Explore every episode of the podcast Thriving The Future Podcast

This year has been the best of times and the worst of times. Okay, maybe not the worst. (after all, I am still employed).

But this is the dichotomy (or is it a contradiction?):

It is performance review time at work.

I just copied last year's review and changed the project names.

But my Goals and accomplishments in real life were off the charts!

This year I:

- Built 4 web sites/side businesses

- Got my Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) from Midwest Permaculture.

- Gained my first 2 paid Food Forest design clients, including a huge 3 acre orchard design and implementation that is a several thousand dollar gig.

- Grew 10x+ trees

- 5x my revenue from last year

- Learned to use a mini-excavator

Come along with me as I share my wins (and losses) and get encouraged!

Sponsors:

Thriving Food Forest Design - We can create an edible foodscape, a perennial paradise so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

How Do You Use AI?

Most people use it as a search engine.

Some people use it write blog posts or customer emails.

Some for analysis.

But some assign it a role to do the analysis, like "evaluate this as an executive of XYZ company" or a hiring manager.

My son-in-law, Eric Niday, uses AI for all of the above. Talking with him about his experiences with it was interesting, so I decided to have him on and share it with you.

How far is too far?

In addition to using AI at work to evaluate candidates and write SQL, Eric uses ChatGPT to research and debate theology. He made a chat bot theologian, instructed it with which theologians that he liked, so he could ask it questions. He even made it so it would "counsel" him. The chat bot even offered to "pray" for him (!). Um, that may be going too far.

Episode website: Ep. 148 - How Do You Use AI? - with Eric Niday

Sponsors:

Thriving Food Forest Design - We can create an edible foodscape, a perennial paradise so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

Jason Snyder of Doomer Optimism shares stories of how his family in NC weathered Hurricane Helene and what he is doing to regeneratively recover from the aftermath.

Resiliency through community and culture.

"Biblical flood? Plant trees, cultivate gardens, raise livestock."

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/hurricane

Sponsors:

Thriving Food Forest Design - We can create an edible foodscape, a perennial paradise so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

Next week is the election. Once again it is being billed as the "most important election in our lifetime!". And four years from now they will tell us the same thing. If every election is the same way, then maybe they are not as consequential as they say that they are.

In Oct-27's homily/sermon, my pastor, Father Nikolai Meyers talked about the election (starts at 1:30:00, if it is not cued already).

We are sold that there are only two sides to this. But Life has many sides.

We got rain in NE Kansas after weeks and months of drought. The storm brought down trees. Neighbors helped each other to clear the downed trees. Maybe that is more consequential than the circus 2000 miles away in DC.

"If voting could actually upset the power of the establishment, you wouldn't be allowed to do it." - Cyprian

Cyprian (aka Vin Armani) and I talk about the "Invisible Enemy" from an Orthodox Christian perspective.

The Invisible Enemy

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

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

Who is the Invisible Enemy today?

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

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

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

Fear of the Invisible Enemy

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

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

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

Positive solutions to face your own personal Civil War:

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

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

If you have an issue with this:

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

How about having a meaningful conversation?

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

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

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

Episode website and show notes: https://thrivingthefuture.com/civil-war2

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

Sponsors:

• Thriving Food Forest Design: Let us create an edible foodscape, perennial paradise for you so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. Schedule a free consult session with me

It's been almost a year since Grant and I shared about How to Propagate your own Trees, Plants, and Flowers for Free, and Sell the Extras as a Side Hustle (recently as a Flashback episode on Oct-11.

What has changed with our nursery businesses in the last year? I started my food forest design business and have my first paid design client.

We share about becoming an "expert".

Finding your niche: you are an expert in something (or more expert than others).

How to position yourself as an expert.

One way to start is to speak to audience or perspective client as you would to yourself several years ago.

We also talk nursery biz:

• Hostas, trees.
• Grading nursery stock based on pot size and tree caliper.

Episode website:

Ep. 145 - How to Position Yourself as an Expert - with Grant Payne

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest.

Thriving Food Forest Design - Let us create a low maintenance perennial paradise for you so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

What are you doing to put your garden to bed for the winter time?

Maybe you are luck and your growing season is still in swing. We are nearing the first frost date. It has been too hot and dry for my Fall greens to germinate so I will need to start them in the greenhouse, where they can grow until Jan or Feb.

How do you clean up your garden beds?

For Milpa beds, I chop and drop the beans and other plants for mulch, cover with a little compost, and then some woodchips.

In the main garden:

• I loosen the soil with a broadfork. Not too much.
• I add amendments like lime, rock phosphate, and liquid kelp.
• Then a thick layer of compost.
• I add a thick layer of leaves that I collect from the curbside in town once the leaves drop.
• Then I cover it with a layer of woodchips.

If I am creating a new garden bed, I use the lasagna method:

• Break up or turn over the soil with a broadfork.
• Like Nick Ferguson, I may add a layer of animal feed pellets.
• I adda layer of compost or horse manure.
• Then I add a layer of molasses mixed with water to feed the soil bacteria.
• I cover it all with leaves and woodchips.

What do you do to put your garden to bed for the winter time?

Share your wins and losses on our Telegram group. Sign up at signup.thrivingthefuture.com

I also share in this episode -

• What happened to the podcast?
• My tour of Charlie's Chestnuts and the hybrid chestnut called Revival, which is almost as big as the palm of my hand.

Episode website:

Ep. 143 - How I Put My Garden to Bed for the Winter

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest.

Thriving Food Forest Design - Let us create a low maintenance perennial paradise for you so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

This flashback episode with Grant Payne has tips that you can also use on your homestead to save and propagate trees and plants, with enough abundance to sell the extras. Create your own nursery side hustle,

• Propagation - from cuttings - elderberry, mulberry, figs, berries, and discarded trims from nursery plants.
• Flowers, mums, and bulbs
• Obtaining seeds and plants
• Where to sell - FB, Craigslist, ebay, and creating a popup website. The pros and cons.

Episode website: Ep. 144 - Flashback - How to Propagate your own Trees, Plants, and Flowers for Free, and Sell the Extras as a Side Hustle

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest.

Thriving Food Forest Design - Let us create a low maintenance perennial paradise for you so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

What are you doing to increase your self reliance and self sufficiency?

