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Episode 8: Why do we Homestead?
242 Plays2 years ago
Why do we homestead? This is becoming a more important question as we continue to have the opportunity to meet others who are interested in homesteading. Why do we homestead? Well, for quite a few reasons of which we will explore on this episode of the Little Way Farm and Homestead podcast! For more information including upcoming Farm and Homestead events, check out our at ww.w.littlewayhomestead.com.
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Transcript
Welcome to Little Way Farm Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast. Little Way Farm and Homestead is a regenerative and educational farm in southeastern Indiana. Motivated by the Catholic faith, we strive to inspire, encourage, and support the development of homesteads and small-scale farms in faith and virtue. I'm Matthew. And I'm Carissa. We're excited for you to join us on the podcast.
Journey Since Launching & Homesteading Purpose
00:00:23
Speaker
So we've been on kind of an interesting journey over the past few months, really, since this podcast has launched. And in doing so, we've met a lot of people, either at conferences, at workshops on the farm, or through people who have reached out to us via email or phone call or some of our social medias. And it's really brought us to a point where we think it's important to answer the question or at least consider, why do we homestead?
00:00:47
Speaker
Now we've talked about this a little bit throughout some of our previous episodes. You may see some of this on our website or in some of the other things that we do in speaking.
Motivations for Homesteading in Catholic Faith
00:00:55
Speaker
But it's become more and more obvious to us, especially in the conversations that we're having with other people who we're beginning to engage with online and offline, that the motivation behind why people would pursue this lifestyle, especially as a Catholic, are incredibly important.
00:01:10
Speaker
So I think today on this episode, we'll go ahead and talk a little bit more about why is it that we actually homestead and why do we ultimately choose to begin a homesteading lifestyle? So Carissa, when you think of homesteading and why you consider the homesteading lifestyle along with me and our family, what is your leading reason for why homestead? I have a lot of reasons that really continue to drive me.
00:01:37
Speaker
One of the primary reasons would probably be a sense of security. And that goes many different directions. I think primarily in the way that the world is right now, a lot of people think security means like making sure that we have enough food in case like the food system breaks down or something. And yes, that's absolutely part of it. But there's security in so many ways, making sure that
00:02:06
Speaker
as our children get older they have like we can offer them something we can offer them we have land if you need to build a house on our land you can build a house on our land if you need to raise your own food or bring your family somewhere there's there's so many aspects to security that i think the homestead offers a family
00:02:29
Speaker
And I think that is one of my big reasons for wanting to find land and be on a homestead and raise our family this way.
Generational Opportunities in Homesteading
00:02:38
Speaker
I think that's probably one of the big ones for me as well, though. And I think that that would be a primary focus for a lot of people, especially if you really believe and consider that you have a responsibility to your children and to your spouse, because, you know, you can make the argument that you don't need to live on a lot of land. And I wouldn't I wouldn't disagree with that for many people.
00:02:58
Speaker
But what I would say is that there is something to providing not just for your family, but creating a generational opportunity for your children and then your grandchildren and so on. And the home setting lifestyle, while it often includes an ownership of land or at least a use of land that's productive, it also seems to signify an intentionality within the household about learning how to do things productively.
00:03:22
Speaker
Things that are real, being able to bake bread, being able to put together cabinets, being able to work with animals, being able to grow things. Those are actions that are often not able to even be undertaken by many people today because they simply don't know how to do it.
00:03:39
Speaker
And that's really not the fault of many people who are alive today. It's a result of many little repetitious decisions over many, many, many years and over generations that have brought us to this place where most people don't know how to be productive. But I do think that there is a sense amongst people today that they want to be productive.
00:03:59
Speaker
And it reminds me of the importance it would seem of young men in being accepted by their fathers, but in also being able to participate in their father's work.
Spiritual Connection and Nature
00:04:10
Speaker
And that's not always the way it's going to occur, but there's something to creating situations where children can be involved in work because it helps to stimulate their self-esteem and their levels of confidence in a rightfully ordered environment.
