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The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
#127: From End-Stage Liver Disease to Homestead Healing: How One Family Transformed Through Homesteading, Homeschooling, and Self-Sufficiency
What happens when life throws you a devastating curveball? For Kody and her family, her husband's end-stage liver disease diagnosis with just one year to live became the catalyst for a complete lifestyle transformation. They sold everything, bought a farm, and began growing their own food—a decision that ultimately led to his liver fully healing eight years later.
This conversation takes us deep into the intersection of homesteading and homeschooling, revealing how one family found purpose, health, and a thriving business by reconnecting with traditional skills. Kody shares candidly about their journey from thinking "we don't want to spend all day with our children" to creating an integrated life where education happens naturally through meaningful work. Her story of watching her once-struggling son thrive outside traditional education—eventually becoming a $50/hour foreman at age 20—challenges conventional thinking about learning and success.
As founder of Homestead Education, Kody created curriculum that's now used in five countries after discovering a surprising gap in agricultural education resources. "Food is literally humanity's most driving force, and yet nobody knows how to do it," she explains, describing how her materials blend agriculture, science, and home economics for all ages. From raising heritage pigs to managing a micro-dairy, her family demonstrates how developing self-sufficiency skills creates resilience and purpose beyond what conventional systems offer.
Whether you're curious about homesteading, considering homeschooling, or simply interested in more sustainable living, this episode offers practical wisdom and inspiration. Visit thehomesteadeducation.com to explore Kody's curriculum and resources for starting your own journey toward greater self-sufficiency and purposeful living.
Check out Kody's work at: Homestead Education
What is the most important thing we can teach our kids?
HOW TO HANDLE AN EMERGENCY!
This could mean life or death in some cases!
Help a child you know navigate how to handle an emergency situation with ease: Let's Talk, Emergencies! -
🛒 Get 15% off the Tuttle Twins books mentioned in this episode using code Cheryl15:
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Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region? And should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. I have a super cool guest tonight. Her name is Cody and she is with Homestead Education, so welcome. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How are you Good? Good, the reason that I actually I reached out to you to come on, which doesn't happen a lot, because people are always messaging me like I homeschool. I want to tell my story.
Speaker 1:oh, that's really cool, she has curriculum about homesteading and like I want to know how to homestead, like I fake it. Right now I have a couple of chickens and I'm surprised they're still alive. But that's my homestead. That's the extent of it.
Speaker 2:You know what? We had three sows going to labor last night. I'm faking it most of the time too.
Speaker 1:Three what went into labor.
Speaker 2:Three sows.
Speaker 1:I don't know, what that means.
Speaker 2:Pigs. We had three pigs in labor last night, oh my goodness, I'm from the city.
Speaker 1:I'm from the city. It's so really true.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this morning we had 26 piglets and two of them farrowed in pasture, and so me and my kids are like have them in a wagon, and we're like taking the babies up the hill. So mommy will follow and, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:So do you help with the delivery?
Speaker 2:if they need it. A lot of times they don't.
Speaker 1:We raise um heritage pigs so they have better mothering instincts you're telling me you don't have to give them pitocin and epidurals and then a c-section at the end no, well, you know what?
Speaker 2:I did have one pig that I was afraid she wasn't done yet and she was up and moving around, so I gave her some oxytocin to make sure she was healthy and got her placenta oh, um, that's exciting.
Speaker 1:So, okay, you homeschool as well, right, okay, how long have you been first homesteading and then we'll get into the homeschooling?
Speaker 2:It's kind of like one of those like loaded questions, because I grew up on a cattle ranch. Okay, I did not, but we were always really modern. You know, I grew up in California, but I mean in the mountains cattle ranch. My dad was a hunting guide, so rural life was really natural for me. But I was an ag major and worked in commercial ag for 10 years and then my husband got diagnosed with end stage liver disease and was told he had a year to live, and we were only in our early 30s.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And after a sobbing call to the VA doctor, he finally probably just to get me off the phone told me that if we lived a healthier lifestyle it might improve his quality of life. So we sold everything and bought a farm and started growing all of our own food. And it's been eight years and he has a fully healed liver.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, isn't that amazing. How do you even? Get well, yes, the liver regenerates, right.
Speaker 2:So, like his his was in stage with the like scarring and everything.
Speaker 1:So they were like good luck, lady, like just get off the phone with me, wow and and I mean just that wasn't the first thing that they said to you hey, change what you're eating, Look at what chemicals or what hormones, what's injected into the food you're eating. That wasn't even part of the process. It was just like have fun the last year you're alive here.
Speaker 2:And then they even told him to go on like a low fat diet and stuff which you know. Over the years we have learned that that's the exact opposite of what we should have done and we're to the point now where we eat home. You know, we cook everything in home rendered lard and our cholesterol is down 250 points a piece. Wow.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you grew up kind of rurally, but how long ago was that now? Eight, eight years ago.
Speaker 2:So eight years ago is when we said well, let's figure out how to do all of this.
Speaker 1:How did homeschooling blend in with all that?
Speaker 2:Well, right around that same time we had a couple of kids who were having problems in school. And we have six kids, so the couple older ones were in junior high. We have some younger ones that were struggling too and it was such a stress trying to learn a whole new lifestyle while dealing with issues at the school. So we're like we had a friend who was homeschooling. She's like why don't you just try it? You can do it through a charter. If you don't like it, you can go back in the fall. And my husband and I were like we don't want to spend all day with our children. We were like we don't want to spend all day with our children. We were like those people. Now I look back on it and go how would I feel if my husband said he didn't want to spend all day with me? Yes, so true, yeah. So we pulled them out and we started muddling through it and of course, we did it all wrong for the first few years.
