success and even significance and our impact on the world, you know, with what we do with our career and then making content and stuff. And even our farm, you know, getting to a place on our farm with the systems we have. And, but having to go through that kind of going back to the first stage, which is survival. So there's survival, there's stability, there's success and significance. But, and so we kind of had to go back to survival. And now we're getting it, we're getting into stability, probably more back into success, some more familiar territory for us in the last few years. So I'm excited about that because we can move forward this year. You know how to babe, our baby's one years old. So last year was kind of just Katie bar the door just kind of maintain what we have. But this year, Rebecca's already planted had us plant the onions and broccoli. And I forgot I cover I woke up at three o'clock in the morning. Thanks to little baby Henry. And remember, I did not cover those broccoli and lettuces. I need to go out there real quick because it's going to frost and did that. But I'm just saying, when you're, when you're winter gardening, you're at your success, you're at the level of success in your gardening journey. Because it's, it's, you know, you got to make sure it gets covered. It's just, you can't, you can't be having a, at one point I could barely walk on my ankles, you know, I had to do a walker and, and ride around in my cabota to get around. So that's, that's cheering me up. And as far as the book is concerned, that's interesting too, you know, people congratulate on the work of the book. And I think most people imagine the work of the authorship. And that's there. I mean, this is basically 15 years to today to the launch date. Today, the day we're recording is the actual official launch date. People can get the audio, but people are, it's shipping. The writing, yeah, sure, 15 years. And then formulating those thoughts and writing, the hard work is actually in getting the word out, you know, lining up these podcasts. Thanks for having me on putting it out of my vlog, building up the audience, somebody to somebody who need finding somebody who needs this and getting their attention and promoting to them. So the hard work is upon us and even maybe there we're at, we're at the telly. And this is like launch week. So I'm pushing it hard. But then next week, I can take a deep breath. I'm so glad to hear that. We, we spoke kind of right after Thanksgiving. I talked to Rebecca as well and all the wonderful foods you guys have cooked and how you are preparing. Since then, so I want to kind of caveat for those who didn't listen to the last show and kind of a little bit more insight into you and what's going on. You have Abundance Plus where you have a rooted series that I believe are finished already and basically wonderful content on a blog and videos of day to day life and activities, what you're doing, everything from recipes, cooking, how you're dealing with chickens, how you're dealing with milking, a fabulous content that's really worthy and important. And so if you're not a reader, there's the audiobook. If you're not an audiobook, you want to watch a video, there's Abundance Plus. There's so much content and materials there. But during this winter, we were hit pretty, pretty hard. And there was some things that you showed, wow, the snows come clear up onto the porch and stuff with the greenhouse and the covering and the protective. So you've graduated from multiple harvests a year, winter harvests, which is, you know, that's a good stage to be at. And now you're dealing with some of those, the growth and just the natural environment and weather coming in and dealing with that. So overall, I guess the answer to the question, I think you're doing well, you're kind of, it's not just thankful to be alive in those struggles. I saw definitely your health problems and that. But you also did some very proactive things, not just seeing the doctor and your diet, but you're out doing the cold bath. You were out, you're doing the things for yourself. Laying in the sun for an hour is a big deal. Yeah, that's a comfortable one to do, you know, cold bath. That's painful, but some bad. Yeah, it takes time, but you can go out there and listen to an audiobook or a podcast or even do some work on a phone, you know, answer some emails or something. Yeah, and I also do the cold bath and kind of the Wim Hof method and that. And it's fabulous for arthritis, for joints, for those things. And at the same time, and you mentioned this and the answer to the first question, you're not just doing one thing every day, you're doing a whole system of systems. It's an ecosystem in your life. It's not just family. It's not just farming. It's not just homesteading. It's home schooling, home birding, and on and on, plus taking care of your health. And a lot of people, I speak about systems thinking and a systemic view or this complexity theory every day, just this day to day task of life is a very complex system of all the things you have to do, yet you manage it. And it's not you alone. This journey started originally from research, from Rebecca, and some kind of nudges from her and things, which we talked about on the first. But can you tell us a little bit how, you know, people come to me often and they say, what's one thing I can do? How can I start right now? And you discussed this in the book in a couple of chapters, how to get started. If you're a homesteader, everybody could be a homesteader. But instead of breaking it down into the siloed view and say, okay, all you have to do is go buy 12 chickens. That's it. Don't worry about anything else. I think it's a little bit more complex. But it's something that we do autonomously every day. And so I'd like to get your viewpoints and your thoughts on that, on not just getting started, but how does that work with just the way life works? Yeah, I would, the thing that comes to my mind, and I think I spoke about it indirectly throughout the book. So hopefully it comes across. I didn't term it this way, but I would, what the word that came to my mind when you're saying this is you have to curate your own life. You need to realize that you are in control. Sure, there are exterior controls, but ultimately no one can control your mind. And I'm learning this from survivors of the Holocaust. These, if you find, I think I have the book, I think it's called The Choice by Dr. I forget her name, but The Choice. She's talking about, they can, if anybody took anything, it was during the Holocaust, right? And so then, but they couldn't take the mind. And so getting in that mindset and just realizing you are the curator of your life. I'll say this, you know, permaculture doesn't serve us, we are knowing. How would it go? So we don't serve permaculture. Permaculture serves us. We don't serve organics. Organics serves us. We don't serve homeschooling. Homeschooling serves us, meaning not that we're not investing in it and putting it and giving it to the broad community. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about for your own individual life. It needs to work for you. You have a higher ethos. You have a higher, a high goal. There was a reason you were attracted to permaculture or organics or off-grid living. You can sometimes lose track of that in making decisions. You forget about the macro and you can get caught up in the micro and you're doing all these things for the homestead because somebody told you, you should grow kale because it's cool. You, this whole kale, yeah, movement, but you might not like kale and you might not realize somebody might give you 30 blueberry bushes and maybe you don't really have a spot for them. You feel weird about not doing it and oh my goodness, every permaculture should have a blueberry bush and I should have this gill. I should put these blueberries around this tree and then I should put low things and I should have a vine. But then if though, that is stressing you out for one or hurting your family relationships. It's got to go. You have the, you got to remember and Bill Mollison, I think, Dick and Dave would agree with you. You've, people care and earth care. So that's the macro. You know, it gives me chills talking about it. So you, so we forget the why we got into these things. We did into homesteading because we were attracted to it because we want to be outside. We want to work with our children. But then if you stack too many things and you're doing too many things because bees are cool and they're pollinators and you should have bees. I don't have bees yet and I'm going to need to be okay with that. I have to settle with that and because there's only so much time and energy and the day and I got into this to be with my family. And if it becomes miserable because we're on such a strict schedule and we got to do this and that, then what's the point? Why did I, why did I quit my nine to five to then have a 17 hour a day job to have a hundred hour job on the farm where I'm really not interacting and enjoying the family? See what I'm saying? I absolutely see what you're saying and that's one thing I love about the root of life. So not only do you have this wire, this dream or vision and many people do. Many people even who are living in the big cities with departments are saying, boy, this, this lifestyle, this way I'm living in this concrete jungle, it's not working for me anymore. I don't enjoy it. I'm not getting anything out of it. I'm actually working for someone else or it's just a drain. It's not the lifestyle creation or vision that, that I would hope for myself. And so then they start looking into alternatives and how they can shift if they can and where that, and that's all available, not only a bonus plus, but it's also discussed about in your book. And I would say that's probably one of my favorite chapters. So there's 10 chapters and there's rooted as a family. So how do you get, whether it's man or woman or, you know, the husband or wife or even husband and husband, wife and wife, whatever it is, how do you get them on board? And what does that look like here? Is it, is it a fighter's a struggle? And so you talk about that and you also talk about children. How do you get them on board? Because they want to have a life of learning, growing, exploring and you can actually ruin their experience. I don't want to do anything with farming. I want to move to the big city. This is hard life. I don't enjoy it. Or there's a flip side to that discovery exploration and bribery. You even talk about that a little bit. How you can nudge them to kind of discover, Hey, this is a pretty good life. I've got it great. And I love to participate. And I mean, that really was my favorite chapter. Besides, you know, how do you get started? How do you raise chickens? How do you use chickens for meat and chickens for eggs? So I'd love for you to kind of tell me why you chose to put that in there. Or was it so much feedback from others? How do you manage families? Or is it just something that you experience yourself? That is a that's a really good question. This book, as we started out, was going to it started out being like a all inclusive, you know, just us me working with my agent and the publisher, you know, let's kind of include all the things and what was going to be the name of the book. You know, I was voting for like your best homestead ever type of thing. And it being this all inclusive, like intro to permaculture type of applied to homesteading type of thing. And that was good. And we have that. And, you know, there's some things I wrote from there and like how to do the mineral program for the sheep and the cows. And that I probably get asked that every other day. And so I'll just send them that article, you know, it never came close to making the book. But as that's one thing I've really liked about working with a publisher and an agent is swallowing the pride and even giving up some control to collaborate to collaborate. And they kept pushing for the publisher kept envisioning a more holistic, let's include lifestyle. Let's get this in target because I think Mark, I mean, you might be biased because you're kind of you're in permaculture and stuff. But I think a normal person like we're crazy, the normal normal person can actually pick this up and enjoy themselves. Hopefully, you know, there's a fun story at the beginning of each chapter, the three of the 10 chapters are really not even about homesteading. You could apply it to anything like what you're talking about it's lifestyle like how do you get your your spouse on board, a significant other partner, you you that could apply if you're into something else and you just want you just have this big desire and you just want somebody to come on board. So I what I found, though, when the publisher and the agent were pushing me to give this lifestyle content, let's call it lifestyle content, the words flow, and I really enjoyed it. And I find myself talking more about it now on the on the on the on the the YouTube. And I host a podcast to and and it's in person and people come here. We really don't even talk about homesteading. We have a show called Divergence on on abundance plus and that's kind of replicated our replaced our show rooted. We told our epic story. Now we're telling other epic stories. And we're getting into the it's that whole idea of the Robert Frost poem, you know, two paths diverge in the wood. And I took the one less taken. And I just want to talk about people's I am very interested in people who have opted out of the norm and just done something different. I don't care if it's if it's greening the desert or deciding to start a business with all eight of your kids, you know, and and work all together as a family. Those are those things are interesting to me. And the words flowed for me. And I found that people really resonate with that. They might not identify with this grandiose homestead that we have that might even seem unattainable to some, but what everybody can relate to no matter where they are in their stage of homesteading or permaculture is these life struggles. How do I how do I get a spouse excited about what I'm doing? How do I get kids excited about what I'm doing? Those kinds of things. And when you do that, it just resonates as a lifestyle. And you see that you see that growth