Today, I talk through the two types of canning and the 8 projects you can do to slowly build up your canning skills.
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Resources:
Make it a great week!
Song: Mr Clammy by Sauce
Today, we will do a Holler Homestead roundup review and look into fall. That’s right, it has been a few months since we took a look at my homestead here, how it is doing, and where we are going as we move into fall. Right now is when you should be readying your fall beds. Now is when you should be at least half wat finished canning your winter stores. Now is when you should be thinking – Christmas is coming, what will I make for gifts? And now is a great time for the quarterly assessment of your lifestyle goals.
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Membership Sign Up: https://livingfreeintennessee.com/iump-subscription-plan/
What Mother Nature is Providing
This is where we talk about what is coming off the land around us to enrich our lives.
What we are preserving this week
This is where we talk about what we preserve, when we preserve it, and how we process it.
An aquaponics update
Tales from the prepper pantry
Operation Independence
Summer at the Holler Homestead.
Song: Every Way, by Sauce
Today, we have an exploration topic: Navigating tough communications and interpersonal relationships. What does that have to do with homesteading or independence? Well it turns out it has a lot to do with both those things.
What Mother Nature is providing
What we are preserving this week
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Listener Feedback
Operation Independence
Topic: Navigating Tough Communication
Song: Cilly Song
Today, we have a chat with the Tactical Redneck about the MBTI personality types and how he has learned from this way of categorizing people to improve his interpersonal skills at work. It is a fast interview paired with an update from Samantha the Savings Ninja.
Today, I want to talk about how focusing on a few things can help you get many things done. That’s right. We have touched on this concept in other episodes, but today, I thought we could dive a little deeper. And what sparked this idea? Well, it is the new Facebook group, Living Free in Tennessee Coffee Break. This is where lots of listeners are starting to post up to 3 do or die items that they will get done that day to move themselves forward toward their long-term goals. Some of the things are small, like taking a walk every morning. Some are big: like put up 6 bushels of corn — or some crazy amount — that took that person three days, but she got it done. And people are posting pictures of their progress and sharing ideas. But why three? Why now? We will talk about that after our segments.
Today we talk about five uses for an abundance of cucumbers. Everyone else around me who got their gardens started on time are drowning in cucumbers! I even got a text from a long time friend asking me how to make pickles this week. And SHE doesn’t do canning ---- yet. So if I am drowning in cucumbers without even having mine even begin to develop yet, then other people who were more responsible about planting this year must be covered up in these tasty veggies.
NEW Membership Portal Discount! MT Knives.
Resources
MT Knives: MtKnives.net
The MTK Talon
Membership Sign Up
Cucumbers as beauty supplies
Canning in 8 Projects Episode: Pickles
Tomato Cucumber Soup
What Mother Nature is providing
Lots of tomatoes
Overwhelming numbers of cucumbers
Sweet potato greens
Early onions
Cabbage - sauerkraut
Watercress and salad are done
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Hashbrowns on pizza - buy sharpies
Dealing with smelly/mildew clothes in the south at this time of year
Dishwasher soap experiment
Listener feedback
New Facebook Group: Living Free in Tennessee Coffee Break
Mewe Group
Ideas from the Booze Whisperer
Cucumber Cocktail
Operation Independence
Updating the duplex:
$800 for roughing in three fixtures in a duplex remodel with a friend. (Numbers derived from national average installation pricing)
Managed to keep my commitment to myself and keep the dishes and laundry caught up in the past week of busy
And now for the main topic of our show: 5 uses for an abundance of cucumbers.
If you are new to this show, or new to homesteading, etc., do feel free to reach out and suggest topics for me to cover. Just shoot an email to nicole@livingfreeintennessee.com.
Make it a great week.
Song: Tripped Out by Sauce
I have a special one for you today. Remember the lady who bought the acreage in the Ozarks with multiple dilapidated cabins and a cave with a restaurant built into it? That’s right, I had a chance to catch up with Dori a few weeks ago and find out how her winter went, where she has made progress and what her past 9 months or so have been like. Yes, today you get to hear about her walk toward independence, one year later.
Resources
What Mother Nature is providing
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Advice from the Cocktail Whisperer
(See more from David over at Biltong for Breakfast)
Operation Independence
Homestead Design One Year Later - An interview with Dori
Make it a great week.
