Ep. 513 - Harvesting Change: Homestead Transitions and Simple Living

Join Rob for a morning stroll, where he sips his coffee and muses on the ever-evolving landscape of his life on the homestead.  With a contemplative spirit, Rob takes us through a journey of reflections over the past 18 months and the near future. 

He revisits pivotal moments, from leaving his day job to navigating his first market season with his parents, to the challenges of winter markets and his father's battle with cancer. Rob also discusses the changing rhythm of life as summer turns to autumn and shares insights into rebranding his fermented food product line, upcoming events, and plans for his friend's chickens. 

Rob imparts a valuable perspective on planning. He advocates for a shift away from excessive planning, instead emphasizing the importance of surrendering to life's unpredictable course and adapting to God's plan. In his own words, it's about "doing the next right thing" while embracing life's inherent complexity, not as a content creator but as an ordinary man seeking a simple existence amidst a sea of change.

~

Connect on Social Media!


Telegram Group Chat: https://t.me/allaroundgrowth

Facebook Community:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/allaroundgrowth

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/allaroundgrowth

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/allaroundgrowth

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/allaroundgrowth


~

Cover Photo Credit:   Rob Kaiser

~

Discussion Links:

Exciting Updates and New Beginnings at York Meadow Farm!
https://www.yorkmeadowfarm.com/blog/2023/8/7/exciting-updates-and-new-beginnings-at-york-meadow-farm

Aug 7, 2023 · Discover the evolution of York Meadow Farm - from record-breaking market sales to tantalizing collaborations and the unveiling of our new brand, Natural Ferments. 

Keller Meats
kellermeats.com 

Krieger's Health Foods Market
kriegersmarket.com 

Polyface Designs
A comprehensive how-to manual of Polyface Farm's signature designs–with tips, tricks, and a half century of lessons learned through trial and error.

~

Telegram Groups: 

