← Simple Farmhouse Life
Simple Farmhouse Life
262. Homestead Q&A: Make an Income, Find Land, Build Community | Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms
01:00:24
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- [00:01]
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- [00:59]
Joel Salatin
Com cocktail so the idea of legacy is you start on this piece of property, you nurture it, you caretake it, you watch it make progress. You watch different plants come in, different animals come in, you watch the soil build. You watch all this happen. What we want is for future family. We want that legacy to continue. We don't want to just sell it for condominiums. We want to actually see that legacy move forward so that the land becomes a connection to a sacred task of redemption remediation on that land that takes more than a generation.
- [01:32]
Lisa
My name is Lisa, mother of eight and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boom. On this podcast I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough in the Simple Sewing Series. I also help people reach their goals from home through my business courses, Create your blog Dream and YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. I can't believe I've never had Joel Salatin on the podcast. If you're in the homestead world, you've been to any expos or conferences or read any books or listen to podcasts. You've probably heard of Joel Salatin. He educates people on how to start with a small farm, make it profitable, among so many other things. He really casts a big vision and helps people to see, you know, the legacy behind this lifestyle style that a lot of us are striving to live. So without further ado, I think you're really going to love this conversation with Joel Salatin. All right, well, Joel, this has been the long awaited guest. I know you are on a lot of podcasts. I've listened to you on a number of podcasts and at a number of homestead expos and various things. So I know my audience will mostly already know you, but can you introduce yourself for those who don't?
- [02:57]
Joel Salatin
Sure. So I'm Joel Salatin. Our family co owns Polyface Farm in Virginia, Shenandoah Valley. And we've been here since 1961. I was just a little chumper when my mom and dad bought the original property. We've added to it over the years, but yeah, here we are.
- [03:16]
Lisa
All right. And you were saying at a recent Homestead Expo that I was at and you and I were on the same panel and on that panel there were several people up there who were, I felt much better speakers than me and could speak with a lot more words and I. So I was kind of quiet. But you mentioned that Your mom is 100 years old. Is that what you said?
- [03:36]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, that's right.
- [03:37]
Lisa
Wow.
- [03:38]
Joel Salatin
In fact, she's now 100. 100 years old plus 10 months.
- [03:43]
Lisa
Yeah. You go by the month. That makes sense.
- [03:45]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. Once they hit 100, you start going by the month. Yeah, yeah. So she may, if she makes it to December 11, she'll be 101.
- [03:53]
Lisa
I have never, to this day, I really don't think, unless I'm mistaken that I've ever met someone who's 100 years old. It's. It seems something that wouldn't be that rare, but it really is that rare.
- [04:03]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty rare. But my Teresa's grandmother made it to 106 months and so, yeah, I've known a couple of centenarians. Yeah, it's very rare. Very rare. Yeah.
- [04:19]
Lisa
Yeah, it is. She must live a healthy, active lifestyle. I'm sure we could talk about that for quite a while. But your main focus, the way you educate people all across this whole world really is on farming and being profitable with your farm and getting people started on homesteading. And a lot of times when I watch you at different homestead expos and conferences, it's a lot about casting the vision and getting people, you know, a vision for how they can use their land. A lot of people are wanting to get started and then now it seems like it might be harder than ever. I don't know if you agree with that or what it Looks like in your neck of the woods.
- [04:59]
Joel Salatin
Harder to get started because of the price of land.
- [05:02]
Lisa
Yeah, yeah.
- [05:05]
Joel Salatin
Yes and no. I mean, we've got some. I think you're perceptive. I think we've got a couple divergent trends. One trend is simply that we know a lot more. I mean, look at what you can learn on YouTube now. I mean, a skill set or, you know, my books. But, but, yes, but, but, you know, there's, there's a lot of information out now. I mean, I tell people, man, if I, if I had the information at my disposal, you know, 50 years ago, man, our, I think we, we could have shaved a few years off of our learning curve. The beauty is that we do have a lot of information now and we have cool technology. I mean, when we started in the 60s, electric fence energizers were very rudime. You know, they almost didn't work. And, and it was a real problem. Today we've got, you know, really dependable, high energy. Cool. You don't have to worry about your animals getting out very much if, you know, if you, if you take care of things. Yeah, the price of land has definitely escalated, that's for sure. But, but I think the trade off is that we, that we do have a lot more information at our fingertips and there's a lot more awareness in the, you know, in the culture.
- [06:25]
Lisa
Right.
- [06:26]
Joel Salatin
That's, that's, that's driving a desire for this. And so, you know, I'm thinking about when we started. Nobody even heard of the organic word. I mean, it wasn't even spoken. And today everybody's thinking about wellness and alternative, alternative therapies and all sorts of things. And so, so that makes sense. While land is a little bit higher. Oh, and the other thing that we have today that we haven't ever had from a, you know, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go into a farming business is the ability to ship.
- [07:02]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [07:03]
Joel Salatin
Economically we could have never shipped like we do now, you know, back in the old days. But goodness, I mean, we've got, you know, we ship nationwide and, and I mean you can get software now from UPS that where you, you, you, you weigh the box on the, on the scale and it automatically computes the time to the destination and gives you the ounces of dry ice brick in that box with that weight to that destination. I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty amazing.
