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- [00:00]
Amanda Montell
I don't know about you my angel culties, but I like to keep my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, big wireless providers seem to also like to keep my money where they can see it. That is why after years overpaying for wireless, you could make the decision to try premium wireless from Mint mobile for just $15 a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint mobile for just 15 bucks a month. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mintmobile.com cult that's mintmobile.com cult upfront payment of $45 for a 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to 15 bucks a month new customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. This show is sponsored by Liquid iv. Liquid IV is on the go hydration for all of your summer activities. And you've got to check out Liquid IV's Hydration Multiplier, which is clinically demonstrated to hydrate faster than water alone. Its science backed formula contains an optimized ratio of electron electrolytes, essential vitamins and clinically tested nutrients. Sometimes I think I'm in like a horrible mood and the entire world is against me. And then I realized I'm just dehydrated. Just one stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone. Stay hydrated while you're on the go this summer with Liquid IV. Tear poor live more go to liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first purchase with code cult at checkout. That's 20% off your first purchase with Code cult@liquidiv.com the views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
- [01:44]
Reese Oliver
This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I am Reese Oliver, your resident rhetoric scholar.
- [01:52]
Chelsea Charles
And I'm Chelsea Charles, an unscripted TV producer and a lifelong student of pop culture. Culture sociology.
- [01:58]
Reese Oliver
Every week on this show we discuss a different zeitgeist y group that puts the cult in culture from Satanism to American Girl Doll. To try and answer the big question,
- [02:09]
Chelsea Charles
this group sounds like a cult. But is it really?
- [02:20]
Reese Oliver
And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? A Live your life a watch Your back or a get the fuck out.
- [02:28]
Chelsea Charles
After all, cult like influence is everywhere in the 21st century, but it sits on a spectrum. Sometimes people do some really out there stuff that reveals itself to be perfectly innocuous. And some groups look overwhelmingly drab only to be pulling some secretly sinful strings. That's the premise of this show. We analyze and occasionally poke fun at how people find meaning, answers and community in these strange times. So you can tell the live your life groups from the watch your backs and the get the outs.
- [03:07]
Reese Oliver
Oh, like a cohort of trad wives installing their own septic tanks, tending to their goats and giving themselves botulism with the pickling kit they bought on teemu. Yes, today we are getting into homesteading. The good, the bad and the culty.
- [03:24]
Chelsea Charles
Mmm.
- [03:26]
Reese Oliver
Chelsea, what is your take on homesteading?
- [03:29]
Chelsea Charles
So when I see this resurgence of homesteading online, especially from brands like Ballerina Farms, I can't help but to clock the paradox. Because what's being sold as this dreamy, aspirational lifestyle is worlds away from the kind of homesteading my ancestors lived. And I'm sure, sure a lot of ancestors of our listeners lived. One that was rooted in necessity and survival and feeding your family, not just vibes. So I would say, like, cut to modern homesteading influencers who love to sell this idea that it's more, I guess, cheaper and free and somehow outside of the system while actively profiting off of like merch drops and visibility online. Like, if you go on Ballerina Farm's website right now, clock how easy it is to buy merch about homesteading versus buying the meat that they're actually supposed to be selling. I mean, I feel like you are not living off of the grid if you have Shopify and Instagram paying your bills. Yeah.
- [04:45]
Reese Oliver
If you're paying for your off the grid lifestyle with views that you need an Internet connection to get. That's a really good point. I by and large agree. I think it's really weird and dystopian to see everybody getting into these like rather regressive aesthetics at a time when like politics and the economy feels regressive in a way that's not very cute. Yeah, I think it's just the juxtaposition of those two things. Or I mean, I guess they're not juxtaposed because they're very much happening in tandem. It just feels like we're being thrust backwards. Right. And I feel like a lot of us don't want to go backwards. But alternatively, I do kind of understand because I am Very disconcerted with the current tech bro state of our landscape. Like our public sphere has transformed so much that it is now almost entirely online. And now that our online discourse, the spaces in which we have these conversations, are almost completely dominated by dystopian tech bros, it feels like there's nowhere to have like good, safe public discourse. So I understand the impulse to shun everything and like be self sufficient and start from scratch and you know, just wear a pretty dress and look at the sunset and pet your goats. Like man, I really get it. I too am trying to reduce my screen time, but maybe there's a happy medium, darling. Like, I think we can find it.
- [06:00]
Chelsea Charles
I could not agree more. So before we jump into this cult analysis, of course we always have to talk about the history of said cult first. So from National Park Service, the Homestead act of 1862 has been called one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of the United States. The act was signed into law by Abraham Lincoln after the southern states seceded. The Homestead act of 1862 was a revolutionary concept for distributing public land in American history. This law turned over vast amounts of public domain to private citizens. 270 million acres, or 10% of the area of the United States, was claimed and settled under that act. The prime land across the country was homesteaded quickly. Successful homestead claims dropped sharply after the 1930s. The Homestead act remained in effect until 1976, with provisions for homesteading in Alaska until 1986.