00:04:25
Speaker
where it's tied in some ways to a productive nature that they can engage in. And it's a lot easier to communicate the spiritual life when you firstly have experience in the natural world. Because God made the natural world and there's lessons all in the natural world and in the natural life cycle of animals and in plants and how things work and how things function.
00:04:47
Speaker
But if people don't have any interaction with the natural world and it's all digital or it's all in work that really there's nothing to show for it, uh, as far as like a productive material, something at the end of that, then it's very difficult for them to make that next step into the spiritual because there's a lack of understanding and context.
Reviving Lost Life Skills
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, you've actually hit on a lot of our reasons for choosing to homestead all in that one thing, which I think just it enforces that security is more than just one small thing. It's more than just like safety from harm and danger.
00:05:28
Speaker
And it's more than just providing, making sure we have the means to feed our kids if something happened in the world and we didn't have access to grocery stores or something. It really has to do with all of that and making sure we have something to offer our children as they get older, whether that's skills or
00:05:51
Speaker
We can give them animals that they can breed and then feed their own families with, or we can give them land, like I said, and share in our bounty with our children. Security is just a very wide umbrella for all of these things.
00:06:09
Speaker
But I think one of the big things that you were touching on was life skills and this is something that I think comes up a lot in conversations with people that are feeling led towards homesteading and towards slower and more simple living is that a lot of us are realizing that there are many skills that
00:06:30
Speaker
seem to be dropped off about two or three generations ago. And I think that there is a big temptation to be angry or put blame on our ancestors for not passing on these skills. And something that I have really reflected on is that we have the privilege of being able to look backwards on history and
00:06:57
Speaker
our ancestors who had these skills and didn't pass them on for many reasons, they could not look forward and see exactly what was going to happen. And so there was a lot of technology that came into the world and that made life easier in a lot of ways and allowed people to set aside
00:07:16
Speaker
having to make their own clothes or having to even cook your own food you can now go to a grocery store and buy a full meal in a box and just come in and put it in your microwave and you have a full meal with sides and a protein and a dessert even like there there's so much that we don't have to do now because it's all done for us and so I just think that
00:07:43
Speaker
I've learned to be able to give grace to the people who came before us and were probably really excited about the advancements in technology that were happening and they probably thought that their children would have much better lives than them because they wouldn't have to work as hard and suffer in the ways that you do living this life.
00:08:08
Speaker
in a lot of ways people didn't have to suffer in those ways but whenever you don't suffer physically a lot of times it does affect the spiritual life and so we have our own sufferings today anyway a little tangent on the life skills and how that wasn't passed on but that is a huge thing that you and I have taken on that we want to reclaim these skills we want to learn how to be able to
00:08:35
Speaker
build fencing and a dog house and a chicken coop and maybe even our own log cabin on the property and be able to bake bread from scratch and feed our family whatever kind of meal we want to come up with in the kitchen and all these skills that are are really helpful and lost and now we're regaining them and passing them on to our own kids.
00:08:57
Speaker
It is a really good point though to be patient with either those around you who don't have these skills and don't even know where to go to find them. Or even in looking historically, as you mentioned, at maybe generations past where the skills weren't, weren't passed on. It's really easy to look back at that and be angry. And I think a lot of people want to find someone to blame when they're in a situation where they're uncomfortable.
00:09:19
Speaker
And it is important to recognize that we have an opportunity to maintain a rightly ordered and prayerful attitude. That if we see ourselves in a position of being sacrificial, then we ought not to engage in that sacrificial attitude with a poor or negative attitude. We ought to look for it in joy because we're being welcomed into the cross in some manner as God calls us to do.
00:09:45
Speaker
So it's important as we consider why we homestead that we don't find ourselves in a position where we voluntarily take on a lifestyle that we think is going to be spiritually beneficial and generationally sound and then complain and whine about it because that seems to be rather backwards.
