We discuss how you can get started with homesteading, chickens, and planting. We share their experiences with raising chickens, dealing with pests, and the challenges of winter farming. We also talk about the importance of understanding zoning laws and climate zones when it comes to gardening and farming.

Additionally, we touch on the benefits of cycling toys for children and share some humorous anecdotes from our childhood.

The episode concludes with a preview of upcoming topics, including Super Bowl speculation and more homesteading discussions. Throughout the episode, the hosts provide valuable insights and practical tips for listeners interested in homesteading and farming.

Audio file

Cock Talk Episode 2.mp3

Transcript

It's it's cold outside.

It is freezing, but I like.

It you like the cold?

I I do like I now. I don't like when I am dumb and don't wear gloves and a hat, which I do on the regular like I go out to my car and I'm this morning coming here I realized I need to scrape my car.

If we have two cars, we barely ever drive the.

And I it's kind of been dusted off here and there, but like, it definitely had some ice on it. And I was like I.

And you guys don't use your garage either. Even 3 car garage and you don't use it.

Didn't bring gloves.

No, no, I don't even think that my no it it's a it's a 2.5, but it's like way down. It's got this weird angle to it and my tractors.

A2.

Better happen.

In there, yeah, you.

Know you gotta protect the the real, the real.

You're trying to try.

That's what I hate about mine is like my my big riding lawn mower takes up 1/4 of my. It's just in the way.

Yeah, yeah. So first world suburb problems, I guess is.

Well, I had it in the shed Outback for the longest time.

And then because.

And now it's occupied by chickens.

Right. Well, that and.

And we have like this shed gets infested with wolf spiders.

Wolves. I thought you were.

Going to say wolves.

Wolf. No. The spider version in in the in the summer when all the eggs hatch and everything they they take over, which is great for the chickens because free food. But for a tractor. When I'm trying to ride.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, that's wonderful.

It and then you.

Feel something crawling on your leg and.

There's a a big *** spider on your.

Leg that's not.

That's perfect. Perfect. I don't want that. So keep it covered in the garage. Yeah. Yeah. It's cold outside. This is like the 4th day in a row of it. Snowing too. We had that big winter vortex thing that came through the entire country and.

Yeah, doing doing chickens in the winter is something that nobody talks to you about. When when you're like.

You should get chickens and ohh by the way, you are gonna be and.

Your backyard out here. You. You don't have too long of a walk to your chickens. I I've kind of set myself up to like. Yeah, I've got a little bit more of a walk. And in the summer time, it's not a big deal. It's it's fine in the winter.

No, you have a significant one.

Time when you're like.

In your feet way up and doing the whole thing.

You got to get back there and.

That's a it's fine for me, but the three-year old that wants to come back there with me, where the snow is actually up to her knees. Yeah. And she's like, Dad, please carry me.

Now you're rocking through the snow.

I've got a £50 bag of feed I'm walking back there and I've got a three-year old in my other arm.

It's well, it's good that you're built like a.

Viking so well helps, you know. And I'm. I'm looking at my 3 year old and I'm like, don't you have any sympathy for what I'm doing right now? And like, she'll, she'll, like, yell at me. Well, she's up there, you know. And I'm like, fine.

I just Chuck her into the snow. See you later. You're going to be in you ungrateful little.

And bouncing too much.

That you're bouncing too much.

I have to go pee.

Welcome to talk talk.

Yeah. Yeah, we're.

Well, it's cold outside.

But it's still morning here, so when we're talking about cocktails on this, it was like, well, do we really want to be drinking at 9:00 in the morning? Yes, absolutely, yes. So today we have.

I I mean.

The best part is we don't have.

A problem? No, no, I don't think no, maybe.

No, I don't. I don't. Honestly. I don't even know what this is called. What was it? A boozy bourbon coffee? Is that what it was called that we found? I don't know. We we just found a random recipe that we liked. So a a boozy bourbon.

Sure, sure.

Coffee, which really excited about it's an iced coffee just using a regular cold brew, a 10 hour cold brew. It's a nice a nice long process there for the for the cold brew.

But well, it kind of it. The cold brew and the and the Bourbon go well together because the cold brew process takes.

The bitterness out of the coffee a little bit, whereas like you're gonna get that with your.

Bourbon. Yeah. So you don't want to double up on the bitter it it can be a little bit too much when you for me, when I go well, do I want to drink just straight black coffee with bourbon? It's not as satisfying and as smooth as a cold brew might be.

But then again, the the cream.

That it just.

It's just creme de la creme.

Melting through there, it's going to soften it up.

Yeah. So for the for the bourbon, we used ugly dog, which is out of Chelsea, MI. So something that's local to the state that we're in, which is great. I think that we're gonna try to highlight mostly Michigan.

And brews and bourbons and things like that when possible. Yeah. I mean when when possible. I mean, at the same time, there's there's so much stuff coming out of Kentucky that's just like, man, we gotta try it all. Yeah, we literally have to try every bourbon. That's the point. Every bourbon, every.

Alright, thanks for telling me about that. That's that's great. No, that's perfect.

Every bourbon that's the real reason for the show, we're going to tell you all about homesteading and, you know, parenting conspiracies. And it's all under the guise of.

Right.

Wanting to try every bourbon.

That's it. It's a, you know, wait for a business. Write off, right? Yeah.

That's right, that's.

Right. But it's a salted caramel flavored bourbon Kentucky style bourbon, which I was really excited about. I'm not usually a fan of flavored bourbons, but I think for this in particular, cocktail it made a lot of sense. So the salted caramel flavoring. So it's.

The actual recipe itself is 4 ounces of cold brew.

2 ounces of bourbon, 3 dashes of agnostic bitters. Agnostic is that.

They don't. They don't believe. They believe there's a God, but it like doesn't. It's like this, this coffee, coffee God is, is.

Not agnostic, Chris. What's the what? What are?

They actually doing.

I know it's aromatic, but what's the brand?

I don't know what the brand.

Is I always say agnostic cause that's kind of what it looks.

Like but I.

Don't think that's the actual thing. Three dashes of aromatic bitters and then.

There you go.

Whatever bitter you choose, right, like you could, you could really do any kind of.

You can have your own religious opinion on your bidders, yeah.

It's just going to draw the some of those flavors out a little more.

Then we've got the whipping cream on top. Heavy or heavy cream that we whipped heavy.

It's a heavy cream.

Cream with and it's 1/4 ounce of Maple syrup in it as.

Well, so this is a sweet.

Drink. It's a sweet drink for a sweet man.

Cheers. I think the first sip of this is going to be all heavy whipping cream.

Pretty much, Yep.

So you guys a bit more than once?

Hopefully it's in my beard for the whole show.

Hopefully soon I could grow beard and to let it be.

It's in your.

In the well, give it another 5.

Years you'll be this.

I've been saying that for the past.

10 years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you're

It I when I think about.

Hair growing on a person when they're, you know, a little bit older, you start to like, you know, you get the old man with the hair growing out of their ears like the extra long nose hairs because for some reason it was only in the last 10-15 years that people went, oh, I can get a little guy up there and.

Take care of those like why is it that some old men have like a freaking rope coming out of their nose? How is that like, if I have the slightest?

Didn't you do?

They made tiny scissors back then, didn't they? I'm.

Sure they.

Did I thought they had tiny scissors, but I guess they just didn't know.

Make tweezers. I mean that hurt.

Like a *****, but I guess.

It's in the general thing if you're working in a coal mine that you're not really worried about how you're.

Well, maybe it's maybe they're getting burned off in.

The mine. Ohh.

Maybe as if every old man used to work in a coal mine.

Yeah, I mean.

That's what I assume that's my assumption for every old man. If you're over the age of 65, you either fought in a World War or you worked in a coal coal mine, or both.

Of World War.

World War well, seeing as the last World War ended what almost 7080 years ago now 4546, is when World War 2 ended. Yeah. Yeah, that's about 8. About almost 80 years ago. So in order to fight in that war, let's say you enlisted very early and you were 14, you're 90.

Well, I guess.

You'd have to be in your 80s to be.

You would have to be almost 100.

14 years old for enlistments O16 or 17 right?

No, no. Like some 16, you know, well 18. But some people would lie about their age, right. Like they believe in the cause and. Yep. Yeah, they did the.

Thing yeah, so.