Song: Wolf by Sauce (At Dori's request)
Photos from 40 Acres and a Cave
I had an inspiration, a breakthrough. It was really just a simple thought, but that doesn't sound as cool as a breakthrough. And it came to me at the oddest time. It came at a time when all was quiet, I wasn’t thinking about grey water, or canning, or growing Holler Roast Coffee, or the paper or anything else. It came to me in a moment of silence, when I was kicking back observing the world around me, just walking along the road with my dogs. And it got me to thinking. What do we need to have in place to have breakthroughs? What can we do to help ourselves grow and change? We will talk about that later in the show.
Two Year anniversary: Membership sale for one week!
Membership Sign Up
Five Elements of Homemade Salad Dressing
What Mother Nature is providing
Elderflowers are still going strong
Wineberries
Basil
Cabbage
Raspberries for about another week
Green Garlic: Cream of garlic soup
Green tomatoes
First Jalapeno pepper from the Aquaponics system
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Drying last year’s garlic - yes is stored that long with no problems
Honey Harvest: 8 mediums (!!!) Borrowing a centrifuge from our friend Ricky
Learning Aquaponics
Trellising in 15 minutes - a story
Rooting things in the ebb and flow bed
Operation Independence
Hit the paper hard and it yielded two big clients!
Breakthroughs Come when you least expect them.....some thoughts.
Make it a great week!
Song: The Flood by Sauce
Today we will talk to Vin Armani about declaring independence. What struck me about his talk at Liberty Forum was that it was not a tired lecture on the the historical relevance of our Declaration of Independence here, it was an evaluation of what sparks people to choose to be free, and what character elements one needs to have to do it. We also have a crypto tip from our friend Kurt.
Show Resources
What Mother Nature is providing
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Harvest Bounty
Questions from Listeners
From Amy on FB: "I've been enjoying your podcasts for quite a while. I enjoy them bc I'm homesteading not far in N. Alabama and our climates are very similar. I'm wondering if you or your TN audience would like to share what counties in TN you think are great for finding good homesteading land for a good price. I'm planning to look for some land on the other side of the state line. Also any reasons TN is so awesome in general to homestead in?"
Operation Independence
Declaring Independence with Vin Armani
Make it a great week! Song:
Today we talk about animals on the homestead, and more particularly training animals on the homestead. This is not the all-successful animal trainer’s view of getting your animals in line telling you how to achieve impossible results with just one week of practice when they have spent a lifetime learning. This will be a discussion of the benefits of training your livestock and some ideas on how to do that, as well as stories and examples of things I have done well here at the Holler Homestead === and not so well.
Direct Download
Independence
Topic of the day: Training Animals on the Homestead
And with that, go out and Make it a great week!
Song: Mr. Clammy by Sauce
Today, we walk through all the endeavors here at the Holler Homestead and assess if we are in track, where to focus and how to move forward. Assessing your progress along the year is important to developing the lifestyle you want, building independence and stability and staying focused.
Make it a great week!
Song: Mr. Clammy
Today, I want to circle back on community, self-reliance, and side hustles. You see, we had a great Spring Workshop here in late April, and some pretty cool relationships came from that. And not just the - oh hey I met you at a workshop kind, but some real relationships. My next door neighbor has worked two days at another participant’s farm, there is another gathering coming up this weekend that has coordinated itself, and so much more.
What Mother Nature is providing
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Harvest Bounty
Operation Independence
Song: Wolf by Sauce
Today, we explore why adding creative pursuits into your life helps you succeed in other areas, even if you are not the best in show in whatever creative thing you choose to learn. You may be wondering what this has to do with designing a successful and happy life, homesteading, freedom, or side hustles. Here’s the thing. It’s hard to justify it in a pithy soundbite. But creative pursuits result in physical, mental and emotional benefits. So hang with me on this and I hope you will find ways to reprogram yourself through creative pursuits as you design the life you love.
This episode is dedicated to Puff --- our kitty that was with us for too short a time.
What Mother Nature is providing
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Operation Independence
13 hours in the car with Mama Sauce has helped me restructure time in a way that I think will leave more room for creative pursuits - guys - if you can’t afford a consultant to help you deconstruct your choices as you build your life the way you want it, find some close friends and ask for coaching from them. The outside view is instrumental in helping you get more effective and this long talk with mama sauce really helped me adjust some priorities that were more oriented toward urgent rather than important.
Five benefits of building creative pursuits into your life.
Song: Feed My Hunger by Sauce
Make it a great week!