- [07:41]
Lisa
Yeah, it's all very streamlined. And then like you mentioned, the demand's a lot higher because you don't have to Educate consumers on why it's better. They already know that, so they're actually just looking for someone who can supply that need. And then now that we buy everything online and everything, ships, there's all this infrastructure in place for people to. Yeah. Get things across the country. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And then one question I think people want to know. A lot of times, you know, we talked about lands higher, but I mean, things have, things have always gone up over time. I think the last few years have been a little bit exceptional, but I think people think they need 30, 40, 50 acres sometimes to have a legitimate homestead situation. But you teach how people can use very small amounts of land and how they can get started with that. So what would you say to that? Like what kind of, how can you start and with what kind of animal and what kind of acreage?
- [08:33]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. So, I mean, obviously it depends. An acre in Nevada is different than an acre in Georgia.
- [08:39]
Lisa
Right.
- [08:40]
Joel Salatin
So let's agree that, you know, there's, there's some trade, the differences like that. But it, but in general, in general, you can start with a very, very small hub. I mean, the other trend, the flip side of the high land price is that there is an unprecedented amount of land that's available. The average farmer is now 60 years old. So, I mean, I get requests. Can you find me a young person that can manage my farm? Can you find me a young person? And so we have unbelievable land. We had, we had an apprentice leave us, I mean, finished and went up, back up to upstate New York. Within 30 days, he had three landowners come to him and offered him a total of a thousand acres for free. Just, can you do something with it? And so we have, we have unprecedented, I mean, we're almost back to the Little House on the Prairie.
- [09:34]
Lisa
Okay.
- [09:35]
Joel Salatin
You know, where we have, we have a tremendous amount of available land that is not being utilized, that is waiting for somebody to, you know, to love on it. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because you don't need a very big hub to start. I mean, I look at our farm, we could basically do everything we do on, on a five acre hub and, and lease everything else. I mean, we already lease about, you know, 14 properties or so in the area. And I'm all about a stable hub. Yeah, you need a place where you can live, have a garden, have a corral, you know, some greenhouse. You know, you need a hub. But beyond the, beyond the hub. The beautiful thing about mobile infrastructure and lightweight infrastructure is that you don't need a You don't, you don't need a very big hub, you know, if you want a farm store, if you want a parking lot, you know, I mean, five acres is a whole lot of land for a hub.
- [10:44]
Lisa
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine that. I can picture how you would set it up. Obviously it depends on trees and hills and how it's all laid out. And like you said, there's places where there's not enough grass for many acres. So it really depends. One of the financial questions we got from the listeners was if you were to pick just one stream of income from a homestead, what would it be? That, that could be a loaded question.
- [11:09]
Joel Salatin
One stream of income for me that would be broilers.
- [11:14]
Lisa
Okay.
- [11:15]
Joel Salatin
Meat chickens. I'll tell you why. Because meat chickens have an eight week turnaround and a lot of, you know, financial elements in a, in a business, small business is about cash flow, right? And so quick cash turnaround and multiple, multiple sales. I mean ideally, if you're in business, ideally you sell something every day, you know, and, and that's where, that's where the old, what's called butter and, butter and egg money, you know. Yeah, the Lao easy comic strip. Butter and egg money. You know, that, that didn't, that wasn't the farms major, you know, major income, but it provided cash flow. It kept, it kept you in shoes and you know, pants through the year. And so I'm okay with, with a milk cow, you know, historically, at least until now, you know, pet milk. And depending on where you live, you know, milk can be a real problem. And eggs are okay, but eggs are the most price conscious of all the things you can sell because they're everyday food.
- [12:26]
Lisa
Right.
- [12:27]
Joel Salatin
And so, so I like the broiler because it's kind of a hybrid between kind of something special. But it, but it has a fast turnaround.
- [12:37]
Lisa
Right, because. Yeah, it's six weeks, right, or six to eight weeks.
- [12:40]
Joel Salatin
Eight weeks.
- [12:41]
Lisa
Eight weeks. Okay.
- [12:42]
Joel Salatin
Generally eight weeks, seven to eight weeks. But yeah, I mean that's as fast as a radish almost.
- [12:48]
Lisa
Right.
- [12:49]
Joel Salatin
And the beauty of the chicken is as small as small farmers or homesteaders. We're doing everything by hand. Well, if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna pick up pounds of material to sell, I'd much rather pick up a four dollar a pound chicken than a 50 cent a pound cabbage.
- [13:06]
Lisa
Right.
- [13:07]
Joel Salatin
Just, just from a, from a. How, how many pounds of stuff do you have to move to, you know, to make your income? Now the beauty of produce is that there's no regulations. So you can just, you know, you can start doing produce any time. The downside of produce is it's a low, it's a low dollar. It's a lot of water. You're toting a lot of water. So it's a, it's a low dollar per item that you're, you're doing and a lot of people are doing it, I mean, because it is, it is easy to get into.
- [13:39]
Lisa
Right.
- [13:40]
Joel Salatin
And so the result is it's a fairly crowded thing, whereas the pastured broiler is, is still a bit of a, you know, in most places it's still a bit of a specialty and you can be kind of distinctive that way and still get your fast turnaround. So.
- [13:56]
Lisa
Yeah. Now you mentioned milk and were you meaning like the regulations as far as selling? Is that where it gets messy for milk?
- [14:05]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, yeah, the regulations for milk. And of course, you know, a lot of states now you can have herd shares, you can do cow shares, you can sell it as pet milk in some states.