Jack Spirko's definitions:

• Self Sufficiency – The percentage of your needs met by your own systems
• Self Reliance – The duration in time you can live well without systems of support (or to live well with YOUR systems of support)

Let's face it - the 2024 election is not going to go well. The side that loses is not going to accept the results. There will be civil unrest. Plus WW3 conditions are looming.

Change is coming. People can feel it.

What would you do in another 2020-type situation? What lessons learned can you apply from the last time?

What could you do to be able

Long term/short term -

• Plant trees
• Cultivate gardens
• Tend livestock

More short term:

• Look at your gaps in energy, food, water. What can you improve so that you can live well with your systems of support?
• Fight the mind virus and the fear
• Prepare mentally and spiritually
• Build community
• Learn skills through self study and networking
• Expand your other forms of income

I share what I am doing to become more self reliant and self sufficient.

Episode website: Ep. 142 - How Are You becoming More Self Reliant?

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest. Now taking orders for shipping in Sept/Oct.

Thriving Food Forest Design

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

Lindsay Brandon, CEO and Permaculture Consultant at Permaculture Canada joins me to share about Armagarden, her new project to integrate community design into the permaculture design.

We discuss Armagarden and how it contrasts with the usual permaculture design.

From the website:

What is Armagarden?

Armagarden was born from the desire to get back to the land and live a lifestyle that is connected to family, place and community. Through strategic design methods considerations are made through the design process towards food/water security, community resource management, and holistic design from a community perspective. With the recent increase in people desiring a homesteading lifestyle many realise that self-reliance is best when combined with the skills of their community. That we are stronger, more resilient, and can accomplish much more when we pool our resources, talents and skills together.

The community resilience is created with elements including food production, on-site (off-grid) energy production, infrastructure for community events, educational courses and sustainable construction and energy efficiency practices for all buildings.

Episode website: Ep. 141 - Armagarden - Regenerative Community Design, with Lindsay Brandon

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest. Now taking orders for shipping in Sept/Oct.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

With tough times, more people are looking for homestead property, or to add gardens, fruit and nut trees, and chickens to their existing suburban property to be more self sufficient.

Kerry Brown of Strong Roots Resources joins me to share tips to find your homestead property:

• Look for off-market properties.
• Properties are selling before they show up in Zillow or MLS.
• Contact your network of folks, like realtors to give you a heads up when something is coming available.
• If you are in the Tennessee area, Kerry recommends Marcie and Jeff Yadon. On FB as on fb as Marcie n Jeff Yadon or email: Marcieaeasttnhomes@gmail.com
• Intentional Communities
• Some have a membership model or you can live there seasonally.
• FB Group - Homestead Roommates
• TSP Land Group on Telegram
• Permies SKIP program on Permies.com

What to consider when looking at a property:

• Water source
• Access
• Solar aspect
• Foraging and trees - what is on there now?
• Suburban tips:
• Look at space and think of "what else could that be used for?" (stack functions)
• Avoid HOAs
• Don't discount garage space (like for aquaculture).

Episode website: Ep. 140 - Tips to Find Your Homestead Property - with Kerry Brown

Sponsors:

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest. Now taking orders for shipping in Sept/Oct.

Last time, in Ep. 138, Jason Thomas shared stories and we discussed how to design your intentional life.

We talked about the main categories - wealth, health, relationships, and spirituality.

I was contemplating my journey to design my intentional life and I had more to add.

Having an Intentional Life means:

• Aligning your life and actions with your values, as much as possible.
• Being deliberate in your actions and forming good habits.
• Taking positive steps rather than being driven by your circumstances and surroundings.
• Preparing for adversity - both physically and mentally.
• Being more at peace and having a positive view of your future.
• Focusing on your physical and spiritual health.

Write down your values.

Evaluate things to Change:

Make a plan. Start simple.

There are no solutions, only tradeoffs. You won't get to 100% (unless you are very lucky, or you have the right situations). There will be some tradeoffs.

It's not All or Nothing.

Get out of the "I am going to replace my job!" mindset.

Redesign your life by changing your lifestyle and expectations:

Paul Wheaton's (in)famous "Story of Ferd and Gert"

Get out of the "progressive mindset"

Grow your own food.

Find your tribe - Grow community.

Episode website: Ep. 139 - More Tips to Design Your Intentional Life

Sponsors:

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest. Now taking orders for shipping in Sept/Oct.

What does your perfect day look like? Does today look like that perfect day?

In this episode, Jason Thomas of Regeneration Nation Costa Rica shares foundational steps to design your intentional life.

Needs most people have:

• Wealth
• Health
• Relationships
• Spirituality

What does your perfect day look like?

We also discuss how to apply permaculture principles to your business or side hustle.

Check out Jason's FREE e-book: 77 Ways to Practice Permaculture Professionally. (some may surprise you)

Episode website: Ep. 138 - Jason Thomas on How to Design Your Intentional Life

Sponsors:

Permaculture Business Design Course from Regeneration Nation Costa Rica - This course will guide you step-by-step toward designing a profession that cultivates your permaculture education into a regenerative livelihood.

Permies digital marketplace is YOUR source for all things permaculture for your homestead, side hustle, and designing your intentional life: from video courses, to blueprints, to books.

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest. Now taking orders for shipping in Sept/Oct.

It's been a crazy week. The assassination attempt on Trump.

Now a Global cyberattack (“no, it was just a bad patch!”)

What will you do with this moment?

• Focus on your local Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern
• Plant trees
• Cultivate gardens
• Raise livestock
• Prepare mentally and spiritually
• Grow your local community

Because Gov’t will not save you.

Episode website: Ep. 137 - What Will You Make of This Moment?

Sponsors:

Permies Permaculture Design Course - 70 hours of videos for $50. Watch what topic that you want to learn for your homestead (water, swales, ponds, earthworks) - without taking a week off of work or getting a certificate.

Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, elderberry - all adapted to the Midwest. Now taking orders for shipping in Sept/Oct.

My friend Kevin Brubaker from Dallas Media Productions, an independent film producer in Dallas, joins me to talk about LLC Tips (and lots of film stuff).

What does a film producer have to do with my usual content of homesteading? It fits into creating side hustles and businesses to Design Your Intentional Life.

We were having a conversation about LLCs and we decided to record it. We also talk a lot about film. How can you make money on film production in the streaming era?