Speaker 1:And trying to replicate school at home and everyone's fighting yeah I get it, I'm still guilty. We thought we were going.
Speaker 2:We thought they were going back. We thought this was just to spend some extra time together if my husband didn't make it, and so we're like, okay, we'll just do school at home or we're doing it together. And we tried to replicate school and one of our children has like severe adhd and odd, and that was a nightmare. So we've learned what is odd.
Speaker 2:I know I've ocd I'm familiar with odd is oppositional defiance disorder, oh, which means he will go against like authority figures in any social norms. Like I can't get the guy to wear tennis shoes. Like I can't get the guy to wear tennis shoes, he wears cowboy boots all the time.
Speaker 1:So does my son, and I live in New York.
Speaker 2:Well, you're're in upstate, so you know.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. But it's so funny because, yes, I used to say that too. Like one, I don't even know if I want kids. Two, if I have them, I'm not even going to send them to private school, let alone. Homeschool was never on the table.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it was like who wants to spend that much time with your kids? And then, now that I am home with them all day, I'm like, oh my God, this is what I you know, and my daughter I've been home with her since she was born I'm like this is what I missed when he was in daycare at her age and it's kind of it's cool because I got to see both sides, but at the same time it makes me sad because there's people that don't ever realize it and it's not their fault. Society literally tells you you should be in a job if you want to make any, if you want to contribute to society or, you know, pay more taxes. Um, but yeah, it's uh, that's really sad. So you had. I'm actually writing an ebook right now and I have a chapter on like homeschooling children with special needs and how wonderful homeschooling is for that.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh yes.
Speaker 1:Can you get into that a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean learning on the homestead. Everything is hands on and that's been the best way for us when we really like, went all in, we are growing all of our own food. I had to base all of our lessons around what we were doing on the farm because otherwise I wouldn't have time for both. And my one with ODD which I actually have, some younger ones with autism and dyslexia and stuff like my husband or yours, mine and ours and that's kind of what drew us to each other is we were both struggling as single parents raising neurodivergent kids. So we're doing everything hands-on. The kids are really getting it, but our one with ODD oh man, he hates school, hated school. I don't know what you want to say. He's 20 now but he would sit at the table and pretend to do his lessons and like, at the end of the day, hand them all to us and we're like there's nothing written down and he's like, oh, you must have erased it.
Speaker 1:So at this point he's like almost a teenager.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's like 15. We're like, oh my gosh, like this is. Do you really think that I took the time to erase all your work? That's not how I want to spend my afternoons. So he asked if he could get a job.
Speaker 2:And my husband and I we had this rule that you can't get your driver's license and stuff like that if you don't have at least a B average. Because we figure, if you're homeschooled, if you're not getting at least Bs there's, you know, like we're trying to build a foundation. And so he started working for our neighbor and when it was time to start school in the fall, he's like I don't want to come back. And when it was time to start school in the fall, he's like I don't want to come back, like I don't want to do school anymore. And my husband and I talked about it and we're like well, I mean, in Idaho we don't have a lot of homeschool laws, so why don't you take a semester off? We'll call it work experience and see how it goes.
Speaker 2:And he goes well with that. If I save up all my own money to take driver's ed, to get my you know insurance, pay for my own phone, get a car, do I have to still get good grades and we're like prove us, you know, prove it to us. This kid not only like, he started working full time, he saved up the money and bought himself like his dream truck. He got his driver's license. He, I mean, did all the steps and then was so good at his job, somebody else, like, hired him to be an electrician's apprentice, and now, at 20 years old, he makes 50 something dollars an hour and is the foreman on the job site.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean, that's like. That gives me chills because that just goes to show you, yes, like how much you can give your child, how many opportunities if they get outside the system. And I think just people don't realize it. Like, oh, are you going to sit there with them when they're 16, 17, you know, 18, reading from a curriculum book to them, Like no, it doesn't have to be like that. And yeah, and you're not the only person I talked to actually in my ebook. I was just writing because elijah stanfield was on my podcast. He illustrated for the title twins or illustrates for the title.
Speaker 1:Yeah and he actually interviewed us for the magazine, did you, yeah, and he was like yeah, my son at 16 was like, yeah, I want to get into music. I, I, I want to, you know, kind of step away from the schoolwork and get into the music. And he was like okay, but how are you going to afford the instruments, the recording time and all that? And so he started. You know, his son started drawing some illustrations, making some money, paying for everything himself, and it's like that's teaching you real world stuff that I didn't get in school.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and you know we still I knew, you know, 15, 16 years old he's still. He's still our kid and we still need to make sure that he's getting what he needs. And so I would kind of construct scenarios where we had to do a little extra learning. Some call it strewing, but basically I would. I got a book on how to build homestead projects and I was like, hey, wyatt, I need some trellises built and I don't have time for it. So next thing I know he's out there like how many do you want? Oh, I want three.
Speaker 1:And so he's having to do the math and read through the book and he's in the kitchen with me, leaning over the counter working it all out with me, and I'm like, yeah, we just did a math lesson and you didn't even know it and that's how it should be, honestly, because when you're teaching a kid something you know, you've got math and then reading a separate block, writing a separate block, history, a separate block, and it's like they can all intertwine and they can all center around something that your kid actually loves, like trucks or dinosaurs or building of how electricity works, and you can work so much into that and I understand like it. It is hard to conceptualize like, okay, that sounds wonderful, how does that actually get implemented? Because that's like so much research right there. But I feel like it does kind of naturally flow once you're in it and you know you can, and just nowadays with the internet and AI and all that stuff out there, you're never alone you're not.