- [14:16]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [14:17]
Joel Salatin
And so, you know, there are, there are workarounds on that. But you know, the problem with the herd share is that it's, it's clunky. You know, if I, if I'm going to be gone for a week, I don't want my milk. You can't legally sell that milk to somebody else who maybe says, hey, I've got out of town guests coming, could I get an extra gallon this week? You can't legally make those kind of changes. So it's, that's why I say it's, it's clunky. And in farming, you know, farming every day isn't 70 degrees and puffy blue clouds and plenty of soil moisture. You know, there's, there's, there's rough days and good days and so being able to, you know, adjust your inventory, easy is, is good. So. Yeah. But, but as far as cash flow, actual having something to sell, you know, every week there's nothing beats, beats eggs and eggs and milk.
- [15:13]
Lisa
Yeah. Where I live. So we don't currently have a dairy cow. We did, but we don't currently we pay $15 a gallon for milk and she sells out. So just from a perspective of never really trying to earn money from my homestead directly, it seems like it would be a really good income stream here if you had, say, four cows you were milking and you were selling out. Now, I know that's a lot of work too. So are you counting in obviously time, investment. I think broilers are probably a little bit less.
- [15:43]
Joel Salatin
Well, you know, look, there's no free lunch. I mean everything has its asset and its liability. And I mean like, yeah, the four, four cows, if, boy, if you can get $15 a gallon for milk and the cow gives, you know, three gallons a day and you've got four of them, that's a, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good income. Just remember that there is nothing as confining as a cow. I mean, we're talking about morning and evening or daily. Every single day you have to be there. I mean on Christmas, on Easter, on Thanksgiving, every, you know, your birthday, right?
- [16:21]
Lisa
Yep, yep.
- [16:22]
Joel Salatin
Anniversary, every single day.
- [16:24]
Lisa
Negative 10 out.
- [16:25]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, yeah. Whereas one of the beauties of broilers is, you know, if you want to, if you want to take a one month break, you can take a one month break. I mean, obviously we don't raise them in the winter. It's a summer thing. Nothing in the winter. Yeah, but there's nothing like milk for cash flow. But there's nothing that ties you down as much as a milk.
- [16:43]
Lisa
Yeah, absolutely.
- [16:45]
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- [18:32]
Lisa
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- [19:23]
Lisa
Shopify.com/farmhouse now one person says, I've heard that it doesn't save you money to raise your own meat. Is that true or is there a way to reduce cost? I mean, I think if we're comparing apples to apples, quality, you know, is going to be a factor. You're like, the other day I was at, I hardly ever go to the store. I usually do like the pickup orders or whatever. And I was in there and I saw they had a big old package of chicken breast bone in for six bucks. Like, man, I've been shopping at farms for a long time now. I couldn't believe you could get chicken that cheap. I had no idea you could get chicken that cheap. Now was it high quality? No, probably not.
- [20:05]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. So, so the, the question is always, well, what are you comparing it to? What, what's your, you know, what's your standard? If your standard is, you know, Tyson chicken, then no, you'll, there's no way you'll ever raise your own chicken as cheaply as they can raise theirs. But if you're comparing it to, you know, to the, to the best quality chicken, you can find it at Whole Foods. Absolutely. You can beat that price. So I think there's no question you can save money growing your own food and you certainly can save money growing your own when you compare it to a comparable product. Yes. At the grocery store. Yeah, absolutely.
- [20:54]
Lisa
Yeah. And then what are some mistakes? You see new homesteaders who maybe are going to raise their own meat or their own vegetables or their milk, making that. Because some people, it seems like, really do end up paying more, getting maybe the infrastructure in place. Maybe it needs to be more of a long term investment. Are there some mistakes that you see there?
- [21:14]
Joel Salatin
Oh, wow. Well, if we start down the list of mistakes, probably, yeah, probably it is. Well, probably the number one mistake is, is jumping into too many things at once. You, you know, experimentation is expensive and you've got to, you know, you've got to do your reps, your repetitions in order to gain mastery. And so, so, you know, people, they come into this and they read the articles, they read the stories. Oh, I want to do chickens and, and turkeys and cows and pigs and rabbits and.
- [21:53]
Lisa
Right.
- [21:54]
Joel Salatin
Some quail eggs and, you know.
- [21:55]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [21:57]
Joel Salatin
And before you know it, you know, you're. The sheriff is calling you because the SWAT team has your cow cornered out on the interstate. And, and it's, it's a, it's a pretty horrendous day. So, so, you know, the turtle won the race, the rabbit didn't, and so enjoy the journey. You know, you don't have to, you don't have to solve everything and grow everything in a day. And so I would say the number one mistake I see is getting too many things in. And then what you have is you have big oops, great big oops, big disasters. Because you've got so many things going on, you're not doing anything really, really well. So, you know, just start with what you start. Small prototype. You know, babies are born like embryos. They're not adults, you know, so.
- [22:50]
Lisa
Right.
- [22:51]
Joel Salatin
You birth it small. Yeah, probably number one. Number two goes along with it. And that is getting, especially with animals, getting animals prior to your infrastructure getting ready. I mean, if you don't have a corral that will hold a cow, physically you're not ready to get a cow. Because here's what happens. You know, you go out to that farm and there's that cute, cute little two cows and oh, we're gonna buy. Oh, these are, these are wonderful. And, and you know, they, they, you see them in the field and they just seem as gentle as can be. You put them on a trailer and you bring them home and they come off of Your trailer and they turn into gazelles.
- [23:40]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [23:41]
Joel Salatin
You know, they're in the adjoining county and you've just spent, you know, two days in a SWAT team trying to get them in. So you've got it, you got to make sure that you have a corral, something to contain the animals. With chickens, the most common thing is people get their chickens before they're, before they have their processing equipment. And, and you know, it takes months usually to get your processing equipment together. And those chickens are going to grow in eight weeks. Eight weeks is going to go by really, really fast if you don't have your processing equipment ready. So I tell people, don't ever buy a chicken until you actually have your picker. You're, till you know what you're going to do with them, you know, at the end.