- [07:11]
Reese Oliver
And I have a theory that the Homestead act was shut down because, as our guests will get into a little bit later, the 60s and 70s brought with them kind of a new wave of homesteaders that were embracing homesteading in a counterculture way might have been the other side of the horseshoe than the wholesome Lincolnites were hoping for when they had put that law in place. But just to get a little bit more into the granular details of the Homesteading Act, a homesteader had to be head of the household or at least 21 years of age to claim a 160 acre parcel of land. That's a lot of land, you guys. So that's all I have to say about that. Settlers from all walks of life worked to meet the challenge of quote, unquote, proofing up. They included immigrants, farmers without land of their own, single women, and formerly enslaved people. But like not very many of these people, because again, you had to have enormous amounts of money, resources, and also citizenship in order to qualify for the Homesteading Act. So let's keep in mind that this source that we're reading from is the National Park Service. That's going to want to make this sound nice. So a filing fee was the only money required on paper. But sacrifice and hard work exacted a different price from hopeful settlers. Each homesteader had to live on the land, build a home, make improvements, and farm to get the land. The patent they received represented the culmination of hard work and determination. Nearly 4 million homesteaders settled settled land across 30 states over 123 years. It's important to note here that like, there were a bunch of different laws and like exclusionary acts placed against indigenous people and minorities that had to happen in order for the Homesteading act to be possible to make all of this land available to essentially be divvied up and sold off this way. So some of those legislative building blocks include the land Ordinance of 1785, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the Indian Removal act of 1830, Indian Appropriations act of 1851, and the Kansas Nebraska act of 1854.
- [09:01]
Chelsea Charles
And I just want to insert here, and we're going to talk a little bit about this later with our special guest. But again, what fascinates me about these homesteader influencers is this romanticized lifestyle without ever really interrogating its origins. And it's like, how do you grapple with the disconnect between your modern privileges versus the original Homestead act of 1862? And I think you said they had to live on it and the land had to be improved upon, but you did all of this by seizing land from indigenous people. And while black Americans were legally still considered property because this was in 1862 and emancipation proclamation wasn't sign until 1863 and then later wasn't made news till 1865.
- [09:51]
Reese Oliver
Yeah, I'm sure those people were starting up their homesteads without any unethical labor going on there at all.
- [09:55]
Chelsea Charles
Exactly. So I'm like, this entire thing was built on exclusion and racial hierarchy. So sus. Very sus. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible. But most homesteading occurred between the period of 1900 and 1930. And as of 2017, around 93 million Americans were descendants of people who received land through the Homestead Acts. The Federal Land Policy and management act of 1976 ended homesteading and it continued in Alaska for 10 more years. In recent years, due to honestly throwing a dart at any of the billion causes of societal unrest and desire to go scream in a field somewhere. Pandemic, president, economy, global warming, AI TikTok, the usual suspects of declinism homesteading is back on the upswing, and the tradwives and blue haired libs alike are abandoning their cozy townhomes in favor of cow shit and cold, hard freedom, Baby. A subreddit on Homesteading created in 2010, has 328,000 weekly members, 3,000 weekly contributions. No small hobby indeed.
- [11:20]
Reese Oliver
So that is the current state of homesteading today, growing in the fringes of our society. And we are here to talk to an expert about it, an ex homesteader.
- [11:33]
Chelsea Charles
She says she got the fuck out. Okay. Mm.
- [11:36]
Reese Oliver
And she told us exactly why. Let's get into it. Joining us today, we are so excited to welcome ex homesteader and owner of the Instagram account Hostel Valley Living, Kirsten Lee Nielsen. Kirsten, welcome and thank you so much for joining us.
- [11:56]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Hi. Thank you guys so much for having me. I'm a longtime listener, so I'm delighted to be on the podcast. I actually, in addition to homesteading, I also grew up homeschooled. And so I remember listening to that episode and being like, I have things to say, so this time I can actually say them, which is kind of fun. So, yeah, thank you.
- [12:16]
Reese Oliver
Awesome. Well, so excited to get into it. Could you start with just introducing yourself to the listeners and telling us about your relationship to the cult of homesteading in a little more detail?
- [12:26]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Well, since I grew up homeschooled, I also grew up doing a lot of things, like my parents had a big garden and things like that. So I was homesteading adjacent for a lot of my youth. And then when my husband and I got together, we sort of bonded over. We kind of wanted goats, maybe the idea of a dairy farm and, you know, some fun ideas like that. And those kind of escalated until we purchased a farm, 93 acres in rural Maine. This was in 2015. So much lower property prices than now. And it was also affordable for us because it had been abandoned for about 20 years. So some people had had it as a subsistence farm for generations. And then eventually, you know, no one was left to take it over. So no electricity, no running water, no toile shower, nothing. So we moved here in the spring of 2016 and worked for several years restoring the house. We put in a garden. We had at one point hundreds of animals here. I think at our height, we had 20 something goats. We had two pigs, four sheep. And then many, many birds. Geese, chickens, ducks, you name it. And we liked the idea of having a farm that would provide us with an income. But even more than that, our goal was self sufficiency, which one of the Sort of things that differentiates a homestead from a farm, at least in my opinion, is the goal of income versus the goal of self sufficiency. Kind of just removing yourself from the economy entirely. So that was always kind of our goal, never something we fully accomplished. And a number of things happened around like 2020, my husband's son actually passed away. We then lost our entire flock of birds to bird flu and we just kind of ran out of ste.
- [14:18]
Reese Oliver
I don't blame you. That sounds like a lot.
- [14:21]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah. So we have slowly been transitioning back to civilization for the past couple of years, rehoming animals and just kind of getting more integrated in society. And the more I have stepped away from the full on homesteading lifestyle, the more I've been kind of like, whoa, what exactly did I get myself into? So definitely excited to talk about the ways in which the lifestyle is pretty culty.
- [14:48]
Reese Oliver
Wow, that's great. I think it's really important that you drew that distinction between a homestead and a farm because I think the layperson, those are two easily confusable terms. And not only that, but I think kind of the escapism and the self sufficiency bit that comes with the homestead specifically is quite a culty piece of the puzzle.
