Thriving The Future Podcast (Thriving The Future)

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.

<p>The Consumer Mindset is Pervasive.</p>

<p>Examples of the Consumer Mindset</p>

<p> - Planned obsolescence</p>

<p> - Fear of missing out (FOMO)</p>

<p> - Confusing Needs and Wants</p>

<p> - Buying stuff to make yourself fell better</p>

<p> - Why are you buying gifts?</p>

<p> - Buying gifts as a proxy for not spending time with your loved ones</p>

<p>Solutions to Ditch the Consumer Mindset</p>

<p> - Regift stuff you no longer use</p>

<p> - Buy tools that are durable and the best that you can afford. You spend more now but they last longer.</p>

<p> - Make gifts from your side hustle, hobbies (teas, jams, vinegar, herbs, tinctures).</p>

<p> - Look at other means of exchange besides fiat.</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/consumer-mindset</p>

At the core, thriving is often more about mindset than about homesteading and gardening. If you don't have the appropriate mindset then the rest doesn't fall into place.

Randy from the Adirondacks in Upstate NY joins me to talk about his video on Twitter: "You're Gonna Make it". https://twitter.com/shagbark_hick/status/1636460753061306368?s=20

I found this encouraging and thought that you would like it too.

Randy shares about about purposefully living the life of a vagabond/hobo in his early adult years, and talks about #Thriving even through adversity. Some great insight and tips on having the appropriate mindset, alignment, and most of all hope, in adversity.

Like this episode? Shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture.

Join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture and get early episodes and extras, including the bonus episode with Cyprian, and listen in our chicken workshop as we plan incubating, sharing eggs, and processing roosters. Plus our rotating rooster strategy to select for the best traits and to keep diversity in our flocks.

Join the Thriving Community Telegram group at signup.ThrivingtheFuture.com.

Gift Economy vs Barter - Has Barter really been used anywhere at any scale?

Scott and Perpend have a lively debate on whether barter has been used as the main economy in any culture.

The gift economy applies to the Tribal model, family, or clan.<p>

We also discuss intentional community.

Are we a community? As he states in this episode, Perpend is seeking an intentional community that is willing to sell everything and move closer together.

Perpend also shares his spiritual journey.

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

Sponsors:

- The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.

In Episode 1 of the Thriving The Future Podcast, Scott and Perpend talk about what makes community work, intentional community, and building parallel systems. Length – 28:28

What is community? It’s not what you think. What is necessary for successful community:

• Worldview

• Skin in the game/Proof of Work

• Proximity

• Common purpose

• Common culture

• Intentional community

• Building parallel systems

Episode website:

https://thrivingthefuture.com/podcast-ep1-community

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.

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.

Perpend is back and we are planning on How to Breed a Landrace Chicken.

• What is a landrace? It is a chicken that is adapted to your land and your climate.

• Autosexing vs. Sex link breeds.

• Can chicks from the same brood/flock be bred with each other?

Our preferences:

• Chickens that can brood their own eggs (without using incubator)

• Winter heavy hens - won't easily get frostbite.

• Rooster of some other breed.

• Flighty vs. a "lap" chicken? (one that will sit on your lap). Which is more resistant to predators?

A Rotating Rooster Strategy to add diversity to your community's chicken flocks.

We also talk about Perpend's last tweet: "So long and thanks for all the fish."

Check out the show notes on the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/landrace-chicken

The Thriving Garden Spreadsheet has just released! This includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. It calculates how much space, how many plants/seeds you need for each crop. There are also tabs to track what you plant, inputs, first and last frost dates, and the food costs that you have saved by growing your own food. It's all customizable.

It's available now on ThrivingGardenPlanner.com and use coupon code thriving for $5 off.

JOIN our Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thrivingthefuture

What you get for $5/month:

• Early episodes.

• Lots of extras, including outtakes.

• E-Book - "Are You A Trader or Are You a Gambler?"

• Free copies of e-books as they come available.

• Download the audio from our Community Chicken Planning workshop where we decided who was doing what, and discussed our Rotating Rooster Strategy to add diversity to your community's chicken flocks.

• Thriving Garden Spreadsheet. Included free with your Patreon subscription.

Sponsor:

Elderberry cuttings and comfrey crowns and root cuttings are still available at Grow Nut Trees - https://grownuttrees.com

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.

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,

Homesteaders have their share of trials: Garden/Crop failure, predator attacks, sick animals, not enough rain, too much rain, hail that beats your crop to the ground, stuff that worked last year doesn't work this year.Homestead Padre makes a significant amount of his income from selling his produce and baking and selling bread at the farmer's market. His big baking stove broke down.Some (real) homesteaders often live lives of modest means, and these things can be devastating.We talk about dealing with trials and depression.

• Faith gets us through these times.

• Sometimes you just have to embrace the suck.

• Pride is sometimes the reason for depression - "why is this happening to me? This shouldn't happen to me!".

Disclaimer - This is not medical advice. It's just two guys talking about our trials. If you are having troubles, talk to someone, and get help. Don't suffer alone.

Like this episode? Shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture.

JOIN our Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/thrivingthefutureWhat you get for $5/month:

• Early episodes.

• Lots of extras, including outtakes.

• The bonus episode with Cyprian where he explains the banking collapse and why it can be a risk for your crypto - even if you have it in a custodial wallet. Plus - what is a Cargo Cult?

• Free copies of e-books as they come available.

• Download the audio from our Community Chicken Planning workshop.

• Thriving Garden Spreadsheet. Included free with your Patreon subscription.

The Thriving Garden Spreadsheet has just released! This includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. It calculates how much space, how many plants/seeds you need for each crop. There are also tabs to track what you plant, inputs, first and last frost dates, and the food costs that you have saved by growing your own food. It's all customizable.It's available now on ThrivingGardenPlanner.com and is currently on sale for $5 off.

Free Your Mindset

What if you could work less than 40 hours a week?

What if you could charge double what everyone else is charging, working less, and still #Thrive?

Jules Smith, editor of The Homestead Journal, joins TTF Podcast to talk about his "multi-side hustle, intermittent, high value dollar per hour system".

Tips:

• Get out of the 40 hour per week mindset.

• Fill your life with multiple income streams.

• Want more tips ? Visit the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/make-money

Can you actually charge double the amount everyone else is and not lose business? Sure, you may lose business, but you may have more valuable, more consistent and rewarding business.

Sponsors:

- The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.

Homestead thumbnail Image taken by Hannah Byrd at MyHBCreations: https://www.instagram.com/myhbcreations/

Also follow Hannah - @MyHBCreations on Twitter.

This is part 2 of the discussion with Perpend on Cosmology and Worldview. We discuss Ep. 74 – Crisis is a Decision Point – with Cyprian and Perpend takes Cyprian’s #BuildtheArk- 1 step farther to #BeAnArkBuilder. We talk about life and death, celebration of life ceremonies, and funerals from an Orthodox perspective. It is a deep conversation, and it gets personal.