Speaker 2:No, you know, I tell a lot of people they'll even with recipes or something like that, and they're like well, how do I cook like you? I'm like, you don't need me to walk you all the way through it, you can google everything and just do it, just jump in and do it. And I think that's actually the biggest disconnect as to why I started teaching the way I do is because we weren't taught all these things, and I say we like our generation, and so not only are we afraid to learn them, we're definitely afraid to teach them.
Speaker 1:So how important is it that we know how to not just homestead, but how to grow our own food, how to find clean water. You know, I mean, many people in school today probably don't even know that their food in some way, shape or form, came from someone's farm, um, let alone how to find water if they needed to well, like, how far down the conspiracy rabbit hole do you want me to go? But I mean, I go pretty far, but I don't want to get banned on instagram either. Still on instagram's happy side.
Speaker 2:You know, I think just kind of you have to look at the fact that even five years ago we couldn't get some of these things, that literally our supply chain shut down. This can happen. This isn't a conspiracy theorist thing. This isn't a crazy prepper thing or a crunchy mom or whatever label you want to put on it. This is a real thing that could happen and it's even just as simple as where we live in North Idaho and you may even deal with some of this in upstate New York is we get several feet of snow and sometimes can lose power for days on end. So just understanding those basics, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, the Maui fires, the hurricane in North. Carolina. I mean any of that could happen to any of us, or even another country invading, or you know our own country. You know the aliens coming down, they could say anything literally and you know we would just be at their fema's mercy.
Speaker 2:so I think that's been like my new thing, like I just don't want my kids dependent on fema if they don't have to be and it's so important too, to teach our kids because actually who's saving you is like the hillbillies on horses coming in from behind, because they're the ones that have been doing this stuff their whole lives.
Speaker 1:Yes, and and we saw that during the you know hurricanes in north carolina from what people were showing um, you know on instagram and whatnot. But yeah, and not only is it, it's like okay, even if my child doesn't need it in his lifetime or her lifetime, okay, how do I know that their kids and their kids and their kids won't need to know some sort of survival information. Survival just how to find food, how to like, hunt, like, process an animal that they've hunted or grow something. I mean that's huge. We are we in one generation. We've just thrown up our hands and said, oh, the government's going to handle it, I don't have to worry about it. We are we in one generation. We've just thrown up our hands and said, oh, the government's going to handle it, I don't have to worry about it. It we're pretty ignorant to think that that's okay. You know, we've got kids and grandkids and great grandkids to think about.
Speaker 2:I tell people that a lot we need to opt out of relying on the systems, because we have this like a severed cord of generational sustainability that was just passed down from years and years and years and suddenly I don't know what 75 years ago our grandmothers were like. I would rather have an electric vacuum than learn how to cook. And our children, I mean and I say our children co-healy, like they, they don't know how to do anything. And I mean, and I say our children co-oculally, like they don't know how to do anything. And I mean that same anxiety that we are feeling about that they're feeling it too. So I mean, like, just start. If you don't know it, learn it, and learn it in front of them, because they're going to see you. I don't know how to do that. Let's figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, because I don't know any of it. I got Joel Salatin's book. So you know, we're kind of like I'm not that there yet, like my husband keeps telling me, like you can't, you can't handle taking care of the chickens that we have, so we're not adding like sheep and goats and cows to this mix.
Speaker 2:Yet Joel Salatin is a great one because he gets you like all he like. He's the fire and brimstone of the homesteading world. You're like I'm going to do this because this is all messed up and yeah, and it gets into like we know nothing about the soil or anything.
Speaker 1:I never learned about that stuff in school. I worked for the government for 16 years and I had this one crazy. I had many crazy bosses, but I had this one crazy. I had many crazy bosses, but I had this one crazy boss. And then now that I look back on it I'm like, oh my gosh, she was right about so many things. She was senile as all hell. Nobody liked this lady. But I look back and she I remember her saying to me well, the soil has no nutrients in it, so it doesn't even matter if you're eating, you know your apples or whatever you grow. This sort of has no nutrients in it. So it doesn't even matter if you're eating, you know your apples or whatever you grow, the soil has no nutrients. And I'm like I at that time I was like all right, but now that I'm like watching documentaries on it.
Speaker 1:I attended a conference a couple weeks ago with dell. Big tree was at it and I'm like, wow, I didn't even know about any of this, about how we should be. You know what we should be putting in our soil, composting and stuff I never composted I didn't know that was a thing we compost now and we get the little steps that I've taken over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1:We get, um, I don't have a cow or pig myself, but I'll get them butchered from the local farms or local butchers. So you know, it's at least local and it had a decent life. It wasn't, you know, bred for?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know what? I raise 300 hogs a year and they all get head scratches in the morning.
Speaker 1:Have you taught your kids what to do in an emergency? It's a conversation we shouldn't put off and it's a conversation we should have often. That's why I wrote let's Talk Emergencies, a book that covers everything from dialing 911 on a locked cell phone to staying safe online water safety, fire safety and more. The most important lessons we can teach our kids are not reading, writing and math. They're how to keep themselves and others safe In today's world of uncertainty. Give them the tools they need. Grab a copy today. Check out the link in this episode's description. And that makes a difference actually in the end product of the bacon that you eat. Can you talk about that at all?
