Episode 197 with Joel Salatin
Harvesting Wisdom: Uniting Faith, Family, and Farming
SHOW NOTES:
Join us for a thought-provoking journey into the harmonious blend of faith, family, and farming. Discover how embracing these principles can enrich our lives and the world we inhabit. Tune in and immerse yourself in this enriching dialogue with Joel Salatin, a beacon of wisdom and inspiration in the world of homesteading and environmental stewardship.
Learn more about Joel here >> https://polyfacefarms.com/
Buy your copy of The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs here >> https://amzn.to/3ruK7IQ
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
197 JOEL SALATIN
Ginny Yurich Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and coming at you from Virginia. Joel Salatin is back. Thank you for being here and welcome.
Joel Salatin Thank you. Ginny, It's always a delight to spend any time I can get with you. It's always a treat.
Ginny Yurich Well, be so nice. You're so nice. And we just did a session together at the Florida Homeschool Conference, which was fantastic. A lot of fun. My kids sat in on that one. Call it earthworm theology. The second time that we've done that together. And last year we got the chance to come visit your farm in person. It was such a delight. We got the kombucha on tap. We did a walk all the way to the back. I don't know if it was the very back, but it was like we were up on this hill and the blue skies and my kids were singing The Sound of Music. It was very idyllic. It was beautiful. So it's just been truly an honor. I can pinch myself that I've even gotten to meet you because your books have been so influential, so, so grateful that you're here and super excited to talk about a lot of things about a new book that you have coming out this fall. Can you tell us about it?
Joel Salatin Yeah, I can. Hopefully it'll be available, you know, certainly before October. They're telling me sometime in early September, but I'm always a little bit scared of promises, what's going to happen in the printing process. So I had one printed and they sent they sent the it's called the the Blues. That's the like the this is exactly the way it's going to be. They print one and send it to you. And it was print. Half of it was upside down. So, you know, you can't make this stuff up, you know, I mean it's humans, right? And we can have error. Fortunately, doesn't happen very often, but but once in a while things happen. So the new book, Jenny, is I do have a cover right here. It's homesteads, tsunami, homestead, tsunami, good for country critters and kids. And those who follow me at all know that a couple of years ago I wrote Polly Face Micro about scaling down to homestead level livestock systems. And so that was very much a how to very practical, how to. But since then, the last couple of years, I've just got this. I do a lot of podcasts. Jenny I do, I don't know what, five or six a week it seems like how and many of them, of course, are urban based and people are there's a lot of tension in our society right now. People who are thinking intentionally have a lot of concerns about where the country is headed, where our cities are headed, especially with crime, shoplifting, you know, defund the police. All these things are affecting people's faith in the in the continuation of urban centers, far more than you don't see that much in the rural area, but it's really an urban and urban thing. So I realized after doing the how to probably face micro realize, you know what what people really need right now is they need a why they need a why, why would. Olmstead Why would you? LI You know, why would you leave? You know, Papa John's delivery, pizza delivery and go somewhere where you can't get Papa John's pizza delivery, you know, why would you do this? And so that that's the impetus of the book. I always write for what I feel like our culture needs are what people need. At the time, I don't write to make money. I mean, it is nice to make a little bit of money, but but I write to Minister, I right to the heart of what I think people need and I think need this right now. They're they're worried, they're concerned, they're discombobulated. They need assurance that this crazy idea of getting an acre or two or five and moving out of the of their condominium, they need somebody to affirm, to affirm and encourage them in that kind of thinking.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, Homestead tsunami. So I don't know if you remember this, but when we spoke together in Virginia last year at the ATV conference, you were talking about this concept of homestead tsunami. You were saying it just feels like there's a tsunami of homesteaders. And I don't think at that point you had started the book. No. And here it is a year later and the book is already out to print. So what is your writing schedule like? I mean, you are coming out with books left and right, and I know you have no television. I think this is really inspiring. How? I mean, you just spit it out. I think we were talking about it one year ago and then it's already out to print.
Joel Salatin Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have the distinct advantage of being able to write from my experience. So in other words, this is not a research book. I'm not going to the library. I'm not spending, you know, 500 hours putting in a footnoted, you know, bibliography research project. I'm writing from the heart. I'm writing from the heart to other people to their heart.
Ginny Yurich It flows. It flows out of you because it's in you.
Joel Salatin Yeah. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich And I think that when you have a full life, like. Yours. And you have all these experiences and all these people that you've met and you travel around and you do these farm consults and you have people coming to your farm to learn. Then you have a lot to share.