This is part 2 of what was a mammoth almost 2 hours podcast. You can listen to the entire Uncut episode by joining the Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

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

Check out HomesteadPadre's unique hot sauces on his website Smith Homestead - https://www.smith-homestead.com/product-page/homestead-hotsauce. Use "Thriving" at checkout for 10% off.

<p>In Episode 6, Scott and Perpend start a series about Side Hustles.

</p>

<p>- The market is not saturated! You just have to compete for attention.</p>

<p>- Providing value uses the 8 forms of Capital (experiential, intellectual, social).</p>

<p>- "The more value you give them, the more they owe you, and they know this subconconsciously".</p>

<p>- Not everyone is your customer.</p>

<p>- Observe actions over words.</p>

<p>- Cash flow, and the reality check of accounts receivable. (not be boring).</p>

<p>- Real marketing.</p>

<p>We share many tips and details that you usually don't hear unless you pay someone for an ebook or online class. Skip the "build a website, gather email addresses, SEO" tips and instead give your best value.</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/know-your-customer</p>

Are you a "Yes" Man? Are you always over-extended? Do you have difficulty saying "No" to family, friends, and at work? Learn the Skill of saying "No".

• Set boundaries or all of your time will be taken by others.

• Speak the language of the person that you are talking to.

• Everything is a negotiation.

• Are you interested but the timing is not right?

• Should it be me or someone else? Are you volunteering for too much? Should you delegate it to someone else?

• Prioritize - If I say "Yes" to this then something else on my plate has to go.

• The fallout of saying "No".

• Saying "No" but keeping the relationship.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/saying-no

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

Check out HomesteadPadre's unique hot sauces on his website Smith Homestead - https://www.smith-homestead.com/product-page/homestead-hotsauce. Use "Thriving" at checkout for 10% off.

<p>Tips to overcome Imposter Syndrome and the Toolbox Fallacy</p>

<p>Imposter Syndrome</p>

<p>That self doubt, as an entrepreneur that you are not good enough or not an expert. It results in cutting yourself short, in pricing, in boldness, in success and thriving.</p>

<p>Everyone at some time struggles with Imposter Syndrome. From the entrepreneur to the kid having to present something at the front of the class.</p>

<p> - What is Imposter Syndrome?</p>

<p> - Self doubt</p>

<p> - Thinking that you are not good enough</p>

<p> - Being told that you are not an expert</p>

<p> - Competence – the willingness to try.</p>

<p> - Is confidence genetic or learned?</p>

<p> - What do I do if I fail?</p>

<p> - Every time you fail you learn a lesson or a new question to ask.</p>

<p>Toolbox Fallacy</p>

<p>“If only I had X, then I could start.”</p>

<p> - What is the Toolbox fallacy – “I need X (software, training, etc.) to start this activity/business”. #JustStart!</p>

<p> - How can you bridge that gap when you are just starting out?</p>

<p> - “It’s not a problem if you still have an action left.”</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/overcoming-imposter-syndrome

</p>

We have been covering a series about how to Recession-Proof your life.

In this episode I talk with my friend Eric about how to recession-proof your job

• How do you introduce yourself? "I am a..."

• Do you tie your identity to your job?

• How to #Thrive at your job:

• Make yourself valuable.

• Develop relationships.

• Be Genuine.

• Go to work every day as if it was your first day.

Side hustles and cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset.

"You talk about the recession. The people that are using our services, they are not worried about the recession. The recession is not going to impact them." - Eric

Eric created a high end lawn care business, TurfBrothas757.com (website coming soon).

They make lawns look like 1/4" golf course grass.

What drives an entrepreneurial mindset?

• Having a need and thinking "I wonder if I could do that."

• Utilizing your surplus and trading/selling your surplus.

Note that the audio is a little distorted in this episode. One of the challenges of including new voices with people who are not professional podcast guests, is that you make due with the tech that you have over Zoom (the folk's don't always have pro mics). The EQ is kind of "wonky". I cleaned it up as best as I could. It was still great info to go ahead and publish rather than doing it all over again.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/recession-proof-mindset

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Sponsors:

GrowNutTrees dot com: https://grownuttrees.com/

Smith-Homestead: https://www.smith-homestead.com/

(use code THRIVING at checkout for 10% off).

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

In Episode 2 of Thriving The Future podcast Scott and Perpend talk about developing a skills based mindset.

"If you want to thrive, live life, do what you intend - develop a skills based mindset.

Skills will help you thrive rather than just survive."

Length 31:02

Episode website:

https://thrivingthefuture.com/podcast-ep2-skills-over-stuff

Can you use AI and still Live Not By Lies?

Everyone is talking about AI since ChatGPT came out. You can use it to write content for your business, blog posts, full fiction and stories, and even higher education dissertations.

So how far will you go? Is it moral to use AI for school or work?

I follow a lot of side hustle groups and they are already touting AI where you can "write endless content and not work so hard!"

Perpend and I discuss - Can you use AI and still Live Not by Lies?

"Simple men create simple times, and overcomplicated times call for men to simply live" - Perpend

The week of Christmas, the Boston Federal Reserve, in typical government style of releasing controversial press releases late in the day on Friday, announced that it had completed its Project Hamilton project, a collaboration between the Fed and MIT developers, who are also on the Bitcoin project (!).

The Fed released a white paper last year. It sounded like they were just starting a "Pilot" project. As seen in the video below, they were much farther along (years) than implied.

Biden has directed Federal agencies to put forward plans to roll out and operationalize CBDC in their agencies.

How close are they to rolling it out? What will you do?

How far can you go? It depends on the ultimate question - what are you willing to die for?

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

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Elderberry cuttings and comfrey (crowns and root cuttings) now available! - https://grownuttrees.com/

Foraging + 2022 Growing Season in Review

"The days grow shorter and the nights are getting long. Seems like we're running out of time." - Triumph.

In tough times and supply chain breakdowns, these foraging ideas can make the difference to augment your diet, generate some side hustle income, or help grow your homestead.

Foraging stories:

• Chestnuts: The local rural elementary school has two chestnut trees. In 2021, I foraged 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket from those trees and had enough to put up several buckets of chestnuts in sand to sprout out for Spring, plus enough to share with several friends.

• Shagbark hickory

• Pears from a scraggly set of trees in a county park.

• Pawpaws - grow along many creeks in woody parts of Eastern and NE Kansas. They may not be as good as the Eastern US cultivars, but they still taste like a cross between vanilla and banana pudding.

• So much neglected fruit of the forest = so much opportunity for a forager, homesteader, or even a side hustle.

• Extend your homestead with cuttings from elderberry and mulberry.

• Plant apples from seed. You may like the new variety.

In this episode I also review the 2022 growing season. What worked and what didn't.

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

Choosing the type of Communications based on your Community

Mike from Paratus Radio joins TTF Podcast to discuss emergency communications.

We look at communications based on several community scenarios (size, location, and needs):

• Cul de sac - FRS (walkie talkies)

• Group of farms (1-2 miles) - GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service)

• Group of intentional communities (5-10 miles apart) - GRMS with repeater.

• Group of farms or communities (farther than 10 miles) - GRMS with repeater or HAM with repeater, if necessary.

• CB Radio

Why can't we just use our phones?