- [24:26]
Lisa
Right, that makes sense.
- [24:28]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. So get your infrastructure in place so you're not, you're not chasing animals and you're, you know, you, you keep them under control. And then probably the, the, you know, three is probably good enough for the question. Probably the third one, probably the third one is just inefficiency since if you're not making a living at it and you kind of look at it like a hobby, you, you, you can put up with a lot of inefficiency.
- [24:56]
Lisa
Right.
- [24:57]
Joel Salatin
Like, like hauling water instead of putting in a water line, like, like hand feeding instead of using self feeders.
- [25:06]
Lisa
Yeah. You can deal with all that on a small scale. You're right.
- [25:10]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. Yeah. And, and it just, you suddenly you spend, you spend an hour a day doing chores for, you know, for half a dozen animals and it's eats up your time, you know, thinking about efficiency and trying to get that settled as you go along. I mean, thinking about it, I know you're enjoying the life and you're enjoying smelling the humus and watching the butterflies and all that stuff. But, and there's certainly a time for that. But doing your, doing your due diligence to can I do this faster? Can I save steps here? Can I, can I, can I invest in a little bit of infrastructure so I don't have to carry buckets of water? Those kind of things are, are just huge in, in reducing your chore time and making it more efficient.
- [26:00]
Lisa
That makes a lot of sense. I know you probably get asked this a lot, but if somebody is, they're wanting to get to a little piece of property to start working on all of this, it can very, very much across the country. But what are some main criteria that you tell them to look for?
- [26:16]
Joel Salatin
Well, my, my here are some of my, my never nevers.
- [26:21]
Lisa
Okay.
- [26:21]
Joel Salatin
Or my, you know, here's what you don't want. Number one, it's hard, it's hard to farm in the desert. It's really hard to farm in the desert. So go somewhere where you, where there's some water. Yeah, that's really helpful, a little bit of water. Number two is when I say, you know, water is good, but too much water can be a tough thing too.
- [26:47]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [26:47]
Joel Salatin
So stay away from hurricane Alley. Stay away from, from where all the hurricanes come in all the time. I mean, look at those poor people down there in North Carolina right now. I mean, it is just, it is just mind boggling what's going on. And I realize that's a, you know, that's a very anomaly, but kind of an unprecedented thing. Yeah, it is. But, but yeah, give yourself a little bit of room from the beach is what I mean. Especially here on the Atlantic, you know, the Atlantic seaboard up through Florida and stuff. Get, get on, get inland a little bit. So that, that's a couple of things. And then the next thing is to, to think about their proximity, proximity to supplies.
- [27:34]
Lisa
Okay.
- [27:35]
Joel Salatin
I would much rather have five acres within a half an hour of plumbers, electricians, small engine mechanics, chainsaw shop, you know, auto, auto repair places, you know, markets. Okay. People that are going to buy, people that might want to come out for a, you know, for a butterfly tour. I would much rather be. I have five acres, 30 minutes from civilization than 500 acres, two hours away from civilization. The land gets more expensive as you head towards civilization. But you also have way, way more opportunity and opportunity to sell, opportunity to collaborate with, you know, with skill, skill sets that you don't have those kind of things. So that's a consideration. In fact, I know we had an apprentice who left us, who left these finished and he actually bought a little five acre place. He could have bought more, but he bought a little five acre place at a, at a big highway intersection in, in Ohio. I think he said something like 80,000 cars a day go by his front gate.
- [28:51]
Lisa
Wow.
- [28:52]
Joel Salatin
And what he. And so he bought that five acres. I mean it was not the cheapest land, but he's, he's got 80,000 people driving by his driveway every day. He's full time farming. I mean, he just, he just sailed. I mean he just went and so he's only got five acres. So he doesn't have a cow. But what he does, he collaborates with a, with a guy farther out in the country. That's got beef, he sells his beef.
- [29:17]
Lisa
Right.
- [29:17]
Joel Salatin
So the beef farmer gets advantage of the guy. And, and generally, generally the guy that, the guy that makes the final sale is the guy that makes the most money. You know, the one that actually collects the money from the consumer. That's the person that actually makes the, makes the most money in the, you know, in the value chain.
- [29:38]
Lisa
Right.
- [29:39]
Joel Salatin
So think about proximity to skill sets, to markets, to collaborations, to partnerships and things like that. And then I would say the, just the final mistake I would say is you're living in the country. Enjoy it. Don't try to live in the city, in the country. That means your kids aren't going to be in all the little league games, your daughter's not going to be in the ballet. You're not going to be running into town for the, to the movies. You're going to get your enjoyment out of the creek, the pond, the sunset, the garden, the, you know, the things that you're doing, you know, putting up hay, the work that you do. And that also means living cheaply in your, in a house. You don't need a Taj Mahal. You don't waste your money on a great big house. Build out, you know, live in an rv, live in a tent, live in a bungalow. You know, make something small that you can, that's conducive to adding on to. When our, when our, when Daniel built his house, he actually built it with, and actually put in the, the, the lentils in the wall so that in the future and he actually did this when they expanded the house, he was able to just whack out that, that area and he had a nice already a built in doorway and think about trying making, making the, the cheapest, most frugal domicile you can imagine. But then make it so you can add on in the future.
- [31:16]
Lisa
Right.
- [31:17]
Joel Salatin
If you need to. So those are just, those are just some ideas. Yeah.
