Episode 207 with Amy Fewell
Start Where You Are and Steward What You Have Well
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AMY’S BOOKS:
Check out Amy's books:
BOOK #1 - The Homesteaders Herbal Companion - The Ultimate Guide to Growing, Preserving, and Using Herbs
BOOK #2 - The Homesteader’s Natural Chicken Keeping Handbook - Raising a Healthy Flock from Start to Finish
SHOW NOTES:
From dealing with a childhood asthma diagnosis to her deep passion for self-sufficiency, Amy shares her incredible journey into the homesteading movement. Discover how the desire for better health and food led her to embrace a simpler way of life. Amy also emphasizes the importance of community and experience in homesteading while discussing topics like infertility and the benefits of raw milk.
In this touching episode, Amy reveals the beauty of homesteading's connection to faith and nature, and her dedication to teaching others about this fulfilling lifestyle. Tune in to learn about the upcoming bills in 2024 that concern homesteaders and farmers.
Amy's insights on the awakening happening in America regarding food and health are a must-hear. Whether you have acres of land or just a small space, Amy's message is clear: start where you are and steward what you have well. Don't miss this episode with a remarkable homesteader and advocate for a healthier, more self-reliant way of life.
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Find Amy on social media:
@amy.fewell
@homesteadersofamerica
@refugeofliberty
Find Amy online:
https://thefewellhomestead.com/
https://homesteadersofamerica.com/
Check out Amy's books:
BOOK #1 - The Homesteaders Herbal Companion - The Ultimate Guide to Growing, Preserving, and Using Herbs
BOOK #2 - The Homesteader’s Natural Chicken Keeping Handbook - Raising a Healthy Flock from Start to Finish
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
207 AMY FEWELL
Ginny Yurich All right, here we go. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and the founder of Homesteaders of America is here with us today. Amy Fewell, Welcome.
Amy Fewell Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Ginny Yurich And one of your sons, which is such because I totally relate with that. Hi there, buddy. So glad that you're here. It's awesome to be for, I think. And you know, the youngest was four. She was always around. So that's really special. Amy, you started Homesteaders of America. This is absolutely incredible. All of the things that you do, you've got your own farm. You have this conference every year that draws in thousands of people. It sells out months and months ago, half a year before it even occurs. It sells out. And you are just doing such wonderful things to help people become self-sufficient and be encouraged and build relationships in just over a decade. Yeah, that's kind of long, but not that long.
Amy Fewell Yeah, no, it's not very long at all.
Ginny Yurich No. You know, to have this explosion of websites and things that you do in podcasts. So can you tell us a little bit of your story? I know it starts with your son and he had asthma and you made a big life change.
Amy Fewell Yeah. So I'll try to give you the condensed version of the story. And that's exactly what happened. So I grew up around farming. My husband did not. He grew up in the mountains, so he was the hunter and Fisher and all that. And so when our first son was born around 14 years ago, he was diagnosed with childhood asthma at the age of one. And so we just saw that there were so many inhalers, there were so many medications they wanted to put him on. And somehow I just instinctually knew, like I don't want his body on all of these things. And so I started doing research. I we started buying a raw milk curd share. I got into herbalism, you know, how were there natural or were there natural herbs that could help him breathe better or open those airways? So that got us on the path to homesteading. And so that was probably in 2010. And then quickly, I realized that there wasn't very much of a community that could be around me that could support me, because at the time, my husband, he was not supportive of homesteading at all. Like he was like, I don't understand this. This is crazy. I don't want chickens, I don't want any of this stuff. And so it's actually our biggest testimony because now he's completely on board, like he helps with everything and it's crazy. So we started homesteading, but in 2016 I was like, you know, there's no community and I would really like to build a community near me because where I am in Virginia, it's a lot of commercial agriculture. And so there wasn't quite a lot of the homesteading natural mindset. So anyhow, a friend had mentioned that maybe I should start a homesteading conference at the time I worked for Media, so I my entire career has been in newspapers, magazines, media in general and like I have no experience with events. And I actually had a sponsor ask me that the first year he was like, Well, what's your experience? I'm like, None. I have zero. So you are trusting me big time with this. But I knew from working with the magazine I'd been working for that I knew who Joel Salatin was, and I'm like, If I can get Joel Saladin on this conference, then we'll be golden. And so I did. I emailed Joel. He didn't know me from Adam, and yet now he's like a really good friend, which is awesome. And he was like, I have no idea who you are. I have no idea how I'm going to get paid, but I'm going to do this with you. I'll be your speaker. You can pay me when you have the money and let's just get it going. Wow. And so we expected like 300 people to show up because I was a nobody. Nobody knew me. And I didn't know how to get the information out. We had 1500 people show up that first year that we held it, and we were so severely unprepared for that many people. But it was it was great. And then we gained like a thousand people each year. We had to move the venue. That was in 2017, our first event. I think we reached maximum capacity at the Current. Then you were at at around 6000 people. Our tickets this year went on sale in January and we were sold out in 45 days like it was insane. And so the homesteading movement is incredible. Like there's so many people flocking to this movement and a more simple way of life. And it just fits so well with what we really need in our society right now.