We dove into these topics:

• Should you have an LLC for each project or side hustle?
• Should you wait to become profitable before forming an LLC?
• Do you have to be profitable after 3 years to be considered legit (or bear the wrath of the IRS)?
• Should I spin Grow Nut Trees into its own LLC?

To answer these questions, you have to ask yourself - why have an LLC?

Although you want to use an LLC to offset your expenses, an LLC is mainly to protect you in a hyper-suing culture that we are currently in. If I was sued (for some reason) on trees, I would lose all my businesses, including the podcast.

Tips:

• It is recommended that you have an LLC for each project or side hustle.
• You do not have to be profitable after 3 years if you are showing growth and an "intent to make a profit".
• Make sure that you create an LLC in a state where the application and charge is one-time only. (some states require yearly renewal). I have mine in KS (cost me $166). Kevin has his in TX and cost about $150. You can create the LLC and get an EIN on the state website - you don't need a lawyer or Legal Zoom.
• Find a mentor.

Disclaimer: This is not tax or financials advice. Discuss with your tax or financial planner for your situation.

Episode website: Ep. 134 - Surprising Small Business LLC Tips

Join the mailing list and our Telegram group and you can keep up to date with all of Grant Payne, Homestead Padre, and my homesteading projects. Signup at https://Signup.ThrivingtheFuture.com

If you like this content and the podcast, here is how you can support the podcast and my Thriving empire of side hustles:

• Shoot me a tip on Venmo or CashApp @ThrivingtheFuture.
• ​Go to the Stuff page on Thriving the Future site and buy something.
• OR - click on one of the Amazon links on the Stuff page and then buy your other stuff that you want. Anything you buy on Amazon for 24 hours will give Thriving the Future a credit.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees: Buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. Seeds and trees have “memory”. They thrived and reproduced in a certain climate.

Often when you buy chestnut trees, seeds, or plants online, you have to buy from nurseries in the Northeast or Southeast US, or the Pacific Northwest.

Take it from us, trees and plants grown in those climates do not do well in Kansas.

So buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. At GrowNutTrees.com.

Jeremy is better known as DeweyLikeDonuts on Instagram and TikTok.

• We start his story in 2008 and how a SHTF can be your own personal apocalypse. He turned to "raising chickens, growing his own food, and striving for a more sustainable life" (his tagline).
• Prepping to Thrive rather than survive. Not living in fear.
• He shares about is recent adventures with a bee swarm.
• How he grew his Instagram account with a chicken video that went viral.
• And what is the "Internet in a Box"?

Episode website: Ep. 133 - Striving for a More Sustainable Life - with DeweyLikeDonuts

Join the mailing list and our Telegram group and you can keep up to date with all of Grant Payne, Homestead Padre, and my homesteading projects. Signup at https://Signup.ThrivingtheFuture.com

If you like this content and the podcast, here is how you can support the podcast and my Thriving empire of side hustles:

• Shoot me a tip on Venmo or CashApp @ThrivingtheFuture.
• ​Go to the Stuff page on Thriving the Future site and buy something.
• OR - click on one of the Amazon links on the Stuff page and then buy your other stuff that you want. Anything you buy on Amazon for 24 hours will give Thriving the Future a credit.

Sponsors:

• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for a reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. Seeds and trees have “memory”. They thrived and reproduced in a certain climate.

Often when you buy chestnut trees, seeds, or plants online, you have to buy from nurseries in the Northeast or Southeast US, or the Pacific Northwest.

Take it from us, trees and plants grown in those climates do not do well in Kansas.

So buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. At GrowNutTrees.com.

Part of Thriving is embracing both the wins, as well as the losses.

Homestead Update:

My Spring garden has failed, for the most part.

I usually sow plants and then spread lettuce and kale seed around to act as a cover crop - hey, lettuce is a companion plant of everything.

This year hardly anything came up. The starter plants that I planted also did not thrive.

Why? Lots of rain.

In Kansas we do not get "April showers bring May flowers."

We get May and June thunderstorms. Almost all of our annual rain comes in May and June.

This year it rained almost every other day in May. We even had a mini-tornado pass just south of us and we got 8-10 inches of rain that week. Should have been a Spring bonanza of crops.

I added a couple of truckloads of compost from the nursery. The compost is worse-than-usual municipal compost.

The perennials saved the day - plantain, walking onion, bloody dock sorrel. They all did wonderfully.

Some trees thrived. Some did not.

My apple grafts are all thriving. Nearly 80% success so far, which is rare.

But the chestnut seedlings from last year didn't come out of dormancy. The 5 year chestnut trees are looking sickly, with half the branches with no leaves. I need to heavily fertilize and see if they recover.

Side Hustle Update on GrowNutTrees.

• I sold hundreds of $ of elderberry on FB marketplace.
• I am adding black lace elderberry for next Fall and in 2025.

Episode website: Ep. 132 - Never Give Up, Never Surrender

If you like this content and the podcast, here is how you can support the podcast and my Thriving empire of side hustles:

• Shoot me a tip on Venmo or CashApp @ThrivingtheFuture.
• ​Go to the Stuff page on Thriving the Future site and buy something.
• OR - click on one of the Amazon links on the Stuff page and then buy your other stuff that you want. Anything you buy on Amazon for 24 hours will give Thriving the Future a credit.

Sponsors:

• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for a reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. Seeds and trees have “memory”. They thrived and reproduced in a certain climate.

Often when you buy chestnut trees, seeds, or plants online, you have to buy from nurseries in the Northeast or Southeast US, or the Pacific Northwest.

Take it from us, trees and plants grown in those climates do not do well in Kansas.

So buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. At GrowNutTrees.com.

Enough talk. Get Stuff Done. It's Proof of Work.

Grant Payne and Matt Derosier share what Stuff they are Getting Done this Spring, as well as Side Hustle and Tree Nursery tips.

Hear why "The IBC King is Back":

• Grant's wedding
• Grant added MANY chickens and ducks
• Turkey production - if you start now will they be ready to sell for Thanksgiving?
• Tree nursery tips
• Hedge production by coppicing.