- [15:06]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yes, the sort of self sufficiency obsession is definitely a part of the cultiness. And this, I guess I'd call it like a nostalgia trap, where especially, I mean, I know I felt this way when I was starting out is like everybody used to do things like, you know, we used to know how to cook and we used to know how to grow food and we used to know all these things. And when I stepped back from homesteading, there's kind of a sense of superiority of, with homesteaders, of, well, we do know how to do that stuff. And especially during the pandemic, at the beginning of the pandemic, the people I knew who were already homesteading were like, we're the ones who are going to survive. Like we've got the houses people want to go to when shit hits the fan, that kind of thing. But, but it's kind of a sense of superiority over a made up difference because I don't necessarily know that those are skills we've really lost or that when we had to do all that stuff ourselves, it was actually better. And homesteading, the word itself comes from the Homestead act, which Lincoln put into effect in 1862. You know, mule and 5 acres or 15 acres or whatever it was. And you know, it excluded women, minorities, anybody who had fought for the south like it excluded so many people. And so right from that point, homesteading feels like, first of all, they're kind of taking a government handout and they're just like white people. Yeah. So right off the bat, it seems like there's something certainly exclusionary about the movement. And I don't think it's gotten too much better since then.
- [16:40]
Chelsea Charles
You're touching on a little bit about like, the origins of homesteading. And the origins can kind of seem hard to kind of like pinpoint to one specific thing. But can you give me like a brief recent history of homesteading in this more like modern iteration?
- [16:58]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so we had the Homestead Act. We also had like Thoreau, who is still a big inspiration for people. They certainly like to quote him. And then in the 1970s, homesteading had a big revival with the back to the land movement as part of the anti war protests. And my mom, actually that's how she ended up in Maine, which is where I was born and where I live. She came here because there was a couple named Helen and Scott and they wrote a book called Living the Good Life and it inspired many, many people to go back to the land in the 70s. And I want to pause on the Nearings for now because while I don't know how many people like today are inspired by them, they're one of the cultiest elements of homesteading because they wrote this book and they had this homestead and they did all these things promoting self sufficient living. But in fact, if you learn about them, you know that like they went south in the winter and they had, you know, fresh fruit flown in summer. And their homestead was largely supported by all these people who were showing up to learn how to homestead and then would do free labor for them for the whole summer. So something a little sketchy there. And the movement died out a little bit like in the 80s and 90s. I don't think it was quite as popular. And even when I was starting, like when we moved here in 2016, there were people doing a kind of back to the land thing, but it wasn't trendy or whatever. It was really with the pandemic that I saw a huge spike starting with, you know, maybe somebody started making their own sourdough or whatever. And then all of a sudden they're getting chickens and buying land and like jumping all the way into it. And something also happened. Like, I think that's the kind of fun and harmless side of it. But something also happened around the pandemic where homesteading started to get interconnected with a lot of like anti vax stuff, a lot of like, well, we grow our own food so we don't have to worry about health things and that kind of thing. And a number of people that I used to who were just homesteading content, people with a cow and a garden in the backyard are now more like sort of full on trad wife content. And even outside of the deeper trad thing, it's just definitely become a much more politicized and I guess exclusionary kind of movement in recent years.
- [19:18]
Reese Oliver
Totally. And given everything that you have just laid out for us, would you say that the homesteaders of today are more or less culty than their success 60s and 70s counterparts?
- [19:28]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
That's a great question. Maybe less. The one thing that I think is missing, I still think there's like a big sense of like moral superiority and a lot of rules around it and all those kind of culty things. But in the 60s and 70s they did have that kind of guru. And I don't really know of a real guru character today. So that's one thing that's missing that maybe makes the 70s a little more culty.
- [19:51]
Chelsea Charles
Well, I guess, I mean, because you said it's interconnected with politics in a sense. So do you think maybe I would say like the homesteader influencers kind of serve as that?
- [20:01]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yes, I do think that's true. It's like less one sort of guru figure and more like this sort of conglomeration of influencers. And there's definitely the sort of maha element and all of that in there.
- [20:12]
Chelsea Charles
Yes, yes, there is.
- [20:15]
Reese Oliver
I do think homesteading lays like right at the crux of this beautiful horseshoe that we talk about all the time between like the new age left and like the crunchy right. So I think in that way it can be kind of more culty because it's kind of covering both sides of the equation. But I mean, I guess that's always been kind of true.
- [20:30]
Chelsea Charles
Yeah.
- [20:31]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
I remember one time visiting some other homesteaders and this was like right when we moved here, like probably 2017 maybe. It was certainly before the pandemic, visiting some other homesteaders who turned out to be like extremely right wing and having a conversation on the drive home of like everyone who does this is like extremely fringe. They might be left, they might be right, but they're like as far either of those ways as you can go. And that was back then. I think it's gotten more extreme now.
- [20:57]
Reese Oliver
And with that I think think there's kind of probably whoever your idol is depends on what avenue of homesteading content you're consuming?
- [21:05]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yes.
- [21:05]
Reese Oliver
Which I assume there are several.
- [21:07]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah, definitely. And like, in that definition of homesteading being, you know, just trying to live self sufficiently, there's certainly some people who do it at a balanced level and just have, like a garden and just your little efforts to kind of take care of yourself a little bit. And of course that's harmless, but a lot of people really do get in over their heads too, which I think is another culty element, is like, you know, you do a little bit and then all of a sudden you're fully bought in. I think social media actually increases that a little bit too, because, you know, you see, especially with animals, at least this happened to me. I think it happens to other people. You see, like, oh, they've got pigs, and their pigs look so useful and they're so cute. Like, I've got to get a couple pigs. And then, you know, you're taking care of pigs. You know, it really is easy to build up and get overwhelmed that way, I imagine.