If power goes out, the cell towers only have 1-2 days of backup power. If the outage extends past this then the cell tower will not function and it won't come back on its own. This may seem unlikely, but it was seen in the ice storm power outages in Feb 2021, and in the power outages due to Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

You can also use these radios to hear National Weather Service and Emergency stations. So these emergency comms should be part of your emergency planning.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/community-comms

Perpend shares about his monastic journey, life, death, & homesteading. What is your cosmology and eschaton, and how does that define (and is different from) your worldview?

We discuss Ep. 74 - "Crisis is a Decision Point - with Cyprian" ThrivingtheFuture.com/crisis and Perpend takes Cyprian's #BuildtheArk - 1 step farther.

This is part 1 of what was a mammoth almost 2 hours podcast. You can listen to the entire Uncut episode by joining the Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

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.

Geoffrey Long from Long Story Farms joins me to discuss raising pigs, and selling pork at the farmer's market - even being known as "the Sausage Man".

• His food forest and lessons learned running chickens tractors through his food forest and the resulting effect on weed succession.

• The challenges as a small meat producer at the farmer's market.

• Building local community.

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

Like this episode? Shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture, or on CashApp $ThrivingTheFuture.

Join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture and get early episodes and extras, including the bonus episode with Cyprian, and listen in our chicken workshop as we plan incubating, sharing eggs, and processing roosters. Plus our rotating rooster strategy to select for the best traits and to keep diversity in our flocks.

Join the Thriving Community Telegram group at signup.ThrivingtheFuture.com.

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,

<p>Detailed site survey for an off grid property.</p>

<p>For our April workshop we did a property walk and site survey on a friend's land. His goal is to turn this into an off grid property. We include clips of some of the on-site brainstorming conversations.</p>

<p> - 3 Acre lot in NE KS. Currently pasture with trees (hedge, oak, hackberry, cedar) along the S side, which borders a creek/ravine.</p>

<p> - Land slopes down to the SE. Most of the land is south facing slope (good for solar and gardens).</p>

<p> - USDA Zone 6A</p>

Goals are important.</p>

Goal: Turnaround property in 5-6 years and retire.</p>

<p> - Do a proof of concept for off grid:</p>

<p> - 2 shipping containers, on trench footings, with a roof in between, enclosed space, and slab floor.</p>

<p> - Solar for power</p>

<p> - Rain catchment for water</p>

<p> - Compost toilet</p>

<p>Important considerations for a small acreage property:</p>

<p> - How much easement will you need? (building from the road or fence).</p>

<p> - How much space will be taken up by septic system and laterals? If putting in septic, this would limit your growing area. (Because of this, he will not initially put in a septic system).</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/choosing-land</p>

<p>Sponsors:</p>

<p> - The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.</p>

<p> - https://FreedomFarmer.net - Where I focus on #SkillsOverStuff and designing an intentional life</p>

Homestead Chat Pt. 2. - Grant Payne joins Homestead Padre and I as we share stories of abundance, and chat about piglets, Grant's plans for his nursery, building his side hustle by growing plants from discarded cuttings at the local nursery.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/homestead-chat2

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,

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.

Homesteading, aquaponics, building soil, and Heath the Kangaroo

In this episode I talk with Shudra as he is #Thriving in Australia. Shudra is one of the contributors at The Homestead Journal. Shudra is also a prolific Twitter poster, and you can follow him @TheShudraWay on Twitter.

Shudra shares about aquaponics, building soil when your land is mostly gravel, and the unexpected arrival of Heath the Kangaroo.

Shudra's advice:

1. Plant trees

2. Reduce your debt

3. Grow your own food

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

Sponsors:

- The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.

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,

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.

We had a question for Perpend from the Cosmology vs. Worldview episode on "how do you handle not knowing?" (Perpend is on a monastic path, to be a monk, and doesn't know what the future holds or where he will end up).

• Not knowing is more relevant to your situation than you may realize because each SHTF situation is not knowing - lost job, health challenges, and other issues.
• Get to the place where you are comfortable with not knowing.
• Like Cyprian said in 2020: Get to Acceptance as soon as possible.
• Time used to move slower. Get used to the realization of how slow time actually moves. Don't fill it up with stuff. Leave space.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/not-knowing.

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,

Dodging the Regulations and Restrictions Land Mines

Continuing our #Thrivers series, join the conversation with Kurt. He is living on 27 acres in NW MO.

We discuss how he found his land in this tough market, strategies for determining regulations and restrictions. We deep dive into some of what he has accomplished so far with his land and livestock, as well as his plans to thrive in the next year.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/finding-land

Sponsors:

- The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.

- https://FreedomFarmer.net - Where I focus on #SkillsOverStuff and designing your intentional life

<p>We answer questions from listeners about our community.</p>

<p> - Workshops</p>

<p> - Seed swap</p>

<p> - Maintaining a community</p>

<p> - Perpend also shares about his recent visit to a monastery and what he learned about community on that trip.</p>

<p>It's important that we just do what we are doing, and people join of filter themselves out. Community will change, people may come and go. That is OK.</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/building-a-thriving-community

<p>We discuss Solzhenitsyn and Havel and how to thrive in the tough times ahead. Also the culture of the barter blanket and how to fit that into your community.</p>

<p>Warning - This is a tough conversation and may challenge your worldview.</p>

<p>There is a lot of online chatter about "we are being shut out/shut down; we need to build a parallel economy!"</p>

<p>Or "We just need to elect new people. Our people."</p>

<p>The answer is not a new government or a new economy. The core issue is taking responsibility for your own life. (not in the frequently repeated Republican definition, but in the Solzhenitsyn and Havel application).</p>

<p>A new government or a new economy is a totalitarian solution to a moral problem.</p>

<p>Too many people still believe that they have the right to tell another person what to do. You've heard it, and probably will default to it, under distress:</p>

<p> - "There should be a law!"</p>

<p> - "Someone should do something".</p>

<p>It always defaults to government, law, and forcing others to do something (which requires violence).</p>

<p>We discuss "Live Not BY Lies" and "The Power of the Powerless", and suffering.</p>

<p>We discuss community, reciprocity, and an economy that may be more based on other forms of capital rather than solely based on money. And the lore and culture of the barter blanket and how to fit that into your community.</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/parallel-economy</p>

<p>#FreeYourMindset.</p>

<p>"You are not defined by what you do, but who you are, and what community you belong to."</p>

<p>Continuing our series about how to create and live an intentional life, this is a follow up up to Ep. 4 - Diary of a Wage Slave, Ep. 5 - Living an Intentional Life, and even ties together our Side Hustle episodes.</p>

<p>We start with a mindset that allows you to transition from your job to your intentional life, or ways to do both longer in ways that fulfill your intentions in your life. Hint: It's deeper than the side hustle.</p>

<p>We also talk about your place in the community and how to get back to that level of trust.</p>

<p>Perpend talks about What I Want in Community. "I don't care where everyone else is going. That's where I'm going. Who is joining me?"</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/how-to-use-your-job

</p>

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

Using the best homeschooling method for the season in a child's life.