Ginny Yurich Wow. Wow. Amy, what a thing. Yeah. So cool that you were looking for community and now you're being able to provide it for thousands of people, sells out 6000 people. And so actually this piece of it has not even been going on for a decade and it just has exploded. I love that Joel's got that book coming out called Homestead Tsunami, which basically this is what's going on, is that people are, like you said, flocking to it. I thought was interesting. I talked to Jill Winger recently and she said that when she first started her homesteading things, which probably was similar timeframe to yours, I would imagine maybe within a couple of years. Yeah, she said the word wasn't even mainstream, that when she would tell people she's a homesteader, people didn't even know what that word was. So I thought that was interesting. Things have really changed in the last decade. What are some of the factors that are creating this homestead tsunami?
Amy Fewell Yeah, so we homesteaders of America, as I'm just going to call it from now on, because it's so much easier and there are always people who are like, don't you know, that's, you know, yeah, it's an oxymoron. I get it. But yeah, so we actually have done some reporting like different surveys to get information from people like what started you into homesteading. Why are you doing it? A lot of people from like 2016 up to 2020, they were homesteading because they wanted better health, they wanted better food. Health was it was very health driven and a lot of it could have also been from the prepper mindset, like there's always been preppers, especially since the seventies. And so some of us also had that mindset too, like we want to grow our own food so that we're never dependent on a system. But when 2020 hit, it kind of just set everything on fire. And it really changed the mindset of a lot of people. We ran a series on our YouTube channel at the beginning of 2020 called How to Grow Your Own Food. Because stores were shut down, things were crazy, and people were like, What do I do now? Right. I think we saw like within 48 hours, over 10,000 people join our newsletter email list because they wanted to learn how to grow their own food. They were in desperation. And so since 2020, it's still health related. But a lot of people now their mindset has changed too. I never want to depend on any kind of system, whether it's government or local or whatever. They wanted to depend on balancing everything out their community, their neighbors. And a lot of times what I have a conversation with people is about your community is the ten people that live around you. And we always think, Oh, it's the next town over, or it's the town closest to me, or No, your community is your friends and your family and the ten people in your general area that are your neighbors. Because if it ever comes a time where something happens and you can't get to town or there's no reason to go to town anymore, you know, that's your community. You need to get to know those people and interact with those people. Or maybe it's a church community or a homesteading co-op or something, a homeschool co-op. It's just been interesting to see those things shift, that mindset shift. So now it's it was community based before, but it was almost like self-sufficiency based. We're now shifting to very much a community mindset and people want to create this alternative system essentially next to our current food system and political system so that they have something to fall back on.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Wow. What a network in you are right in the thick of it. You have your own farm, refuge of liberty. People can learn about their and the fuel homestead and then this homesteaders of America. So when you talked at the very beginning about getting chickens, that's one of the things you said. And your husband was like, Why? Why are we doing this? There is a big learning curve here. And I think it's interesting when you said on your YouTube channel when you had the video, How do I grow my own food? It seems like it would be as simple as putting seeds in the ground, but there really is a lot to learn. Like do the tomatoes vine up and are there horn worms? I mean, there's so much going on that you have to learn. What was that process like for you? Because you said you grew up on a farm, but I remember reading that you weren't super involved, right? So you you go from maybe having just a small amount of knowledge to really you got a book about herbs, you've got a book about chickens. What was that process of learning like?
Amy Fewell Yeah, so that's a really good question. And I always tell people that you need to go through one whole winter of chickens and one whole summer of chickens that's really, really hot and a really, really cold winter. And then you can actually think of yourself as a pro because there is a lot of learning, right? Like you have to even learn to be a good wife or a good husband or a good parent, you know? And so the process worked for me, like the first three years I just started doing it and really, that's all you can do. I tried to get information. I read a lot of books, I watched a lot of videos. I still watch a lot of videos, even though we've been doing this for 14 years. But there's nothing that beats experience. And so when you go out there and you choose whatever gardening method or whatever home study method, there's plenty of them you can choose from. You really have to take those first three years to understand your property, to understand what you're doing. And even then, once you understand it, something's going to fail. Like this year, my tomatoes, they're just not doing well, you know? And I've been growing tomatoes like a pro for at least ten years. And so there's always just something you have to give yourself grace and all of it. And so I would say one of the biggest things that people do is they dive into home, especially gardening. They want to have, you know, this 100 by 100 foot garden. Right. And it's impossible to manage. And so finding things that make your life easier is okay. And that's what I had to learn, like putting down greenhouse fabric so that I could concentrate on growing plants and not weeds is okay. And so it gave me the time to concentrate on watching the plant. What is the plant doing? What kind of diseases are there? I would say just gaining that experience helps. And then with herbalism, that was a little bit different because there wasn't a lot of information about herbalism when I first started, and that wasn't that long ago. And the rise in herbalism also kind of started in 2020, even though my book was published in I guess it was 2018, but I had to take courses in do classes and study under people who knew what they were talking about and that respect, because that's a little bit different. You're talking about the medical field in that sense. And so I just had to do a lot of research and figure out my best learning method, how I learned and what I wanted to learn, and then go from there. And I just kept giving myself grace over and over again. The same thing with herbalism is you almost just have to jump right into it and actually use it and do it and grow it before you can say, I fully understand this. And you know, we're seeing this age of information, right? There's a lot of people who are pros at everything, but there are book pros. They don't have any experience in it. And so that's one thing we have to be guarded about, because I was finding when I was started actually growing a garden and growing livestock and getting into herbalism, that it was different and it didn't do the way the book did, right? And now it's like, Well, what now? Nobody told me about this. Nothing beats experience at all. So just diving in and getting our hands dirty is how we learned all of this. And then along the way, just trying to learn extra on the side is basically how we did that.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. And it doesn't take forever. No. You went from 2010 to 2017. You had the book. But it does take some time. And I think it's such an important piece because I think that we're a little bit tricked, like because it is an age of information. I think that the majority of people, myself included, would think, okay, well, if something happened, then tomorrow I could just learn how to grow my own food. I could watch the YouTube video from Home Centers of America and learn how to do it. But really, it doesn't work like that. It does take a long time to figure out what you're doing and what to watch for and what kind of tomatoes that your kids like and what kind that they don't make and what kind of melons and all of those different things. And maybe that's part of the reason, too, why people are flocking back to it is because they know that they have to put in the time. Now if they want to have future knowledge and wisdom and abilities in order to do anything substantial. I remember the first year we grew flowers and I don't know anything. This is pretty recent for me, even within the past five or six years, and I thought that one seed would give me one flower. And that's not true, right? Once it gives you like a whole plant and then the flowers shoot up all these different directions, I had no idea. You learn. I think you're doing it and it's encouraging. Amy, I think your story is really encouraging to see that within this period of time, not only you were able to deal with asthma, but then also with infertility as well.
Amy Fewell Right. Yeah, that's a big story. And that's one I love sharing because there are so many women who come to me saying, I can't have kids and I don't know why and I need help. And so our first son was born in 2009, and our second son was born ten years later in 2019. And so for about nine years, it wasn't quite ten years from our first child. We dealt with secondary infertility. And I couldn't understand why because I was generally a healthy person. I maybe was holding on to some extra weight, which my doctor at the time had said, If you lost weight, you'd probably be fine. But it didn't explain my hormone issues. And so even though we were eating organic food and we were drinking raw milk and all of these things, like I was doing all of the things, to some extent, it didn't make a difference. It wasn't helping. And so I just felt prompted, I guess it was in 2018, probably July of 2018. That's when it was to do a ketogenic diet because I felt like my body needed a reset and I never did a reset. I went on a kind of a lazy keto diet, which for those who don't know, it's a low carb, you know, high fat, high protein diet. And basically I didn't put a lot of thought into it. I ate 25 carbs or less a day and a lot of fresh food because that's what we had. And then that was it. And so that was towards the end of July. I lost like a lot of weight. I lost 30 or £40. And that October, unbeknownst to me, we got pregnant. And, you know, nine months later our second son was born. And so that happened kind of twice, actually, because our third child, which is a daughter, she was. Born last year, and so I had no idea. I was not expecting to get pregnant with her as quickly as I did because it took nine years the first time. Right. And so our second son was born in 2019. She was born last year. And what had happened was as soon as I was done nursing him around the age of two, I kind of started getting back into that low carb diet. And a friend had told me, she's like, You're going to get pregnant again. You're just going to because a low carb diet evens out your hormones, especially for somebody who has PCOS. It's very good for people who have insulin resistance or anything like that. And so I went ahead and went on it and I knew that girl. I wasn't on it for like a month and I was pregnant again. I was even trying to get pregnant. Like I just wanted to lose weight and be normal. And I got pregnant again and I'm like, Oh, okay, we're doing this. And so now it's a different time at night dynamic. I have a toddler and a baby and a 14 year old and it's like, Oh my God, we're all over the place. But homesteading, I think if I had never gotten into this lifestyle and herbalism and all of these things, I never would have thought, Oh, I really need a drastic diet change because I just wanted to lose weight and be healthy and get rid of inflammation. But then the benefit to that was also more children. And so.
Ginny Yurich Far it's been.
Amy Fewell Pretty incredible.
Ginny Yurich And you see how the things can be related to each other. The most eye opening book I read in terms of health and not that we ever made any major substantial changes, but, you know, you try. I read a book called The 100 Year Lie, and it does this timeline of 100 years. I think it's probably like 1900 to 2000. And the change in our food system, the change in the chemicals and then the rise in disease. And they're like parallel where, you know, like you see like this one and that one. And then you're like, oh, maybe this does actually matter and it does affect things. And so what an encouraging story, Amy, that you're able to deal with the actual things that you're dealing with right now in real time in your own family health challenges and you're able to find answers. I think that's the hope is that there's answers. There's things that you can try and along the way that maybe you even are healthier in other ways as well. So that's really encouraging. Okay. On your Web site, this is on your farm website. So this one is well, I think at the end you're going to have to tell me, because there was a lot of websites, I think this is on the fuel homestead scam where there are all these blog categories. So it's herbs, bees, chickens, rabbits, farmhouse, gardening, devotional home making sour dough and recipes. Which one of those is your favorite to talk about?
Amy Fewell Oh, I love talking about all of it, but I think my favorite is devotionals. I love writing devotionals. I love it when Farm Life and Jesus come together. And that's my favorite thing. Like, that's just what I love doing. Because one of the things about homesteading is that it's cause me to be more humble. Because I'm a steward of the earth and I am stewarding these animals. I'm storing a garden and I'm stewarding a family and all of that. Just being in the elements of nature and being disconnected from technology during those times especially, it's very humbling because you are in charge of all of these things and you can just see the Lord in all of it. Like I can just see the Lord in all of these things. And I'm like, We got sheep recently and I was talking about this on our podcast and you know, the Bible talks about how we're sheep, right? And he's the shepherd guiding sheep has made me understand that relationship with God so much more because I'm like, Oh my gosh, sheep, you really do need a shepherd. Like, y'all are crazy. But it's also been so fun because they're so loving. Like if you're very hands on with them, they need you. You can just feel that from the sheep that they need you. My husband was outside one day in a storm and like there was this clap of thunder and the sheep almost jumped into his arms and he was like, What in the world just go in the barn? And so I love riding devotional stuff. I love making that connection. And I would say that's my favorite thing. I have so many people asking me, always, please write a devotional book for your next book. And I'm like, Oh, baby, oh.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, what a great fit. Oh, okay. So you're talking about your podcast. I saw the Sheep once. There was like three different sheep podcasts. And so this is the oh eight podcast. You have to podcast. So you have your own podcast. Yeah, the Choosing Simple podcast is your own. I wrote down some of the different titles, like Moving at the Pace of Children, Just Beautiful Things. They're about simplicity and the choices we make to be more simple. And then you have your podcast too, where you were just talking about dairy sheep and wool sheep and getting started with sheep seeds, starting creating passive income. Talk to us about what you like to talk about. Like who do you want to talk to and what kind of things do you like to talk about on your podcast?
Amy Fewell Yeah, it's been kind of interesting. So they do a podcast and it's using simple podcasts are totally different the way when it's more about education, like educating people. About animals and gardening, everything we're talking about. And it's also about like educating them politically, making them more aware. How do they get involved in their community and politics to make changes, good farm changes and so on their week one day we can we be talking about sheep and another day we could be talking to a senator. You know, there's multiple different things going on there and that are coming up and and, you know, coming recordings and the choosing simple podcasts is kind of that devotional farm life where that comes together for my personal podcast, which I've neglected a little bit. And because, you know mom life, right? And so I had to choose one or the other and the one I've been choosing. So we have two podcasts that come out every month for a joy, and then eventually I'll get back into the the other podcast. But I love talking to people who have a passion for teaching. There's so many people I can teach, but if you don't have a passion about what you're teaching about, then it's kind of just like drudgery. There's no sense, like there's no there's no excitement around it. And so, you know, we've had Jules Alison on there. We had a really good episode with him. Joel and I always get into controversial conversations, and we're just waiting for the time when we're going to get shut down, right? And so having those hard convos with people or just having good, solid educational conversations with people, I really I enjoy doing that.
Ginny Yurich What a thrill. Joel It is so fantastic. We were at a conference together just in this past May and he has all this stuff written like on a legal pad, just like, Yeah, and paper. He's so inspiring. No television in their home. He writes, you know, a book every single year. It's so cool. I loved his book. Everything I want to do is illegal. And when we were at a conference with him in Florida, now he's from Virginia, right where you're from. But we were at a conference in Florida, and he was coming from some sort of legislative something. He was meeting with Representative Sanders, I'm not sure who, but in Florida. So he's very actively involved. Yeah, I would imagine around the country he is, because it really does affect things.
Amy Fewell It does. And that's one of the things we try to do at HQ, too, like helping people learn how to get involved. That even looks like sometimes promoting other events and other home state and farm organizations like We definitely support the Rogue Food conference that was at Poly Face in the springtime. And so probably what you were meeting him or seeing him do was he had to testify in front of Congress about food laws. And so he had multiple meetings about that beforehand. And so there's a lot of stuff the government I won't get all into it, but there's a lot of bills coming up, especially in 2024, that need homesteaders and farmers attentions. So when we can advocate for that and a better food system, which in turn gives us a better health system, then we're all about supporting other organizations too, because we can't do it all. It's like I'm just one person. And so we try to go to those events and we try to support those events as much as we can because they have different topics in us too.
Ginny Yurich Can you think off the top of your head of what would be an example? Like I remember this doesn't have to do with farming in particular, but I remember in reading John's book Everything I Want to Do as a Legal, which is a phenomenal book, one of my favorites I've ever read. It's funny, he's so smart. All of his books are fantastic. But in that one he was talking about this concept of like rotating through homes on your property, which I thought was such a neat thing. Like he was talking about your newly married. So maybe there's a 900 square foot home on your property and then you start to have kids and you move to the bigger farmhouse and then you become retired and you go back to as you kind of rotate through. Right. And he was talking about all these laws that affect the size of home that you can put on your property. And it was really constrictive. And he was just kind of like, well, why this is my own place or that type of thing. But in terms of farming in homesteading, what's an example of something that would be coming up in 2024 that people should know about?
Amy Fewell Yeah. So one of the big things is raw milk herd shares. In most states, it's illegal to buy raw milk. Why more children die from drowning in pools on a yearly basis than people die from drinking raw milk. Actually, in the history of ever. Like people just don't die from raw milk. And so this is an example of a lot of homesteads and farms. They offer raw milk to people, but a lot of times the only way to buy raw milk legally is to actually own part of that herd. And so the loophole around that is to have a herd share. So like we have a couple of cows and we have a herd share, and that means that our customers own a percentage of that share and then in return they pay a boarding fee and they get a gallon of milk a week. Because I can't actually sell the milk. I can't say, okay, you're paying for this gallon of milk. I can say, oh, you're paying for the boarding fee, and here I'm giving you your milk. And so it's just silly stuff like that. But there's talk we I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with someone who works for Congressman Massie, and he was saying that now in 2024, they're trying to put federal regulations on herd shares like across the. We're not just leaving it up to the state. And so these are things that we have to be aware of because this is our food. There are countries that don't let you homeschool. There are countries that don't even let you have a milk hour because they think raw milk is unsafe. And so it's almost like watching America get to that point. And the only way to battle it is to educate homesteaders and farmers and say, listen, you've got to get in the game or else it's just going to change and it's going to change for the worse.
Ginny Yurich Well, let's talk about this, because I know a little bit and you're going to know a lot more than I do. But I've read about it and we've done a heard here before. It's tricky because sometimes you're driving really far and you have to go on that certain day and you can only come at this period of time. So it makes it tricky. But I remember reading about how it's filled with a lot of really good live bacteria, and when milk is pasteurized, then you're drinking a bunch of dead bacteria. You're going to have to correct me if I'm wrong. And just that there's a lot of benefits of it. And the history is that I remember reading something like they were putting stardust in the milk, like people were getting sick. So that's camp there for a minute. And talk about raw milk and what does it do and how did we get here?
Amy Fewell Yeah. So you were talking about the 100 year lie, right? And so it kind of goes back to that. So in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, we saw most of the political garbage that we have today around food and health started then. Well, let's start with Louis Pasteur. Louis Pasteur was big into vaccination, all of those things and whatever. But he also created the pasteurization process of milk. And so because what was happening is there were poor farmers and they were feeding their cows like sawdust or cardboard because they didn't have the ability to feed them feed and good hay. There's a lot going on in that setting right then. That's why it's good to know your farmer. And what was happening is those cows were expelling through their milk listeria. Now, listeria is not it's a bacteria, but it's not necessarily a bad bacteria. All bacteria is created to get rid of toxins. And so that's what was happening. Those cows were eating cardboard. They're not made to eat. Instead, the toxins were being released through their milk, which can make people sick. Now, all cows have some account of bacteria of some kind in their milk. Generally, it will never make you sick. But if there's a toxin overload, then yes, they can expel that through their milk. Humans do it too. All mammals do it because of that one incident where like two people died from listeriosis is what it's called when you have an overgrowth of bacteria of listeria. And so that was in the late 1800s, early 1900s. And it's even, you know, now we are still suffering from that situation from then. You know, the Flexner report, we go into that where, you know, the health care system, there's not a doctor, but there's a man with the last name of Flexner, and he kind of revolutionized the health care system with a lot of big other names like Chandy Rockefeller and people who had no idea what health, good health even was. And so we kind of saw those things coincide with each other The farm stuff, fertilizer, the pasteurization of milk and the health care system were basically in cahoots with each other, and they still are now. So raw milk is full of beneficial bacteria. I don't know if you've ever bought organic milk from a store, but it lasts like four weeks in the refrigerator and even has the date on it. Like the expiration date says it's like four weeks away. And I'm like, That's not normal, that there cannot be anything normal about that. And so raw milk is full of enzymes and good bacteria. It's one of the best probiotics for your stomach. We got our oldest son on raw milk. That's why we got a herd share in the beginning years ago, because it can actually help regenerate mucous linings in your body. And so he had asthma and he needed that regeneration help over the next five years of his life because the one of the lungs regenerates basically every seven years. And so he needed that help with the mucous membranes in his lungs. And so what's the best way? Raw milk. Raw milk was great. It also helps his gut. And so gut health is a really important parts of your body. You have to think that's your first line of defense. And now we've been told for decades or a century even that you can't drink raw milk because it's going to kill you. But it's not like there you can even go on on these websites like the CDC website and see more people. They die from other things like medication that they take or hospital negligence. Right. Like there's are procedures, surgery, procedures. More people like hundreds and thousands of people die from these things. But the government's concerned about raw milk and it doesn't make sense at all. And so it's a very healthy food. It's good to remember that raw milk is food. Milk in general is a food, not a drink. So obviously, if you're drinking it all the time, you know, you could get a little pudgy around the. Belly if you're. It's a lot to carbs, but it's really good for our kids. Like our youngest son. When he was two, he was sick a lot. He just kept getting sick. And so I just pumped him full of raw milk. And raw milk basically kept him going and thriving because it's so good for the human body. You have to think for the first, at least the first year of our life. We're drinking milk, right? We're drinking, hopefully, you know, mom's milk. But if not, that's fine, too. We are nurtured by that, like our body survives off of just milk, and our body could still survive off of just raw milk because it's such a whole food. So it's pretty incredible to understand the benefits of it. There are so many more like, I don't even have a list. I could go down a list, but there's just so many health benefits to raw milk that we it's it's mind blowing that it's illegal for such a health benefiting food.
Ginny Yurich And now that they're going after it at a federal level.
Amy Fewell Right.
Ginny Yurich Does it just go back to money?
Amy Fewell I think it does. My opinion is it probably does go back to money and not being able to control health in general. Like my theory is, if somebody wants to eat or drink something, just let them do it right, like they're not hurting anybody else. So I think it comes down to regulation and big government and they want to be able to regulate everything. And I don't understand that because I don't think that way. But we do know that our health care system is owned by a pharmaceutical company. And we also know that our food system for big agriculture is owned by that same company. And so when you understand I mean, this is all stuff you can find online, it's not conspiracy when you understand that the food system, Big AG and the health system are owned by the same company, it doesn't take a lot for you to figure out that your food is making you sick and your health care system is also making you sick for more money. And it's just unfortunate. I mean, I have people as an herbalist come to me all the time. I'm their last resort because nothing is working. They just keep getting sicker. And so I'm able to see this firsthand. And it's it's crazy. It's just it's crazy. And so I think there's some reformation happening with the homesteading movement. And I think that upsets the government. I really do. Because when you're free in your food and you're free in your health and you don't need the food system and you don't need the health system, then you're essentially untouchable, you're unregulated. And we can't have that right. Like the government is like, no, we can't have that. And so that's my theory.
Ginny Yurich Has a lot going on there. People want to learn more. That one, that 100 year log book is good. It's been out for a long time. And then everything I want to do is illegal, is really eye opening and like makes your blood boil a little bit, but you really get a sense of what is happening behind the scenes. I was just recently at a canning class, which was so fun to do. I went with my daughter. We learned how to can salsa, so we're really at the beginning stages of that type of thing. But when I was there, these other moms are talking about how they've done canning, but then they don't actually eat it because they're scared of botulism. Oh my goodness. So then we were talking about, well, where did that fear come from? And then someone found an article that said it was like seed it out there. Like it was similar probably to the listeria that I'm sure things have happened maybe a very few times, but that you can really see if something is molding or and that the botulism was more of a big scare than anything that was really legitimate.
Amy Fewell Yeah. And so that's true. Same thing that happened with raw milk. Now, here's the other thing, too, to know. Like, if you are a unhealthy person, then these things are going to affect you way more than it would a normal, healthy person. And so that's the same across the board with anything typical healthy people have contracted salmonella, had a little bit of an upset stomach. They wouldn't even think about it like, oh, I you know, I ate something. It upset my stomach and you're fine. Same with Syria, same with botulism, same with all of these things, because a healthy person's gut and digestive tract can handle it. But what's happening is we now live in a country full of unhealthy people because we're eating prepackaged food that's not healthy, that's over processed, and our body doesn't know how to process fake food. And so botulism is kind of the same way. Yes, you should be careful. You should take precautions. Normally, botulism is found in the dirt and it's different because it's more prevalent in like root vegetables. So carrots and potatoes. But if you're washing them off and if you're skinning them, it's highly unlikely that you will ever deal with botulism. It's like not even like a 1% chance. Like it's Yeah.
Ginny Yurich It's funny, though, Like, you think like that's what these women were saying. They were like, I canned all these things and then we never ate it because I was so nervous about botulism. So it is sometimes these buzzwords that are flying around. And when you. Take a step back and learn where they come from. It's really helpful. So this Homesteaders of America conference is sold out. It's in October. If people want to sign up next year, they got to do it in January, like right after the holidays. Make sure that you're on your list. Make sure you're signed up so that you're getting the information. A lot of the people that you're having at the conference have been on our podcast. So a people like Jose Alton, Joe Winger, John Marvel, there's kids that are classes. If people still want the information, they can become a member, right? And watch the conference online. So tell us how they do that.
Amy Fewell Yeah, so we have a couple of membership tiers. So if you want to watch our big barn at the event live, then you can get one of the top two membership tiers and you can actually watch the event in that barn that just that one section live during the event. And then what happens is all members to a certain extent get access to some videos of the conference, but it's the top two tiers that get access to all of the videos. What that looks like is like we just record all of the lectures during the event, which are there's tons of them and then it takes us a few weeks. So you get those lectures uploaded onto our website and then you can literally go and watch them and take notes and rewind and fast forward. So that's one of the really big benefits to our membership. And then all members also they get in magazines. So we haven't actually magazine and that magazine is included in that membership as well. And that comes out twice a year. The only difference with the top two tiers is like the top is tier. I think we call it our premier membership. We actually have we did some events in Tennessee a couple of years ago and so there's a couple of those events on there that we recorded as well, which are very in-depth business events. So we're looking to add more in-depth conversation and topics for our members as well. There's literally thousands of hours, like thousands of hours of lectures on there. So if you've never been to event, you can get a membership and watch the lectures and not miss out.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. And you have a women's conference, too. Is that one sold out?
Amy Fewell It is not sold out. We're about halfway sold out. And that's going to be at Poly Face Farm this November. And that's our second women's event. It's it's very laid back. We drink lots of coffee and we eat lots of food from poly face, like it's all poly face food. And we just sit down and we have lectures anywhere from homesteading type lectures to faith based lectures and just inspiration, like come and sit in this hoop house and enjoy other women and just be inspired and then go back home and be ready for the holidays and a new year. And that's kind of the mindset behind it. Like we do have a lot of women bringing their husbands. We actually encourage them to bring them this year. They can wander around the farm if they want to, but we're having a parenting and marriage Q&A panel during that event where a couple of the husbands are going to step in with us and kind of talk about marriage and parenting and home setting. And I'm trying to convince my husband to sit up there with me since because a lot of women, they come in, they're like, my husband doesn't want anything to do with this. And he was like that, too. And so now he's just the complete opposite. And so it's it's good to hear people's stories and get some hope and inspiration from them. Right.
Ginny Yurich And that we've been to the farm one time and they've got kombucha on tap. It's so cool. It's such a cool place. And they have sort of this policy where you can, I think maybe not on Sundays, but other days of the week that you can walk around and you can see the pigs and you can see the cows and you can really see like a funeral story that the property for a long time was not grow able. I don't even know that's a word. Or it was like hard to grow things and a lot of rocky soil and you just see how it's flourishing. So it's so cool. Wow. Right there at Paleyfest. What a neat thing to have. So that's coming up in November. It is really good timing, Amy, right before the holidays to kind of fill yourself up and make some friends and that type of thing. So you guys offer so much through the podcast, the print magazine, fun to get a print magazine. And even if people come to that conference, you have kids that are classes. We do stuff for the kid.
Amy Fewell Yeah, yeah. And they're cheap. Like we don't this year. We don't charge for kids 17 and under. And so we did want to have something for them. And so each class has a 50 kid maximum. You pay ten bucks, which basically covers your child's materials and they get to have fun while you get to go walk around and be with your spouse or your friend or whatever and learn as well. And so that was one thing that we really enjoy putting together every year, and we look forward to expanding that next year.
Ginny Yurich And I think your point earlier is such a good one that not only are you coming and you're building relationships and you're learning and it's a vibrant environment and it's exciting and you get to meet all of maybe these different people, you read their books and that type of thing, but you also are coming together as a community of like minded people. For those political situations. You're part of the numbers, you're part. Of being in the know. And that is an important piece of it, too. I think sometimes, like I think of it in terms of with home schooling, you know, I always think when our kids graduate, you know, have I done my job if they've graduated, but now they're not able to homeschool or they have less freedoms than I did as a parent. And so that is part of it. Part of it is what are we handing down to our children? And I think about that quite often, especially as they start to hit those ages of 14, 15. That's where we're at. You start to think, okay.
Amy Fewell Yeah, when did I do that? Right? Did I teach you well enough to. Yeah. To go out and, and do you have the equipment that you need. And that's one thing that we do. One of the things I tell all of our attendees are each way, whether they're a parent or not, is go back to your community like it's great to come to our events. It's great to go online and, and build community. But now you need to go back to your physical community and start implementing and executing the things that you're learning. And you're going to find that your neighbor wants to learn how to grow tomatoes. Or maybe they don't, maybe they can't, and they're like, Hey, I'll buy tomatoes from you. And you can start building those systems pretty quickly. Especially right now. There is a big awakening happening right now, especially in America when it comes to food and health. And so get your kids involved in that, too. Like have them grow the tomatoes, have them do the chickens and sell the eggs and the raw milk and let them reap the financial benefit of that and just getting them started. And so, you know, it's great to learn all of these things, but it doesn't make a difference if we're not implementing them. And so that's one thing we try to stress to at our events.
Ginny Yurich And what a cool way to make community you're trading or you're buying from this person or that person and you really get to know them. It's definitely different than your typical go home, go in the garage, go in the house, never come outside type of thing. I think even if people have fly, you know, sometimes you drive by and people have flowers out and vases and they're selling farm raised flowers or whatever, you know. And so it's really neat to have those things. You get to know people. When I was reading on your website and for your farm Refuge of Liberty, and you were talking about tomatoes and summer squash and zucchini and medicinal herbs and kitchen herbs and all of these different things that you're growing, and also that you have chickens and also that you have cows. I would have thought that you lived on, you know, like 92 acres. Yeah, but you're doing all of this on less than six, is that correct?
Amy Fewell That's right. We have less than six acres and so we are. Do you could do a lot on a small property as long as you manage it. Well, now, granted, I've seen a lot of unmanaged properties like you. You could really mess up a six acre farm if you don't manage it well. But we implement rotational grazing. We implement a lot of methods here that keep our farm looking normal, like a normal pasture and normal farm. And so as long as you're managing it well, you can do a lot on small acreage.
Ginny Yurich So is this a place that you moved to post wanting to Homestead, or did you already live there?
Amy Fewell So we moved here just last year. Okay. So we actually lived on an a half acre in a wooded subdivision for all of the years we started homesteading. And so that's that was a very small classroom for me, and that's where I was able to intensely learn about gardening because I had to figure it out because I there was no way like this was not a property that stuff was going to grow on. And so, yeah, we homesteaded on a half acre. We only had chickens, we had quail and ducks and you know, we didn't have a cow on a half acre and we had a good garden. I mean, it was small, but we did produce a lot of things from that garden and if I couldn't produce something, then I would go to our local orchard or a local farm and I would get all of their imperfect fruit and their imperfect vegetables. And so I would can all of that because it was still cheaper than the grocery store. Like, sure, I had to put a lot of time into it, but it was still cheaper. You know, I could make a can of pasta sauce for cents where at the store it's like five bucks. And so it was just frugality and putting the time into it. And so doing that helped me learn how to can really well and then garden really well because I had to learn different methods to make it work. It was partially shaded. The soil had never been tilled. My neighbors were on top of me, basically in houses next to me, so it had to look kind of nice too. And so, yeah, we lived there in that house for 14 years in Homestead for probably, you know, 13 of those, I guess. And then we've moved here to this six acres and that was a blessing. And that was a crazy story in and of itself. And I actually talked about that story on the Choosing Simple podcast, and I do. And so we've just been really blessed to be here and grow pretty quickly.
Ginny Yurich Amy My mind is blown that you started home. Tenors of America. As a mother living on half an acre, what a hope filled message that people can learn and grow and change their lives without having to make a massive move, without having to have a massive piece of land. And I left. I think Jill Winger said the same types of things, like like homesteading can start in your kitchen just by cooking from scratch. Yeah, it can start there. Yeah. It doesn't have to start with a dairy cow or sheep or those types of things. And I think it's really neat to I think the home setting and just getting outside is so fascinating because you learn that there's always more that you can learn. And learning is so exciting. Yeah. And that's all homesteading does. It's like, well, then you get to learn about the sheep and then you get to learn about you're always learning. There's always something there that's forcing growth. And so there is. It's a half acre. You started Homesteaders of America.
Amy Fewell Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And just this past year did we grow that this larger property And so we did it. I mean I was running this business and multiple businesses and promoting homesteading and trying to do what I could do on the have acre And I think that's the key, you know is stewarding what you have well. And if you steward it well, it doesn't really matter if you don't have 100 tomato plants in a milk cow. I mean, I learned very quickly that 20 well-maintained tomato plants will produce as much as a 100 not well-maintained tomato plants. When you start learning those things like it doesn't matter how many or how much it matters what you do and how you steward what you do have. And you can still get a pretty incredible harvest from that. And so, yeah, it is a hopeful message and and I always tell people, just start where you are because you will be amazed by how much you can produce on that small property.
Ginny Yurich And what our message, Amy, that really permeates everywhere, right? Steward What you do have the children that you do have, the friendships that you do have, the family that you do have, the home that you do have. I love that. Wow. Yeah. Well, Amy, this has been fascinating and so cool that I got a chance to speak with you. We just love what you're doing. My friend Suzanne came to your conference last year and absolutely raved about it. Just loved it. She drove up from Florida to come back. She was so excited, came with her daughter and so just love that you have the women's events. And I'll put in all the notes of all the places where people can find you, which is a lot. You've got the fuel homestead dot com refuge of liberty, dot com homesteaders of America and two books and two podcasts and maybe another book someday about the devotions. You got the membership, you have the magazine that comes out. So just so much going on, these different events that happen throughout the year. What a thing that you're doing to help bring people together. So important and educating people and all of those things. We always end our podcast with the same question and the question is what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?
Amy Fewell Oh, I loved helping my dad in the garden or any farm related things too. Like I wasn't always happy to do it, but those are some of my favorite memories. Now. Isn't it funny how that works? Like even though I was a child, I didn't necessarily appreciate it. But now that I'm an adult, I appreciate those memories so much more. And I say this all the time to people like it's amazing the memories I've held onto that have to do with farming and homesteading that were outside that I didn't appreciate then, but I so appreciate now. And so those are my favorite memories of being outside during childhood were just being on the farm and around the farm and around gardening. And they, you know, nature is just awesome. Like I can see you can almost feel it still, right, when you think about being outside. And so I love those memories.
Ginny Yurich Wow. And what an extra benefit here. You're helping your health, but you're also helping your relationships and creating these lifelong memories. So, Amy, thank you for being here. And I'm so glad that we've gotten to touch base.
Amy Fewell Yeah, me too. Thank you for having me.