- [21:54]
Chelsea Charles
Do you feel like there are certain rituals that exist that homesteaders know, but that would have, like, a normie like us a little bewildered?
- [22:03]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah. Well, there's definitely, like, the daily routine and the seasonality of it, especially if you have animals. But even with, like, a garden or a larger crop out in your fields, there's the daily routine of caring for, like, watering and feeding and those kinds of things. And then there's this huge seasonal routine where each season is, like, really different from the last. Like, I'm stoking the wood stove every night during the winter, and I'm putting hay away the summer, and it's really, like, marked out. Every day is kind of the same in, like, if you looked at a week, but every few months, it's dramatically different because there's different tasks that need to be done. So there's a lot of things like that. There's also just a lot of skills, and I think that's one of the big pluses of homesteading. You learn a lot of skills that as a normie, I definitely wouldn't. You know, from making yogurt or bread, gardening, taking care of, like, clipping goat tubs, all those kinds of things. So there's. There's a lot of that. That.
- [22:59]
Chelsea Charles
That's wild. Ooh, I don't know. There is something, I would say that is a little. I don't know. It seems interesting to want to get into, but hearing people talk about their. Their experience like ex homesteaders like yourself and Talking about how much work it actually is, watching these people, like, romanticize this lifestyle is like, come on, I
- [23:21]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
must see like every day someone on either Twitter or threads or whatever you're on these days saying, oh, gosh, I wish I could just have like 15 acres in a little cabin. And I'm like, do you realize how much work that would be?
- [23:35]
Reese Oliver
A thousand yard stare.
- [23:37]
Chelsea Charles
Yeah, right.
- [23:38]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
And there is, I guess you could call it like an ableism element to homesteading as well, because, I mean, we dealt with grief on our homestead and that was incredibly difficult because you can't stop. You can't take a day off to, like, process feelings. You also can't take a day off if you hurt yourself. I joked, I've been working on a memoir, like a full memoir about this experience. And I went back and was rereading the manuscript and I was like, well, the walk in clinic is actually one of the recurring characters in our story because you're always getting sick from something. Like, my husband had Lyme disease because, you know, you're out and you get ticks on you working in the field. He also fell off a ladder when we were building the house and broke his ribs. And then like, I stabbed myself in the arm clipping goat hooves. Like all sor of stuff happens. And fortunately, it never happened to the both of us at exactly the same time. Because if there was just one of you and like, you broke your leg, you'd still have to feed the animals. And I mean, I think a lot of homesteaders have kids and thinks that their kids would be interested in the lifestyle. And so maybe that's a way to carry it on. But apart from that assumption, basically there's no planning for. You've just got to be able to. Able to do this until you can't do it, and then what are you gonna do?
- [24:55]
Reese Oliver
I think people are forgetting that, like, when we used to live like this, we also used to live much more communally and have like twice as many kids, which, I mean, we're going back to that. But that didn't used to be one person or even one family's responsibility to like, upkeep all of these different essentially careers and also maintain interpersonal relationships and, like, being a human being. That sounds impossible. And it's like, no wonder to me that so many people burn out doing it.
- [25:18]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Absolutely. And the people that I know who, like, have actually been successful at this or, like, seem like they're still happy after many years doing it are the people who are doing it in more of A small town environment or like they have a few neighbors that they're friends with who that community aspect of it. But the more rural you go, the more hard that is to develop. Just first of all, in terms of lack of people in general. And then even if there are a few people, are they really interested in this? You know, you've really got to pick your spot if you want to have community or like, I guess maybe if you can do it with an actual group of friends with a plan for that. But most people just dive in.
- [25:57]
Reese Oliver
That's so scary. Okay, and when you dive in, can you explain to us some of the jargon or lingo that you will have to learn in order to be a full dyed in the wool homesteader?
- [26:09]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Oh, goodness. I don't know if there's a lot of real lingo as much as it is just basing a life around certain things. Like I mentioned firewood and haying and it's like cutting hay and getting firewood put away for the winter are absolute focuses. The entire summer is like built around preparing for winter with those things. So if you bump into a homesteader or a farmer with livestock or whatever during the summer, it'll be a conversation about haying and the weather, no doubt. Because you gotta get it right. You gotta get it in that window. And then a lot of the other sort of lingo things are just like, I know a lot of like, animal terms. You know the difference between not just like a ram and a ewe, but a wether, which is a neutered male goat or sheep and goat kids. And then they all have different colors and different breeds. There are so many breeds of chickens, goats, pigs, and each of them has their own, like, reason that you would want them or not. But, like, they have their own skills. Like for pigs, we pick Tamworth pigs, and they are a breed from England. And we pick them because we were having our pigs like out in the woods and they have this thick red hair. So they're more suited to sort of roughing it in the woods, basically. Like they're better foragers and they don't get sunburned like a pink pig is going to get sunburned because it's just skin out in the sun. Wow. And there's like the breed of chicken that there's one for every color egg that you can get. And you can get a lot of different color eggs and various things like that. So there's many different breeds of anything and specialities within that. And people who swear by one or
- [27:43]
Reese Oliver
the other, the original Labubu was like what color egg am I going to get?
- [27:46]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
I get to collect them all.
- [27:48]
Reese Oliver
Like that's where the gambling mindset came from. I'm convinced.
- [27:55]
Amanda Montell
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- [30:24]
Chelsea Charles
little bit about this earlier, but who would you say are some of the big names in homesteading today?
- [30:31]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
One of the big ones is definitely a guy named Joel Salatin and if I remember things correctly, he's in the movie Food Incorporated. And he's also in some other stuff like I think Michael Pollan mentions him in a few of his books. So he's got a bigger resume than a lot of homesteaders and he would technically be considered a farmer because he has a large, a large farm and he's farming for markets and like farming for profit if you will. But he's written a number of books about sort of the easiest and most what's called permaculture. There's a lingo word for you the most permaculture ways to take care of animals. Permaculture meaning utilizing something's natural tendencies for your farm, like having sheep graze in an orchard so they keep the grass shorn down and the orchard is thriving and their droppings are making manure and it's all intertwined. So he's written some books on like that kind of permaculture farming and general successful small scale farming that makes him a bit of a guru for homesteaders because it's very applicable to smaller scale and somewhat similar to the Nearings. He has a lot of like interns at his farm and there have been quite a few controversies about him and like some racism allegations that I don't remember enough to repeat. But he's like maybe not such a great guy. Homesteading festivals always have him as a speaker. He's one of the sort of big names. There's a few others that I'm less familiar with. But I know there was Farm Girl in the making was her handle on Instagram. There's certainly like Ballerina Farm even though she's like full trad now. The crossover is big. Those are the ones I can think of. There's a lot of people who. It's not that they're that sort of guru thing, but they're all kind of intertwined, and it becomes this we're all just talking to each other kind of circle. Salatin is the one that's kind of like above, and everybody's like, oh, wow, it's him.
- [32:23]
Chelsea Charles
Like, wait, this is my ADHD brain. This is an aside. You're talking a little bit about permaculture. How useful are these pigs on your homestead? What is their purpose?
- [32:34]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
So I don't know if you're familiar with Jeremy Clarkson, who drove the cars, had a car show in the uk and now he has a farm and he has an Amazon show about it, and he got pigs in the last season of the Amazon show, and he was talking to his, like, farm advisor, and the advisor's like, yeah, they will regenerate your woods into, like, a stock car track.
- [32:51]
Chelsea Charles
Damn. Okay.
- [32:52]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
And that's. I just love that quote because I was like, yep, that's exactly it. So pigs root everything up. And so if you have, like, a lot of low brush or whatever, they'll get rid of it. But they also require a fair amount of following behind them and smoothing things out. Like, it's not picture perfect. And that's generally been. The sheep were pretty effective, but apart from that, that's been my general experience with permaculture and animals is whatever they're supposed to do, they do just enough that it's like, a little easier for you to go behind them, but you still have to go behind them and clean up. Got it.
- [33:26]
Chelsea Charles
Okay.
- [33:27]
Reese Oliver
Little performative, but, you know, it's cool. We're here for it.
- [33:31]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah, you get to look at the cute animals doing it. So that does count for a lot.
- [33:34]
Chelsea Charles
Yeah.
- [33:35]
Reese Oliver
It's like when the little robot thing is bringing you your water and it's like running into the booth and you're like, oh, man, you're trying. Like, I'm here for it. Okay. We talked a little bit earlier about maintaining healthy community as being, like, part of a way to do homesteading.
- [33:49]
Chelsea Charles
Right.
- [33:50]
Reese Oliver
So to speak, if there is one. And I guess that is my question for you. Is there truly a way to, like, escape late stage capitalism and live in a homesteading community that doesn't inevitably just become a lord of the flies, microcosm of the world we're avoiding?
- [34:03]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
I think that the best way to do it is if you have a group of people, like, there are some intentional communities that homesteading is part of what they do. And so you might buy a Big property with like five friends. This already sounds super culty. I was like if you have like the expectations at the beginning and you're like sort of really intentionally like we're just gonna make our own this, that and the other thing and so, and so really loves goats so she can do the milking and like, you know, sort of be very intentional in how you're starting it. And you have the built in community because you're jumping into it like with a group of people and hopefully you don't have like one person in charge as your cult leader. I think that's kind of your best bet. And otherwise I would say keeping it small scale would be the other way. Like just don't dive in all the way. Like just do what you can reasonably manage and have like a plan for getting out of it. I think that's a big part. Like when I say be intentional about it and even if you think you'll never stop, have a plan for getting out of it, both because you will inevitably get old, quite possibly get injured, all of those things. And also because like a lot of these animals live a really long time. So that was one of our biggest struggles in getting out of this is you know, you have like the pigs live 20 years. So finding like the right person and like being responsible. I know some people would say like just eat them, but we weren't going to do that. And so if you're not going to do that, finding like a responsible way to get rid of or re home animals and the land that you've taken care of, like have that somewhat in your mind when you start, even if you think you aren't going to need it. Think about it a bit.
- [35:46]
Reese Oliver
Okay, good to know. And then follow up. Question to that. How are like social norms or like etiquette, how is that established amongst homesteaders and what happens when these rules are broken or pushed back upon?
- [35:58]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
I mean one thing I would say is that within the homesteading community people are pretty supportive. So the idea is to be as self sufficient as possible. So it's not strictly etiquette, I guess, but it's certainly expected that you're trying to make as much as you can yourself and you're, you know, figuring out how to make bread and all of that. People are very supportive of helping you figure that out. They're very helpful at sharing recipes and those kinds of things. If you start to say, ooh, I think I might be in over my head, you might get a lot of helpful responses like, you know, kind of like, have you tried this responses as opposed to here's how to get out of it responses, you know? Yeah, but, yeah, there is, like, the expectation that you are trying to do as much as you can yourself.