Joel Salatin Yeah. Yeah. So, so the actual process for writing for me is that I just basically wipe everything off the calendar, give myself two or three weeks and just hammer it out. I'm making out like I do. I make a table contest, kind of a skeleton. Here's the here's the topics, Here's the flow. And actually, this book started back in. So you and I did the Virginia Homeschool Conference in what was June? June. Okay. Well, in June, I was either going or had just come from the Homestead Festival that Rory fixed in Columbia, Tennessee. And, you know, when he was asking me to to speak at the conference, I said, well, what do you want me to talk about, Rory? He said, I want you to talk about the why of homesteading. And so I actually constructed the homesteading tsunami idea for that speech. And when I got done. So so that's why I put a lot of the thought, the ideas, the thoughts, the ten basic points. I actually conceived those for that speech. When I got delivered the speech, I got done and I remember thinking, Oh, this would make a good book. And several of my books have actually come from conference presentations where people are asked, I want you to talk about this and something about the way it flows together, the resilience of the people afterwards. You know, that's really good material arise, you know, that would make a good book. And so then so that last winter, last winter, I actually, you know, cleared the calendar. Normally it's around Christmas. Yeah. That's when we got lot not very much stuff going on. We've got it everywhere where it's our downtime. So everybody else's downtime is when I sit here at the, at the laptop and bang out a book. And fortunately fortunately my newspaper short, you know, two and a half year newspaper career, unless you want to add the part time. I was there in high school for two years, but that that little short newspaper career really, really helped me to have the discipline to crank out material, to crank out copy, you know, when you're sitting there and the copy editors breathing down your neck looks out and the presses run in 45 minutes, I got to have this article. You can't sit. Oh, I have writer's block, you know, I can't think. No, no, no, no. You got it. You got to get it out right. You got to crank it. And so I will never regret those couple of years in that newsroom, you know, cranking out copy every day. I'm still thankful for it. Every day.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, because you got to do it.
Joel Salatin Yeah, you got to do it.
Ginny Yurich Wow, That's incredible. Well, I'm super excited to read that. And people, when it comes out, I'll make sure I'm posting everywhere so that people know and can come read Homestead Tsunami, the Y, which is important. Like you said, people are really struggling. So I was hoping today, since we have some time together and maybe you can help me make this transition, I think you've got the wisdom for it. But we talk with getting kids outside about how it helps their whole being. And so we talk so much about the physical parts and we talk about the emotional and we talk about it helps with their social skills and their cognition, all of these different things that helps with the whole child, but it also helps them spiritually. And we've actually never talked about that on this particular podcast because people listen and they have different religious beliefs and different world views. But I personally was extremely impacted by your book, The Marvelous Pig Ness of Pigs. And so I thought, since you're here, I really would love to talk about that. And I know that you have had a lot of experience riding that fine line of talking with people who have a very different worldview than you do, but you're still coming together and finding some commonality through the things that you're passionate about. So if you're up for it, I think this would be a really great episode for people if there, you know, there are a lot of people who would love to help their kids grow spiritually through spending time in the outdoors. And this book is life Changing The Marvelous Bigness of Pigs. Well, let's start here. How do you sort of bridge that gap?
Joel Salatin Yeah, So so the model Pictures of pigs is a definitely it's written from a Christian perspective, a Judeo Christian perspective. You know, everybody knows me knows that my my self-made moniker is Christian, libertarian, environmentalist, capitalist, lunatic farmer. And generally, you know, we have this idea that that that Christian environment and environmentalist can't grow on the same parallax. You know, Christians are here to dominate and exploit and conquistador you know think of all the things that have been done in the name of God. All right, We claim this land for God, you know, Spain, the conquistadors. I mean, that's the most egregious example. But I mean, but the. Crusades. And those of us in the faith community, in the Judeo-Christian faith community can look back with a lot of embarrassment about things that have been done in the name of God. Okay. So I am very, very quick when I'm dealing with people of other faiths or no faith to acknowledge very quickly that we biblical people have a very tainted past. And I can repent in sackcloth and ashes. I'm sorry. I apologize. Look, let's not make fun of the tree huggers. Okay. Let's first acknowledge I mean, there's there's time to debate later, okay? We can write later. But the first thing the first thing we need to do, I think, as a faith community is to acknowledge our own shortcomings throughout our history, not the least of which is. I mean, we see it on our farm. We came in 1961 to the most eroded gully, worn out rock pile in the community. And I'm thinking back over those 150 years that Lutherans and Episcopalians owned this place before we came. I don't have anything against Lutheran Episcopalians. I just know that they were