- [31:20]
Lisa
You don't want to be over leveraged on everything that's going to be really hard to turn a profit. That makes a lot of sense.
- [31:27]
Joel Salatin
Exactly.
- [31:27]
Lisa
Now you said that guy was full time farming. Did you mean on his five acres? I think a lot of people will be very curious about that.
- [31:33]
Joel Salatin
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He's got greenhouses. He does, he does pick your own strawberries and you know, higher valued, higher valued stuff, you know, mescaline mix and things like that in the greenhouses. But he, but he, but he value adds, he turns stuff into, into, into salsa. Instead of selling tomatoes. He makes salsa.
- [31:57]
Lisa
Okay. Okay.
- [31:59]
Joel Salatin
It's amazing. I mean Ben, Ben Hartman, who, who wrote the book Lean Farm and now he's got a book, the Lean Micro Farm. I mean this guy's been making a full time living on, on, on 1.5 acres for 20 years.
- [32:15]
Lisa
Wow.
- [32:16]
Joel Salatin
1.5 acres. And there, there are, there are rules. In Canada, they started spin farming. S P I N. It's an acronym for oh my Sustainable intensive. I can't think of what all that. Anyway, it's, it's all about, it's all about urban full time farmers. Farmers that are making a full time living in suburbia or right in the edge of the urban sector. And absolutely, you can absolutely make a, make a living on five acres if you do high value stuff and you, and you value added.
- [32:54]
Lisa
Okay. So you mentioned pick your own strawberries. Have you heard a lot like, is pick your own a pretty profitable thing to do? I, we have some pick your own in our area and they're always swarming with people. I mean they started putting in flowers. Pick your own flowers, pick your own berries, Pick your. They put in everything. So I think there's just nowhere else. People like those experience things. Is that what you're finding?
- [33:17]
Joel Salatin
Absolutely they do. And what I will tell you is that I loved you saying, you know, now they're putting in flowers. The hardest part in marketing is getting a customer.
- [33:28]
Lisa
Yeah. Once you have them.
- [33:30]
Joel Salatin
Once you have the customer, oh, I like your strawberries. Can I get flowers? Can I get chicken? Can I get eggs? Can I get a turkey for Thanksgiving?
- [33:37]
Lisa
Right.
- [33:38]
Joel Salatin
So the easiest marketing in the world is to add additional items to your offering. That's the easiest marketing. You've already got a loyal customer. They're looking around, hey, what else can I do? Can I come out for a hayride? Can I. Right, Can I come out at, you know, at Halloween for my kids to get their faces painted and you know, and take surgical, you know, surgical tubes and shoot baby potatoes at a target somewhere for a dollar a piece.
- [34:10]
Lisa
I mean, just anything.
- [34:12]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean the, I've traveled all over the world and the stuff that I've seen, the creative things that I've seen people, farmers come up with that just, that just build, you know, experiences. I mean, one guy, one guy had a, had a, he'd taken some crushed stone and made a pretty big crushed stone lot and, and he bought, you know, these pedal tractors, little, you know, kids. He bought a green one, a red one, a blue one and an orange. And he had these pedal tractors where kids could come out and ride these pedal tractors around this, you know, this, this big crushed gravel air. Kids love that kind of stuff. And so when kids are having a good time, in about a week they're going to be pulling on mommy's hand, saying, you know, you know that place we went? I want to go back there. Guess what? Who, guess who go back. Who goes back again? Mommy's back right there. And now she's going to buy some eggs and some, and some flowers and some strawberries and some other things. You know, if you're going to make a living on a small farm, it has to be completely people centric. If you don't like people, you know, you're going to have a hard time. And, and of course, you know, most commercial farmers actually don't like people. That's one of the reasons they're farmers. I don't want to see nobody.
- [35:38]
Lisa
Right.
- [35:40]
Joel Salatin
And so, so those of us who have made livings on small farms, you've got to have a love in your heart for people and you've got to be ready to smile, be gracious and be a little bit of a, you know, a dramatist and storyteller.
- [35:56]
Lisa
Yeah. So this, this guy. Sorry. It's fascinating. I think a lot of people think they need to have this big, massive, you know, farm to, to full time farm. But I think you're saying it requires a lot of creativity, marketing, people skills. What's he doing in the winter? I know you said he sells somebody else's meat, so that's probably one thing he can do.
- [36:17]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, I don't know what all he's doing in the winter. I mean, he's got these, these green houses.
- [36:23]
Lisa
Okay.
- [36:24]
Joel Salatin
I know he extends his season a lot and he's got freezers, so I think it slows down in the winter and that's okay, you know.
- [36:34]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [36:35]
Joel Salatin
Summer's a sprint, you know, when you're farming.
- [36:37]
Lisa
Yes.
- [36:38]
Joel Salatin
But downtime in the winter. So in the winter, I know it's, I know it's a lot, a lot less, but you know, he makes it work. Yeah, he makes it, makes it work.
- [36:48]
Lisa
Okay, now you mentioned farm tours and I've, I've heard of this, I've seen some of it. I haven't actually been to anything like that or sort of like farm events. Agritourism. I was at a. Oh, you were there too at the Ozark Homestead Expo and someone there was selling these little cabins and they were saying that some people are even putting up like their, it's called a bunkie. On their property and doing, like a farm stay. How, how. Have you seen all of this, like, farm tourism type stuff working?