- [36:46]
Chelsea Charles
So would you say, is that there a stigma against members with more attachment to the real world within the homesteader community?
- [36:54]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yes. And I think that is like the etiquette thing too. Homesteaders like to say, like, create a life that you don't need a vacation from. Like, that kind of mentality. Like, and it's homesteading, like, you can never leave because you have all these creatures and responsibilities and stuff. So, you know, of course you'd say that. And I wouldn't say there's completely a stigma, but there is definitely a pride in showing up in your car hearts and that kind of thing. For some people, there's definitely more of a balance than for others. But for a lot of people, it's like, this is my badge and I'm proud of it. And, like, I'm going to wear my flannels and my carhartt into town. And he should know from looking at me like that means I'm like a farmer and that means I'm cool and I can take care of myself.
- [37:41]
Chelsea Charles
And can you remind me with your homestead specifically because you just said, like, going into town, how far away were you you actually from just like a store?
- [37:51]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah. There are certainly some homesteads that are much closer to civilization than mine. And that's something, if it is a lifestyle that you want to check out, like, think about how far you are from things. We are about half an hour one way to a store, like a grocery store. Okay. We are maybe 40 minutes to a larger town. We're about an hour and a half half outside of Fortland, which would be Maine's largest town, and also like half an hour from, like a hospital as well, which is important to consider, I think, of course. And that isolation, like, it's funny how that there's the practical aspects, like, if you forget an ingredient, then you're not going to get it till the next time you go into town and go to the grocery store kind of a thing. But it also, like, builds up the isolation feeling. If you are that far from community events like libraries, festivals, whatever it is, then all of a sudden you're starting to feel like it's hard. The goal for a successful homestead is maybe to, like, build a community, but it's hard to connect with the community when every time you want to do something, it's like a full day's thing. So yeah, being more distance removed from places is obviously isolating and I think more ways than people realize.
- [39:11]
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- [42:16]
Reese Oliver
Try it today@mood.com I'm really interested in hearing about more of the entry costs to homesteading. What are some more of the things that you can kiss goodbye when you sign up?
- [42:28]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
The costs are like hands down, one of the like, so you want to do permaculture and you want to like have chicken so you don't have to buy eggs and have a cow so you don't have to buy milk and like it's all going to be wonderful. It's so expensive to homestead. That's one thing I truly like. I can't stress enough. The animals are expensive. Like you have to buy animals. Seeds and things like that aren't as expensive. But still, you know, you probably have to like till your garden. That's an like, you know, there's various little things to get set up and then once you're in it, I mean fen fencing, we've spent thousands of dollars on fencing and like each animal has like slightly different needs for fencing, so you can't always use the same thing. And like buckets for water and hoses, we have so many hoses, you know, sprays for whatever pest is bothering your garden, all of those types of things. And then if you have animals feed for the animals, which is hay and grain and is incredibly expensive and really adds up, some people have agreements. Again, if you're like maybe a little closer to civilization with like a restaurant and you can get scraps from there that might help with that a little bit. And you can like grow your hay, grow your grain, but that's still, you're going to have to like then invest in haying. It's just like everything about it costs money.
- [43:48]
Reese Oliver
And that's just the financial costs. That's not even like the emotional costs of like not having anyone around you or like the physical cost of the labor on your body, the time, time you're putting into it, like, and any
- [43:59]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
little like sub hobby of it that you want to get into, like making cheese again, I gotta get all the specialized equipment. There's very little that doesn't have some specialized equipment aspect to it.
- [44:14]
Reese Oliver
Well, when you think about it, everything you're doing, you're kind of reinventing the wheel because the hobby is just living as if it were like however many years ago. So it's just doing it for the first time time again. I gotta go back and reinvent it.
- [44:24]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yes. That's one of the things I find very funny now about people on social media talking about homesteading too. Because a lot of the time and even some of the books about it, it's like I figured out how to do XYZ and it's like, yes. But also people did a long time ago too.
- [44:39]
Chelsea Charles
Right, right, right.
- [44:40]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah, they knew.
- [44:45]
Chelsea Charles
Okay, so at the top of this you were speaking about how you were in the process of like exactly exiting homesteading and rehousing animals. So we talked a little bit about the entry costs. What are some of the exit costs of homesteading?
- [44:59]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Exit costs have not been that terrible. There's been a fair amount of time involved in like the rehoming of the animals and I know some people might do it quicker. I'm very picky about where my animals go. So it's taken us like a couple years to get down to. We still have three, three goats, which if anybody's interested. So mostly time expenses more than anything else. Certainly there are people who are deep into homesteading who are not going to like understand what you're doing. You may like lose a few friendships. I would say that most of the closer friendships I made through homesteading weren't with full on deep, like the kind of people who wouldn't understand my getting away from it, but my interactions on online and stuff. Like there's occasionally someone who's like, why would you ever leave this, especially now, like that kind of thing. So you might get a little bit of social pushback.
- [45:53]
Reese Oliver
Okay, so next question. What are some of the worst case scenarios you've seen in homesteading?