Germans. And the local churches right here tend to be Lutheran and an Episcopalian, primarily German. Lutheran. Okay. And I'm thinking, okay, so these guys no doubt put money in the offering plate. They probably supported missionaries. They probably did all sorts of things. And they were doing this charitable giving on the back of destroying their ecology. How does that work? And then when you realize that God owns everything and it's all his. I'm saying, you know, if it were mine, if I were God, okay, if this were mine and I had made it all. Would I really be happy with a dead zone the size of Rhode Island and the Gulf of Mexico? Would I really be happy with infertile frogs with three legged salamanders for me? I'll give you one. One. Really? A special story or kind of my epiphany developed over this was I was speaking at UC Berkeley doing a seminar on environmental farming. Ecological farming had a, you know, roomful of grad students, I don't know, two or 300 in a room. It was packed. It was wonderful. And I don't wear my faith on my sleeve, but I'm not ashamed of it either. And so I did my normal creation and, you know, sanctity of life, you know, life's important. God owns it all. So UC Berkeley now, if you know UC Berkeley, I mean, that is like the hotbed of let's just be very terrible to say, questioning faith. Okay. So here I was in this place and did this thing and I got done and I got a standing ovation and we got done. By that time it was dark. It was an evening lecture, and the two professors had invited me, took me out for ice cream. People who know me know that I have this fetish about ice cream. So we went out for ice cream, but but we got outside the building and we got on a street corner and immediately they kind of stopped me on the sidewalk, you know, confronted me and I said, We have a confession to make. Oh, this is a, you know, confessions that conjures up all sorts of things. I said, why? What's the deal? They said, look, we've been here for 20 years. During the Vietnam years, when Berkeley launched the Vietnam protests, the students developed a hissing. So when lectures would come that they said something they disagreed with, they would hiss. You know, I mean, this is very professional, very academic. You know, this is very decorum. Okay. I'm being totally satirical. But anyway, they developed this and they said, we've been here 20 years ready for this journey. We've been here 20 years. We have never, never heard a lecturer use the word God, reverently. Now, if you want to swear, that's fine. But to use the name the word God reverently and not be hissed. You're the first speaker who's ever been here who said God and the student in his album.
Ginny Yurich 20 years?
Joel Salatin Yeah, 20 years. And it struck me, maybe. And trust me, I'm not trying to build myself up here. I'm trying to make an explanation to the faith. Really? Maybe this was the first time that these students had encountered a Christian, a person of faith, who was actually struggling, trying to to be a steward, trying to honor and respect God's stuff and not just exploit it and mine it and use it up as fast as could be and make fun of people who did care about the birds and the bees and the soil. And that really struck me that night. It just hit me in the in the face. That idea and what it made me think was, my goodness, imagine if the faith community actually owned environmental stewardship. We can call it creation stewardship. What if we own that narrative because we are stewarding it as a worshipful element toward the creator rather than giving that, may I say, moral high ground off to? Asian worshipers who worship, but in and of itself without a divine being who made it. So anyway, that's where I'm coming from, and I think that's how you bridge it. And I think those of us in the faith community, you know, acknowledge where we are and acknowledged our responsibilities in the space, we would develop an emotional equity with a lot of people that currently despise us. We don't have any problem going to a Tree of Life rally and then stopping off for lunch at Chick-Fil-A, a factory farming. I can tell you, being all over the world with various people, I can tell you that for the the environmentalist, the hypocrisy between a sanctity of life person and going to Chick fil A, which dishonors that. And that is as hypocritical as we view a person who's willing to chain themselves to a tree to save a tree and then doesn't have any care at all about ripping babies out of the womb up until the day of birth. We view that as unspeakably whatever inconsistent, hypocritical, whatever, we are guilty of the same thing we I mean, collectively as a faith community who are guilty of the same thing, you know, from therein. So let's let's let's get ourselves fixed before we start pointing fingers at everybody else.
Ginny Yurich That's really eye opening and very thought provoking. So this book of the Marvelous Pig, Mr. Pigs, like you said, is is one that comes from the Judeo-Christian faith perspective. It's a convicting book. I was telling Josh last night, I read it a while ago, and I talk about it everywhere I go. It's one of my favorite books, very life changing for me. And then I read it again just recently knowing that I was going to be talking to you. I was like, I need to read this book every year. I need to scroll back through because it is actually very convicting in the ways that you are talking about, which is that so often we don't think about these things at all. And you bring up Styrofoam plates at the church potluck and you bring up Doritos and Happy Meals and GMOs and what are we feeding our kids? So can we start there? Can we start with what we're feeding our kids? Is this speaking to myself? I mean, I read the book. It's a reminder. And maybe we need those reminders a lot that that actually really matters. Like what we're feeding our kids really matters.