- [37:18]
Joel Salatin
Oh, yeah, it's. It's huge. It's huge. Here's what's happening. If we want to, you know, back the camera up a little bit and look at big trends. If you watch the theme park, theme park attendance is way down. I don't know if you realize that Disney down Six Flags is way down Busch Gardens.
- [37:38]
Lisa
I mean, I hate them. I hate going to stuff like that, but other people seem to love it.
- [37:44]
Joel Salatin
All right, well, you know what? It's expensive.
- [37:47]
Lisa
It's expensive and stressful and lines and pe. Yeah. Hot. Yeah.
- [37:51]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. So. So where I'm going with this is that that the. The new kind of relaxation or recreation trend is can we do something close to home fairly cheap, that. That. That doesn't require a bunch of whatever vacation time planning, you know, a smaller deal. And so this. These. Maybe you've heard of glamping? Oh, yeah, yeah. Glamping. You use the word bunkies. These are all parts of. As people become more and more disconnected from the land and their food, they're yearning for a real experience, a real opportunity. Well, you know, going to. Going to the Himalayas to climb Mount Everest, that's the kind of big deal, you know, experience. But you can go to a farm and spend the night in a. In a glamp, you know, or a little bunky or something. And. And maybe the farm, maybe you can go gather the eggs. Your kids can gather the eggs. Maybe they'll. Maybe you can see them milk a cow. Maybe they'll make some butter. You can help make some cheese. You can butcher a chicken. You can barbecue a chicken. A million things that you can do, and they're real. They're not fantasy. They're real. And when you leave, you've got this wonderful memory, this experiential memory of the real. There's a book out selling the invisible. And the whole thesis of the book is that every time you buy something, the actual value is not in the physical thing that you bought.
- [39:36]
Lisa
Right.
- [39:36]
Joel Salatin
It's always in the emotions and the memory. You know, the dopamine that comes, you know, when you think about the invisible parts of what you.
- [39:47]
Lisa
Yeah, that's Marketing 101, right?
- [39:50]
Joel Salatin
Exactly. What were the people like? What was the experience like? How did I feel? You know, all those things. So, you know, I heard an MIT professor recently, he said the farm of the future. This was interesting. He was one of these, you know, forecasting type guys. And he said the farm of the future is going to be. It's going to be the center of our nutrition, our fellowship, and our information. Information, Information about life, information about things. And, you know, if you're familiar with Jenny, Jenny Urich, you know, she's been.
- [40:29]
Lisa
On my podcast before.
- [40:30]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, yeah, so. So, you know, her whole deal is the, you know, the value, the information that comes when you are outside and using your imagination to do things. You know, the average middle schooler today is 9 and a half hours. Get that? 9 and a half hours on the screen. So that's using somebody else's imagination and being focused on. On a screen as opposed to, you know, having a stick. And the stick can be a gun, it can be a bow and arrow, it can be a sword, it can be, you know, a staff, a cane, a cattle prod. It can be, you know, a stick can be all sorts of things. But. But that's what you get, you know, outside. And so, so farm. Farm events, if you can. If you can provide a place for kids to come out. So on our farm now, we have an entire playground. Now we've got a great big box with, with, you know, pebbles in it with, you know, with excavation stuff that kids can sit on, you know, and they can move this stuff around. We got teeter totters, you know, a fort they can climb in, a tire swing. And, and, you know, and it's not the big public playground, you know, so most of the time when kids are out at the playground, there's only, you know, four or five there. You know, it's kind of. They feel kind of exclusive. You know, they get to. They get to kind of be there on their own. And, and it doesn't take very many of those to get people coming to your farm and, and, and looking around, see what you have to sell that makes sense.
- [42:08]
Lisa
We have in our area just several things that have popped up over the years, like a lavender farm. And people are just looking for things like that to go do. I don't feel like when I was a kid, we went to pumpkin patches and lavender farms to get little sandwiches. It just, it is. It's a new thing. Like, I don't recall ever going to a pumpkin patch, maybe just like, to get pumpkins, but yesterday my sister and I, we met up at the pumpkin patch and we stayed there for hours. We bought the little, you know, they have that little inflatable pillow thing, and the kids did that. They did the corn maze. I bought a couple pumpkins because it's just something to go do. And that's, you know, like you said, it's more fun to me than taking the kids somewhere stressful like a theme park or something like that. I think there's just, if you really start to think about it, there's so many things like that that people are really craving to do. When I go to those places, they're always packed.
- [43:03]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, yeah. And the other thing is the kind of things you're describing. There, there are places that you, that you learn about yourself. You learn about your own body, you learn about how to move, you learn how to, you know, picking up a pumpkin. How do you pick, you know, a little, little kid, you know, let them struggle a little bit. Let them learn about, you know, leveraging and, and get that thing up on you. You prop it up on your leg, you know, and that is, that is all, that is all part of starting to feel comfortable in your own skin. And if there's one thing our culture needs, I'll go down a rabbit hole. But there's one thing our culture needs, it is our kids to feel comfortable in their own skin. When you look at these school shooters, all these young boys that are shooting in schools, every one of them feels isolated. Nobody likes them. They're not happy in their own skin. They haven't found self worth and affirmation. And there's something about, you know, pushing yourself on a tire swing. There's something about making a little toy excavator go in a, in a pebble box, you know, the old sandbox. Right. There's something about that sort of play that you discover who you are, what you can do, what your body can do and those kind of things. And that's, that's a really critical element in, I think in developing self worth. You have to be successful at accomplishing some meaningful tasks. And that's where the farm thing, you know, kids, I mean, there is Nothing like a 4 year old reaching into a nest box and gathering eggs. I mean, that is the coolest thing in the world. Or, or shaking a jar and watching butter happen. I mean, that is, that is just a wonderful thing. And, and so these practical, practical elements of life are the critical foundations for developing self worth.