Join the conversation with Winter, a mom who is from a homeschooled family and has homeschooled her kids.

Skip the usual homeschool topics - no complaining about public school, no politics here. We want to focus on creating lifelong learners.

- Adapting to your child' s learning style.

- Homeschooling with an ADHD child and a Gifted child at the same time.

- Unschooling

- Science - Instilling a sense of "wonder" in your child.

This is part of our ongoing #Thriver's series.

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

Sponsors:

- The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.

- https://FreedomFarmer.net - Where I focus on #SkillsOverStuff and designing your intentional life

Will Horvath from PermacultureApprentice.com joins to discuss Permaculture Type 1 Errors - in your design and implementation that you regret. Type 1 errors cost you money, time, and decreased return or increased effort.

Some of the Type 1 errors that we discuss:

• Install a pond in the wrong location.
• Using the STUN method on grafted apple trees and most of them fail.
• Put a garden in poor sun exposure or a frost pocket in a valley.
• Locating your home, buildings, or access road in a potential flood zone,
• Dispersed or spread out home or infrastructure - buildings too far apart, too etc. far way from water, etc.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/permaculture-apprentice

Visit Will Horvath's Permaculture Apprentice site - He has articles and classes on how to assess land and your permaculture property, design your food forest, layout swales on contour, and much more.

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,

<p>How crypto can help you to #Thrive in the tough times ahead.</p>

<p>“HODLing is for chumps!” - Perpend.</p>

<p>Why Crypto?</p>

<p> We talk about the Why - the base concepts of Money, Value, and determining what is Fair Value.</p>

<p> The basics of cryptocurrency, what it is really for (it's purpose was not for HODLing).</p>

<p> How crypto can help you to #Thrive in the tough times ahead.</p>

<p> Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and what is coming.</p>

<p>A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. - Bitcoin White Paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/why-crypto</p>

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.

Ken and Sally are #Homesteading in the City. You would be surprised how much they do in their normal backyard - chickens, gardens, tree starts, composting bins, and an elaborate worm bin.

We also discuss how they #Thrive & prepare for retirement.

This is a part of our #Thrivers series.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/homesteading-city

Sponsors:

- The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.

- https://FreedomFarmer.net - Where I focus on #SkillsOverStuff and designing your intentional life

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.

Tristan Scott, bitcoinand_beef on Twitter and author of Bitcoin and Beef on Amazon, joins Thriving the Future to talk about taking control of your health and wealth through decentralization.

• Post concussion syndrome and health changes through diet

• Regenerative ag

• Crypto and Bitcoin

• Getting connected with the food system

• Bison meat

• Grow your own food

• Taking control of your health - Direct Primary Care

• Community

More tips on the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/bitcoin-and-beef

Get episodes early plus Extras on Patreon:

• More on Bitcoin.

• Washington vs. KS

JOIN our Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/thrivingthefutureWhat you get for $5/month:

• Early episodes.

• Lots of extras, including outtakes.

• Free copies of e-books as they come available.

• Download the audio from our Community Chicken Planning workshop.

• Thriving Garden Spreadsheet. Included free with your Patreon subscription.

The Thriving Garden Spreadsheet has just released! This includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. It calculates how much space, how many plants/seeds you need for each crop. There are also tabs to track what you plant, inputs, first and last frost dates, and the food costs that you have saved by growing your own food. It's all customizable.It's available now on ThrivingGardenPlanner.com and is currently on sale for $5 off.

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

Ryan Mitchel Brown from Decentralized Radio Podcast shares about his health journey through autoimmune disease.

We talk about Low-T, coming back from an eating disorder with the Carnivore diet, the importance of light therapy, limiting blue light to get the best sleep.

Disclaimer: This relates a personal health journey and is not specific medical advice. Consult your health practitioner of choice for your own situation.

Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/ryan-brown.

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,

<p>Building Cultural Capital</p>

<p>You build Cultural capital through stories, songs, and rituals.</p>

<p>You are building Culture whether you know it or not.</p>

<p>What kind of culture are you building?</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/cultural-capital</p>

<p>Sponsors:</p>

<p> - The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.</p>

<p> - https://FreedomFarmer.net - Where I focus on #SkillsOverStuff and designing your intentional life</p>

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.

Andrew Funk, the host of the Royal Path Podcast, joins Perpend and I to talk about Thriving in the Ordinary and Mundane.

First a definition:

mun·dane

1. lacking interest or excitement; dull.

2. of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one. "the boundaries of the mundane world"

"Are you for real or are you going through the motions?" - Kansas lyric from "Going Through the Motions" on the Drastic Measures album (1983).

• The dog days of summer are still here. Not much is happening. I hate summer. I wish it away. I am always wishing for Fall and Winter to come. But by doing so I am not Being Present, living in the Now. I'm "wishing my life away."

• Living in the Ordinary Time

• Living in the mundane is a form of asceticism. It is a resetting on one's self.

• Andrew works in addiction Recovery, and one of the hardest things to get used to when recovering from addiction is getting used to going back to the boring, mundane, ordinary things in life.

• People aren't having real conversations, or listening to the other person when having conversations. They retreat into their phone and their own little world. Don't be like that, resist retreating. When someone has a mundane conversation, like the weather, do you tune them out? If you listen then they will often get to the real story and go deeper.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/ordinary-time

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,

Niche Down is the Key to SuccessJohn McCoy, Freelance Blog Writer (@johnmccoywrites on Twitter) joins me to talk about how to become a freelancer.

• Niche down - set yourself apart from everyone else by writing for your niche. You will be able to get focused jobs and can charge more for your expertise.

• If you are in the trades, there is a need for writers.

• How to find clients, especially the "sticky" clients.

• Use Upwork - it is always a hot client who has posted their need.

• Learn how to sell yourself.

Check out John's LinkTree

This is not the end of our content. There is much more on our Patreon!

Extras on Patreon:

• SEO Tips and focusing on mom and pop businesses and the trades.

• Is AI a threat to writers?

• More on Upwork

Show notes at:

https://thrivingthefuture.com/freelancer

JOIN our Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thrivingthefuture

What you get for $5/month:

• Early episodes.

• Lots of extras, including outtakes.

• E-Book - "Are You A Trader or Are You a Gambler?"

• Free copies of e-books as they come available.

• Download the audio from our Community Chicken Planning workshop where we decided who was doing what, and discussed our Rotating Rooster Strategy to add diversity to your community's chicken flocks.

• Thriving Garden Spreadsheet. Included free with your Patreon subscription.

The Thriving Garden Spreadsheet has just released! This includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. It calculates how much space, how many plants/seeds you need for each crop. There are also tabs to track what you plant, inputs, first and last frost dates, and the food costs that you have saved by growing your own food. It's all customizable.

It's available now on ThrivingGardenPlanner.com and is currently on sale for $5 off.

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.

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.

As Cyprian recently tweeted: "'Crisis' means 'decision'. Just knowing that fact changes your understanding of reality forever."

• Are you prepared mentally and spiritually for what is coming?

• As Cyprian said in March 2020, "the world as you know it has ended. You need to get to acceptance."