Toolman Tim’s Workshop Chat

The Lifesteaders Channel

Living Free in Tennessee Group

~

Lettie Loo – Liberty All Day

Survival Podcast

~

#HomesteadReflections #SimpleLiving #AdaptingToChange

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If we stand together, we'll never fall.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. Today is Tuesday, August 29th, 2023. This is episode number 513 of a show where you join me as I learn how to build a life and homestead of my dreams here at York Meadow Farm. And today is an episode not unlike many other episodes in the past, but it's going to be a little bit different because we're going to go for a bit of a walk this morning. I'm just going to walk around the homestead, enjoy the coffee, and talk. For the past few months, it's really been a bit of a grind. There's been a lot of change and transition here on the homestead, you know, especially with dad's passing. There was already a lot of change and transition scheduled for this year, moving into the new year. This was the first year that we did a consistent winter market that started in January and went every other week in January, February, and March. And the last winter market ended on March 11th, 2023, and Dad and I were at that market together. That was at Boyrt's Greenhouse and Farm. And what's strange is that was April, May, June, July. That was just five months ago. Just over five months ago, Dad and I were at a farmer's market together. And just a couple weeks after that market, he was taken to the hospital. Or yeah, suggested to go to the hospital after going to the urgent care for what we thought was just a lingering cold. Dad has since passed. I mean, we all know that. If you listen to the show routinely, you are aware of the fact that dad's passed away and are aware of some of the other changes that that has accompanied that. And a lot of the change has just been trying to adjust to a new way of life. And the reality is it's been it's been a big adjustment over the past few months, but it's it's been a big adjustment over the past uh year and you know 15 months uh since leaving my day job. And really, let's just call it 18 months because there was some pretty significant, you know, changes in thought process over the winter, two winters ago. I was I was preparing to leave my job uh mentally getting everything together that I needed to get together in order to do that. I hadn't communicated it out yet. It was just something that I was thinking about doing during the 2022 season and really planning on doing it at the end of the season, late last year. You know, when you make a plan, plans change. And that plan changed, and I ended up leaving my job considerably earlier than expected, and I did so in May of last year. And what was nice about that is that it gave me an entire market season to work with dad, and I'm very grateful for the changes that took place because like I said, dad's no longer with us. He's in a better place, and we're all making the adjustments and you know learning how to live a little bit differently now. Um during the time that he was sick, all throughout, really just a couple days in or towards the end of March, April, and May, everything in the kitchen went on hold. I think during that time, I maybe completed or made um, you know, one, maybe two batches of Curtito just to work through these these extra onions that I had and make sure they were put to good use. Outside of that, I did nothing. And um, you know, so for the first couple of months after Dad passed away, you know, it was time to, you know, the markets had already started by the time Dad passed away. Um the very first farmer's market, if I'm not mistaken, was on his birthday, the day that he passed. Um may have been the week prior, I'm not sure. I can't really remember. But after his death and the funeral and you know, a little bit of time had passed, it was time to get to work. It was time to resume operations in the kitchen, and for the bulk of the month of June and July, and really up until just a couple of weeks ago in early August, we were grinding. You know, there was a lot of work to be done. Um we got into a new retail location, Keller Meats. We had dabbled with them before in the past, and Keller Meets has continued to grow as a business and look into getting new vendors and make changes, and they welcomed us back with open arms after dad's passing, and we are very grateful for that. And then shortly thereafter we were approached by another retailer in Cuyahoga Falls. And you know, to keep up with the demand at the three various retail locations that we are, we're technically in four, but one of them is uh you know it's it's it's it's kind of I don't know. We we support them and they support us, but his st store is uh you know it's it's it's it it's just not as prolific as the others in terms of sales. And um so I'm just gonna call it three. But uh we're getting towards the end of the market season, kids are back in school, you know, things are things are changing. Um there are maybe six farmers markets left at this point, and then we've got a bit of a break, and there are a couple small events that are coming up. Um I just got invited to a fundraiser for Whispering Acres Farm Sanctuary. I'll link to them in the show notes, but that's going on on Friday, October 13th. And um technically that would be one week after the market season ends, but we will not be participating in the final week of the farmer's market this year because that day, or rather the day prior, we will be taking dad's ashes to Western Reserve National Cemetery where there will be a service for his internment, and his ashes will be placed there. And basically for Friday and Saturday, we're just gonna have some time together as a family because that will be in a sense the the final closure of this saga of dad's life. It will also be that Friday, October 6th, will be mom and dad's 50th, or what would have been mom and dad's 50th wedding anniversary. Um, so it's it's going to be a somber, bittersweet day, and we're we're all going to simply spend time together as a family. So we won't be attending that market. We will be attending this event on Friday, October 13th, and it was just brought to my attention um last night by Ben from Richardson Farms that there is a sauerkraut festival going on all the way down in Waynesville. And Waynesville is approximately a three-hour drive from here. It's down towards Dayton. I'm gonna link to this sauerkraut festival as well. But what I learned about this sauerkraut festival is that it well, it's called the Ohio Sauerkraut Festival, and it draws approximately 460 craft vendors from over 25 states and features a menu of nearly 60 sauerkraut themed food items, and it's a week on it's a weekend long event, and there are going to be booths lining Main Street, shopping and more, and I think that's a good that's gonna be a good thing to look into, but maybe not this year, uh, because it is in less than two months, and I'm not entirely certain that it it might be something that I go and check out, but not necessarily attend as a vendor. I'm not entirely sure. It would probably be wise of me to go down there for a day and uh and explore for you know several reasons. Uh that just to connect