Grant Payne - PayneHomestead on Twitter

Matt at FarmHopLife

Episode website: Ep. 131 - Get Stuff Done - with Grant and Matt

If you like this content, shoot us a tip on Venmo or Cashapp @ThrivingtheFuture

Sponsors:

• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for a reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. Seeds and trees have “memory”. They thrived and reproduced in a certain climate.Often when you buy chestnut trees, seeds, or plants online, you have to buy from nurseries in the Northeast or Southeast US, or the Pacific Northwest.Take it from us, trees and plants grown in those climates do not do well in Kansas. So buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. At GrowNutTrees.com.

Real world examples to start and then grow your side hustle.

I am taking a Permaculture Business Design Course through Regeneration Nation CR. The exercises and worksheets are fantastic and have helped me to focus more on the customer.

• What is the problem you are trying to solve? What does your customer actually want? Are you trying to solve what you think the problem is?

Example: If you are evaluating someone's land and doing a permaculture design, have you asked: "what do you like to eat?"

So many people plant things that they actually don't eat, or will not likely eat.

Define who your customer really is and let your customer define themselves by what they really want.

• Niche down and then niche down some more so you are known as an expert in that space.
• Quickly go to market with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test the response and whether it is worth throwing money (and more importantly TIME) at.
• Charge less for it in a beta test. Get real world feedback.
• Let your customer ultimately decide if they are your customer. Don’t chase after someone who doesn’t want to be your customer.
• Learn skills while doing. Charge less while learning those skills, build clientele and experience, then raise your price.
• Become a producer and not just a consumer.
• Like the permaculture principle – Use your yield. It can be used to give, trade, or sell to grow your forms of capital.
• Don’t grift for the sake of the grift or people will easily see through you.

Use research tools like Google Trends and Answer the Public.

I do a deep dive on How to use Answer the Public in the latest Thriving News article on How to Overcome Writer's Block.

Episode website: Ep. 130 - Tips on How to Grow Your Side Hustle

If you like this content, shoot us a tip on Venmo or Cashapp @ThrivingtheFuture.

Sponsors:

• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. Seeds and trees have “memory”. They thrived and reproduced in a certain climate.Often when you buy chestnut trees, seeds, or plants online, you have to buy from nurseries in the Northeast or Southeast US, or the Pacific Northwest.Take it from us, trees and plants grown in those climates do not do well in Kansas. So buy Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings - all adapted to the Midwest. At GrowNutTrees.com.

Times are tough. I talked with a recruiter friend the other day and there are >40 people in my field in our local job market that he knows that are looking for work. And those are just the ones that he knows.

Build something for yourself. It’s basic prepping. Build your side hustle. Multiple streams of income.

In this episode I will share tips on how to discover and develop your side hustle niche.

How to find your side hustle niche

Let's talk about YOUR side hustle.

Are you having difficulty finding your side hustle niche?

• What are you good at?
• You know stuff. You may not think it is much, but there is someone out there who will pay (or pay attention) for that knowledge.

Remember - Guys on YouTube are getting hundreds of views from sharpening knives or using a scythe. This week I saw a post on permies where a guy took a scythe blade that was mangled by a lawn mower and he fixed it. All are skills that can be taught or sold as a side hustle, or as sales of knives and scythes.

Grant Payne takes pruned and trimmed pieces of plants and rejects from the big box store and grows them out into full plants and sells them.

Anything like that can drive into a side hustle.

Even better - you can tell someone how to do a skill step by step and they will often PAY YOU to do it for them.

Try it. Talk about your skill in your community. Offer to show someone how you do it. Make a proof of concept web page, YouTube page, or use FB Marketplace. Sell your service or your product/what you make. Or sell your knowledge and skill.

Use Flippa as a Side Hustle Idea Generator

Get on Flippa. Check out the current listings. But, even more importantly, check out the listings that have recently sold.

The prepper site BunkerBasics.com sold not long ago for $1,100.

You could buy a website like this, build one similar, or use it as an idea for a niche.

This is my usual process and checklist for evaluating a website:

• Is the site within my niche or in an adjacent niche?
• Is the site in my price range? Most that I have bought are starter sites that are $100-200.
• They must be created in Wordpress.
• Do I have a vision for them:
  • Do I buy the site, build the audience, and then generate affiliate income?
  • Will I resell the site?
  • Do I think that I can make the site better?

I usually brainstorm 10-15 article topics that I would write for each site as a proof of concept to support my decision.

Check out the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/side-hustle-niche

Guitar Pedal Mania

Sponsors:

• Duplicator Pro - when you buy a website off of Flippa, Transfer the website over easily with Duplicator Pro plugin. It creates the database and sets up all plugins and content. Check out Duplicator Pro plugin.
• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.

Andy Hickman (shagbark_hick on Twitter) shares his new adventures. Andy was on on Ep. 83 - You're Gonna Make it.

His video "You're Gonna Make it" is still the most encouraging video I have ever seen, and still puts a smile on my face.

Andy has a big Summer planned:

He is getting married to Keturah in June, with a wedding in the woods of upstate NY, with bring-your-own-picnic lunch, and campout. (Saving money and gaining family).

Before that, he is travelling the month of May coast-to-coast on Amtrak to visit new friends from Twitter in NE and TX, stealth camping, and in Oregon to greet the father he has never met.

He shares tips for traveling on Amtrak.

Plans to travel to Europe on QE2.

Making a living writing on Substack. Subscribe and support him (I do). It is a must-read!

We also talk about Thriving by being Time Rich.

Check out the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/shagbark_hick

Sponsors:

• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry, pecan, hazelnut seedlings, and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.
• Do you forage nettles? A guy I know forages and freezes nettles and they are his main green veg for the entire year! Check out the How to Forage and Prepare Nettles on AllGardenAdvice.com

New health challenges require Homestead Padre to rethink and redesign his garden to adapt to those changes.

After some health issues, Homestead Padre and his wife are adopting the Mediterranean Diet.

Padre shares about IBS and Crohn's Disease.

Unlike American Italian Food, the Mediterranean Diet is heavy emphasis on vegetables, seafood, lean meats, fat from olive oil, and whole wheat pasta (if they have pasta).

Padre is realigning his garden around those foods. Changing what he will grow in his garden - based on new dietary needs. Come and listen to how he plans out his journey.

The usual disclaimer: This is a personal story and is not medical advice.

Padre also shares about his updates and challenges with the farmer's market this year as they take on leadership of the market.