and that function, you you have your living life. I mean, we've been on a couple calls and the kids will come in, they'll probably come in on this call. That's fine. That's live. And and that interaction. And they know, you know, I'm first of all, I'm so thankful that you take the time out because you have 75 acres of multi diverse, not just crops and animals, but you've got a lot going on there, you're living the life to the fullest. And you and your family kind of are busy. So stuff will pop up all the time. And that's just life. Some of the other podcasts I've had where were some of the authors, you know, cattle jump on the computer or a dog or run over, they'll be in the house or some kind of different situation. That's life as well. But it's a lot different than being out on a farm on a homestead and in nature connected with animals and other species and microorganisms. And even though you start out, you know, if I can homestead, anybody can homestead, then you go into gardening and the different chapters and you talk about what kind of things can you can can you start to do? What do the harvests look like? Those are all different choices that you made along the way of how you're going to start and maybe even start slowly to kind of create this ecosystem of homesteading. And I've seen the evolution because I've also looked at your abundance plus, but I really want to know from you, if there's some aha moments or how that journey evolved or you says, boy, I got into this and quickly gave it up because it wasn't the right time or a big struggle or even that you show people on your abundance that struggle. I absolutely love, you know, that learning lesson. Yeah, there's a classic struggle. So it's helped me as a filmmaker and a storyteller to realize it's the struggles that make the story exciting and interesting and relatable to everyone. There'll be people in New York City say, I live in New York City. I'm never going to farm, but I enjoy your show. Why do they enjoy my show? Because in the beginning, it's clear that I want to go and flip their garden beds. I want to go work in the garden. That's what I want to do. Well, guess what? So I'm on my way. That's that's the, I'm the hero of the story. We know what I want. We can all relate to that. And then Mr. Brown, my littlest boy can't find his shoes, but I want to take him with me. So it's a classic. And it's a big joke around us and my community. And everybody loves it. Me trying to find Mr. Brown's shoes, help him. And we find them all over the place. You know, it's that battle and it's that debate. It starts debates among parents. Oh, you know, you should make him be more responsible and put it back. And then that's one side and the other side is, oh, I love it. How you help him. He's going to help you. So you're going to help him. And so it creates this conversation. And anybody can relate to that because somebody else living a normal life might be trying to find the kids shoes before they go to school or to church or something like that. And it's this it's this struggle and people can relate to that. And so I've been careful to document that our temptation is to just go out and get the good stuff. Just go out and get the step by step in the garden. And this what you do in the garden step one, step two, step three. And I found that if in my content, what people enjoy so much about it is and why our YouTube channel has been so successful. And there's a place for what I call that textbook style teaching and content. There's a place there's nothing wrong with that. I consume that stuff. Sometimes you want to get just straight to the point. But other times, if you only see that, if you only see these great successes in these step by steps and you don't hear or see this expert coming to a situation where it doesn't know what to do. And that will happen. And bad things and things will happen. Like we had a heifer, heifer is a female cow give birth just recently, totally surprised. She and the bull got together. She was way too young. She was like 10 months old. You're supposed to wait at least till they're 20 months old. This happened to me. The apron wearing permaculture chicken ninja master, the guy who wrote the book that really shouldn't have happened. But I was ill this summer and boys were running the farm and some happened. Those two got together. And there's a temptation not to show that because this expert shouldn't have these types, but they do. They do. If you get down to it and talk to Joel Salton, some of my mentors are Elliot Coleman, they're going to have times where something fails and they don't know why. They're going to have times where something fails and it was their fault. And they're going to have times where something fails and it was the weather and completely out of their control or somebody else. So in the book, it's important to me that we tell those stories because I think it's empowering. If I'm following somebody, I am animal based diet kind of person and I'm eating a lot of animals. It's helping me with my lime and I'll follow somebody. And when they show their Thanksgiving is a big deal in America. For anybody listening, not in America, it's like a big deal. We have this big meal and we have turkey or ham or something like that. And then all these sides, it's just a big meal. But for one of these guys to just show off and show their steak, they didn't even have turkey, they could have turkey, come on. But they didn't do the size or have this cheat day. You know what I mean? It's almost, it has an opposite effect I think sometimes. To see somebody succeed all the time and never see a failure or a struggle, it's hard to relate to and it makes it feel unattainable and impossible. And so that's what we try to do with the book. We tell these funny stories and these goofy mistakes and these moments where I wanted all the chickens to die because I was just so tired and didn't want to go out there and put them up for the 10,000th time. Just admitting to that, I think puts people on this, okay, they don't feel so nuts because when you get into homesteading, you're washing buckets every day. If you're milking the cow, that's every day you're letting the chickens out in the morning, putting them up at night. That gets old after three days. And that's okay. Yeah, because it's every single day period. These are living beings, species and it's every single day. There's no rest. And even when you did recently went to the farm equipment show and fabulous spoke there and did sign some plates for your book and just watching that. The one thing not only can you find these nuggets in the book that the real story is the struggles the day to day and how to deal with them or how you've dealt with them and maybe some suggestions. I mean, you're not the, you know, this isn't saying this is this way or the highway. It's kind of like, well, you know, I've made mistakes. I learned these lessons and here's my suggestions and it's really fabulous. And I love that throughout the book. I do want to kind of caveat a couple other things. So if this is something that you want to get into, if you want to even experiment, read and kind of learn a little bit, there's