Ep. 25: Preparing for the Worst: Homesteading, Hurricane Helene, and Self-Sufficiency with Jason Sparks

In this episode, Jason Sparks, discusses his journey into homesteading and prepping, emphasizing the importance of self-sufficiency and sustainable living. He shares insights on starting a homestead, the significance of livestock like Katahdin sheep, and the role of composting in farming. He also touches on common mistakes new homesteaders make, the concept of prepping beyond survival, and the importance of community support during disasters. Jason highlights an upcoming festival, Kentucky Sustainable Living Homesteading and Preparedness Festival in Bowling Green, KY on October 26th and 27th aimed at educating people about homesteading and prepping, while also raising funds for a charitable cause.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Homesteading and Prepping
05:59 The Journey of Starting a Homestead
11:53 Understanding Livestock: The Case of Katahdin Sheep
17:59 The Importance of Sustainable Practices
23:48 Common Mistakes New Homesteaders Make
30:00 Prepping: More Than Just Survival
35:56 Community Support and Disaster Relief
42:06 The Upcoming Festival and Its Purpose


To donate or volunteer for Hurricane Helene relief: https://grindstoneministries.com/

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https://kentuckysustainableliving.com/

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Transcript

Erica Anderson (00:02)
All right, Jason Sparks, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking with us today.

I'm excited about this episode because this is really a different episode for us and I think it's still really important for a lot of people who are dealing with health issues who are looking into healthy living because when you start down a journey of healing you really have to learn how to take back control of your life. And when it comes to homesteading and prepping that is what it's all about. Not being dependent on other people and really about small local communities and how

to be able to take care of yourself in a sustainable way. And so, Jason, you're part of Kentucky Sustainable Living. You've got a really cool event coming up, which we definitely want to talk about. But first of all, just thank you for coming on being willing to share your experiences.

Jason (00:54)
Hey, thank you for having me on. I've been looking forward to it. I'm looking forward. I'd heard y'all and y'all were on Billy's Pimpcast and I'm like, I need to talk to these people. And I was like, they need to come to the festival. And then it's like, you've got a podcast. I was like, yeah, I'll come on there and we can talk about, talk about whatever you want to. I'm game for talking about all kinds of stuff.

Erica Anderson (01:14)
Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, well, first of all, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started into this space of homesteading and prepping.

Jason (01:26)
I got started 12, 13 years ago somewhere around in there of just the beans, bullets and band-aids on the preparedness side of everything. know, it's like we've got a stockpile of guns, we've got a stockpile of food, and we've got a stockpile of medical stuff. And it, which is great in everything as long as you've got a resupply plan. But then you look at it and a wise guy once told me that if you've got a year supply of food, when you crack that first bucket open,

He's like, the time clock has started on your life if you don't have a resupply. He said, what are you going to do on day 366? So I'm like, that's a good thing. So I started looking. My parents had both had both kind of grown up farming and stuff like that. We had a small farm when I was younger. My parents sold it. I've got some acreage now. And I was like, I want to start raising some stuff. So of course you start out like every homesteader with chickens.

And chickens are the gateway drug to homestay. You wake up one morning, you and your wife go to TSC and buy like half a dozen chickens, and like three months later, you've got a whole stinkin' zoo at your house. You've got sheep, you've got cows, you've got pigs, you've got a llama and all this other junk. that's the same road we went down. So started out with chickens, it just kept growing. I was like, I want to raise some animals. And I was like, I wanna get some sheep.

because I had younger kids at the time. I've still got my youngest one tonight. And I'm like, you never hear of anybody getting run over and killed by a flock of sheep. So I'm like, sheep will be fine. So we got some sheep. We ended up with sheep, pigs, cattle, a few cows. I've got out of the cattle game. Cows are just too much and they don't fit the model. Right now we're essentially raising chickens. We've got a few pigs.

and then we've got Katahdin Hare Sheep. So, and then my wife has a Micro Manager Donkey that is kind of useless. So it's a pet is all it is. But yeah, so we started in that and I started looking in the permaculture aspect also of with permaculture, essentially William Bond is one of my friends. He's a permaculture consultant and William pretty much has said compost will fix everything on your farm.

If you've got, if your soil conditions are right, you know, your animals aren't mineral deficient, your animals are healthy because they're getting all the minerals from the grass that they're eating. You're not sick because all your produce that you're growing first, you're not spraying a bunch of chemicals and all pesticides and everything on it. So you're, and it's pulling up the minerals because all the minerals are in that soil that the plants need. So you're getting a complete system there.

And he said, essentially, compost fixes everything on your farm if you do it right. So, I mean, we do a lot of composting stuff. I don't spray any kind of chemicals and stuff like that. Yes, I could have nicer looking pastures if I sprayed a bunch of, you know, chemicals and everything, but I would rather go out there like this perilla mint. That stuff is an absolute. It's great for tinctures as far as an herb, but the sheep and animals won't touch the stuff. So.

I go out there, I can run the animals through, they'll eat the grass down and what they want to eat. And then all that stuff's sticking up where I can come in and hit it with a weed eater. And you do that a couple of times and then it'll finally, it's finally like, screw it, I'm not gonna grow a beer anymore. And then the grass will take over. So it's, yeah, I could do just like, you know, just like the pharmaceutical world. Hey, I wanna lose some weight. Take this pill and then you can still eat your Cheetos and sit on the couch every night and watch TV. Or you can get out and...

walk and exercise and change your diet and bust your butt to lose the weight. Generally most people are going to be like, well, just give me that pill and let me keep on watching TV and eating the Cheetos as opposed to putting in the work.

Erica Anderson (05:30)
Well, that's a really good point and to build off what you're saying there it's something that I feel is though people were if they were educated Then they would be more apt to do the harder thing the thing that took a little bit more time You know like starting the homestead and taking responsibility for themselves or like for their health that you're talking about with the pharmaceutical side people if they knew what it looked like to have

long term health instead of just the next five minutes, then they would be more apt to put in the time, the effort into the diet, into the lifestyle, into the stress. And I feel like it's not so much that people want to be lazy. I feel as though it's because of just a lack of education. So for you to be hosting this event coming up at the end of the month, you're educating people and you're allowing for that space. So they will start to understand

why we do what we do. Now I have to have a quick question for you on the beginnings of your homestead here. What did the beginning of your journey look like and what was the level of difficulty to get things started and how difficult is it to maintain it now?

Jason (06:45)
The biggest challenge was getting all my fencing arranged the way I wanted to because the property, there's eight acres. It had been grown up. My parents had owned it and bought it 50, 50 some years ago and essentially it had just grown up. So it was all trees, the wild rose bushes. I mean, just brambles and everything else. So I got my house built.

got my shop built and you know, your front yard and all this stuff, but everything else was pretty much just zone five wilderness. So the hardest part was coming in and clearing out, because I had 70 or 80 year old fence rows that are grown up, it blocked, nice privacy and everything, nobody could see back here. So was like, I don't wanna take those down. So I went off the property line a little bit, cleared out, but the big thing is getting the infrastructure. It took a while to get all the fencing up on least perimeter fence.

So that, I built a barn on the back of my shop. So a lot of it is just getting the infrastructure in was one of the hardest parts. And then after that was learning your animals. I mean, I took on, had a background with some animals and stuff like that, but I didn't have, I wasn't a hundred percent sure on how to do everything with the sheep, on how to do everything with the cows and all that kind of stuff. So it was, it was learning on the fly and I probably took on too many animals at once.

But luckily everything turned out fine and I'm gonna pair it down. I found out what works on my place and that's what we're concentrating on. Essentially we're really concentrating on the chickens and the sheep the most. Because the Katahdin meat, Katahdin lamb is some of the best stuff you will ever eat in your life. So.

Erica Anderson (08:26)
That was going to be my follow up question. I was going to ask what kind of lamb, what kind of sheep you were working with.

Jason (08:31)
Yeah, they're Katahdin hair sheep. So they're not a wool breed. So you don't have to shear them. They shed their wool, they shed their hair off in the spring. So in the winter, they start, in the fall, they start growing a heavier coat. And then in the springtime, they shed it off. they, honestly, the funny story, when I went to look at some sheep, I was not educated about it. And this is how stupid I was. I went out and I looked at these sheep and they were shedding.

And I looked at the guy, was like, why are you trying to sell these mangy sheep? was like, it looks like they got mange. And he started laughing. He was like, well, let me explain what happens. And he explained that they shed their hair off. And I was like, well, I feel like an idiot now. And he's like, hey, everybody's got to start somewhere. So the sheep in the springtime, they look like they've got mange a lot of times, but it's just they're, shedding their hair off. And the meat, if you've had lamb, like, you know, most of the lamb that you buy in a store comes from New Zealand.

That shipped up from New Zealand. It's a wool breed and it's got It's got a lot of lanolin in it from where they have wool So that's where it gets that gamey taste the katahdin hair sheet don't have wool So they don't have as much lanolin in their bodies naturally So you don't get that gamey taste of the meat it taste it taste is good if not better than your prime beef Which I was I was shocked I cooked lamb chops

Erica Anderson (09:49)
Gotcha.

Jason (09:52)
And I'm like, these lamb chops are amazing. I ate like seven of them. And it's...

Erica Anderson (09:56)
Uh-huh. That would explain why a lot of people have an aversion to lamb. When we work with our clients, we encourage eating different cuts of meat venison and elk and bison and lamb is another one. And every time someone will try lamb and they'll be like, that was terrible. I didn't like it because you're right, it's that gamey taste. And especially if someone is used to like a grain fed.

Jason (10:02)
Yes.

Erica Anderson (10:23)
finished beef, then that also has a different taste from grass-fed. So that's interesting that that's more similar taste to beef then for people.

Jason (10:28)
Yes.

Yeah, and it does. It tastes amazing. I would almost rather eat it than beef sometimes. We did a leg of lamb a couple months ago. All I did, I put it on a roasting rack, salt, pepper, garlic, and onion powder on it. And that was it. And it was amazing. I'm like, this stuff is awesome. And all our sheep are all, they get a little bit of grain every day. And when I'm moving them from pasture to pasture, I'll take like a coffee can of grain and shake it and then they follow me around. So I throw

you know, a coffee cup, a big coffee cup of, or big coffee can of grain at them every day. That's not hurting anything, but they're, they're out browsing. They're eating grass, they're eating leaves, brambles, you know, all the stuff. And it's amazing. They'll eat weeds and all kinds of stuff that cows and other animals want to

Erica Anderson (11:24)
So I'm wondering if my, were down in Florida for vacation about three weeks ago and we went to this restaurant and I believe it was called the, butchery, something like that. And it was in, kind of the Destin area of Florida and my, my mother-in-law, my wife and my sister-in-laws are vehemently against lamb. They say that they will all say the same thing.

Jason (11:50)
Really.

Erica Anderson (11:53)
They will all say that it tastes or what is it tastes like it smells. And so they cannot stand lamb. But this restaurant, a few of us got some rack of lamb while we were there and every single one of them ate it, enjoyed it and they were upset that they didn't have that same dish. So I'm wondering if that's what was going on is they had that breed of lamb or a different breed of lamb that didn't have the lanolin in them.

They that you're coming from the wool and so I'm wondering if that's the the difference there that you're talking about But it was quite funny that every single one of them were like no We're not gonna try that and they tried and they were so mad that they did not get that rack of lamb

Jason (12:37)
yeah, you ought to find a local supplier that raises Katahdins and buy some of the Katahdin lamb meat and try it. I mean, they might fall in love with it. And I mean, my wife is admirable. She's like, lamb tastes gamey. I do not like it, but she tried some of this and she was like, that's not bad. So, but she's not a huge meat eater like I am. So, I mean, she could kind of take meat and leave it, but she'll eat this and likes it. So.

But yeah, that's kind of the journey that we're at right now. doing the bulk majority of our meat that we eat is raised on our place and processed here. And that's another thing. We don't outsource our processing. We've got the capacity and all the tools and stuff to process everything from chicken to pigs to lamb to beef at my house. And we'll call people up. We'll call a bunch of the guys from KSL and girls from KSL. And we're like, hey, we're doing lamb this weekend.

we're doing a pig this weekend, come over and let's knock this thing out. And I mean, can do, we did Shelly, my partner in a KSL as far as the festival, we did four pigs at her house in one day. I mean, it was a long stinking day, but we got it all done. And the nice thing about raising your own animals or getting them from a small farmer that you know that you know what the animal had.

You know how it was treated. It only had one bad day. you know what it was fed. You know if it had any antibiotics given to it or whatnot. Like we only give antibiotics if something major is wrong with that animal. So we don't just give, like a lot of the feedlots, as soon as they ship them out to the feedlot, and as soon as the feedlot gets them, they bump them with all these drugs.

They say it's because they're gonna get shipping fever or something like that. It's to help them where they don't lose weight and this kind of stuff. But still, unless it's necessary, don't shoot them up with all this stuff. Honestly, I had penicillin, and penicillin takes a long time to go bad in the refrigerator. I had penicillin that went bad in my refrigerator. It had expired by like three years and just looked funky inside the bottle. That's how little antibiotics we use on our place.

Erica Anderson (14:56)
Mm-hmm

Jason (14:56)
So we just try not to.

Erica Anderson (14:58)
Well, I mean, and the reason why they're having to use them in those feedlots is because of the conditions that they're in. And it's like a preemptive, like they know that there's a high likelihood that these cows are going to get sick. So let's just preemptively get them on antibiotics as well as like you said, it does help them gain weight as well. But if you're giving them the right environment, you're giving the right inputs, their natural environment, like what you're doing at your place, there's very little need. Does that mean it's never going to happen that you're never going to use antibiotics?

You can't guarantee that. And I do like that smart way of treating as far as you're not heavy handed with it. It's not preemptive. It's just as needed. As long as they're in good environment, very few times that you'd have to use that. So that's great. And I feel like a common misconception that the general public has whenever it comes to farmers farming animals, eating meat, is that these animals are not treated with respect. They're not treated with kindness.

they're not taking care of well because we're just looking at them as the next steak that's going to come across the plate. And why would you treat a steak, you know, anything, treat it like it was anything special. Whenever that couldn't be farther from the truth. A lot of times you see in you as you've experienced and as you know, most farmers care deeply about the animals that they have on their farm and they want to do everything they can to give that animal a good, healthy, sustainable life. They don't want to have a suffering animal. They don't want to treat it bad.

And I feel like that's such a common misconception whenever you talk to somebody just in the general public about regenerative farming and raising your own animals. And they're so afraid of it because they're like, well, I don't want to treat animals bad. they actually get treated a lot better that way. Support your local farmer.

Jason (16:47)
Yeah, like, I mean, as far as the quality of life and treating them and everything, the way they're treated, my animals have a 16 by 50 barn that they can go in. And when it gets cold, I close one of the doors where there's less wind blowing in. They've got straw, everything. And you can walk out there. I mean, last time we had a snow, I walked out to check on the sheep. None of them are in the stinking barn. They're all laying out in the pasture underneath the cedar tree.

And I'm like, I built you this awesome barn. You don't even go in it. I was like, you're stupid. It's snowing and you're sitting underneath the cedar tree. But I'm like, you have total access to the barn, so do what you want to.

Erica Anderson (17:25)
It's just like Christmas with the kids you buy them a present and they say play with the toy they play with the box

Jason (17:29)
Yeah. So I mean, our animals have fresh water. They've got, you know, access to either hay or grass all the time. So, I mean, they're living their best life out there doing whatever they want to. And they're protected. We've got livestock guard dogs to keep them safe at night. So, I mean, they're living good. And like I said, they only have one bad day. And if you do it humanely, they never even know that it happened to them. And one of the nice things about doing our own site, our processing at my

Erica Anderson (17:49)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jason (17:59)
place is they don't have the shock and everything else of getting loaded in a trailer and dropped off somewhere and you know they don't know where they're at there's there's a hormone in their body that stress hormone that you know actually make the meat taste a little bit different so I mean like when we do lambs they never know what happened to them you know they're out there munching on some hay and then and then all of sudden it's lights out so never knew it they they never been off the farm

Erica Anderson (18:23)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (18:29)
So, and then, mean, as far as dealing with what you were talking about, how much I put into it and stuff like that, one of the big things is I absolutely hate weed in the garden. And I'm not a huge vegetable guy anyway. I mean, I could take it or leave it. I could do carnivore the rest of my life, just meat, eggs, and fat and be perfectly happy. You know, maybe some green beans every now and then, but not a lot. So I looked, Billy, at Permapasture's Farm,

I went to a workshop that he put on on how to do swales and your food forest and stuff like that. So I'm like, man, this has got some merit. And he's like, once you put in your food forest and essentially a food forest, excuse me, you mimic nature. You've got your bigger overstory trees. You've got your smaller trees and your bushes and then your vines and your ground cover. So you're mimicking that.

I put in a food forest with a bunch of fruit trees, blueberry bushes, all these different herbs and everything like that. And then my ground cover was strawberries. So essentially you put that in one time and the bulk of the work is done putting it in. And then the rest is just a little maintenance here and there, you know, going down there. And once your ground cover really takes off the strawberries, they keep most of the weeds down for you.

So you're not constantly out there weeding all the time and doing stuff like that. our strawberries, we put this in a little over two years ago. This year on strawberries, I quit picking strawberries at like 30 something gallons of strawberries. Yeah, and I had strawberries that were just going, were rotting on the vine, because I didn't have time to pick them. I called some of my friends, I'm like, hey, Shelly came down and left with probably five gallons of berries for like 20 minutes of picking.

Erica Anderson (20:07)
Good night.

Jason (20:22)
And I'm only talking about an area that's maybe 1,500 square feet. So you're not talking acres of berries, you're talking like a 1,500 square foot area. And then I've expanded it. So now we're probably looking in the neighborhood of 3,000 square feet of food forest. So that system has been put in. So I have to put very little effort in it now. Just the maintenance stuff going down there every now and then, pulling a few weeds.

going down, putting some more compost on the trees, putting some more wood chips around the plants. So you're going to have apples, pears, plums out of there. You're going to have blueberries. You're going to have strawberries and then all the different herbs that we planted down there. can go down there, you know, if you want oregano, fresh oregano, you know, you can go down there and cut oregano and have fresh oregano. And then if you've got a bumper crop of it, you can go down there and cut a bunch of it and then dry it and then have it for the winter time. So

There's stuff going back with, know, do I want to take the pill or do I want to put in the work? You don't have to always put in a lot of work. And people see it as, know, they think that they have to go to the gym, they got to spend four hours every day at the gym to get these results. You can spend, literally, I've not walked into my food forest in probably a month. And everything, it's kind of running on autopilot now. So it's...

I mean, I could go down there and spend a few hours pulling some weeds and stuff like that, and I probably need to, but it's not, I'm still gonna have fruit that is producing down there, even if I'm not doing a whole lot of work with it. And you don't have to redo it every year like your garden. I mean, you put it in and you harvest from here for years down the road.

Erica Anderson (22:03)
Good luck.

Why do you think that this isn't you know, you're working with nature not against it. You're seeing the benefits of it It's you know Self-sustaining at this point, which is great. Why isn't this the common practice? among farmers

Jason (22:29)
People don't understand it. a lot of times kind of permaculture has kind of been bastardized by some of the lefties really. It's a earth care, people care, and then a lot of them will say fair share. So essentially you've worked, it's almost like a socialistic thing. They've kind of taken it there and people get turned off about it. And they're like, you

A lot of people are like, my gosh, it's leaning in socialistic kind of things and I don't want anything to do with that. That and then people, some people think permaculture is some great science. I know very little about permaculture. I don't have a permaculture design certificate, anything like that. I'm not a designer, but I kind of see the principles of it and it's kind of common sense. Lay some stuff out.

If you're going to have your garden or your food forest, have it close to where you walk through every day. Don't stick it way out in the middle of nowhere to where you don't ever see it. Part of my food forest is when I drive in on the sides of the driveway. So it's like, hey, if I want to stop and grab some strawberries, I can just put the truck in park and I walk literally like five steps and I get fresh berries. Or you can grab an apple or you can grab some herbs and stuff like that. People try to overcomplicate stuff.

And you've got to keep it simple, the whole KISS method. Keep it simple, stupid. Just do that and do it a little bit at a time. And a lot of people see it. Don't compare my middle to your beginning. So a lot of people will see it and they're like, man, this guy's got 3,000 square foot or something and then all the way up one of his driveways in this food forest and I can never get that done. Start with one tree and just plant around that one tree.

And then when you get time, plant another tree and plant around that tree. And eventually you've got that whole space filled up. yeah, just start with a little bit and keep building on it. And eventually everything will be good. So that, and I think people are scared to fail.

Erica Anderson (24:24)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well, there's this huge wave of homesteaders happening now. It seems like a lot of people, I don't know if it's sprang from, you know, 2020 and COVID kind of, you know, really got people mobilized and thinking about being more self-sufficient and everything. And that's what led them to homesteading. I think that was kind of the catalyst for a lot of people kind of seeing how the centralized food system is just like not a good thing. And, but,

Jason (24:58)
Yeah.

Erica Anderson (25:07)
Now that we see a ton of these homesteaders coming in, what do you see as the biggest mistake new homesteaders are making, do you think?

Jason (25:16)
is that probably the biggest mistake is starting out and I'm guilty. I got too much stuff too fast and didn't know part of what I was doing. So I learned from those mistakes and fixed those mistakes. But if you're going to start out in it, start out with like some smaller garden stuff, start out with a smaller food forest and start out with chickens. I mean, you can learn chickens and it might be cruel and some people think it's cruel, but if you've got, if you've got a fair amount of chickens,

and a chicken dies, you haven't lost near as much as if you've lost a sheep or a cow. You're looking maybe at the most 10, 15 bucks for like a hen. But if you're gonna lose a sheep, I mean, you're looking at 150 to 200 bucks, you lose a cow, you're talking thousands of dollars. So it's easier to learn on something small. Master your chickens, and then if you're like, hey, I wanna get sheep, get a couple sheep.

raise those things for a little while and kind of master that. And then you're like, okay, I can do sheep. So then get a few more sheep and then just gradually build up to that and figure out what you want to do. just people try to do too much stuff at once and then they failed everything. And they're like homesteading sucks. I can't do this. I've got a full-time job and I'm trying to do 40 hours of homestead work. But yeah, that's because you did it. You did a half acre garden. You've got.

30 chickens and you've got four or five ducks you got to take care of. You've got two pigs over here. You got a dozen sheep and yeah, you're going to spend a bunch of time, especially if you don't know what you're doing. You're going to spend tons of time. You're going to lose animals and you're just going to be like the heck with all this. I'm done. I'm going to, I'm going to sell everything and move back into an apartment and never do this again.

Erica Anderson (27:03)
Now, switching a little bit into prepping and what that means. because it's, you know, two slightly separate things, but they also go hand in hand. So can you kind of explain like what you consider what prepping or preppers are, what that's about?

Jason (27:13)
Yeah.

As far as with the the preparedness stuff, it's you can go as far I'm not one of these guys It's like, you know, there there's kind of some different aspects of it in my mind The preparedness stuff is being ready for what's gonna happen next, know Whether that be me walking out of this office and falling down and you know putting a gash in my leg I can fix the gash in my leg. I'm not gonna bleed to death Just being prepared for everyday stuff that's gonna happen to you, you know

It's simple carrying a I'm a contractor by trade carrying a first aid kit. I cut my fingers every day So I've got a first aid kit. I can fix my boo-boos and stuff like that, but I can also fix bigger things You know, I carry a tourniquet. So if I cut something I can put a tourniquet on and be fine until an ambulance gets there That goes the same way with food Right now the port the port shut down

And I mean, don't get me into the union thugs and everything like that. I'm very much anti-union. I think they're domestic terrorists in my personal opinion. So the ports are shut down now. So you're going to have another food supply. People are going crazy at Costco and Sam's. It's like there's no toilet paper, there's no paper towels. And it's like, all that crap's made in America. So it's like, holy cow. It's like, this is stupid.

Erica Anderson (28:39)
Here we go again.

Jason (28:43)
And one thing Shelly and I talked about the other day, it's like the shorter your supply chain is, the fewer kinks you get in it. So if my supply chain is out back to get some sheep, I've got no links in mind. So my supply chain is not going to kink out and I'm going to have to worry about it. But a lot of people have seen that and they're still seeing it now. Yes, a lot of goods, we import a lot of goods. But if we were to buy more American made products and support

smaller farmers and smaller businesses like Shelly has got two old, it's a hickory ridge soap. She makes soap. So my supply chain with Shelly is an hour and 15 minutes away if I need soap. So I don't have to worry about if all my soap is sitting on a loading dock and these thugs are striking. It's like my soap comes from an hour away and Shelly makes it at her house. So I don't have to worry about it. Just stuff like that.

If you can source a lot of your stuff from the local farmers market, source some stuff from there. Find some farmers that are doing business the way you want to and raising crops and stuff the way you want to. There's no shame in buying that stuff from them. You don't have to grow 100 % of all your stuff. So people, the preparedness thing is being ready for what could happen coming down there. Like right now, East Tennessee, y'all are real close to it.

Erica Anderson (30:00)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (30:11)
East Tennessee and Western North Carolina are decimated right now. There's no supply chain coming in there. Most of what's coming in is, you know, private donations and stuff like that. The federal government is super dragging their feet, but they announced yesterday, Kamala Harris announced that they're going to give a whopping $750 for these families. And I'm like, that's a slap in the face. I was like, how many thousands of dollars are y'all giving to...

to illegal immigrants that are coming across this border. They're getting thousands of dollars on EBT things, but an American citizen that lost everything, here's your 750 bucks, I hope it helps. These people have been wiped off the face of the earth. They don't have anything but literally the clothes on their back and they're like, here's 750 bucks. So, but as far as the preparedness stuff, those people could have been prepared to the hilt.

But if your house washes away with all your stuff, you're starting at square one. that's the thing, just be prepared. Tornadoes, hurricanes, stuff like that, your job loss. I mean, with the economy the way it is, if you've got three to six months of food stocked at your house, food that you eat already, if you've got a job loss, you don't have to worry about as much the grocery bill that way.

because you've got three to six months of food stock for you and your family. So you're like, I've got a little bit of stock and that's also financial security too. Have a little bit of money put away if you've got a job loss or something like that to where you can still eat, pay some bills and stuff like that till you can find another job. just, mean, I'm not worried about zombies and World War Z coming out and stuff like that. That's just not in my wheelhouse. I don't think that's gonna happen, but.

Just everyday stuff, you can be prepared just like our grandparents were prepared. They canned food that, know, grandma spent all summer canning food. So in the wintertime, they had a stockpile of food going. it's everyday stuff is what I kind of prepare for.

Erica Anderson (32:20)
I'm glad you said that you know it's something that this is not new. This is not something that has you know Brand new to the market brand new to society brand new to the United States This is something that's been going on for a long period of time. It's just getting more It's more in the forefront. I guess like what Erica was saying after 2020 It's a little bit more top of mind. You know that a lot of people are starting to get into this and you're being prepared

And I feel like a lot of times it gets the, like what we're talking about with farming and animals, there's a misconception with it that, you know, it's the crazy people that are worried about the zombie apocalypse or government tyranny. But to what you said, it's just a matter of being prepared for the next thing that happens, whether that is the boo boo that now you can put a tourniquet on and wait for the ambulance to show up, or it's the natural disaster, like what we just experienced, you know, running all the way through Florida.

Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, all these states getting hit and so many people being without, the ones that are prepared can help the ones that are in need. Like you said, you could be as prepared as you want to, but if your house washes away, good luck. But for those of us that are more prepared, we can go and help those individuals while we're waiting on the government, FEMA and everything to show up. So I'm really glad that you hit on that point there.

Jason (33:39)
Yeah, and you can't help people unless you're in a position of strength. And I don't take that as a position of strength as a dictator, you can't, I can't donate to ministries and stuff like that if I don't have food to eat myself. So you have to take care, it's the whole thing, people care first. You have to take care of your house first, and then when you have abundance, you can give it to other people. So.

If I've always got abundance in my preparedness or my homestaying stuff, then I can always bless people with other stuff. Just like I bless other people with the strawberries, I'm like, I'm not going to do 30 something gallons of strawberries. I've got plenty. Let's give it out to some other people. So I was in a position of strength on that so I could bless other people with the strawberries. And it's the same thing with preparedness. If you've got a ton of stuff, you can go help people.

As long as your family is taken care of, then I can go out and take my time and help these other people.

Erica Anderson (34:38)
Well, like we were talking about before we started recording with Hurricane Helene and everything, because of your experience and your skill set, you have been able to help and try to mobilize and everything with getting supplies into the needed areas. So can you talk about how your experience has been helpful with situations like this?

Jason (35:01)
Yeah, I'm working with it's Grindstone Ministries. They're a federally registered 501C3. It's bear independent. TJ is the president of it. But the Grindstone Ministries is a non- it's a nonprofit. They're all privately funded. They take no money from the federal or state government. So there's not the bureaucracy in it. You know, if you give $100 to them, they take $100 and feed people or help people clean up.

Their website is grindstoneministries.com. So if you can go check it out, they're in East Tennessee right now with boots on the ground. They've been there since Sunday, I think. And they're there. I work with, I don't technically work for them, but I help them with stuff. So I've spent the last few days running some logistics stuff and trying to get some more supplies down there to them. That's what I worked on all day yesterday. I'll work on it part of the day today.

And then I'm headed down there. I'm waiting for like some solar generators to come in that have been donated, some satellite phones and some ham radios. I'm waiting for those things to get delivered to my house to where I can load my truck up and head down there. So as soon as that stuff comes, I'll be actually down there helping them do cleanup stuff, searching rescue, handing out food, whatever they need done, I'm gonna be down there doing.

So you can go to that website and donate money or you can get hooked up with them if you want to come and volunteer, know, for usually they're running a rotation of like seven to 10 days most of the time. But if you can only come down for two days, come down and volunteer for two days and help out. You don't have to be, you don't have to be a stud muffin, saw man, equipment operator, or, you know, a super ninja searching rescue guy either. If you want to come down there and you want to cook hot meals for people,

Come down there and do that. If you want to come down and run some logistic stuff and tell the truck drivers, hey, we need these pallets of food over here, we need the pallets of water over here, and you can run a pen and a clipboard, there's a job that you can do there. You know, just answering phones, stuff like that. So you don't have to be a stud muffin seal operator or anything like that to come help on these deployments.

Erica Anderson (37:16)
Yeah, thank you for letting everyone know about that because it really has been the the local, you know, volunteers, the private organizations and everything that have been so huge in this relief aid. They've been there faster than the federal aid and, you know, more more people have been helped with that. So, yes, we'll put that website in the show notes as well so people can get to that and see how they can help out with

disaster relief for Hurricane Helene. Now this festival coming up at the end of October, October 25th and 26th or 26th or 27th, yeah. I'm sorry.

Jason (37:56)
26th and 27th. Golly. But you can come a day early, it's fine.

Erica Anderson (38:03)
My travel plans are more with the 25th. But with the festival, can you talk to people about what they can expect? You know, at that festival, what they expect to learn and see and do.

Jason (38:05)
Hahaha

We've got on Friday before the festival, we've got some paid workshops. We've got an herbal class. It's a four hour herbal class. She's going to go over like medicinal herbs and how to make those medicinal herbs. We've got a homestead medical class, which is essentially it's going to be a four hour class. And they're not at the same time. The homestead medical class is wound closure and as far as taking care of wounds long term.

So you can take that class in the morning, then you can take the herbal class in the afternoon. We've got, one of the big things is radio communications. Like over in East Tennessee, comms are down, but you can still use your ham radio or GMRS radio to get communications. We've got a full day workshop on that. Then we've also got a full day workshop, a canning workshop that's going to go on. You're going to can food and learn how to do all that stuff. So that's Friday before the festival.

and that's an extra cost on top of the festival tickets. we've got Saturday and Sunday is the actual festival. We've got speakers. Y'all are gonna be one of the speakers and presenters there talking about stuff. We've got a ton of different stuff. All day on Saturday and Sunday, we're gonna have speakers and demonstrators going. We've got a huge vendor area that we've got vendors that are gonna be selling everything from.

know, tactical supplies to freeze dried food, custom knives, herbal tinctures, homemade goods from people's farms that they make, medical supplies, tools, all that kind of stuff we're gonna have there. Anything, I tell people if you can't find it at our show and if you're in homesteading and preparedness, you probably don't need it. So the only things we can't sell,

at that because it's on the college campus or it's on the college as far as just like you can't sell guns. So other than guns, if you can't find it there, you probably don't need it too bad. So we'll have that vendor area set up. We've got just tons of demonstrations going on all throughout the day and speakers all day. And then one of the big things, Saturday night, we have a charity dinner for Cable House.

Erica Anderson (40:24)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (40:40)
And Caleb House is a, and it's actually TJ that runs Grindstone. It's his, it's a restoration facility for children that they rescue that have been in sex trafficking rings. And it's also all 100 % privately funded. So they do it, they run it biblically. So it's a biblically run place that when they rescue these children, they have a home that they can go to.

until they feel the need that they've been rehabilitated and they can go out in the world. essentially the kids have got a home forever and he's building that facility right now all out of private funds and Saturday night we're doing a charity dinner for him and I still laugh when I talk about it but I asked TJ, I'm like, hey, I want a goal. I was like, I'm a goal kind of guy. I was like, how much money do you need me to raise to do the next step in Caleb House in the building of it?

And he laughed. goes, we need to pour the slab and foundation for the admin building. And I was like, okay, I'm a contractor. I was like, how much is that going to cost? He goes $86,000. And I was like, damn. I was like, you gave me a heck of a goal. said, is there anything else that's a little bit smaller? And he was like, dude, that's the next step. we were kidding and laughing. And I'm like, man, I said, you gave me a heck of a step to jump up and do that goal. And we both agreed that it might not happen.

But if it happens, God's hand is the one that's smacking everybody and getting in everybody's wallets and raising that money. It's not us. We're just, I'm just putting on the thing. And if God wants us to raise $86,000 and give them a check for $86,000, it's gonna happen. So my goal is to do $86,000 to where they can pour the foundation and the slab for that admin building. So that's our goal. It's a lofty goal. But the thing is, if you don't set,

Erica Anderson (42:31)
Mm-hmm.

Jason (42:35)
big goals in your life, you're never gonna get anywhere. So, and I would rather set that goal when people laugh at me, but I would rather do that and bust my butt and know I did everything I could and didn't reach my goal as opposed to saying, well, we need 10,000 bucks. Heck, we can raise 10,000 bucks at the drop of a hat. You know, I can call some people, I can get 10 grand together and I really don't have to think about it. But $86,000, I've got to think about that and figure out how I can get the resources to do it.

Erica Anderson (42:37)
Yeah, no, that's exactly it. Yeah, I mean.

Jason (43:06)
So, that's Saturday night and you can get tickets at the website and the website's kentuckysustainableliving.com. So you can get all the rest of the information, buy your tickets and honestly, tickets for this event are dirt cheap. Right now we've still got them at 25 bucks a person. Kids get in free. Pretty soon they're gonna go up to 35 bucks a person. So, and if you buy them at the door, they're $35 a person. So.

Erica Anderson (43:26)
Okay.

Jason (43:33)
I mean, coming and seeing just one of these speakers is worth 25 bucks. I mean, and you're going to have, think we've got 17, 17 or 18 speakers that are going to be going both days. So I mean, think about it. mean, that's, you know, almost a buck a person to hear these people talk. And then, you know, a couple of dollars to get in, you know, for the vendor area and stuff like that. But yeah, for 25 bucks, heck, I went to a gun show a couple of months ago and it was 15 bucks to get in at a gun show.

And that was for just one day. was like, 15 bucks, another $10. I could have went to our festival and spent two days and had a lot more access to a lot more people and information.

Erica Anderson (44:15)
Well, and that's just the thing is to get the access to these individuals. It, mean, normally these people are going to charge significant amount amounts more of money to be able to do a workshop with them or to take one of their classes or to be involved with them in one way, shape or fashion. And for $25, I mean, even at $35, I mean, even at, $250, it's still a one heck of a deal to be able to go for one day, two days and to listen to all these people. Just like we talked about in the very beginning of this podcast.

getting the education because that's what I feel like is missing so much in today's America is just educating people on what their life could look like and their responsibility that they should be taking for themselves.

Jason (44:58)
Yeah, and I mean, we're going to have stuff for the beginning people, you know, just starting out on their homesteading and their preparedness journey all the way up to people who've been doing it for years. I mean, I still learn, honestly, Shelly and I are running the festival, so I don't get to sit in on all the demonstrations and all the speaking and stuff like that, but we record all those. So I've got them all recorded and I'll sit down when I get time and listen to this stuff. And I'm like, dang, that's pretty cool.

Stuff like that. So even me that's seasoned on this, I still learn some stuff every time I listen to these guys talk and every time I get to have a conversation with these people. And it's, the festival's not set up to where the guy gets up on stage and talks and then runs away and hides in the back room. When he's done talking, he's out mingling with the crowd or, know, like Jeff Smith. Jeff Smith has a booth where he's selling stuff. So if you want to talk to Jeff more after he's presented,

you can go down to Jeff's booth and talk to him. All these people are accessible. Nobody, I've seen a lot of festivals where the guy gets up there and speaks and then as soon as he's done speaking, he jumps in his car and scoots out and you're like, man, I didn't even get to talk to that guy. So generally all our presenters and stuff like that are there all weekend to where you can have an in-depth meaningful conversation with them and say, hey, when you talked about this, I didn't fully understand it. Can you explain it more?

All our speakers are awesome and they sit down and just talk to people. They talk nonstop all weekend to people. I can look around and see like, know, so and so sitting over here with this group of people talking and doing stuff. it's not like some of the events that people do where they just get in there and as soon as they're done talking, they run off stage and you never get to see them. can have some fellowship and actually talk to these people. And the charity dinner, our...

presenters and speakers are gonna be there. So if you want to, mean, you could sit next to like Jason, the angry prepper. You could sit next to him and get to talk to him throughout dinner. I'm actually kind of thinking about doing some kind of raffle. If you want to set by so-and-so, it's gonna cost you an extra 15 bucks to do it. And I can guarantee you'll sit with them. Just to raise some more money for Caleb House is what I thought about doing. And then that way we can...

we can rag each other. It's like who spent the most money to sit by somebody or who had the most expensive seat that night. So, good.

Erica Anderson (47:25)
huh, and just get like a little trophy to hand down to whoever the speaker is that gets the most amount of money donated their way.

Jason (47:31)
yeah, and it would be, we'd get them one of those little cheap participation baseball trophies and give it to them. You got the highest priced ticket. That would be something funny because they would get into that. So knowing all these guys, they would rag around and rag each other on it. So.

Erica Anderson (47:37)
Yes.

You know, 10 years down the road, they'd still be talking about it.

Jason (47:50)
yeah, for sure. I mean, it was cool. did our very first festival. We did a charity dinner for an organization similar to Caleb House. And our goal was $10,000. Ticket wise, when we started that event, we had only sold $4,000 worth of tickets. And I'm like, I don't know if we're going to hit our goal or not. But we had some auction items and stuff like that. So we started doing the auction stuff.

In the end of it we raised, it was over $11,000 and there was not a dry eye in that place. It's like, how did we do this? And they're like, God wanted you to raise that money. So it was there. And I'm like, this is stinking amazing. And I mean, people were teared up and everything. was like, man, I said, we're about to mop the floor before we leave this place. Everybody's crying and all this stuff. Somebody will fall and break a hip or something with all the water on the floor. But it, yeah, I mean, it's going to be a great time.

Erica Anderson (48:45)
Yeah, and I thank you for organizing this. This is a great opportunity for anybody who's wanting to just.

start in this space, homesteading and preparedness, or anybody who is experienced in this space and is wanting to learn more. You've got a beautiful cause that you're raising money for, and thank you for organizing that. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of it as well. We're super excited, and we'll make sure to have that website, kentuckysustainableliving.com, and the show notes where people can get those tickets.

We have to wrap up here, if that's okay. This has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much. Now, is there any other way that people can connect with you social media wise, if they want to learn more about you what you're doing?

Jason (49:22)
That's fine.

Yeah, the easiest way our emails are on the website or if you need to email me, but also I've got a YouTube channel, which is Kentucky Sustainable Living. Shelly, my partner in the festival, we do so much stuff together. She's got her YouTube channel is Two Old Crows Homestead on YouTube. We've also got a podcast we started and it's Homestead HQ is our podcast. We typically do two podcasts a week. We'll throw out most of

Like on Monday, they drop on Monday mornings or Monday mornings and Thursday mornings. Typically we'll do Shelly and I on Mondays and then usually we'll interview somebody on Thursdays. So we've just started yet, but you can check it out there. It's on almost all the podcast platforms. YouTube is kind of my main gig as far as the YouTube channel. That's what I like doing. And it's the same thing. It's Kentucky Sustainable Living on YouTube.

Erica Anderson (50:34)
Okay, great. And again, we'll have all that information in the show notes for people. And thank you again, Jason, for coming on and this great conversation and also with what you're doing with the relief efforts in Tennessee, North Carolina and everything. Thank you so much.

Jason (50:46)
All right, you're welcome. was a good time this morning. We could sit and talk for two or three hours, I bet, and not get bored.

Erica Anderson (50:52)
yeah, could watch this again for sure. Alright, thanks so much.

Jason (50:56)
yeah. Thank you.