You. Yeah, I remember insulting. I remember insulting my grandparents one time because I I thought because my grandfather was in the army. He was a tank commander sharpshooter. And I thought for sure he had fought in World War 2. And I was. I was pretty young, but I was like, hey, but didn't you fight in World War 2?

There's not many of them left.

And my grandmother goes.

No, honey, we're what you call war babies. We were born during the war. During the.

And I was like, sorry, I'm like 11 years old. How am I supposed to know all of this? Yes.

Yeah, I don't know when you're born. Sorry I haven't taken a peek at your birth certificate recently, Grandma. Yeah.

Dude, there's something about old people though. Especially old man. I think that generation was just.

A bunch of ********.

Like, yeah, I mean the people that are fighting in, in those wars, I mean, that's a different type of person too, right?

Right. Well, I mean, my grandfather, he was. He passed away a few years ago. But, I mean, I remember just weeks leading up to him passing away. He was in his mid 70s with a pacemaker on top, putting a metal roof.

By himself, you know, 1516 feet in the air? Yeah.

Oh gosh.

Shocked. He's dead. Wow.

No, he actually passed away during surgery, getting some gut cleaned out of his basement are supposed to be routine surgery just never woke up. Yeah, and. And he was ready as well. But anyway, that that man, even in his mid 70s, would just be out working so many people that I knew. And it just.

Shoot. What's this game?

Yes, yes.

It baffles me.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's funny that we I think this goes to this broader conversation of there tends to be this attitude of looking back at a a previous generation and like idolizing them a little bit. But it's usually two away like we look at our parents and I think because.

We actually lived with our parents, you know, for the most part, the majority of people live with at least one of their parents. If not both. You look at them and you see all the problems with maybe their marriage or, like, the way that they.

Worked or what? What? What have you? There seems to be this disconnect between the generations that are next to each other, but then you get that extra you go to your grandparents and there always seems to be this connection between grandparent and grandchild. Even even if they're not related. Even in like the workplace. A lot of times.

That 2025 year old 30 year old will connect better with the 6065 year old than the 40 to 50 year old than there because they're too close in generation. It's more like your parents.

There's actually been studies done on those connections with grandparents and how those relationships are tend to be a stronger bond in the sense that they have more in common because of the way that society kind of pendulums in a lot of different ways that the pendulum swing.

Is the same.

Every other generation. Hmm. So we we connect and we understand like I I think of you know not not that I'm trying to say that this that we are going through Great Depression or anything but like I with inflation you know all of a sudden you're like oh shoot what I used to spend on groceries is.

Oh, I see.

Like literally double.

And I start to think.

You know, I'm going to tell my kids someday. I remember when bread cost.

It's like $4.00 or $5 a loaf and it's going to it'll totally be it'll be $10 a loaf by the time there are 100%. I mean, that's what it's going to be you look at.

That's the trend, yeah.

Way that.

It's going, and I remember my grandma telling me. I remember when I bought bread for $0.25 or for like a nickel or something, you know?

Like they're they literally used coins to actually buy things. Yes, yes, which we can get into why the penny should be eliminated and it's a huge burden on the economy, but.

Spin coins are relevant.

I mean I.

I've been saying that for years.

Pennies go, Bubba. You know that? I think is.

Some South American country, maybe it's Colombia or Nicaragua, one of the two. And then I was there and the, you know, you would pay for something and it would be like six cents would be the change and you would just get $0.10 because they just totally eliminated all pennies.

Well, why? I mean, why even have pricing increments that that way anyway? Like what's the point of being 11?

I mean, I could.

Right, right. Yes, just make it intensive, yeah.

I mean, I guess if you talk about, you know, millions and millions of transactions, it makes sense, you know. But anyway, but I, yeah, I I relate.

OK.

Quite well as a parent to how I was parented by my grandparents growing up, if that makes sense like some of the things that they would have me do or try to instill like hard work. I mean, I was a chubby little kid too, so I'm sure that they, my grandparents will get out there and work the garden and go hop on the tractor.

With Pop so we can burn some calories.

This kids got.

To burn.

Exactly. He's too well fed.

I I I see that same thing kind of raising my 2 girls or it's like I intentionally I'm like a little bit harder on them trying to get them to be problem solvers, try to get them to understand the value of hard work like in the summer and spring in the summer when you know the the flower farm out there is in full.

Bloom pun intended. You know they're out there with us sometimes 6-7 hours a day, like working in the garden, or at least outside playing.

Go. Go, let yeah cause.

You're not. It's almost like you're you're trying for them to make the work really fun. Like going out to the garden is a fun thing, like going and and doing chicken work is fun, even though it is a responsibility. I mean, there's a there is a level of enjoyment to it. I mean, in order to do it, you have to find enjoy. Otherwise you just just get rid of your chickens.

Yeah, have a have a little grassy back, grassy backyard and call it good because it's going to be it's not going to be fun unless you enjoy it, right? Right. So you got to teach your kids how to how to enjoy it, which is a is a learning process, especially for two people that.

Like I don't like you. I I didn't. Really. I didn't do any of this stuff before. A few years ago, I didn't have chickens like growing up and like we lived in a little subdivision. Couldn't.

Right.

Have chickens, right?

But I don't even think.

It was it. It wasn't even on my parents radar. It was like, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why would I raise chickens? I can go get a dozen eggs for a dollar at the store.

We'll let the.

Well, and there was.

And there was such a almost this attitude of, like, well, the people that have to do that, they're they're poor or they're like, they're just there's they're the farmer.

There's and there that, you know, they're kind of in it because it's a a family thing or something. But it was almost like they were looked down upon until very recently. I think, like farmers got a totally **** on like, being a farmer was like a oh, you had. You have to be a farmer probably because you didn't go to school and then you start to get into it and you go.

Generational thing?

Ohh shoot. These farmers are so like some of them are insanely educated, whether it be by a formal education, you know they go to like Michigan State and they learn agriculture but or it's just they've been educated their whole life on how to make food and.

Most people have no freaking idea how their food gets made.

Yeah. And it's just like you, I mean, I didn't start diving into this until recently, but that was kind of the same thing that like as we.

You know, they called chickens a gateway drug, you know, for a reason. But as we started getting chickens and and kind of thinking a little bit more, being more intentional about.

Where's my? Excuse me? Where's my food's coming from? Who's in charge of food production? And then starting to research and listening to what farmers are saying. What are they saying about the regulations and stuff? They have to go through and then hearing the studies and experts come out about, you know, how the the food processing.

And all these different elements in your food. I remember when we my youngest one, she's 4 now but.

She was in a daycare for most of you know, one through 3, and she has. She has a hard time with groups with big classes like she she likes to receive attention from negative attention. So she'll do things intentionally to.

Getting that attention from it, but I remember that.

There was a consistent problem and.

The daycare teacher was like.

You should really look at the foods you're giving her and and cut out red dye 40 and if you cut out red dye 40, then there's studies show that like it could really help her attitude and.

OK.

Yeah, that are, like, exacerbate some of those ADHD kind of qualities.

Yeah, and and we were already seeing a, A, a therapist, a child, a child therapist for for her and for the attitudes and how to.

Probably address them and I just remember thinking that like that's that's so dumb. Like red dye for you. Like, come on. Like, that's really like not giving my kid fruit snacks is going to is going to change her entire attitude. But it got it got to the point where it was it was so consistent.

That's my problem, yeah.

And then.

Even with the the new things from the therapist, and like how to deal how to handle the situations, it was still happening and like alright, let's let's start looking into some of this stuff. You start seeing the research, you start seeing the studies and you're like man, this actually could.

Be a problem.

And then it's, I mean and it's banned in almost the rest of the world and for some reason.

Exactly. And so it's like, ohh, there's there's a pattern here that aligns with what this, you know, daycare teacher was saying. And then I kind of felt like an ******* because.

I was like.

You know, kind of making fun of the whole notion a little bit, but then we started putting that stuff out and notice a big difference is the same thing with melatonin we she won't.

She won't sleep at night, like getting hurt to sleep.

Is the most difficult thing. It's an hour long plus process every single night and the other, our oldest daughter never had an issue with it, but so we started like every once in a while, giving her small doses of melatonin to help her fall asleep, and then she'd stay asleep. But the next day, her attitude, she would just have the worst attitude. And we started, we cut out melatonin, and there's a significant difference in her attitude in the morning.

You know, and obviously there's a whole bunch of things about how it alters the hormones of the kids as they're growing up, and it's really terrible for kids, and it's not even good for adults. It's just something.

Yeah, it's really good.