so much accompanying other material that you have out there, not just your blog, but you have abundance plus, which with all the videos and it's not just rooted your series and in your blog things, but it's other people, other homesteaders, other butchers and homesteaders and gardeners and farmers and those who are starting or maybe have been doing it for a while that you can view, learn from. And there's also those points where you get right into it where, okay, this is what I need to know. How can I get this information as fast as I possibly can and get started just to start? Or it's also, boy, I'm setting up my dream and vision. I want to see the struggles. I want to see what happens throughout the year. I want to follow them along. And then maybe after a year of consuming this content, then I'm going to make the leap or, you know, just I'm better for it because that's something I didn't know about fruit, that's something I didn't know about homesteading or farming, that now I know I can relate better as somebody living in New York City who's nowhere close towards or, you know, in Manhattan, nowhere close to a farm. And so that's absolutely wonderful. In this, we really want to push and talk about those who are interested. If this sounds exciting, Justin has provided a wonderful website, therootedlife.com. I believe if I'm saying the website correctly. And there's some bonus materials. If you signed up today, before March 7th, you're going to get some great bonuses. You get chapter three, Gardening Basics as a PDF with step-by-step instructions and even charts where you can fill in, which are really helpful in three different styles. You also get the video master class, Gardening Basics, that's illustrated to accompany that. You will be inspired with a chapter on just plant, you know, get started, get going. Another video master class. And Justin and Rebecca the kids are going to send you out a free basil seed packet to get you started. Whether you're in an apartment, you want to do some basil on your windowsill or in your kitchen or wherever, or if you are starting this process, how do you get started? How do you see what happens even with something that could be considered simple as basil? You get an autograph signed book plate to stick in your book, which is fabulous. I have to tease you because I want you to come and sign up. I'm going to come and visit you. We're going to do a live podcast. Oh, that'd be fun. Yeah, you come there. I'll get you on my show too. Yeah. And so as you go in and fill out the form at the root of life.com, there's kind of just a simple form to pre-order and before March 7th to get some of those bonus materials. For those of you who are seeing Justin for the first time, he's a everybody's people person. He's likable. Everybody loves him. When you see him at shows, people are hugging him and telling them their stories. This is family-oriented content, not only the videos, but the book. And it's real life content. How do you create a lifestyle of abundance? How do you create something that is different than the world that we're currently experiencing in many parts? A lot of dis-ease, a lot of discomfort, a lot of things that we're saying, life's just not going the way we want. There is a way to take the bull by the horns, life by the horns, and create this why, this lifestyle that you want. And there's a lot of nuggets of wisdom in this wonderful book that you can go and get to help you create that. Now, I'll put all the links in the show note description so that you can find that, but it's really critical. Let's go do this before March 7th. I want to give you some other nuggets specifically from Justin in the book. And I've seen this in other places. You kind of ask people, what's their favorite chapter who have had the opportunity to pre-read it and gotten some feedback? What is your biggest takeaway or what's your biggest learning lesson that as getting feedback from others that you'd like to share with us that really what you've heard, why they like the book, and what resonates with them the most. Yeah. As people have come through, we've printed out a PDF copy. And the first thing they'll do, first thing, if anybody's listening, the first thing you're going to do is you're going to just, you're going to rub the cover, it's a beautiful cover. It feels good. Me, I'm a book nerd, so I smell the book. Smells great. But you're going to open it up and you're going to look at all the pictures. It's a coffee table book in that way. There's just beautiful pictures. We spent a year, once a month, getting our buddy Ben Roberts, professional photographer, coming out and shooting pictures of us. So it's an entire season. I probably should highlight that more like the pictures you're seeing an entire Rhodes Family Farm season in one book. And so it could be a coffee table book. If you don't even read, you don't even read the stuff. And then you'll what we had a guest come and they spent the night over in our guest house and they read the book in one evening. So it's 40, 50,000 words. I say a third of it is lifestyle and 60, 70% of it is more step by step. What I was saying, this lady who read it in one night, she would live in DC. Her mom was the one who was initiating this visit with us. So she's kind of into it, not really. And she said, this makes me feel like I can do this. It wasn't on my radar, but I read this, like it was enough for her to read and enjoy it, even though it wasn't on her radar. Now it is. It felt attainable for her. So apparently a lot of people and I looked back 15 years ago when I started, yeah, it felt unattainable. What Joel Salanton was, these are the people we found, Joel Salanton, LA Coleman, what they were doing, Bill Moleson, the intro to permaculture books, you see these wonderful, beautiful maps of these layouts. Let's admit it. If you really think about it, it can feel unattainable. At least you say, how do I get started? How long is this going to take me? And what Rebecca and I had to do is get the books. For just chickens and gardens, guys, we got intro to permaculture, Bill Moleson. Hold on one second. Yes? Yes. If you come in, go to see mom. You can ask me in about 30-ish minutes. All right. Are you coming in to see mom? Because I'm doing the show. What? You're the only one. What? Okay. Tell Josiah I said that you have to be on a team. Tell him I said that. Yeah. I know. We're going to get you a team. You're on Josiah's team. Okay. Let me give him a note. We'll get you an apple. And then, okay, but you have to sit quiet. Okay. You go back out and give this note to Josiah. All right. So, here's the note. You need it. Get in. Okay. So, I got Bill Moleson's book, Intro to Permaculture. We're talking just chickens and gardens. I got Joe Salotin's, Pastor Poultry Profits, Elliot Coleman's, New Organic Griller, Elliot Coleman's, Four Seasons Harvest, and Harvey Ushery's, Small School Poultry Flock. If you put that together, that's books about that thick. But now looking back and realizing what I've done is I've taken those books and my 15 years of experience and info from building a relationship with an audience who's really out there doing it, just getting