• The larger game at play - It's all spiritual warfare.

• #BuildTheArk - what does that mean?

Show notes at:

https://thrivingthefuture.com/crisis

This is not the end of the content. There is much more on our Patreon.

We talk about the banking collapse, the Silicon Valley banks collapsing first and the conditions to bail them out, and the surprising impact to crypto (and you - yes, even if you have your own custodial wallet). And what is a Cargo Cult? That's on the extras - only on Patreon.

JOIN our Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thrivingthefuture

What you get for $5/month:

• Early episodes.

• Lots of extras, including outtakes.

• E-Book - "Are You A Trader or Are You a Gambler?"

• Free copies of e-books as they come available.

• Download the audio from our Community Chicken Planning workshop where we decided who was doing what, and discussed our Rotating Rooster Strategy to add diversity to your community's chicken flocks.

• Thriving Garden Spreadsheet. Included free with your Patreon subscription.

The Thriving Garden Spreadsheet has just released! This includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. It calculates how much space, how many plants/seeds you need for each crop. There are also tabs to track what you plant, inputs, first and last frost dates, and the food costs that you have saved by growing your own food. It's all customizable.

It's available now on ThrivingGardenPlanner.com and is currently on sale for $5 off.

<p>Everything is a tradeoff, especially with others.</p>

<p>"There are no solutions, only tradeoffs." - Thomas Sowell</p>

<p> - What are tradeoffs?</p>

<p> - Perfect can become the enemy of the good.</p>

<p> - 8 forms of capital mindset - "Your gold is not our gold".</p>

<p> - You lost your job. Time for some self evaluation and designing an intentional life.</p>

<p> - Tradeoffs with food allergies.</p>

<p> "Are you using social media or is it using you?" - Perpend</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/no-solutions-only-tradeoffs</p>

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

"The big success is not done from the homestead. It's done by selling the idea. It's done by selling the dream. It's done by selling the experience."

In this episode Perpend and I talk with Homestead Padre from Twitter about Adversity, his homestead in Mississippi, and adventures in selling at the farmer's market - How to Make Money at the Farmer's Market in a Recession.

• Mindset of the farmer's market customers in tough times/recession: They are looking for an experience rather than (just) food. Food trucks, the lady selling tamales, and the kettle corn guy draw more crowds.

• Homestead Padre made more money on his baked goods when he bought a chef's jacket and started wearing that at the market.

We also talk about adversity.

• On the homestead there is never a problem. There are 3 problems at one time.

• Not making enough money on the homestead and having to go find a job.

• And Homestead Padre's challenges when he was doxxed.

You can contact and interact with Homestead Padre:

Smith-homestead.com for handmade soap and candles, handcrafted items (Perpend and I like the alpaca wool caps – hand knitted by Homestead Padre himself. (Use the code Thriving at checkout for 10% off - affiliate).

Homestead Padre from Twitter

Homestead Padre on Substack

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

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Making Solar Work for You - Considerations You May Not Have Thought Of.

This is Part 2 in a series on Solar energy. Steve of RegenerativeHomeSolutions.com gives an overview of solar energy, what questions you should be asking yourself, and considerations and pitfalls as you plan for your solar energy needs.

"I want to add solar to my home." - Considerations:

• On grid, off grid, hybrid, retrofit system options.

• Does your house face the south enough to get sun exposure? For example, the outbuilding that Steve has his solar installed on faces the SE, so he doesn't get a full day of sun exposure.

• Install on the roof or on the ground?

• We discuss that perhaps it is better to install a free standing solar panel system on the ground, in a pasture.

• If you install in the pasture, consider installing it higher so that you could mow under it or livestock would graze under/around it.

• Installing solar on your roof:

• How old is your roof? You may need to replace the roof first.

• Installing solar may void the warranty on your roof.

• Check with your insurance company. Installing solar may affect your insurance coverage. The insurance company will be very interested in the process - who installs your system and how it is installed.

• Will you need to remove trees?

• How to navigate the bureaucracy.

• Do they offer any grants, rebates?

• Selling energy back to the grid - net metering vs. flat.

• Sell/Buy ratio: In KS they sell energy to you at about 12 cents per kW. They buy at 4 cents per kW. But they are planning to lower the sell/buy ratio.

• in CA, the sell/buy ratio is they sell energy to you at 30 cents per kW but they only buy it at 3 cents per kW.

• "How big of a system will I need?" See the episode website link to download a Free energy audit checklist PDF.

This was an audio review of a Solar #GSD Workshop that we put on as part of our local community group.

For more information on Steve's setup, see his website Regenerative Home Solutions.com - Cultivating a Sustainable Lifestyle.

The energy audit worksheet and the solar workshop PDF are available as downloads on the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/solar1

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Elderberry cuttings and comfrey (crowns and root cuttings) now available! - https://grownuttrees.com/

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,

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,

Making Solar Work for You

This is the first episode in a series on Solar. Steve of RegenerativeHomeSolutions.com gives an overview of solar energy, what questions you should be asking yourself, and drives into an energy audit as the first steps for sizing your solar needs.

This was an audio review of a Solar #GSD Workshop that we put on as part of our local community group.

The energy audit worksheet and the solar workshop PDF are available as downloads on the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/solar1

For more information on Steve's setup, see his website Regenerative Home Solutions.com - Cultivating a Sustainable Lifestyle.

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Sponsors:

Grow Nut Trees - Elderberry cuttings and comfrey (crowns and root cuttings) now available! - https://grownuttrees.com/

Episode 3 - You are More Wealthy Than You Think.

In Episode 3 of Thriving The Future podcast, Scott and Perpend look at wealth and the 8 forms of Capital and how to utilize those to enrich your life.

• Financial Capital

• Material Capital

• Living Capital

• Social Capital

• Cultural Capital

• Intellectual Capital

• Experiential Capital

• Spiritual Capital

Episode Website: ThrivingTheFuture Ep.3 - You Are More Wealthy Than You Think

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 week is a homestead chat with Homestead Padre. We talk about the challenges of gardening in the summer in Mississippi, adventures in the farmer's market, foraging, Grant Payne joins us next week for Pt. 2 of the Homestead Chat.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/homestead-chat1

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,

How much of your own food do you grow and do you want it to be more? It's that time of year when you see articles, podcasts, and posts on social media that say, Grow ALL of Your Own Food. Or maybe they don't go that far and it's: Grow MOST of Your Own Food. In this episode we're going to concentrate on How to Grow More of Your Own Food:

• Self sufficiency vs. Resilience - do you know the difference?

• To grow more of your own food you have to be able to properly store it.

• To grow more of your own food you have to know how to cook it.

• Don't forget perennials! Grow chestnuts and hazelnuts. Chestnuts have been called the "bread tree". Dried chestnuts can be ground into flour. Chestnuts and hazelnuts can be pressed for oil.

• Milpa gardening - 40 seeds all mixed together. Corn, beans, squash as the foundations, with greens, cukes, perennial pollinating flowers. It gives you a harvest through different seasons, covers and regenerates soil, and ends with a dry bean harvest and thatch that you can use a mulch for the winter.