Spiritual Growth Through Physical Labor
00:10:03
Speaker
But at the same time, it is really interesting because
00:10:07
Speaker
While I certainly don't know how to theologize this and I'm not a theologian, there is something to physical labor and bringing children into that physical labor in a voluntary and in some ways a rightfully ordered manner that is incredibly spiritually beneficial.
00:10:24
Speaker
I found for myself that while I thought I was strong and could endure great physical challenges, there is something to the monotonous and repeated challenge of conducting chores consistently across the farm and engaging in farm activities that is simply wearing on the body. And then it ultimately, once the novelty starts to wear off, really begins to address the spiritual elements in the mind.
00:10:49
Speaker
And I have found that that has been more revealing to me and frankly more humbling spiritually than almost any other experience I've ever had in my life. And I find that to be encouraging as I think about it and I reflect on it, although it doesn't make it any easier. And so in some ways it has opened up my understanding of the desert that sometimes is my spiritual life.
00:11:14
Speaker
and the opportunity that I have to engage in activities and practices and prayer that hopefully promote holiness and virtue within me. Because I know that on the homestead, my children and you, I'm sure, look to me often for security and guidance, and this lifestyle has really challenged me to make sure that I am living up to that.
00:11:36
Speaker
And in some ways, even though it's a voluntary lifestyle, because no one forced us to do this, it has put me and you, I believe, in a position where we can really deeply examine our relationship with God. And we have the physical reminders always out here because of the chores and the responsibilities that we have and the things that we have to do in order to maintain the homestead and the farm.
00:12:00
Speaker
And that really continues to encourage me. And I find that to be a very compelling reason to engage in the Homestead lifestyle, not because it's glamorous or because social media shows you only the corners of someone's house or the farm that are visually and aesthetically pleasing, but because behind the scenes it is hard work. And it would seem that right now in the world, and maybe at all times in the world, hard work is a fruitful place for spiritual development.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree and I think that it's honestly a blessing for us to be able to recognize that right now in our lives and to be able to make the decision to choose hard work, to allow ourselves and
00:12:48
Speaker
Hopefully our children to be able to grow spiritually in in deeper ways because of the hard work and the physical sacrifice that we take on.
Passing Skills to the Next Generation
00:12:59
Speaker
I do think something that is interesting that I ponder sometimes on this
00:13:04
Speaker
topic is with the with the life skills and the hard work that comes from the homestead and thinking about how it wasn't passed on from the last few generations I question sometimes what happens one day when our kids grow up and if they decide like this isn't for me I don't want to live on the homestead and obviously we can't predict the future just like our ancestors couldn't
00:13:29
Speaker
But something that I just really hope to be able to instill in our children, if the world looks the same way it does now in 20 years from now when our kids are ready to leave home and start their own lives and pursue their vocations, I just really hope to instill the importance of not letting go of these skills. Whether they choose to live on land and raise their own
00:13:54
Speaker
food and raise their families similarly to us or whether they're called in a different direction. I just hope that they're able to hold on to the skills that we're learning and that we're teaching them in this life and that they're able to continue to use those skills in whatever ways are fitting and hopefully pass them on to whether they have their own children or communities that they live in.
00:14:21
Speaker
I'm actually not concerned at all whether or not our children continue to pursue a homesteading life once they become, you know, older and grown up and they make decisions for themselves as far as, you know, the pursuit of a vocation, either to the married life, religious life, or they take longer to discern where God's calling them to be.
00:14:39
Speaker
It doesn't bother me at all. I could imagine how it would bother a lot of people because they're making a decision to effectively live a very counter-cultural lifestyle that most of us believe is particularly helpful and spiritually beneficial. The reason it doesn't bother me is because I believe that our home ought to be full of joy and that the homestead lifestyle should not be one characterized by discipline that is sour and discouraging.