started. And I've condensed it into something you can read in an evening plus added a lifestyle feature. Now, if you want to geek out and get serious, sure, get those books. I highly recommend those books. But if you just are feeling like things are unattainable, that's what happens. That's the benefit of time. I asked Rebecca, how was it that you found Elliot Coleman and Joe Salotin? Because 15 years later, that's like the right people. They're doing it organically. Joe's doing it in the permaculture way. These are the right people. We didn't know any difference. How come we didn't find somebody else? She said, well, there was really only so many books 15 years ago on this. Good point, Rebecca. Thank you, Elliot. Thank you, Joe, for being pioneers in that. And that's what we've done too, now, Mark. I realize is we're just putting out this content. We're cranking it out. We have 2,000 videos on our YouTube. We have over 500 abundance plus. We're cranking out this content. And this is a regenerative ag style, sustainable type content. But we're not always preaching that. I'm rarely preaching that. I'm like, this is my life. This is what I'm doing. Come along. And people, when they go to build a chicken coop, they're not building a chicken coop. Some static stupid thing that is just going to collect chicken manure and cost $3,000. They're building my chikshaw, which means poops falling down into the ground. They don't have to clean up. And they're moving that chikshaw. See? Because why? That's just what you do. That's just what Justin does. Instead of a rickshaw, it's a chikshaw. But didn't you used to call it the chicken tractor? And it's also taken like an evolution. It was like first a kind of a hen house on wheels that was mobile. And then it was, you know, I love that evolution. And it's probably also specific on how you create that that fits your farm, your lifestyle, where you're at, how you're regenerating the soil. I love that. Yeah. So what we're doing is what I call immersion learning. I think I might have heard that then I wish I could think of his name. Gosh, you probably know who it is. I'll have to look it up. But there's this term called immersion learning. And that's what we do with our home schooling. They're along with us, they're immersed in life, and they're learning. So if you watch our blog, you might not know it, but you're learning. It's not a sit down and step by step, but you're learning. And it could be any number of things. It could be being encouraged on how to talk to a child. It could be, I did casually say in my vlog yesterday, we're planting this lettuce in a raised bed for per square foot. So you learned some plant spacing there. But you're also seeing me try to get the kids on board and get them to do this. And I'm telling a story during this whole thing. And you know, for folks that I realize, because I'm this way, I want to be entertained and learn immersion, but also too, I'm very literal. I also want the steps at some point. And I want to be able to just go to them. So that's what I did in the book was you can hear the story about how we got started homesteading, which is basically trying to save some money. Being at the grocery store and seeing some seed packs and realizing we can grow 100x if we just buy the seeds and grow them ourselves, it's supposed to buy in it. And you can get that immersion learning story and it'd be aspiring. But what if you actually want to go plant that, that kale or lettuce? Well, then go to chapter three, and you've got three choices. You can you can do container garden. So if you're guys, I went on the road, Mark, you probably know this, I was on the road on the Great American Farm Tour for 10 months, went to all states in America. In 10 months, we didn't let being on the road stop us from growing. We got a base, we got a five inch terracotta pot, got some Velcro from Walmart, stuck that thing to the dash, planted some seeds and where were we? Iowa or something, somewhere like that. And planted some of those seeds, nurtured them, grew them out in our windowsill and harvested the basil leaves in Wyoming and put it on our pizza. And we had meal from, we had food from the land in a bus. So you can container garden. I'll tell you how to do that. You can do the bulletproof garden, which totally getting getting from permaculture, from Jeff Lawton, from what Bill Molson says to how to build the garden. But some new things, I don't use cardboard. I think there's some maybe there's some glue in there that I might be a little worried about. But if you don't have any, they do the cardboard. But there's now non-toxic weed barrier paper that it's actually available. That wasn't available three, five years ago. So I encourage people to put their food scraps down first. Don't tell. Put your food scraps down first. Then go buy compost. Like we're talking about people who are just starting out. Elliot Coleman doesn't make his own compost. He's getting it from Vermont composting in a state over. And that's okay. I saw that on the Great American Farm Tour and there's no shame in that. There are master compost makers. Get rid of this shame that you've got to do everything and just go get some from the store. Support somebody else's job. Support the community. Bring in some compost. You're going to have a much better success rate. So you're going to get your money back more than if you went through the struggle. If you want to make it great. But let's meet some people where they're at. Buy the compost. I'm saying don't let anything stop you. But put that weed barrier on there. Grass clippings. Most people have a lawn. If you want to be romantic, go out there and cut it with a scythe. But if not, you have a mower, cut it, get your rake, rake it up, put your grass clippings down, and then buy some starts. Why are you picking all the battles? Why are you trying to make the compost? Why are you growing your own seeds? At first, don't pick those battles. Just get the stuff. Get the plant start. You can go to your local hardware store or gardening store and get the plants that are already four inches tall. They're already four weeks old. And then just dig a little hole in there and get down to the soil and plop it in there. And walk away, literally. That's why I call it the bulletproof garden because you can literally walk away and come back at harvest. It keeps itself moist. You've planted in that store-bought compost, so it's good stuff. And you could do that, I think, if you did at the right time in Utah, because you're importing the soil, right? Or in North Carolina, it'd be a different time of the year, probably. Yeah, well, I mean, everything is specific because wherever you're at, there's this indigenous microorganism, this kind of a biome for your farm, which really works and thrives for your location. And so it's always specific to you and your location, but the overall principles are the same. I have two points. I have to totally agree with you on these books. I've had the books, I've taken the courses, big, thick academic manuals, very heavy, very expensive. I think Bill Mollison's, even his last version of his books, well over a couple hundred dollars just