More info on Milpa gardening at Thriver News:

https://thriver.news/milpa

Check out the show notes on the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/grow-more

The Thriving Garden Planner spreadsheet has just released!

How much potatoes or greens should you grow to be your primary food source? Not sure?

This includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. It calculates how much space, how many plants/seeds you need for each crop. There are also tabs to track what you plant, inputs, first and last frost dates, and the food costs that you have saved by growing your own food. It's all customizable.

It's available now on ThrivingGardenPlanner.com and use coupon code thriving for $5 off.

JOIN our Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thrivingthefuture

What you get for $5/month:

• Early episodes.

• Lots of extras, including outtakes.

• E-Book - "Are You A Trader or Are You a Gambler?"

• Free copies of e-books as they come available.

• Download the audio from our Community Chicken Planning workshop where we decided who was doing what, and discussed our Rotating Rooster Strategy to add diversity to your community's chicken flocks.

• Thriving Garden Spreadsheet. Included free with your Patreon subscription.

Sponsor:

Elderberry cuttings and comfrey crowns and root cuttings are still available at Grow Nut Trees - https://grownuttrees.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

<p>Side Hustles - Failure is an Option! </p>

<p>- Side hustles transition you from paycheck mindset to entrepreneur mindset. </p>

<p>- Definition of success </p>

<p>- Did I accomplish my intention? </p>

<p>- Exit strategy </p>

<p>- Side hustles are for children or for transition (?!) </p>

<p>- What about building a business so that it can run without you? </p>

<p>- Mentoring - do I need a mentor? </p>

<p>- Four hour work week? </p>

<p>Bonus: Market Gardening is NOT a rest period. Perpend gives his tips on accomplishing the most in the off season. </p>

<p>"The more often you fail, the less it hurts when you do. You learn to fail, grieve, get up, dream, and try again" - Perpend. </p>

<p>Episode Website: http://thrivingthefuture.com/failure-is-an-option</p>

#It'sAllAboutTheMindset

Perpend is back in town so we catch up on his quest for intentional community.

Worldview and Mindset -

Worldview:

• The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.

• A collection of beliefs about life and the world held by an individual or a group.

• Perpend's definition - Telos: the end term of a goal-directed process.

Mindset:

• A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person's responses and interpretations of situations.

• A way of thinking, an attitude, especially a habitual one.

• Our definition - a frame of mind/a toolset that keeps my Telos in view.

Community and Worldview -

• What is your Worldview? Should you surround yourself with people with the same Worldview?

• Can you end up with the same goal with people with a different Worldview?

• How serious should you be in your worldview with the members of your community, to ensure the same vision and direction?

• The different circles of community as you get to an increasingly Inner Circle.

• Circle of Influence and Circle of Control and influence on community.

• It is OK for a community to change, to ebb and flow.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/worldview-vs-mindset

<p>Do you live an intentional life? Do you have a roadmap? Have you defined your goals and designed your life (including your finances) around those goals?</p>

<p>In Episode 5, Scott and Perpend share some listener feedback from the previous episode.</p>

<p>We take the next step in helping our friend Will in conducting a personal inventory, and we share tips for living an intentional life.</p>

<p>

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/living-an-intentional-life/

<p>We plan out a Permaculture Site Survey</p>

<p>"No one is an expert , but we are still going to Get Stuff Done" #GSD</p>

<p>For our April community workshop, we plan out a site survey to evaluate and give some feedback on a friend's land.</p>

<p> - 3 acres in NE KS</p>

<p> - Approach it from "would we buy this land?"</p>

<p> - How would we use this land?</p>

<p> - What are their goals?</p>

<p>We are prepping you to think through a site survey yourself.</p>

<p>Considerations:</p>

<p> - Access</p>

<p> - Water - creeks, ponds</p>

<p> - Climate - wind, rainfall, USDA Zone, Sun exposure</p>

<p> - Take a shovel and a bucket. Dig a hole to evaluate how quickly water is absorbed in the soil.</p>

<p> - Are utilities available? What is the cost to add a meter, for example (it is a lot more than you may think).</p>

<p> - Off grid?</p>

<p> - Water catchment</p>

<p> - We also cover things that you may not have thought about - is there a quarry nearby? (is there a lot of dump truck traffic?).</p>

<p> - What are the neighbors like? If you don't like ATVs and guns you may want to know that the neighbor rides ATVs and shoots guns at daybreak on the weekends (a common occurrence in rural KS, especially near hunting season) before you move in there. Visit at different times of the days and week, especially on the weekend.</p>

<p>This is how easy it is to plan a workshop, whether you do a site survey, or any other kind of topic. Anybody can do this. Just set it up and do it.</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/planning-workshop</p>

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.

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

This back-to-basics episode is a backyard starter kit for raising chickens.

The Spring Tradition of Chick Day is Almost Here!

It's Chick Day. This is the time-honored Spring tradition every year where the tractor supply and the other farm stores have chicks for sale. But with the egg shortage and the demand for chickens, there's likely to be shortages of chicks at the farm stores for Chick Day this year.

Many people have asked me, “Can you hatch some chicks for me?”

Let's dive a little deeper. What do they really want?

“I want eggs.”

Okay, so do you have any limitations?

“I live in town and I cannot have any roosters.”

• Options for Buying Chicks - Sex Link or Straight Run

• Breeds

• Cornish Cross are Meat Birds

• Sources for Chicks

• Buying Pullets Rather than Chicks

• Pain Points for First Time Chicken Owners

• Take it easy the first year

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/backyard-chicken-basics

Sponsor:

Elderberry cuttings and comfrey crowns and root cuttings are now available at Grow Nut Trees - https://grownuttrees.com

Hurry - get them before they come out of dormancy!

Use coupon code "Thriver" at checkout for a 10% discount for Thriving the Future Podcast listeners!

We are having a contest drawing in Feb for a copy of Roxanne Ahern's book "Holistic Homesteading". For details, and to sign up for the drawing, go to https://thrivingthefuture.com/contest.

Is your identity defined by your job? When someone asks you "what do you do?", do your answer "I am a..."?

<p> What does your perfect day look like? Probably not like your current job. Yes, really.</p>

<p> Take the first step to free your mind.</p>

<p> In Episode 4, Scott and Perpend discuss the "wage slave" mindset and begin a series where they brainstorm how to help their recently unemployed friend, Will.

Episode website:

https://thrivingthefuture.com/diary-of-a-wage-slave/

Dave and Scott open their first aid kits to compare the contents, and discuss mindset, training, and preparedness.

Note: This is not medical advice. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Having a first aid kit at home and in your car is a must in an emergency situation. We have first aid kits in the car, under the sink at home, in our bug out bags/get home bags.

A medkit (Dave calls his a hospital bag) is a larger bag that we keep at home. It has more contents, as well as splints.

Mindset -

What problems are we trying to solve?

To have supplies to self-treat minor medical issues or stabilize until higher level medical help can be attained.

Don't forget the simple stuff

Sometimes preppers go overboard with a kit that is focused on gunshot wounds and injuries like out of some prepper fiction novel, but forget to stock the simple stuff like small band-aids, poison ivy wash, hydrocortisone anti-itch cream, eye drops and eye wash. Don't make this mistake.