Check out the step by step instructions on the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/garden-health

Sponsors:

• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available. Now have hazelnut seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com

Try to go without your phone for a few hours, or even the whole day.

Like most people, I reach for my phone when there is any break in the conversation, when a commercial comes on TV, or when I am even slightly bored.

This episode will empower you with some tips to reduce your screen use - and reclaim your life.

Phone Settings to Fight Screen Addiction:

• Night Shift
• Focus setting

Level Up on Fighting Screen Addiction with the Grayscale Setting:

This is a tip that Father Turbo gave to Perpend: You set your phone to Grayscale. Nothing changes, but everything is in shades of gray.

It is designed to lessen the draw to the phone, as well as decrease the dopamine hit that you get when on social media. Things just don't look as appealing in grayscale and they don't trigger the same things in the brain.

Watch Your Scrolling Habits

Focus on your Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern:

Let’s get real. That thing that is happening in Texas that is the Outrage-of-the-day on social media. Does it really impact me?

If I don’t live in Texas, chances are it doesn’t impact me at all.

Does it even concern me?

Probably not.

Wear Blue Blocking Glasses at night

This helps me to manage my circadian rhythm and helps me to sleep.

Be Time Rich:

Put things in perspective. Spend time on things that matter. Especially your family. Your kids will grow up before you know it.

Check out the step by step instructions on the show notes on the Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/screen-addiction

Sponsors:

• Check out the Solar Food Dehydrator. Watch the movie, get the plans, all for reasonable cost.
• Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available but Hurry before they come out of dormancy. Now have pecan seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com

Scott the Little Pine Farmer on Twitter is back with me and we are talking about his bakery and how he favors

"Why don't you come down to this market or deliver to the boutique in the city? We want to feed our neighborhood first."

Scott the Little Pine Farmer

It's all about the goal:

"The overarching goal is to stay home, produce value, and have people bring us money."

Reaching that goal through:

• Bakery, focusing on sourdough.
• Making relationships with the animal shelter. Selling bread in the animal shelter parking lot, which is a schools bus drop off.
• Community compost program.
• Dog sitting service.
• Community pasture grazing - like Rent-a-Goat but in the neighborhood.

Be the Gray Man and Build Alternative Systems:

Choose the path of focusing on building new alternatives rather than fighting the behemoth. If you get to the point where you are driving tractors down to the state capitol - it is too late.

"I am of much more benefit to my community working here on the farm than sitting in a holding cell in the big city."

Spend your time building alternatives and be the Gray Man. Did you learn nothing from Covid? If you ignore them, fade into the background, and do your thing - it's most likely that they will not be paying attention to you.

Find the Remnant:

Go to dinner or drinks with people.

Build Local Community, Grow Local Food. be the Gray Man. Build alternative systems. Much more effective than protesting.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/local-community-local-food

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available but Hurry before they come out of dormancy. Now have pecan seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com

Grow Food, Not Lawns

How to Create a new garden bed with Milpa

How you create a new garden bed depends on what time of the year it is. Most people sheet mulch by covering an area with cardboard, then layers of compost and woodchips. This works well, but only if you do it in the Fall AND you get lots of rain in the Winter to break down the cardboard. This year we had lots of snow in January and the bed that I created last Fall broke down pretty well, although while digging a hole in the new bed to plant a hazelnut bush, I dug up a piece of cardboard that wasn't completely broken down.

To Use Cardboard or Not Use Cardboard?

Permaculture leaders, like Ben Falk and Paul Wheaton, are increasingly warning against using cardboard as the base when creating new garden beds over lawn grass. And scientists warn against using cardboard as well.

Cardboard reportedly has dioxin and PFAs and "forever chemicals". The article also says that cardboard inhibits soil life. Only plastic sheet mulching is worse (supposedly).

I use Milpa to create new garden beds

In the Spring, I don't have time to wait for the cardboard to break down. I would lose the entire planting season.

My soil is compacted heavy clay, with little worm activity in places, so I would have to add a large amount of woodchips and compost to get something to plant in. And the grass always manages to poke through and take over anyway.

So I take my trusty Meadow Creature Broadfork and turn over the sod. Then I add a layer of compost. I sow with a Milpa seed mix, and then cover with a light layer of woodchips.

Milpa Seed – Buy or Mix Your Own Seed

What is Milpa? It is a mix of seeds, usually with the Three Sisters - corn, squash, and beans - as the core plants. Beans to add nitrogen, corn to provide structure, and squash to grow up the corn or out. Milpa also has other seeds, with a focus to grow as much food as possible on a small garden plot. It sometimes can have buckwheat, okra, cucumbers, greens, radishes, or anything that you want.

The idea is to spread out the harvest through the seasons as well.

I mix my own mix of Milpa seeds:

• Grazing corn or Strawberry corn - something that is shorter. Mix it lightly.
• Red ripper cowpeas, which work well in heavy clay soil.
• Buckwheat
• Cucumbers
• Squash that I have leftover or I get from a Spring seed swap.
• Pollinators.

You will get a dominant crop based on when you plant. If you plant early in the Spring, the buckwheat and beans will be dominant and the squash will be shaded out. If later in the season (late May, early June) then the squash will become dominant.

By using this technique you can create a new garden bed with minimal effort, avoid using cardboard, and get an abundant crop in the first year (even with poor clay soil). At the end of the season chop and drop the chaff from the buckwheat and beans to mulch for the Winter.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/milpa-garden-bed.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available but Hurry before they come out of dormancy. Now have pecan seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.
• Check out the Companion Planting Guide on AllGardenAdvice.com

You don't hear this permaculture message very often: Start Simple.

Usually people are watching videos of Geoff Lawton and planning swales and dams and grafting, and...

Cormac Harkin of Vine Permaculture starts his consults with basic questions:

• What do you like to eat?
• What kind of time do you have during the week to devote to a garden. (if you spend 8 hours a week on a garden, where does that time come from?)
• When you walk out to your garden, what does it look like?

He starts people out simply, with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and then add on from there.

• A salad garden by the back door with cut and come again lettuce.
• A kitchen garden.
• A layout that makes sense: You walk out to the chicken coop to get eggs - what gardens or beds can you harvest from on the way?

Cormac does a Free Food Forest Abundance planning session as well.

Contact him at cormac@vinepermaculture.com.