to get that. And people get that, and they're like, I'm going to do permaculture. I'm going to do this in immediate overwhelming. It's an immediate thing. Boy, there's terms I've never heard. This is so complex. How do I remember all this stuff? And honestly, Jeff Lockman and Bill Mollison and all the other graces that you've mentioned and many more, they're fabulous. It's all in this book. It's right here. Here's the best way to start. Learn the hard way, have the experiences, get the lessons. And even if you're starting out a little bit down and dirty, along that way, you'll say, boy, there's maybe a more organic or natural way to do it. I'm worried a little bit about, am I composting the glue that you mentioned in the cardboard or something? I don't want that in my food. I don't want that in my soil. And you learn, but you also evolve and you say, hey, I'm one with my property. I'm one with what I'm doing. And I know the way it works. And you kind of have this growth. And that's where the title is fabulous. That's where you get that rooted life. That's where you have abundant, healthy soil that gives you that whole, that mosque, but not only in the literal sense, but also in the sense of how you're rooting your family, your lifestyle, and how do you make it work? And it just creates this abundance that you also talk about it. The second thing I want to really mention, and anybody who, I don't know, anybody, and you'll have to correct me, who gets in line with you, who reads your books, who watches your videos, slowly a community starts to form. Not only with you and referrals and articles or things that you've written, but how can I find my local community, my local area, and you offer that, not only through abundance plus, you offer that in the resources. You say, hey, if you'd like to get in this, here's those. Hi, sweetheart. How are you? Hi, Rebecca. It's good to see you. Hello. Hey, how are you? Most excellent. So wonderful to see you. We've talked about you a couple of times, so your ears are probably ringing on the podcast. But I love that community. And no matter whether it's you're going to the farm equipment show or if you're doing a video, it's this community that's built. And I think that is so important because I've also, and I need to mention this as well, seen you go to people in need without them asking to help them in hard times. And that is vital, which I hope also occurred when you were really at the height of your struggles with your arthritis pains and your struggle with what was going on with your joints and your health. Yeah. I speak first with the book thing. There was actually going to be a dedicated chapter to designing your best homestead ever. So it was going to be the compartmentalized permaculture bit. But then working with the publisher and my agent, and then we brought in a writer at the end to just make sure we tell a story. Make sure there's no overlaps, that type of thing. And we decided that it would be better because this is aimed more mass, more mainstream. Let's reach the mainstream. Let's reach an audience I haven't reached yet. And we can actually incorporate the permaculture stuff throughout the text. And I think that's been really good. And that's a really good, healthy way to bring to bring on and have something like permaculture in in your life. That's what it ends up being. It ends up being a sprinkling throughout your life. Like I took permaculture concept, which is turning a problem into a solution that, you know, they taught me to do that in my training at PDs in Australia with Jeff. I did that with my Lyme disease. I finally sat down and said, how can I turn my Lyme disease into a solution? And that's when I came to actually thank the disease for all that it's brought to me. And so now it became a friend as opposed to an enemy. And that was a big turning point in my life and reflection and then dealing with that. Like I've seen more healing by befriending the disease than fighting it. Because this is something in my body. And do I really want to be at war with that? And, you know, maybe I should massage it out, you know, as opposed to just overall attack it. So that was good because we mix that throughout. And that's, and then you talk about community. So we speak to that in the book because what happens is Martha Stewart and Oprah have a garden. Those are totally acceptable. You can kind of have a garden and things not to change too much in your life. And that's good. And we got to reach people where they're at and go at this gardening thing. Well, what happens though is somebody with a garden, they end up getting a chicken. And you'll see what we've done with our book is we have a start smart chapter. That's a, there's a lot of purple culture concepts coming out in that, but a little bit more, you know, speaking more into the lifestyle, you know, grow what you grow, it's close to your heart. You know, Bill Molison say, grow what's outside your door. Well, I say also grow outside what's outside the door of your heart. So yes, start right outside your door with your terracotta pots, but start with what you like. Don't grow kale because it's cool. Grow potatoes. If you're a meat and potatoes kind of person, start there. And so just mixing that throughout and realizing that people are going to get that chicken. And there's where I can plug in permaculture again, because chickens and gardens work together beautifully. So the biggest permaculture, if there's a permaculture chapter in my book, it's called sweet synergy. And it's taking chickens and gardens to do, to work together. They compliment each other. It certainly put the garden next to your chickens, at least so you can throw your scrap veggies to your chickens. And you've hopefully got your chickens on deep bedding with chips, and that eventually turns into compost. And you can feed that compost to your garden and they feed each other. So it's this sweet synergy. And it goes, it goes throughout. And, and, you know, when I, in the gardening chapter, I bring in permaculture by saying, well, put it close to your door, put it as close as you can to your door. Okay. So just kind of, you know, squeeze it and everybody can relate to that. Make sure you put it on if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, like we are, put it on the south side of your house where it gets the sun. So put it on the south side. So then we're considering these elements, you know, there's a whole chapter on, on, on considering the wind and the, and the sun and these kinds of exposures in permaculture. But let's just say, Hey, flatest spot closest to your door, the most sunshine, go. Then do that. It's a good foundation. Then if you like it, then geek out, right? And get these other books, you might want to go the gardening, right? You might want to go more chicken row. But what happens when people then get the chicken? Mark is they become a homesteader, for sure. And there becomes a lifestyle change. Because you've got to let the chickens out in the morning. You've got to put them up at night. You've got to leave the party early. You got to say, Hey, guys, I got to go, got to put the chickens out. And they all, they all kind