We also discuss training, as well as the importance of practicing some scenarios.

Check out the show notes on the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/firstaidkits

JOIN our Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thrivingthefuture

What you get for $5/month:

• Early episodes.

• Lots of extras, including outtakes.

• E-Book - "Are You A Trader or Are You a Gambler?"

• Free copies of e-books as they come available.

• Coming soon - Thriving Garden Spreadsheet, which includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. Tracks what you plant, inputs, food costs that you have offset by growing your own food. All customizable. Included free with your Patreon subscription.

Sponsor:

Elderberry cuttings and comfrey crowns and root cuttings are now available at Grow Nut Trees - https://grownuttrees.com

<p>Continuing our site survey of a friend's land - an off-grid property. We focus on what we would plant on this property to stabilize soil, improve "curb appeal" on the SE facing slope, and provide perennial vegetables and medicinals for animal and humans. We want things that look good at different times a year.</p>

<p>Perennial vegetables</p>

<p>Perennial vegetables definition:</p>

<p> - Living three or more years</p>

<p> - Used as a vegetable, not a novelty crop</p>

<p> - Use the leaves, stalks, shoots, flower buds, tubers, corms, rhizomes, roots, beans, or other above or below ground parts that are eaten raw, or cooked as a meal, or as a side dish.</p>

<p> - Not destroyed by harvesting - harvest some, replant some (like sunchokes)</p>

<p>List from A Global Inventory of Perennial Vegetables:</p>

<p>http://www.perennialsolutions.org/a-global-inventory-of-perennial-vegetables</p>

<p>Perennials that we cover:</p>

<p> - Asparagus</p>

<p> - Jerusalem Artichokes (sunchokes)</p>

<p> - Cattail</p>

<p> - Sunflower</p>

<p> - Showy and Common Milkweed</p>

<p> - Ostrich fern</p>

<p> - Perennial Leek</p>

<p> - Wild Onions and garlic</p>

<p> - Walking onions</p>

<p> - Solomon Seal</p>

<p> - Ramps - add to the oak tree area</p>

<p> - Sea beet</p>

<p> - Turkish Rocket</p>

<p> - Sea Kale - perennial kale</p>

<p> - Wild arugula</p>

<p> - New Zealand Spinach</p>

<p> - Maximillian Sunflower</p>

<p> - Goji Berry</p>

<p> - Marshmallow</p>

<p> - Mulberry</p>

<p> - Elderberry</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/choosing-plants</p>

<p>Sponsors:</p>

<p> - The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.</p>

<p> - https://FreedomFarmer.net - Where I focus on #SkillsOverStuff and designing an intentional life</p>

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.

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.

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.

You Ain't Mr. Watkins.

This is a previously unpublished episode from May.

For our May workshop we toured Watkins Mill in Bethany, MO.

Watkins Mill is a 1880's textile mill and farm. Mr. Watkins employed 50 people at the mill and about 50 on the farm during planting and harvest.

In this episode Perpend and Scott discuss the lessons learned from the mill tour, and how those lessons can be applied to homesteading, prepping, and community. Some of Perpend's conclusions are hard hitting.

In the lessons learned we share that "everyone wants to be Mr. Watkins, the Lord of the manor. No one wants to be Bessie Mae, doing the Kiss of Death on the third floor of the mill."

"What we really want is friends, family, material needs met, productive fulfilling work, and risk without guaranteed reward. That is what will them a life well lived, a life fulfilled, an engagement in appreciation, and seeing abundance instead of scarcity."

Check out our pictures from the Watkins Mill Tour in our show notes at: https://thrivingthefuture.com/watkins

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Sponsors:

https://GrowNutTrees.com - Chestnut seeds for planting, chestnut seedlings, elderberry cuttings, comfrey crowns and root cuttings. Adapted to the Midwest.

- The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.

<p>What we are planting this year - including some surprises.</p>

<p>Why Do We Garden?</p>

<p> - Why do we plant this year?</p>

<p> - Grow our own healthy food!</p>

<p> - Gardening provides a therapeutic and prayerful respite and reset in our day.</p>

What new things we are planting this year:</p>

<p> - Milpa - Mix of multiple seeds (corn, squash, beans, greens, okra, etc.) that provide ground cover and multiple crops to harvest over the summer months, plus good mulch over the winter.</p>

<p> - Indian Ricegrass - a perennial grass with a gluten free source for edible seeds of <p> - porridge, etc.</p>

<p> - New Jersey Tea - a herb that can be used as a stand-in for tea.</p>

<p> - Landrace squash - including Nanticoke squash, Jemi-Nanticoke squash mix, Desert Spirit Landrace Squash</p>

<p> - Landrace beans</p>

<p> - Grandpa McKay's Cream Pea Cowpea</p>

<p> - Perennial Pollinators - a mix of perennial flowers that can be used to sow bands of pollinators in your garden and improve crop pollination. Also brings in some other pollinators, such as wasps, that prey on typical garden pests.</p>

<p> - Sugar beets</p>

<p> - Spring Lentils</p>

<p>(links to the above seeds on our website)</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/why-garden</p>

<p>Sponsors:</p>

<p> - The Homestead Journal - Find us at www.thehomesteadjournal.net and follow us @thjdotnet on Twitter.</p>

<p> - https://FreedomFarmer.net - Where I focus on #SkillsOverStuff and designing your intentional life</p>

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

Kurt is back and he gives an update on his homestead as well as tips from how he is building local community. And we talk about how to recession-proof your job with an entrepreneurial mindset.

• Community building tips:

  • Volunteer to help people setup their garden in the Spring or clean it up in the Fall.

  • Doing this, Kurt got free raspberry plants.

  • Hold events and workshops

• Learn new skills - as you learn skills, work up a portfolio of skills as an investment. It is a money sink, but necessary.

• He is coordinating with local restaurants to get food scraps for compost.

• NRCS application and using Fed programs for your benefit.

• Parallel Economy and how to recession proof your job.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/value-parallel-economy

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

(This was recorded sitting on the porch and there is some wind noise in this episode)

Check out our affiliate: The Smith-Homestead. They have handmade soap and candles, handcrafted items (Perpend and I like the alpaca wool caps - hand knitted by Homestead Padre himself, and lots more. If you use THRIVING as a coupon code at checkout you get 10% off.

<p>When times gets tough (1930's Depression kind of tough), how will you treat the Clowns?</p>

<p>The Clowns are at the gate. What will you do?</p>

<p>How do you determine who to help and who not to help?</p>

<p>How do you build community in this situation?</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/clown-world

</p>

It's mid-May. I've already planted 90 plus plants. I've already had some transplanted grafted trees fail - cedar, apple, rust gets them, even if the book says that this variety should be resistant, (I guess the tree didn't read the book). So this year I started to convert some of my garden, the peripheral parts, into perennials, with annuals in the middle.Regular greens in my garden bolt quickly when it gets hot in early summer.