Today, I want to share with you a beginner’s perspective on Aquaponics. At the LFTN Spring Workshop, two awesome guys installed an Aquaponics system here, so I got to witness first hand how to install something right the first time, AND we have been using it for a week now. One of the things that has kept me from doing aquaponics here has been how hard it sounds to set something up, so having this in place is a big deal. So for those of you out there thinking about aquaponics, or even those who are not sure it is a good idea, I want to let you know what it is like as a beginner to launch and learn about Aquaponics.
Direct Download
What Mother Nature is providing
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
Harvest Bounty
Stretching meals
Operation Independence
Speaking of Carnegie: May 12th, 2pm meet up in New York at a pub near Carnegie Hall. The Irish Pub: 837 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019. DO check on our Facebook page and website though because if it is full, we will adjust our plans. Just look for the chick with the cowboy hat.
Why Aquaponics: Things grow too well in Tennessee - by which I mean the wrong things grow too well and with the coffee business, I wanted to have time to devote to coffee.
Project goal: Aquaponics that looks great in front of the house so Mark does not make me remove it, pays for itself or even earns money, runs itself when I am away in case Mark is out working on the paper.
Lesson 1: Aquaponic is much easier than it seems when you start learning about it.
Lesson 2: Installation can be cheap and hard work, or more expensive and quick and easy
Lesson 3: It is frightening how fast things grow
Lesson 4: You can plant things closer together - and kill things fast.
Lesson 5: It’s not about the fish
Make it a great week!
Song: Special by Sauce
Today, we review the good, the bad, the ugly from the Living Free in Tennessee Spring Workshop with The Tactical Redneck, one of our participants. All in all, things went well, folks got to learn from each other about homesteading things, a surprise session on how to capture bee swarms happened, and we even got to be intimately involved with a real aquaponics installation. It was a good time, and we hope that the relationships forged at this event will serve all those who were here well for years to come.
Make it a great week!
Song; Cilly Song, by Sauce
Today we talk through 7 steps to take to deescalate tense situations, talk about bees and bee swarms, and share stores of what has gone on at the Holler Homestead over the past week or so. This spring has run away and we had snowflakes this morning, as well as some fun goaty antics.
Today we talk about 10 tips for coordinating a workshop on your own property. Want to know why? Well, selfishly, this is in part because ALL I am thinking about right now is workshop details. And also because I know lots of you are on your own side hustle or entrepreneurial adventure. It is so cool when you send me emails about what you are up to. And you guys have neat skills that not everyone has. When you are in this situation, it becomes tempting to host a workshop and share the knowledge. So today, we will go over some early lessons I have learned getting the LFTN18 Spring Workshop up and running.
The 10 tips for hosting a workshop on your homestead
And remember this tip from one of our friends: You will always wish you had 2 more weeks to get ready (from David at Cider Hollow)
And with that, go out, and make it a great week!
Song: Thanks Dave, Sauce
It’s been awhile since we explored a freedom topic, and as most of you know, the ability to live life as freely as possible is one reason that Mark and I have chosen to go on this homesteading journey. So today, I thought that it might be fun to examine something about freedom that most people don’t talk much about: building the ability to know what is none of your business. You’ve all heard the term “Nimby” right? Well today we will walk through that, along with our usual segments and a few tales from the Holler.
Direct Download
What Mother Nature is providing
• Dryad’s Saddle
• Watercress, deadnettle and wild mustard flowers
• Poke and hairy vetch should be coming out soon
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
• The blue bins and resulting can of snakes
• Pickled beets in deviled eggs
• Three final squashes to be buried in the garden
• Onions still hanging in there
• 8 jars of turkey stock put up
Getting the gardens ready
• Seedlings are in place
• Need to trim the raspberries and thin out the wood chips
• Hoping to see asparagus soon
Stretching meals
• Turkey: Cooked on Sunday and lasted the whole week, yielding 8 jars of stock put up, 2 cans of stock in the fridge, 1 large stew, turkey tacos, and turkey scramble. Even the pigs got in on the scramble because I made too much. The turkey cost $11, carrots and other ingredients cost about $8 and we hardly had anything but turkey related items all week.
>>Surprise savings ninja segment
Operation Independence
• The pump replacement store
• Workshop preparations
o Composting toilet
o House of cards cleanup project
o Outdoor shower redo
Questions to ask yourself as you explore the question: What is None of your Business?
Song: Feed My Hunger by Sauce
A friend asked me, while looking at a carcass to cut up on his butchering table, how I would butcher a lamb if I had one here for Mark and me. So today, we will talk about how to process your spring lamb - or goat - for two.
Great resource for cutting up a lamb from the Guardian of all places: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2008/nov/19/foodanddrink
Make it a great week!