00:15:08
Speaker
but by justice and mercy. And I think if we can do that, then the household and the homestead, the farm, the land, it will produce phenomenal memories that will be accented by skill sets that our children will have. And should they ever want to or need to employ those skill sets, then they will have that knowledge and that expertise and the confidence that comes in being able to engage in those activities.
00:15:34
Speaker
So I can imagine and I can understand how this is a real concern for a lot of parents because they may look around and think, well, look at how much I'm sacrificing to do this or how hard I'm working. And I would simply encourage anyone who wherever that mindset comes in.
00:15:51
Speaker
to recognize that this is a lifestyle of sacrifice right now, and it may produce fruit in ways that we may never see. And I would be encouraged in simply knowing that if I'm following what God is asking me to follow, and that involves the homestead lifestyle, that I understand that some fruit takes longer to bear than others, and some fruit doesn't bear, and some things look differently after I planted them.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think that you summarized that really well. Well, I'm trying.
00:16:25
Speaker
There are some really interesting things, maybe in a little bit more lighthearted way, that are wise behind homesteading. I was doing this review the other day of just photos and videos from the phone and there's a lot of pictures and a lot of videos that we take because of our business and because of our online presence for the farm and the homestead that never make it online because they have images of our children in them.
00:16:48
Speaker
And those images don't get posted online. Their faces never make it to the internet if I can control that at this point. But I do get to see those for us and for our family and the backdrop and the scenery and the experiences of seeing the children interact with, you know, harvesting certain produces or engaging with the animals or simply just the scenery or playing or, you know, something out on the farm in the homestead was so encouraging to me and just so full of beauty.
00:17:15
Speaker
And when I look at that, I can only think, you know, something like this is greater than a park-like setting. This is greater than a vacation at the ocean. This is our home. And our home is full of beauty. And that's incredibly encouraging and exciting to me.
00:17:31
Speaker
Whenever you were showing me some of those pictures, I was thinking on it and I was realizing I think a lot of times we think to take pictures of kind of the highlights, the big, more positive moments in life.
00:17:48
Speaker
And I was looking through those pictures that you've taken over the last year. And there were so many, so many memories of everything that we've experienced and learned over the last year. And it was so much more than I feel like in previous years. But what stood out to me was it wasn't really the highlights. It was the small ordinary moments of our life that you were capturing. We weren't doing any large, great,
00:18:16
Speaker
like traveling we weren't we weren't like oh look at this cool intricate thing we just built it was it was the kids experiencing getting baby chicks for the first time or like sitting by the garden while you weeded or
00:18:33
Speaker
finding a flower that they picked. It was truly small ordinary moments in our life, but you've captured so many. It's just a testament to how much we've experienced together and how many memories we've made just in doing this slow, simple life together.
00:18:53
Speaker
Right. It is really interesting to see that because even if you just consider some of the aesthetic visuals, you know, the colors are more vibrant in the photo deck right now. The experiences are more varied and yet they're also consistent. You know, we welcomed more baby chicks to the house today. We had about 25 more chickens show up to make sure that next year we have a good productive and larger egg laying flock.
00:19:18
Speaker
And even that was so exciting because you could see the amount of joy that was brought onto the faces of all the children and how inspiring it was to them and how engaging it was to them. And that's a lot of fun. And that's not a comment to suggest that you always have to be adding something new, but there are more opportunities simply to engage in things that seem to bring about a very innocent degree of
Productive Work and Discipline
00:19:43
Speaker
joy.
00:19:43
Speaker
whether that's learning how to make a fire outside with your children or putting up some type of barn or shed or something of that. But there's just so many opportunities to not just play for the kids and to imagine and create wild situations and wild play sets and all kinds of fun things, but to be productive.
00:20:04
Speaker
in a way that I think helps us to rightly order our interior life. Because if our external activities are at, you know, if they're amoral, they're not causing sin, they're not a stumbling block, but they're something of a degree of productive work, then it just helps me at least better understand the way that my interior life should be.