of laugh when you leave. There goes the crazy chicken lady. She got to go put her chickens. Go put, but put those chickens up. You've changed your, you've changed your lifestyle. And it doesn't have to be lonesome. We were lonesome for a long time. And we didn't know it could be otherwise. We didn't know we could start creating contents around it. It could be taking pictures and putting it on Instagram. You don't have to make a career out of it like I have. It could be making videos about your journey. You don't have to have all the answers to start documenting. And it builds a little bit of a community, a tribe behind you. And at first, it's DMs and emails. And then it's people saying, well, can I come visit? Yeah, come visit. And then you have these friends. And then all of a sudden you have this rich community. And once a month now, we meet, we meet with homesteaders who are within an hour or two hours away from us. We figured out that you can get it's worth, you know, you're, we're in our 40s. Once a month comes soon enough. You can look forward to it, but not too much. If it was every week, forget it. You know, it's hard to leave the homestead for that. Something like committing to a church service or something once a week is too much. For somebody who loves to be at home and has a homestead, a weekly commitment, our farm is too much. Once a month, we can do it. And it's absolutely a big event every quarter, something like that going somewhere. I'm getting jealous already because I can hear Rebecca. It's probably around lunch time where you're at. So I think I wish I could just swing by. I'd like to come, come by and grab some lunch with you guys. I'm sure it's a great experience. You can stay in. You come see us. We'll put you on the show. Yeah, that'd be great. I want, I want to ask you two kind of more questions that kind of dear to my heart and things that I do a lot in my other work. And I want to see how it's affected you, how that transition. So you mentioned the community, not only of other homesteaders, other people interested in the content, but also the community of those animals that you raise and nurture and get sustenance out of that. I've had other people on the podcast who have mentioned your name. I don't know if you know Ashley Colby or other subsistence farming and others that are really what you do resonates with them. I want to kind of go a little deeper. How do you view not just organics, not just regenerative ag or permaculture? How do you view the environment in your role as a steward in the environment of your homestead, of your farm, but also in the community as a whole where it relates to food and you growing food. What are your thoughts or feelings on, on how you play that? I'm sure you're probably not saying I'm a tree hugger or environmentalist or this big person, but, but there's a vital role in what your stewardship is for the earth. Yeah. I would hope to God, I'm an environmentalist that I could put that in my, in my description too. The one of the, what's cool about homesteading is it solves a lot of problems. So it can be a lot of things. It can be your gym membership. You're supposed to go and train. Well, it can be your earth gym. It can be your grocery store. It can be your therapy going out and getting quiet and being nature. You're supposed to spend a certain, you know, what's the Zen proverb? Everybody should spend 20 minutes a day in nature. And if they're busy, they should spend an hour. They're too busy for that. They should spend an hour. So, but at sun exposure, you're supposed to get your vitamin D. We'll go out and work in the heat. Cold exposure. You're supposed to, you're supposed to get cold for a certain period of time. Take your coat off when you're doing chores in the morning. These things, and also, so, so the environment, oh my goodness, talk about local. It doesn't get any more local than that. Henry had a shirt on yesterday. What is, what's his shirt to say, Rebecca, about breastfeeding? His shirt, his little, Henry's one year is always still breastfeeding. Eat local breastfeed. And think about, they're no more local than that. And that's about all he's eating. And there's not more, there's not, I'm looking, I'm looking out here at 1300 square feet in my yard. I'm seeing a bulletproof garden herbs. I'm seeing a compost corner where the chickens run and are making compost. I see seven guys. I see seven, four by eight foot raised beds, which is a large container garden, really. I, I, we just planted in just one of these half the bed, like 80 something lettuce plants and half of it. And the other half, how many broccoli did we put in there, Rebecca? A dozen broccoli or so. And, and the family likes to eat veggies. That's a lot. Okay. And I will admit to this, I was in a bit of a turmoil when I went on the tour and I was introduced to what you call silage tar. Jam Fortier is pioneering this. It's plastic. It's, it's, it's a UV resistant plastic, but it's, you're done with the garden. You put the silage tarp over and it, it keeps the, the weeds down. Now, depending on who you're talking to, a permaculturist might not do that. I mean, that's not as, as, as, if, if you want to use permaculture as a verb, that's not as permaculture as putting wood chips on it or something, covering it with something natural. So here's this conflict. So all right, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try it. I'm leery. I hate it. I know this plastic's gonna be around 450 years, but also somebody pointed out to me too, well, yeah, that plastic's gonna be around for 450, like if you take care of it, get patches for it when you get a hole in it, it's, it's gonna last you for life. So there is that. So okay, maybe I'll try this. Well, I go put it on my garden and because, and I realized as a teacher, not everybody can get wood chips. And I, my wood chip source even dried out. So it's not, there's not always a tree service or a public works or a, it's not always available. You know, grass clippings are generally available. So I've started teaching more grass clippings, but that's harder on like a 1200 square foot garden to get that many grass clippings. So I'm going to this, I put this tarp down. Well, I come back weeks, months later, I forget. And sure enough, no weeds are there. It's kept it at bay. It's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a mulch to covering in a way. And I pull that up. The worm castings and the worms, I was just blown away. Now, I can see either side and I can see somebody getting upset about, you know, the use of plastic, but we're using plastic and plastic all over the place. The people listening to this are using plastic to listen to this with their smartphone or computer. It seems like there's gonna, there's always going to be a compromise. You have to find, find where that's at and see what you're comfortable with. I mean, power to you if you want to just go and just hardcore live off the land, like the Cherokee nation around here. They didn't need any of this. They didn't need any plastic. I'm, I'm for you. If you can do it, I'm going to cheer you on. I'll probably make a diverge. Can I come film and make a divergence show