- [45:14]
Lisa
Yeah, that all makes a lot of sense. And I think people are really craving it and seeing the need for it. When we are at the Ozark Homestead Expo and we were on a panel, one, one person stood up and said that they had just moved. I forget where they said they moved from, but there were tons of people I met there who had all moved to the Ozarks from somewhere and he had bought maybe like 17 acres, something like that. And he asked, what do I do? Where do I start? And I believe, I think you were one of them who answered, you and a few others on just building the community because he was looking for like, put in this fence, get this animal. And you and somebody else started going on about like building the community around you because he was new to this area. Can you talk a little bit about that and how to do that?
- [45:57]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, for sure. You got to realize that the old timers and realize whoever was there before you is the old timer, right? Yeah, you know, they were there before you and, and so, you know, they're watching somebody come into the area and they're, you know, they might be feeling a little bit crowded, they might not, you know, who is this? What. What is this? So actually developing some, you know, some friendships with nearby people can, can pay huge dividends. I mean, the guy with the tractor in front, end loader, the guy with the post pounder, the guy that knows how to, you know, run a chainsaw, that maybe one guy has a, maybe somebody has a little. A bandsaw mill, you know, that they can mill some boards. You know, there are all sorts of skills and talents in a community, but if you don't know that they're there, you're just out here floundering, you know, trying to do all this on your own. And, and there are few things that are as. Whatever, as inefficient as, as, as trying to force through, as trying to do things you're not good at and don't like doing. There's. There's somebody around that is good at it and enjoys doing it. Tap them into your, into, onto your team.
- [47:18]
Lisa
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, a lot of people right now are transplants from somewhere else. There's been a lot of that. I know you're on a multi generational farm and so you probably have your community very established, but I think that's some helpful advice for a lot of people because clearly, you know, just I went to a event in Nashville and the number of people there who had just moved was crazy. And I felt the same way at the Ozark Homestead Expo. It might have been a little bit of a skewed set because if you are new to an area you're trying to homestead, you'd of course go to the expo. So I understand this wasn't like a, a sample size but, or an accurate sample, but. Yeah, there's been a real Big shift. People trying to start things and build community.
- [48:07]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. And I mean, in our early days when we were starting, I mean, I had a neighbor that we shared a baler, we shared a hay baler. We were both small farms. And I'd use his. And then, you know, he had the baler and. But he worked in a. He worked in a factory, so he did factory work, which, which really cramped him to make hay because he got home, you know, later in the afternoon. So I would go over and rake his hay for him. So when he got home, you know, he was able to, he was able to bail it. I'd catch his bales on the wagon. And then since I was, since I was here and I had jumped off the cliff, you know, and come back to the farm full time, and we were struggling. In exchange, then Teresa and I use his baler and we could bail hay in the early afternoon, then I could go over and rake his and we could help him bail. We work together.
- [49:07]
Lisa
Yeah.
- [49:08]
Joel Salatin
And you know, those are the kind of things you can't buy that for money, you know, you just can't. You need those kinds of relationships to fill out your. To fill out your weak spots because all the gifts and talents necessary to be successful don't grow on the same parallax.
- [49:26]
Lisa
Right.
- [49:28]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. You gotta have another pair of legs.
- [49:30]
Lisa
Yeah. And that's so foreign to our culture today. We feel, you know, like we can. That's just, I don't know, I don't think people really know their neighbors these days. That's just not how things are done. But as soon as you start breaking out trying to do a lot of these things, you're going to learn the spots where you are lacking. And I think that that's a real important point. One person asks about polyface, you talk about generations, future generations leaving a legacy. Can you speak a little bit to that and how that's impacted the decisions you've made over just, you know, what's even the point? Like, why break out of your 9 to 5 and start trying to be a full time farmer and all of that. What's the big picture?
- [50:14]
Joel Salatin
Ooh, yeah, that's a, that's a.
- [50:18]
Lisa
That's like a whole speech I watch you do. So you can just do in a couple sentences. That'd be great.
- [50:25]
Joel Salatin
It is. Well, so here's what floats my boat. What floats my boat is watching the land heal. And I mean, I like to see people buy good food. I like to see people healthy. I like to see all that. But what really Wakes me up in the morning is being able to go out and participate in land healing and watch grass grow that was barren, watch soil build up over rocks, watch trees grow in gullies that used to be washing away. Fish swim in a pond that we make where there used to be just something else. Anyway, the point is that we, that that's what floats my boat. And so with that in mind, for me, the legacy comes in, in. Well, what's the, you know, what's the timeline on ecology? It's a long time, you know, it's not, it's not a year, it's not 10 years, it's. It's a long time. I had, I had lunch, I was doing a Biomass conference in D.C. a couple of years ago, had lunch with an Austrian who was running a pellet operation in Maine to make wood pellets for pellet stoves. And I've been to Europe a lot of times and I asked him, he obviously knew a lot about forestry and he was from Austria. And I asked him, I said, every time I go to Europe, I'm just amazed at the stewardship of the forest. They're manicured. You don't see dense scraggly forests like we see here in the US they're all. I said, why is that, boy? You know, I was expecting some great, you know, academic answer. Boy, he didn't bat an eye. He just looked at me, said royalty as one of those things. Royalty, you know, what does that have to do with anything? Royalty? He said, yeah, the average tree in Europe, historically, the average tree in Europe was owned by the same person, the same family for 800 years.