Speaker 2:Pigs are really yeah, pigs are really sustainable to stress and there's actually a gene that is in some commercial lines of pigs that if they get too stressed they either die or all of the water will come out of their meat after they're butchered. So you know, there's a lot of people that are, just like you know, happier, pigs are healthier. But I'm like there's a whole like physiological thing happening with pigs that if they're too stressed it actually changes the meat that's on your plate.
Speaker 1:And probably like cortisol levels too, and then what you're consuming, as you know the consumer. You're getting that right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And you know the pigs that are raised in confinement operations their meat is lower in vitamin D because they're not converting it through their skin like we do. So pigs that are raised out in the sun, their meat has higher levels of vitamin D in it. If you're doing heritage meats, it's still marbled. It doesn't have all the fat bred out of it, so you're getting more nutritious with your linoleic acids and things like that. Marbled is better Marbled when you get a beef steak and there's the lines of fat through it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That's what marbled is, and so most pork. Because when they lied to everybody and told us that fat was bad for us back in the 50s, all the pork had the fat bred out of it over several years. But the heritage breeds of pork never went into that commercial line of breeding. So they still have all the fat in their meat. And I mean you can just you can taste the difference, let alone the health benefits of it.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So can you give me a rundown of what your day looks like? You've got six kids, but some of them have graduated. How many you have left in your homeschooling, like you know world, and what your day looks like on average?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have four still at home two 16-year-olds, a seven-year-old and a five-year-old. I had to think for a second. The five-year-old's a little feral, so I think our animals are a little bit more domesticated than he is, but this kid is like he's a full time job. But yeah, we get up in the morning and our teenage son gets up and goes and feeds the pigs and milks the cows for our micro dairy and we sell our raw milk here in Idaho and we also, oh, we have like 12 breeding animals right now and on our pig herd. So I mean we have like breeding animals right now and on our pig herd. So I mean we have, like I said, 26 piglets were born last night.
Speaker 2:While he's up doing that, my daughter gets up and she kind of starts the morning routine in the house and so she's like helping getting the little boys up and starting coffee. My son comes in with the milk. We all kind of jump in at that point because as a business owner, I have to get up and, you know, start answering emails right away. So I get up and I'm doing that and I'm, you know, working with her, helping with the littles. My son comes in and we all hop in and start processing the milk for the store or, um, you know, cleaning out jars to me and getting the cream for making butter and making cheese and whatever it is we're going to do for the day, and then from that point my husband's a firefighter and he has PTSD, so his sleep schedule is a little off.
Speaker 2:So when he gets up we all head out and start doing whatever farm chores need to be done. So that's rotating pastures, fixing things, doctoring somebody, whatever it is. We need to do, not just the regular everyday feeding, because that kind of falls on the teenager. Our eight or seven-year-old goes with him a lot because he's old enough to be doing a lot of that and we kind of say like if they're old enough to walk and talk, they're old enough to follow instructions and help. So our kids start young, so important and I mean huh, so important, yeah, it is yeah. And they're so self-sufficient. We can leave for conferences and the teenagers can completely run our farm without us and I trust them. I know that everybody's safe because they make good choices and they're handling what they need to do, because we have a trust from being partners in working on the farm together. And they're on the fire department with my husband and just everything we do is together.
Speaker 1:I love that. You know, what I love about this is they all have a purpose in their day Cause. I think that that's been stripped from us. I don't think I know that that's been stripped from us Just like we were talking about the. We don't have to find food, water or shelter anymore. We just are kind of at least in the US fairly comfortable here and you can get Uber to whatever, bring food to your door, amazon to bring you a new outfit tomorrow, or whatever. There's really no like survival purpose in our bodies.
Speaker 2:I would say there's like teenagers have anxiety because they have zero purpose. I think that's and that, I mean, I'm sure, is going into probably even all the way up to our generation just not knowing what we're supposed to be doing with our time and with our day.
Speaker 1:Oh, you hit the nail on the head right there, because I never, I always, felt that way. Like you know, they tell you when you have to be in school, when you have to switch classes, when you can go home, what you know. Okay, I want to do this extracurricular. Okay, well, it's five days a week, three hours a day. It's like, geez, all right, well, I just wanted to enjoy a little bit. But you know, and then your weekends are filled with whatever else you're into, or this birthday party, or that family event, and it's like, how much time do you really get to just be by yourself and think, like, what do I like to do? And even as an adult, you know, I went to college. It's like, I don't know, I'll just keep switching my major until something fits.
Speaker 1:And uh, then I got a job working for government, because that's what my parents did. And even in government work I was like, okay, well, this is nice, because, even if I don't like the job I'm doing, I could. I could transfer to a different unit or a different department, different agency, and find that thing. And I found, after 16 years and four different agencies, there's never any work to do and never purposeful. And people like I'm sure my coworkers hate me for that. Yeah, you might have a job that you're busy in, but if you left tomorrow, nobody's life would change. So how important is the work that you're doing?
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I mean just what we do with our hands, and I mean just it's such a like when you're just sitting there doing busy work, just the same thing over and over again until it's five o'clock and you clock out, how do you go home and feel like you've accomplished anything?
Speaker 2:Yeah where the amount of work we do with our hands and when we have a finished product at the end of the day, a finished product at the end of season or whatever it is that we're doing and we live with the seasons and we eat with the seasons and like our bodies, are just more in tune to how we were meant to live on this earth.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's so important and, again, it's just so overlooked and I really think, like knowing that I can get up, like right now, I get up at 4 30 in the morning because I want to work on my podcast and work on the Instagram, and so it's like, okay, what can I do now? Can I work on an ebook? Yeah, I can do that. Oh, can I make a curriculum? Oh, let's do that. So, let's get into that, because that's initially how I found you, so you not only have a homestead and have a store, but you also created the curriculum about how to have a homestead and like live survival skills, that's so awesome.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Cause I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to get it all. I want to do it all with my kids. My son's in a wilderness class right now. He loves it. So, yeah, how did you come about with all your free time creating curriculum?