That you shouldn't consume but.

Well and it's.

Something that your you should help your body to produce more of like which is why I one of the.

One of the things that I haven't yet, but like learning about is there's, you know, you can. You can buy like we get the pot, the pot lights in here and generally a a pot light in the ceiling LED you can, you know, toggle between a few colors like the five.

1000, somewhere in the the 4003 and then you can get down to 27127 hundred is generally the lowest. It's a pretty yellow looking light. Well, they make ones that can go all the way down to 1600 and completely eliminate all blue lights. So you put those in.

And you can have them at different times of the day. You can have your your brighter like you know we we just go 2700 all the time because my wife hates the white light. So we just we're always at 27.

Center, but you can be at whatever light you're comfortable at during the day and then.

At a certain time, those lights will switch to 1600. All blue light is gone, which the blue light is really what keeps you kind of awake and engaged. And when all that blue light goes away.

It triggers your brain to go. Oh, it's time for bed. Yeah. And then your body. It's it's one component of helping your body to produce more melatonin.

That's crazy. I I didn't know that. They even.

Had I didn't know until I I saw, I saw some. I'll. I'll have to find it and I'll repost it. But.

I saw somebody post about them and I was like, yeah, I want some of those lights.

That's awesome. I I think with more of a video production background myself, my issue is more of like just different color whites like when they mix like it drives me insane.

Ohh yeah, if you have a 5000 and a 2700 in like in the same room or you go in someone's house and they forgot to change the one.

Oh yeah.

The yeah, just the one left side. The pucks I just installed in the garage. One of them is like a a few like 1000 Kelvin, lower than the rest of the three. Cause I had a bunch of different boxes for when I finished the house.

Ohh yeah.

And I didn't realize I bought different color lights at one point, but I'm just like every.

Time I go in the garage like God can't do it. Yeah, got it. Got it. Can't do it.

I gotta fix it, but anyway, we we're talking about chickens, I think that's a big part of what we want to talk about today is people that are considering getting chickens. What are some things to think about? What are things that you need to do to prepare for?

Chickens, especially now.

You know.

Nothing. Don't. Just don't do any. Just go buy chickens, toss them in your backyard and see what happens.

Just go buy tickets. That's it.

Depending on where you live.

That's that's possible for sure.

My wife's laughing cause that's like she'll be like. That's basically what you did, Mark.

He's chickens. He raised him to a certain age and then you throw him outside and say good luck.

I mean, you can if you got the fencing. Yeah, you can before we jump into chickens, why don't we why don't we just take a step back? Because I think.

You know you're watching this from wherever you're watching this or listening to this and.

You're probably doing that right now because you know us, like safe to say, first couple of episodes, you know us and we wanted to talk a little bit about why we're doing this podcast. And like, you know, if you're in the homesteading or maybe you're not at all and you're just like, well, I'm listening to the show because I like you guys and I like I.

OK.

I enjoy spending time with you in this context.

Can't imagine anyone would be there.

But that's OK. Speak for yourself.

The self deprecating I I think that.

Yes, that's my humor.

I think that it'll it'll help.

To kind of set us up a little bit as we move forward, just like why we're here like, I mean, we did talk about in the first episode just kind of like you know, we had to talking about **** doc and and it kind of went down this rabbit hole of all the things that we could talk about and we realized that this this is an idea that can work and we were excited about it and so that's why we're here.

What do you think is?

Some like why should somebody listen to us instead of some other homesteading podcast like what's going to set us apart here? Aside from the the delicious cocktails that you could, you know, theoretically you could pause it and make this and then drink along with us, which is that's our suggestion. That's.

Absolutely yeah. Because if if they're also drinking, then we might sound funnier than what the as they are. But no, I I think the reasoning is you and I both very much self-made people. I think both of us kind of come from background where it's like hey we.

That's true. That's true.

We feel like we have a responsibility.

As individuals, as Americans, as men, as fathers, husbands, you know to where we kind of take this, this role and responsibility upon ourselves to make sure that what we're doing is in our decisions that we're making our best for us and for our families. But then also I think too is.

We're both pretty new to it and so we're making mistakes along the way and then we're able to kind of talk about those mistakes, why we learned a lesson and then hopefully the people listening or watching would be able to learn that lesson ahead of time.

Yeah, not make those well and and on top of that being new.

We also don't come from a background of it. Like a lot, I I listen to different home setting podcasts. There's a lot of really good ones and a lot of those people, they have some kind of like, oh, you know, I I grew up on a farm or like I I grew up in this kind of vibe, like my parents had this. We we're coming from this like me especially was like.

I lived in the suburbs, lived in the city, there was no no consideration for like, Ohh here's here's the things in our food like it that really wasn't a thing when I was growing up, nobody was teaching me to read ingredient labels or to think about what could this? What could this farmer have fed the chicken that is now?

On your plate. Like nobody? Uh, they weren't thinking about that. And that's not it's not a knock on on the way that I was raised like my parents, I mean.

Just the Internet has done some unbelievable things to where we now have so much more information and knowledge, good or bad, that that we can know these things and there's plenty of things that I'm ignorant to still. And I'm sure you know, my kids are going to, they're going to grow up and be like Dad had.

No clue that he was doing this and.

That's and that's fine. Like like you said, we're doing, we're trying to do the very best that we can.

And and almost like take it a step further. Like, yes, we could do our best and not do any of this stuff. We could not have chickens and we could still be, we would still be really great dads. We love our girls. We love our spouse like we can still create a great life, but it's almost like this is this is just like taking it to the next.

Level of.

Really taking control of at least some part of what we eat and some part of the way that we interact with neighbors and friends, like you're selling eggs. I'm selling eggs. We're giving things away. There's, there's just a different relationship that forms when you go. Hey.

OK, here's here's something that is going to literally heal you from things that are like eggs are freaking magical and vegetables grown in your garden, where there's no nobody's spraying tons of stuff.

All over it.

It's different. Yeah. I mean, it's different even from organic food where, you know, you go to the grocery store, you get something that's certified organic. Well, the organic plot is here and the non organic plot is here. And they only spray this.

What do you think happens when the wind freaking comes and the also organic crops? They can still spray them with pesticides. They're just different pesticides.

The wings, that's.

Right.

Anything about pollination too, as the if they're right next to each other, bugs and animals are running through all of these heavily, you know, covered in pesticide vegetables and fruits and stuff like that. They're running through the same field. If if there's anything left still, you know, from kind of that single source farming.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Right from.

The yeah.

But more animals are killed in the in the crop production than.

Anything else? Millions.

But what I I really like the dynamic between you and me specifically is our properties are very different. I I live in the suburbs. Still I have. I think it's like .85 acres, so not even a full acre. I'm one of the probably one of the few properties. I'm the only property in our entire subdivision, but one of probably the few.

In at least a five mile radius that actually is legally allowed to own chickens due to city ordinances. Yeah. And you have a property that's, you know, 5 acres ish.

Yeah, I'm, I mean and and my.

I guess my like whatever the the zoning is in my property, I'm able to kind of do a lot more because I'm in the middle of nowhere and and I'm surrounded by other people with five acres or 10 or 25 or whatnot and there's a lot of farms just north of me.

Too. So there's there's.

It's definitely a different vibe, which is cool because you know you can have the most people I think are in your situation where they've got like, hey, I have a little backyard in your backyard, is big in comparison to a lot of people that live in.

The suburbs, but.

I mean, you could do what?

You're doing in a much smaller backyard.

Yeah. Well, I mean, even still like.

Probably on 1/4 acre no problem. You could still do what you're doing pretty well.

Yeah. So I mean, our first house, we had a quarter acre lot, the whole lot was 1/4 acre. So the backyard is less than 1/4 acre and that's when we originally started growing vegetables flowers and then we had, I want to say it was 4 or 6 chickens. I think we had initially bought this like little Bunny run from.

Yeah, yeah.

Amazon for like 120 bucks because it's the only we could afford. But we wanted chickens and we we raised chickens back there and unfortunately.

In our ignorance, we would let the chickens out during the day, but we didn't have any tall fencing. It was just chain link fence that was linking all the backyards together and they would hop over into the neighbors yard and things like that. And the neighbor behind us was not a fan of us for whatever reason and.

Too many tats?

Maybe, but then also the chickens, I think, gotten his yarn too much.

Why is that a thing?

I don't know.

I think it's less and less these days, but.