- [52:32]
Lisa
Yeah. Wow.
- [52:32]
Joel Salatin
In the U.S. in the U.S. the average tree is only, is owned by the same family for 40 years.
- [52:38]
Lisa
Yeah. I'm surprised even that high, honestly.
- [52:42]
Joel Salatin
You can't, you can't have a viable forestry plan if you're going to turn that ownership over every 40 years. So the idea of legacy is that you start on this, on this piece of property, you nurture it, you caretake it, you, you watch it make progress. You watch, you know, you watch different plants come in, different animals come in. You watch the soil build. You watch all this happen. Well, then what, and what we want is for future, you know, future family. We want that legacy to continue. We don't want to just sell it for condominiums. We want to actually see it, you know, see that legacy move forward so that the land becomes, becomes a connection, you know, connection to a, to a sacred task of redemption, remediation on that Land. And. And that takes. That takes more than a generation. It takes a long time.
- [53:51]
Lisa
That makes. That makes tons of sense. And it's clear that you've had that vision on Polyface for quite a while. It's very clear.
- [54:00]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. When Teresa and I got married and we hadn't. Didn't have kids yet, we said, what's our dream? And my. My dream was, you know, I want to see this populated with. With. With people, you know, in the future, I want to see additional incomes and additional, additional, you know, stewardship.
- [54:19]
Lisa
More.
- [54:20]
Joel Salatin
More eyes, more labor, more love, more love, you know, nurturing and caressing the land than we did at the time. And that's. That's exactly what's happened. We. We now generate about 22. 22 salaries off the farm. So it's. Wow. Yeah, it's not a backyard operation.
- [54:39]
Lisa
And we.
- [54:41]
Joel Salatin
Lots of young people, you know, lots of kids. There's lots of. Lots of human. Human joy and activity.
- [54:49]
Lisa
Yeah. It's amazing to see what a vision will look like that many years when you stick to the thing that you've set out from the beginning and along the way, you've written lots of books. So tell the listeners, maybe. Is there. What. What book. If you haven't read a Joel Salatin book, what book would you recommend starting with? Probably depends on what they want to.
- [55:09]
Joel Salatin
Do, but it does depend on what they want. So. So my soul book. I call it My soul Book is the sheer ecstasy of being a lunatic farmer. It's by far the funniest book of all of them. That there's a lot of satire, a lot of humor in it. But it's. The reason I call it My soul Book is because it is the most. It is the most explanatory. Explanatory and definitive book defining. Here. Here's. Here's what I do versus here's what conventional orthodoxy is. And I. I do it with a. You know, with a smile and with a lot of. A lot of satire. Laughing at myself as well. But, you know, I mean, like, there's one chapter titled Crooked. Crooked Fences. You know, we don't build straight fences. We build crooked fences. Why? Well, because we. We go with the terrain, you know, and it changes everything when you let the terrain spe. Where you're going to, you know, put your stuff on the. On the ground and. But. But, you know, everybody. That's almost everybody. Every farmer. You want to build a straight fence. Yeah. I mean, farmers brag about how straight their fences are. And. And so, you know, so it's that kind of contrarian. Contrarian idea that I explore. And so, you know, that's a, that's a good one. I mean, if you're, if you're just starting out on a small acreage. Of course, polyphase micro is everything that we've done. You know, our first 20. Our first 20 years here were basically a glorified homestead. Never made a living, didn't make any money, you know, just off farm jobs. And then, and then it, you know, it became full time employment and we scaled and so, so now this is everything we've scaled, miniaturized again for the, you know, for the tiny acres. I may have a chapter in there on how to have rabbits and chickens in a Manhattan apartment. So. So, yeah, so. So you can do a lot with a small scale.
- [57:09]
Lisa
Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a great place to start for so many listeners who just want to get started. Not sure where. So tell everybody where they can find you. I know they. And where they can find your books.
- [57:22]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. So I don't have a personal website. I'm, I'm old school. I'm still flip phone, no smartphone. You know, I just, I just, I'm a, I'm a basic luddite. But, but our website is polyfacefarms.com.
- [57:39]
Lisa
Okay.
- [57:40]
Joel Salatin
So if you Google npoly, it'll probably pop up. And that has everything from my speaking schedule to, you know, to, to, you know, food that we sell to events that we host to the books. You know, you can get a T shirt that says everything I want to do is illegal.
- [58:00]
Lisa
Yep, yep, I've seen that one around many a homestead expo.
- [58:04]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. So. So the website is polyfacefarms.com and you can see everything we've. Everything about us right there.
- [58:11]
Lisa
Awesome. And you usually have a pretty packed speaking schedule from my understanding. Is that true?
- [58:17]
Joel Salatin
Yes, it is. I'm, I'm, I'm gone a lot. I'm actually out about one third of the time and I'm home two thirds. So.
- [58:24]
Lisa
Okay.
- [58:25]
Joel Salatin
I'm now a part time farmer, but I have a wonderful team here. Of course, our son, our son Daniel now runs day to day operations. So I'm the, I'm the most expendable person here at the farm when, when I leave other people, when they leave, people have to kind of fill in, you know.
- [58:41]
Lisa
But that means you did it right, I think over these years. I think. Yeah.
- [58:45]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. I hope so. I hope so.
- [58:47]
Lisa
All right, Joel, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
- [58:51]
Joel Salatin
Thank you, Lisa. It's been a delight. And an honor to be with you.
- [58:54]
Lisa
As always, thank you so much for listening. I will see you in the next episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast.