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Episode #38: Exit and Build · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whether good times are coming or bad times are coming, the interest in building a cohesive, disentangled community of encouragement and support, I think is beneficial, regardless of where we are on any kind of cultural continuum.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Always be prepared, right?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I just think it's important to be able to stand on your own two feet, to be able to know where your food's coming from, so you can feed yourself and your family and just be as free as as possible so that you aren't a slave to any system or any one person.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everybody.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels Podcast with yours truly, Joel Salatin, the farmer, and our our researcher and study expert, Dr.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Cena.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Joel.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: So today uh we are recording this just after I've gotten back from a conference in uh Texas in Austin uh called the Exit and Build uh Exit and Build Conference.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's the brainchild of John Bush, who's a bit of an entrepreneur, um uh self-reliance, you know, prepper, um, all these kind of combinations.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and the theme of the conference was uh how to create and build um, well, ex exit, exit the exit the system, if you will, and including exiting the man.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's everything from exiting the public school system to the investment portfolio to your city job to your city house, you know, uh and to and to your exiting your lack of community, okay?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and then and then building a new a new future, building a better future.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they do uh liberty, Liberty Hub networks around the globe, around the planet.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this is an up-and-comer.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is a young uh up-and-comer guy, John Bush is his name.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can Google him up.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and they're just they're just really doing and what they're what they're really putting, uh pulling together um uh thematically, a lot of people who are in this kind of um uh how do we how do we thrive when things start to unravel?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the main things of this particular uh gathering was intentional communities, building uh building intentional communities.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um there are a a lot of people that are realizing, um, like I've been saying for how long, uh, we need to get close to people who know how to grow things, build things, and fix things.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it and um, you know, I'm I'm not a conspira, well, I'm not a conspiracist, I'm not a uh I'm not a henny penny, but I do uh I am fairly pessimistic about where the overall culture is headed.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so you know whether whether things are whether good times are coming or bad times are coming, um the the interest in um in building a cohesive kind of disentangled um um community of encouragement and support, um I think is is beneficial, regardless of where we are on any kind of cultural continuum.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I know Cena, you've just had a wonderful experience going to visit um a group in Georgia.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you might you might explain just a little bit of what that weekend was like, how how it made you feel as a person, as a family.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh then I'll I'll share a little bit more from what we had from Texas.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, um, thank you, Joel.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love this concept of this exit and build.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, like you said, I'm not a conspiracy theorist either, but you know, it's it's like what we're taught growing up, like in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, always be prepared, right?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I just think it's important to be able to stand on your own two feet, to be able to, you know, know where your food's coming from, so you can feed yourself and your family, um, and just be as free as as possible so that you aren't a slave to any system or any one person.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what my family and I are also in pursuit of um of creating for ourselves.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as you mentioned, a big portion, a big component for us is trying to find this community.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's quite interesting because I have felt this need for community for for my whole life, really, but particularly strongly in the last nine years, and um had not been able to find it, just struggled, look, you know, searching for it in many different areas under many different capacities.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a remarkable thing because what happened was I went to um Robin's retreat and um not not expecting to find community at all, but I did.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I found um three women there who started sharing about their community and what it's like.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they're a homesteading group and they they get together every month and share their passions.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a small town with that small town feel, and they know they all know each other and they have festivals, you know, and they they come together and have library programs and all this great stuff.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it moved me to the point where I got goosebumps and I started tearing up as she was explaining their community.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it was funny because I couldn't remember the name of the city, but I called my husband that night and I said, That's it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know where we're moving.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's this, it's this small town up in the mountains in Georgia, and it starts with a D.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and he's like, Okay, okay, you know, you're off on one of your tangent things again.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I get home and I said to my husband, I said, I know that we are supposed to go here.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we we're going, like we're gonna go visit it.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it just so happened, four days later, I we jumped in the car and with the kids and everything, drove over to this town, and we all fell in love with it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you, Joel, this was this was God that lined all this up for us because so many things just fell into place.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was an annual homeschool field day that happened to be on one of the four days that we happened to be in this town.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: We met over 200 homeschool families.