I shared eight things I wish people would have told me when I was in high school in a recent presentation. I will be sharing number three today.

•  Get as much free knowledge as you can.

Rather than spending a lot of money to learn a new skill, first we go to the library or the internet to learn as much as we can for free. Yes, there is a lot of bad information out there (just try running your chickens in your garden and you will see what I mean!), but there is a lot of good as well. After doing some research, if it still interests us, we start by counting the cost. Then if it makes sense financially, we start experimenting on a small scale (okay maybe that’s what we should do at least). If this new skill requires special equipment or tools, I will start by looking at Facebook Market Place or Craigslist and often find a good deal on what we are searching for. Sometimes it makes more sense to buy these items new. It may take some money to buy a tool or supplies, but if we have counted the savings, we will know if it’s worth it. If we like doing something, then we may want to invest some money into learning more about it, or more importantly how to become more efficient at it, because let’s be honest, you get what you pay for. If we start doing this new skill and don’t enjoy it, we aren’t out much.

Not many people want to talk about this, but let’s be real, you can spend a lot of money learning a new skill.  Too often what happens is we are encouraged to get educated before we even know if we really like doing something. When we get done and put that education to practice, we may find that we don’t enjoy doing what we thought we would love, or even worse, maybe there’s no way to create an income with this education. Then we get done and we often don’t get to do what we want because we have become a slave under a mountain of debt.

Continue reading “Always Learning” →

We have a lot of improvements to make on our farm as we strive to be as regenerative as possible, but thankfully each year is getting better.  After 7 inches of rain fell on our farm a week ago, some of the areas turned to quicksand-like muck. We were so thankful to be using a bale grazing program that we implemented a few years ago, because this helped our animals to have areas to lay or stand out of the mud. What may look like a waste to some, has actually allowed us to improve our soil and keep our animals more comfortable.

Continue reading “Out Of The Muck” →

Continue reading “We Love Spring!” →

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and those few be well-tried before you give them confidence.”

Continue reading “Protecting Against Cancer” →

I shared eight things I wish people would have told me when I was in high school in a recent presentation. I will be sharing number two today.

Continue reading “Is Being Debt Free Possible?” →

Our family has really enjoyed the book Heinrich to Henry by a local author named Marie Kramer as told by Henry Cramer. This is a true story about a German who immigrated to America after World War 2. I have felt very led to share this quote from the book. “We in America enjoy unparalleled freedoms. People here complain that the governments is slowly eroding these freedoms. It is not true. The people, rather, are giving away their freedoms by taking hand-outs from the government. By similar methods, Hitler bought the freedom away from his people. The communists continue to be oppressive. They take everything from everyone and promise each a fair share in the redistribution. But it doesn’t happen that way, and people lose their incentive to work if they can’t enjoy the fruits of their labor.”

When I contacted our local senator requesting more freedom for us meat providers that were having trouble getting our animals into a USDA processing plant, I received this predesignated reply generated by a software program about how the government had given money to all these different needs. I wish I could share the email, but I cleaned out my email and it must have been trashed. Since you can’t reply to these emails, I started the process a few more times trying to explain that we were not asking for a handout, we were simply asking for freedom to sell our product in a way that we know is equally safe. We believe that many of the rules in place are not about food safety, but about certain groups controlling the market. I didn’t hear back, but I have been diligently praying and trying to be a nuisance to our representatives, and thankfully, I’m not the only one. Tomorrow I will share some exciting news that I heard yesterday. Imagine the possibilities if we actually had a free market where two consenting, informed adults could trade? Do you believe we have a free market?

Continue reading “A LOT Has Changed Since Our First . . .” →

I shared eight things I wish people would have told me when I was in high school in a recent presentation. I will be sharing one each week.

1. Don’t choose your path in life according to someone else’s desires or because of fear of what people think of you. Have you ever ventured down that path less travelled and realized that you wouldn’t be on it if you had lived your life according to what someone else expected you to be or do? I probably wouldn’t be doing most of the things I am doing today if I were worried about what people thought. This glorious path is filled with struggles and hardships but there is great joy as I walk along. Thankfully my joy is in Lord.

I remember sitting through my first Nourishing Traditions class back in 2008. I was so excited about the information, because for the first time in my life, the nutrition plan made a lot of sense! This hasn’t been a fad diet for us, it’s been a way of life that has produced greater health than we were experiencing before. We still get sick, but I do believe there is a lot less suffering in our family. I do remember feeling a little overwhelmed at the start, but I remember that my instructor broke it down into small steps we could take in order to make these changes. Every Monday I’m going to share one simple tip to get you closer to eating a clean, nutrient dense, highly digestible diet. Nothing in this life is perfect and I can’t say that this a good plan for you, and we all need to do our own research and weigh the risks and benefits, but if you would like to learn more, make sure to check into our website or this Facebook page next Monday for the first tip. In the meantime, some good resources are the Weston Price Foundations website, The Healthy Home Economist website, and these two books Nourishing Traditions and Eat Fat Lose Fat by Sally Fallon to name a few. I hope you can get outside and enjoy this beautiful weather!