- [45:59]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Oh, gosh. Well, just like overwhelm. I know some of the worst case scenarios I've seen are people who have gotten older and their kids have left and their Kids have no interest, and they're just trying to find, figure out what to do. And some cases are more extreme than others. Like, some have set up homesteads that can run with how their bodies are functioning now, and some have not. So that makes a big difference. But there's also, like, the pride aspect, if you will. Like, they've spent their whole lives building this, and now, like, no one's interested in taking it over and that kind of thing. So there's an emotional toll as well. So people sort of aging out of it and not knowing what to do is definitely something I've seen and is sad, essentially. And then in homesteads with animals, there's definitely a huge gamut of care given to the animals. So the other worst case is animals that are clearly not being cared for as well as they could be. You know, animals without proper food and pens that are too small for how many you've got. And that kind of thing. That's something that. It's bad.
- [47:04]
Chelsea Charles
What is the moment that you realized this may be just a little bit too culty for comfort?
- [47:12]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
The more research I did into the history of the movement and the more people just dove in during the pandemic, and those two things, for me, kind of happened at the same time. I wrote a book about homesteading that came out in 2018 or 2019, and I. I was sort of touring places and talking about it, and, like, for example, that's when I went to the Nearings homestead for the first time, or I was, like, speaking at an event that Joel Salatin was also speaking at. Like, I was getting more exposure to the guru figures, past and present. And I went to a couple of homesteading fairs, and that made me start feeling like there's a lot of people who are just like, this is the best diving in all the way. And then to then see even more people, like, sort of piling on. That with the panel kind of had a snowball effect for me.
- [48:06]
Chelsea Charles
It's so weird because, I don't know, it's like, obviously due to everything that's happening with our government and all the things, it would be an appealing lifestyle to just kind of, like, live off the grid and say, to hell with everyone. But I totally, totally understand this idea of kind of, like, first of all, ignoring the origins of this entire thing, but also kind of, like, becoming a part of this world and kind of ignoring all the other things that come with it. I guess that's a really, like, hard thing for the people that subscribe to homesteading to kind of grapple with, I would assume.
- [48:46]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah. I read an article about a lady who is like trying to do all the stuff that the government does recently, and one of the things she said was like, I talked to the farmer and patted the cow. But like, I recently, I really don't know if that made me understand how much healthier my milk is. Like.
- [49:03]
Chelsea Charles
Right, right, exactly, exactly.
- [49:06]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
And I think, you know, we talked about exiting a minute ago. And one of the potential costs of exiting, I feel like, is kind of self esteem related too, because this is all about self sufficiency. This is about being able to do it all. And so you're admitting you can't do it all and that really can be tough. Like, I think there's a fair a.m. amount of shame in getting out of the movement that isn't even exterior because the whole thing kind of started as a self sufficiency thing and they're sort of like, oh, I can't do it all myself. You have to be able to like, admit that you have hustle culture on
- [49:43]
Reese Oliver
one end shaming you if you're not like, fully as technologically advanced as you can be and like half bionic, have a chip in your hand at this point. And then on the other hand, you have like the homesteaders and the trad wives that are like, you don't know how to live. Like, it's 300 years ago. What's wrong with you? And it's like, can I just live?
- [50:00]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Geez.
- [50:00]
Chelsea Charles
Exactly.
- [50:01]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yes.
- [50:02]
Reese Oliver
Given all of that pressure, our last question for you is, what advice do you have for current homesteaders that feel a little bit overwhelmed in this current day and age?
- [50:11]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
As much as possible, like, try to keep things within a reasonable size or try to downsize. Don't feel this either social pressure or internal pressure. Pressure to do everything yourself. Pick what you like, really enjoy doing yourself. Lean into those things maybe, and like, let go of the rest. One of the things I like to say is, like, there is such a thing as progress. Like, there's a lot of things wrong with the world today, but also there's a lot of reasons that it's good that we have made the improvements socially, scientifically, et cetera, et cetera. And so. So admit that to yourself. Go ahead and watch TV at night or buy pasteurized milk from the store. Like, let go of some things and like, you don't have to give it all up. You can keep doing what you enjoy. But like, admit that, like, modernity is not all bad. My mother I mentioned she homesteaded for A while. And when she told her grandparents that she was going to do this, her grandparents, who had been complete subsistence farmers, were horrified, essentially because they had worked themselves to the bone their whole lives so that their children and their grandchildren wouldn't have to. And my mom was being like, oh, I want to work like that. So, like, just admit to progress. It's a mostly good thing.
- [51:30]
Chelsea Charles
You said the pasteurized milk. I definitely went down a rabbit hole where I was like, there's a lot of misinformation within this entire thing because, like, I saw these videos of people, like, promoting unpasteurized milk, and I was like, whoa, whoa, there. Wait a minute now. Okay, so we want to get into a little game that we tend to play on every episode of Sounds Like a Cult. We call it Culty or Cringe. So basically, we're just going to go back and forth and say a whole bunch of prompts. And you tell me, in your expert opinion, is it culty or is it just cringe?
- [52:15]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Okie dokie.
- [52:17]
Chelsea Charles
Okay, first things first. Quitting your day job to become a homesteading influencer and expecting to make money.
- [52:25]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Oh, I think that's pretty culty. Especially when you added expecting to make money. That's what pushed it over the edge for me.
- [52:34]
Reese Oliver
Second of all, and these are all real things that I found that people have done or said when while researching for this episode. I want to just preface this with that. Eating raw chicken liver as you butcher your fowl.
- [52:43]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Ooh. Well, it's definitely cringe. I don't know if it's culty or if it's just like, a terrible personal choice.
- [52:53]
Reese Oliver
That's true. I think it's cultivated. Maybe a different cult.
- [52:56]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Right, right.
- [52:58]
Chelsea Charles
The next one is trying to can your own food based on one tik tok and eating it fearlessly years later.
- [53:07]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Probably just cringe. I would encourage people to do more research.