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, instantly were invited to different play dates and co-ops and field trip um groups.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was a church that I wanted to go to for years.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: It happens to be about 35 minutes from this town, and we found out that one of my husband's good friends from college attends that church.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we attended the church with him, and it was fantastic.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Even my kids loved going to that church, which is remarkable.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they they wanted to go back.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was just, it was everything that I have been asking for, you know, as I've been, you know, communicating with God and saying, you know, putting it out there that this is what I want for community and not finding it, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you can you imagine over nine years of actively looking for some kind of community that you have in your mind that you've never actually experienced, but you just believe in your heart that it's it's real and that it exists and you can manifest it.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, after this nine years, God led us to that place and all those things just fell into place.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and to answer your question about how we felt, we felt accepted, we felt understood, and we felt heard, we felt like we have found our people.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was it was instantly the feeling of a tribe.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was all these things I had wanted and couldn't exactly feel it for myself because I'd never experienced it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But once we walked into it, it was just this undeniable truth.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like in your heart, it just felt like this is how it's supposed to be.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is what community feels like.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't judgment, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't somebody telling me all these things I'm doing wrong or things I should do differently, or you know, it was support.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was open-mindedness, it was people understanding what may be coming and willing to work together, even if that means like a barter system, um, willing to work together to help each other, because realizing that at the end of the day, we're all just individual people.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was it was beautiful.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was in one word, it was love.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: The fact is that that in our um uh pell mell run in our culture toward individuality um and and you know personal, you know, self, you know, self-expression, um, the tendency has been also for that pendulum, that pendulum also to swing too far to one side, to where um we have lost our sense of relational community, uh, you know, with with the greater, you know, the greater context.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh those of us who are conservatives, you know, we bristled at Hillary Clinton saying it takes a village, you know, to raise a child.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it does take a village to raise a child.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so you know, we need to we need to think in in those terms.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so at this at this thing, um I got to meet um, I got to share some time with Paul Wheaton.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so he did a he did a book, I don't know if you can see this okay, um, several years ago.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh building building a better world in your backyard instead of being angry at bad guys.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so that was his first that that that was his that was his first book.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul Wheaton runs, he runs the largest permaculture, it's the largest permaculture website in the world called it's called Permis, P-E-R-M-I-E-S, Permis.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he's got like 1.8 million uh people sign in, and he's just done another book, another book.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's called Skip.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Skip, and that stands for Skills to Inherit Property.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so the whole goal of this book is that um that there are there is so much land.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to the intentional community here.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: That there is so much land being available in the US right now as farmers age out.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he and I have both experienced uh uh reach outs from people looking for a young person to either, you know, can I inherit my land to them?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get a young partner in here to work with me that then we can work out a real amicable, you know, uh succession, you know, in the future.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: My kids don't, my kids don't want the farm.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and so what what can I do?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so um so the problem is the problem is that almost no young person is worthy.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I loved his use of the word worthy.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so what he's done here with this with this skip program is he's he's got a three-level uh program of activities that a person can do and and and and go like elementary, uh, middle school, high school, to to to show to do the like the first thing is carve a wooden spoon, okay?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Carve a wooden spoon.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and he's got all these things where as you go through them, think about it as a as a as a Boy Scout merit badge program on steroids, okay.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And over the course of of months or or at its most complex, you know, even a year, you you go through these steps to show that you are worthy of inheriting a piece of land.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and um, and so so this whole idea of um of coming back to the land with a um with a vetting procedure so that the aging landowner uh isn't just you know giving it off to some young you know fantasy-eyed um entitlement person.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so the young person is coming prepared well enough to not fail, that has this track record of worthiness uh to receive the gift.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, that's a that's a powerful thing.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I think the fact that he has um developed this entire program shows how transit what transition our culture is in.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a smooth transitional uh um mechanism right now to move into this next land stewardship capacity.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're all reading about Bill Gates, you know, now owning 250,000 acres of farmland, but but even as much as that is, that's tiny.