Song: Cilly Song, by Sauce
Today, we are going to talk about some fun projects we did over the last week here at the Holler Homestead. There were some changes that needed to be done because of the pig, some fun wild plants popping up, goat hijinks and more. And yes, as usual, nothing went as planned but a bunch of stuff got done. This really makes me think the most important skill you can develop if you plan to integrate homesteading practices into your life is troubleshooting and keeping things flexible.
What mother nature is providing
More rain
Stinging nettle
Dead nettle (for salad)
Watercress
Egg recipe of the week: Tuna egg salad
Getting the Gardens Ready
Story: Farmers market meeting
Tales from the prepper pantry
Cleared out everything but the last 7 onions and 2 butternut squashes in the root cellar. Reorganizing it for the summer months
Using up green beans and beets at a fast clip now that the new crops are about to be upon us
BBQ story
Stretching Meals
The Boston Butt Project
Operation Independence
Pig shelter story
Make it a great week!
Song: Dr Feeley, Dr. Skinner by Sauce
How are you doing moving toward your goals? These past few weeks have had me thinking pretty hard about how simple it is to set a set of priorities in your life and family, then use them as a filter through which to make choices. It is so simple, in fact, that it is hard. Then I got to reading a book I was helping someone right and one of their chapter titles was “Organized people who are wrong beat disorganized people who are right every time.”
What mother nature is providing
Getting the Gardens Ready
Tales from the prepper pantry
Operation Independence
Make it a great week! Song: Belly Dancing Vamp Tune, Sauce
We are going to talk about life and more importantly life today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow. You hear people say all the time to live in the now but that seems kind of weird, right? I mean, if I just do what I want every day to be in the now, then when tomorrow comes, I will have used up all my cash and will end up out on the street. Well, maybe living in the now but being aware of the future is important. We will cover more of that in the main topic of the show.
What mother nature is providing
Getting the Gardens Ready
Tales from the prepper pantry
Stretching Meals
Operation Independence
Song: Special by Sauce
Today we have a great interview with Chef Brett Corrieri, the instructor from Cider Hollow Farm's pork processing class. Brett walks us through the process to dry cure a ham, and describes why you would want to eat it a little too well. Also today, we have a roundup of sweet potato recipes from you, the listener.
Oven baked sweet potato fries (or cubes) Peel and cut 2-3 lbs sweet potatoes Coat with olive oil, toss with 1 tsp paprika (sweet Hungarian paprika if you've got it) 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp salt. Bake 425F for about 30 minutes, stirring and turning after 15. Should be slightly crisp on the edges, soft in the middle. Yum!
Josh's Roundup Sweet potato chili Sweet potato flatbread NC Sweet Potato Tortillas Squash Sweet Potato Chili Interesting recipe Sweet potato fritters Ginger Sweet Potato Cheesecake SP Garlic Mac N Cheese SP Hummus Soul SP
From Tamlyn TWICE-BAKED SWEET POTATOES Bake sweet potatoes like usual, cool, halve, and scoop out flesh (be gentle, the shells tear easily). Mix with minced garlic or shallot, beaten egg(s), salt, pepper (be generous), Brie (rind removed and diced small), fresh thyme and a little rosemary. Bake @400 on greased, foil-lined pan for ~25 minutes. Remove when tops are beginning to brown and allow to cool before serving. (Adapted from Barefoot Contessa’s https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/twice-baked-sweet-potatoes)
Make it a great week everyone! Song: Strange Child by Sauce
Today, we’ve got a good one with an exploration of how well goats work for weed control, as well as some tactics we have learned about over the past “almost year” of having these playful little devils -- and they are devils -- on our land.
What mother nature is providing
Getting the Gardens Ready
Tales from the prepper pantry
Operation Independence
Make it a great week!
Today, we are going to talk about something that several of you have brought up recently: How to navigate a big move. I have moved across the country several times, as well as overseas for a year and learned a thing or two along the way. As it turns out, some of you see your path toward standing on your own in another place from where you are. Places with lower property taxes, or no income tax, or less zoning restriction. Places where you are more free to just get a business started without filling out a million forms. And moving can be so costly! I will share with you some lessons learned in the trenches on this one.
5 NEW SPOTS OPEN: Spring Workshop
Direct Download
What mother nature is providing
Getting the Gardens Ready
Tales from the prepper pantry
Stretching Meals
Operation Independence
7 thinks to think about before making a big move.
Make it a great week!
Song: Learning What Leaving Is, by Sauce