00:20:27
Speaker
even considering the type of entertainment that we consume, even things that aren't necessarily sinful by any capacity, just, you know, the, the normal, uh, maybe time wasting activities at times that we engage in. Because one of the things that is very beneficial, and I would also add to my quote, why homestead is that the opportunity for downtime is just not as present.
00:20:51
Speaker
And I wonder oftentimes if the technological advancements and the things that we have been able to accomplish as far as decreasing the workload of human society, I'm not sure it's resulted in good productive time. I think it could, in some situations and in the most perfectly rightly ordered circumstances,
00:21:13
Speaker
But often I find that the possibility of productive work and productive play helps to take up a good amount of time so as to make it more easy to engage in the interior life, in the spiritual life. I think the opposite is what normally happens, which is that often people don't have real hard work to do or things that command their attention that are productive in nature.
00:21:37
Speaker
And so therefore they have so much time that they don't know what to do with it. And we haven't developed the discipline in our physical bodies in order to even understand how to, how to develop discipline in our spiritual way.
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah it makes me think of something you like to reference often about the concept of how women used to spend all this time hand washing their clothes and then the washing machine was invented and you just throw your clothes in and it washes them for you but so many people still say I don't have time for
00:22:12
Speaker
For whatever it is, a lot of people are often saying, I don't have enough time in my day for that or for prayer or whatever the discipline is. And I think it's a really interesting thing to reflect on.
00:22:27
Speaker
There's some, there's probably something to in that though, where the time that more modern machinery has effectively quote, given back because there's less time needed to actively engage in those activities. Like we'll take that example of washing clothes. There's something to that though, in that the experience of washing clothes likely would have involved more than just one person.
00:22:51
Speaker
Like it probably would have been family or neighbors washing clothes together because they would have needed, they would have wanted to pass time in community. And a lot of that work was manual. And there's something about manual labor that just allows the mind to wander and you can do it in community and then it's really awesome because you can have great conversations.
00:23:12
Speaker
So, it's like if we get rid of that, in some ways the activities become more individual because just you're the one putting the laundry into the washing machine and pressing the button and then walk away. Well, now you don't need a community around you to help participate in that washing of clothes. And it's not that, you know,
00:23:35
Speaker
It is probably that someone thought, well, hey, we'd prefer not to sit around here and washing clothes. But the unintended consequence is that the communal aspect of it was kind of dissipated then. And that's again where the homestead is just different because.
00:23:51
Speaker
I'm outside working all the time and you're inside working all the time. And sometimes we're working more so together. And if you're inside, you probably have children with you. And if I'm outside, there's probably a child or two around me too. And so there's something to this productive work that brings the family together.
00:24:10
Speaker
or it can bring the family together. It can also be a great stumbling block if you don't invite your children and your family and friends into the work, but you attempt to compel them into it. That can cause kind of an opposite effect here from what I'm getting at, which is ultimately that if done right and with a proper attitude, maybe we don't need to rush to get everything done. And that maybe that's a part of what the homestead lifestyle really opens up for is that
00:24:41
Speaker
There's good productive things to do. And some of those things are normal, boring, dull chores that have to be accomplished.
Community and Inclusion in Homesteading
00:24:49
Speaker
Washing dishes, putting clothes away, uh, shoveling snow. These things that have to be done that often we just try to rush through and get them over with. But on the homestead, they really become accents to the lifestyle itself.
00:25:07
Speaker
There's something there where it can be very communal and it can open us up to a really good interior disposition Yeah, I think that is something that is not necessarily my why but it's something that I desire and I would like to Grow in I don't think that you and I have it's not been our strong suit to
00:25:29
Speaker
invite even the kids into to these things they're it's very stressful for us as adults trying to take on like okay how do we do this new task that we don't know and then the kids are like talking about something that has nothing to do with it or they're asking a question a hundred times and you can't
00:25:50
Speaker
get mental space to even respond to them and it's easier to just like go play go run off and go play with each other and like let me focus and it'll go much quicker if I'm doing this by myself and then the same thing with community I do hear of a lot of people that are homesteading that
00:26:10
Speaker
get together and they can together in the kitchen or they process their chickens together outside or they build things together like the community a couple guys come over and they all pour the concrete slab together and that's something that I I definitely
00:26:29
Speaker
hope to grow in and for it to become more natural and more commonplace in our home and on our homestead and in our community that we're able to find that community in those normal common tasks that we all have to do.
00:26:45
Speaker
And I think we will, but it seems like it would come out of a really a reorientation of our attitudes. Yeah. And we've got to get to a point, not just us, but really anyone who's looking at this home setting lifestyle where you're not doing it out of fear. You're not doing it out of just a reaction to the world, but you're doing it because you believe that there is something better in a lifestyle that's full of intention and productive work and productive play.
00:27:16
Speaker
And I would argue that it's really easy to do that on a homestead with land. For many people, that's going to be really difficult. And finding land is not easy. Affording land is really difficult. So maybe it means intentional communities. Maybe it means leased land situations. Maybe it's rented land situations.
00:27:33
Speaker
maybe it's a rethinking of the way that humans live together and that we should really consider what that future looks like because not everyone's going to be able to afford to live or have the opportunity or even the desire to move out onto to land in this way. And the reality is that there are sacrifices that come into that. And as much as we want to talk about community and we believe in community,
00:28:00
Speaker
The reality is if you're the first generation on the homestead and building out the land, the community experience that you may have may be a little bit short because you may be moving to a place where there really isn't an established community and you may be the first one to arrive.
00:28:17
Speaker
And there's a risk there. Maybe there's never a community. And that's something that you have to wrestle with. And that's why it's more important to consider in the pursuit of a homestead is how exactly is God calling you individually to it. And that's something I think that we have to continually ask. We have to look at our family and consider our why for homesteading. Yes, there is a practical, natural reason for us to homestead, and I would encourage everyone in that
00:28:43
Speaker
which is that the homestead affords a degree of security and natural security for the family that can pave the way for an easier opportunity to teach in the faith and to grow in the faith for many people. Some people may not need that. Some people may not want that. I think for us, it is important. And I think as people continue to express interest in this homesteading lifestyle, and we're seeing an enormous amount of interest in it,
00:29:08
Speaker
that we be upfront and honest about the challenges that are involved in it as well as never find ourselves discouraging because we are not always in the best attitude or mindset ourselves and that's something that we have to grow in. This is a phenomenal lifestyle and it's one that I strongly encourage people to pursue and consider.
00:29:28
Speaker
It doesn't necessarily need to be on an individual basis and maybe there's ways coming up in the future that the Holy Spirit will guide people into that will be more productive and even better use of their time so as to better grow in holiness and virtue. So one of the last things that I think is a big reason of why we're doing this and why a lot of people choose to pursue homesteading is the food. Yeah, definitely.
00:29:59
Speaker
I mean there is a lot of stories you come across people have had these health issues that have lead them to investigating the food that they're eating and what it's doing to their bodies and they determine that the only way they can feed their bodies so that they're not dealing with these terrible health issues is by growing their food themselves and while
00:30:19
Speaker
I would say we've been blessed to not have exactly that story. There are a lot of things that we have learned the same that in order to eat the food that our bodies were created and meant to eat, it's near impossible without growing it ourselves.
00:30:37
Speaker
I don't, I really struggle with that though too and not because you don't have to grow or that you have to grow your own food. It's just that it's so disappointing that it's come to a position where you have to be so scrupulous about the food that you eat and we have to consider everything that goes onto it and how it was grown and where it was grown and who grew it. It's really problematic and it's really disturbing to me at this point.