Speaker 2:Well, when I actually started writing, I was working in real estate and I was really bored in my office all the time, and then I had a baby that stayed up all night so I never slept. Anyways, might as well use my time wisely. But yeah, we, when we started homeschooling, my first thought was kind of I have no clue what I'm doing, but there's a homeschool curriculum for everything. So I'll get one on um agriculture and we will learn agriculture together, and that'll be a really great way for me to be able to like learn to homeschool while teaching a subject that I like deeply understand. And there wasn't one, and I was so disappointed, like how is there not a homeschool curriculum on agriculture? Food is literally humanity's most driving force, and yet nobody knows how to do it, nor are there ways to teach it, unless you go through public school ag program.
Speaker 1:And they're probably not teaching you what you really need to know there either.
Speaker 2:I mean they're teaching, you know, commercial agriculture as a vocation which has its place, but that's not those true skills and nobody wants to take home ec because they think it's just learning how to be a housewife and that's not the case either. So that's why I mean I'll get there. So I started just building lessons for my kids at all ages and like make it work for each of them. You know, I learned about canvas. I was making little worksheets for the kids and stuff. And I was driving to work one day and I was listening to another podcast and she had a gal on who was talking about she lived on a farm but she was trying to be like a fashion blogger and wasn't really getting a lot of people and she ended up designing a stamp for their wedding that she started selling on Etsy and it blew up so much and she was in like Southern Living Magazine and that right then it like clicked for me. I don't know what it was, you know like I'm not talking about stamps or Southern Living Magazine, but it clicked. You need to write this curriculum because other people want this information and, considering I worked in food safety and like quality assurance for years, literally my job was to write like how-tos on how to do everything in the food plants. So I was like I can just take that skill and my love for agriculture and I mean, I have my bachelor's in animal science, so it's not that I don't know these things and I had to like relearn when we started homesteading because there were so many things that I was like I know I'm supposed to worm cows, but can I worm a dairy cow? And I don't even know where to start. So I had to relearn a lot of stuff. And yeah, it just.
Speaker 2:And I came home and I'm like honey, I have an amazing idea. And usually he's like, oh, I don't think we need to know about it. And I told him and he's like that's a great idea, get in your chair. He brought me my laptop and a glass of iced tea and I wrote my first curriculum like just a little kid's book that weekend, just to see if I could do it. And I was. It turned out so good that I wrote the next part and then I launched it.
Speaker 2:And then people started asking like, do you have something for high school?
Speaker 2:And I was like, well, I mean that's what I've got to do next, because that's where I get into that, really like brass tacks, science and the homesteading part together, and I had a blast writing it.
Speaker 2:It was probably my it's like my most favorite thing I've probably ever done in my entire life Because it was being able to teach something that matters so much to me and know that other, it was a value to other people and I mean it has blown up, it is, and I call it homestead science because my thought with it is it's agriculture, science and like home economics together, like learning on a like in a small scale way with self-sufficiency, and I mean I have sold it in five countries. It is in public schools, it's in private schools, charter schools, co-ops, families, everywhere. I mean I have been so blessed to be able to like be a part of this community and share what I have in a way that even people who understand what they're doing don't always know how to teach it in that same way, and that's been where we've gone over the last few years.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that. So okay, give me a just brief. Like my son's six and I have a two-year-old, what would a curriculum for him look like? Like how, how much of the year would it take off, how much of the day and what types of stuff would he be learning?
Speaker 2:So my homestead science for six-year-olds is called Build your Own Homestead and it comes with a poster. That's kind of a little bit of a story to it. But I was so tired of like kids' science curriculums just being art projects for busy work. But with that age, kid, you don't really want them outside, like giving shots to the neighbor's bowl, so you kind of have to balance that. So it comes with a huge poster, a two by three poster, with the outlines of a farm on it and every day they learn about something on the homestead. And once they learn about it they have a cutout or they get to go find something to add to their homestead and so it takes all year for them to build it. So they have that long-term like satisfaction and they're learning quality of character. They're learning animal husbandry, how food and the world kind of like fits together. And then I have one that goes with that for slightly older kids that gives a whole bunch of science and sociology behind each thing that they're doing.
Speaker 2:So, instead of you know. Yeah, so like a you know a five or six year old, they're just excited to put a homestead, like to put a barn on their homestead, like homesteads have barns and I'm so excited that I got to learn about barns. But the older kids will learn why there's cross pieces for structural integrity, why barns were historically red. They make their own homemade red paint Like. So it's kind of they get a little history like why things are like that in their world. You learn a little bit of chemistry because of the oxidation of the iron and the paint back in the days is what made the paint red and it just it just makes their whole worlds kind of like come together, love that.
Speaker 1:And I love that part about homeschooling. That's been kind of a recent realization for me. Everything blends. It does not have to be like. This is our reading section, this is our writing. It all blends in together over a topic or a theme that interests your child and once they realize, like anybody, like we all eat food, we all have to eat food. So once you realize that this is all I mean even I had I was talking yesterday, uh, or on Monday I interviewed a woman. She owned a chain of vegan restaurants in LA and is now a cattle rancher.
Speaker 2:You would not believe how many people like that that I meet.
Speaker 1:Have you tried the Tuttle Twins books with your kids yet? We love them. In our home, my son plays the audiobook and follows along in his book. It lets me get things done while we're homeschooling without missing a beat in his education. The stories bring history, economics and freedom alive in a way kids really connect with. Check out the link in this episode's description and use code Cheryl15 to get 15% off your order. Teach your kids about why independence matters, why freedom is worth protecting, and to always stay curious. But yeah, you know, she was talking all about like how you know basically what's in everything that we have to be. I forgot why we even went into that, but I I do just love this, this concept like we have to understand where our food comes from and why. I mean even my sister's family. It's like they're like eating the ritz crackers and the goldfish off and I'm like I don't know what's in there. I did, I used to do that too.
Speaker 2:Now I try to be better at you know, okay we kind of have like if we're on a road trip we can have fruit snacks.
Speaker 1:If we're home, like that's not something we're buying at the grocery store and bringing home, you know well it's funny because, yes, we're going to mystic connecticut tomorrow and so we went to aldi's and I let them pick out like bags of snacks so like, oh my God, we get snacks, vacation's awesome Cause normally I'm like just eat some cashews or here's some cheese.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I went to my doctor recently and she was like I'm so thankful for what you're doing, cody. She's like cause I have so many young moms coming in just like just having like anxiety, saying I don't even know what to feed my kids, like, what am I? What is safe for them anymore? I mean, when they're literally every day on the news, every day on social media, they're telling us something else is basically poisoning us from the ground up, and so you know it's. It's really it's all about moderation. There's good, better and best which. So you know it's. It's really it's all about moderation. There's good, better and best which is. You know good is fed, best is like straight off the farm and don't try to recreate commercial foods at home. Like I have so many people that are like, well, how do I make a fruit snack? I'm like I don't know, I don't feed them to my kids and they don't get them at home either.
Speaker 2:Right, like my kids are super excited to take some like a scoop of homemade jam and put it over their cottage cheese or their, you know, and it's raw cottage cheese, so that's just what it's. You have to, like.
Speaker 1:Change your way of looking at food, you know have to, like, change your way of looking at food, you know, and that's it, um, it's like you have to learn how to eat to live, not live to eat. And, yes, because we're so bored in life, it's like, oh, let's just grab the doritos. Let's grab it, you know, but it's like, no, how does this nourish me and in what way? And if I have this, and I'm gonna feel sluggish tomorrow and I'm gonna, you know, um, your whole microbiome and all that jazz and none of us are perfect like it's taking years for me and we still have, you know, they've never had mcdonald's but, um, you know, we still went out to the pizza place yesterday and had lunch there, my daughter, daughter was so funny, every bite.
Speaker 1:This is so good. This is so good Like you're like an ad for this place right now. But you know, yeah, like you said, the moderation too, I mean, so that you're not because here's another realization I have you can send your kid to school with all the organic food that you want, and most schools now have free lunches and breakfast that they offer to every child so that nobody feels discriminated against.
Speaker 2:And while that, which is like straight sugar kellogg's for breakfast and well that's lovely.
Speaker 1:Your child can throw away their organic food that you made for them and spent all this money on, and have the nachos, the bagels, the cream cheese, everything's loaded with red dye, 40 and everything else under the sun. And like I get it, like I'm so glad that rfk jr is banning some of this stuff. But we have to realize we don't need a politician to ban it. We just have to stop buying it because they'll go out of business if we all realize what they've been poisoning us with yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, what are they replacing it with? I mean, I just kind of look at it that way, you know, I kind of I always say, like, don't eat something that is like more than five steps away from God, like you know. So that's you can. You know, just looking at like a burger, like you have to butcher the cow, you have to, you know, process the meat, you have to grind it and then you have to freeze it and then you have to cook it. There's five steps right there, you know. So if you kind of like use that as a really like, as you're like, at the end of the day I want that to be my average Then you're eating a lot cleaner.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, but a lot, of, a lot of kids today, I would think, and some people my age wouldn't even know those steps to getting meat Like what do you mean? Where does it come from what? Because there are still times that I will say, like the wrong animal, that the food I'm eating is from, and my husband's like, oh my god well, you can.
Speaker 2:One good way is, if there's ingredients on the back and it's more than you know, things that you could go buy individually in the store, then, like I, there's so many things like I can't go buy like Sorbitol in the store, you know so very true, yeah, they.
Speaker 1:they put yes. If you can't pronounce it and you don't know what it means, you probably shouldn't be taking it. Um, but that's hard because it doesn't leave you with much. So it's like, okay, what do we eat? Can you kids eat?
Speaker 2:nuts, fruits, berries. That's where you have to look at it differently, because everybody always talks about like healthy food is more expensive. It's really not, it's just more work. So the same amount of money that you could spend by going into the store and buying a whole chicken and herbs and vegetables and, you know, a bag of flour and that type of stuff, yeah, you could buy some chicken strips or whatever for less than that. But if you take that home, a whole chicken can feed my family for a couple of meals plus two gallons of broth.
Speaker 1:I love that you said that because, yes, I just bought like 20 whole chickens from the farmer on the corner which I didn't know you could do. Yeah, but yes, he called me. Then he's like I'm butchering them Sunday. Can you come pick them up? I was like sure like they fit in my car, I don't even know. So I picked up the 20 chickens and bloods and all but um and I was gonna ask my kid I don't butcher, so can I?