with people in the business, talk to some people that might be better equipped to help us grow and expand and you know basically talk shop on how to do that. I've got some ideas, but exactly the best way to to do that, I'm not really sure. Um, you know, in terms of the growth and development of the business, one of the things that we've when I and when I say we, in large part, this is me, one of the things that's being executed upon is the rebranding. It was sort of a soft introduction of the new name, natural ferments, for the fermented food line, and people are getting accustomed to referring to our fermented food products here at York Meadow Farm as natural ferments, and that's good, that was the point. Um, for example, the market manager Angela from the Medina Square Farmers Market was recently interviewed on a morning news show called New Day Cleveland, and she was talking about the farmers market, and it was a bit of a promo for last weekend's event, which was Customer Appreciation Day, and she brought in several products from different vendors, and she was lucky enough to feature uh our one of our products, our fermented mustard, and give us a little bit of a shout out there on the show, and that was that was very nice of her to do. Um you know she referred to us as natural ferments at York Meadow Farm, and so the next logical step in you know fully introducing the brand is to have a logo created and build out a website, and I think what we're gonna do is continue utilizing the York Meadow Farm store for online orders and you know have York Meadow Farm serve as the home base for uh operations taking place here. That makes sense because we've got the advanced commerce business plan on the website, which allows for the online store and allows for a number of other things. And the show may ultimately be a part of that as well. I you know, I don't know. This show, uh, we still don't really have an official website for the show, for this podcast, but I don't approach this show like a lot of other people approach content creation. Um this has really been something that I do almost like a journal of sorts, but it's public and it's out there, and the objective is basically for me to share my life experiences with you for you know for your entertainment so that we can connect with other people who are trying to do similar things to get inspired by one another, with one another, to support one another when we're doing things that put us outside of our comfort zone when we need support, and over the past few years that's exactly what has taken place. We've got a small, tight-knit community through social media, specifically Telegram, which you can join at t.me slash allaround growth. And while I continue to post content and episodes and descriptions on Facebook and Instagram, I I haven't really gone out of my way to grow those accounts and promote the show because that's I don't I don't know, you know, that's that's not really what I'm interested in doing. I don't really view myself as a content creator, so I don't approach uh the podcast like most content creators do. And that kind of begs the the next the next question. I mean, last week we talked about why why we do what we do, and I know why I do what I do, and to get to the point where I am with this life and this journey, I've put together a plan. And I talked last week about how, as I formulate the new plan, um, you know, how I might go about doing that. And as I previously mentioned earlier, the the the past couple weeks have been a bit different because the the approach towards work has changed. And it's changed because, like I said, the market season is slowing down, but it's also changed because some new additions to the homestead will be taking place. Uh, we're gonna have chickens sometime soon. Now it looks like the chickens may actually go from point A where they are, uh, my friend Ben from church to Ethan's place or his parents' place where they keep chickens, and then they might ultimately come here. In the meantime, we are going to build out a mobile chicken coop, an eggmobile, based on plans that come from Joel Salatin. And those plans, now, as I began to look into the best plans for an eggmobile, I realized that you know, if you were to type into your search engine of choice hay wagon eggmobile, you would find pages and pages and pages and pages of photos and search results and blog posts and design options. And it got a little overwhelming when I did that. So I reached out to some other Telegram groups and like for example I reached out to Toolman Tim's group, and I'll link to his group in the show. I reached out to uh oh, um the the the life studying group, which is Amy Dingman's group from A Farmish Kind of Life, and I'll link to her information in the show notes as well. And last but not least, I reached out to the Living Free in Tennessee community, and it was there in Nicole's group that I connected with Dawn who provided me with the plans that she used. And Dawn, shout out to Dawn, formerly of Ohio, has since moved down to Tennessee and is more active in that group. And uh I had previously connected with her here in and through the Freedom Cell um communities. And for those of you who aren't aware of Freedom Cells, I'll go ahead and link to that as well. I've done an Episode on that in the past that was what that was the last time I checked, still is one of the top five episodes. And I've been thinking about when it comes to celebrating three years of the show next month, maybe doing a recap of the top five episodes and linking to them, listening to them, and kind of providing updates on the top five episodes. But we'll see what happens. But, anyways, uh I got these plans from her, and I'm looking forward to you know moving forward and making progress with the tear down of this hay wagon, and I'm going to try to capture some video of it and document the process. I started doing a little bit of teardown last night, um, or I mean not last night, but yesterday rather. And it's going to be tough because this wagon is so old and so rotted that um a lot the bolts are just it's it's a it's a mess. So a lot of the bolts when I you know begin unscrewing or attempting to unscrew the nuts, they just they just snap out, they rot, and uh a lot of them are just frozen together. So you know I can't really unscrew the bolt because it's you know locked up, or I can't really unscrew the nut because it's locked up with the bolt. So you know we'll we'll we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to save a lot of the metal because a lot of the metal rods that are keeping the wood frame to everything attached, um, you know, that's all good. That can possibly be reused at some point in the future. For what, I'm not entirely sure, but we've decided that we're gonna keep that and um you know scrap the wood, keep the metal, and you know, see see what we can do with it, if anything. Um it's really not gonna be more than just a crate of parts, but uh you know, just more junk to throw in the barn, right? Um and actually I think that's what I'll do. I'll take a picture of this old wagon and that will be the cover art for today's episode. So, you know, there's just a little bit of a little coffee walk, homestead update. Um you know, lots