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's nothing, okay?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's nothing.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: There are thousands and thousands and thousands of farmers and millions of acres out there that are being abandoned, that are, that are uh not being cared for at all, that are looking for a steward.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so so that's one of the approaches.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Another one of the speakers was Jim Gale, who has developed a program called Food Forest Abundance.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is another permaculture concept where uh he actually, you know, if I have a backyard, I'm in suburbia, I want to convert my yard to a food forest abundance, they will come in, look at your climate, look at your situation, design, design uh uh, you know, uh tell you here are the best species to grow in your area.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh here's how you prep the ground.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: They'll even put it in for you if you want if you want that to be done.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: But they're they're developing a global network.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh and they're just getting traction up the wazoo.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because the store shelves are empty.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when store shelves are empty, you know, there's a Chinese saying that says, um plenty of plenty of food, many problems.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: No food, one problem.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, leave it to the Chinese to distill everything right into one into one point.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so as as this awareness of of inflation and uh um you know uh petroleum, gas, uh, empty store shelves.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Biden is telling us we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have uh shortages and they're anyway.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um as these things hit the press, people are starting to uh um to wake up to to be aware of these kinds of things.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so there are all sorts of things.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, one of the other speakers was Marjorie Wildcraft Wildcraft, who has done a wonderful book about backyard self uh self-sustaining.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and she i I listened to her talk.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was a wonderful talk.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she says, where you start is with chickens, and then you and then you go to vegetables, and then you go to rabbits.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and she and she she's just uh she's an engineering mind, you know, and she and she just looks at sheer, you know, sheer caloric uh whatever nutrient production and um and the combination of animal, interestingly, in full disclosure of uh uh forest farming abundance um has has brought me in.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: They have not had any animal component up until now.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so now we're just we they've just now asked me to come on board as kind of their animal component.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be doing some videos and things on how to do backyard, you know, chickens and and incorporate that into your uh into your food forest.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and again, the beauty of that is when you have a food forest, so the for for our listeners that aren't aren't uh used to the term food forest, um, the idea there is that you that that rather than having then planting you know uh annuals, you know, squash and watermelons and and and and green beans, uh a food forest is a multi-speciated forestal and and and woody species perennial that you that you plant in communities that are symbiotic.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you have tall growers, short growers, and seasonally.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you have early producers, late producers, you have things that are cold tolerant, hot tolerant, and you essentially create a backyard that produces uh um throughout the season without having to be planted, except the first time, just plant it one time.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it continues to plant and it produces different kinds of things.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: The mulberries come on before the apples, the apples come on before the pears, the pears come, you know, and so you basically have a grazing, you have a a fresh fruit uh um uh uh grazing option uh from your own, you know, your own land.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and and and the the reason the study, the research, the the work that they've done uh indicates that that literally in our in our backyards and the medians of our urban streets, uh, we can literally grow all of our food.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to be sitting here biting our fingernails about Ukrainian wheat and Russian fertilizer.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we can do it all right here, proximate ourselves.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was just a delightful uh time to get together with people who have been working in this space a long time from intentional communities to backyard subsistence to um you know to perennial uh um uh plant, you know, plant communities.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um all these systems revolve around plant, people, animal relationships that are integrated and not segregated.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and it was just it was just a great, exciting thing.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage people to to look up the you know, exit and build and and get some everything was taped, and uh I'm sure it's all available.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, so you mentioned these intentional communities.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are they seeing a movement to first of all, maybe explain to our listeners what is an intentional community?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And are people flocking to these intentional communities?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, um if we if we compare the interest from uh five years ago, yes, it would be flocking.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a majority of the population?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a lunatic fringe right now.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lunatic fringe that that that's that's um that's that's seeing you know signs of the times and saying, hey, let's you know let's let's make a change here.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So an intentional community is where you actually get get a you actually um uh intentionally bring in a group of people.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now it can start with two families, all right.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: It can be that small, but but basically rather than rather than uh my family and I are gonna go out and and find a place and we're gonna scratch out a pioneer living, all right.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, you start from the premise, we're going to either go with a friend, um, or we're going to we're going to find a place and then um and then have other people living there on the land.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people uh you know create an entity that an umbrella that owns the land in in uh in in as an umbrella, you know, maybe maybe an LLC or something uh that owns the land in trust.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then we build houses.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we we build houses everything from each person has you know a couple of acres to we we cluster all the houses together in a co-housing situation where we share, we share uh an outdoor wood stove, we share some solar panels, we share a septic system, and we share a well.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so all the costs drop by you know uh 40 percent to everybody because you don't have to duplicate everything.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and you intentionally you you go in not intending to be a hermit, you go in intending to live proximate.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: To people who who share your values.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's, you know, in the United States, our culture has been this fierce independence where, you know, you know, Daniel Boone, you know, I need more room, says Daniel Boone, right?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we've as a culture, we have cultivated, it's in our DNA this this fierce, fierce independence.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like we've taken that to an extreme.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And now many, many of us are realizing um that that has weaknesses as well.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you run it off the extreme and you you can you cast off where you don't know your neighbor, you don't know the person living in the condominium next door, and and you're you're out here on your own.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, how do I how do I how do I fix my how do I fix my leaky pipe?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do I fix a you know a breaker box?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that we're starting to realize that as you know, when you can't get help and you can't get contractors and you can't get food and you and energy is too expensive to buy, and and you and you can't get baby formula, right?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't do all these things, we're realizing my lands, all I know how to do is sit in front of a computer and punch keys.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not very valuable.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't have I don't have the skill set.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I actually went and visited a farm, a guy.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: He's a he's an IT, I mean, he's an IT engineer, he's a mechanical engineer, he's you know, sat in front of a computer all of his life and punched in these things.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And several years ago, you know, the thought hit him, um, man, if I need to grow my own food, I don't know how to do it.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: If I need to build a house, uh, I don't know how to do it.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um through through the course of of several years, he gradually uh they got onto a six and a half acre place uh near Austin, Texas.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I was able to see where they've come now in 10 years of every, I mean, he's right now he's building a uh a building out of air air air crete, aircrete.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: So rather than concrete, it's aircrete.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so you you take you take cement and you blow soap bubbles through it, and it makes a a high um a high insulative, and it makes the cement go like six times as far.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very, very cheap.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone can do this, and and you know, he's just he's just doing this with his two kids, you know.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's got uh three kids, but but two of them, uh the the two of them are um what she's like 10 and 6, and he and the 10-year-old and the six-year-old, they're building this house out of uh Air Creek, and he's never built, you know, never built anything.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so so yeah, he just kept saying, he said, look, all I want is I I just want to be useful.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I want, I don't want to feel like I'm completely at the mercy of uh of the system as the system starts to break down.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where this intentional community.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So they're they're looking at some cottages on the back side, uh, where other people would come and they share, they share equipment, they share garden space, they share energy.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Shoot, that they could even, you know, you could you could have four families that share two automobiles.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I've been at the Bruderhof, the Bruderhof Intentional Communities.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've been I've been those and done seminars there where uh so this is not a commune, although I've been at communes as well.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not um, you know, I was at one commune.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, Cena, I was at one commune, I walked into the dining common where everybody eats their meals, you know, in in shared in common, and there's a whole wall with all the underwear, you know, men's small, medium, large, women's small, medium, large, you know, children's all this.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm whoa, wait a minute.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure I'm ready for you know to share underwear.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that that's you know that's on the other extreme of a commune, commune, okay.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: But intentional community is is not a commune, but people are living uh nearby so that there can be uh a tremendous sharing of things.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: You there's there's always you know somebody to bait, somebody to babysit, somebody to fix your automobile, somebody to do the electrical, somebody to do the plumbing, somebody to that that's really good at at grafting trees and and developing you know horticulture, and somebody great at cooking and food, and uh a good person knows how to fix clothes and makes darn socks and and and maybe somebody that knows how to sew leather and fix shoes and uh you know so so you you get this this group together, suddenly you don't even have to trade money.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's no money, you don't have to earn any money.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um you have very little money, um, you know, and and maybe a couple people you know keep their town jobs and they actually bring the cash in, just enough cash in the community, and and but you have all this skill set.