Subscribe to the Vine Permaculture Newsletter.

Check out the Vine Permaculture Podcast at https://vinepermaculture.com/podcast/

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/start-simple.

Sponsors:

• Grow Nut Trees: Elderberry cuttings are still available but Hurry before they come out of dormancy. Now have pecan seedlings and red mulberry seedlings. At GrowNutTrees.com.
• Times are tough. How many feet of potatoes and how many potato plants would you need to live off your garden? Thriving Garden Planner spreadsheet can help you. It also has a tab to track how much money you saved by growing your own food. Last year I grew 14 pounds of tomatoes, which would have cost me $50 in the store. It's on sale for $10 at ThrivingGardenPlanner.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Get Joseph's Landrace Gardening book here

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

Sponsors:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Invisible Enemy

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

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

Who is the Invisible Enemy today? 

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

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

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

Fear of the Invisible Enemy

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

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

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

Positive solutions to face your own personal Civil War:

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

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

If you have an issue with this:  

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

How about having a meaningful conversation? 

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

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

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

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

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

Sponsors:

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

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

Positive Solutions in a Tough Labor Market

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

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

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

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

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

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

You are greater than the sum of your parts.

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

Positive Solutions in a Tough Job Market

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

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

Establish your authority by doing.

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

Go beyond the hobby. Run it like a business.

This is my side hustle formula:

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

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

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

Sponsors:

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

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

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

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

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

As John says in his pinned tweet:

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

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

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

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

And many more tips on SEO and optimizing your content.

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

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

Sponsors:

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

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

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

There are two types of sites on Flippa: 

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

Mindset:

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

Monetization:

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

AI:

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

The pros and cons of using AI.

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

Real world examples:

All Garden Advice:

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

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

Some of the problems that I ran into: 

• Read the fine print!  

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

Established site - ask yourself:

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

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

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

Sponsors:

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

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

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

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

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

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

AIP Diet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots more tips on the episode show notes -

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

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

Sponsors:

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

How to develop skills while doing your side hustle.

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

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

Skills Over Stuff

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

Generator stories.

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

Side Hustle Tips

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

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

More of Toolman Tim:

Toolman Tim on Twitter

Toolman Tim's Workshop

Toolman Tim's Workshop on Youtube

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

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

Sponsors:

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

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

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

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

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

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

So this episode is about how to Embrace the Suck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sponsors:

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

With Brendan from Posterity Ciderworks

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

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

Quince - the Homesteaders Secret -

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

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

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

Sponsors:

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

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

Our memories are at times bittersweet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a Merry Christmas and a Thriving New Year!

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

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

Sponsors:

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

Why would a tattooed atheist Texas firefighter become an Orthodox Christian?

Buck Johnson from the Counter Flow Podcast joins me as we share our stories.

Why are so many of the people that we know becoming Orthodox?

Is there some connection between libertarianism and Orthodox Christianity? Some (jokingly?) call it the "libertarian to Orthodox pipeline".

Why did Perpend go off to become a monk?

This video for this episode is also on the Thriving the Future Youtube channel -

https://youtu.be/uLUTks7MDv0

You can read more about Perpend's Road to the Monastery on Thriver News here: https://thriver.news/monastery.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/buck-johnson

There are extras on the Thriving the Future Patreon: we talk about the infamous Orthobros on Twitter, catechism, and more Father Turbo stories.

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

Sponsors:

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

"My father in law has a saying: 'you can do anything you want, but you can't do everything you want. There's always an opportunity cost and tradeoff for the things that you do or don't do.'"

John Sutton from Sutton Homestead joins me and shares about their homesteading on 7 acres in Eastern idaho.

"Homesteading is a lifestyle we love to live, food that we love to eat, and a garden is our gym."

John has cows, 15-20 chickens, and orchards.

• Added a companion goose to the chicken flock to help alert against predators. But the companion goose attacked new chickens added to the flock later. So they added a guinea hen instead.
• Rotational grazing and dealing with thistle.
• Failure is part of homesteading.
• Water on your homestead - they have a pond that fills from an underground spring/aquifer. It doesn't fill from snowmelt or rain in the Spring - it fills from the aquifer in the Fall.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/sutton

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

Sponsors:

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

Sometimes it takes a Holler Neighborhood.

Nicole Sauce from Living Free In Tennessee and NicoleSauce.com shares that people that knew Nicole from workshops, her podcast, and online community moved into the holler neighborhood. They established a neighborhood culture where they share a common vision and goals and do projects together and watch out and take care of each other. How did they align on vision and goals, while handling boundaries and conflict?

• What's new on the homestead?
• The Holler Neighbors
• How to setup a community like this?
• They had visioning talks where they discussed goals, set lines/boundaries, and general rules on how to deal with conflict.
• Own vs. rent: Nicole and Tactical own most of the land and rent it out to the neighbors, or they know the neighboring landowners who rent out their place to the Holler Neighbors.
• GSD workshops.
• Nicole shares her favorite Christmas memory.
• More info on the Holler Neighbors from LFTN in 2021, Ep. 482 - It Takes a Holler

This video for this episode is also on the Thriving the Future Youtube channel -

https://www.youtube.com/@thrivingthefuture/videos

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/nicole-sauce

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

Sponsors:

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

Matt from FarmHopLife Podcast (FarmHopLife.com) joins me as we talk about developing patience.

• Figuring out the pace of others.
• It requires putting in the reps.
• Be patient so you don't have to do it twice.
• Become financially patient.
• Being patient is being risk adverse.
• Do you do a lot of little things all at once?
• Learn when to go 100% on one thing.
• Old English "Patience" = "Longsuffering". Sometimes patience is developed through suffering. (ugh)

This episode was also streamed live to the Thriving the Future Youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/live/Q9UbiT16Skk?feature=shared

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/patience

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

Sponsors:

• Matt shares about his experience with Will Horvath's Farm Design Course from Permaculture Apprentice. Check it out:https://permacultureconversion.com?aff=119&p=41502
• Grow Nut Trees - Chestnuts, elderberry, comfrey crowns, adapted to then Midwest. https://GrowNutTrees.com.
• Thriver News - Thriving Community News, without the Noise. https://Thriver.News.

How would you Thrive in WW2-style rationing of food and fuel?