Speaker 1:bring my six-year-old to come watch. She butchered them. But then I was like we'll wait till next year. Um, but yeah, so, so now. So, okay, those, if you buy them in bulk, like anything over 10 at a time, I think it was $16 a chicken Okay, so now I've got a $16 chicken, that's cheap yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I'll make a chicken once or twice a week. My husband will take it for lunch. We'll have the one meal with it, my husband will take it for lunches, or if I make it just for us, we'll have it for two nights for dinner, and the next night you can have like put it in oh sorry, the next night you can put it in your burritos or whatnot. But and then so the chicken broth. So then I started making things like rice instead of with water, make it with chicken broth or a mac and cheese instead of using water.
Speaker 2:It's got collagen in it and electrolytes and like all these things that your body needs.
Speaker 1:Yes, so now I was buying organic chicken broth for like $6 for you know four cups. Now I can make it from the $16 chicken and it gives me.
Speaker 2:Basically, make it for free with your scraps.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so that's been so cool. I actually I tried to drink it yesterday. I was like, let me drink this broth and see if I could switch coffee. And I was like no, we still need coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what, though? I do love warm broth. Like I just put a little extra salt in it and like I can, I can sip on that. Like I used to take it to work with me sometimes, because coffee makes me sick to my stomach and so I would take broth sometimes and drink it at work. And I one time I walked out to a coworker I was like, does my coffee smell weird to you? And he's like, yeah, what's wrong with it? I was like, oh, it's beef broth.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I love it that you know you're really not spending. So now I would have been spending $6 times four, cause I get four pints, I don't know. That would have been $24 for me before to get. You know, four cups times four containers of that. That's what I'll get from a whole chicken. And so, yeah, you're right, it just it takes more work. But once I know, okay, every Sunday is when I make the whole chicken, you know, and then I let the broth sit overnight in the Instapot. So there's like you don't to cut.
Speaker 2:So there's like well, and the important thing is finding ways to make it like fit into your day rather than because, yeah, it can feel like if I'm going to make all my own food, I'm just all I'm going to do is farm and cook and that's.
Speaker 2:We don't just farm and cook, um, but you know it's also our job and we loved doing a lot of these things beforehand, so it's our hobbies too, but we have it so down that it's just part of life. Our kids are involved in it. You know my daughter's starting a loaf of bread, my son's processing milk, I'm pulling the chicken carcass out from the night before. That's been, you know, cooking all night and I'm standing there chatting with them and pulling off the pieces we can eat, taking the pieces we can't eat and all the like fat and veggies and the in between that goes on another plate, because then I turn around and feed that to like my dogs or my chickens, and you know it's like every piece of that is getting used. And it's not even taking that much out of our day, it's just part of our morning where we're all in the kitchen together working and doing our thing.
Speaker 1:I need to do that. So I I do feed my dog a raw diet. And what I did with the carcass and vegetables, I like ground, I pounded them all up and I gave that to him and then he was like throwing up all over the place. I was like, oh my god, I took him to the vet and I'm like I can't tell them what I did. Like everybody knows you don't feed cooked bone, but like in my mind it mashed and I think it was just so rich for them that it was. But I'm like, oh, my God.
Speaker 1:I killed the dog. Everybody calls me don't feed them raw. And now they're going to think it's because I feed them a raw diet.
Speaker 2:Oh no, we feed our dogs either raw or if we're cooking it, it's like just much better. Cause we were a little like we're one step further. I, we're a little like we're one step further. I grew up with a dad who was a hunting guide and a mom who was a taxidermist, so really nothing bothers me so, and my kids either.
Speaker 2:So we have a freezer on the property that we call the dog food freezer, and we have a rule that no protein goes off the property. So if the little kids shoot a squirrel, it goes in the dog food freezer. If we watch the person in front of us hit a deer on the highway, we grab squirrel, it goes in the dog food freezer. If we watch the person in front of us hit a deer on the highway, we grab it and it goes in the dog food freezer. If we have a piglet get stepped on, it goes in the dog food freezer, and I mean it's just.
Speaker 2:And so then, like my daughter and her friend they're, you know, these two 16 year old girls are out there dragging a whole deer. She's her, her friends from Alaska. So she's a little touch too, like us, you know, and these two teenage girls out there and, like you know, jean shorts and bikini tops are skinning a whole deer in the driveway and chopping it up and putting it in our like mixer to make dog food for our dogs. And we have a whole freezer. They take them and they like, roll them flat in gallon bags and stack them, and that's how we feed our dogs all year.
Speaker 1:So it's uncooked, then right, You're just like what are you putting in a grinder? It's uncooked.
Speaker 2:Sometimes she'll cook it, sometimes she won't Like. They don't like organ meat. They're really picky. So my Instapot is now cannot be used for anything other than deer heart, because once you cook deer heart in an instapot it doesn't go back see, my dog loves the heart and and and that's been a cool homeschooling lesson for us too.
Speaker 1:So I get from the farm that I get the half cow and half pig from. I will buy beef scraps and organs and, yeah, every month when I put together my dog's raw diet, I'm like the other day colin and his friend were here I'm like you guys want to see a cow heart. So we're like analyzing it, flipping it over looking at the valves in it I'm like, wow, this is the old. Me would have been so creeped out.
Speaker 2:You know what? Last weekend we had the fire chief over for dinner. My husband's on the fire department. There's a new chief, so we wanted to have him over and get to know his family a little bit better. And we had a sow that we thought was in labor. And so we told our son, you know, like he's seven and they had a 10 year old daughter and they raise pigs too. So we said, hey, do you guys want to go up and check and see how the sow is doing and let us know? And they come tromping back down there playing and you know, riding bikes and stuff, on the way back down the hill from the barn.