• Options to augment those with perennial greens - dock, sorrel, lambs quarters, both narrow leaf plantain and a wider leaf plantain. Perennial are more bitter than annual greens. Dock and sorrel have a slight lemony after taste.

• Hazelnuts, goji berries around the outside edges. Walking onion, Solomon seal, plantain, dock, with annual lettuce in the middle of one bed.

• Another perennial bed has hazel and elderberries around the outside edges, walking onion, plantain, dock, lemon balm, horseradish in the middle.

• Planting Milpa garden or regular annuals in the middle.

• More info on how I am using Milpa gardening to start new beds, cover crop with produce in the first year. I used a broadfork to turn over grass, spread Milpa seed, covered with a layer of wood chips. It leaves a natural mulch and builds soil.

Like this episode? Shoot us a tip on Venmo @ThrivingtheFuture.

Join the Thriving Patreon at Patreon.com/ThrivingtheFuture.

Last week to get $5 off the Thriving Garden Planner. This includes a breakdown on How Much to Plant to live off your garden as a primary food source. It calculates how much space, how many plants/seeds you need for each crop. There are also tabs to track what you plant, inputs, first and last frost dates, and the food costs that you have saved by growing your own food. It's all customizable. It's available now on ThrivingGardenPlanner.com and is currently on sale for $5 off through the first week of June.

Come on into the library, sit down and have a chat.

Join our conversation with Yardbird on culture, the podcast, and Radical Authenticity.

Radical Authenticity: Facing reality. Being authentic. learning to identify problems, and being willing to accept those.

We also discuss:

- The history and next steps for the podcast. <

- Yardbird's Philosophy Garden. He has generously provided an essay on the Philosophy garden that you can read on the thrivingthefuture.com website.

- Wendell Berry's "The Unsettling of America". We are in a competition with nature when it should be a conversation."

- What are YOU reading?

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/radical-authenticity

<p>How you thrive in a war zone, or anywhere else, depends on your mindset.</p>

<p>See the KS flag superimposed over the Ukrainian flag above? Are we virtue signaling, showing solidarity, or pointing out something else? Listen and find out.</p>

<p>The Clowns started a war in Ukraine. Now what are you going to do? How will you Thrive in this situation?</p>

<p>Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/how-to-thrive-in-ukraine</p>

Is homesteading (and localism) a form of retreat from society?

It can lead down a lonely path if you do not also develop community.

Jason Snyder (@cognazor on Twitter) of Doomer Optimism Podcast joins me to talk about his recent tweet:

"I don't like the narrative of modern day homesteading (and localism more generally) being a form of retreat or disengagement from larger societal concerns. I see it more as a prefiguration of a healthier society that can emerge from its broad-scale and networked diffusion."

We discuss positive steps to move forward, not "retreat":

• Get back in touch with your where you food comes from - grow your own food. You can be a localist, even in the city.

• Plant as many fruit and nut trees as possible. Make passive food sources a common part of your city and homestead landscape. Jason knows a guy who grows out lots of nut trees in pots and gives them away.

• Build community. Learn new skills. Share your skills, even if you are not an expert. We have a motto: "not an expert, but we're still going to get stuff done."

• Help each other - (work days and workshops). Jason relates how he is building community, forming a 'barn raising' group and helping each other on various homestead/farm projects. They recently had a workday/workshop helping a friend tear down a trailer.

• We share our plans for 2023.

Let Jason's pinned tweet be your goal for 2023:

• New virus coming? Plant trees, cultivate garden, tend livestock.

• Supply chain shocks and inflation? Plant trees, cultivate garden, tend livestock.

• Climate change? Plant trees, cultivate garden, tend livestock.

• New war coming? Plant trees, cultivate garden, tend livestock.

Check out the show notes on the episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/localism

Sponsor:

Elderberry cuttings and comfrey crowns and root cuttings are now available at Grow Nut Trees - https://grownuttrees.com

We are having a contest drawing in Feb for a copy of Roxanne Ahern's book "Holistic Homesteading". For details, and to sign up for the drawing, go to https://thrivingthefuture.com/contest.

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.

It is winter. It is the time to rest, to dream, and to plan. But this episode will get you fired up and give you tips as you plan for the growing season.

Grant Payne of HomesteadOfPayne on Instagram joins me this week. He is Getting Stuff Done - #GSD at a level off the charts.

He created 70 raised beds out of IBC totes by cutting them in half. He is planning a nursery, and gets some nursery stock by going into TSC or Lowes and buying all the trees on clearance, haggling the manager down to the point where he is paying $1 or $3 each for 50 trees and plants.

This episode should get you fired up for planning the 2023 season.

Check the show notes for awesome pictures from Grant's homestead.

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/grant-payne

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Sponsors:

The Homestead Journal: https://thehomesteadjournal.net/

Grow Nut Trees - Elderberry cuttings and comfrey (crowns and root cuttings) now available! - https://grownuttrees.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

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

Creating Cultural Capital through Storytelling and Traditions.

Our guests share their favorite personal Christmas holiday stories:

• Grant Payne of HomesteadofPayne on Instagram from Episode 58.

• Matt from FarmHopLife.

• Melody and Eric from the Homebirth on the Homestead episodes 38 and 43 tell about how they create memories by playing (usually argumentative) games on Christmas. (Maybe that's a little Festivus thrown in?)

• Scott tells stories of growing up in Iowa during the "Global Cooling" scare. There was snow on the ground from November until March. The lakes and rivers froze, and there were snowmobile tracks along all of the roadways.

Storytelling is important.

You build Cultural Capital through Stories, Songs, Rituals, and Traditions.

Let’s face it – our kids are chronically challenged with their sense of identity, where they fit in the world, and their sense of place.

• Ask yourself – what does Christmas look like to me? (in my memories)

• This Christmas/Holiday season, share the things that are important to you.

• Get your kids out of the bubble. Show them where you grew up. Share what Christmas means to you. Ask them questions about what it means to them.

• Give experiences rather than things. Very few people remember what they got for Christmas last year, let alone five years ago. But they remember the experience, the time, the place.

“You are building Cultural Capital whether you know it or not.” - Perpend

Episode website: https://thrivingthefuture.com/holiday-stories

Join the Thriving The Future Community - Telegram Group or mailing list: https://signup.thrivingthefuture.com

Sponsors:

The Homestead Journal: https://thehomesteadjournal.net/

Grow Nut Trees - Elderberry cuttings and comfrey (crowns and root cuttings) now available! - https://grownuttrees.com/

<p>Continuing the discussion on the "How" to start and maintain a community</p>

<p> - What do you do when it all goes wrong with your community?</p>

<p> - How to surround yourself with people who benefit others as well as benefit themselves (Win/Win) rather than Hapless people.</p>

<p> - Note that you do NOT want to only surround yourself with people just like you (like-minded people). You need to have a variety of people with different skills.</p>

<p>We also talk about our workshops and how that builds and strengthens community.</p>

<p>We discuss the 5 Laws of Stupidity:</p>

<p>https://youtu.be/3O9FFrLpinQ</p>

<p>https://thrivingthefuture.com/2-dollar-eggs

</p>

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.

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,

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

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

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.

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.