Christopher de Vidal from SecureCoop.com joins me to discuss.

First, we discuss his homesteading in Florida. Check out the website for pics of Christopher's homestead.

Then at 17:00 we dive into the topic:

We are inarguably in wars that could become a world war. And our leaders regularly talk about restrictions that would lead to a less-resource intensive future.

• Rationing - how would you handle rationing fuel to a few gallons a week? (WW2 had rations of 2 gallons of gasoline).
• Return to Victory gardens!
• Use e-bikes and small engine bikes for transport.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/tough-times

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

This is Part 2 of the conversation with Grant on How to Build a Nursery Side Hustle.

This episode has tips that you can also use on your homestead to save and propagate trees and plants, with enough abundance to sell the extras.

• Propagation - from cuttings - elderberry, mulberry, figs, berries, and discarded trims from nursery plants.
• Did you know that figs are pollinated by a wasp, who dies in the flower and is absorbed?
• Flowers, mums, and bulbs
• Obtaining seeds and plants
• Where to sell - FB, Craigslist, ebay, and creating a popup website

Seeds and trees have “memory”. They thrived and reproduced in a certain climate.

Often when you buy trees, seeds, or plants online, you must buy from other states or regions. They often will not do well in your environment and climate. I learned this the hard way that trees and plants grown in other areas and climates do not do well in Kansas.

Grant has many stories about how he wheels and deals for plants as they come off of the season.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/nursery-sidehustle2

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

How to propagate your own trees, plants, and flowers for free, and sell the extras as a side hustle.

Learn skills while using your abundance.

This is a Master Class on how to build a Nursery Side Hustle, with trees, plants, and flowers. It has tips that you can also use on your homestead to save and propagate trees and plants.

• Propagation - from seeds, cuttings, air layering, stool bed layering
• Obtaining seeds and plants
• How to forage, sprout, and transplant chestnuts
• Use geraniums as trap plants for Japanese beetles
• How to build a quick cold frame from pallets

Seeds and trees have “memory”. They thrived and reproduced in a certain climate.

Often when you buy trees, seeds, or plants online, you must buy from other states or regions. They often will not do well in your environment and climate.

I learned this the hard way that trees and plants grown in other areas and climates do not do well in Kansas.

Grant has many stories about how he wheels and deals for plants as they come off of the season. He just bought a truck bed full of geraniums.

Did you know that Japanese beetles get temporarily paralyzed after eating geraniums? You can use these as a trap plant.

As we approach the first frost, Grant created a quick cold frame with pallets and plastic. Using a black water container for heat retention at night. This gives a quick solution to extend the season into the winter without building a big greenhouse.

I propagate chestnuts and hazelnuts from seed, storing them in buckets of sand in the winter until they sprout out, then moving them to 5 gallon buckets or tree pots.

For more info, here is a step by step:https://grownuttrees.com/growing-chestnuts

Propagating trees by air layering and stool layering, a nice alternative to grafting.

Come back next week for Part 2 of this discussion, where we talk about:

• Flowers, mums, and bulbs
• Propagating from cuttings - elderberry, mulberry, figs, berries.
• Did you know that figs are pollinated by a wasp, who dies in the flower and is absorbed?
• Where to sell - FB, ebay, craigslist, and popup a quick website.

Join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You will get Part 2 of How to Build a Nursery Side Hustle without waiting until next week!

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/nursery-sidehustle1

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.

Kerry Brown from StrongRootsResources.com joins me to talk about his move from urban homesteading to his family's land and how he setup a permaculture consulting business.

Moving from a mindset where your land and home is a source of production instead of just consumption. "Building resilience from the ground up."

He has done everything from swales to soldier fly larvae.

Kerry has a local/regional land consulting business where he helps landowners know more about the various plant and tree species that are on their property. He also consults with people who are purchasing raw land and are in need of guidance on developing it into a homestead or for wildlife management.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/strong-roots

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.

Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,

Crisis is a Decision Point. Did you Just Fail the Test?

On Oct-4-2023, there was a national test of the Emergency Broadcast System, on phones and on TV. Shouldn't be a big deal. But on Twitter and even on some homesteading groups that I follow, they were abuzz with fears that "this is going to activate something" through 5G. Even the people who are not typical of this were caught up in the conversation, trying to talk some sense into people.

(And this was even before the outbreak of war in Israel)

Most of you are (or should be) adequately prepped and ready for the next 'crisis'. Yet you’re afraid of a emergency broadcast signal. Y’all didn’t learn anything from Covid.

We flash back to March 2020 and show the parallels. Never forget - including the lessons that you learned.

Remember from Ep. 74 with Cyprian: Crisis is a decision point. The word "Crisis" in Greek really means "decision".

Our leaders and their factions want to force a decision point on transhumanism, climate, etc.

What you can do to fight the fear:

• #BuildtheArk. Don't wait for the rain to start falling.
• Prepare spiritually and mentally.
• Come to acceptance that the world is changing.
• Build community.
• Learn skills.

And don't forget Shudra's tried and true formula:

• Plant trees
• Cultivate gardens
• Tend livestock

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/fight-the-fear

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.

Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,

My friend Eric walks through his thought process as he re-evaluates his side hustle at the 1 year mark.

After 1 year, if the side hustle is not generating revenue, all those entry level fees (hosting, etc.) go up. So that is a decision point whether you are going to exit or change things up.

Eric was last on Ep. 55 - How to Recession proof Your Job: https://thrivingthefuture.com/recession-proof-mindset

His side hustle is a high end lawn care business: TurfBrothas757.com.

Other benefits to consider: Skills learned, relationships made, experience gained.

Some of these can be transferred over to other side hustles, such as the Wordpress and web experience can be used for consulting with other small businesses/side hustles.

Is the economy/recession affecting business? Apparently not the high end biz!

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/side-hustle-1yr

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.

Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,

Stay Positive by Designing an Intentional LifeShudra, Homestead Padre, and Grant Payne join me on the Thriving Community Call this month to talk about their tips for staying positive in a negative world:

• Shudra: "Just get goats. You'll never be unhappy again. You'll be angry, you'll be frustrated, you'll be vengeful, but you'll never be unhappy again."
• Prayer
• Fasting from social media.
• Perspective, especially as you get older. (This isn't so bad).
• Be thankful and grateful.