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so so several of the speakers talked about the actual you know legal and uh uh you know agreement contractual constructs to be able to not you know to not get yourself in trouble uh legally.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and the the one, if I could say the one weak link of the thing was uh there wasn't a lot of discussion on how to maintain the the tender relationships so that people don't get you know easily offended.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the other end of community.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's why people uh run away from it.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's man, I don't want these you know weirdos around me.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh so you know that that's the that's the tennis.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I think I think as these things develop, uh there will be you know additional ones.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know uh an agrihood, uh for I've been very friendly with an agrihood in Cincinnati.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lady, she inherited a farm.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: How do I keep this farm?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, 100 acres.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: How do I keep it?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she was a she was a developer, so she created an agrihood uh where uh she put she she she carved out 25 house lots around the perimeter of this property, and everybody pays into a fund to hire a farmer that that that does the interior 80 acres, grows all their food, and and um and and everybody uses a common septic field, a common well, and they share you know heating systems.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, you know, um you have all this sharing going on.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So what it does is it allows people to live much, much cheaper, um and and much less dependent on outside than they did before.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's the I'm sorry I rambled on, but that that that's that's the idea of the intentional community.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: You go into community intending to make community, not intending to to me and mama and nobody else, and and and we're gonna we're gonna do our thing and we don't care what anybody else says.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you actually you actually self-limit yourself to get the to get the advantage of um of other people's skills and talents in in proximate living.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you bring up a great point of differentiating between independence from the system, right?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because you and I are both trying to have independence from the system, but not independence from community, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two separate things.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about in all of our podcasts and books and whatnot, when we talk about being more independent, I think that's what we're referring to is not being a slave to the system, but we are both, we are both wanting that connection with with community, with like-minded individuals.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And beyond just the you know, reducing the cost, the sharing of the resources, the sharing of the passion, um, you know, saving time because you're dividing up the the labor, for instance.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond that is the health component to feeling like you are in community and that you are supported and connected with somebody and heard.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's um I talked about that on a recent podcast with Hilda, uh, about the study showing mortality rates going up as high as 90% when people don't feel connected, when they feel isolated, even when they're surrounded by thousands of people and they still feel isolated because they haven't connected with these like-minded individuals.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that it's very wise for people to be looking at these intentional community options.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Donnie and I, or my husband and I, we looked at intentional communities as well.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: If anybody wants to look at that, you could just even type into the internet, you know, intentional communities.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they pop, there's all kinds of websites now, they pop up everywhere.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we looked at a bunch of them and considered going into some of them.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the end of the day, each one of those didn't resonate with us for a different reason.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: But like you said, you can have your own, you know, and that's what we're finding is the group getting together.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so anyhow, I I just think there's a lot of wisdom in that as well.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is really exciting that there's people talking about this, that we don't feel like we're necessarily alone or, you know, the lunatic fringe that we're in is growing, right?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes for one reason or another.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I I think that's just um very hopeful.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes it also it fills my heart with joy that um we are gonna, that we are creating solutions, right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: To whatever problems that we're seeing with the government and the elites and the great reset, you know.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're creating our own local solutions.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel much more empowered now and much more encouraged now than I did prior to prior to COVID, even.
• 32:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll let you uh wrap it up.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you're you're exactly right.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh, you know, with with COVID in the uh I think it that forced isolation, that isolation brought a lot of these kind of uh sub-feelings to a head.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um and then the whole the whole uh censorship thing and and the the um just just a bifurcation.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so all of that um that cultural angst, I think is is um is awakening a new yearning in the hearts of many people to actually um connect, to to reconnect to something, to not be so isolated.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: That means you gotta sometimes you gotta uh uh give a little bit, right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, in order to, just like a marriage, right?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: You you give a little bit, but uh, but the the benefits are truly um incredible.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad that some people are are thinking about these things.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Cena.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the for the great uh discussion.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you all for listening and for being a part of of this uh discussion.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we look forward to visiting with you next time.