Eventually, he called the city on us and they're like, hey, you're lots too small. Like you can eat chickens. And so there's there's some different elements to trying to homestead in this city with things like chickens and we, but we bring both of those to the table. And like you said, as we're, we're new and we're growing and our farms get bigger, we're going to make mistakes. We're going to talk about those mistakes. And then.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, kind of what we're learning.

On them, I feel like a lot of homesteading influencers or anything that I that I watch and that I see they have 10 acres and all these different animals and this actually do things and it's like, well that's great. But that doesn't apply to me. So I don't have that kind of space. I don't have that zoning like I'm.

Yeah, yeah.

Not in the middle of nowhere, right? One day, but.

You can and you can try to scale some of those things. Some things are everything is scalable up, but not everything is scalable down. Sure, like you just can't. I mean you can't have a cow. You just can't have a cow. There's just no way I could have a cow. I don't have the infrastructure for a cow but like.

Right, I can't.

I'm sorry.

I could have a cow.

But those things aren't. Those aren't necessarily that even on our radar, you know, we're just trying to, like, get into doing what we're doing, which is chickens and crop production and fruit production and all those.

Need to grow in and of themselves. Like, yeah, you can do it one year or two years. And like you still, you've got a lot of, you know, it's kind of like that saying what the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. Yeah. And then the second best is today. You know, so that's.

And and then you go and you go, oh, we did that. We planted that tree three years ago, and we're getting apples. We're getting cherries or whatever kind of fruit it is. And and then you go. Yes. I'm so glad that we just were like, let's just, let's just go buy some trees and plant them over here. Because sometimes you just have to do that. Sometimes you just got to jump in and like.

Say like screw it. I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna do something. You just got to do something today. You go and you go and you plant those.

Trees, or the crops or whatever it is. Crops are a little easier to.

Just plant and see what happens, because then at the end of the, you know end of the year, they go away anyways for the most part, unless they're perennial ones which are few of but yeah, it's it's a great time to to get started because this is the winter time which every farmer will tell you. Now is the time to be thinking about.

Your spring, yeah.

Like this is when you actually get to process.

What you want to do for the spring?

Yeah, it's it's a huge planning period, especially in northern states where it's it's snowing like crazy. You know, obviously the lower zone areas, you know, in the South, you know, you have stuff going year round and it's just a matter of swapping out those crops for that period. But you know, like, you know, my wife with her, her flower farm, like she's, I mean.

There's nothing to.

Do right now.

For mid January and she's already kind of like stressing out because it's like, hey, this is supposed to be like the end of my planning period.

I got to get stuff ordered. I gotta get stuff ready. I gotta start. Stuff like.

We do. Yeah. Anything you're planning inside you're you're getting going here pretty soon.

You. Exactly. Yeah. We've got a pretty substantial, like grow space in the in the basement, you know, so having stuff that seeds already in dirt on grow lights, you know, and and starting to get to that place. So when the garden.

Opens back up in the ground.

Freezes and we're past the last frost day that we can drop that stuff in the ground and and.

Get going on it and and for somebody who's just starting out.

It's no big deal. They don't. Don't feel like you got to start tomorrow. You can. You still have. You still have a lot of time. You're still going to have a really good harvest of whatever you decide to do, even if it's even if it was.

April and you decided let's let's plant some things inside and let them grow outside. You know, you might have a little bit later of a harvest and that's OK. If you're just starting out, don't.

Don't panic.

For people that are doing it like we know, January is like you got to order all your stuff so that you can plant these things inside.

And I think.

Some of that is that that is a portion of it that I think will separate us from from other people is just we're going to take you inside and we're going to show you our planning process and like we're going to talk.

About all those.

Things which is kind of the it's the informative side of all this, which is really good, but then we also are drinking booze.

Will we?

Do it.

And I think there's this weird culture in homesteading.

Where it's almost like you have to be like a prim and proper little little person in order to be one of, like, the homesteader, like the official homesteader. Like, I need to have.

Your your wife should be wearing the.

Cottage core.

The yes, yes, the the Trad wife kind of vibe, which like no. If that's if that's I. I have friends that's that's how they like have chosen to to present themselves and they they love it and they they find it empowering and it's great for them.

But you don't have to be like that in order to be a home setter like you can be a hillbilly, but you can also be a professional business person who's got a freaking great garden in their background in their backyard. You've got chickens you can be.

Like you don't have to fit this mold to do it, and I don't think either one of.

Us fits the mold.

No, no, I mean.

In so many areas of life, neither of us fit them all.

Well, that's well, that's what I think is again. It's so great that we don't come from this background like we said. So there's, there's a lot of things that we're just gonna do wrong and then we we're not kind of focused on either. It needs to look like this or it has to look like this.

I feel like and you've addressed this, I think directly in your Instagram page that mainly homesteading Instagram page. Yeah, it's like it doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to work. Just make it work.

Right, right. Just make it. Yeah. You think it work? And and if you can get stuff for free, even better. Especially starting out. Like you don't need to go and spend $10,000 on fencing. That's madness. No, like go and buy the the stakes that you can tap down big metal steaks. They're like 7 bucks. close 7 bucks each or even cheaper than that.

Yeah, yeah.

Like he knows, yeah.

You buy a bunch of them and you can run vinyl fencing. That's decent.

And just make sure that it's.

Thick enough.

Yeah, I'll post the we'll post the stuff that I've that I've bought. I'll post the stuff not to buy, so like click that link and be like, OK, I'm I'm a bank that back because don't ever buy this this particular one. It's like a if you get vinyl fencing that's too thin, what will happen is those teapots will either rip it.

Or you'll have you'll you'll do your little clamps or zip ties on there. And the zip ties. It'll just rip. Yep. And so then you'll end up with these fences. That.

They're just every other tea post is on the ground.

Or like what's happened two years in a row is you. You leave the door open to the garden and then the friendly neighborhood deer family gets in there, and then there's no way to get them out, cause there's only one entry. So instead they just run through the.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Back fence, yeah.

And they tear it all down.

Yeah. And they will do and they will do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you gotta make sure you get the the thicker stuff. So you don't want to go too cheap. Yeah. But you don't need to get. You don't have to get metal fencing. You don't. You definitely don't need wood fencing, right? Especially if you're if you're in the sub.

Gotta get the good.

Ribs. Then you just want to get high quality vinyl fencing and and that can be very affordable and you can do it in, in bunches. Like for me, I mean, I've got. I've got a lot of land that I want to.

Fence in but.

I don't want to have the money to buy.

It all right.

Now, right. Like I do. I could go out and I could just buy like, enough to surround my whole property. I don't want to do that. Right. That's so much money to spend on fencing that I don't need. So I just buy 100 feet at a time, and I just go and.

OK, I kind of and then when I'm ready to buy more, I maybe snip some of those zip ties and just run it a little further and and re resituate myself. But I can do that because it's all temporary fencing though. There's just different ways to think about it as you're starting.

Well, I think too, even people that do have a lot of property, let's say they've got, you know, 3 plus acres or whatever.

For the for the relevance of this context, 3 plus acres, a lot of property, but they they think ohh man I've got 3 acres. I got a I got a fence, all three acres in. I got to do all this like no start small. Even if you have a ton of.

Property. If you've never done this before, start small. Yeah, figure out what you like doing, and then do that because there is a part of gardening. There is a part of.

Caring for animals that I don't like.

And so if I was to just jump in and do that on a large scale because like this is the thing that I heard somebody tell me, this is what you have to do in order to be a home set like I would hate that. And then I wouldn't enjoy doing this. And that's the biggest part I think for us is that we both really enjoy doing this not just because of the things that we get out of it, but we enjoy the process, even my my oldest daughter, she's 7.

I think she's starting to see like, the hard work up front and then the reward of the crop at the end. Even just this this past season.

Some of the stuff she's planting, she's able to see it grow into fruition and when it's time to go pull all the green beans, it's it's time to go pull the Peppers and the tomatoes and stuff. She's just like, can we go check on Peppers? Yeah. Can we go see if this is, you know, and that's so cool to me because she sees the value, the importance and the reward from it, and that's teaching.

Yes, yes.

Are those those values of? How to see that in other areas of?

Her life as well.

Yeah, I we go when in the summertime. We're like, where did my oldest daughter? Where did she go?

I'm looking around. I'm like, oh, she's out in the fruit forest. We have this, like, this fruit forest. There's a bunch of different fruit trees. And then we we use. We'll get into companion plants and all that. But there's different things you can plant in and around the trees. They work together in in a symbiotic relationship. We've got a lot of berries and different fruits in there, and she's just in there.