of lots of change and transition this year, lots of change and transition this month. And you know, really, in terms of of this and and lots of change and transition in my own personal life, in conjunction with and outside of everything that is talked about uh on this show, career, all of that. You know, I've made some some big changes with regard to my my diet, you know, what I what I consume and more specifically what I no longer consume. Um I've eliminated you know all alcohol and mind-altering substances in any way, shape, or form, and uh have I began that last year, and that that's really dramatically altered my perspective on life, how I view things, the the clarity of thought that I have, and quite frankly, even to the point of the people I interact with, um view I don't I don't know, I don't know how some view it. You know, most people have been supportive of what I've done and why I've done it. And others, I don't know, I don't talk to them that much anymore. It's all good. Uh that's just the nature of life, right? Sometimes we form connections and sometimes you've got people in your life that just walk away, and that's cool. Uh that's life. You know, me, I try to spend time and be around people who not so much I have common things in common with, but people who have something that I want, right? And I I say that not in a selfish way. It's like, hey, how do I how do I get this thing that you have? But more so in a way like, how can I learn from you so that I can work towards achieving something similar in my life that's appropriate for the context of my life. And a lot of these people, they're not homesteaders, they're not, you know, they're not uh small business owners, they're not they're really not like me in any way, shape, or form, but they have something that I want, which is peace of mind, serenity, uh, a calm disposition about them. And that's something that I've been lacking for a long time. You know, really the first few years of this show. It wasn't there. I maybe put on an air of this this this this idea that I knew what was going on or whatever. But even though I've I've always been very clear about the fact that that I don't. Um and and a lot of this was a journey on discovering how to do that. Well, part of that journey was to you know you know stop doing some of the things that I was doing and start doing things that I've never done before. And so how does that tie into what I was previously talking about in terms of a plan? Well, um, in some ways it it doesn't, but in other ways it very much does. And when I say it doesn't, there's there's no real actionable steps that I'm taking to, at least at this point, to create a new plan. But what I am doing is I'm increasing my consciousness, if you will, and my understanding that nothing nothing is going to change if if nothing changes, right? Nothing changes if nothing changes. But the one thing that has changed is my understanding that in the past I've tried to you know run life on my terms through my will and trying to force life in many ways. And that hasn't really worked out for me. Um and there's been an increased understanding and comprehension of you know letting go and letting God, if you will, and turning it over, simply saying things like thy will be done, you know, and there's a fine line of just saying like that like that old country song or whatever, Jesus take the wheel. Well, you you know you can't really do that. You can't you can't be driving down the highway and just let go and say, Jesus take the wheel, I can't do this anymore. No. You have to continue to to try, you have to continue to function. But for me what what that means is, you know, may thy will be done, is understand that sometimes the results that come from the actions that I take aren't necessarily the results that I want. But nevertheless, I have to accept them. And if I choose to learn from them, that's great. Then I can adjust accordingly. If I just get upset and don't make changes, then I'm just in the same place that I've been for so long. If nothing changes, nothing changes. So trying to find some balance in life with this new perspective of no kind of may thy will not mine be done while learning how to do new things like this chicken coop with new people like Ben, is it's it's a balancing act. And I almost didn't record today's show because you know I thought, well, I've I've got I've got you know I've got all these things to do. I was back in the kitchen yesterday making some preparations for another batch of jalapeno cilantro sauerkraut, and I'm gonna be back in the kitchen today doing some packing of product, maybe pack some kimchi, pack some traditional. Um and later on tonight, I think I'm going to be meeting someone for coffee or for dinner from the church, and I'm excited to do that. So um, yeah, there's a there's a lot to do. And lately over the past few weeks, you know, with things being the way they have, I've allowed myself to sleep in a little bit more. I've allowed myself to rest more. And I'm not gonna lie, guys, that's been real nice. Um It's been real nice to feel rested and rejuvenated and basically you know continue on this path of trying to figure out what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, because I've got a pretty clear understanding of why. And now it's a matter of you know, figuring out how or continuing this process of of doing it. Um and so oftentimes that that consists of simply you know doing the next right thing. And not really having much of a plan at all. You know, for the past few months, my plan has consisted of little else other than you know, in the telegram group. Um I think this began with Letty sharing a picture of her coffee mug and her three things, like hashtag mugshot, hashtag my three things. And so my plans have consisted of little else other than you know what what I've got in store for that day. And more often than not, I may not even get those three things done in their entirety. And it's helped even even this little act of sharing a picture of my coffee mug and you know what I'm thinking that morning about what I'm gonna do that day has helped me clarify what I'm doing on that day and why I'm doing it. And um and that in its own right has been very helpful. So big shout out to Letty from the Liberty All Day blog for sharing that with us and bringing that to the group. That is it's been pretty cool. You know, we've got we've got a lot of good people in that group, a lot of good people in our community and the greater communities at large, those that I mentioned and others, many of which have come from the survival podcast community. So I'll link to everything that I mentioned in today's show in the show notes. But I think for now, after going for a little bit of a morning stroll over my cup of coffee here, I'm going to wrap it up and get this episode uploaded and get to work in the kitchen. So, with that, guys, I just want to say thank you for tuning in to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. I very much appreciate you joining me on this journey. I appreciate you being a part of the show. I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful week ahead. Thank you and God bless.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

What can I do?