- [53:13]
Chelsea Charles
I was about to say, girl, I don't know. I've seen a lot of, like, botulism. Tik tok. That's starting to scare me a little bit. I'm like, are you canning this stuff correctly?
- [53:23]
Reese Oliver
Who knows where's. We need the TikTok audio. The one that's like, you can't eat at everybody's house. That's how I feel.
- [53:30]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yes. Yeah.
- [53:32]
Reese Oliver
Referring to milking an animal as an art.
- [53:35]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Oh, I mean, yeah, that's a little culty. Yeah. It's that sort of sense of superiority. It's difficult, but it's. It's not really hard.
- [53:44]
Chelsea Charles
Nothing to write home about flexing your dirty fingernails on IG stories.
- [53:50]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
That can get pretty culty. I don't think it has to be, but it can get pretty culty. It can definitely, again, just get very, like, look, I'm doing harder stuff than everybody else and that kind of thing. Yeah.
- [54:02]
Reese Oliver
Okay, this one we've mentioned a few times, but it's time we get, like, a full evaluation. Raw milk. Oh, yeah.
- [54:08]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Raw milk is very, very culty. Like, people should eat what they want to eat. But you have to admit there's obvious problems with it. And the sort of pushing it is, like, the healthiest. Like, you know, look at how everything. Because I drink raw milk. Like, it's very culty. And, like, people will drive all over the place to find raw milk stands. And, like, every. It's a whole world.
- [54:33]
Chelsea Charles
Yes, it is. Washing all of your clothes with a washboard.
- [54:38]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah, that's kind of culty and just, like, so unnecessary. Like, so much added unnecessary work.
- [54:46]
Reese Oliver
I mean, I think we don't need to be machine washing our clothes. I feel like I've read that, like, machine washing our clothes is, like, essentially doing way too much and we're destroying our clothes. Clothes and, you know, whatever.
- [54:55]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
That is probably somewhat true, but, you know, getting down by the stream with your washboard is also extreme.
- [55:03]
Chelsea Charles
Very extreme. I was literally just gonna say my grandmother was born in, like, 1942, and I will tell you that she had a washing machine, but she still washed a lot of things with a washboard. And when people would come over to visit, it was like a talking piece. Like, people were like, your grandmother sells a washboard? I'm like, yeah, listen, I don't know. She's four by it, so.
- [55:26]
Reese Oliver
Yeah, maybe there's something to it. Maybe I'll give it a try. Okay, and last one. Referring to scooping poop as therapy.
- [55:35]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Oh, well, I mean, it is a little culty, but I probably have done that. Of everything you've asked, that's the one that I'm the most like, oh, yeah, I probably did that. The thing is, like, it's not the scooping the poop. It's the, like, time by yourself with your headphones in. That's the ritual of it.
- [55:52]
Chelsea Charles
Yeah. Yes, the ritual.
- [55:58]
Reese Oliver
Okay, well, Kirsten, thank you so much for coming on the show today. If listeners want to follow you and join your cult, where can they find you?
- [56:06]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Yeah, I am on Instagram at Hostel Valley Living, and I also have a website where I put all my writing work, which is hostelvalleyliving.com and a substack, which is Hostel Valley. Thoughts? And just as an explanation, Hostel Coastal Valley is the name of the road that I live on. Because people do always ask why.
- [56:25]
Reese Oliver
Awesome. Thank you so much.
- [56:27]
Chelsea Charles
We appreciate you for hopping on.
- [56:29]
Kirsten Lee Nielsen
Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun.
- [56:38]
Reese Oliver
So, Chelsea, out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, or get the fuck out. Where are you putting the cult of homesteading?
- [56:48]
Chelsea Charles
It's gonna be a game. The fuck out for me. It's gonna be a get the fuck out for me. Here's the thing. Well, dang it. I always do this.
- [56:59]
Reese Oliver
It's gonna be, I do the same thing.
- [57:04]
Chelsea Charles
Because after talking with our guest, Kirsten, it's the upfront cost. For me, if we are having this, like, an in response to what's happening in our world, in our society, and we're deciding, okay, I'm going to leave the machine. I'm taking a step back. The fact that this has been recently pushed as this lifestyle that's just so easy and less expensive to get into, and you have all this freedom, and it's like, that's not true at all. So for me, I'm like, get the fuck out.
- [57:35]
Reese Oliver
Straight up, it very much gives MLM in that way where it's like, here you can, like, free yourself from society and instead do all of the work yourself. And it's like, no. Maybe there's a reason that we've built these systems wherein we depend on each other and that we, like, exist. Exist in communal structures already, so we don't need to go build our own. Yeah, I think I'm gonna agree with you because, you know, you can learn to bake the bread without doing this. I don't think that we should be allowed to opt out of society. If you have enough money, I think that that's wrong and weird. I think you should have to pay attention because that's ultimately kind of what it feels like to me. It feels very like when all of those influencers went on vacation during the pandemic. And it's like, okay, let's think about why we're doing what we're doing here and what we're doing. Avoiding. Well, cultist, that is our show.
- [58:17]
Chelsea Charles
Thanks so much for listening and join us for a new episode next week.
- [58:22]
Reese Oliver
In the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty.
- [58:35]
Amanda Montell
Sounds like a Cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of the podcast. This episode was hosted by Reese Oliver and Chelsea Charles. Our managing producer is Katy Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it 5 stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, the Age of Magical Notes on Modern Irrational and Word A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Thanks as well to our network studio 71 and be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse Sounds Like a Cult pod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad free at patreon.com soundslikeacult.
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