I just. She's got a basket, but it's like for every 10 things that are going to go into her mouth, one it's going to the best. So it's like EDD. OK, I'll put one in.

The basket EDD.

She's just out there eating all the.

Fruit. That's amazing.

Well, I mean I think it's, I'm excited about this. I'd love to talk about maybe some some practical ways people can get started in this. If like if home setting is becoming an interest to someone where where should they start?

The first thing to do if you're thinking about.

Any kind of animals, you just figure out if you're allowed to have them from a zoning standpoint. So most people start out with chickens. Just go figure out if you can have chickens because you don't.

Want or if you're going. If you know you can't have them, you better not have an ******* neighbor like you have. Like, you better go and grease the shoot a little bit for your neighbors. Yeah. At at very least. And I'll probably go and say, hey, I'm thinking about getting chickens.

Yeah, yeah.

Is this like?

We're technically not allowed to have them.

I'll give you some eggs. Are you? Are you OK with it? I'll make sure they don't come over to your property like those are. If you're not willing to have those conversations with your neighbors, you probably shouldn't go against the rules because you'll probably end up having one neighbor who's * **** and, and honestly, you might. You might end up having that neighbor anyways. Like you could go, and you can ask people and they can say, Oh yeah, I'm cool with it.

And then they see the chickens and or they.

Just don't get a rooster.

Well, I I I would say that no. And I also think too.

Know you don't have.

But I I didn't find out until we had a big batch of chickens because we had to get rid of our first ones before they started laying. Was the egg song. So in the spring and summer, like if you live in a in a a very tight community where there's houses literally right next to each other, your neighbors are going to hear the egg songs in the mornings and you know, so it's like it's not a rooster.

All right.

100% yeah.

Throwing it at sunrise, but it is a chicken and if you've got multiple of them laying eggs in there doing their whole cockadoodle Doo thing for quite some time until they get that egg.

Out. Yeah, the nice.

Is that so based on a chicken and their laying schedule?

Chickens tend to lay every 25 to 26 hours. It's the generally accepted, you know, some chickens are a little bit different. Some chickens lay a little more. Some chickens lay a little less, but it's usually a 26 hour period. So one chicken will lay at 9:00 AM, then the next day they're going to lay at maybe 10:00 AM and then 11:00 AM. Slowly, they'll be laying later in the day.

And then once they hit the 3:00, that's why you don't get an egg from 1:00 because they kind of hit that period where they're like, no, I'll just late.

Tomorrow. Yeah. So the fortunate thing about that is you probably won't have every chicken laying at like 7-6 or 7:00 AM if you get the when you get chickens laying later in the day, people don't. Most people are at work or, you know, they don't really care if.

They hear a noise at 1:00 PM, right. They care if they hear a noise at four or five or like something wakes them up.

Right.

Yeah, I would say that, I mean we have 16, we have all different kinds. You know we have leghorns that.

Pretty much 90% of the year and they lay almost every day, if not every day.

Almost everything. There's supposed to be. I think it. I think they're 320 eggs a year, 300. We'll we'll give it 300.

Yeah. So that one? Yeah, I think so.

To my camera just died.

We got the other one.

So I mean, so the leghorns laying as as much as they do, you know, they usually don't even start until about 8:39 in the morning. So by then like most people are up like you're good. And I mean, where I live, like we're backed up to the woods. The woods are on the left side. They're behind us. So we often hear.

Birds of all different kinds, you know? Yeah, exactly. They're clawing and hooting and hollering and stuff. That was pretty good. Yeah. That was pretty good. I like that. But they they're constantly making noise. So, like, I think we kind of blend in a little bit. But I also have an HOA.

Birds of prey.

So it's like and one of the board members is literally next door, so.

Yeah, but you're allowed to have chicken, right? Like you're in the you're as far.

As a they they didn't write in the bylaws because I don't think that they ever thought someone would put chickens and I being the only property that can legally have them in the entire neighborhood, I don't think was ever on their radar. Most of the people in our neighborhood, at least on our street, have either or the original owners of the house.

From the 60s or they've been in the house.

20 plus years.

Yeah. So that to them was never kind of a thought to put into.

Any sort of HOA that was.

Well, yeah. And you, you back up the stuff. You don't care. It's it's more of the.

If you know if you have a, you have a place where you know you're going to. You're backing up to people. Maybe you've got people over here over here like you've got a lot of people.

I would probably take the step to go and knock on those people's doors and just say like, hey, I'm. I'm gonna. I'm thinking about having chickens. Yeah, we're going to be really responsible with it. They're going.

To be in their little thing, I wanted to let you know I would love to give you some eggs.

But I want. I just want to let you know since you live close by that we're going to do this. And I just wanted to, you know, get your blessing with it. And you might, if you have somebody who says absolutely not. I will if I see chickens. Sorry, I'm going to. I'm going to call. Well, you probably like either you're going to do a really good job hiding them or you just probably.

Shouldn't have them in that space.

Do it.

And that's where you can get to different types of animals that you can do. Chickens are just kind of the generally accepted like, oh, you can have chickens. It's the easiest one to do. Yeah. I don't know. That's necessarily true. OK. I've never done quail. I've done rabbits. And you can do you can do meat rabbits, and you can. Rabbits are in a cage.

Like a meat, rabbits going to be in a cage there.

Whole life. It's a big cage. Don't worry. They're not like crammed in a little guy the whole time. Don't call, don't call Peter. But they they're in a they're in a cage because you don't want them to get muscular. You don't want them, like booking around it. I mean, you could. You could get a little dog pen and you can run them around. I have friends.

We just lost viewers, yeah.

They took one of our rabbits. They turned it into a pet and it roams their house and it's potty trained. I had no idea that a rabbit.

Could do.

You can potty train rabbits.

This this, this rabbit is potty trained. It goes pooping. It's little it's little area and it goes. It's just like walks around the house. It jumps up on the kids beds and like sits.

With them I have. I like my mind, was blown when they're sending me videos of these rabbits. It's like your rabbit is literally a dog.

I didn't know you could do that.

His name? Stewart.

With the rabbit shout out to Stewart.

Yeah. So I mean, yes, Rabbit could be a pet, but you can also do them with meat and it's it's good meat because you're not. It's not like a, it's not like a typical like go hunting for a rabbit. And that rabbit is like super lean and fast. These are chunky.

Bread for meat, like that's the, you know, they've been pared down. They're they're good for meat. So you can do that, and you can do quail and get the quail eggs and you.

Can eat the.

Quail. So there are other options to to chickens. If you can't have them. So if you can't have chickens or you're like, not sure that you want to have them, you want something that's.

A little more confined. You've got, like a shed or a garage. Yeah, you can do other animals.

That will get you lots of meat. They'll get you lots of eggs. They'll quail will get you lots of eggs. They're they're littler. They're smaller.

Eggs. They're just as nutritious, and those things can reproduce a lot quicker than a chicken. So you can get a lot of quail. If you want, you know, if that's something that you want to do. So they're to say, well, I can't get chicken, so I can't. I can't homestead. That's ********. If you want to do it, you know, look for a way around.

What you want to do or look for a way that you can do it? Don't just say, well, I'm not allowed to do it.

So therefore I can't.

I knew some people that lived in in, in, like in our last name. I was telling you is really tightening group. They lived in the same general area, same type of neighborhood just across the street from us.

And they had their entire coop actually in their garage where they keep the case because that's they weren't allowed to have them and then they would have they built a run that would go outside. So they would, they would have a long run that would go outside and let them kind of run around outside. So there are definitely ways to kind of sneak, you know, some chickens.

Sure. Yeah.

If you really want them bad enough, but I think too, even home setting itself is not even directed towards livestock, I think. I think the idea of homesteading is just kind of taking more responsibility and more intention in.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of what you're consuming, what you're doing in your everyday lives. Like, you know, trying to make sourdough bread or making bread.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Sourdough bread is maybe the more is is the the gateway to any of everything anyways because it's so simple to do, like just post on Facebook. Does anyone have a starter that I can take from people will give you their starter like a sourdough person will happily allow their starter to become.

Right.

Someone else's starter, like their starter, gets to have babies. That's exciting. And then you've got like, the starter. My wife started, she started it from scratch. She gave it to one of our friends who.

He went ham with it like he he just he feeds that thing like, you know you have to feed your starter and it'll make your starter grow. He feeds it way too much, so he ends up with all this extra the discard and then he makes amazing foods with the discard he's like, oh, I made these cookies. I made these.

These buns I made bagels I made, he makes almost like anything you could think of that would be with bread pizza like he just makes it with all the disks.

Man and it's delicious. That's.

Awesome. Well, and I hear I hear a lot of the times too, people that have gastrointestinal issues or a lot of people that maybe think they have celiac or they have some sort of intolerance to gluten.

So much fluffier and.

They have a tolerance.

To glyphosate, that's really what it is.

Yeah. So when you start making your own sourdough and you're making your breads at home and you're using all natural ingredients, you are getting all of that glyphosate out. And actually you can process that.

Yeah. Well, in the well in the glyphosate, hopefully.

Hopefully if you get organic stuff, hopefully there's no glyphosate on it, but yes, it does also eat the gluten like the bacteria is eating the gluten, so you get a much lower content of gluten which you know when you're when you're having some of these breads and you're like a 21% gluten in your bread. That's it's high for something like somebody.

My brother has celiac like we know people have. Like, it's high for them. But sourdough, a lot of them can handle it or the OR it's just it doesn't cause many.

Problems. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, my wife has celiac, and I know that for some people, you've been traumatized so much having celiac and consuming bread that just like, I don't care what you say. I'm not going to try it. And that's like, fine. But there are a lot of people out there that have, you know, a a smaller intolerance to it that could actually begin eating good bread because.

We're not going to do it. Yeah, yeah.

Free bread. Just. Yeah. It's not tasty. Yeah. And that's and that where? No, it definitely doesn't. And. And honestly, if you're like, ohh sourdough, I saw that at the store. I can go buy it.

So the sourdough that we make is flour is your starter, and then your flour, salt and water. And that's it. There's no other ingredients in there. You go to the store and try to buy sourdough, and unless you want to pay $10 a.

Loaf, you are going to find many, many more ingredients in there.

Yeah, and and it's.

Just it's not the same, not the same at.

Unless you go to like, maybe you go to a bakery and they actually make it in there like that's that's a little bit. But if you go to a a chain grocery store and buy sourdough bread, it's not anywhere close to the same. So don't think that you can just go buy sourdough bread instead.

Even a chain grocery store that has a bakery in it, usually they're putting a ton of stuff in it because they're getting pre made mixes or whatever, or they're getting. And I remember I used to work at a restaurant that was a chain and we had a commissary, so everything was made in the commissary and then delivered fresh to the restaurants for them to use on a daily basis.

Right.

But even still, like in that commissary, there are things that are just are created in batches for a reason. So when they distribute that there could be all kinds of things.

That are in there as well.

Yeah. Yeah, very true. Yeah. So there are a lot of places to start. I think it's this best to pick one like pick pick one simple thing and like maybe baking. Like the idea of making your own bread for me is like, I don't, I don't really want to make my own bread. My wife.

Does it and that's great. Like she enjoys it. She's like, oh, yeah, you gotta like, you know, exactly how much to put in here. And like she experiments, you know, when she learns she makes a batch, she goes, let's do this. Do that too, fluffy or it's too like it's too dense and she she experiments as she goes it is a very I'll say like a scientific process but it's also.

This labor of love it takes a while to make it and yeah, but it's delicious when it's done. Even the stuff that's like she's like, oh, this isn't good. It's too thick. Like, this is still amazing because it's warm bread like warm bread is always going to Trump. Yes, but.

Yeah, fresh warm bread.

There are other things that you can decide to do today that have nothing to do with growing your own food and and really it maybe it just starts with going outside. Yeah, right. Like homesteading. So much of it is just saying, saying no to a screen, not even all the time, but just saying no to a screen and going instead of the screen.

Let's go. And like, let's go make our life better outside, yeah.

100% and I mean.

We talked about too, you know, being in small neighborhoods, small properties and stuff, you know, getting permission for something like a chicken, you know, that's that may be a daunting process for some. But what you don't have to ask permission for is planting vegetables, fruits, even flowers. If you don't really want to grow.

Planting, yeah.

Your own food, but.

Maybe you want to look at something nice throwing flowers.

I think that for me, I think growing flowers seems more complicated than growing fruits and vegetables because.

Especially especially the ones that don't come back, like just don't plant a blueberry Bush, a Raspberry Bush somewhere. And like maybe if you have deer, if you like, you don't have a fence, you might have to put a little guy up. But if you have, especially if you have a fenced in backyard. Oh my gosh, the whole ends, the whole entire fence should just be surrounded by berries.

Right.

Like, why not berries are so freaking expensive?

Yeah, especially now in the winter where I mean, you could freeze your berries and stuff and and that that would really be the only way you'd get them in the winter.

But even in the summertime, you go to the store and you're still, you know, like, alright. So I get a little pint. So for a pound of blueberries a lot of times you're paying.

Like 10 bucks a.

Yeah. And you pay 10 bucks for a.

It's crazy and.

Plant plan to think about it too, is that if you're in the north and it's winter everywhere, those blueberries aren't coming from anywhere near you. They're coming from across the.

Country you know, so when how long have they since they've been on that Bush? Yeah. Since when they were picked. Their process. They're, you know, they're taking their watch. You get them. And by the time you get.

Right, right.

Them home and actually.

Eat them. It could be weeks. Yeah, you know, and it's it's not fresh at that point, you know. And so to be able to walk out outside or walk to your basement or your freezer or your garage or whatever.

Grab frozen pack, thaw them out, and be able to use them or keep them frozen, throwing them in in a smoothie like that it it. There's a difference. There's such a difference in the taste and the feeling you get knowing that exactly where your food is coming from is is really.

But I I mean, for me, the first thing I would tell people to look at is look up your your zone for where you live. There are zones really easy to just go and look at your county map like whatever county you live in. You know, if you live in Genesee County, you just go and you type Genesee County zoning map and it'll pull up.

Just Google it, yeah.

Map. There'll be a map of your whole place, and it'll tell you. Here's your zones and you can look find your house. Look what zone you're.

And from there it's pretty simple to just go zoning laws for this and you just go find them. You can probably even type in livestock or.

When I'm even talking about, like, your climate zone.

As well.

Ohh that too. Well, that's yeah.

Yeah. So like taking.

A look at the climate zone like hey, I'm in.

That's even more simple.

Right. Yeah, you can Google climate zone for, you know, whatever city you're in or or, you know, part of the state you're in and you'll be able to see. OK, I'm in 7B. Great. OK. And then you go and you Google what?

Are the easiest vegetables to grow in 7B, and then you're going to see article after article of just lists of different vegetables and find vegetables that you're going to eat. Find ones that you maybe get regularly that you like and then start looking up what does it.

Take to grow. It is very tempting when you start. This happened to me. Katie's laughing at me.

Is I I tend to like really jump into things and like.

Get like, fired up about. I'm gonna do, like, way more than I actually am going to do. And I bought so many seeds.

I bought seeds for things that I'll never eat, but I was like, you know, I can grow these things and like, I'll, I'll sell them or I'll give them away and it'll just be like it'll be cool to grow them, which which you totally can do. But starting out, just pick honestly, what are the, like, the easiest things to grow lettuce? Lettuce is super simple.

Carrots are just going to those things. Just grow. You don't have to do a whole lot to grow carrot.

So garlic's the same way. Garlic is really simple.

So garlic and yeah, and garlic, honestly, garlic. You can as soon as you're.

Garlic you could you really should have planned it already, but yeah, but you can just go as soon as the ground is like a little thawed, you can go and.

Plant garlic, yeah.

And it'll it will grow like it is almost impossible to kill.

Garlic yeah.

Unless the soil is really bad or something digs it up, you're probably going to be fine with garlic and it'll.

Protect all your other plants against certain types of bugs and beetles.

Yeah, yeah, there's, you know, obviously there's some some plans that you have to, you know, kind of focus on a little bit more when in battle.

Pests and things like that, finding all natural ways, and to keep the pests off, yeah.

Yeah, oils and what I am.

You know, and we'll do a, I mean, I'm sure we'll do a whole episode on for technics.

We're gonna dive into all that. Yeah, I mean, I could. I had a I had to learn a huge lesson this past year about how to properly protect broccoli and cauliflower and all of my all of my.

Yeah, all the brassicas are. Yeah, broccoli, cauliflower and.

Brussels sprouts just got completely destroyed by caterpillars like I've never seen so many caterpillars in my life in one area or even on.

One plane. And it's funny because you're like, where did they come?

From yeah, I've never like that's the same as those like the the Japanese beetles and stuff that get on things. And you're like, where, where were you guys?

Where do you guys hide out waiting for some poor fool like me to plant my trees of fruit and you're just gonna show up and like?

I mean, you can catch those things in these little bags and there's just hundreds of them in a bag. And you're like, in the world. I've never seen one before and you pick up the bag and it just reeks. Yes, like it is.

Yeah, that's what we did.

The worst smelling.

Thing that I've ever smelled and and there are some like some pests are as simple as like you just go and you pick them off.

Yeah, every couple of days and it's and it's fine. And that's like all that's all you have to do. They're not super invasive. There's other ones that are just, they're just ridiculous. And you have to, you got to take a little, like, put a little extra in and that's something where you have to know.

Yes, I bought this, let's say, like a blueberry plant for $10 and you bought, you bought some different trees. You have to almost in your head go. Alright. This is going to cost me. I'm going to have to pay for some other things to protect against these things. And there are all natural ways to do it. I mean, there's like I did. There were ants all over this Cherry Tree.

And I took Saran wrap. That was like a double side. It was like a sticky. I think it was like.

Double sided tape I took double sided tape and I wrapped it around the trunk.

Oh wow.

And they try to crawl up it and then they just get stuck on the tape and like, it literally worked. And I didn't get ants up on the tree anymore.

That's crazy. I never would have thought about double sided tape.

And it works.

And that it's so simple, it doesn't hurt the tree at all, even if the tree is growing, you can always just like every couple of weeks. You just go and you cut the tape off and you just rewrap it so that you know it. But at the same time, sometimes you just need to get some little Ant traps so that the ants go somewhere else.

But there's a lot of there's also ants can be good for other things, and that's where it's you have to understand there's a reason why those bugs show up a if your plants are unhealthy and they're they're not doing well, bugs are going to just pound that thing because it's easy to get into. But when a plant is doing really well.

It actually is designed to protect itself against pests. Yeah. So there there's all sorts of stuff we'll we'll go into all that's a little bit more, more advanced. But as far as just getting started.

1-2 we're going to be addressing a lot of.

Q&A Style questions that yeah, so like if, if, if our listeners if if you're watching or whatever and you have questions on hey like this is this is kind of my situation for my home, how do I start a garden here like we'll happily lend opinions of of where you can start and what you can do and if there's things that you're running across where you know like pest.

Issues or whatever like how do I get rid of these things, you know, we'll we'll do our best to answer them with the knowledge that we have.

Or just like what tool do I get to do this or like?

You know, what do you recommend? What's there? There's so many options for every application. Yeah, and there's probably only needs to be, like 2, but you can, you know, you can get all these. You can get crazy with the the I'll say, like the innovation of things. And a lot of those things aren't necessary, but some of them are really nice to have. So we'll.

You know, we'll go through all that.

I think you and I are also big on kind of no till gardening, so I think.

Yes. No till garden, yeah.

I think that's going to.

Be fun to talk about.

Or until one time and then never till again. Yeah, that's yeah. If you have to get rid of your.

Is there's there's.

Grass. You have to get rid of your grass somehow. That's.

Exactly. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of. There's a lot of benefits to not telling your your soil. Yeah. And we'll go into.

All that. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I did want to ask a question to you that is unrelated to homesteading. My, my one year old daughter. And her name is FEA. I don't really care if we say her name, it's going to.

OK.

Sophia is turning one and.

I'm debating whether or not we want to have a birthday party for it, and like you know, we did the one for our oldest and it's fine. Like, it's not like she has any recollection of it. And honestly, the best part of the 1st birthday was not even the party. I think you and you and your wife took our cake smash pictures for that one.

And those are like the pictures that we go back.

And look at.

Anyways, yeah. So we're like, do we just do a a cake smash picture thing and and like, call it good. What do you think about no birthday party for your one year old?

Honestly, I I actually, I've my wife and I.

Have gotten into a couple.

Intense discussions. There weren't even that intense, but we've we've had a couple of talks.

As long as they end in a good, intense discussion, it's OK.

We I am. I'm kind of under the the guise of they're not going to remember it. They're not going to know that we never did it. Why would.

I had spent all this energy and time and money doing this. It's not for me. Right. Birthday party is for the individual.

No, no, it's no, it's.

It's for you. That's. That's why you do it, right? It's it ends up being for you.

The problem?

It's it's definitely, I understand. Like you're I can understand first kid like it's it's brand new like it's a one year old of your first kid. Like you gonna want to remember it absolutely do a cake smash and do some pictures. I am not the type of person that's that we're we're going to invite 20 people over we're doing paw patrol everything there's going to be cupcakes and different colors.

We're baking them all for like, I'm. I'm not that type of person.

I think it kind of comes from though that like I I don't ever remember having, like any elaborate birthdays growing up. I don't like I.

Have we have friends over?

So, like birthdays weren't really valued a lot growing up.

Not. Not as much. I think he's like, yeah, happy birthday. Like, we're going to do something fun, you know? But it wasn't like a a whole family ordeal. It was usually like, hey, mom, I wanna have some friends over. Like it was the only birthdays I remember. And then they friends would sleep over. We play games all night. We eat a bunch of junk food, you know? And then we go to sleep and wake up at 2:00 in the afternoon. Right.

But that's like later that's that's when you're middle school or high school.

Well, that's what I'm saying is, like, you don't. You don't remember all of the ones when you were younger. I don't have any recollection of a birthday before like.

The age of 12 or.

You know what? Birthday I do remember when I was in second grade? I I was supposed to have this big birthday party and my grandpa was taking me to the Royal Ontario Museum, which is basically like Canada's.

Great museum. Like it's there's. I think there's a bunch of different.

From all the great things that's done.

Huge sections. There's huge and and I wanted to go there. I wanted to go there because.

They had a huge dinosaur section so I was super into dinosaur. I'm like 7 years old. You know? Love dinosaurs. My grandpa's going to take me to this place and I get this.

OK.

Awesome birthday party well.

For some reason, on this particular day in March, it would have been like a couple weeks before my birthday. My birthday is in mid.

April and I, my teacher asked me her my teachers name was. Oh no, no, no. This was first grade.

Yeah, it was first grade cause it was Mrs. Felix. I still remember this lady's name.

She asked me, can you go to my desk and get like, scissors or something like that? Sure, I'll go. OK. Yeah, sure. So I go to her desk and I she told me where they were. I opened the drawer. I see the scissors. But I also see some candy.

And go.

And I mean.

You got to.

Get it? ****** puts Candy right there. I mean, how are you going to? How are you? How are you going to tell a kid to go get some scissors like I?

Who does that?

It's a reward for getting the scissors.

Think I was.

Set up. That's what it was. I I was set up. She, like, wanted me to fail. It's like it's like, hey, hey, young.

It's entrapment.

The 16 year old boy go go up to this bedroom and just grab my wallet for me and then inside that bedroom is like some naked woman. You when are you going to?

Like run away.

I'm not gonna answer that.

It was candy and it was candy in the teachers desk. It was so easy, so I took.

But I was a freaking idiot. Like I could have taken that candy, pocketed it, called it good, but no.

Bucket you delete it.

I think I I was a little stupid but also I think I had.

Huge balls for what I did next because I went to that teacher and said, here's your scissors, by the way.

I forgot to eat my candy during snack time. Can I eat it right now?

Why did I ask?

Permission and she just goes ohh and this teachers clutch because I think a lot of teachers would have said.

Isn't that my candy? No, she said. Oh, well, why don't you just go put that in your bag and you'll have to have it later. Cause snack times over. I said OK. I went. I put it in my bag.

She calls my mom, tells me. Hey, I think Mark stole candy from my desk, which was, like, super unlike, I was, like, a good little kid, right? Yeah. And so I get home. I'm not even thinking about it anymore. It's like in my.

Bag. I think I forgot.

All about it. I hadn't even eaten it or any.

Sick. I get home and my mom's like.

Did you did you steal candy from your?

Teacher was like.

How did she?

Know does she know?

She's like, yeah, you said that. She said that you went up to her and asked her if she could, you could eat it. And I think my mom said she's like, what were you?

Thinking by telling.

Her about it. And she's like, did you eat it on the bus? I was like, no, I forgot all about it was like it wasn't even.

That important to me.