We also talk about what projects that have going on:

• Aquaponics
• Homestead Padre's steps for Overwintering pepper plants -
• Dig up the pepper plant
• rinse off the roots
• Pot in a medium sized pot with potting soil
• Trim off the leaves so you mostly have the stem.
• Replant in the late spring when it leafs out
• This saves you time instead of growing from seed.
• Homestead Padre/Joseph's Hair Sheep and how they differ from wooly sheep.
• Creative foraging

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/positive-tips

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.

Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,

Tips on Crafting Apple Cider, Apple Propagation, and Apple Grafting. More detail than most books!

• How did the Sept. Regional Catholic Land Movement Conference go?

• We deep dive on Mike's apple cider steps:

• He ferments English bittersweet apples in oak barrels with natural yeast.

• Barrel prep with a cold water rinse and cold water swell.

• Fill the barrel to overflowing, with no headspace.

• Natural cool fermentation < 55 degrees.

• Rack into bottling tank. Cold weather crash the bottling tank. Then bottle in champagne bottles.

• The use of recycled wine oak barrels - does it impart into the cider?

• Apple cider vinegar - the end road result of failure.

• Propagation and Grafting.

• Growing apples rootstock from seed.

• Grafting apples onto homegrown rootstock.

More info on the Catholic Land Movement: https://catholiclandmovement.info.

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

It's September and I've already grown $236 of veggies and it wasn't even a bumper crop year.

How do I know that? I use: Thriving Garden Planner tells you how much you need to plant, the spacing, etc. Plus track your planting, harvest, and compare to grocery prices to see how much you saved growing your own. This is my design. Now 20% off at ThrivingGardenPlanner.com

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,

Shudra is back and we discuss the solution to the recent "emergencies":New virus?

• Plant trees
• Cultivate gardens
• Tend livestock

Bank limiting your cash withdrawals?

• Plant trees
• Cultivate gardens
• Tend livestock

Aliens in the news?

• Plant trees
• Cultivate gardens
• Tend livestock

We also discuss aquaponics and his recent article on Thriver.News: Homestead Aquaponics, Step by Step – The World’s Greatest Ebb and Flow Bed:https://thriver.news/homestead-aquaponics/

This article is step by step detail to create a homestead aquaponics system from IBC totes, and includes everything, including the fitting details.

Plus updates on his local kangaroos - Tilda and Harley and how to plant a tree with humanure.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/plant-trees

It's September and I've already grown $236 of veggies and it wasn't even a bumper crop year.

How do I know that? I use: Thriving Garden Planner tells you how much you need to plant, the spacing, etc. Plus track your planting, harvest, and compare to grocery prices to see how much you saved growing your own. This is my design. Now 20% off at ThrivingGardenPlanner.com

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,

Do You Feel Like Quitting?

It's Sept. It's still hot. My Fall garden lettuce and greens will not germinate in this heat. I may run out of growing time before the first frost.

For my wife, Feb and March are the worst times. The horses are covered in mud and it seems like it will never end.

Tips for when you feel like quitting - how to come back?

• Failure is an option.

• Embrace the seasons.

• Take the time.

• Re-evaluate your goals.

My goals are to grow as much of my own food as possible and to learn and share skills.

Seems like a lot of people quitting homesteading lately. Or redefining it as "farmsteading", "freesteading" or "lifesteading".

So what is a "homesteader"?

Maybe the deciding factor should be: Homesteaders have poison ivy X number of times per year. 😆

I’m going on having poison ivy the 4-5th time, but it’s been a slow year.

A remarkable amount of people arguing lately about who is a homesteader and who is Larping, especially after off grid Guy Alaska posted a pic on Twitter of his native Alaskan wife washing clothes in the creek and it brought out the haters - from people saying that he was Larping, to the feminists who said that his wife was enslaved. ("Larping" is Live Action Role Playing, like those dweebs acting out D&D live in the park, wearing fake Hobbit feet and play fighting with foam rubber swords.)

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/quitting

Want to Create a Food Forest and Grow 3-5X More Food?

🔎- Check out Will Horvath's Free Food Forest Toolkit

What you get:

• How to create a food forest: step-by-step implementation checklist

• Site-Survey Checklist: how to “read the landscape” and analyze your site

• 5 plug-and-play Permaculture Guild examples you can copy and recreate in your food forest

• The exact Layout Planning Guide that Will used when establishing his food forest

I also recommend Will's Finding Land Course - now $100 off.

See my apple guild that I created after taking Will's course.

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.

Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,

After two years and almost 100 episodes, we discuss how our views of community have changed.

In Ep. 1 of the podcast Perpend and I discussed what is necessary for successful community:

• Worldview

• Skin in the game/Proof of Work

• Proximity

• Common purpose

• Common culture

Are you doing community or just networking?

Networking can be transactional and extracting; Community is more holistic and is more about people. It is sharing life and culture.

When your community workshops become so mundane that you don't take pictures anymore, It is something that you do. Something that shares life and culture. That's where you see people stay or fall away.

After things went back to "normal" we saw less engagement and people don't want to get together and do stuff. They just wanted to create a network, and have a "parallel economy". How did that work out two years later?

Then I discuss the different levels of community. You naturally have inner and outer circles. There is no purity test unless you are talking about forming intentional community. The inner and outer circles are gates that function to answer the question "who can I trust?"

Tips for building community:

• Meetups - these can be formal (monthly meeting) or informal (coffee shop or restaurant).

• Workshops - build community by sharing skills.

• weekly chats or calls.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/community-vs-networking

Want to Create a Food Forest and Grow 3-5X More Food?

🔎- Check out Will Horvath's Free Food Forest Toolkit

What you get:

• How to create a food forest: step-by-step implementation checklist

• Site-Survey Checklist: how to “read the landscape” and analyze your site

• 5 plug-and-play Permaculture Guild examples you can copy and recreate in your food forest

• The exact Layout Planning Guide that Will used when establishing his food forest

I also recommend Will's Finding Land Course - now $100 off.

See my apple guild that I created after taking Will's course.

If you like this unique topic, shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture or CashApp $ThrivingtheFuture.

Or join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture. You get early episode, extra outtakes including the extra episode with Cyprian, e-books, and listen in on our chicken planning workshop as we plan out a season of hatching and processing chickens, and rotating roosters,