Speaker 2:And I'm expecting piglets or no piglets, like that was what I thought the answer was going to be. Oh no, he's like well, she's laying down, she's breathing really heavy, he goes. I think I saw a contraction, but I couldn't count it out. Real well, he goes, but her vulva is really loose and I got in there and I checked her for milk, but there's no milk yet. So I don't think we're going to have any babies. And I was just like completely shocked that that's what he said. But then I realized that's how we talk to each other, and one day he's gonna have a job and he's gonna know that his boss wants though all the details like like, lined out like that, not just nope, no piglets well, but either or he'll be the boss and he'll be like you.
Speaker 1:Gotta go, give me some more details right.
Speaker 2:But he knew that if he just said no piglets, I would ask is there milk? Is she showing milk yet? So he climbed in the pen with our probably 700 pound sow to check and see if she was expressing milk or not.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, awesome.
Speaker 2:It was a pretty proud mama moment All right.
Speaker 1:Where do you recommend that people start with? If they want to check out you know your curriculums, or just learn about homesteading in general, if they're like I want to live a healthy lifestyle. I just have no idea how to begin or where to begin. What would you recommend?
Speaker 2:um, well, I mean, of course, come to my website, because right at the top it says I want to do the curriculum or I want to start a homestead, and that can walk you down, right down, the steps of either, you know, buying the curricula for your family. It breaks it down by age and subject. If you're wanting to start a homestead, it talks about you know which animals to start with, how to make plans, how to start a homestead business. I love teaching about that because that's just fun. I mean, our homestead business supports partially supports our family, you know.
Speaker 2:But one thing that people really love and I'm just going to have it here is my introduction to homestead science, and this is a full year agriculture science, but the focus is the small scale farming, the self-sufficiency, and it's comparable to my college intro to ag class, except it actually teaches things like herbalism and stuff. So probably about 25% of these that I sell are to adults that are wanting to start their own homesteads and just don't know where to start, because it's a really clean overview of 18 different topics on starting a homestead and how they all connect together.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. That's so cool. What about regenerative farming, like that seems to be good.
Speaker 2:It is yeah, it covers a little bit of everything in there, because I feel like people need to make the right decision for their families and I actually said that to Joel Salatin one time he goes does it teach permaculture? And I said, well, I think it needs to teach all of it. It's not my job to tell them how to do it. And then I was like, did I just say that to Joel Salad? But my thought was, is I wanted to teach common sense and problem solving and not just one topic?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it does talk about what regenerative farming is, and in each chapter it'll give like little tips on, like you know, this is a way to make this work together for permaculture and that type of stuff. But yeah, we, I mean even for us, like with our pastured pigs, we're regenerative farmers.
Speaker 1:And so can you just break down real quick like what that means.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's a lot of different aspects. You know, using your animals to work the land, not using pesticides or fungicides or things like that, using natural ones or natural fertilizers like compost and bone meals and other things like that. You know, joel uses the method where his meat birds and his chicken tractors are following the cows through the pasture when they want to break land. You know, in the brush or something, the pastured pigs go in first and they just clean that up and then the next year grass grows and you can run your cows on the same piece and the chickens are coming in behind it and they're eating the bugs. So then your cows aren't getting parasites and it's just this whole process and like for us I mean our pig herd, because we have a closed herd like if new animals come onto my property they're quarantined and stuff.
Speaker 2:I haven't had to worm my large pigs in like six years. I do, however, worm every piglet that goes off my property because every animal has somewhat of a worm load, because they're on dirt and stuff, and when piglets are weaned and then transported, their immune systems just tank. So then I tell people, you know, like the withdrawal period on a wormer is about two weeks, and I would quarantine any animal that came on my property for two weeks anyways. So there you go.
Speaker 1:All right, awesome, yeah, and that is to also help renew the soil and get nutrients back in it. So yeah, and it's confusing for me too is like I told my husband like all right, can you give me a spot for a garden? But don't till. And he's like what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's kind of and that's why I teach all like aspects of it Because, like, if you go out there and you have a hard pan piece of ground, you're not planting anything in it until you tell it.
Speaker 2:So you know you can reduce how much you till. You can, like you know, just till in one spot so you can get the plants down. Or if you want to wait to do that spot over a couple of years, you can be putting mulch over it and let it get even soft and stuff. But yeah, you're not going to just start a garden without tilling it, it's just yeah, he's like it's not possible he's crazy.
Speaker 2:You know you got it, but now like our garden, our garden beds. I haven't put soil in them in a few years. My husband just put leaves on top of them and grass clippings and all those things and I'll just be kind of planting straight into that without disrupting anything, as I'm putting my garden in North Idaho my garden is going in this weekend.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, that's late, I mean everything's like.
Speaker 2:everything's like a foot tall. It's just been growing in my okay so oh, it's fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, cody, thank you so much for joining me today. Why don't you tell everyone where they can find you? And I will save this live to both of our. Well, I'll save it to mine, you can save it to yours too, I believe, and I will also re-release this as a podcast episode which can be listened to on Apple Podcasts, spotify all those good places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I really appreciate you having me on. When you started your podcast I don't even know a while back, but I was like man, I love what she's doing and the conversation that she's having. That I think just like needs to be had, and so I really I was very honored when you invited me on, thank you. So, yeah, you can find me at the homestead education dot com. I have my own podcast where, you know, I teach about homesteading, homeschooling, personal growth, business. I have guests on all the time. I spend most of my time on Instagram, but I'm on all the social medias and, yeah, you can find me there and find all my products or one of my speaking events Awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you, cody, thank you for all the work you're putting in.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it. Have a good one.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.