Joel Salatin Yeah, well. Well, you know, we do need reminders. And before anybody switches this off, because, boy, she's got a you know, she's got a cultist on here. I'm quick to say I'm 8020. Okay. And I think I say that in about 80. 28. 80%, Right. 20% not right. That gives you a little bit of forgiveness that you can go to your you know, go to your niece's birthday party and pig out on junk cake and ice cream and have a good time. Don't be a bore. So, you know, the the 8020 thing. So the question is, is the menu in front of me? Here's the sound bite, Jenny, is what I'm sitting down to eat at my table. Is that menu consistent with what I believe in the pew? And obviously, a lot of churches don't have pews anymore. But is my menu consistent with the pew? All right. So if what I say in the pew is let's just take the golden rule, you know, do unto others as you would want them to do. Are you the good neighbor? Right. Is it being neighborly to pollute the groundwater, to stink up the neighborhood with a factory farm? You know, is that how I would want to be treated? And so you start into these things. Another way to look at it, I think, is if you look at look at what you're eating and kind of squint your eyes and use your imagination to kind of look through it. What's on the other side of that food? What's on the other side of it? Is it soil building? Is it water purifying or water abundant? Okay. Is it. Is it clean, breathable air? Is it energy? Is it less energy? Is it family friendly? Does it honor and respect people? Does honor respect life? Was the chicken able to express its chicken as a being? Did encourage earthworms or did it kill earthworms? So all of that comes through the production, the protocols, the processing, the distribute, all of this comes through. And so the question is, as I'm squinting, imagining looking through what I'm eating, is that a world, first of all, that I would want my children to live in? Hmm. But even more importantly, is that God's plan A for his world? Is that what God's desire would be for the world? And, you know, this doesn't have to just be Judeo-Christian. I mean, almost any religion would agree that we should respect the pettiness of the pigs. That we should, you know, not stink up the neighborhood. We should not pollute the water. I don't know any religion that would say we ought to pollute the water, erode the soil and kill earthworms. I don't know any religion that says this is. This is actually pretty broad. I'm because I'm coming at it from a biblical perspective. Right. From the biblical perspective. But the same overall basic argument could be made, I think, from almost any religious perspective. And while we're on that, I think when you talk about the spiritual element of children being outside. To me, one of the most valuable things is being immersed for many hours of your life, if not the day, but being immersed just like my mother routinely, and things that are bigger than me that I didn't make, that I didn't do. When you think about being in the house and even being in a very urban setting, our life is pretty much wrapped up around it, being immersed in things that people did. Roads, traffic lights, cars, houses, air conditioning, TV screens, whatever. It's all being immersed in what people did. But when you get out outside in nature and you're working in the garden or you're you're working in the woods, you're whatever, gathering eggs from chickens. I mean, just the the miracle of a chicken eating kitchen scraps and turning it in to a wonderful egg. I mean, that's that's nothing short of miraculous. You know, she eats this moldy junk that stinks and smells horrible and gives me this wonderful egg for breakfast and all that is beyond us. It's stuff that we didn't do. And I think there is a very humbling, spiritual understanding when we immerse in things that are beyond ourselves.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. And there's something about taking those scraps out to the chickens. We didn't grow up farming, but it's. It's in our family. It's probably in a lot of people's families. And I just remember that this is recent for us, you know, three or four years. And the first time that we took out kitchen scraps, two chickens. And they're so excited. You. Here you are. You're taking your scraps. Like you said, your bread that's gone slightly moldy or the reins of your watermelons and you're taking it out and they just come runnin for it. And that does something for your soul.
Joel Salatin It does. And you know, Ginny, a lot of times, many of us, you know, I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but boy, oh, boy, how many of us have tried to do do the right thing for somebody to somebody with somebody? And we were misperceived it was not viewed appreciatively. We ended up oh, man. I mean, I had no idea that it was there would be that my good intentions would be interpreted that way. And that's the risk you always have in human relationships. But, boy, those chickens I have never seen a chicken where you bring those kitchen scraps out. I've never seen a chicken stand back in a Cold War zone. Huh? Well, I ain't going to enjoy those today. You know, they all they all, all come, you know, and they're all happy. And that's one of the beauties of dealing with animals more than plants, because animals are a little more expressive than plant. But but plant certainly responds to love and care to do. But especially the animals, you know, that unconditional affirmation to us is just incredible. People ask, you know, you just seem like you're always happy. I say, How many people get to make this many beings happy every day when I spread compost and I'm just thinking about the acting on my feet and the mycelium and the earthworms and the ozone go back to your bacteria, you know, And I'm thinking about all of those those 7 billion beings per handful of Earth, 7 billion beings, and it's like a hallelujah chorus. Oh, we're being fed, you know, lots of things. We got compost on our heads. I mean, that is the coolest thing in the world. And to just think like that.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm.
Joel Salatin It's just a blessing and a wonderful thing to actually let that be part of our thought process. Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich Oh, we're talking about the spiritual aspect, too. Like I said, we've never talked about it on the podcast, but creation or like you said, other people may believe this depending on their different beliefs, but it gives us object lessons of truth.
Joel Salatin Yes.
Ginny Yurich So I think about it for myself in terms of homeschooling. So homeschooling, we can be very controlling with it. But if you think about how in nature, how things grow, they grow little by little and they grow when you sing to them. I know it's like these different studies when you love them, you know, I think about our flowers, they're out in the back and we grew a little patches, zinnias, and all day long they're listening to the birdsong sing and they're listening to the cows moo and they're listening to it. I don't know if they are, but, you know, they they're in this beauty. Global environment. And so I don't go out every day and say, well, this one grew a quarter of an inch. This let me test that one. You know, we think about growth, and I think that helps me as a mother. And so you have throughout this book these different laws of life that are reflected in nature. Well, you were just talking about soil. But seeds the same thing. And our daily bread. But one. Well, let's start with one of the things you talk about so much in this one is sunbeams and redeeming and capturing the energy. So can we start there? Can we start with the sunbeams? And what is the parallel there with our daily life and the sunbeams that are coming to rebuild the earth?
Joel Salatin Well, the whole earth power source is the U. N sun. And so these sun beams are coming down. They're growing through the miracle of photosynthesis and chlorophyl in plants. Just think about this. Something as esoteric and mystical and fantastical as sunbeams can be grabbed by these plants and turned into physical, fungible material that we can buy, sell, trade, measure, you know, substance. And of course, that's what feeds the soil. Then, you know, you have the carbon sequestration and you have the biomass that can either be eaten and digested or composted. But that's what feeds all the life in the soil. So the point is the sun sue and which is giving energy that you can't reach out to do this with kids, you know, grabbing some sunbeams, do we think. Yeah. Well grab me some you know, and the kids are, you know, dancing around around the sun. Well, you can't grab sunbeams. But through the ecological process, plants can utilize them, take them and manifest them in every conceivable way. You know, some grow into trees, some as grass, some as bushes, some as blackberry vine, some as soybeans and corn and, you know, cucumbers, whatever. Okay. And that provides life for us. The object lesson there is the s0n. We don't see him either. And if you grab say, give me a piece of Jesus. Well, you can't you know, you can't grab that either, right? But what he does, he empowers us to then grow into a physical manifestation that is useful to our families, to our world, to everything around us, all powered by the ocean. And so we turn we turn the invisible into visible acts of grace whatsoever is true, lovely, honest of a good report. All those fruits of the spirit. We're bearing fruit as we're powered by the air. So in like the plants are bearing fruit as they're powered by the sun. And I just think that the the similarity between the sun and so and is just to too perfect to let go it it's just a perfect object lesson.
Ginny Yurich Yes. And there's so many of them. So this is a great book for parents to read. You see I see The Sun Every Day is an amazing gift of new wealth. I don't deserve new wealth. Every time I see a sunbeam converted to vegetation, I see new wealth and then talk about grace. God's grace don't deserve it. And so just all of these different object lessons and one that really has always stuck out to me. And you brought up at the very beginning is redemption. And God is our redeemer is one of my favorite qualities. I think that we have things happen in our lives that are very hard and very difficult. And the word redemption to redeem, to make it right, to change it, to maybe be in a spot that was even better than before did. That is so powerful. And you talk about the parallel between the earth and healing the earth and redemption. So can you talk about that one, too? Like, I mean, you say you came to your farm in 1961 and it was this barren wasteland. And now it is like the sound of music fields and supporting all this life.
Joel Salatin Yeah. You know, Ginny, I'm not that old. I don't think I've. I don't feel old or sometimes I feel old, but I'm not that old. But to have come to this place that we had, we had 16 foot deep gullies. We have had large areas, a quarter acre in size in the fields where 3 to 5 feet of topsoil had eroded off over the years before we came through bad management and tillage and and I mean, these places didn't grow anything, you know, no weeds, no grass. I mean, it was just bare shale rock. And I remember as a kid being able to walk the whole farm and never set foot on a piece of vegetation that was that barren. It was just it was just a, you know, a barren place. And in my lifetime, all those rocks now have 12 inches of soil on them. Now, it's not five feet yet, but like it was, you know, five years ago. But it's at least they're covered up. It's growing grass. It's it's healthy. It's productive. The gullies. Are all there. Either they're either filled in or they're, you know, they've got we've planned it. We planted acres and acres of trees to vegetate those gullies. I mean, it would look like the badlands. It looked like the bay, you know, just gully, Gully, gully, gully on these steep, steep hillsides. And we planted trees on them several places. The gullies are still there. But, you know, they've got active debris in the bottom. They're not eroding anymore. They've got vegetation, all they've got trees on that sort of thing. So to see that level of healing, of redemption, of bringing back from Bear and of bringing back from well, in biblical terms, we say from depravity. Okay. And to watch that land heal is one of the greatest joys of my life. Now, when I walk out the back porch, I don't feel like I'm in barrenness. I feel like I'm in an abundance And using these techniques of caressing and massaging the landscape, it responded in that way. And so by the same token, spiritually, those of us who adhere to the Christian ethic, we understand that we're we're born depraved. We're not born spending eternity with God, okay? We're born separated. And so that redemptive capacity of grace, of Christ's redemptive work on the cross provides an escape for our gullies, an escape for our rock piles and moves, what is a gully and barrenness and moves it to fruitfulness and abundance. And it's just a powerful metaphor. So So when people come to the farm and I say this completely again, not arrogantly, but just this is my desire. My desire is that when people keep saying, Oh, oh, so that's what redemption looks like, oh, that's what forgiveness looks like, Oh, that's what mercy looks, that's what abundance looks like. We want them to think about the physical that they see here in terms of spiritual provision. That's the idea.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. That there's a representation of it that you can actually see it. We saw it, you know, we saw at your farm. And that's very powerful.
Joel Salatin And I think that that's if that's the whole premise of the book is that that physical creation is an object lesson of spiritual truth. In other words, look, you know, when we say doctrinal things like stewardship, like faithfulness, like love each other, like a God is enough, All right? I mean, all of these kind of spiritual truths, we humans, we need physicality to stuff, you know? I mean, even Jesus said to his disciples, How will people know that you're my disciples, that you love one another? Well, love is not some academic focus group thing, a love object. You can't sit here and say, Well, I'm in love. What are you in love with? I'm just in love. Well, who do you love? Well, no, I don't. I'm just in love. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, Love requires an object lesson. So God needed. He knew that we would need physical structure to hang his spiritual concepts more on. We need something to see to give us an understanding of what we can't see. And so in the book, I talk about, for example, the the family. There's this down to the to the pork at the meal. And mom says, Hey, you know why we're here? You know why we're eating this pork. And the kids say, well, no, well, well, remember, we went to Farmer John's place last week and we saw how he treats the pigs. We how he respects and honors the pigs. And they're there. They smell good and they're enjoyable, and it's fun to be around them and all that. And we saw him there the way he was raising his pigs. We saw the glory of the pig. Glorious is the uniqueness of something. But we spiritualized. We only use glory about God. But the Bible doesn't use glory just about God. It says the glory of kings, the glory of countries, the glories of of of of Mom's, the glories of Dad. You know, It's the glory of the moon, the glory of the stars. It's a very physical thing. It's not just some spiritual thing, but only divinity has glory, you know. Everything has a glory. What it is is the physiological distinctiveness. And so Jiro's, we're eating this pig because farmer John raises this pig in a way that the pig can manifest its glory. And that's why we're eating this pork and not pork from, you know, over here where they don't care at all whether a pig manifests this glory. And so what is the glory of a pig in the kitchen? Well, the glory of a pig is they like to root in the ground. They like to know and stuff. They like to find acorns, you know, blah, blah, blah. The pig. Okay, so then what is the glory of God? What is unique about God? Well, he knows everything. He, you know, and all good. Suddenly you have this wonderful spiritual discussion as an object lesson because you try to be consistent in your thought process, in your purchasing and your in what you what you do. What you do has created a physical skeleton for the kids to hang profound spiritual truth on.
Ginny Yurich Wow. Wow. What a cool thing about God, right? That he made it that way. And Jesus taught with object lessons, right? The farmer went out to sell the seed. And if you have faith as small as a mustard seed and we think about it when you're talking about the chicken and you say, I mean, I think this is a total miracle. It's like when you say you take your kitchen scraps, it turns into an egg. Well, that egg in three weeks could also be a new chick. And that's a spiritual truth, right? That we are a new creature in Christ, that the old is gone, the new has come. What a quick object lesson, a three week one that we could teach our kids, I guess scrambled eggs today. But later this month, it could be this really cute, fuzzy little chick. There's so many things like that. And so your book is filled with ideas about abundance and the way that we treat our neighbors and what a farm should be like and even practice. This was one of my favorite things in your book, because I feel the same way that we can try the things out that are in the Bible. We could try these spiritual principles. So you say we can practice if a soft answer turns away. RATH We can practice giving a gift to the enemy. We can practice being grateful. And so you talk about that in terms of just daily life, like we can practice other things to getting better with our food.
Joel Salatin Sure. Well, that's one of the beauties of actually homesteading, and that's starting into a theme that's in my in my new book. But but just the fact that, you know, when you work with animals, you learn very quickly that animals don't respond to yelling and kicking and screaming and, you know, no cow, no goat, no sheep, no chicken is going to love you throwing a temper tantrum. You know, you learn very quickly that that's not the case. And yeah, there are so many rules. I want one of my favorite little imaginative stories in the book, Jenny, if I may be so bold, is is to talking about youth groups. You know, all the church of the youth groups and the youth are always trying to figure out, you know, something exciting to do. And so they go to you know, they go to the theme, they go to the resort, the theme park. They ride the roller coaster all day, you know, young addicts. And in the book, I challenge a youth group say, hey, instead of doing that, how about everybody get a hoe and go to a local farmers place and chop out thistles for the day?
Ginny Yurich I love this.
Joel Salatin And remember, these thistles came because of the fall in the Garden of Eden. There weren't thistles in the Garden of Eden, Right? Okay. So that this was came as a result of the fall. So if we say that thistles and brambles are like sand and I think there is a biblical there is a reason to think that. All right. So we're going to go out and we're going to we're going to attack sin today, you know, so everybody gets on with their hoes. I go to Farmer John's place and they descend on his field and are chopping thistles. Well, you don't have to chop romaine thistles to realize every one of them has a vulnerable side and a side. You don't want to go. Some of them are a little bushy. Well, I don't want to. I don't want to go to the bushy side. I'm going to go to the side where I don't get prickly, you know, when I get up to it. And so, you know, you're kind of you're kind of analyzing each one. Where's the best place to attack at worst is vulnerability. But I mean, imagine all the wonderful discussions you can have about that. You can come together and say, okay, so so what's the thistle in your life? What words? Just vulnerability. How about, you know, where would you atop that thistle in your life? And you can have these incredibly rich, profound discussions when you participate. And for me, I just think it's so cool. When I and I thought this was today, I shop multiple floral rose There are plants that I hate most before Rose is one of them. And you know, when I go, they're literally my head in my headspace. I'm attacking sin, you know, And I'm thinking, well, what am I not attacking him? What am I letting grow in my life that I'm not attacking, that I'm looking the other way? And are other people looking at a very this silly Bramblett field? And I don't care what other people seeing in me you know, and and maybe I'd better be attacking some of that stuff. It's just wonderful to walk through the day. I mean, I've always said, you know, when Larry Birkhead he's passed away now, but he was the financial guru. And basically every verse in the Bible, I guess today we would say Dave Ramsey. You know, Dave Ramsey, But actually any verse in the Bible, he can do something financial out of it. And so I think God gifts different people, you know, with a I don't know, a dedication, an.
Ginny Yurich Insight.
Joel Salatin With insight that brings it. And so for me. For me. I see ecology, environmental stewardship in virtually every verse, and so I'm just thankful that I kind of have that. I don't know that that.
Ginny Yurich But that lens, that's what you're looking at through the.
Joel Salatin Lens. And I can bring it to people who are zombified on Netflix and Avatar.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Yeah. Wow. It's a really powerful book. Like I said, it's one that changed my life. So just very honored to get a chance to talk to you about of the marvelous bigness of Picked. And we didn't really even talk about what exactly a little bit because you talked about the glory, but the Preakness of the pigs and the chicken ness of the chickens. So people have to read that. It's definitely vocabulary that if other people have read the book, they totally understand and you can come together over that vocabulary. There's a quote in here that says, Integrating our lives with plants and animals bathes us in object lessons about responsibility, relationship, faithfulness, expectation, perseverance, diligence, and unconditional love. These are the things that we're now learning at a desk and that our kids are not learning sitting, you know, with a workbook or things like that faithfulness, relationship, perseverance. And so it's very important, I think, that as we're with our families and teaching and trying to raise whole children, that these principles are there and that at least we're thinking about them. So can you just give us a little sneak peek of Homestead tsunami, like, I don't know, a couple of chapter titles or something like that?
Joel Salatin Yeah. Okay. So so the two lay the groundwork. I've written the book to three groups of people. So when I write Journey, I always I imagine that there's somebody sitting on the other side of the desk. So I'm sitting here, you know, writing, but I'm talking to somebody. And my favorite thing as an author is for somebody to come up and say, You don't know me, but I feel like I completely know you. I mean, that's like the greatest compliment any author can can hear that they connected connected with somebody. Somebody connected with them. So I've written this book 2 to 3 groups of people. The first group is are the people that are still in the urban setting, but they're concerned about where things are headed and they're trying to have, you know, discussions about maybe we ought to go out and get an acre or two, maybe we ought to have a garden, maybe we ought to do some of this stuff. So for those to encourage them, to affirm them in the thought trajectory that they're on. Mm hmm. The second group would be all their family and friends that think they're nuts for entertaining these kind of ideas. What? You know, how you know, where are you going to go out to eat, you know? You know, what are you what are you going to do when it's when it's dark outside? There's no street lights. Yeah, but there's no appeal sirens either, you know. And so. So anyway, so, so so the I call the naysayers the well-intentioned naysayer. So now this they can just hand it to them and say, here's what we're thinking of what we're thinking. You know that that's the idea. Mm hmm. And then the third group of people and these are growing Jenny, every day. The third group of people are the people who did make the jump a year or two year or three years ago. They made the jump. They had all these intentions and fantasies and dreams, and they're a year or two years into it. And guess what? The cow has mastitis. The cucumbers have powdery mildew, and the neighbor's dog just came and eight, ten of their chickens. Yeah. And they're just that man. This this is not what we signed up for. And they need to rediscover their first love. They need to re visit the why that brought them to this so that they'll stay with it and persevere. So those are the three groups that that I'm writing to. And so, yeah, some of the some of the chapter titles, you know, a couple of them, a couple of my favorites. One is one is about chores and the importance of chores and development of a young person so that they're responsible for something and also so they can see something really accomplished and definite and definite, you know, self-worth. We hear a lot today that, look, Jenny, teen suicide rate. I mean, I just had discussions the other day with a lady that was here at the farm. She's a school guidance counselor, and she said you wouldn't believe the stuff that's going on in schools with suicides, with depression, with with with disorders of every kind, including drugs. And, of course, you know, the whole the whole fentanyl. Look, you know, when when, when when people get up and carry on about, oh, we need to shut down these cartels and shut down, I'm sitting here saying, who wants fentanyl? Who needs it? Who wants it, you know? It fills a void. And so if we want happy, responsible, productive kids, they need to very early on develop a sense of self-worth, of need, fulness of affirmation. I'm important. I have something to contribute to society. This is not prideful, it's not arrogant. It's not. I don't need God. It's I am valuable. I am enough goodness. I am valuable enough that if we could go back to the earlier discussion that Jesus wanted me in his kingdom. I mean, that's a wonderful truth. Okay. As bad as I was. All right. And so the self-worth thing is a big deal. Well, how do you develop personal value? How do you develop that? Well, you develop it by accomplishing meaningful tasks. There are three critical words accomplishing meaning tasks just because you accomplish. If you accomplish a task that's not meaningful, it doesn't give you self-worth. Maybe you're the top points getter on whatever you know. Game of Thrones. I don't know. I don't even know what these video games are. But, you know, maybe maybe you're the kingpin of that. But that doesn't give you self-worth. If not self-worth, like knowing how to grow a tomato is not self worth, like knowing how to identify three different kinds of oak trees and the different kinds of wood. It's not like knowing how to how to split firewood and develop competency, gut to chicken, make butter. Okay. It's not like those kinds of things. And so we have this kind of idea in our culture today. I think that all we have to do is tell our children, you're a good little boy. You're a good little girl. And they'll grow up feeling good about themselves. That's not the way it works. The way it works is you do accomplish meaningful tasks and you develop great identity. You know who you are. You know what you can do, you know where you stand. And that all comes with important chores to do, important work to do as you work together on the homestead. So that's one.
Ginny Yurich Of the that's good. As a good little teaser, I cannot wait to read it. I have so thoroughly enjoyed every book of yours that I've read, and I've read quite a bit of them. Every one all different, but all written in a way that holds your interest very impactful. You walk away with life change. Every book I've read of yours lives to think about, in particular in this one, like I said, it was a convicting read for me things that I in my entire life have never thought about or considered. And so I'm so thankful. I'm thankful when people bring up the topics that you don't hear other places, because now what if you go a whole lifetime and you never hear about the Styrofoam plates or the GMOs? And how does that relate to our spiritual walk? And it does so. Joe, I so appreciate your time. You have so much going on at the busy farm and a team to always appreciate it and cannot wait to read. Homestead Tsunami. Thank you for being here.
Joel Salatin Thank you, Ginny. Thanks for having me. It's always a treat.