And I was like I, you know, I'm. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't.

Have done that.

You know, I was. I was I.

Was seven. You're an idiot.

And my mom as a punishment.

She said you now have to make a choice. You either get to go to the museum with your grandpa or you get to have a party.

With your friends.

And I didn't want to let my grandpa down, so I chose my grandpa because my grandpa was so excited to go with me too. And take me. I was like, I mean, my friends.

Maybe I had foresight as a 7 year old was like I'm never going to like these. People aren't going to be in my life forever, but my grandpa will be until like until the end kind of thing. And yeah, so so I chose my grandpa and that was that. And then my mom St. cancelled my birthday party. Did not like she did not relent. Cancelled the birthday party. Told everybody that they couldn't come anymore.

Wow, she can't.

That's crazy.

And I mean, I guess the punishment worked cause I don't think I ever stole.

Anything ever.

Again, but.

I mean, sad to see your dinosaurs.

I still feel like it was a.

Little harsh.

That was a lot of candy, not for sure.

7 year old.

In first grade.

My goodness. But yeah, I mean, I I've never stolen a candy out of a.

Teacher's desk ever again. Just other.

Places just other places. Yeah, yeah, I'm much better.

Hiding it now.

Just eat it.

Right then. But no, I. That's what I think, man. It's just.

You as a kid, you don't really remember your birthdays, in my opinion, until you're at least five or six.

Or seven, or you have a traumatic experience like I.

Had or you have a traumatic experience?

Like it was dramatic.

Right.

I would say my 4 year old's kind of getting to the point. She knows where her birthday is. You know, she she wants to invite people from her school.

You know, we we did that. I think last year invited some kids from her school and then our backyard was full of a bunch of really small children. And it is pure chaos as a kids party usually is.

And then you're like, you're talking to people you don't know, which I don't. I don't really enjoy that. Like talking to a bunch of parents just because I have to cause it's like, oh, I gotta be a host.

Yeah, yeah.

And you gotta.

Hey, we're kids. Go to.

Talk and yeah, and that's the only bit of thing you have in common.

The same school and eat.

What's this garden you have over here? Don't.

Touch it, this is.

That's what it was. Everyone's like ohh I love. I love the flower. You know, garden. Let me see the flowers. And so like.

My wife is doing tours through my.

Hey, you think you think I could get some of those?

Cucumbers, brother.

Let me get one of them Peppers.

Off of you and it's it's totally different. I I get when your kid is asking for it that that's probably the point where it's like, hey, this is a like your kid wants a party. Are you going to tell your kid no. We're. But at the same time, you could also you just go. Well, we're going to have a party with these people. And this is who we're going to invite. We're going to invite the people.

I like that you're they have kids that are.

Also, your friends, it's just generally what we do.

Yeah, it's it's pretty.

I think there's a a progression that kind of happens, at least from what we've seen for.

This is.

You know the first couple, I think it makes a lot of sense year one, year two, maybe even year three of just like doing like a family get together. And then as you get older, it's like hey, we're inviting friends that also have similar age kids that are also kids, friends and things like that, you know, for a year or two and then you kind of get into that point where it's like, alright, I got, I got friends at school and things like that.

You start inviting a bunch of people you don't know, and you know it's.

Yeah, I think I think personally the first year just having some good photos of a cake smash or just your family hanging out and celebrating you I think is more than.

Yeah, yeah, I that's that's where I think we're leaning is that we've already got it. We've got some photos scheduled, we're going to do.

Those photos and.

Like we'll go to the aquarium. That's I think, I think that's where we'll we'll end up like and and now because we've both been like do we do this now we're less than a month out. So having a party is just we're not having.

A party just let time decide.

I don't like when people are like.

Hey, we're having a birthday party in next week. Yeah, for our kid. Like, it's fine if it's like for you. Hey, we're having a birthday party for Joel. Alright. Well, I'll just show up and we'll hang out. That's fine. But when it's a kid party.

It's like, well, I have to really like I have to think about this, yes.

I have to plan. I gotta buy a gift. I gotta figure out. OK. What?

What things? I feel you know?

Also, I hate I hate gifts at kids parties. I just have like.

I agree.

I feel like the stuff you get.

Is just junk.

Most of the presence and gosh if people are watching this that have bought my kids presence, I'm sorry, but like most of it, you're just like.

Why did they buy us? This thing's too big. It takes up too much space. It's in the like, let's get it. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get it in the basement. And, like, how do we make this? Like, there's almost a progression of toys in our house where the the toy is new. It's on this particular shelf for, like, somewhere in the living room. Then maybe it'll.

Another thing making a noise.

Transfer over to the bedroom because I don't want to move it or like we'll cycle out toys and make them disappear for a little while, bring them back in.

Usually, and it goes in the room and then it's like, let's send that one to the basement. Then it goes to the basement. It's hidden. And then invariably a kid goes through like a box and they're.

Like, hey, where was this toy all this?

Time. Yeah. Yeah. Like, dude, you couldn't have cared less.

Dude cycling toys, cycling toys I feel like is so underrated.

Ohh it's it is the key.

Don't throw away the toys. Don't give them away. Put them in a giant bin. Stick them in storage.

And then 3-4 months later.

Get a storage locker for all the toys you get from the birthday parties.

You throw. They're terrible toys. It doesn't matter. They're they're new to them or they're like, you know, they're reminded. Ohh yes, I remember. I liked this toy. And you can get a couple of hours.

Of peace and quiet every couple of months.

Well, and also there's certain things where you know somebody gives your let's say like your one year old birthday.

It's really hard to buy a present for a one year old, so a lot of times people buy something that maybe is out of their.

Stretch a little bit or they can use it for a little bit. You put it away and then you bring it back out and suddenly it's got new life because now they can engage with the other portions of it that are for more for a 2 year old or a three-year old. And we found that for like the toys.

For our one year old, our three-year old plays with.

Because, but she plays with them completely different or she uses them in the like, you know, her imagination and and character kind of stuff and.

I remember I was over at your house recently and and she kept bringing me, like, look at this pressing this button. It's like I don't think this is your toy.

Like the house, I can take my toy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, if if she's into one toy, then of course the other one's going to be into it. Yeah. Yep. That little that little rivalry thing where you're, like, this is such a stupid, like, just go grab a different toy. It doesn't matter. I I will give you all the toys. You will always have something to do. You don't need to have her think.

Anyways, well, I think that's our show for for this episode, and we'll we'll jump in. I mean, we're going to jump into more homesteading. I think we're going to, we're going to talk a little bit of Super Bowl, a little bit.

Of football a.

Little bit of like I know we we promised conspiracies, we didn't get too many into them today, but there's there's a lot of that out there.

I think with the Super Bowl being soon relevant, there's lots to jump in there too, and how it all ties back to homesteading. How does the Super Bowl tie back to?

Homesteading? Find out.

We're going to.

Find out we're also gonna bring in two guests. Let's talk about Super Bowl stuff.

And we've got one of our buddies, Derek, who actually writes regularly for our publication for sports and then another friend of ours, Nick, who actually just recently started a sports betting company.

I want to get into that, so like I don't want to get into it, but I want to talk to him about it. I'm scared to.

He is.

Yeah, I mean.

Get into sports betting.

I I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I didn't even like I didn't even like the stock market stuff. I couldn't imagine like something that's actually reliant on individuals performance. But we're.

I just can't.

Right, right. True.

And none of it's rigged. None of.

Going to get into.

It none of it's.

If if you are a fan of like the really diving into like the deep statistics of it, Nick is going to be a great person to kind of listen to and and all the information he has to bring along. I'm not a sports guy, so this is going to be interesting because I have 0 things to bring to the table except knowing what the team's names are.

Yeah. Yeah, just.

There you go. Well, we don't know. We don't even know who's in the.

Super Bowl yet? So it's OK? No, we.

Don't, but we'll speculate. Yes, and you know we'll, we'll keep. We'll keep bringing all the home setting things as we're as we're getting into the season of planting, I think we probably spend a little bit.

Time showing some setups of of planting and whatnot and.

You know you can follow our account so you can find us.

**** talk the podcast I know some of you are like I have to type in the word ****. **** is just a chicken. All right? It's a male chicken. Don't worry about it. **** talk. The podcast. Find us on Instagram and TikTok so we can find our stuff.

On there too. Tick tock. Tick tock, tick tock, alright.

That's our show.

Thanks for hanging out with us for a little bit and we'll see you in the next one.