Healthy Food vs. Industrial Methods
00:31:02
Speaker
I will say, when we came out to the homestead, we obviously farm and so we produce pasture-raised meat and heirloom produce and we farm the way that we think we ought to. We don't use chemicals that are synthetic, we use organic practices, it's regenerative, etc.
00:31:18
Speaker
And that just seems the right way to do it. I don't fight weeds with chemicals. We fight weeds with cover cropping and with good soil management methods. And there's something to working with nature to produce good healthy food that also supports the environment so that we can produce good healthy food in the next generation and in the next generation after that.
00:31:43
Speaker
I am shocked at how delicious the food is that we produce here. I am shocked at how different it is in quality and texture. It is just absolutely alarming. The only other places I think that we've had food that tastes similar are from other farms or homesteads that raise food similarly. We don't have a like a locked up recipe on how to raise chicken and how to raise beef.
00:32:06
Speaker
It's out there and we can teach anyone who wants to know about it. I think everybody should have the opportunity to raise food that way or at least have access to that style of food. And certainly food is relatively low on the totem pole as far as what you need to do to get to heaven because frankly food's not on the totem pole for that. But there is something to eating good food that helps to support good bodily health so that you can do whatever it is that God's calling you to do.
00:32:33
Speaker
And I'm honored to be in a position to offer people food. I'm very grateful to God that we have land to produce food for our family. And I am more alarmed as we learn more about food and we become more entrenched in understanding the food because it's what we do right now.
00:32:51
Speaker
And I would simply encourage people wherever you are, whether you're on great amount of land or not, begin gardening and do what you can to source out good local food from farms that are producing food in a very healthy and respectful way.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yes, I think that so many times people are asking what can I do to get started in homesteading and I'm just growing more and more and more passionate about telling people start sourcing your food locally.
00:33:24
Speaker
because there it is overwhelming to take on trying to grow all of your own food yourself and especially if you don't have the resources and the means and the knowledge and skills but there are small local farms around you and you can investigate their practices and try to find one that is doing things the best that that you can find but sourcing food locally is going to be one of the biggest changes that people can make
00:33:53
Speaker
For for their homes and their food and and their health and also as I've learned about food like you're saying as as I continue to learn about how food interacts in our bodies and the kind of food that's being produced and sold in grocery stores and restaurants and
00:34:12
Speaker
I can't unlearn that and it is important to me in order to properly steward the body and the life that God has put under me to feed and nourish.
Balancing Modern Food Systems
00:34:25
Speaker
I can't ignore what I've learned.
00:34:28
Speaker
but I also have to find balance and I think that we all have to find balance. We can't be overwhelmed by the chaos that's going on in the food industry around us and I have to trust that God has ultimate control and I can do the best that I can with the knowledge, the skills, and the resources that I have and I leave the rest up to God
00:34:53
Speaker
And we don't avoid everything like the plague as far as food outside of our home. But I think that's a huge part of why we're out here and why we're doing what we're doing is because we have seen the importance of being able to raise our food properly and nourish our bodies and our children's bodies properly and and anybody else that we can support off of the homestead and the farm.
00:35:19
Speaker
There's a lot of reasons why we homestead. It's become more and more obvious to us that there's a lot of reasons that a lot of people want to homestead. And we are very grateful to be a source or a guide or whatever it is that people want to look to us for from the homesteading lifestyle. We're honored. We're thankful for the for the support that people have offered us.
00:35:41
Speaker
And we're extremely excited to continue to do episodes like this. And hopefully it's a source of inspiration for someone. Hopefully it's helpful. And if God wills it, we are happy to be a part of your beginning homesteadings journey as well.
00:35:58
Speaker
And so I think that that is probably a great place to conclude because as I think about this conversation more and we continue to talk about it, I could probably think of some more practical reasons why we homestead and I could probably go on for a lot longer, but maybe we'll save that for a later episode. So until next time, we thank you again for joining us on the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast.