Living Free in Tennessee - Nicole Sauce

Remember the one thing that I always say about moving to a homestead? LEARN TO MAINTAIN YOUR WELL or PUMPHOUSE. Well this week, the holler homestead pump house was completely re-plumbed. I have patched and patched the thing for 13 years and since we already had redone all the house plumbing, Tactical decided to apply pressure until I let him redo the pump house completely. So I did. With one caveat. I needed to understand everything he did and why so that this winter, if something breaks, I can fix it.

Today, I tell the story of the little duckling who could - or rather the little duckling who got herself into a predicament that almost resulted in a foot being cut off. Spoiler alert: she still has her foot and is in the bathtub infirmary recovering. 

Today, I will talk through four ideas for homey and homemade gifts you can start now in preparation for Christmas. This is the fourth time I have done this episode and it gets harder each year. If you do not find something you like in this one, you can go back and listen to the past three. I have provided links to them in the show notes.

Today I was inspired by a listener who posted a quote over on the Mewe group for Living Free in Tennessee to remember to take life's detours in stride - and we had a doozy this weekend!

Today’s topic was suggested on the Mewe chat group. Someone wondered if I could give a breakdown of project tracking systems and pros and cons. Then Mama Sauce showed up in town and I thought what better way to do this than to interview her - the person who has been with me through practically all of the gyrations and tribulations of FIVE different tracking systems until we have landed on what we use today.

It is Wednesday so it is a homesteading day and what better topic to think about, dream about and focus on when it is 95 degrees outside and 95% humidity, than preparing for winter? 

Today, I talk about some of the mental instability that is increasingly visible because of tools like Mewe and Facebook - and to encourage reactions in kindness.

A look at the homesteader as a whole person. What makes a homesteader successful or not successful? Well, it turns out that there are some things that many successful homesteaders have in common and today we will talk about four of them.

Today we talk about today and its role in building the life you choose to live on your terms. Because today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Today is Friday so we have a thought of the walk and there has not been one of these in quite awhile since I took Fridays off in July. And today’s topic was sparked as part of a conversation over on our Mewe group about bullying. Because kids are mean, right? Or is it the artificial situations we put them in? But we will talk more about that in the main content of today’s show.

Today, we will address a set of homestead/food freedom related questions: What to do with too much squash, composting outhouses, keeping your animals alive in the heat of the summer, small business finance, self-publishing and more.

Today, I am on vacation so we have a replay episode and this is one from just about a year ago. It is all about #My3Things. This was the initial kickoff of that concept on this podcast and I thought it would be fun to revisit it a year later and think about how things have grown over this past year, the relationships you have developed with one another, and how many things we have all gotten accomplished in that time! 

Today, we have a fun interview with Tamlynn Clyde about lessons learned from the July Grocery Challenge - you remember right? The challenge where we decided not to go to commercial grocery stores for a month to test our pantry strength, our community relationships and ability to feed ourselves.

And today we got 15 baby ducks and so must juggle the super small babies and the less small babies who cannot be raised as a flock yet because they are too far apart. And as I got to thinking about it, I realized that I have never shared how we seek tp protect our ducks from predators, so today I will review our 4 strategies for protecting our ducks from predators while free ranging them.

Today, I really wanted to step back and take a look at something we do not talk about much here on Living Free in Tennessee - and that is reasons WHY people do not start their businesses. Or rather the top 5 excuses I see people using to not get started.