on you? That'd be great. So what I realized though, too, is that made it a lot easier for me. I just pulled that up, reshaped it, and plant. So I didn't have to be out there working. I didn't have to, you know, no trees had to be shredded to get the wood chips, this kind of thing. And so I saved a lot of time. And then I realized, well, because I'm getting so much more food now, and it's attainable. Guess what's happening? I'm not trucking vegetables in from California. You know, I've able to keep this local. And is that reason enough? I don't know. I think it's good to never have the answer. I think it's good to struggle with that. How much plastic are we going to allow in our life? And I'm picking on plastic right now. I think it's actually great. In some respects, if that plastic always is around that 450 years, and when, and if, even if it's after one year, for some reason, it's just not usable, that it doesn't end up in a landfill, doesn't land up in our oceans. If there's some way we can turn it into a pot or a bucket, you use so many buckets, let's get that plastic down into pellets and then eventually make our own buckets or something. But that we have a place for that so that it doesn't have this cradle to grave model that it stays into a cycle, a life cycle that is continuous. I wouldn't have a single problem. I'll pick on Coca-Cola. We don't have a single problem with Coca-Cola bottles. If they said, we're going to go out and we produce 500 million Coca-Cola bottles a day, whatever it is and say, but at the same time, we're going to go out and clean up our oceans or landfills. Whether it's our Coca-Cola bottles or other plastic, every day, we're going to clean up 500 metric tons of plastic every day and that it never ends up in those things where it comes back to bite us. On a homestead in your environment, I think you can put it places and systems in place that can do that for you. I see that as well. There is that conflict and so I understand it, but there's also a way to deal with that conflict. The last question I have and then we'll wrap it up is one that I always ask. I've asked you this before. What does a world that works for everyone look like for you and does it have to do with creating this lifestyle for yourself, you, your family, those surrounding you? I would think a world where with lots of freedom, a world full of freedom, because I think if people are allowed to express their freedom, I think it's deep in our hearts to see problems and create solutions. I used to think, well, you had to be born an entrepreneur, for example. And oh, if you don't have it, you just can't get it. It's just too bad. But then I realized that somebody came here actually and they were like, I was talking with them and they're like, no, I think actually entrepreneur gets crushed in the system that we grow up in. It's kind of this fact that we kind of get trained to work in the factories, which there's no more factories. So it's old system. But if we were free to look around and see problems and address those problems without restrictions, it would be a good thing because I think deep down us humans are good and creative and naturally seeing problems and naturally wanting to come up with solutions and then trading money or any other value for those solutions. I love that. And you say that in many different respects. I want to throw some teasers in there. I'm sure people have heard it before. Growing your own food is like printing your own money, creating your own lifestyle, creating a homestead, a lifestyle, home schooling, homesteading, home birding, home growing your food. It's a new economy. It's a new lifestyle. It's one that's regenerative. And you're not relying. It's a way to opt out and be self-sufficient, self-sustaining subsistence that is really an abundant life. If it's done right and the more you take those learning lessons, you build that community, you say, oh, just like industry or manufacturing and production, I can see some efficiencies where I can work in harmony with nature and harmony with my farm to make sure that 10 years or for my children that they're still healthy soil and animals and food that we can grow out of this farm forever. And that's also ties to that permanent culture, the permaculture and many other things that we've studied. Justin, it's been a sheer pleasure. I'm going to let you get to your lunch and that beautiful family in the background. As I say goodbye, is there any words of wisdom or last messages you want our listeners and viewers to hear about your book and how we can get them out there to get a copy before March 7th? I think it's related to what you just asked me. As they consider getting this book, think about your why and remember it. So wherever you are in your journey, remember it. If you go deep into my why, sure, it's to be healthier. Sure, I can't buy this food anywhere else and it's really healthy and nutrient. It might be the environmental reason you're wanting to grow your own food and keeping it local, whatever the reason. It might be saving money, but keep asking why. Well, why do you want to be healthier? Why do you want to save money or why do you want to preserve the environment? Keep asking. For me, I ended up back to freedom. When my body is healthy, I am free to take a walk down the road, to play with my kids, to go do work. I have a lot of choices and if this is start living the worldview that you want. Turn off the news and build a garden. Stop worrying about this stuff that's out of your control. Be bothered by it, fine, but actually start trying to do something at a micro level. If I think, freedom is the answer at this macro level, I sure as heck better be making it work with myself and then those around me that I can have an impact on. As you go into this book, I think the why for this is that no matter what you're after, I've listed a number of reasons of why you would want to grow your own food. There's the environmental, there's the money savings, there's all these things, health. It covers so many bases and really I've done the hard work. I've put in the 15 years. I've read all the book. I have bookshelves too. This much of books I've read and underlined and then actually gone out and done it and now really said, how can we just, boom, just get you the base, just get you off chickens and gardens. Let's get you started on something and then let's get you hooked and then you can grow from there. Absolutely. There have been people that said, I didn't think I could learn anything more. So there is something for them too. You've been doing this a long time. This is going to give you a fresh perspective. They've said, I didn't think I could learn any more and I learned throughout and then I got to chapter nine and 10 and nobody's wrote a book on this yet. So I really enjoyed nine and 10 in the lifestyle chapters. That stuff's totally fresh. I love that and it's so important. That's something I deal with and that's exactly what I learned and loved the most. The Rooted Life, Justin Rhodes. Thank you so much for letting us inside of your ideas. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate it, Justin. Take care. See you soon. Thanks.